The next few weeks passed without much eventfulness. The recordings Sidney and her team had captured yielded no results. The only way they knew that Giles Hendersen had even been there was by their experience with the oujia board, and that had not been recorded. Sidney was understandably dismayed by the whole situation. She vowed to get better recordings the next time.
It was three a.m. And Sidney woke dizzily from her slumber. She didn't dream, or she thought she did not dream because she never could remember what played about her psyche in the time she was at rest. She stumbled into the bathroom, turned on the light and stood there, keeping her balance as she waited for her eyes to adjust to the sudden light.
She wore a short night shirt, and a pair of gray pajama pants. The bathroom was large, and completely white. The mirror showed Sidney her wiry form against the stark backdrop of the dark rooms behind her.
She stretched he arms above her head and bent over. She turned upright and gasped. She turned around, saw nothing, and turned back to face the mirror. She could have sworn she saw someone looming just out of the reach of the light She turned the faucet and began to wash her face. The cool, refreshing water cascaded down her forehead, , trembled as droplets on her lips before dropping back to the slick concave slope of the sinkbowl.
Then she felt the strong hands on her shoulders.
Her eyes grew large and she froze in time. Her heartbeat thundered in her temples and as she slowly turned her eyes toward the mirror, she broke out in a sweat colder than the water she cooled her face with. On her shoulders were two bare hands. They were long, slender, almost feminine, and the skin was absolutely black.The nails were thick and filed to points. Her eyes rose higher and she saw the thin, waist, torso, shoulders and finally face of Giles Hendersen.
His face was exactly as it was in the photograph, except, his eyes were open, and they were bright, yellow, and his teeth were filed to points as he smiled.
“G-Giles...” Sidney stammered as she stood there, forced down in the position in which she stood, “Giles, are you--” She never spoke the next words because Giles cut her off.
“I know your fantasies. All of them. In all their macroexistence and minutiae.” He stood her upright, and smoothed her hairs about her shoulders, his cold, unfeeling hands glided along her shoulders before he leaned her to the right, as if she were doing an oblique stretch, and held her there.
“Giles...no...don't...”
“I know them all.” He said moments before her began to walk two of his fingers up and down her tautly stretched belly. Her sides trembled and her knees began buckling.
“Geshehe...Giles! Nohohoh!!!” She squealed as she collapsed to the floor and attempted to curl into a ball. “GILES!!!” She broke down into uncontrollable squeals and shrieks of partly terrified, partly pleasured laughter.
“I know them all, and they all will be enacted upon you.”
“No, GILES AAAAHAHAAA!!” She tried to kick at the ghost as he continued walking his fingers along her torso, now venturing into her broad belly. “GAAAHAHAAA!!!”
“I know them all, and they all know me...” His fingers now danced along her ribcage. Her eyes were shut tightly for fear if they were open they'd fall out of her head and tears were rolling down her cheeks.
“And you will never escape them.” He hissed. His eyes grew red and his teeth grew longer, bloodier, and his head grew sharper. Leathery wings sprouted from his back and his fingers grew to claws, and his talons dug into Sidney's flesh.
“GAAAAAAAAH!!!” She screamed in anguish as the talons drew a long line down her side, from her armpit to her hip.
“And I will be back.” He hissed as he faded as suddenly as he had come. Sidney lay there in silence, the sound of the faucet the only reminder that she was indeed, for now, alive; and that she was indeed awake.
“Hello?” the voice on the other end of the phone greeted. “Hello?”
“...Jacob?”
“Sidney?”
“...Yeah.”
“What brings you to call so early?”
No reply.
“Sidney?”
“Giles was here.”
“Were you using the ouijia board again?”
“No...he...he was in my bathroom.” Sidney paused for breath, “he was tickling me.”
Jacob chuckled, “Really now. A powerful, dead sorcerer comes in your bathroom, and tickles you?”
“Yes. You don't believe me?”
“Well, we only have your testimony.”
“Well, he also scratched me.”
“...What?” Jacob replied in a serious tone. “He scratched you?”
“Yeah, from my armpit all the way to my hip. It's still bleeding a bit, and burning like Hell.”
The knock at the door had surprised Sidney, and she was even more surprised to find Jacob at the door. It had been nearly half an hour since she hung up on the phone with him. He was dressed in a dark overcoat and a fedora cap. His coat was dampened by the light drizzle that lay siege on the city that morning.
