Demonspawn Page 5

  I grabbed her hand and looked at Alicia. She was in the middle of a kissing session with Tom. I decided to leave her alone.

  “Whoa. What's up?” Cindy said.

  I didn't say anything. I led her across the floor toward where I saw Susan. We stepped through the open doors into the hallway.

  “What's going on?”

  “I need to make sure I'm not crazy.”

  “You've always been crazy.”

  I looked in the direction I saw Susan walking. I caught a glimpse of a foot disappearing around the corner at the end of the hall.

  “Come on.”

  I let go of her hand and jogged. Cindy tried to keep up, but her shoes weren't exactly made for running. Her heels echoed in the empty school hallway. A feeling of dread crept over me. I was chasing a ghost in an empty school. Cindy's shoes being the only sound made everything more creepy.

  I made it to the end of the hall first. I turned to see the door leading upstairs to the second floor just coming to a close, about ten feet away.

  “Alex? Where the hell are we going?”

  I slowly opened the door leading upstairs while Cindy stood a few feet behind me. I was cautious, like something could jump out at me at any second. The stairwell was dimly lit. There was a window at the top that let in a lot of light during the day, but not now.

  “Alex? Any day now.”

  I looked at my best friend. She had her arms impatiently crossed in front of her.

  “Do you trust me?”

  She didn't hesitate. “Alex, we've known each other since we were five. What do you think? Tell me what the hell is going on.”

  I thought about the absurdity of what I saw. A woman, a ghost, waving at me across the school gym floor where two hundred couples danced.

  “I'm not sure I trust myself right now.”

  I walked up the stairs. I heard Cindy take a deep breath behind me and follow me. My own footsteps sounded ominous in the hallway. Cindy's heels sounded just the same. I felt her grab my hand from behind.

  We made it to the door guarding the upstairs. It creaked as I pushed it open slowly. The lights were off on the second floor. I guess no one felt the need to turn them on, considering the dance was in the gym.

  “Christ. Who knew school could be so scary,” Cindy whispered behind me.

  There was some light coming from our left. I turned and felt my breath get caught in my chest.

  Susan stood there, about halfway down the hall. She was looking into the only lit classroom on the floor.

  Cindy poked her head out under mine. We both were looking in the same direction, but we weren't seeing the same thing.

  “Wow. Miss Munroe teaching Spanish late tonight?”

  “You don't see her, do you?”

  “See who?”

  I didn't respond, as there was no need to. The only thing Cindy saw was light from a classroom spilling out into the hallway. I saw that, plus a woman who was dead, murdered by her husband who had been possessed by a demon.

  Susan turned her head toward me. She smiled, but I could see there was no happiness in it. She gestured with her head toward the classroom.

  Then she was gone.

  “Let's go see what's up,” Cindy said, and took a step in front of me.

  “Whoa, whoa.” I grabbed her shoulders to stop her. Then I took the lead.

  “Wow, Alex. You're my hero.”

  We walked toward the classroom, moving as quietly as we could. As we drew closer we could hear some sounds. It took me a moment to recognize it as moaning. I heard some rubbing, then what sounded like a belt coming off.

  Cindy smiled. “Looks like someone couldn't wait till the dance was over. Let's see who it is.”

  Somehow, deep down, I knew who at least one of them was. I tried to reach out and stop Cindy, but I was too late. As her face went into the light I watched her amused smile turn to shock and horror.

  She stood up and stormed into the room.

  “What the fuck is this?!”

  I was a step behind her. I already had an idea of what I'd see. Daryl was sitting in Miss Munroe's chair. His shirt was unbuttoned and his belt on the floor. Straddling his lap was Tiffany Sears, a senior whose reputation with the guys was well known. Her dress was pulled up to her hips, revealing white panties, and one strap was off. I can only imagine what the scene would be like if we came five minutes later.

  “Cindy!” Daryl said. His eyes said it all. He quickly forced Tiffany off his lap. She straightened her dress. “Look, I can explain-”

  “Can't anyone get any privacy anymore?” Tiffany said.

