Demonspawn (12 page)

I reached for the deadbolt knob.

My hand passed right through it.

I pulled my hand back like I touched a razor
knife. I stared at the door a moment longer. Then I placed my hand
on it. The sensation was still like running my hand through
water.

“Amazing,” I said out loud.

I knew what I wanted to do. I took a deep
breath.

I walked through the door.

There was a quick flash of darkness as my
head passed through. I was standing outside my front door. I was
breathing hard and didn't even know it. Hell, was I actually
breathing? Did people who could walk through walls breathe?

I turned toward Cindy's apartment. I had to
see her, share this with her.

I walked through her front door too. A part
of me was still afraid of the unknown, of what the hell was
happening to me. But the excitement of the experience was finally
starting to win me over.

I couldn't see inside Cindy's kitchen from
the front door, but I could see a shadow moving in there.

“Cindy! Can you hear me? This is
incredible.”

She stepped out of the kitchen carrying a cup
of pudding. She still had on her jeans, but had took off her shirt
moments ago. She only had on a black bra, which she filled out very
well.

“Whoa.”

She walked right toward me, then turned and
sat on the couch. She put the TV on and did that sexy leg curl
thing she did.

“You can't hear me, can you?”

She didn't budge.

I ran my hand through the back of the couch a
few times. I was already getting used to the feeling.

Cindy grabbed her phone and hit a speed-dial
number.

“Hey, Leese. It's me. What's going on?”

I could only hear her end of the
conversation.

“Yeah, I know it's late. But don't act like
you were sleeping. Some crazy crap is going on. I'll let Alex fill
you in on most of it. But I will say you're seventeen thousand
dollars richer. Alex really looks after you. Yeah, you heard me.
Seventeen thousand dollars
.”

I smiled. I admit, I was half tempted to walk
through the couch and just watch Cindy talk in her bra. How many
chances would I get to do that in a lifetime? But it felt weird,
basically spying on my best friend. I turned to the door.

“Nah. It didn't come up.”

I stopped. So much for feeling weird.

“Leese, believe me, that's the last thing I
was thinking about tonight. And look, it's never gonna happen. And
I'm cool with that. So forget it. Okay?”

What the hell are they talking about?

“Alright, look. I'm tired. I'm gonna go to
bed. Stop over tomorrow if you get some time.”

Cindy hung up. She looked frustrated. I was
curious. What was that about?

She stretched out on the couch. I couldn't
take my eyes off her. Then guilt finally settled in once again and
I looked away. I stepped through the two doors back into my
apartment.

I looked at the front door and pushed a few
fingers into it.

“Okay. Turn off now,” I said.

It didn't work.

I started to panic. What if I couldn't turn
it off? What if I was stuck this way forever?

Then I calmed down when I touched the door a
sixth time and my hand felt solid wood.

I took a deep breath.

It was definitely a crazy night.

In that one night, I found over one hundred
thousand dollars, and also learned that I could walk through walls
and turn invisible, as well as still talk to ghosts. You think that
would turn a life upside-down, but the day to day stuff didn't
change. The money just sat there in my savings account. Cindy
didn't bring that night up. Neither did Alicia. She knew about it,
and asked a few questions. But after that, it was pretty much
business as usual.

But I did answer, and ask, a lot of questions
about myself.

A month passed. Everyday after work I spent a
few hours trying different things. I even borrowed Cindy's video
camera so I could study what was happening. I found out a lot. But
for every question I answered, it seemed another popped up.

In that month, I learned to control what I
could do. I could go invisible and walk through walls just as
easily as flexing a finger. But I could only do both at the same
time, not one or the other. If I was walking through things, that
meant no one could see me. I didn't know why. I also couldn't see
my own reflection when I vanished. But yet if I looked at my hands,
I could see them. Gravity also seemed to have some weird effect. If
I walked to the third floor of my apartment building, I could will
myself to float down through the floor to the second. But I
couldn't float
up
.

