Feeding Them- Chapter VIII

 There’s something about early afternoon light that always makes one feel shameful and slightly panicky. It’s a setting created by the universe with the sole purpose to illuminate tableaux of remorseful self-loathing.

Little does the newly-awakened semi-functional brain care that its owner is too much of a no-hoper to have any obligations to tend to before noon. Or that the late bed-, and consequently wake up-, times were caused by a lengthy emergency self defense training session, rather than by an alcohol and TV streaming binge.

Having thanked my past self for filling the cats’ food bowls before going to bed, I drag my present self out of bed to provide my future self with the strongest coffee feasible within the limitations posed by my kitchen’s inventory.

Said limitations narrow all possible interpretations of the concept to ‘triple the grounds and cut down on the hot water.’ No matter how fancy the machine, there’s only so much it can do without a proper blend. 

A thick canopy of brutal fumes emanates from the dark concoction. The resulting miasma is pretty much what you’d get if you gave Lucifer a moka pot for his birthday and gathered up the rest of the Fallen for a celebratory cup of joe in your broom closet.

Luckily, I’m too broke to afford delicate taste buds. I even chase the potion down with a handful of crunch-deprived tortilla chips from yesterday’s open bag. Not so much out of hunger but rather to line my stomach against the onslaught of the pungent heart-attack-in-a-mug.

The chips taste like old wool. I don’t care. I remain firm in my conviction that sealing clips are for soccer moms and anal condo-dwelling programmers named Carl. Or Ike. Ikes have always struck me as avid fans of everything plastic, pocket-sized and life-hacky one can feel smug about using around the kitchen. Maybe that’s why they call the source of all such fiddly trinkets ‘IKEA’ in the first place. 

Fuck you, random guy named Ike.

I gulp down the coffee as fast as its temperature allows. Delicate taste buds or not, this is not a flavor to be savored. Once caffeinated I proceed to brush my teeth and wash the night drool and pillow folds off of my face. I keep switching between alternating torrents of ice cold and blistering-hot water, to shock away the unnerving palpitations in my chest. The third scoop of coffee blend may have been an ill-advised move on my part.

To about the same degree that invading Russia in winter is ill-advised. 

So be it. When you have an anti-goblin ammunition gathering quest scheduled before lunch and a babysitting-exorcism combo shitapalooza in the evening, you may as well start the day by having your brain nuked.

I pull an oversized hoodie over my pajama t-shirt, not even bothering with a sports bra. There’s something to be said for both cold weather and chest-flatness, after all.

It’s brighter than yesterday, so I expect no frost bite. I am bitterly reminded that expectations are for corporate managers and idiots, and I’m barely fit to manage my daily meals. I cover my head and reddening ears with my hood, pulling it all the way down to the tips of my sunglasses. It feels like one of these days when the less you see - the better.

I’m not sure where the best place to look for goblin distraction mechanisms would be nowadays. There aren’t any businesses specializing in toys, crafts or school supplies in the area that either I or Google happen to know of. I do, however, tend to run into piles of sharpies and puzzle books whenever I browse the local Target for body lotion and paper towels. Which I use separately and only for legitimate, family-friendly activities of the strictly non-deviant kind.

Another quick check around the internet confirms that it is, indeed, where most procreationally inclined individuals go to unburden themselves of their life-savings, human dignity and parental guilt. The other option is Best Buy, but that would be a good twenty minutes away by bus and a whole lot of headache for a peeing baby doll and a handful of Frozen coloring books. Target, on the other hand, is less than ten blocks away and almost as cost effective. 

I pointedly bypass the stacks of brightly colored plastic miscreants marketed as the year’s “most popular.” Follow me as they might with their nightmare anime eyes, I refuse to be hypnotized by the freaks’ pastel rainbow manes and opulent rhinestones. No amount of glitter can make up for the dolls’ warped proportions, special-ed names and lubelessly sodomizing price tags. 

Joy does not strike me as the type of kid sociable enough to either grasp or appreciate the concept of fashionability. And I’ll be damned if I contribute to ruining the one thing I like about her. Which is a nicer way to say I’m not blowing a hundred bucks on a couple of miserly pocket-sized psychedelic horrors no benevolent God would have suffered to exist in the first place. After all, I was promised change for milk. I’m nobody’s dying millionaire grandmother, for fuck’s sake.

So instead of Y.O.L.O Candyfucklings and Awsome Bossom Poopie Hoes I start piling up on magic markers and playdough (because fuck carpets that aren’t mine), a window art kit (because ditto goes for windows I’ll never be asked to clean) and two different bead jewelry kits. I’m as scrupulous in checking price tags as I am lenient with the age warnings. It should go without saying that aforementioned carpet and window rule applies dubbly to children’s stomachs and respiratory tracts.

It’s not like you can well support a possession if you’re no longer breathing, can you? Damn, I should have suggested it to Devin in the first place!

I take out my cell-phone and dial as fast as my jittery enthusiasm allows. I barely manage to catch the end of the first ring.

“No,” he greets me from across the line.

“But it’s so much easier than…”

“And where do you think the spirit will go once the body is dead? They don’t just materialize and dematerialize spontaneously, you know. Principle of Conservation of Manes, if you like. You know what else disembodied Manes tend to do? They aspire to embody. And it will aim for one of the two bodies still breathing in the room. Does that sound like a good solution to you? Didn’t think so. Now go get some crayons. Crayons are important. And stickers, too. Something sparkly.”

“One last question before I tell you to go fuck yourself…”

“Excitement makes your signal ten times stronger. Add in the instinctive tuning in on me as the recipient of the transmission, and voila! You’ve got my range boosted all the way to about a mile in each direction. Plus, I’m pretty sure pushing Mr. Cooper over the phone has opened up some new para-chakras in my own perception. I’m reading you through the phone with hardly any disturbances now. It’s actually pretty awesome.”

Good. That means I don’t need to feel bad about abruptly hanging up. Let him read my farewells with his newly opened chakras.

I grab a pack of crayons from the clearance section and about eight dollars’ worth of unicorn stickers. The sparkly kind- so the Coopers know I mean business. Nothing says “wholesome, law-abiding, non-exorcism-performing goody-two shoes” like glittery unicorns. 

Taken over by a sudden burst of generosity, I stop in front of the trinket display by the checkouts. So what if the impulse-buy stand is but a guileful trap of flashy wares? Though designed to capture nerve-wracked spawners - bullying them into spending another fiver to assuage their shrieking brood - its allure is just as captivating for the childfree.

Before I know it, my hand closes around some sort of a semi-transparent plastic egg with a random My Little Pony figure inside. Whatever, why not. It’s colorful. Plus it takes time to open, thus keeping the receiver busy for a whole minute. And it’s only two dollars apiece, tax and all. 

Having dropped the pony egg in my basket, I hasten my pace towards the next available cash register. Just in case my hand decides to grab anything else merely because my eyes find it shiny and my brain finds it cheap.

I escape the store with a remainder of just about twenty dollars in change. It gets me a quart of milk plus enough left to splurge on two Salisbury steak frozen dinners and cup noodles for the rest of the week. That’s what I call a job with health benefits.

Now it’s all just a lazy waiting game, a leisurely countdown till show time. At home, I pop one of the frozen dinners into the microwave. As I place the second pack in my otherwise empty freezer, I try not to wonder whether I’ll ever get to eat it.

While the microwave turns the frozen gravy and twin bricklike lumps of ground beef and mashed potatoes into a volcanic steam trap, I try to recall something from yesterday’s lessons. The data is there, but it keeps failing to load properly. The rock is either pixelated or unfocused. When I do get to zoom in on it, the image starts blinking in and out of view. By the time I manage to form a somewhat passable granitoid construction of sorts, Devin calls to tell me I’m giving him a headache. 

“You’re overstraining your brain and overwhelming mine. Pointlessly so. You can’t practice defence mechanisms with nothing to defend yourself against. So chill. You did well last night. Pushing yourself any further at this point will not only be inefficient, it will leave you drained. Which is not an advisable condition to be in when performing, or even assisting in an exorcism. So do me a favor, go eat your nasty pile of processed pseudo-nutrients, watch some cartoons on Nickelodeon or something. I’ll come over at six sharp to go over the action plan. In the meantime, try to keep brain activity to a minimum. I’ve heard you’re pretty good at that.”

I’m about to send him off to commit further acts of unnatural copulation involving a variety of livestock species, a broken broomstick and both his grandmothers. Just as I start contemplating the mechanics of the situation and the best position for each participant to take, the asshole makes it even worse.

“It’s OK to be afraid. Hell, I am. But so long as I’m standing, I’ve got your back. I can promise you this much.”

I disperse the formulating minutiae of the intricate orgy, settling for a simple “fuck you.” There are many kinds of “fuck you,” with probably a hundred different sub-contexts between them. He knows exactly what this one means and what it costs me. He also knows well enough not to say “you’re welcome.”

