Page 29 of Demon's Desire

The four of us stayed together the rest of the night. We all stayed in the living room while Kelly and I vacuumed up the glass. Everyone came into the kitchen and helped me with the cooking. We ate together, we cleaned up the kitchen together, and when it got late, we all went to my bedroom. We made Torie and Mica take the bed again, and I slept on the floor with Kelly. We made sure that I was against the wall with Kelly basically blocking me in case… you know…

Something tried to get to me.

I barely slept all night. I was afraid another window would shatter, or Mica would black out again. By eight-thirty Friday morning, I was wide awake. I got up, but I didn’t leave the bedroom. I wanted everyone close in case something happened. I did step out to make a quick phone call to our landlord, Mrs. Halston, and let her know that last night a window had shattered. When she asked how it happened, I told her I simply didn’t know and that we were all in the other room when it happened. Since it was so cold, and basically the entire apartment had become an ice box overnight, she agreed to send someone out as an emergency today.

Everyone else was awake by ten. For a while, none of us mentioned what had happened the night before, but I knew we were all thinking about it. I personally couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I was definitely on edge.

Right after we finished with lunch, there was a knock on the door. We were all sitting on the floor in the dining room since we didn’t have a dining table yet, bundled in two blankets each. I got up and went to get the door, relieved when I saw a repair man.

“Hi. Thank you for coming on such short notice,” I said as I opened the door.

“Damn.” He frowned when he came in. “It’s too cold for broken windows. One more day of this, and you’d all be getting colds.”

“Right.” I nodded. “We vacuumed up all the glass, but be careful in case we missed anything.”

“Of course.” He waved his hand dismissively.

Kelly came up beside me, still bundled in her blankets as well. She took my hand and squeezed it. I reciprocated quickly. We hadn’t discussed what exactly we were going to do about this whole situation, but I think we both felt like we would be able to breathe easier once the window was taken care of.

We eventually went back into the dining room where we all sat around Kelly’s laptop watching old episodes of The Office as a distraction. I had no idea how long this was supposed to take, but I let myself get distracted and focus on Jim and Pam for the moment.

About two hours after he first arrived, the repairman hollered from the other side of the apartment. “All finished.”

I let out a sigh of relief and grabbed my blanket, still holding it around myself. I went over to the living room and smiled when I saw the window. “Thank you so much, sir. I really appreciate it.”

“It’s no problem, beautiful,” he said in a cool, smooth tone.

I tensed when he said that and looked over at him. He had his head tilted to one side and a slight smirk on his face. It was a much different demeanor from the one he carried earlier. “You need anything else, you make sure to call me. All right, Mia?”

I swallowed hard and took a step back into the hallway. “Thank you for your help. I think you should leave now.”

“Of course, beautiful.” He nodded. “I’ll see you around.”

He opened the door and waved at me as he left. As soon as he was gone, I locked the door and rushed back to the dining room. “Did you guys hear that?”

“Hear what?” Kelly asked, looking up at me. “That he’s done with the window?”

“No! I mean, he is, but…” I told them what he said, how he said it, and the look on his face as he did. I was starting to get more and more panicked. I had no idea what this creature wanted with me or how far it would go to get it.

“Hey, hey, it’s all right.” Torie reached up and took my hand. “Here. Sit down. I have an idea I’ve been thinking about.”

“What?” I sighed as I sat down beside her.

“Let’s try looking for answers,” she suggested. “I mean it. Let’s just Google ‘how to stop possession’ and see what the hell comes up.”

“I was thinking about that too,” Mica agreed. “It’s worth a shot.”

“Here.” Kelly grabbed her laptop and turned off The Office, then opened the search bar. She typed in ‘possession,’ and we all gathered around to see what came up.

At first, it was a lot of nonsense. There were over a dozen results directly relating to the 1981 movie Possession. After that, there were a handful of links that just supplied definitions or synonyms. That wasn’t helpful.

“I’ll try… supernatural… possession,” Kelly muttered as she typed. The first few results were all about a song that apparently went by that name, then there were a few references to the TV show Supernatural, but after that, there was a Wikipedia page titled ‘Spirit Possession.’ She clicked on that, but it was mostly a catalog of religious beliefs surrounding possession.

“Try demon possession,” Torie said. “Demons are usually the ones who do the possessing, right?”

“I think so.” Kelly typed it in, and finally, a few different things came up.

“Look.” Mica pointed to the first article on the screen. “That’s about an exorcist. Would someone like that be able to help?”