They stood facing each other for moments, the only sounds being the pitter patter of the drizzle outside and the tick-tock of the second hand of the alarm clock. Then, Sidney closed the door. Jacob hung up his coat.
“I thought it was a dream, until I saw the blood.” She said of thescratch as she felt the cool peroxide laced cotton ball gingerly slide down her wound.
“Do you want me to take you to the hospital?” He said as he applied more disinfectant to the cut.
“No, I'm fine, I just need to get some rest. And then figure this out afterward.”
“M'hm.”
“Thanks for coming over even though I didn't ask.”
“Friends do things like that.”
“I guess.”
“Well, that's what any friend is supposed to do.”
“I'd rather that any person would do it.”
“If we lived in a perfect world.” He got up and went to the bathroom. Moments later he came back out again. “Did you write with your blood?”
“No...” Sidney entered the bathroom, not knowing what she'd actually find. She looked on the floor, and saw nothing. Then on the mirror, and found to her horror, that three names were written.
For the past ten minutes, Lucy had been kicking and squealing on the floor of her dorm room. A sensation on the bottoms of her feet similar to having her feet fall asleep, only a thousand times more extreme, had subdued her and transformed her into a desperately thrashing, cackling lump of flesh. She had gone out to the library and had left at two in the morning, an hour before it closed, and walked all the way across the campus in the rain, when she could have taken the expedient campus shuttle.
She was eating some fruit cocktail out of the can when it happened. The soft buzzing that heralded it; it was a mere irritation, a nuisance, she just stamped her feet and it went away. But then, it returned, and it was stronger. A distinct tingling sensation which caused her to wriggle her toes itchily as she tried to quell the attack. But it did not cease, it merely grew stronger.
Soon it became a harsh tickling sensation, and she kicked her feet as if someone wereh olding her ankles and diggign their nails into her soles. She rolled on the floor, and crashed into the sofa, blocking her path, she futilely clawed at the air.
“Stop, STOP!” She cried in vain, her shrieks like the call of a hen whose neck was being wrung. “Whoever's doing this, just stop!” At that moment, in the midst of the tickling, a tall, dark shadow walked through the wall and stood over Lucy as she struggled with her unseen tormentor. It stood there for the next five minutes, looking over her, watching her, perhaps reveling in deviant satisfaction at her plight. While Lucy kicked and squealed and cried tears of laughter and desperation. And then the tickling ceased. And the shadow, still watching her, walked backward, and disappeared into the wall.
Lucy heaved air into her lungs and held it, then exhaled, and repeated the process again and again, until she finally stopped trembling. She backed up against the sofa, and kept looking at the wall. She had no intention of going into her bedroom which was on the other side of that wall, ever again after this. She kept staring at the spot where the entity entered and exited, as if it would reappear.
The sudden brush of a soft, spiky tentacle along the small of her back, sent her across the room, screaming and flailing her arms before she tripped over the small japanese dining table she had bought from a friend. She tumbled to the floor and rolled over, facing the ceiling.
“Ugh, damn,” she groaned as she sat up. She saw her cat watching her from the sofa arm. It tilted it's head in a manner as if to say, 'ARE YOU OKAY?' She let her head fall back to the rug she lay on. The room exploded with a huge dark cackling that echoed throughout the dormitory, and seemed focused right beside Lucy's ears. The cat jumped off of the sofa and shot into the kitchen to hide in the cupboard it usually took shelter in.
“GAAAAAAAHHH!!!” Lucy wailed as she burst out of the dorm quad into the falling rain. Her feet wet and muddy, she ran down the path screaming like madwoman.
Later in the afternoon, the six members of the group sat in the headquarter room. Everyone but Debbie and Jenny were stressed ou by this situation.
“And you say, you guys were attacked?” Debbie said as she drank her beer. She rested her barefeet on the table in the middle of the room.
“It wasn't an ordinary attack,” Lucy said, as she held her knees, “It was a tickle attack.” She shuddered.
“Well, I wouldn't know if I was attacked or not.” She said as she sipped more beer. “Jenny was splitting my sides all night long.”
“And she was lovin' it too!” Jenny called from the refrigerator. “I had her covered.”
“You two don't believe it then?”
“Nah, not really.” Jenny said. “I need some proof before I can elieve that.”