I hang up with a small beep. The microwave answers with a beep of its own.

I wonder how many death row inmates have opted for a TV dinner as their last meal. Then again, one can hardly expect a bunch of crazy mass murderers to make the most reasonable choices, gastronomic or otherwise. 

Sure, most go for some classic steak, lobster and greasy junk food combo. But there’s got to be that odd cold SpaghettiO guy. And I’m pretty sure I’ve heard somewhere that Aileen Wuornos requested a single cup of coffee. I don’t think she even bothered with sugar and cream.

I bet, however, none of them had their triple-cheese Baconator and chocolate-covered doughnut milkshake while rewatching ‘Die Hard’ for the umpteenth time in a buttugly threadbare zebra onesie. It’s a shame they didn’t: this way it’s much easier not to think of it as a last meal.  

I would have taken a beer but I need my brain at full capacity. Even if it means peeing myself every time I try to use it for anything other than keeping my “yippee ki-yay” exclamations in sync with John McClane’s.

About half a dozen yippee ki-yays into the movie, the mince and gravy start tasting less like a pre-Pentobarbital appetizer and more like a typical cheapskate’s dinner on a plain weekday afternoon. An afternoon to be followed by many others- tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

I don’t know about other incantations, but the whole yippee ki-yay business is as real as science and as efficient as penicillin. A fierce little one-spell-panacea for equal parts bravery, hope and general kickassery. Now I have a grey rock. Ho ho ho.

The food also helps. There is a little less room left for anxiety when your stomach is full.

Devin shows up about half a minute into the closing credits. I maintain an appearance of irky indifference, pretending I can hide my gratitude from either of us.We both know the simple truth: I just can’t be alone now that the movie’s over.

“Coffee?” Having nodded our greetings, we don’t bother with further pleasantries. He knows his way from the door to the living room couch.

“A touch of milk, please. No sweetener.”

“Cold milk, or microwave steamed?” Details matter on days like this. They keep you sane. Ish.

“Steamed.” He follows me into the kitchen. I don’t mind. 

He keeps talking while I pour some milk into a tall glass. I don’t mind that, either. Even though he has to yell over the ruckus of the coffee machine.

“So, as I said, you won’t be taking any active part in the ritual itself. Which is good news for you…”

“Bad news is I’m yet to be told what exactly it is that I WILL be doing,” I bang the microwave door shut with just a bit more force than intended. “And the person who does know keeps stalling. And it’s two hours till show time. And…”

“Which is exactly why I’m here. Look, there was no point in getting you all worked up too early. You’d try to practice things that can not be practiced, exhausting yourself to the point where you’re of no use to either of us. So we went over the first part of your job- holding up until I arrive- to the point where you’re decently capable. We’ll have one more rehearsal- just to remind you that you can do it. Anything further will be pure waste of energy.”

Just like arguing with him. I carefully remove the thin layer of film from the milk’s frothy surface and divide the rest of the steaming liquid between the two three-thirds-full coffee mugs. 

“Now, clear your mind,” he offers in exchange for his share of ghetto latte. “Just like we did yesterday.”

We carry the mugs back into the living room, but keep them cradled in our hands as we sit down on opposite ends of the couch- him slightly on the bias, me fully facing him with both feet tucked under my thighs. 

I wonder if he needs the comfort of the hot beverage as much as I do, or merely imitates my mannerisms to make me feel like less of a loser for needing it. Whatever the motive, it does help me feel a little bit better.

“We won’t be practicing all the techniques. Just go for the one that feels most natural. It’s a matter of instinct. The one you summon first is most likely the right one for you.”

Initially I reach for the blanket. Heaven knows I could use the warmth. The engulfing comfort of its cuddliness. 

“You’re useless!”

Not if I pull the comforter high enough over my head. If I make the down filling thick enough and the flannel cover soft enough.

“The operative word being ‘if.’ Hasn’t your whole life been about ‘ifs’? And unlikely ones, at that. When has anyone ever given you a ‘when’? Even a ‘maybe’ would be far more credit than you deserve.”

Polka dots. There’s a polka dot pattern on the cover. Pale mint on pastel yellow. And it smells of baby powder and fabric softener. 

Except the coffee fumes keep seeping through. I put the mug down, but it’s still all cheap coffee and stale snacks. And the leftover smell from dinner’s gravy. Aftershave I haven’t even noticed Devin was wearing. Dish soap from the kitchen and hand soap form the open bathroom. The cats’ sandboxes. 

“Has your mother ever argued with Deidre? About your pitiful prospects, your mediocre-at-best potential, your complete lack of aspiration and ambition? I bet she wanted to. Probably would, if it weren’t for her sincerity. Oh, and if she’s ever bothered to grow a spine, of course.”

Fresh Linen. That’s the scent mom has always used. Fresh Linen Bounce sheets, with a hint of lavender from the detergent. And it’s so gentle against my face. So soft it’s almost gauzy.

“Soft. That’s the one thing that could be told about her. Barely perceptible, really. Makes you wonder if she was even there in the first place.”

Too light, goddammit. I pull the fibres together with all my might, but the damned thing just won’t hold.

“Losing again, love. Color me shocked.”

I reach into the disintegrating cloud of linen-scented dust. My fingers are going right through. The sweat on my face starts mixing with tears. I’m only marginally aware of either. I reach harder, clench my fists shut. I think I hear myself grunt. Or is it a whimper?

All hope is flushed down the drain with a violent gurgle. My fists return empty. 

Except suddenly, they’re not. Not the right one, at least. There is something hard clutched there. Something cold, yet reassuring at the same time. Undeniably solid.

I extend my fingers around the rough pebble, letting it grow.

“But tell me, do you think your mama ever loved you? Are invertebrates even capable of love?”

Irrelevant. I have a rock now. You’re irrelevant. Nothing is relevant. It’s all rock. And, boy, is it grey, motherfucker. 

Before I know it, it’s too big to hold in one hand. Then too big for both. Vast beyond containing, albeit just as solid.

“Or is it just you that she couldn’t love? Not that I can blame…”

His voice grows faint, a dying whisper behind the ever-spreading slaty monolith. Anything beyond its bulky visage is losing substantiality with the speed of sugar dissolving in hot tea. In fact, the very existence of any objects allegedly positioned on the other side of the batholite wall- animate, inanimate or abstract- is at this point hypothetical at best.

The world is quietude. It’s sterile, thanatoid. And, oh, so reassuring.

I resent being jerked away from my little paradise. It’s a place of completeness, of uncompromised cleanliness- as secure as it is barren. Somewhere in a parallel universe, I semi-sense my shoulder muscles flex in an effort to shrug away the nudging sensation at the edge of my consciousness. 

Gentle at first, the pulling intensifies. It persistently grows in tenacity, culminating in a series of shakes so aggressive they seem to ripple all the way to my fingertips. 

My living room floats into view in a slow fade-in. Once it has regained some of its former solidity, Devin’s voice materializes somewhere within its washed-out boundaries.

“Perfect!” I think I hear a loud round of applause. “You were phenomenal this time!”

When the picture re-syncs with the sound I wonder if he’s been clapping with his butt-cheeks, because his arms are wrapped around me. 

I try to hate it. The tears are just embarrassment, I tell myself. Nonetheless, my arms hug him back. And my brain forms the word “friend.” 

I hate mind readers. 

Having wiped my eyes with the fingers of my right hand behind his back and smeared the resulting moisture into my left palm, I push him away with an air of callous practicality.

As he steps back he makes no effort to hide the excitement shining in his eyes. I don’t think anyone has ever been so proud of me. I’m pretty sure I’ve never made anyone proud, period.

Great, now he looks sad. Which makes me sad.

“OK, moment’s past, bro. Time to spill the beans. What do I do while you exorcise? It can’t be all rocking and blocking, now, can it?”

He sighs.

“That bad, huh? Come on, I know you need me as bait, this has been clear from the get go. I’m over it. Now let’s make it work. The one thing worse than being a bait is being a futile attempt to pose as one. Not to mention a dead one. You said so yourself.”

“And I meant it.” He tries so hard to sound cheerful I almost start crying again.

“Good. So how do I keep baby vamp busy while you de-demonize her?”

“It’s not a demon. Demons don’t possess people. Spirits possess…”

“Fine, de-spiritize it. Whatever. How do I do the baiting bit?”

“Actually, this is the easy part. You just stop fighting. Drop the rock, so to speak.” 

Another sigh.

“OK, what is it? Is depressing me some new tactic of defence against the dark arts?”

“Just…promise me you’ll try not to die.”

Now I am crying. Not because I’m afraid of dying, though I definitely am. It’s him really seeming to care that gets my face all leaky and sticky.

