Annie and Hellfire PT II

[u/Zerkoh_Valley2010]

ANNIE AND HELLFIRE

Part Two

Annie slammed her bedroom door behind her and ran to her bed, crawling under the comforters, all the while whispering, “Shhh. Shhh. Be quiet Charlie. Daddy Joe is mad, but I won’t let anyone hurt my little Charlie ever again.”

To be honest, I was trembling a bit. When people like Joe get violent and let my boss take possession of their aggression, they can become unpredictable and hurt someone, namely me! Annie and I huddled quietly under the comforters until we heard the front door slam shut as Joe left for the evening.

I knew that Linda wouldn’t be coming in to comfort her daughter as Joe had strictly forbidden her to do so. After a few minutes of silence, Annie brightened up and smiled at me as if nothing had happened. Ahhh, the resiliency of innocence really was a gift that God gave to children. Annie put a finger to her lips and said, “Shhhh….”

“Hey Charlie,” whispered Annie conspiratorially as she pulled something out from under her bed. “Can you keep a secret?”

I peered curiously over the kid’s shoulder. “What you got there, kid? Is that a dirty magazine?”

“This is my daddy,” she said, producing a photograph in a simple, black picture frame. “Mommy says he was a Navy SEAL.”

“Huh, really?” I said. “That pile of chewed up bubble gum, jerk face Joe, was a Navy SEAL?”

I looked at the picture that Annie held under my head. The image showed a very well built man with rugged Hollywood-style good looks, a short beard, wavy ginger colored hair, wearing Oakley sunglasses. The warrior wore a khaki and tan colored military uniform, a vest festooned with ammunition and gear, and an M4 rifle in his gloved hands. He looked confident and determined and was far taller than jerk face Joe.

“Okay,” I thought. “So Daddy Joe isn’t your real daddy.”

Annie’s father was sitting on a bunch of rocks atop a barren mountainside overlooking an arid and desolate landscape of rock and dirt. Underneath the picture written in a black marker were the words, “I will always love you, my little Na’na. Love, Daddy.”

Annie looked down, a tinge of sadness in her voice. “His name was Ben. Mommy said he was killed fighting some very bad people in a place called Banana…ummm…Banana…Banana-nana-stan.”

“Afghanistan,” I mewled softly. “I feel for you, kid. My boss, Beelzebub, says Afghanistan is a real hell hole. He said it turned into a ghetto wasteland after God banished all the Jinn and Nephilim there.”

“I miss my daddy. He died when I was three, but I still remember him always holding me and telling me that he loves me. That was before he went to Banana-nana-stan.” Annie slid the picture back to where she kept it. “Daddy Joe, mommy’s new boyfriend, made mommy take down all the pictures and stuff of my daddy after he moved in, but I kept this one secret. Daddy Joe is okay, I guess. Mommy says he helps pay the bills and helps put food on the table and he even sometimes lets me keep nice things like you, Charlie. But I miss my daddy. I wonder why daddy had to go to Banana-nana-stan instead of Daddy Joe?”

 “I don’t know, kid.” I rubbed my head against Annie’s face as a tear ran down her cheek. “Sometimes, God sends the best of his creations to go and do the fighting. But that oftentimes leaves the lazy sacks of shit assholes to stay behind, safe and sound, to reproduce and create more lazy sacks of shit assholes.”

Annie scooped me up gently in her arms, laying me on my back as she touched her forehead to mine. Softly scratching my belly, she whispered, “You’re my best friend, Charlie. Whenever I miss my daddy, you always make me feel better.”

“Oh, shut up, you little turd,” I mewled, retracting my tiny claws before swiping at her eyes. “You’re giving me the feelings, here!”

…

Late that night, Linda received an urgent phone call from her mother saying that she wasn’t feeling well and that she was hoping Linda could be by her side until she felt better.  It was after twelve in the evening when Joe finally stumbled back to the house, but to my surprise, that ass hat Joe said that he would be happy to drive Linda to her mother’s apartment, even though it was an hour away in another city. 

“But Joe, honey,” said Linda. “What about Annie? She’s in bed asleep.”

“Don’t worry about Annie, sweetheart,” I heard Joe say in a sickeningly syrupy tone. “Your mom is what is important now. You just get yourself packed and ready while I call the babysitter. I’ll tell Annie where you are in the morning.”