Sidney got up and lipted up her shirt “How's this for your God damned proof?”
“Whoa,” Jenny and Debbie said in unison.
“When did you dye your hair blonde?” Jenny asked; everyone in the room went quiet, and turned to him. “What? It's a legitimate question!” they all turned away from him while shaking their heads. “What?! I thought she was a black haired chick!”
Jacob's eyes rose from the book he was reading for only a moment, “I shall call a demonologist.”
“That would be wise,” Sidney replied, “who do you have in mind?”
The small woman's heels clicked on the porcelain floor. She wore a pair of black pants, and a black t-shirt. Her hair was dyed blood red and her large dark eyes were framed by elegant black wire rim glasses. Her small angular face, was framed by her red hair and her lips were a thin line about her face.
Jacob opened the door and greeted the visitor. “Melisse Toussad.” he said as he stuck his hand out.
“Hello,” Melisse said as she grabbed her greeter's hands in a friend'ly embrace. “How are you Jacob?”
“You two know each other?” Sidney said as she poked her head out of the office door.
“She is a friend of mine from High school.”
“Oh,”
“I'm very pleased to be working with you on this project.” Melisse said as she bowed, “I've always wanted to vanquish a tickle demon.”
“A what?” Sidney asked not shure of what she just heard.
“A tickle demon,” Melisse replied. “I knew that's what you had when Jacob described it too me.”
“Just because it tickled me?”
“Well, most of them delight in scratching their victims or tearing them to shreds. This kind just likes to tickle. Dreadfully so.”
“How do we get rid of it?”
“We have to go find the body of the man the tickle demon was. In your case your Jill Henderson.”
“Giles Hendersen.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.”
“How long should it take?”Sidney asked as she led Melisse up the stairs.
“First we have to go back to the house, and do a purification ritual on the entire estate.”
“That might be a problem. Are you willing to travel?”
“Yes, I'd love to travel.”
“To missisippi?” There was a pause. “To mississippi?”
“...Yes.”
“Then what do we have to do?”
“Then we have to bless the body. Because most likely, the human host was not the body that the demon came with.”
“That seems logical.”
“Of course it is.”
“It seems easy as well.” Sidney said as she placed her hand on the door knob to the main room.
“It won't be easy,” Jacob interjected.
“Why?” Sidney and Melisse asked, turnign their heads suddenly.
“Because after the autopsy Hendersen's body disappeared, do you recall?”
qw “Then, that means that we have an exponentially more difficult job ahead of us.”
“Why?” Sidney asked Melisse.
“Because,” she replied as she turned the knob, “that means the demon is a powerful one. More powerful than other demons like him.”
“Who's this bitch?” Jenny asked with a laugh. Melisse's ears twitched and she looked for the origin of the voice. When she saw who spoke, her face burst into a smile.
“Jennaro!” She squealed as she ran over to the young man.
“Melli!” He said as he opened his arms out to hug her. Melisse's smile turned to a frown as she shot a punch into his crotch.
“Don't you ever call me a bitch again, got it bucko?” She said in an East London accent. Jenny was so stunned that he fell on the floor, on his side, holding his crotch.
“I knew he'd get what's coming to him, one of these days.” Jacob said with an uncaring tone and an uncaring stare.
“It's sort of what she gets, being that, she opened the door.” Sidney said under her breath.
The next day, the group had booked a flight back to Mississippi and were in a van heading down toward the Bohr Mansion in Sundown County. It was early in the morning and the darkness of the night was like an interminable cloak that held all within its seemingly invincible grip.
“Stop the van,” Sidney said, “I need to get some air.”
“There's a rest stop up ahead,” Melisse said as she looked over the map. “We could all use some air, some refreshments,” she yawned, “some sleep.”
“You've been sleeping since we left New York!” Lucy said, “What are you, Narcoleptic?”
“No, studying demons is very hard work. Especially if you're haunted by them.”
“Tell us more about the Tickle Demon.”
“Oh, God, I odn't believe this,” Debbi said, still unbelieving in the incidents that befell her and Lucy.
“Well, Tickle Demons come in many forms. They can be like apparitions of the dead, or they can look like the ram-headed men you see represented as a satanic creature in the media. Or they can be in the form of uh...” She looked around in an uncomfortable manner.