“Oh come on. You’ve barely known me for a couple of days.”

“You see, usually reading minds makes it a lot harder for me to get attached to people. But you- you’re different. You’re raw and abrasive and uncharming. Unbearable, really. But you tend to grow on people.”

“No I don’t,” I rub at my eyes angrily.

“You grew on me. You’re real- I like that. I like you.”

“Well, I hate you,” I stifle a little snuffle behind the most contemptuous frown I can muster. 

I’ve never really had any friends. Never really minded it, either. I guess somewhere deep inside I knew what it must feel like to realize you could lose one. 

Somewhere deep inside, I was wrong. It feels worse.

“Well, so we’ll just have to not get killed, right?” I break the silence, mostly to make him stop mind-reading me refer to him as a friend. 

His smile at the prospect is even more heartbreaking than his sighs.

“What happens once I stop fighting?”

“She resumes the feeding.”

Ask a silly question and you'll get a silly answer.

“Which gives you time to attack.”

“Which gives me time to get a hold of her physical body while you draw out the spirit.”

“Good. And it charges towards me. What do I do?”

“I won’t let it…”

“Got you. Lay back and think of England.”

“No. You think of the grey rock again. You need to block it the moment it’s out. Like you just did, no holding back.”

“So it’s forced to turn back on you.”

“Correct. Which is where, having safely imprisoned it within a psychic circle, I throw my banishing curse. And I pray. Literally.”

“Pray to whom?”

“To whoever listens. It’s the meaning beyond the words that counts. The lifeforce invested in them. That’s what gives every incantation its true power.”

Getting into action mode does wonders to his mood. His newly found enthusiasm is outright contagious, and before long we are both engaged in a high-spirited two-person huddle.

“Wait,” he stops me in mid-sentence as I lay down my plan to enter the room with the unicorn stickers at the ready- immediately to capture Joy’s attention while I summon the rock. “You got the crayons, did you?”

“Sure, but they’re not as exciting as glittery stickers…”

“No, no. For the circle. I’ll need to chart a physical circle as a base for the psychic one. Keep the stickers slightly out of her reach, so I can draw the circle in advance. Then you call the ghost. It will be a matter of seconds- you need to be ready to let go of the rock the moment I grab the child and set the possessing entity free. Think of something painful and lure it into the circle. The moment it’s inside, you step out and I lock it. Once you’re out of the circle, pick up the rock again. Complete emotional shutdown. You will know when to let go. It’s hard not to notice a hungry spirit leaving this world.”

“The timing will need some serious practice, and we don’t have much time. Or extra mojo to spare.”

“As for the mojo, we’ll have to dry practice. And we’ll have to make do with what time we have.”

“You should be writing motivational cards.”

“Might well consider a career change after today. If I make it.”

“Enough with the ifs. Let’s do some actual making it, shall we?”

Before my own if-generator reactivates, I start running around the apartment, carrying various objects into the living room. 

I fetch the crayons from the brown paper bag I’ve left on the floor earlier. Then I walk into the bedroom and grab my biggest stuffed teddy bear from the shelf.

“Joy,” I declare, handing the bear to Devin.

He nods his approval and picks up the crayon box with his free hand.

“No actual circles on my parquet,” I warn him as he takes out the green crayon. He nods again.

On the first run I drop my defences- a tiny mental stone, formed to conserve energy- a moment too late. As a result, the spirit supposedly drawn out of the teddy bear bounces back in. Then I act too soon and said spirit does not leave its host at all. When I do manage to drop the rock on time, I fail to reform it once the spirit is locked within an imaginary circle.

Five deaths and seven possessions between us later, we seem to have made the choreography work. By the end of the practice the teddy bear seems thoroughly traumatized. 

Even the cats are getting quite restless. Strangers with pizza are one thing. A weird football game that turns their habitat into a temporary close quarter battle zone- now that’s a different thing altogether. A cat needs to know where to draw the line.

We do one final round for good measure and then it’s time for the real thing.

“Take a few minutes to relax. I’d suggest a meditation, but whom are we kidding. Maybe take a quick shower- I always find those invigorating. I’ll meet you in the lobby in fifteen minutes.”

“How about a drop of whisk…”

“Don’t mind if I do. But just a tiny bit, we need to stay sharp.”

We sure do, but nowhere near as much as we need the whiskey. I pour us about half a shot each- a health boost for our nerves.

He winces as he swallows.

“If we both make it out in one piece…”

“When!” I knock my empty glass on the counter.

“After this demon moonshine?! Not so sure. Anyway, I’m getting you a bottle of decent stuff.”

“What’s wrong with Jameson?”

He merely shakes his head, gives me a quick pet on the shoulder and starts walking towards the door.

“Fifteen minutes,” he reminds me on his way out.

The shower does help. So does the whiskey- in spite of Devin’s harsh critique. I do, however, need to brush my teeth twice and chew on some coffee grounds to rid my breath of at least some distillery fumes. I hope the mixed punch of coffee and listerine is strong enough to conceal most of the stench. 

I put the crayons back in the bag, keeping them within reach, right next to the stickers. Then I make sure my T-shirt is clean and my sweatshirt is whole. I’ve even dug out my one pair of untorn jeans. 

One last sniff of my breath- 50% coffee, a whiff of mint and one hell of a prayer the rest goes unnoticed- and out I go.

Chapter IX

Feeding Them- Chapter VII

 To my further annoyance, the man in the doorway has managed to remetamorphose back to his painfully apologetic former self.

“You see, I just figured the best way to get you back in action would be getting you angry. And I guess it worked, right? I didn’t mean any of it, though. That is, I did mean the apology, of course. And everything I said about your therapist. But not the whining part. Sorry for that. And I promise that if you’re not comfortable with going back to Dr. Zamanhoff, we’ll help you find a new therapist the minute our work here is done.”

“Slap my ass and call me Sally! You’re that one little boy in the whole of human history who did stop crying over poor little Spot when mommy and daddy promised to get him another dog next Sunday.” 

"What a preposterous assumption! I’d never name my dog Spot."

He patiently awaits a grudging half smirk on my part before letting his own lips curl with some measure of timid relief.

“I bet you called him Asmodeus and forced him to wear a spiked collar. A fate befitting the Pomeranian that he doubtlessly was.”

His tension subsides in unison with my anger. The instantaneousness of his emotional responses is a little unnerving once you become aware of it. At the same time, I can’t help but appreciate how pleasingly harmonious it feels. Not quite the soulmate experience, but rather what you’d expect when collaborating with a highly competent like-minded colleague. 

“Madeleine,” he calls after me as I walk to the kitchen to make a fresh pot of coffee. “Her name was Madeleine. And she was a mixed golden retriever. She…”

I let the coffee maker’s noise cut him short, lest he forget his proper place in this house. A few minutes of good-natured banter do not absolve him from the status of an iscariotic shrink-corrupting mind-violating uninvited cult representative.

“The creamer is two month past the expiration date,” I yell towards the kitchen doorway. “There’s no milk, either. Sugar?”

The sugar is over four months past expiration, but it’s fucking sugar. Who even bothers to give it an expiration date, anyway?

Well-mannered asswipe that he is, Devin doesn’t yell back. Instead, he walks over to the kitchen entrance and politely declines the sugar in his indoor voice. Must have read the best-by date out of my brain. 

I make a point of having him see me add a heaped teaspoonful to my own mug. See? Not trying to poison you, prick.   

As another matter of principle, I pour his coffee into the mug reading “Uninvited Guest,” with a big cartoon fly on the front. Mainly because It’s probably my only chance to ever make use of the dumb joke. I wonder if being the type of person who’d own a mug like this automatically means you probably won’t be entertaining often enough to need it. Life is not a box of chocolates. It’s a big fat fucking paradox.

Devin accepts the mug with a careful Mona Lisa micro-smile. He manages to produce the exact angle signifying a circumspect appreciation of the gag with no risk of showing insolence. Nothing commands diplomatic prowess in one party like sporadic bouts of volcanic temper in the other.

I set my mug on one of yesterday’s stained coasters and clear away the mess of used up plates, napkins and half eaten crusts. 

Carrying the empty pizza box back to the kitchen feels a lot more awkward than it should. It’s not like he would have taken it with him last night, is it? There’s nothing wrong with not letting it go to waste in his absence. Except, of course, for the way I feel about having eaten it.

I do some rummaging around the kitchen and come up with a bag of gummy worms and some cheap-ass store-brand tortilla chips. Not quite the Ina Garten signature canape platter, but not altogether unreasonable as far as war room refreshments go, either.

I find Devin standing at the edge of the living room carpet, as if unsure of its intent to remain solid under his feet. I wonder if he’ll ever dare take off his shoes in a stranger’s house again.

“You’ve stepped on it yesterday, remember? Shoes on and all.”