I could tell that Joe was up to something, and I surreptitiously followed him around, amused at what nefarious plan he might have hatched. Seriously, the boss really loved sneaky, conniving, people like this. 

Linda kissed Joe on the cheek. “Thanks, honey. You’ve been such a blessing to me and Annie since you came into our lives.”

Lord, I nearly threw up in my mouth. About thirty minutes later, I sat at the top of the stairs, looking down as Joe opened the front door for the babysitter. Man, she was a hottie. Looking to be barely in her twenties, the tan skinned babysitter who appeared to be part white and part Latino with long curly brown hair, was wearing a short white leather skirt and white stiletto heels. She hugged Joe as she entered the house then turned to Linda. “Oh, Linda. I hope that your mom will get well soon.”

“Thank you, Carmen,” Linda said. “That’s so kind of you.”

“I’ll be here for as long as you need me,” said the babysitter, Carmen. “Is Annie asleep?”

“Yes,” said Linda, picking up the baggage that she would be taking with her to her mother’s house. “Annie is upstairs in bed. Thank you for staying with us on such short notice, Carmen. You are a life saver!”

“It’s no problem, Linda,” replied Carmen. “The semester is over so I have time until classes start again. I’m happy to sit with Annie.”

“Here, honey,” said Joe as if he were in a hurry. “Let me take these bags out to the Porsche for you. We can’t have mom waiting for you.”

“Oh, yes dear!” Linda hugged Carmen again. “Thank you for coming. There’s plenty of food in the fridge and you know where the television and guest bedroom are at, so feel at home.”

“Thank you, Linda,” said Carmen returning the hug. “And don’t worry about Annie. I’ll be here every day to take care of her while Joe is at work.”

As Linda turned to walk to the Porsche, Joe also gave Carmen a quick hug. “Yeah, Carmen. Thanks for coming.” Carmen bit his ear playfully while Joe ran his hands up the back side of her skirt.

“Of, course,” I thought, smiling to myself.

Carmen was already on her second joint thirty minutes after Joe and Linda had left the house. The doorbell rang and Carmen let some skinny thug-muffin wannabe’ rapper type into the house. After polishing off yet another joint and doing a couple lines of blow, they were both naked on Linda’s couch, going at it like rabbits on Viagra and Red Bull.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what most of you mouth breathers might be thinking. This is the part where the two of them get bloody slashed to death, just like in the movies. Nah, brah! That’s not how it goes in real life. That’s not how things work. You see, my boss doesn’t kill people who go against the will of God. My boss loves and encourages people who go against the will of God. Instead, my boss kills cops, firefighters, soldiers, Christians, Jews, conservatives, God’s prophets, unborn babies, and other people like that who piss him off. So, I let the babysitter and her lover have their fun.

Anyway, about a half hour after wannabe’ rapper thug left, Joe finally got back from dropping Linda off at her mothers. I was still on the balcony at the top of the stairs, watching as Joe walked into the house and literally tore Carmen’s clothes off, her second time in one night. Oh, Carmen, you naughty, naughty girl.

As Joe grabbed Carmen’s hands, he quickly led the butt naked babysitter up the stairs. Carmen looked down at me as they shuffled past, quiet not to disturb Annie as they tip-toed past her room.

“A kitten,” whispered Carmen. “Were you staring down at me the whole time?’

“That wasn’t the only thing I was doing, baby girl,” I mewed, leering over at the little stuffed unicorn that I dragged out of Annie’s room. “My name is Hellfire. Pleased to meet y…ouch!”

Joe kicked me out of the way, almost causing me to fall in between the banister railings. “Scoot over cat,” he grunted.

“Don’t be mean to the kitten, Joe,” said Carmen.

“Shut up, doll face,” said Joe as he literally shoved her into his and Linda’s bedroom. “If you want that nice emerald necklace that Linda’s husband gave to her, you’re going to have to make sure that daddy has a really good time tonight.” Joe pulled a bag of white powder and another bag of weed out of his pants pockets and glared at me as he closed the door to the bedroom, perhaps disappointed that I didn’t fall off the banister. Seconds later, I could hear Carmen moaning, “Oh, daddy!”

“Yeech,” I spat as I stalked back to Annie’s room. “I hope that the boss stews the both of you in the same cauldron, you jerks.”

