We Got Demons! Apartment 239 Part III

Chapter One: We Got Demons

A small apartment, but home. They'd be amazed if they could see it, he often thought. Maybe they have seen it. The first few months, he found himself speaking aloud to them. Watching a doddering fuckwit ramble incoherently behind a podium and asking Diane if she could believe he was on his second term. Telling a story about Gregory, the co-worker who became convinced he could cure his diabetes with essential oils, and slipped into a coma behind his desk, clutching a vial of Peat Moss Berry Blend in a white-knuckle grip. Wouldn't Kaitlin laugh? Wouldn't Michael die all over again to watch the Animal Planet marathon of My Pet or My Kid?, in which struggling families must decide whether to cloth and feed their furry children or the very human offspring carrying their DNA.

They chose the pets. Every time. A strain on child protective services to be sure, but a boon for the traumatic childhood memoir industry. Who didn't read the harrowing New York Times bestseller, It Was All For Senor Patches?

He missed them. He had no pictures, of course, other than a few blurry shots of his old apartment with illuminated dust particles floating in the air. Or were they orbs of Michael, Diane, and Kaitlin?

No, they were dust.

But he kept them on the wall, alongside the pictures of Rebecca and Gus, frozen moments of a life shattered, but one he could revisit now, memories that could bring a smile, or knock him to his knees. No more storage units, just framed remnants alongside the old furniture dotting an apartment he allowed to be home, for a life he was finally willing to live.

Sometimes he thought about Marble Springs. He had friends there, enemies too, all buried in rubble, in a common grave of concrete and shattered glass. Every time he glimpsed a missing persons poster or a boarded-up business, a slight pang of wistful longing rose. Then the repressed trauma from multiple attempted murders, the loss of his family, and the realization that we're all surrounded by the embittered spirits of the dead at all times shook away the lingering nostalgia.

As an old friend once said, memories are forever.

Now, after a day at a computer in a freezing office, a gig that somehow strained his back and neck worse than his parks department job ever did, he slept. No sleep apnea machine, no nightmares. No, Abe slept, with a pile of scar tissue and stray, wiry hairs curled up beside him, purring and occasionally clawing if Abe tossed and turned too much for his liking.

It was the cat that first noticed the figure in the corner.

A low rumble, rising steadily higher in a screech. The cat leapt back against the headboard of the bed, hitting the wood with a muffled pop. Abe shot up, blinking away sleep and trying to focus in the dark.

"I paid you, Barbara!" He screeched. Old habits.

Abe fell back against the headboard. "The fuck, AC?"

Then he looked to the corner. A shadow rose high and widened, a shadow in the surrounding dark. Two pinpoints of red light dotted the dark, glowing in greater intensity until they illuminated a head like the skull of a long-horned steer, a skull of cracked and pocked bone, a body of smoke.

"What?" Abe said to both himself and the trembling cat.

The figure limped forward, exhaling heavily as if expelling every ounce of breath. The figure stopped and addressed Abe in a voice of gravel.

"Hello, Abe."

"Oh, shit." Abe sighed. "This is going to be one of those things, isn't it?"

The figure chuckled.

"Oh, I've missed you, Abe. I've missed you and all the others."

"Why the fuck did we stay in Texas?" Abe asked the shivering mammal next to him.

"Well, I can see it. The urge to run. You should run of course, Abe. Run far. Run fast."

"Sound advice," Abe said. He swallowed and reached over to pull his shivering cat closer to him. AC responded to this concern by frantically clawing at Abe and fleeing the room in a blur of pink. Tiny streaks of red burned on his arm. When Abe turned his head away from the direction of the doorway, he found the figure leaning over the bed, the horned skull with glowing eyes inches from his face.

He could smell decay. The scent brought back memories.

"Fuck! No, nope, no." Abe stammered. Then he felt the cold, something coursing through his body. He choked; he could no longer breathe. He sputtered and shook. The creature's hand entered Abe's chest. An arm of smoke, the only part of the creature of substance was the skull, a mask the creature wore.

"A parting gift," the figure said. The creature pulled the hand from Abe's chest. Abe collapsed onto the bed. He couldn't move. He struggled to turn his eyes toward the creature.

"When you wake, run. Of course, it doesn't matter where or what direction you go. You're going to find yourself in a little house in the country. And when we're through with you, you'll all wish you'd melted into the Earth with the rest of Marble Springs."

A heaviness in the air abated. Abe heard the rattle and hum of the air-conditioning kicking on. His cat, a hairless mutant rescued from a previous life, stepped gingerly into the room.

"Well shit, AC. We got demons."