Just like you’ve stepped all over my fucking life. 

Great, now I can blurt out thoughts without even voicing them.

He sighs. The first step seems to cost him. 

“Your mama used to beat the shit out of you, I bet.” My turn to do some unsolicited mind reading. 

The delay in his smile makes me flinch. I remind myself he’s probably just being manipulative again. And if not, what can I say? Plenty of shrinks out there. He said so himself. Unlike him, I haven’t limited his access to any of them.

“Here,” I shove the gummies at him as a compensation of sorts. Call it Spot 2.0.

He nods in some sort of general understanding. Good enough.

“So when is my playdate with little Claudia?” I rip the chips bag open. The air momentarily explodes in a yellowish mushroom cloud of MSG.

Devin pauses, head tilted to one side. He narrows his eyes in pained concentration. The rest of him tightens into a single coil of taut nerve and clenched muscle, every fibre straining to hear some subsonic vibe in the distance.

“They don’t seem to be decided on the night,” he says at last. His frown deepens. “I think they’re fighting again. It’s hard to tell. Too much psychic noise from the kid. Goddamned idiots! They’re practically dousing her with gasoline. The poor thing is about as stable as a tub of nitroglycerin, and she’s sucking in their negativity like a freaking black hole on steroids. An emotional Chernobyl waiting to happen. An implosion of such magnitude will suck the whole fucking city dry, and all these damned retards care about is whose unlaws are more of a nuisance and whose fault it is they no longer do family dinners.”

Until this very minute, I’ve barely thought him capable of polite annoyance. In his current state he’s fit to give me a run for my money. He doesn’t even flinch at his own shamefully non-PC use of the R word. I’m impressed to the point of near respect.

“Can’t you give them a little push, though?”

“As I’ve already said, I’m not all that good. Especially when it comes to um… ‘pushing.’ I’m a decent reader, a good enough empath, if you like. But I neither excel in- nor ever want to master- the art of mind control. To put it mildly, this practice makes me rather uncomfortable.”

“Yet you were OK with brain-violating my shrink into doing your bidding.”

“Not my bidding. And it wasn’t my handiwork, either. Plus, I was far from OK with the whole thing. It was necessary, yes. But no amount of necessity could ever make me like it. In fact, even adepts actually specializing in the area do not usually like it. And may the gods save us from the ones who do.”

“Well, this one sounds pretty damn necessary to me, don’t you think? What, with the mini-Armageddon you’ve only just predicted and all. Is there absolutely nothing you can do? A teeny-tiny polite suggestion- say about half a xanax worth of chill, just so they don’t make baby Wurdulac go nuclear kablooey?”

“Easy for you to say. Especially with baby Wurdulac gobbling up every bit of psychic force projected that way. And no, before you even ask, there’s no way I can affect her directly. So long as the Outsider is attached to her, the girl is absolutely off limits. Unless I want my soul devoured with no possibility of reboot. Which, thank you very much, I can do without.” 

“OK, I get it- the fuck with the girl for now. What does it cost you to at least give the parents a try? If you’re as bad as you claim, the potential for any harm coming of it is insubstantial at best. While any amount of success can buy us some more time before the implosion, right?”

“Wrong. On both counts. First of all, the amount of energy required for even the subtlest of suggestions from an unskilled manipulator such as myself is immense. Potentially debilitatingly so. The consequence being, I won’t be able to perform the ritual needed to neutralize the menace in the long run. So to delay the implosion by an hour or two, I’ll need to spend myself to the point where I can no longer prevent it, thus accomplishing absolutely nothing. And then there is the problem of the AZ-5 button, if we stick to the Chernobyl analogy.”

“Are you implying that your control rod is poorly designed and graphite-tipped?”

“Yeah, and tends to cause an initial spike in reactivity upon insertion.”

“And there I thought you were just happy to see me. Well, at least we’ve established you have good taste in TV shows. Now what?”

“Actually, it’s all from a bunch of non-fiction works I’ve been reading about the accident and its aftermath. Never even watched the show. I undertook this little scholastic initiative, trying to investigate possible psychic involvement in the coverup and the overall suicidal compliance with which the authorities’ criminal incompetence and indifference were met. As expected, the amount of available information is negligible. But from the little I did manage to scrape up, reality is much scarier than I suspected. There was nothing supernatural about the Communist regime. Just the plain old unholy trinity of ignorance, cowardice and good intentions.”

“That’s humanity to you. I bet if any of them demons and dibbuks and body-snatchers and the likes had even an inkling of what a witless self-destruction mechanism we are as a species they’d never bother with us in the first place.”

“Unfortunately, many of them don’t have much of a choice. We are the only life form compatible with most of these entities, be they Outsiders or earth-bound. Animal possession is rare, and usually can neither be maintained for long nor enable the possessing agent act beyond the scope of said animal’s mental capacity.”

“So David Berkowitz was bluffing?”

“No, poor old Harvey was genuinely possessed- unquestionably, inexplicably and almost irredeemably so. It was one of the most perplexing and most trying cases in The Brotherhood’s history. The pooch nearly had to be put down. Would be, without a shadow of a doubt, if it weren’t for Reverend Albert Brady. A man of immense strength and equally unparalleled compassion, arguably one the most valuable assets to ever have stood in our ranks. He was a regular Dr. Dolittle of the psychic variety. Not only did he get the lab back on his feet in no time, he sent the parasite all the way to the far end of Oblivion. Bound it there for good, too.”  

“And judging from said virtuoso’s absence here, at the site of an unavoidably looming cataclysm, I assume his expertise is no longer at our disposal?”

“Not unless you have a ouija board. Figuratively speaking, that is. These things are pure charlatanry.”

“Yeah, didn’t think they actually took collect calls out there. Though I for one would have cooperated, if I were a ghost. Just as a prank. Wait! Prank calls! Eureka, motherfucker!”

I’m astounded at my own genius to the point of near suffocating on a cherry flavored red and green striped worm.

“We can’t prank them into leaving…” Devin argues while I finish exhaling chunks of Christmas-colored gummy through my nose. I sneeze enough thought fractures along with the candy to silence him.

“It will only be a partial prank,” I explain once my breathing is somewhat restored. “We buy them movie tickets- actual tickets, to whatever rom-com is showing now. Something saccharinely trashy, the kind couples tend to watch when they want to pretend they’re not on the verge of a breakup. Tomorrow evening. There’s no chance they go out today if the fight is really that bad. But we do call them today, pretending we’re some cable provider or telecom operator or something. Tell them they won this lottery. Give them a reservation number they can check online, so they see the whole thing is legit.”  

He takes a contemplative sip of coffee, slowly nodding his approval.

“I’ll need some help to assuage their suspicion, though. Not so much of a push, but rather a tiny stir in the right direction. Is this something you can do?”

He gives the no-longer-steaming sludge a little swirl around the mug, studying the resulting pattern for some hidden sign from the powers that be.

“I can certainly try,” he says at last. 

After another pause, accompanied by exasperated hand gestures on my part, he finally puts down his mug and deigns to elaborate. 

“Instances of mild suggestion over the phone are not unheard of,” he muses pensively. “In fact, it’s one of the only ways to bypass an emotophage’s vortex. A voice transmitted over telephone lines- by cable or by means of long-distance wireless communication- may have some limited effect on the receiver, but only when physically heard. It doesn’t affect other people in the same room if they can’t hear it.” 

“I guess you should be the one to call, then.” 

“Agreed. It will also be more convincing in the purely natural sense. Sad as it may sound in our day and age, most traditionally-minded individuals still tend to be more inclined to trust male figures. And yeah, other than giving birth to the Antichrist’s little sister, the Coopers are about as progressive as Ann Coulter and Peggy Noonan playing Bingo over Chick-fil-A at a church potluck.”

“Got you. There goes my plan to sign them up for the latest Fifty Shades of Abusive Scum sequel.”

“Have they made a fourth one?”

“Not as far as I know,” I make a mental note to mock his interest in the franchize at some point in the future.

“Well, that answers that, then, doesn’t it?”

He seems somewhat disappointed at the prospect of no new installation in the Fifty Shades series coming out this Valentine’s Day. 

As for me, I’m mostly bummed out at the missed opportunity to send a couple of Fox-watching, casserole-gobbling psalm quoters for a date at a sleazy erotiflick.

We end up picking something heartwarmingly moronic with Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson. Let the poor fucks have some dimwitted ignodrama syrup with a large side of vapid schmalz to soften the blow of their crumbling marriage. They can even have one last go at that corny hand sweat exchange thing everyone pretends to like. I heard that stale movie popcorn goes well with suppressed mutual disgust.

I suddenly realize how much better off they may be if we fuck up. All the angry farewell shags they want and no custody battle.