“Of...?”
Melisse coughed, “Black Slaves,”
“What tha fuck?” Jenny, who had been sleeping, until that moment exclaimed as he sat up, “tell me about this shit...” He looked at Jacob, who was listening to some music on his walkman.
“He is NOT a black slave,” Sidney hissed.
“Well, he is black...”
“He's really dark chocolate.”
Well, he's african-american.”
“So?”
“He's more than halfway there.”
“Shut up!” Sidney snapped, her anger rising.
“I'll call him so many names...”
“Don't make me use some names I've got for you!”
“Butt head!”
“Wetback!”
“Gringo!”
“Your mama was a wetback!”
“So? At least my mama didn”t try to get over on the native people of another continent!”
“Are you complimenting me?”
“No, I'm calling you a murderer of my people!”
“That's the most ignorant thing I've ever heard you say!”
“Well, what'd you expect? I am Ignorant!”
There was a silence in the car that might have lasted for as long as the van moved had not Lucy broken it. “Well, just remember, Jenny said it.”
“There is a rest stop up ahead,” Jacob said, “I'm going to pull in there. We can get food, drinks, and some shut eye. Is everyone agreeable to that?” He turned around and pulled his headphones off. “Is that okay with everyone?” Everyone stared at him in silence. “Alright then.” He turned and put his headphones back on.
“Mm, mm, mm...” Jenny said with a smile and a shake of his head, “Driving Miss Daisy.”
Sidney forced Jenny's head into the wall of the van.
“Agh, fuck woman!”
Everyone had gotten out of the car at the rest stop. It was a twenty-four hour establishment, which got very lonely at night. Sidney went into the restroom and washed her face. She placed her glasses on the sink and cupped her hands. She had just finished washing, and was reaching for a paper towel, when she felt two slender hands wrap about her belly.
She smiled, it had to be Jacob. He always would come up from behind, quietly as a cat, wrapping his arms about her waist and knotting them at her navel. She often wished that he'd drag one of his fingers along the rim of, or even into her navel. Drive her into hysterics. But she could only dream. Jacob planted a kiss on the nape of her neck. She grinned.
“You know, Jenny was talking about you,” she said as she placed her hands on his wrists. “I know it's all in fun, but sometimes, I wonder, I really wonder...”
Another kiss, another smile.
“It's like, he loves being an antagonist. Picking on you and I.”
A soft breath, mint scented, cold.
“It wouldn't surprise me if he really is racist. My family is just like that, such nationalists, I can't stand it sometimes, you know?”
“I know...” Jacob's voice tickled her ear.
“You're so calm Jacob,”
“I know...” he held her close to him.
“I'm glad I met you.”
“I know...” He let his index finger wander about her navel. Her belly quivered and her smile broadened.
“J-Jacob...” She feels his finger halt, “No, no, go on...”
Another kiss. Another smile. Another drag. It's easy to do, like smoking a spliff; once you begin its hard to let one go unfinished. Especially if the police catch you.
Sidney sniggered, Jacob's finger fluttered over her navel, and her grin bore teeth. Another kiss later, and Sidney was chuckling with delight. A few more strokes and she had fallen back on Jacob and was laughing with some abandon.
“Oh, Jacob, I'm so glad you know,”
“I know.”
“So, happy you know my fantasy...”
“Don't you wish I were Jacob?” The terror that filled Sidney was like someone scratching a record on its player. She stopped laughing at these words and looked in the mirror, the image was blurry.
“Jennaro?” She hissed as she snatched her glasses up and placed them on her face. She looked at the image, and she nearly screamed.
Giles Hendersen stared at her from the mirror, bullet hole and all. His eyes contrasting starkly with his skin, as dark as the curtains of the universe. His teeth, long and canine, shined white in the mirror, though in reality, they could have been worms in a jawbone.
“Did I not tell you I would be back?” He said hugging her tighter. “I must admit, I did enjoy your apartment better, but I am adaptable. We shall have so much fun together, you, and your two friends. Particularly Deborah. She seems to like me a lot.” He narrowed his eyes. I'll have to get rid of the others. Melissa and that coward, Jacob.”
“He's not a coward.”
“He won't indulge you in your fantasies. He is.”
“He loves me.”
“What is love but acceptance? He does not care for your fantasies.”
“He still loves me.”
