Demonspawn Read online

  On the third day Alicia stuck her head into my bedroom. She was dressed and ready for school, dressed to impress like she always was.

  “Hey bro,” she said. “You awake?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Cindy’s picking me up and taking me to school. Then she’s coming over.”

  I didn’t respond. I just waved a hand. She sighed with sadness. I heard her go down the stairs, then the front door open and close. I was alone.

  Over the last few days I spent a lot of time in my room alone. I half-expected Susan to just pop up. She’d explain what was going on with me, talk about the afterlife, how I was able to help her, blah blah. But that didn’t happen. I was left alone with my questions that I still couldn’t wrap my head around.

  How long was Susan in that house?

  Did she know how much time had passed since she’d died?

  Could she actually see Tammy and her parents all the time? Walk right through them, like in the movies?

  The demon. Was it like a person? Did it have arms and legs and a body, or just a voice that controlled Richard?

  What did I do to Richard? I only touched him, but it seemed to do the trick.

  Was that really Richard in there, being controlled? Or did the demon make itself look like Richard?

  How could I hear and see them so clearly?

  Am I psychic?

  What the hell is going on with me?

  I was so depressed after Alicia left. So many questions with no answers, and as I laid there more questions kept coming up. I knew I’d never have the answers to all of them. Maybe not even any of them.

  I heard the door open and close downstairs, followed by some footsteps coming up the stairs. I saw a shadow fall against the wall. I knew who it was, but turned in bed to greet her anyway.

  Cindy leaned in the doorway with her arms crossed. When our eyes met she smiled and shook her head at the sight of me. I imagine I looked pretty bad. No one ever looks good in the morning, and when they’re depressed, it shows even more.

  “Girls are just lining up outside to jump in bed with you,” she said.

  I tried to manage a smile, but couldn’t quite pull it off. Cindy saw my mood and got serious.

  “I’ll be downstairs. If you need anything just holler.”

  I nodded.

  After she left I sat up in bed. For the first time in a few days my thoughts drifted to something besides my situation. I wondered about Cindy. This would be the second day she took off school to stay with me. How did her boyfriend Daryl feel about that? Hopefully he wasn’t making a big deal out of it. Cindy and I were just friends. But I remember a girlfriend I had in ninth grade. Donna was her name. She got crazy-jealous over Cindy. She said we spent too much time together.

  I pulled myself out of bed and stretched. A few minutes later I was in the shower, my first in quite a while. The questions were still in the back of my mind, but the truth in its simplest form started to settle in as I lost myself in the hot water.

  Ghosts are real.

  Demons are real.

  Somehow, I can interact with both.

  In the end, this didn’t change anything. I still had to go to school. I still needed to get dressed and work out later in the day. I still had to get ready for Homecoming. I still had to make dinner for Alicia and me.

  After my shower I threw on a simple pair of shorts and a tee-shirt. I smelled breakfast cooking as I walked down the stairs. Cindy must have been watching a movie as a DVD still played in the living room. I could see her in the kitchen hovering over the stove.

  “Hope you’re making enough for two.”

  She turned around to give me a smile. “I heard you upstairs. You haven’t been eating a lot. I’m not that good a cook, but you’ll get over it.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t remember the last time I laughed.

  “I don’t even cook for Daryl, so keep this a secret.”

  I pointed at her. “Speaking of Daryl. Homecoming next Friday, right?”

  “You’re still going?”

  “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Well, you know. We thought you might not go.”

  “Nah. You guys wouldn’t have any fun without me.”

  “You’re probably right.” She paused for a moment. There was a bit of uncomfortable silence. “Listen, I’ll never bring it up. But if you want to talk about what happened, you know I’m here for you, right?”

  I smiled. My best friend since kindergarten. We knew things about each other that we didn’t even share with our boyfriends and girlfriends, when we had them. We teased each other a lot. Our friendship was full of humor and practical jokes. But we knew when to be serious, and we took care of each other.