“Not if it’s the really bad kind of fucking up,” Devin spills a bucketful of of dog piss all over my rare little bout of optimism as he reaches for his phone. “Then they still have a screwy little psychobitch for a kid, plus one unanchored and hella pissed off murdergeist. Not to mention two mangled corpses to explain to the authorities.”

“Much obliged, Little Miss fucking Sunshine. Do you also do bar mitzvahs?”

“They never let me in. My humor is too unorthodox for them.”

He dials. I half open my mouth to ask where he got the number, but quickly figure out I’d rather not know. 

“Whitepages.com,” he mouths, covering the phone with his hand.

I’m quite happy to take him at his word. 

I am not, however, happy to see him nervously fidget with an unused coaster. One can almost smell the awkwardness floating across the room like a big malodorous cloud of diseased flatulence. I pretend to need the bathroom, knowing that while Devin wouldn’t buy it, I can no longer withhold the urge to punch him if we stay in the same room.

The man who’s just been sassily bantering with me dissolves into a pathetic blob of self-deprecation. He responds to my discomfort with an apologetic spasm transforming his physiognomy into the most Glasgow-kissable mug to ever have graced God’s earth.

To my surprise, though, just as I reach for the bathroom door he manages to pinch his vocal cords into a deep, authoritative “hello.” Have I not looked into his petrified hare’s stare five seconds earlier, I’d be checking my living room for Jon Hamm. 

No longer in need of a soundproof sanctuary, I can enjoy the audio from behind the corner, protected from his expression by the partial wall. 

Though unintelligibly faint, the voice on the other end sounds exasperated to the point of near violence. I think it’s male, but it’s hard to tell from where I stand. Whoever it is, they seem eager to finish the conversation and go back to a rudely interrupted marital fight.

Nonetheless, Devin doesn’t seem to have much trouble keeping the other party engaged in the conversation. We are, after all, raised in the spirit of polite hypocrisy. Even towards bothersome strangers infringing on our personal time in the sanctity of our homes. Unlike the infringement itself, hanging up on the perpetrator is considered rude. It’s one of these peculiarities of human nature that will always remain a mystery to me. Along with baby showers and office happy hours.

“No sir, I assure you, this is entirely free of charge. Just a small thank you gift for our loyal customers. Exactly! Right you are, sir,” He lets out a hearty power-chuckle. Though bubbling to the brim with synthetic amiability, the sound is bone-chillingly reassuring.  

“And this, my good man, is the very essence of our company policy. When it boils down to it, isn’t it all about family? Truer words have never… Yes, now let me read out the confirmation number for you. No, no. No catch,” another comradely chortle. “Cross my heart.”

He reads out the booking number from the tab still open on my screen.

“And it can, of course, be confirmed on the theatre’s website. Yeah, one would think so. And we did, back in the early 2000s. Huge mistake. See, back then the giveaway was held among new subscribers, and we ran it as a nationwide customer recruitment campaign. Well, guess what. Once word hit national TV, everyone saw themselves entitled to win.”

I’m not sure I like where this is going. Why can’t he just hang up? I hurry back into the room, motioning for him to stop sabotaging our goddamned endeavour. His eyes follow my finger’s slicing motion across my neck, but the mouth below them keeps on running. 

“Sure, you do, and I do, but most people just don’t get the whole concept of a giveaway. Which is why, this time around we drew the winners from among our established client base and let them know in private. No, of course the giveaway itself was announced all over our website. All information was available to the public up to the very point when the names were entered into a random name picking tool. So technically, it was not kept secret. The announcement was only removed after the winners were drawn.”

Shit. Now he’s really pushing our luck. It would take a complete idiot to buy a pile of bullcrap this high. 

Though increasingly pressing, my gesticulated cease and desist pleas remain unheeded. Another ounce of urgency, and the next neck-cutting gesture will end in self-decapitation.

“One hundred tickets in all. Out of…” he makes a few clicks on the keyboard. “One hundred and sixty mollion, sir. Yes, indeed, very lucky.”

I miss the urge to punch him. All I can do at this point is hold my head between my hands and crouch behind the wall, pretending none of this has ever happened. It’s like the worst possible instance of stupid protagonist syndrom, except in real life and with our own goddamned safety at stake. And a possibly lethal exorcism as a best case scenario- a scenario whose likelihood is dwindling by the second in favor of an unknown, but almost definitely lethal, worst case scenario.

And then, all of a sudden it’s “thank you, sir,” and “good night, sir,” and “enjoy your movie date.” It’s over. 

I slowly extract my face from between my knees.

“What has just happened?”

I open one eye at a time. Just a slit at first, as if careful not to blind myself with second hand embarrassment.  

“I think I might have pushed him a little too hard.” He starts blabbering the second the pressure of the call drops. “I’ve never done this by phone... wasn’t sure how much force is needed. It didn’t seem like he’d listen at first, so I had to press some extra buttons. May have somewhat overdone it with the curiosity, tuned his willingness to hear me out to the maximum. He just wouldn’t let go. The bastard wanted to know everything, so I had to improvise. Badly. Good thing I leaned just as hard on his gullibility. And then tickled his serotonin receptors just a tad, as a little finishing touch.”

If I could whistle, this would be a good time to test my prowess. 

“Unskilled my ass, bitch!”

“Mediocre at best, really,” he shakes his head dismissively, as disinclined to accept the praise as I am to give it. “I’m very bad at concentrating the energy I emit. Turns out, the phone can serve as a focusing lens. An extremely potent one, as that. Mr. Cooper’s own agitated state also helped. Emotional strain is a well known susceptibility-increasing factor. It acts like a stretch of sorts, pulling and disrupting the proper alignment of one’s mental defenses, thus weakening their resistance to suggestion.”

“Yeah, we all love us a humblebragging motherfucker. Any chance this susceptibility is temporary, though? As in, Cooper just hung up with the thought ‘what the fuck has just happened to my brain and how do I undo this?’”

“The susceptibility better be temporary. Otherwise it would be a sign of severe mental trauma. The conviction, on the other hand, should hold. Though involuntary, the suspension of disbelief was not extreme enough to dissipate once the conversation is over. Plus, there is empirical evidence involved- the tickets are valid. As for the improvised pseudo-legal nonsense, I may have done a little something to make it less… memorable, so to speak. I would have done so even if it weren’t for the risks involved should Cooper start, rightfully, doubting this bunch of baloney. Out of sheer shame for my ignorance.”  

“Understandable.” 

“Oh, come on! As if you would do any better on such short notice with no pause button, a copy of Corporate Law for Dummies and leisure to browse Askalawyer.com.”

“Nope. But I was not the one on the phone, ergo cannot be credited with any of the intellectual gems that emerged during the exchange.” 

“Brilliant. You’re freakin’ welcome.”

“For blitzing me with vicarious embarrassment and topping it off with a near heart attack? I am, indeed, all choked up with gratitude, forcing away tears of elation. Now dare I request that the kind sir extend his generosity even further, and shed some light on my role in tomorrow’s exorcism?”

He bites the head off a gummy worm to keep mine intact.

“Depends. One of us, I would assume, wants you to come back from the mission in one piece, inside your original body and with no uninvited passengers on board. My advice to said individual is to keep direct engagement to the barest necessary minimum.”

“And how, pray tell, does one do that while babysitting?”

“Excellent point. And you’ve got no idea just how tempted I am to let you face this near-impossible conundrum head on, all by yourself, and then mock whichever method you choose to solve it. Except I’d be mocking a dead person. Or worse.”

“I admire your munificence. So what do I do?”

“You get there at the nick of time, so the parents have to rush out the moment you walk in the door. To make up for your tardiness, you show up bearing a bunch of educational puzzles and activity books, mumbling something about how you got delayed because you had such a hard time picking just a few, so you ended up bringing them all so little Joy can choose for herself…”

“Charming. One little caveat, though: A bitch is broke.”

He’s standing up before I’m done talking, reaching in his side pocket to dig out a simple black wallet.

“Courtesy of The Brotherhood,” he clarifies, handing me a crisp one hundred dollar bill. 

Wouldn’t ever dream of taking any of his personal money. A little T&E, compliments of the cultporate finance department, on the other hand- that’s fair game and then some. May even…

“Keep the change. For your troubles and such. Get some milk, maybe. Just make sure to get enough educational crap to make a parent believe themselves when they say they did their best.”

“OK, so I get there late. I piss off the Coopers even further by pretending I care about their kid more than they do. Then what?”

“You keep your emotions contained until I show up. I’ll wait in the hallway, one floor up from their apartment, so you should be able to hold your own for the time it takes me to come down.”

“What do you mean ‘keep my emotions contained’?! Should I maybe put my heartbeat on hold as well, while I’m at…”

My phone interrupts me with its infernally cheerful default ringtone, sparing me the trouble to attempt the latter by doing it for me.