I didn't do anything else besides those
experiments. I didn't go spying into the women's locker room or rob
any banks. In fact, I never vanished outside my own apartment. I
tried to keep everything as normal as I could. Cindy was stressed
out more than usual. Work was rough for her. But besides that
everything was the same. Alicia must have thanked me a thousand
times for her gift of seventeen grand. I'd stayed in the past few
weekends with Cindy and Alicia. Julie was becoming a memory.

I'd just put a pot of spaghetti on the stove
when the front door opened. Cindy skulked her way inside. She threw
a newspaper on the coffee table, kicked her heels off, and laid
down on the couch. She wore a nice blouse and a skirt. When she
plopped on the couch her skirt rode up just a few inches, showing
off those shapely legs. I tried hard to keep my eyes off of her.
She looked really good.

“Get comfortable,” I said sarcastically. “I
might have had a woman in here, you know.”

Some time had passed since Julie, so she had
no problem going back to the woman jokes.

“Please. You've got as much luck finding a
woman as I do a man.”

I smiled. Cindy had been single since her
senior year in college. She always kept saying it was because she
wanted to focus on school. Well, she was done school, and still
single. Something else must have been going on. She could get any
guy she wanted. I never brought it up.

I grabbed a soda from the fridge and tossed
it to her. She caught it neatly.

“Read the paper.”

“I will as soon as you pull your skirt down a
little.”

She looked down at herself. “You okay?”

“Yeah. To be honest, your legs are
distracting.”

She smiled, and looked pleased. She stood up,
her thighs once again hidden. “Better?”

“Yup, thanks. What am I looking at here?”

“The article on the bottom right.”

It didn't take me long to read it. It was
about Cindy and the accounting firm her father co-owned. Apparently
Cindy donated her share of the money we found to charity. Or
rather, her firm did.

I looked at her. “You gave away your
money?”

“I couldn't keep it,” she said. “I just, uh,
couldn't keep it. Christ, I had trouble sleeping. So I talked about
it with my parents. And they said if I decided to donate it, to
give it to the firm first so they could get a write off and a
little publicity. But my name wasn't supposed to come up.”

I looked through the article again. Her name
was mentioned a few times. But Taylor Madison, her father's
partner, was mentioned everywhere. Looks like their plan
worked.

“How did this even get written?”

I could see her getting angry. “Taylor. He
had a reporter come to the firm for a tour and everything. I
donated money for autism so he could talk about how wonderful the
firm is. They used me. My father didn't know it would go that far.
I'm so pissed off.”

I put the paper down. I gestured for her to
sit while I went back into the kitchen.

“I can't sit now. I'm too mad.”

“I can't believe you gave away your
share.”

“Yeah, well, I didn't have a ghost telling me
it was okay.”

I couldn't see her face from the kitchen. I
couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not.

“Well, if you want, I'll split my share with
you.”

There was silence. After pouring some sauce
into a pot I poked my head out of the kitchen.

“Cindy?”

Her eyes were locked on me. “You would do
that, wouldn't you?”

“Do what?”

“Give me eight thousand seven hundred fifty
dollars.”

I smiled. “You better stop with that human
calculator crap. But yeah. What's mine is yours. You want
half?”

She didn't say anything. Just continued to
stare at me. Finally she sat on the couch and reached for the
remote. “No, thanks. But I will take some spaghetti.”

“Coming right up.”

There was a knock at the door, followed by it
cracking open a few inches. I recognized a blond head.

“Hey,” Alicia said. “Is it safe to come
in?”

“Quick, Cindy. Get your clothes on. Hide the
blow-up doll. Put the goat away. Mop up the floor. Untie me.”

Alicia stepped inside. “Thanks, big brother.
You just gave me enough nightmares to last a few months.”

“That's what big brothers are for. Have a
seat. The chef is at work.”

Alicia rolled her eyes and sat next to Cindy.
“Spaghetti again?”

Cindy winked at me. “Yeah, but no one boils
noodles like Alex.”

I pointed at her. “Thank you. You get a
bigger plate.”