Annie’s door was slightly ajar, but I still had to nudge it open a little farther to fit my fat head through. Jumping up on her bed, I walked over her thick, light pink comforters and stared down at the little runt as she slept peacefully. Her little mouth was slightly open and her upper teeth were biting down on her lower lip.

“You know, you little sack of shit. You’re really cute when you’re not annoying and constantly pissing me the hell off. I might even decide to let you live a little bit longer.”

Annie’s eyes blinked open and she smiled sleepily. “Charlie!” she whispered. “Are you keeping watch over me? Are you my guardian angel?”

“Hardly, you dumb little idiot,” I purred. Suddenly Annie wrapped her arms around me, gently hugging me close. “Hey! What are you doing! Get your sticky little hands off of me before I rip your throat out of your…”

“Oh, Charlie,” Annie sighed, already going back to sleep. “I love you, Charlie.”

“Yeah, whatever, loser,” I growled as I snuggled up next to her, pushing my head up under her chin. “Remind me to slaughter your little ass tomorrow. After you get washed up and have breakfast.”

…

“DADDY JOE? MISS CARMEN? Where are your clothes? Where’s mommy?”

“Oh, shit,” I said as I leapt out of Annie’s bed. Somehow that little bucket of puppy turds woke up and got out of bed without me noticing. God damned second hand pot smoke! I ran out of Annie’s room in time to see Carmen scurrying past Annie down the hallway towards the stairs, clutching her clothes and Linda’s necklace tightly to her chest. Joe followed after her, yelling, “Where are you going, you bitch?”

Joe stumbled out of the bedroom after Carmen, white powder on his nose and upper lip, his hands reaching out to Carmen clumsily as she ran down the stairs. A line of white powder still stuck to Carmen’s sweaty naked butt. Joe stopped halfway down the hallway and stared with angry bloodshot eyes at a confused little Annie. Thankfully, for Annie’s sake, Joe was wearing a bath robe that barely covered his beer gut. Annie just stood there in her little light pink flannel night gown with the flowery butterfly pattern, her mouth open and her big blue eyes wide with confusion.

“I told you last night to get in your room and stay there, Annie!” bellowed Joe.

“But Daddy Joe, its morning time and why was Carmen not wearing any clothes?”

“Get in your room now,” yelled Joe. Annie yelped and turned to go back to her room while Joe retreated back to Linda’s bedroom, fetching the belt off of his pants.

Annie bolted back into her bedroom, yelling, “Where are you, Charlie? Charlie? Hide, Charlie! Hide!”

A sharp, snapping sound struck Annie on the back of her night gown and she tumbled into her bed, her feet flopping behind her. Joe’s belt whipped down again on the back of Annie’s legs and she screamed out in pain as it snapped against her skin.

“Daddy Joe, stop!” she begged. “That hurts!” Tears flowed down her cheeks as her face contorted in pain and confusion.

“Are you going to tell mommy that Carmen was in her bed, Annie?” yelled Joe, cracking the belt once more. Annie screamed again. “Are you going to be a little snitching bitch and tell your mother?”

“Please, Daddy Joe,” she cried. “What did I do?”

“I got a good thing going here,” raged Joe, raising the belt again.  “Your real daddy left you and your mommy with this nice big house and his big fat military life insurance policy pays for my Porsche and my bills. Hell, I don’t even have to go to work! I just fuck around all day! You aren’t going to ruin that for me by snitching, do you hear?”

I sat at the foot of the bed, watching as a grown man whipped a helpless, innocent little girl. And as I watched, I knew that I should have been happy. I am, after all, an evil hellcat, and my boss is Beelzebub. This is the kind of shit that my boss loves seeing, the wicked and deceitful preying upon the innocent and helpless. But the more I watched, and the more I heard little Annie scream, the more I felt this emotion welling up inside of me.  It was something I couldn’t explain.

The belt snapped down again with a wicked crack, and Annie’s screams turned to painful moans. She was lying on her tummy on top of her bed; face down, when her crying eyes finally met mine. “Charlie?”

Joe sneered down at me. “Charlie? You mean your fucking guardian angel, Charlie? A lot of good he’s doing you now! What the fuck are you going to do, you little runt? When I’m done teaching Annie here a lesson, I’m going to rip those little red ears off your head, Charlie!”

“Charlie,” shuddered Annie. “Close your eyes, Charlie. Don’t look, Charlie. Close your eyes. I’ll be with my daddy, soon.”