At this rate I may start thinking I’m popular or something. 

“Good evening. Am I talking to Ms. uum…”

“Amber. Just Amber will do.”

Of course. I almost forgot about this tiny detail. Babysitters, just like vampires, need to be invited.

“Amber, right,” Mr. Cooper sounds by far less agitated than his echo did less than ten minutes ago. Even his awkwardness isn’t all that bad. Kind of cheerful, even. Endearing, if awkwardness ever was. “My name is Edmund Cooper. I got your number from a mutual acquaintance. Dr. Robert Zamanhoff. I’m not sure whether he got the chance to talk to you since…”

“Oh sure, Bobbie just had lunch with my old man the other day. You must be that friend of his that Pa told me about. The one looking for a babysitter, right? Was so excited to hear that! Been badgering him with questions ever since, but he never bothers to get any details I care about. And Bobbie’s not answering the phone. Probably got patient appointments back to back all day. So I’m so glad you called, Mr. Cooper! But gosh, am I blabbering! So sorry about that!”

Never thought I was such a natural. Someone give me that naked golden dude all the A listers are after, dammit. 

“Oh, wow. It’s so nice to meet someone this passionate about their job nowadays!” His chuckle sounds a tad more uneasy than he probably intended. For once, I don’t mind the awkwardness, though. I guess some small part of me wanted to creep him out just a little. 

“You’ve got no idea, Mr. Cooper! I love what I do. You’re right, though. So few can say they do, in this day and age…”

“So true. So true. But please, call me Edmund.”

“You got it, Edmund. So tell me about the kid.”

Other than the vampiric possession part, that is.

“Right,” he clears his throat with the air of a surgeon facing the family of his latest professional failure. “Well, Joy... she is… She’s not like other kids. I mean, she needs some getting used to, you know what I mean? She’s very shy, sensitive. But her heart is in the right place. We wouldn’t have her any other way, God bless! Such a precious little girl. She’s just a little different, that’s all.”

“Oh, but aren’t all the little girls and boys different from each other? That’s what makes them the darling little angels that they are. Every child is unique, and beautiful in his or her way.”

I swear I wasn’t born a sadistic bitch. I blame it on a lifetime of disappointments and a low-vitamin diet. I didn’t even mean to torture him when I first picked up the phone. I’m not a bad person, really. I just have a low resistance to the temptations of tragic irony. Gods, do I wish I didn’t find it so comical.

My wish gets granted when poor Ed gets all choked up on me. Should have known better by now. I’m not good with wishes.

“Thank you. Thank you so much, Amber,” he does his best to keep his voice steady. Despite all his efforts, It’s nowhere near steady enough to prevent me from feeling like a total piece of shit. “Thank you and bless you for your kind words. It… You have no idea how much they mean to me.”

I hate him for the guilt his maudlin exclamations force on me. Hate him enough to want to hurt him some more. I solemnly vow I will do no such thing.

“Oh, but I mean it. Every child is a blessing. As you surely knew when you named her Joy. I can hardly wait to see for myself what a perfect bundle of joy she is.”

I’m not very good with solemn vows, either. 

Devin makes a little sound, not unlike Snickerdoodle’s pre-hairball emission cough. I’m not sure whether he’s laughing or cringe-gasping. I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say both. If I had balls I’d kick myself in them. Or Devin would, if he had any himself.

Ed grows silent for a whole minute. That’s better. Now I can pity him without wanting to give myself more reasons to do so. I wonder if that’s what compassion always feels like.

“All right then, when can I start?” I hope he doesn’t take my pretence at cheerful practicality for the indifference that it truly is. 

“I… yes, of course…” he doesn’t quite snap out of it. It’s more like he locates the exit sign and starts crawling in the right direction. He coughs some of the dismay out of his voice and starts afresh. “Actually, for now, I… we thought of a one-time thing. For the time being, that is. To see how you guys get along, you know? Not that I doubt your competence or anything…”

Not very wise of you, Eddie boy. Not wise at all

“Of course, I understand. It only makes sense. No worries whatsoever. So when should I clear my schedule?” 

“Right. Umm… How about tomorrow evening? Can you make it on such short notice?”

“Sure, otherwise parents would have no date nights, would they? No problem. Just say when.”

“Will half past eight be OK?”

“Definitely. I will be there.” Then, realizing how royally I have almost fucked up: “I’ll just need the address.” 

Another act of the farce is complete.

“You’re mean.” Devins' voice carries enough disdain to rekindle my shame, but not to cancel out the savage spark of admiration in his eyes. For a moment there I almost like him.

“I don’t know what came over me. It’s like I was the one being possessed. Wait! What if…”

“Nope. This one is all natural. It’s called assholery.”

“Are you sure? It really felt like…”

“All you. I would have felt a foreign influence.”

I’m somewhat disturbed to sense a mild glow blossom somewhere deep inside me, behind a thin layer of shame. It feels suspiciously reminiscent of pride.

“We do, however, need to make sure she doesn’t get to you tomorrow. You must tune down some of this crazy emotional mega-shitstorm you’re radiating 24/7.”

“OK then, let me just find the Off switch.”

“Ever thought of getting yourself a freaking stand-up show? No? Good. You’d be the flop of the century. What I mean is I will teach you some simple tricks so you can temporarily tune it down. Got any further smartassery regarding my suggestion, or would you rather shut up and get a chance to live past tomorrow evening? Just what I thought.”

Thus, for once, I do the smart thing: I shut my mouth and learn. 

Or at least I try to. The “simple” part turns out to be a lie so blatant it would make a politician blush. The next four hours are a bitter montage of abject failures.

“Nope. I still hear your every thought. Not even muffled. And you wish my mom let you do that to her. She’s way out of your league.”

At this point I’m practically panting with effort, my tee-shirt drenched through with hot, angry sweat.

I exhale another gust of anatomically-themed epithets at my hapless tutor’s ancestral lineage and try to refocus my attention on the cursed image of a nondescript chunk of granite.  

“That’s right, focus on it. Keep your mind on the rock.”

By the hundredth time or so this part becomes almost manageable. I can see every crevice on the lifeless form’s grey surface. Every crater agape with sterile indifference, every protrusion stands monument to nonexistence in a landscape of drab bleakness. 

“Good. Make it even plainer. Let it bore you.”

I make it smoother, its greyness more uniform. I leave nothing to catch the eye. Motionless, shapeless, featureless - yet the sole focus of my attention all the same. There is nothing else to look at.

“Excellent! Your best grey rock so far. Now comes the tricky part.”

I lock my jaw and squeeze my eyes shut twice as hard, adamant not to let the rock slip through.

“Don’t you ever wonder,” he begins slowly, almost gently, “what it would feel like not to be a clusterfuck on steroids? For just a minute?”

Grey rock. Just a grey fucking rock. Nothing to see here, no fun to be had. The epitome of barrenness. Voidness voider than void. The ultimate...

“... nothing to hope for. It’s not even about how you’ve always been an underachiever, you know. It’s not a crime to fail. You’re worse than a mere loser. You don’t even bother to try. You’re a parasite. A leech so odious no foot will touch you long enough to crush you under.”

Still grey. Still lifeless. No leech could ever survive here. Not on my rock.

“Ask Deidre what it’s like to have you as her personal tapeworm.”

I grit my teeth. The rock gives a tiny quiver but remains intact.

“Of course, she does take some pleasure in pushing your buttons. It is in her blood, after all. But can you blame her? She’s just charging a little fee for her services as an emotional invalide’s financial crutch.”

What do you mean in her bl… no! Grey rock. Think of the fucking rock. There is no blood in rock.

Except there is. A barely perceptible dribble, oozing through a microscopic hairline crack. There didn’t used to be any cracks there. I strain my mind to mend it shut. The bleeding stops. The fracture remains.

“That’s right, that’s how you bleed her of her money. With nothing to show for it but ingratitude and petulance. Every effort on her part is met with another load of glorious fuck-uppery.”

Another crack, forking out into a double trickle of brownish-red syrup. 

No! Hold it, dammit! You’re a fucking rock, for fuck’s sake…

One branch of the fissure narrows momentarily, only to grow back to twice its original width and burst into an entire network of fine red lines. 

Grey! Go back to grey! 

We meet halfway, somewhere between washed out salmon-clay and milky puce.  

“Makes one wonder: who’s the vampire now? Didn’t know parasitism could be mutual. I guess that’s what happens when one stupid slut gets knocked up by two pieces of shit. One half-vampire, one half-scumbag, and one whole happy dysfunctional family.”

I hold the violently quaking rock in a pair of mental hands just as shaky, trying to cover the widening cracks with slippery blood-sweaty fingers.

“So it would be a total of four exploitative assholes using and dumping your mom in her lifetime. Guess she’s better off, now that she’s all alone.”