“He, my Sidney, is as stagnant as a hundred year old pond.”
Sidney gasped in realization. Giles smiled as he faded into the air.
It was three a.m. And Sidney woke dizzily from her slumber. She didn't dream, or she thought she did not dream because she never could remember what played about her psyche in the time she was at rest. She stumbled into the bathroom, turned on the light and stood there, keeping her balance as she waited for her eyes to adjust to the sudden light.
She wore a short night shirt, and a pair of gray pajama pants. The bathroom was large, and completely white. The mirror showed Sidney her wiry form against the stark backdrop of the dark rooms behind her.
She stretched he arms above her head and bent over. She turned upright and gasped. She turned around, saw nothing, and turned back to face the mirror. She could have sworn she saw someone looming just out of the reach of the light She turned the faucet and began to wash her face. The cool, refreshing water cascaded down her forehead, , trembled as droplets on her lips before dropping back to the slick concave slope of the sinkbowl.
Then she felt the strong hands on her shoulders.
Her eyes grew large and she froze in time. Her heartbeat thundered in her temples and as she slowly turned her eyes toward the mirror, she broke out in a sweat colder than the water she cooled her face with. On her shoulders were two bare hands. They were long, slender, almost feminine, and the skin was absolutely black.The nails were thick and filed to points. Her eyes rose higher and she saw the thin, waist, torso, shoulders and finally face of Giles Hendersen.
His face was exactly as it was in the photograph, except, his eyes were open, and they were bright, yellow, and his teeth were filed to points as he smiled.
“G-Giles...” Sidney stammered as she stood there, forced down in the position in which she stood, “Giles, are you--” She never spoke the next words because Giles cut her off.
“I know your fantasies. All of them. In all their macroexistence and minutiae.” He stood her upright, and smoothed her hairs about her shoulders, his cold, unfeeling hands glided along her shoulders before he leaned her to the right, as if she were doing an oblique stretch, and held her there.
“Giles...no...don't...”
“I know them all.” He said moments before her began to walk two of his fingers up and down her tautly stretched belly. Her sides trembled and her knees began buckling.
“Geshehe...Giles! Nohohoh!!!” She squealed as she collapsed to the floor and attempted to curl into a ball. “GILES!!!” She broke down into uncontrollable squeals and shrieks of partly terrified, partly pleasured laughter.
“I know them all, and they all will be enacted upon you.”
“No, GILES AAAAHAHAAA!!” She tried to kick at the ghost as he continued walking his fingers along her torso, now venturing into her broad belly. “GAAAHAHAAA!!!”
“I know them all, and they all know me...” His fingers now danced along her ribcage. Her eyes were shut tightly for fear if they were open they'd fall out of her head and tears were rolling down her cheeks.
“And you will never escape them.” He hissed. His eyes grew red and his teeth grew longer, bloodier, and his head grew sharper. Leathery wings sprouted from his back and his fingers grew to claws, and his talons dug into Sidney's flesh.
“GAAAAAAAAH!!!” She screamed in anguish as the talons drew a long line down her side, from her armpit to her hip.
“And I will be back.” He hissed as he faded as suddenly as he had come. Sidney lay there in silence, the sound of the faucet the only reminder that she was indeed, for now, alive; and that she was indeed awake.
“Hello?” the voice on the other end of the phone greeted. “Hello?”
“...Jacob?”
“Sidney?”
“...Yeah.”
“What brings you to call so early?”
No reply.
“Sidney?”
“Giles was here.”
“Were you using the ouijia board again?”
“No...he...he was in my bathroom.” Sidney paused for breath, “he was tickling me.”
Jacob chuckled, “Really now. A powerful, dead sorcerer comes in your bathroom, and tickles you?”
“Yes. You don't believe me?”
“Well, we only have your testimony.”
“Well, he also scratched me.”
“...What?” Jacob replied in a serious tone. “He scratched you?”
“Yeah, from my armpit all the way to my hip. It's still bleeding a bit, and burning like Hell.”
The knock at the door had surprised Sidney, and she was even more surprised to find Jacob at the door. It had been nearly half an hour since she hung up on the phone with him. He was dressed in a dark overcoat and a fedora cap. His coat was dampened by the light drizzle that lay siege on the city that morning.