  I didn't even have the chance to be stunned before Cindy gave Tiffany a look that could kill.

  “You're in a fucking school classroom, bitch!”

  “Don't you call me a bitch!”

  Tiffany slapped Cindy with an open palm. Daryl started to get out of his sex-chair. I managed to take a step forward before Cindy struck back, although it wasn't with an open palm. She punched Tiffany square under the eye. Tiffany reeled back a few steps and fell on her ass.

  I was surprised to see Daryl raise his fist. He had a dangerous look in his eye, and he was looking at Cindy.

  He never had a chance to swing, although I believe that's exactly what he was gonna do. I was in front of Cindy faster than I would have thought possible. I had a hand around Daryl's throat and the other locked around his wrist. Daryl was a few inches taller than me and could easily have broken my grip. But he didn't. Seeing him raise his fist to my best friend made my mind go blank. His knees actually buckled before he stumbled back into the chair.

  “I don't need this,” Tiffany said. She climbed to her feet and stormed out of the room.

  “Come back here!” Cindy was only a few steps behind her.

  I stood there staring at Daryl. I was furious for only a few seconds longer. Then I noticed the look Daryl was giving me as he rubbed his neck.

  He was terrified.

  His face had a look like he'd just seen a monster. And he was staring right at me. What did I do exactly? Just force him to sit down? Or did he see something about me that the girls missed?

  He finally recovered enough to get out of the chair. He circled around me to the door, but never took his eyes off me. I was just scared from the look he gave me. I couldn't move myself.

  “Wait, Cindy!” he said. “We have to talk!”

  Daryl ran out of the classroom. I was ready to follow when I felt a hand grab my shoulder. I spun to see Susan.

  “Don't, Alex,” she said. “Cindy will be alright.”

  I was speechless for a moment. Susan was amused by my reaction. She smiled, then shrugged sheepishly.

  “Stop staring at me like that,” she said. “It's making me feel weird.”

  It was another ten seconds before I could talk.

  “What in the hell is going on?”

  “We've been watching you, just like I said I would. You saved me. And I couldn't really leave without paying you back somehow.”

  I gestured around the classroom. “This is payback?”

  “Well, we saw your friend was heading for trouble. We figured you'd want to know.”

  Actually I was grateful. The last thing I ever want to see is Cindy with a broken heart. It was a good thing to get what kind of guy Daryl was out in the open before their relationship went crazy-far.

  I nodded. “Thank you. Very much.”

  She smiled. “After what you did for us. Least we could do.”

  “We. Who is we?”

  As soon as I asked the question there was a familiar voice from the corner of the room behind me.

  “Hi, Alex.”

  I turned to see Richard leaning against the wall near the classroom door. That sight in itself freaked me out. He was a ghost, right? How could he lean against a wall? He was dressed in the same clothes as the last time I saw him, which was when he was trying to stab his wife.

  “Alex, this is my husband, Richard.”

  I was
afraid for a second. But then Richard smiled, and I could tell right away he wasn't what I dealt with in Tammy's house.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said.

  Richard extended his hand. I shook it. Then he looked at Susan.

  “Honey, it's almost time for us to go.”

  “Are we out of time already?”

  “Afraid so.”

  She sighed, then leaned forward to hug me. It caught me off guard.

  “You're gonna do a lot of great things, Alex. You take care.”

  I didn't know what to say. “Uh, you too?”

  Susan laughed. “Cindy is out on the football field. You go take care of her.”

  “How do you know-?”

  Before I could finish, she was gone. She did the two second fade-out routine once again. I turned around, knowing what I'd see. Sure enough, Richard was gone too.

  I stood there for a moment, alone in the classroom in silence. My mind was still processing what just happened. Like last time, I wasn't sure I could handle it just yet. So I forced myself to think about the only thing that mattered at that moment.

  Cindy.