The rock shatters in a violent explosion of dust and gore. 

I can feel the sharp shreds hit my face with a sting that is all too real. Devin recoils with a small involuntary blink. He does his best to conceal his reaction, but by now I know for a fact that the rock, and the resulting debris, is as tangible to him as it is to me. If not more so.

He wipes an invisible splatter just above his left eyebrow and looks at his watch.

“Six minutes. That’s an improvement, I guess,” his expression conveys none of the optimism implied by the statement. 

“You guess?! It took you twice as long to get to me this time! I’ve managed to hold off the attack for six whole minutes, dammit!”

“Which is better than you did an hour ago. But nowhere near good enough. Again.”

It takes me another hour and forty minutes to raise my time all the way to thirteen minutes. And it doesn’t end with the rock either. After the Grey Rock comes the Fuzzy Blanket defence. And don’t even get me started on the Warm Fog and the Steaming Engine. 

By the time we yawn our goodbyes - sometime between Witching-Hour-thirty and stupor-o’clock - I’m ready for my Hogwarts acceptance letter. 

Would have gotten it too, hadn’t the stupid owl kamikazed into a nearby power pole at some point during my exhaustion-induced ten-hour coma. Just as well, I guess. Would be hella awkward to sit in a classroom full of magically enhanced prepubescent pimple-cushions.

I dream of graphite and rubies.

Chapter VIII

Feeding Them - Chapter VI

I wake up with the first rays of dawn, too numb to marvel at the notion of slumberless awakening.

Staying in bed seems to make less sense than leaving it, so I shuffle over to the living room. I have no particular purpose in mind other than moving my limbs. Some days are just not made for motionlessness. 

The curtains are still drawn and the place is cavernously gloomy. The stuffy air reeks of stale beer and pizza. 

I open the window, eyes pointedly averted from the view outside. Then, having let in some fresh air, I drag my nightsweat-sticky ass to the shower.

One full body coverage third degree burn later, I’m ready to start reacknowledging my affiliation to humankind. It feels nice in the first minute or so. The scent of soap and minty flavor of toothpaste, the fresh breeze from the open window. With yesterday’s staleness dissipated, the smell of cold pizza is light and unobtrusive. A pleasant reminder of yesterday’s delight.

But it’s not yesterday. 

Yesterday I was making progress. I was doing it at my own slow pace and following my own crooked trajectory, but I had some vague perception of the objective ahead and the means at my disposal. Yesterday I had an ally. Yesterday I had hope. 

Today I have nothing. It’s my first day with absolutely no one to trust- this time for real.

I feel like a child finally meeting an actual monster after years of stubbornly dreading the shadows under the bed. I miss the shadows.

Now what? The question reverberates from every corner of my newly awakened personal void. 

I need to cancel the next appointment, for one thing. And the one after it. But what then? Can I ever face my therapist again? And what do I tell him, anyway?

“Sorry, some psychic creeps used your energy-sucking propensity as a means of getting to me and then mind-controlled you into sending me to babysit a vampire. So I can’t be seeing you anymore, alright? So glad we reached an understanding. Been a pleasure. Toodeloo!”

I see how something along these lines could put an abrupt ending to our meetings. I also see how it should prompt him to strongly recommend involuntary commitment. Good luck mentally pushing the nice young men with their clean white coats into letting me go. Ha ha.

And it’s not like I’m all stable and dandy and can go without treatment right now. Or bring myself to confide in another therapist. I get sick to my stomach at the very thought of telling my entire life story anew just so some well meaning ignoramus could peel away healing scar tissue to see where it hurts. Sisyphic doesn’t even begin to cover it. Not unless you layer the slope with loose lego pieces. And throw in a pair of ankle cuffs while you’re at it.

The cats are taking turns bumping into my legs as I pace from the living room to the kitchen and back. The little beasts are confused at their food bowls’ refusal to fill up in spite of the biped’s apparent wakefulness. 

When the meowling finally outvolumes my thoughts I give in to the pressure. Who cares if they get used to ridiculously early feeding times. It’s not like I haven’t been waking up at the buttcrack of dawn recently anyway. 

They tuck their muzzles unceremoniously into each other’s bowl, lifting their butts at me in what I want to interpret as some peculiar display of feline gratitude. If tails were signal flags, though, I’m pretty sure the fuzzy dicks would be signaling something between “it’s about time, bitch” and “now fuck of.”  

I’m ready to resume my brood-pacing when I notice a small white rectangle on the floor by the door. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t there back when the cats assumed the task of corralling me into the kitchen.

I pause and listen. It’s hard to tell with all the crunching and munching sounds from the kitchen- one would think a small pride of mountain lions has taken habitat in there- but the hallway outside seems quiet. 

I tiptoe towards the door, deminer-style, one careful step at a time. As I approach, I make a point of giving the envelope as wide a berth as the apartment’s size permits. The poor piece of stationary could as well be an open bear trap, ready to snap shut the second I so much as tap it with my toe.

When I finally manage to take a peek through the peephole, the hall looks just as empty as it sounds. 

Then again, It would make little sense for the little shit to just stand there, waiting for me to pick the damn thing up. He can sense my response from the comfort of his own apartment just as clearly.

Joke’s on him, then. I’ll be damned if I give him the pleasure.

Now I only need to bring myself to dispose of the abominable thing. I tell myself it’s only the reluctance to touch it that prevents me from throwing it away. Nothing to do with curiosity. Or fear. Or hunger for communion. 

Shit, It’s like Colridge’s fucking albatros. And I didn’t even shoot it to deserve its burden around my neck. 

Fuck you, Devin. Why did you have to tell me the triple-buggered truth about my shrink? Just to unburden your slimy ballless excuse of a conscience? Why don’t you take a dump on my living room carpet, since you’re so keen on thoughtless unburdenings and reckless sabotage.

No wonder you joined some batshit lonely virgin cult. I bet not a whole lot of folks appreciate your charming tendency to stomp all over people’s lives with all the grace of a rabid hippopotamus. Even the sad looneys in the Brotherhood probably don’t think you’re all that and a bag of chips. They only suffer you out of guilt, because they know you can read every bit of contempt they harbor towards you. Well, read this, bitch.

Great, now I have to make up even more lies to feed myself with the leftover pizza. That I do not regret any of the telepathic abuse I just sent his way. That he deserves every last bit of it. That sympathy should be reserved for people who don’t go around kicking crutches from under the mentally infirm. And my all time favorite- the one about how I can totally handle this on my own.

The air behind the curtain tingles with some kind of an alien out-of-body itch. Like a phantom limb whose live counterpart is secretly kept over ice in a remote lab. 

I can’t recall ever being prone to emotional eating. Desperate times, however, call for desperate face-stuffing. Id est, doing my damnedest to fill up every cubic nanometer of my head with cold pizza.

Well, what do you know. There’s always room for another slice of existential anxiety. Between the window and the envelope, I regret not buying these horse blinders Aliexpress keeps offering me every time I order another sports bra and a dozen washi tape rolls. I also wish there was a formula to determine how far the enemy of my enemy maxim can be stretched before it snaps and hits you in the face like an overstressed rubber band.

With my stomach full, I can also tell myself it could be worse. This one is not a lie: I’ve only lost the healthy half of my emotional support mechanism. Imagine if he came after what really matters- pushed me into signing up for some kind of AA meetings. Now that’s some brutal shit for you. In the nightmare arena, “no beer” annihilates “no shrink” every time. Clean knockout.

On the other hand, people try to take away your booze all the time. Nothing says “I give a shit” like badgering your kith and kin about their drinking habits. Sometimes the whole world turns into one big prohibitionist propaganda platform. 

Psychotherapy, on the other hand, is wholesome. Everyone loves self-analysis, self-betterment, even an occasional dose of self-pity, so long as a professional is involved. Having that taken away from you is like getting a slap on the wrist for doing your homework. What kind of monster does that?

One less dangerous than the one across the street.

Bored with the trivial mundanity of digestion, my innards turn to a new and exciting career path as an incubator for the grandmother of all stomach aches. Fucking cold pizza.

I exchange the rhythmic comfort of mastication for the partial anesthesia induced by mindless channel flipping. It’s all morning shows and news briefings. I try to avoid the latter, mostly out of habit. A good practice when every unexplained fatality may well be another smear of blood on one’s already closely painted poppy-red palms. A necessary one when said person is teetering on the edge of guilt-ridden psychosis.  

Today, however, it’s the former that actually get to me. Channel after channel, a generic blonde used-to-be is praising the merits of mindfulness and emotional spring cleaning. Energy draining individuals got to go. Beware of toxic people, here’s how to send them on their merry way without contracting their negativity. And of course, always seek professional help. 

Have the assholes in the Brotherhood actually gone as far as brainraping Lara Spencer and Hoda Kotb just to fuck with me a bit further? I’m appalled at just how non-ridiculous the thought has become. 