  “Thanks, Cindy. I appreciate it.”

  “Now shut up and help me finish breakfast.”

  *****

  Things quickly got back to normal. It’s funny how life does that. After a full day of school and hanging out with my sister and Cindy, my mind went from dwelling on haunted houses to getting ready for Homecoming. I did get a quick update from Tammy that her house was now “normal”, but besides that, I didn’t think about it too much.

  I did think about Homecoming. Much more than I really wanted to. I blame that on Cindy and Alicia. They kept putting it in my head on how I needed to look my best. Since I was going alone, they made it their personal goal to make sure I left Homecoming with someone. The funny part is the more they kept putting the focus of Homecoming on me, the more I stopped caring. I was only going to spend time with my two best friends. And I hate to admit it, but their argument of “This will be the only time we get to do this” worked. Cindy and I were seniors, this was it for us. Alicia would spend the next three high school years without us. I didn’t want to be the one to keep our little group apart on our only Homecoming night.

  The big day came up quick. Three hours before the dance, Alicia was in her room doing whatever it is ladies do to get ready for something important. Me, I was downstairs working out in a pair of shorts. That shows how much I was stressing over the dance compared to Alicia. I couldn’t help but laugh as every now and then I’d hear a scream followed by “My fucking hair!” from upstairs.

  It didn’t take me long to get ready at all. After I was dressed and happy enough with what I saw in the mirror I went downstairs. It took Alicia another twenty minutes to get ready.

  “Are you excited?” she asked.

  “Eh, it should be fun.”

  “Oh, come on, Alex. You aren’t pumped up at all at seeing every hot girl in school dress up to impress guys?”

  “Aren’t they dressing up to impress their dates?”

  She smiled fiendishly. “Well, yeah. But let’s put it this way. I’m going with Tom from my algebra class. But he’s not my boyfriend.”

  I just rolled my eyes.

  There was a honk outside. Alicia took a deep breath.

  “How do I look?”

  She looked great, as usual. My sister and I were nothing alike physically. I always thought she had the looks in the family. I gave her a thumbs-up.

  “Remember to grab the camera. Mom said she wants enough pictures to fill a book.”

  I grabbed the digital camera from the dining room table and followed Alicia outside. Cindy stood there in front of a white limousine. I still felt renting a limousine was overboard, but there was no arguing with them.

  I tried to keep my mouth from opening as I approached Cindy. I spend so much time with her that I forget how hot she is sometimes. She wore a white dress that stopped at the knees. Her hair was done up nice. She had the top of a red rose in her hair. She looked amazing.

  She gave Alicia a quick hug and they fawned over each other for a minute. I just laughed. Finally, Cindy looked me up and down. I had on a pair of dress pants and a white collared shirt, nothing too fancy.

  “Wow. You’re not ugly.”

  “Ha ha. You’re hilarious.”

  “Where’s Daryl?” Alicia asked.


  “He’s in here, enjoying the limo.”

  Cindy said it as straight as could be, but that was the first clue that something was wrong. I missed it completely. He should have been with his girlfriend.

  I waved the camera around. “Let’s go pick up Alicia’s guy. Then we got pictures to take.”

  “He’s not my guy,” she snapped. “He’s just my date.”

  We piled into the limo. Daryl looked sharp. He was busy talking on a cell phone. He nodded a simple greeting to all of us, then went back to his conversation.

  Alicia’s date Tom didn’t live too far away. Daryl didn’t say a word to any of us during the drive over. He was more interested in calling his boys.

  Tom seemed like a nice enough guy. He gave Alicia an awkward hug when she greeted him in front of his house. I caught him checking her out a few times, but he didn’t act like a sleaze.

  We got Tom’s mother to take pictures of all of us in front of the limo. I felt a little out of place since I was the only one without a date. But things got even more awkward.

  After about ten pictures Cindy had a request.

  “Miss Madison, would you mind taking a few pictures of Alex, Leese, and me?”