“Lucky me.”

I went back to the kitchen to finish up. I
listened to Alicia and Cindy talk while they flipped through the
channels. It was fun when I didn't get involved and they both went
into girl mode.

“So Leese, how are you and Shawn doing?”
Shawn was her current boyfriend.

“We're okay. But he says he doesn't want me
to get my hair cut.”

“Hey. Screw him. It's your hair, you do what
you want with it.”

“Do you like it like this?”

“Yeah. You kind of look like Reese
Witherspoon.”

“Except uglier,” I called out.

“Hey. I don't care if you gave me a lot of
money or not. You'd better shut up and make my food in there.”

“Cindy, smack her for me.”

“Hell no. Don't get me involved. Then you'll
both be hitting me.”

There was silence for a second. Then I heard
some whispering. Back and forth, hushed tones. Weird. They never
whispered around me. We didn't keep anything from each other.

“What are you two whispering about out
there?”

I tried to step out to see what was going on.
I bumped the handle on the spaghetti pot and knocked it from the
stove. I didn't think, just reacted. I reached out and grabbed the
pot with both hands before it hit the floor. Boiling water splashed
all over the stove, the floor, and me. I set it back on the burner
and took a step back.

“Alex? You alright?”

Alicia and Cindy both rushed to me. Alicia
gasped and hurried to the hall closet to grab the mop. Cindy
grabbed some paper towels to try to soak up some water.

“Damn, Alex. You okay? What happened?”

“Just me being clumsy.”

“You're soaked. Does it hurt?”

“Nah. It only got the clothes. Be right
back.”

I went to the bathroom and pulled my shirt
off. I studied every inch of me, turned my hands over a few times.
I grabbed a scalding hot pot with my bare hands and got boiling
water all over me.

I didn't feel any pain. I didn't even have a
mark on me.

I looked in the mirror and shook my head. It
was getting to the point that nothing surprised me.

Invisibility.

Walk through solid objects.

And now, burn-proof. It was why my
kindergarten nurse didn't find any burn marks on me after a lighter
was put to my arm.

“You okay in there, clumsy?”

I'd tell them later. “Yeah, I'm fine.”

I went searching for a clean shirt in the
bedroom with my back to the door. When I finally found one I turned
to see Cindy leaning in the doorway. I had no idea how long she was
there, but I realized she was just watching me. She had a smirk on
her face.

“Get a shirt on, Alex.”

“That's what I'm trying to do.”

“Good. Your body is distracting.”

She smiled and left. Comments like that from
Cindy were enough to make a night.

I was about to find out just how much she
meant to me.

It had been a particularly bad day at work. I
loaded the wrong freight on the wrong truck. It caused quite a
hassle to call the truck to get them back in and straighten
everything out. My boss chewed me out, rightfully so. But as I sat
there in his office I realized that loading trucks all day wasn't
what I wanted to do forever. I wished I had Cindy's motivation to
realize a goal and achieve it. Ever since we were little she wanted
to follow in her father's footsteps. She just loved numbers and
math. I can't see how.

Even Alicia had a goal. She wanted to be a
vet. She loved animals, even though Mom never let us have any
growing up.

Me, I had no idea.

I didn't have any particular skill. Unless
you count talking to ghosts. I could do things no one else could
do. But I didn't see how that could turn into a job. I couldn't see
what purpose it served.

I was on my way home from work, still angry.
I was at a red light when suddenly the intersection in front of me
was gone.

I was no longer in my truck. I saw Cindy. She
was in front of her work, waving goodbye to her father.

Then I was back at the intersection.

Then it was gone again. Cindy was stretching
out on the sidewalk. She was dressed to run.

I was seeing all this in quick flashes that
disoriented the hell out of me. I realized that I was seeing Cindy
each time from the same angle.

From a car in the parking lot outside her
firm.

She was being followed.

Cindy was in danger.

The simple fact hit me as someone behind me
started laying on their car horn. This jarred me from the visions I
was having and brought me completely back to my own head.