Experiment in Terror 05 On Demon Wings (4 page)

and turned to make my way to the bar.

His face lit up. “Get two this time!”

“Yeah, yeah.” I waved at him and walked over to the bar

near the side. With the concrete floors and the bar, which

consisted of fold-up tables and drinks kept in camping

coolers, the whole venue had this “let’s throw a party in my

parents’ basement” kind of vibe.

Of course, when the music is bad, the drink line is

longer. There were five people in front of me and the

ordering was going slow. I tapped my combat boots

impatiently and was adjusting my Mastodon shirt when the

dread-locked girl in front of me turned around and gave me

the eye.

“Nice shirt,” she said. I couldn’t tel if she was being

sarcastic or not. Her voice was very low, almost manly. Her

eyes were red.

Not because she’d been crying but her actual irises

were
red
.

She was wearing vibrant red contacts with streaks of

gold in them. They were beautiful but deadly-looking and

sent a shiver down the back of my spine.

“Thank you,” I said, my voice trembling slightly. I was

suddenly very afraid and I didn’t know why. They were

contacts, right?

She smiled, her red lips spreading slowly, until I saw al

of her teeth.

Her very misshapen, sharp, dagger-like teeth.

Aside from the lipstick, she had the exact grin of a shark.

My eyes widened. A stabbing feeling erupted from my

stomach.

She continued smiling. A whiff of that foul, rotten smel

that plagued the Port-Town bathroom came back and

swirled around her, creating a wave of nausea throughout

my body.

Then she took her eyes off of me, looked past my

shoulder and smiled again. A tal , beefy man with long hair

and a pentagram shirt walked up to her and put his arm

around her shoulder.

“Hey babe,” he said. “Stil wating?”

She nodded and they both turned around so I was

staring at the back of their heads as they chatted to each

other about how crappy the band was.

For some reason, I felt shaky at the incident and the

stabbing in my stomach intensified. What the hel ? Did that

girl actual y get her teeth shaped to look like that? Who in

their right mind would do such a thing? My god, Portland

was fucking weird sometimes.

I found myself automatical y taking a step back, nearly

bumping into the person behind me. That wretched odor

stil clung to the air and I was seconds away from throwing

up.

I walked away from the line as quickly and calmly as I

could and made a beeline to the women’s washroom.

As I burst through the door, I was relieved to see that it

was empty, though the fact that it was a disgusting mess

did nothing to stop the vomit that was threatening my throat.

I rushed into an open stal and puked my guts up, seeing

the half-digested remains of my mom’s roast pork splash

into the bowl. It was enough to make me vomit again.

When I was done, I leaned against the cold metal door

and caught my breath. The smel was gone, thank God, but

the nausea stil remained, coupled with the pains in my

stomach. I sucked in my breath, trying to get air, keeping

my hands on my abdomen. They felt like extreme period

cramps but it wasn’t my time of the month yet. However, my

last period was barely existent, so maybe my body was

making up for it tenfold.

As the pain subsided enough for me to stand up straight,

I left the dingy bathroom and went back into the chaotic

noise of the venue. I ignored the drink line, not wanting to

see the vampire-eyed, scary-toothed girl again, and went

straight to Ash. It took a few moments to locate him in the

sprawling mess of sweaty limbs, tattoos and piercings, so

by the time I did, the pain was just as intense as before.

He looked crestfal en at my empty hands but that quickly

turned into concern.

“Perry, are you OK?” he asked. He put his hand on my

shoulder and squeezed it.

I shook my head and leaned against him, the pain so

intense that I was having trouble standing up.

“Can you drive me home?” I squeaked, my eyes pinched

closed.

“Of course,” he said eagerly, putting his long arm around

me and ushering me outside of the building.

What transpired next was one of the longest car rides of

my life. I didn’t live that far from the venue, but the pain was

so bad that I was biting the edge of my seatbelt to keep

from crying out. Several times Ash was adamant that he

take me to the hospital but I stubbornly refused. I just

needed to be home where I could be in pain without being

a bother to anyone except the people I’m normal y a bother

to.

I said my goodbyes to a persistent Ash, tel ing him I’d

see him at work tomorrow. I doubted it, though. I barely

made it to the front door.

“You’re home early,” my mother said to me from her

armchair in the living room, where she was flipping through

a house magazine and sipping a steaming cup of tea. I

stumbled past her, clutching my stomach, heading for the

stairs.

“I don’t feel wel ,” I managed to say through grinding

teeth.

“You drink too much?” she chided me.

I barely heard her. I leaned against the post at the base

of the stairs, unable to make my way up.

“Perry? What is it?”

She joined me at my side and smoothed the hair away

from my face and put her hand against my forehead.

“You’re burning up. Did something happen? When did

this start?”

“What’s going on?” I heard Ada say from the top of the

stairs.

I don’t remember what happened next, so perhaps I

fainted. Next thing I knew I was lying in my bed, curled up in

a bal on my side, with someone trying to take my boots off.

“Perry? Can you hear me?” It was my father. I lifted my

head as much as I could, stil reeling from the cramps, the

hot little knives that cut away at my ovaries, and looked

around my room. My mother was rushing in the door with a

bunch of pil bottles in her hand and water. Ada was bent

over untying my laces and my father was standing in the

corner, arms crossed, worried but stern.

“Where does it hurt?” he asked in a no-nonsense voice.