They stood facing each other for moments, the only sounds being the pitter patter of the drizzle outside and the tick-tock of the second hand of the alarm clock. Then, Sidney closed the door. Jacob hung up his coat.
“I thought it was a dream, until I saw the blood.” She said of thescratch as she felt the cool peroxide laced cotton ball gingerly slide down her wound.
“Do you want me to take you to the hospital?” He said as he applied more disinfectant to the cut.
“No, I'm fine, I just need to get some rest. And then figure this out afterward.”
“M'hm.”
“Thanks for coming over even though I didn't ask.”
“Friends do things like that.”
“I guess.”
“Well, that's what any friend is supposed to do.”
“I'd rather that any person would do it.”
“If we lived in a perfect world.” He got up and went to the bathroom. Moments later he came back out again. “Did you write with your blood?”
“No...” Sidney entered the bathroom, not knowing what she'd actually find. She looked on the floor, and saw nothing. Then on the mirror, and found to her horror, that three names were written.
Sidney Lucinda
Deborah
Deborah
For the past ten minutes, Lucy had been kicking and squealing on the floor of her dorm room. A sensation on the bottoms of her feet similar to having her feet fall asleep, only a thousand times more extreme, had subdued her and transformed her into a desperately thrashing, cackling lump of flesh. She had gone out to the library and had left at two in the morning, an hour before it closed, and walked all the way across the campus in the rain, when she could have taken the expedient campus shuttle.
She was eating some fruit cocktail out of the can when it happened. The soft buzzing that heralded it; it was a mere irritation, a nuisance, she just stamped her feet and it went away. But then, it returned, and it was stronger. A distinct tingling sensation which caused her to wriggle her toes itchily as she tried to quell the attack. But it did not cease, it merely grew stronger.
Soon it became a harsh tickling sensation, and she kicked her feet as if someone wereh olding her ankles and diggign their nails into her soles. She rolled on the floor, and crashed into the sofa, blocking her path, she futilely clawed at the air.
“Stop, STOP!” She cried in vain, her shrieks like the call of a hen whose neck was being wrung. “Whoever's doing this, just stop!” At that moment, in the midst of the tickling, a tall, dark shadow walked through the wall and stood over Lucy as she struggled with her unseen tormentor. It stood there for the next five minutes, looking over her, watching her, perhaps reveling in deviant satisfaction at her plight. While Lucy kicked and squealed and cried tears of laughter and desperation. And then the tickling ceased. And the shadow, still watching her, walked backward, and disappeared into the wall.
Lucy heaved air into her lungs and held it, then exhaled, and repeated the process again and again, until she finally stopped trembling. She backed up against the sofa, and kept looking at the wall. She had no intention of going into her bedroom which was on the other side of that wall, ever again after this. She kept staring at the spot where the entity entered and exited, as if it would reappear.
The sudden brush of a soft, spiky tentacle along the small of her back, sent her across the room, screaming and flailing her arms before she tripped over the small japanese dining table she had bought from a friend. She tumbled to the floor and rolled over, facing the ceiling.
“Ugh, damn,” she groaned as she sat up. She saw her cat watching her from the sofa arm. It tilted it's head in a manner as if to say, 'ARE YOU OKAY?' She let her head fall back to the rug she lay on. The room exploded with a huge dark cackling that echoed throughout the dormitory, and seemed focused right beside Lucy's ears. The cat jumped off of the sofa and shot into the kitchen to hide in the cupboard it usually took shelter in.
“GAAAAAAAHHH!!!” Lucy wailed as she burst out of the dorm quad into the falling rain. Her feet wet and muddy, she ran down the path screaming like madwoman.
Later in the afternoon, the six members of the group sat in the headquarter room. Everyone but Debbie and Jenny were stressed ou by this situation.
“And you say, you guys were attacked?” Debbie said as she drank her beer. She rested her barefeet on the table in the middle of the room.
“It wasn't an ordinary attack,” Lucy said, as she held her knees, “It was a tickle attack.” She shuddered.
“Well, I wouldn't know if I was attacked or not.” She said as she sipped more beer. “Jenny was splitting my sides all night long.”
“And she was lovin' it too!” Jenny called from the refrigerator. “I had her covered.”
“You two don't believe it then?”
“Nah, not really.” Jenny said. “I need some proof before I can elieve that.”
Sidney got up and lipted up her shirt “How's this for your God damned proof?”