Hoda (or one of the other two dozen or so typecast replicas from farther down the assembly line) is currently beaming at a motivational speaking guru type in rimless Steve Jobs glasses and a smug mandarin collar peasant shirt. The lower third identifies the man as one “Malcolm Ruthenberg, PhD, Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Virginia Commonwealth University.” I identify him as a douchebag. 

The PhDouche keeps fiddling with a classic micro-dick Rolex protruding conspicuously from under one rolled up organic flax linen sleeve. I’ve never thought anyone could fidget with an accessory in a manner that makes them look more confident, rather than less so. I guess it’s hard to appear bashful while showing off a five digit Rolex. I’m willing to bet my last pair of matching socks that the thing is inscribed with words of insipid flattery form an obsequious body of secretly spiteful faculty peers or openly adulating students.

If Prototype-Hoda was an Irish setter she’d be passionately licking her nether parts and urinating excessively at the prospect of such proximity to the guru’s grandeur. Being the humble homo-sapiens that she is, she merely leers at the be-Rolexed specimen with glazed-over eyes and infatuatedly echoes his platitudes with bovine zeal.  

“Think about it from this perspective,” Ruthenberg lets go of the 18K gold links to free both palms for the white male’s oldest bluff gesture of open relatability. “We all want to protect our physical body from toxins. Don’t we?”

“We all do, Malcolm. Of course we do,” the one-woman choir chants back. “Of course we do.” 

The guru nods approvingly. I half expect him to throw her a treat and scratch her behind the ears while she gobbles it down.

“We read our nutrition labels and watch our carbs, right? We buy organic. We stay away from GMOs.” The audience cheers. I hold my head with both hands so it doesn’t bang itself to shreds against the coffee table. “We all love our clean green juices, like the one our lovely Lauren showed us how to make today, right?” 

The camera pans out to reveal the studio’s kitchen area, where an emaciated hominid with a pre-melanoma tan grins at the audience from behind a glimmering steel-topped counter.

“So why do we let all this emotional toxicity into our lives?” He produces the most predictable rabbit corpse to ever be pulled out of a topheat. 

The host is obediently ecstatic. I have a strong urge to feed her some real non-GMO produce, unengineered for edibility. Just to make her puke out Ruthenberg’s organic kool-aid right back into his shit-eating arrogant mug. 

“Now, I know cutting ties with people is not easy. Especially when some of these people are our friends or relatives. There is a lot of shame involved. We let people down. We break fundamental social norms. We’ve always been taught to be nice, to be polite. After all, there is a reason why we form ties in the first place, right? Society depends on these ties, and we depend on society. Bottom line is, we benefit from bonding with others. So why hang on to relationships that not only fail to benefit us, but do the complete opposite? Relationships that use up our vital energy, giving us nothing in return? Relationships that pipe us with poison? Don’t we owe it to ourselves to cut such people loose?”  

The audience explodes. The camera zooms in on a young woman in the front row, clutching a tiny crucifix pendant on a thread-thin silver chain over the front of a hideously sensible orange cardigan. She raises a shaking hand to brush off a speck of moisture from the corner of one big hazel doe eye.

Ruthenberg’s own shrewd weasel gaze comes back into focus, unnervingly dwarfed by the thick lenses, distorted into a pair of distant septic needle marks.

“Yes,” he hisses into the camera. “I know. I have been there- standing at the exact spot where you stand right now. Stranded. Lost. Unhappy. I know how hard it is to let go.” 

He lowers his eyelids in fake humility, letting his voice drift away. As if choked by a painful memory. A courageous survivor with a dark past, the ultimate hero, he stands in front of his audience as the paragon of perseverance. He is their savior, standing barefoot at the gates of Heaven, reaching out to the meek with a stigmata-scarred hand.

I turn off the TV. Not a minute too soon, either. A second longer, and I’d be throwing furniture at the screen. 

I hate Devin so much I could strangle the bitch with my bare hands. I may or may not be trying to do so telekinetically as I get up from the couch and go back to wearing grooves into the stretch of floor between the kitchen and the living room.

I want him out of my life. Him, his fucking Brotherhood of Creeps and everything para- and super- and un-bloody-heimlich. What wouldn’t I give to get this whole shitfest over with. What wouldn’t I do...

What would I?

I eye the envelope with the rare variety of loathing I normally reserve for aggressive panhandlers and door-to-door solicitors. I bet the prick next door is holding his goddamned breath. I no longer dare wish for such things, but the part of me that used to finds the thought of him not breathing more compelling than I’d like to admit.

I squat down rather than lean. Not because I’ve learnt much from my last attempt at weight lifting, or, God forbid, worry about back pains in my old age. Squatting simply feels more dignified than bending over. This way he can’t stare at my ass through the wall or something.

The paper feels rough- the unrefined, overpriced type. Eco-arrogant and holier-than-recycled. He even used a round little sticker seal. No monogram, thank Zeus. There is only this much second-hand embarrassment I can handle.

The envelope is practically judging me for not using a proper letter opener. I judge it back for being a pompous schmuck, just like its owner. It seems to be about to say something about sad lonely fruitloops exchanging abuse with inanimate objects, so I pull out the letter and throw the crumpled smartass on the floor. Not looking so superior now, are we?

“If you’re reading this, you must have reconsidered and decided to give me a second chance,” reads the first line. “It means a lot to me.”

Even his handwriting is pompously rounded. Like the signature on some little rat-faced consumption-ridden viscount’s love letter to his first cousin.

I flip the bird at our shared wall. It’s a fucking pterodactyl. 

“You’ve got no idea how grateful I am for your cooperation…”

Sure, I’m hella cooperative once you hold a motherfucking gun to my motherfucking head.

“Nor how sorry I am for any distress or inconvenience I have caused you. I assure you you will be recompensed for any damages resulting from The Brotherhood's interference in your life, personal or otherwise. It lacks neither the resources nor the inclination to do so.

Before I proceed any further, I’d like to clarify that Dr. Zamanhoff did not, nor ever would, break any ethical code or breach patient confidentiality. At no point in our dealings with him was he made to disclose any privileged information. All psychic readings performed on him were superficial at best and concerned only the topmost layer of his personal thoughts, dealing with technicalities such as appointment times and some broader theoretical aspects of his trade.

None of the suggestions projected at him were, in any way, shape or form, at conflict with the Hippocratic oath. Any and all advice given as a result of such suggestions was given in good faith. 

Accordingly, when he offered your name to the Coopers, he did so having in mind the best interest of everyone involved. He did not expose you as a patient, but rather presented you as an acquaintance of his. A childhood friend’s niece, if I recall correctly.

I rake my mind for the smallest trace of relief, probing every fiber of my conscious being. Not a goddamn molecule. Finecomb as I may, I only come up with bucketful after bucketful of the same fetid equal-parts concoction of revolution, distrust and humiliation. 

It’s like the time at fourteen when I dropped my favorite album and tried to revive the shattered CD with superglue. Youthenesia remained mega-fucking-dead. It took me over a decade to finally muster the grit to throw it away, but it could never be played again. Even when I bought another copy to replace it, it wasn’t quite the same. Like I could hear phantom cracks in Mustaine’s voice.

But this is all beside the point. Regret as I may any harm done to you by either my own actions or The Brotherhood’s- which trust me, I do, and profoundly so

“Not as much as I regret having ever met you, you little piece of shit,” I whisper-yell at the wall.

The paper wrinkles slightly under my tightened grip, the letters shaking with poorly bottled anger. It takes about a dozen Tibettan asana breaths to get the text back in line. My diaphragm nearly collapses under the weight of so much forced zen.

- the crux of the matter is this: we have a common enemy whose deadly potential can only be rivaled by her malicious intent, and to defeat her we entirely depend on each other’s cooperation.

No pressure, though. And then, out of nowhere, like a motherjumping possession of his own:

So do yourself a favor and stop whining. Let’s get rid of the freaking monster first, and then we can go back to a long, miserable life of petty grievances. If we survive, that is.

Appreciatively,

Devin C. Laurel

“You goddamned cumlicking son of a gutter whore…” I blurt out in homicidal half-awe. The little fuck turns out even ballsier than I thought. Bitchin’ blazing uber-nuts ballsy.

I feel like someone has clicked a switch in my brain, cracking up the heat all the way to ‘sub-Saharan and counting.’ 

The hell with dejected and disenchanted. I’m all the way back to livid, steadily running murder-wards. A fire-spitting fucking cannon if ever I was one. And boy am I ready to charge. Just point me at the right motherfucker, supernatural or otherwise. 

Conscious breathing is no longer an option. I do squeeze my eyes shut and count to ten, though. Or, rather, try to count up to ten. A knock on the door interrupts me at six.

Chapter VII