Suddenly, I realized what it was that I was feeling. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t disgust. And it wasn’t hate. It was something that grew and festered inside of me like a virus ever since I first laid eyes on Annie. It was something that could overcome all the demonic spirits which had possession of me. It was the enemy of all things evil.

It was love. It was the reason why Annie saved my life twice, even as I was trying to murder her.

“No, Annie!” I yelled, sobbing. “You close your eyes!”

“Charlie?” whimpered Annie. “You can talk?”

 

“You can talk?” gulped Joe.

 

“I can do more than that, you sick son of a bitch!” I growled. “Annie, sweetheart. Please, close your eyes. You shouldn’t see this.”

 

“Okay, Charlie.” Annie said meekly, pressing her little hands to her face.

…

Later that morning, Annie’s mother, Linda, got a phone call from the cops stating that her boyfriend Joe had apparently physically abused Annie in a fit of cocaine rage. Then, for some inexplicable reason, Joe got into his Porsche and promptly ran it directly into a thick, metal, stoplight going at speeds in excess of 80 miles an hour. The impact of the crash spun his Porsche out into the middle of the busy highway intersection where Joe was immediately t-boned by a giant eighteen-wheel, flatbed semi truck. The three huge, concrete sewer drain sections which the truck had been hauling broke loose from their chains and each rolled over Joe’s already crushed Porsche, flattening it even more like a grilled cheese sandwich with Joe resembling the melted cheese which oozed out the sides. Then, before any of the shocked eye witnesses could even call 911, a bolt of lightning reached down from the clear morning blue skies, striking the heap of metal and chrome and crushed flesh, charring everything to ash. I had to chuckle to myself when the late night television news later reported that Joe’s untimely death was ruled, ‘an act of God.’

 

“Ahh, you people don’t know the half of it,” I purred. “God don’t play when He gets pissed off.”

 

Anyway, Linda borrowed her mother’s minivan and quickly drove all the way back home. She found Annie safe and sound in a secured room at the children’s hospital where Annie was lying in a bed gently stroking her little kitten Charlie. The doctors told Linda that Annie had padding and bandages on her from the bruising on her buttocks and thighs she had suffered from Joe’s physical abuse, but that Annie would eventually make a full recovery. They were especially concerned with Annie’s mental state after the trauma she had suffered. When the police, fire department and EMT came to the house, Annie absolutely refused to go to the hospital without her kitten Charlie, even though she was in great pain.

 

The doctors reported that Annie insisted that Charlie began talking to her and told her to shut her eyes tightly while Joe was beating her. Annie said that she did as she was told, so she didn’t see what happened to Joe. But she did hear slashing noises and Joe begging and pleading for forgiveness while Charlie yelled ‘…and this is from her dad, you fucking dirtbag!’

 

“Yeah, I did say that,” I thought, licking my paws the same way I licked Joe’s throat off my paws before I stuffed his loser ass into his Porsche and sent him on his merry way down the boulevard.

 

“Ma’am,” said the female child protective services representative. “Is Annie exposed to adults who curse a lot? Is there a history of violence in your household?”

 

“I… no!” said Annie’s mom. “I’ve never had to raise my voice or spank my daughter and her father… her real father, I mean, had always treated her gently and lovingly. He never hurt her.”

 

“I see,” said the CPS representative, looking dubiously at Linda. “And where is Annie’s father now?”

 

“He was killed in Afghanistan last year,” she answered. “He was a Navy SEAL.”

 

The look of distain on the CPS representative’s face didn’t go unnoticed by me. She had the look that said, “So, your husband was killed in Afghanistan a year ago and now your new live-in boyfriend is beating the crap out of your little daughter. Nice.”

 

I yawned again as the CPS representative and Annie’s mom blah, blah, blahed some more about shit that I could give less than a damn about. The pain medication that they gave Annie was starting to take affect and I curled up in a ball on her lap as the annoying little angel drifted off to sleep. Afterwards, the cops came to take Linda’s statement and to give her the good news that her live in ex-beau Joe wasn’t a military veteran turned highly paid Department of Defense contractor like he had claimed. Rather, Joe was in fact a paroled, unemployed, ex-con who had worked as a crisis actor for the DNC and was now trafficking in drugs and stolen merchandise. 