  If Alicia felt like I did, she did a great job of hiding it. I stole a quick glance at Daryl. He already focused his attention back to his cell phone. If I were him, I’d be a little upset. Cindy didn’t ask for any pictures taken with her boyfriend, but with her best friend and his sister.

  Miss Madison, Tom’s mother, smiled and nodded. “Sure, hon.”

  We posed for a few pictures. Cindy put her arm around my shoulders once. Just a playful gesture, but still made me nervous enough to glance at Daryl. He didn't seem to care, or hid it well.

  One of the fears I had about Homecoming was how our group would do. Cindy, Alicia, and I got along great. But what would it be like when two other guys, especially boyfriends and dates, were brought into the picture? Even when we were all seeing people at the same time, we didn't double-date or anything like that. Would Cindy and Alicia ignore me? Would Tom and Daryl not like the best friend and older brother being there?

  It wasn't too bad. I did feel a little like an extra wheel, but everyone talked to me, even Daryl. He seemed distracted, but alright for the most part. I didn't notice until later that he and Cindy were barely talking to each other.

  The limousine was nice. Plenty of room for us to stretch out. I kept an eye on Tom, simply because he was funny, although he didn't mean to be. I could see he wanted to scoot closer to Alicia, but didn't quite know how to do it.

  The dance itself started out pretty well for me. I was actually surprised to see other people rented limos as well. Weird. We went into the school gym together. Whoever was responsible for putting the dance together did a great job. The gym looked great. Nice lighting, plenty to drink, a band playing near the back. Kids and teachers danced, badly, I might add, on the floor.

  “Wow!” Alicia said when we stepped inside. She elbowed me. “And you wanted to skip out on this?”

  “That's cause he's stupid,” Cindy said.

  “You guys thirsty?” Tom asked. He walked over to the punch table.

  I actually had fun. I mingled and talked to some people I knew in my classes. Every now and then Alicia and Tom would go out and dance. Daryl and Cindy didn't dance, which I thought was weird because I'd seen them dance before. Hell, Cindy loved to dance. I would try to work out in the basement only to have her screw with my radio and start dancing. Very distracting, for obvious reasons.

  Throughout the night we ended up splitting up a few times. We'd see people we knew and would break away to talk. After talking to a girl named Lisa who pulled me aside to say hello, I ended up alone on the side of the dance floor. I looked around, trying to find the group. I spotted Tom and Alicia on the floor sharing a slow dance. I smiled, it was their first of the night. I wondered if Tom finally got up the nerve to ask her to dance or if she did. Alicia did seem to like him.

  I couldn't see Cindy and Daryl anywhere. So I sat down on one of the chairs lined up along the wall. It actually felt good. My legs were killing me. I was starting to want to get to the next phase of the night. Cindy and Alicia mentioned something earlier about getting dinner after the dance.

  I was having fun, but I don't dance. I also didn't have a date, so slow dancing was out of the question. I leaned back and watched the couples. I loved watching some of the pairings out there that I never would have dreamed of. Lou, a brainy guy from my psychics class, apparently came with Crystal, one of the senior cheerleaders. I'd love to know how he pulled that off. Such an odd pair, but she was actually laughing and dancing close to him. It made me smile and gave hope that a semi-quiet weightlifting baseball fan might find his match.

  I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see Cindy standing there with her hands on her hips.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. “The dance is out there. Come on, Alex, there's gotta be one girl here who drank too much spiked punch and is looking for a guy to dance with.”

  I laughed. “My legs are hurting. Give me a break.”

  She sat next to me. “You work out twenty-five hours a day and can't handle a school dance?”

  “Man, you're on a roll tonight.”

  She smiled. “Thank you. I try. Seriously though, you having fun?”

  “Yeah. What's not to like?”

  She pointed at Alicia. “Looks like someone else is having fun too.”

  “Yeah. She spent all week talking about this thing, but never really talked about Tom. But it looks like she might like him.”

  No sooner did the words leave my mouth when Alicia hugged Tom's neck and kissed him.