“Whoa,” Jenny and Debbie said in unison.
“When did you dye your hair blonde?” Jenny asked; everyone in the room went quiet, and turned to him. “What? It's a legitimate question!” they all turned away from him while shaking their heads. “What?! I thought she was a black haired chick!”
Jacob's eyes rose from the book he was reading for only a moment, “I shall call a demonologist.”
“That would be wise,” Sidney replied, “who do you have in mind?”
The small woman's heels clicked on the porcelain floor. She wore a pair of black pants, and a black t-shirt. Her hair was dyed blood red and her large dark eyes were framed by elegant black wire rim glasses. Her small angular face, was framed by her red hair and her lips were a thin line about her face.
Jacob opened the door and greeted the visitor. “Melisse Toussad.” he said as he stuck his hand out.
“Hello,” Melisse said as she grabbed her greeter's hands in a friend'ly embrace. “How are you Jacob?”
“You two know each other?” Sidney said as she poked her head out of the office door.
“She is a friend of mine from High school.”
“Oh,”
“I'm very pleased to be working with you on this project.” Melisse said as she bowed, “I've always wanted to vanquish a tickle demon.”
“A what?” Sidney asked not shure of what she just heard.
“A tickle demon,” Melisse replied. “I knew that's what you had when Jacob described it too me.”
“Just because it tickled me?”
“Well, most of them delight in scratching their victims or tearing them to shreds. This kind just likes to tickle. Dreadfully so.”
“How do we get rid of it?”
“We have to go find the body of the man the tickle demon was. In your case your Jill Henderson.”
“Giles Hendersen.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.”
“How long should it take?”Sidney asked as she led Melisse up the stairs.
“First we have to go back to the house, and do a purification ritual on the entire estate.”
“That might be a problem. Are you willing to travel?”
“Yes, I'd love to travel.”
“To missisippi?” There was a pause. “To mississippi?”
“...Yes.”
“Then what do we have to do?”
“Then we have to bless the body. Because most likely, the human host was not the body that the demon came with.”
“That seems logical.”
“Of course it is.”
“It seems easy as well.” Sidney said as she placed her hand on the door knob to the main room.
“It won't be easy,” Jacob interjected.
“Why?” Sidney and Melisse asked, turnign their heads suddenly.
“Because after the autopsy Hendersen's body disappeared, do you recall?”
qw “Then, that means that we have an exponentially more difficult job ahead of us.”
“Why?” Sidney asked Melisse.
“Because,” she replied as she turned the knob, “that means the demon is a powerful one. More powerful than other demons like him.”
“Who's this bitch?” Jenny asked with a laugh. Melisse's ears twitched and she looked for the origin of the voice. When she saw who spoke, her face burst into a smile.
“Jennaro!” She squealed as she ran over to the young man.
“Melli!” He said as he opened his arms out to hug her. Melisse's smile turned to a frown as she shot a punch into his crotch.
“Don't you ever call me a bitch again, got it bucko?” She said in an East London accent. Jenny was so stunned that he fell on the floor, on his side, holding his crotch.
“I knew he'd get what's coming to him, one of these days.” Jacob said with an uncaring tone and an uncaring stare.
“It's sort of what she gets, being that, she opened the door.” Sidney said under her breath.
The next day, the group had booked a flight back to Mississippi and were in a van heading down toward the Bohr Mansion in Sundown County. It was early in the morning and the darkness of the night was like an interminable cloak that held all within its seemingly invincible grip.
“Stop the van,” Sidney said, “I need to get some air.”
“There's a rest stop up ahead,” Melisse said as she looked over the map. “We could all use some air, some refreshments,” she yawned, “some sleep.”
“You've been sleeping since we left New York!” Lucy said, “What are you, Narcoleptic?”
“No, studying demons is very hard work. Especially if you're haunted by them.”
“Tell us more about the Tickle Demon.”
“Oh, God, I odn't believe this,” Debbi said, still unbelieving in the incidents that befell her and Lucy.
“Well, Tickle Demons come in many forms. They can be like apparitions of the dead, or they can look like the ram-headed men you see represented as a satanic creature in the media. Or they can be in the form of uh...” She looked around in an uncomfortable manner.
“Of...?”