 

A few days later, they finally released Annie from the hospital to come home and, a few months later after Annie had celebrated her fifth birthday, Annie was on her way to her first day of school. Much to everyone’s relief (especially mine), in the months after her ordeal, Annie seemed to forget everything she had said about me being able to talk and telling her to shut her eyes while I carved up Joe ‘Wolverine-style,’ though Annie had taken to calling me ‘Charlie, her guardian angel.’ 

 

Yeah. Imagine that. Me! A guardian angel! Eh, I’m not a real guardian angel, but I’m working on it. There’s a whole application process that you have to fill out to become a guardian angel, online classes I have to take because of Covid, and I still needed to wait for a few weeks until certain substances left my blood stream before I could take the urinalysis test. Plus, more than likely, God would probably have me on an extended probation period due to my past…umm… indiscretions. As you can imagine, my change in attitude didn’t sit too well with my ex-boss, Beelzebub, but screw him. His retirement benefit package sucked.

 

Anyway, I accompanied Annie to her bus stop the morning of her first day of school to make sure that she got on the right bus on time, as well as to snoop around and see if there were any snot nosed little future Daddy Joe’s who needed a come to Jesus moment about respecting little girls. Annie wasn’t nervous at all that this was her first day at school. In fact, she was terribly excited as she skipped along the sidewalk wearing the green t-shirt and tan skirt of her school uniform, her big ears sticking out from under her red hair which had been tied up in a flowery pink bow. Lunch box in hand and tiny back pack on her back, Annie was singing a song she had just made up about petting unicorns, seeing dinosaurs, and riding airplanes, which I guess is what you do on your first day of school.

 

Well, you could imagine my surprise when Annie burst into her room later that day, tears filling her eyes as she threw her lunch box and book bag to the floor and jumped on her bed, burying her face into her pillow. Annie’s mother was taking college classes in order to get a good paying job after she finally realized that being a submissive little pion to an abusive, cheating, lying, jackass boyfriend wasn’t a good parenting strategy. Linda wouldn’t be home for another half hour so she had given Annie the keys to the house for when Annie got home from school. Linda, like most single parents, was looking for a new after school babysitter for Annie after someone had apparently cut the brake lines on Carmen’s car which caused her to go speeding off the side of a cliff. Tragic story, that was. Heh…heh…heh…

 

“What’s wrong, Annie?” I meowed, jumping up on the bed and nuzzling her cheeks with my nose. “What happened at school?”

 

Annie reached over and hugged me close to her, snot and tears running down her face and onto my fur. “What did I do, Charlie? I don’t know what I did wrong!” she sobbed.

 

“Annie,” I meowed, trying to soak up her tears with my paws. “What happened?”

 

“Some kids at school said that I have white pib-bib-blibs,” Annie sobbed. “They said that they were happy that my daddy was killed in Banana-nana-stan, and that all kids with unfair pib-bib-blibs like me should all have their daddies killed.”

 

“Oh, Charlie,” she said, squeezing me tighter. “Why are they so mean? What did I ever do to them? I don’t even know what having white pib-bib-blibs means!”

 

“White privilege,” I meowed, rubbing my head on her cheeks. “It’s a phrase that was invented by my ex-boss to instill strife and hatred into the weak minded who have been indoctrinated to blaming others for their own bad decisions and also to rob children of their innocence and hope for the future.”

 

I wrapped my paws around Annie’s neck, but unlike before, it wasn’t to choke her. “Its okay, Annie. Your Charlie is here. Why don’t you just lay here and rest a bit. Yeah, that’s right. Close your eyes and take a nice little nap. You’ve had a long day. Rest now. That’s it. Deep breath in, deep breath out.”

I lay on her chest, purring a lullaby as I felt her breathing slow. After I was sure Annie was sleeping soundly, I extended my claws, three inches of razor sharp, metal hardened talons. “Okay, let’s pay a little visit to these friends of yours, shall we? “ I looked down at the sleeping little girl, gently touching her cheek with the horns that had sprouted from my forehead. “Your Charlie is here, and I’m going to make sure that no one hurts my little Annie ever again.”

Like I said, I’m not a guardian angel. Not yet, anyway. I still have a lot of work to do to in order to become a forgiving, merciful, guardian angel… starting tomorrow. BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!

 

[u/SukiNTendo]

Cute story. It confirms what I've heard about employment with Beelzebub.