  “Aww,” Cindy said. “We're gonna have serious girl talk later.”

  “Hey, where the hell is your man? You giving me a hard time about slow dancing. I haven't seen you two dance at all yet.”

  She shrugged. “Don't know where he is. He said he had to take care of something. Then ran off on that stupid cell phone of his.”

  It wasn't so much what she said, but how she said it. I knew something was up.

  “Everything okay with you two?”

  She hesitated and wouldn't look at me. “I don't think so.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  That was all I needed to hear. We sat in silence for a minute or so.

  “Alex, I'm being serious here. Are you gonna dance with someone tonight or not?”

  That came out of nowhere. I gave her a confused look.

  “I don't think I'll lose much sleep if I don't, Cindy.”

  “Well, remember when your Mom called yesterday and I answered the phone?”

  I nodded. No big deal there. Mom usually called a few times a week when she was away. And Cindy was over the house a lot. She talked to Mom just as much as I did.

  “She told me that if you weren't coming with a date, that I had to make sure you danced with someone and get some pictures.”

  “What? Will she lose sleep or something?”

  She shrugged defensively. “Hey, don't look at me. I'm just repeating what she said.”

  I shook my head. I'd have to give Mom a hard time when she got back.

  “So, look. I talked it over with Daryl. He's cool with us dancing one song.”

  I wrinkled my face. “What? Are you kidding me?”

  “Don't look so disgusted. I was the first person you danced with anyway. Remember?”

  I did remember. We were seven years old, in her backyard. Cindy wanted to practice so she could ask Danny Thompson to the dance.

  “Yeah. I still have nightmares about it sometimes.”

  “Oh, you're so damn funny. Come on, this song's half over. I want to at least say we danced a little so your Mom won't kill me.”

  I reluctantly let her grab my hand and pull me forward. I knew if I didn't give in she'd bug me about it forever. She led me over near Alicia. I felt awkward as hell. I'm not much of a sl
ow dancer anyway. Plus Cindy was my best friend who had a boyfriend.

  “Come on,” she said as she put a hand on my shoulder. “White boys can at least slow dance, can't they?”

  “I'm sure a lot of them can.”

  “Jesus, Alex. You've done this before.”

  She grabbed my hands and put them on her hips. Then she wrapped her hands around my neck. I made sure to stand as far away as I possibly could.

  “You take my breath away.”

  “Huh? What?”

  “That's the song that played in my backyard. When we first danced.”

  I smiled. “Oh yeah. I remember. Your father sneaked up behind you while I tried not to laugh. Then he scared you and you cried like a little girl.”

  “I was a little girl, you asshole.”

  Alicia and Tom made their way closer to us. I didn't even see them till she spoke.

  “Be careful, Cindy,” she said. “I don't think Alex has touched a girl in a while. He might try to hump your leg or something.”

  “I'm sorry, did we break up your tonsil-hockey game?” I said.

  Alicia's face turned red. Tom tried not to laugh. His shyness seemed to be gone.

  Then Alicia did something weird. I saw her eyes go to Cindy, then back to me, then she smiled. I wasn't sure I wanted to know what was going on in that blond head of hers.

  I saw something out of the corner of my eye that caught my attention. Someone was waving near the doors that led back into the school away from the gym. When they saw I was looking at them, they waved more frantically, then started motioning for me.

  I squinted to see who it was. I felt my heart beat faster. I could start to see some features I recognized. Long brown hair, wearing long blue-jeans and a blue blouse. She was wearing the exact same clothes from when I'd first met her.

  It was Susan.

  I just froze. For a second I doubted what I was seeing. But when she realized that I saw her, I could see Susan's motions getting more frustrated. Finally, she pointed right at me, then gestured for me to follow her. She disappeared through the doors and took a right out of eyesight down the hall.

  Cindy was talking to me.

  “Hello? Alex? I'm right here. Damn, no wonder you can't get a girlfriend.”