Melisse coughed, “Black Slaves,”
“What tha fuck?” Jenny, who had been sleeping, until that moment exclaimed as he sat up, “tell me about this shit...” He looked at Jacob, who was listening to some music on his walkman.
“He is NOT a black slave,” Sidney hissed.
“Well, he is black...”
“He's really dark chocolate.”
Well, he's african-american.”
“So?”
“He's more than halfway there.”
“Shut up!” Sidney snapped, her anger rising.
“I'll call him so many names...”
“Don't make me use some names I've got for you!”
“Butt head!”
“Wetback!”
“Gringo!”
“Your mama was a wetback!”
“So? At least my mama didn”t try to get over on the native people of another continent!”
“Are you complimenting me?”
“No, I'm calling you a murderer of my people!”
“That's the most ignorant thing I've ever heard you say!”
“Well, what'd you expect? I am Ignorant!”
There was a silence in the car that might have lasted for as long as the van moved had not Lucy broken it. “Well, just remember, Jenny said it.”
“There is a rest stop up ahead,” Jacob said, “I'm going to pull in there. We can get food, drinks, and some shut eye. Is everyone agreeable to that?” He turned around and pulled his headphones off. “Is that okay with everyone?” Everyone stared at him in silence. “Alright then.” He turned and put his headphones back on.
“Mm, mm, mm...” Jenny said with a smile and a shake of his head, “Driving Miss Daisy.”
Sidney forced Jenny's head into the wall of the van.
“Agh, fuck woman!”
Everyone had gotten out of the car at the rest stop. It was a twenty-four hour establishment, which got very lonely at night. Sidney went into the restroom and washed her face. She placed her glasses on the sink and cupped her hands. She had just finished washing, and was reaching for a paper towel, when she felt two slender hands wrap about her belly.
She smiled, it had to be Jacob. He always would come up from behind, quietly as a cat, wrapping his arms about her waist and knotting them at her navel. She often wished that he'd drag one of his fingers along the rim of, or even into her navel. Drive her into hysterics. But she could only dream. Jacob planted a kiss on the nape of her neck. She grinned.
“You know, Jenny was talking about you,” she said as she placed her hands on his wrists. “I know it's all in fun, but sometimes, I wonder, I really wonder...”
Another kiss, another smile.
“It's like, he loves being an antagonist. Picking on you and I.”
A soft breath, mint scented, cold.
“It wouldn't surprise me if he really is racist. My family is just like that, such nationalists, I can't stand it sometimes, you know?”
“I know...” Jacob's voice tickled her ear.
“You're so calm Jacob,”
“I know...” he held her close to him.
“I'm glad I met you.”
“I know...” He let his index finger wander about her navel. Her belly quivered and her smile broadened.
“J-Jacob...” She feels his finger halt, “No, no, go on...”
Another kiss. Another smile. Another drag. It's easy to do, like smoking a spliff; once you begin its hard to let one go unfinished. Especially if the police catch you.
Sidney sniggered, Jacob's finger fluttered over her navel, and her grin bore teeth. Another kiss later, and Sidney was chuckling with delight. A few more strokes and she had fallen back on Jacob and was laughing with some abandon.
“Oh, Jacob, I'm so glad you know,”
“I know.”
“So, happy you know my fantasy...”
“Don't you wish I were Jacob?” The terror that filled Sidney was like someone scratching a record on its player. She stopped laughing at these words and looked in the mirror, the image was blurry.
“Jennaro?” She hissed as she snatched her glasses up and placed them on her face. She looked at the image, and she nearly screamed.
Giles Hendersen stared at her from the mirror, bullet hole and all. His eyes contrasting starkly with his skin, as dark as the curtains of the universe. His teeth, long and canine, shined white in the mirror, though in reality, they could have been worms in a jawbone.
“Did I not tell you I would be back?” He said hugging her tighter. “I must admit, I did enjoy your apartment better, but I am adaptable. We shall have so much fun together, you, and your two friends. Particularly Deborah. She seems to like me a lot.” He narrowed his eyes. I'll have to get rid of the others. Melissa and that coward, Jacob.”
“He's not a coward.”
“He won't indulge you in your fantasies. He is.”
“He loves me.”
“What is love but acceptance? He does not care for your fantasies.”
“He still loves me.”
“He, my Sidney, is as stagnant as a hundred year old pond.”
Sidney gasped in realization. Giles smiled as he faded into the air.