  I left the classroom and walked back down the dark stairs. I didn't go through the school gym. I took a side door and walked across the campus to the football field. I could see a dressed-up couple on the bleachers on the opposite side of the field, sharing some time together, and a familiar female with her back to me on the nearest side all by herself.

  I didn't want to look at her too long and make her feel self-conscious, but I could tell Cindy was crying. She wiped at her eyes with her hand as I sat next to her. I knew Cindy better than anyone, and I knew more than anything she probably wanted to be left alone. But I wanted to make sure she was okay first.

  I sat next to her without talking for a minute. She wouldn't look at me. I made sure to keep my distance.

  “Daryl and I broke up.”

  I wanted to make a joke just to hear her laugh. But that would have to come later. Now was serious time.

  “Probably a good move.”

  “What kind of an idiot am I?”

  I looked at her. “What?”

  “He told me he's in love with her.” She rolled her eyes. “That he was tired of waiting for me. That he had needs. He needs to get his ass kicked. I'm a smart person, aren't I?”

  The one thing about Cindy I haven't really touched on yet. She's very intelligent. When she wasn't running track or hanging out with me, she was studying. Hell, sometimes she'd study over my house. She wanted to be an accountant, and work in her father's accounting firm.

  “You're the smartest person I know, Cindy.”

  “Then how the hell didn't I see this coming? I thought we...would be together for a while.”

  “Bottom line, Cindy, Daryl is an asshole and you can do a lot better. Hey, at least Tiffany will have a nice black eye tomorrow.”

  “Yeah. This is definitely a Homecoming I'll never forget.”

  Cindy laughed for a moment, but that laughter turned to crying. I felt my heart breaking along with hers. I scooted closer and wrapped an arm around her. She leaned her head onto my shoulder and cried for I don't know how long. I'd seen her cry before. But this was definitely a bad one.

  “You want some alone time?”

  Her answer surprised me. “No. Hang out with me for a while.”

  After a few minutes she calmed down. I took that as my cue to get my arm off her and scoot away. She leaned back and looked up at the moon. It was a beautiful night.

  “I guess I'll live, right?”

  She tried to smile. I just nodded.

  “You'll be fine.”

  “That's cause I got friends like you.”

  My turn to smile.

  “How the hell did you know what was going on up there anyway?”

  I frowned and looked away. I thought back to ten minutes ago up in the classroom. Still so surreal. Standing in the middle of a school classroom and talking to two ghosts.

  For a brief moment, I thought about lying to Cindy. I never lied to her before, but the truth sounded so strange, even to me. I wasn't even sure I could say the words.

  “A, uh, ghost, told me. Can you believe that?”

  She was quiet. I looked at her to read her face. She was studying me, trying to figure out if I was joking.

  “At Tammy's house, I helped a ghost. I don't have a clue how, but there was a ghost trapped in Tammy's house. And she showed up at the damn dance tonight to tell me what was going on, as a favor.”

  I regretted opening my mouth. Cindy stared at me for a few seconds, and those few seconds ate at me. Would she laugh? Would she walk away? Would she simply not believe me?

  “Is that why you freaked out for a few days?”

  I nodded. “Ghosts are real, Cindy. So are demons. And I can see them both. It kind of freaked me out.”

  She put a hand on my shoulder. Her face didn't show any humor or disbelief, only concern.

  “You could have told me,” she said. “I believe you. You know that, right?”

  I smiled and nodded, but that was an understatement. I was so relieved. Even when she didn't try or was upset herself, Cindy found a way to lift me up.

  “Are you gonna be okay?”

  She managed to smile. “Hey, Daryl's mistake. Not mine. Besides, my best friend sees ghosts. How cool is that?”

  “Let's find Alicia and Tom and go do something.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Chapter 5

  It was definitely a night I'd never forget. Alicia and Tom did become a couple for a few months. It was a while before Cindy was completely over Daryl. I'm not sure if she missed him directly, or the fact that she was cheated on.