“Were you drugged?”

“No,” I whispered painful y. “I wasn’t drugged. It’s

cramps. I’ve never had such bad cramps before.”

If my dad was the eye-rol ing type, his own would have

shot up to the ceiling.

“Just cramps?”

“Hey!” Ada snarled at him. “You have no idea.”

He looked both embarrassed and taken aback. He

glanced at my mother but she just nodded.

“Ada’s right, honey,” she said softly, then came to my

side and peered at my face. “Just be glad you don’t suffer

from them because when they are bad, they are real y bad.”

“These are scary bad, mom,” I said. My hand clutched

around the corner of my pil ow as another wave of pain

rushed through me.

“How is your period? Are you bleeding more than

normal?”

“That’s it, I’m out of here,” my dad said quickly, and left

the room. For a theology professor, he real y wasn’t very

mature when it came to the female body. Or maybe that

was par for the course.

Ada sighed in disgust. “Grow up, dad, jeez.” She

removed my other boot and told us she was going to go

find the hot water bottle.

I tried to ignore the pain by concentrating on my mom’s

face as she fiddled with a pil bottle’s stubborn childproof

cap. Even though it was a quiet Saturday night at home,

she stil looked as elegant as ever. She was dressed in a

black jumpsuit, with a mint-colored Celtic shawl wrapped

around her. Her face was lined with worry (it usual y was

whenever I was around), her light blonde bangs brushing

the edges of her clear blue eyes. She looked every inch the

Swede she was, yet at the same time, her face looked

strangely familiar. Not familiar in the “d’uh, she’s my mother

and has been for 23 years” kind of familiar, but that “I’ve

seen someone lately who looks like her” kind of way. Of

course, in my pain-riddled mind, I couldn’t begin to imagine

who that could be.

She wrestled two ibuprofens out of the container and

handed them to me. “This should help with the pain; it might

take a while though.”

I took the pil s with a grateful smile and drank a heap of

water to wash them down, hoping they wouldn’t come back

up again. It was strange that I was so nauseous earlier and

wasn’t now. Strange that the meat smel fol owed me into

the club. I shuddered at the thought of the woman I saw.

“Are you cold?” my mother asked, tucking the blanket

around me tightly.

I wasn’t; in fact, I’d been especial y warm lately, but I

smiled and nodded anyway. It sounds sad but my mother

rarely doted on me, so sick or not, I was going to get as

much attention from her as I could.

“You haven’t been wel for some time,” she said gently,

and patted my arm. “I know you’re going through a rough

time, but things wil get better. You’l get a better job and

you’l find love with someone good. You’l find your way,

pumpkin.”

My mother was being uncommonly nice. I frowned at her,

trying to figure out what her deal was, but she paid no

attention. She straightened up and clapped her hands

together. “I’l put on some chicken noodle soup for you.”

“Lipton,” I croaked after her as she left the room. “Or

else I’l have to pick out those gross chicken chunks.”

After she left, I gritted my teeth until my jaw began to hurt

and eventual y drifted off to sleep. I was soon awakened by

a presence nearby. Ada must have been back in the room

with me.

“Did you find the hot water bottle?” I mumbled into my

pil ow, not wanting to move or open my eyes.

I heard the door shut and felt Ada’s presence move

toward me. She stopped at the foot of the bed.

Stopped.

And waited.

I could hear her breathing; it was low and ragged, like

her lungs were fil ed with loose stones.

“Ada?” I asked again. “What are you doing?”

When she didn’t respond, I opened my eyes and raised

my head in her direction.

There was no one there.

The door was closed but Ada wasn’t in my room. I was

alone.

The back of my neck was enveloped in icy prickles. I had

just heard someone, heard them breathing as clear as day.

“Hel o?” I asked timidly, my voice sounding extra smal .

There was this indescribable feeling around me, my

bedroom blanketed by a heavy, eerie vibe. Everything

looked normal, except the air near the lamp in the corner

seemed to bend and warp, like a sheet of moving plastic.

I rubbed my eyes and sat up slowly. I tried to focus on the

anomaly until my eyes adjusted and everything looked fine

again.

“Ada,” I said loudly, hoping she’d hear me wherever she

was in the house. “Did you close my door?”

I waited for a response, waited to hear the breathing

again. I held my own breath.

The doorbel rang, its clang causing my heart to seize. I

gasped, surprised and thoroughly spooked.

It rang again.

And again.

Then stopped.

My alarm clock on my bedside table said it was 11:42 at

night. Who on earth was ringing our doorbel at this hour?

Was it Ash?

Rebecca?

Someone…
else
?

I felt a tightness in my chest at that last thought and

careful y eased myself out of the bed and over to the

window. I peered though it onto the driveway below. The

motion detector lights weren’t on and I couldn’t see a car or

anyone out there. I listened, hearing the front door open and

my mother saying “hel o?” into a darkness that didn’t

answer back.

There was a single knock at my own door. I cried out, my

heart hammering wildly, and spun around to see a shadow

sliding underneath the door and into my room.

“Ada?”

Another knock. My door shook from its singular impact.

“Mom?” Now my voice was shaking.

Another knock, louder this time, as if to shut me up.

“Um, come in?”

I walked over to it, taking silent, slow steps, listening for

whoever was on the other side. Whoever it was had

knocked three times.

I heard that breathing again.