  We eventually let Alicia in on my wonderful little secret. Her only response was “Cool”. I never did tell Mom. I'm not really sure why. I didn't see her much, and I guess I just didn't want our few conversations to be about ghosts.

  Actually the next few years of my life were what you would call “normal”. I didn't wake up in the middle of the night to see ghosts all over my room. I wasn't like that little kid in that movie who saw dead people, seeing ghosts everywhere he looked. In fact, I started to believe my experience with Susan and Richard was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. Maybe I couldn't see ghosts or demons or whatever. Maybe I'd never see another ghost again.

  If only.

  It was a week away from my twenty-third birthday when my life changed forever. I had an okay job that paid the bills working at a warehouse shipping dock. Not the best job in the world, but better than nothing. Cindy was graduating college with a degree in accounting. I was so proud of her. She was full of motivation and intelligence, two qualities I lack. Alicia was a senior now in our old high school. It's amazing what happens between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. Alicia grew up fast. She definitely didn't need me to watch out for her anymore, even though I still did.

  It was a Saturday. I went through my morning routine of waking up and stumbling into the shower. While I was in the bathroom I heard the front door to my apartment open and close.

  “Is that you, baby?”

  A soft, familiar voice responded. “Yeah.”

  Julie, my girlfriend. We'd been dating for almost a year. I have absolutely nothing bad to say about the woman. We met one night while I was out running around town with Alicia, Cindy, and a group of our friends. We traded numbers and hit it off pretty well.

  After a shower I walked into the living room. She had her roller-blades in the corner. Every Saturday morning she roller-bladed on the nearby bike trail and came over my place.

  She looked great. She was showing off her tan legs with a pair of white shorts and a tank top that hugged every curve.

  “Hey,” I said. I looked her up and down. “You can grab a shower if you want. I'll dig us up some breakfast.”

  “Okay.”

  “We still heading over your parents tonight for dinner?”

  “I guess so.”

  Thre
e short answers in a row, and no eye contact. Something was wrong.

  “Julie? You alright?”

  She finally looked at me. Sadness filled her eyes.

  “We have to talk.”

  I don't think a good conversation has ever happened that started out with those words. I wasn't wrong this time either. Basically, in her words, “We're not working out.”

  I don't remember everything she said. She gave me a bunch of reasons about why she was breaking up with me. She apparently felt it coming on for the past few months. Weird, because we just had sex in the middle of the week. How did that work? Was she thinking “I wonder if we should break up” while we were naked in bed?

  I said some things back. I can't remember, but nothing nasty. Then she cried a little, and left. She said she'd be back in a week or so to get her things.

  I sat on the couch and didn't move. Shock, I guess. It took a year to build up our relationship. To get to know each other and become a part of each other's life. It took about twenty minutes to end all of that.

  We were supposed to have dinner with her parents. Now I didn't know what I'd do. I didn't know what I'd do the next day either. Or the day after that.

  I was desperate to do anything to keep my mind busy. I started cleaning my apartment. It was overdue anyway. I had a simple one bedroom apartment on the top floor of a three story building. The kitchen was bare, but it worked just fine. There was a dining room, but as a male bachelor, had no need for a dining room table. I kept my weights there instead. In the bedroom I had a full-sized bed with a small dresser. The living room, of course, had the entertainment center with a computer in the corner.

  Normally Alicia or Cindy would stop by on Saturday to see how I was doing, grab lunch, whatever. They didn't that day, and I was actually glad. I knew Alicia spent the night over one of her friend's house, and was probably still hanging out with her. Cindy was spending the day helping her parents with some yard work. I thought that was funny considering she lived right next to me.

  Cindy snatched up the empty apartment next to me about a year after I moved out. I don't know how the hell she did it, having to work a job, and go to school full time. I know her parents helped her out with money sometimes, but I know I couldn't handle it. I loved having her next to me. Our friendship hadn't died any at all since high school. We still saw each other almost every day. Living next to each other definitely helped with that.