Chapter Two: Something Wicked
What happened next was about as surreal as things had ever gotten for me. The lock on my screen door proved highly ineffective to the strength of Barnes' beefy hand ripping the thing right off its hinges. My dog had ceased his growling and was reduced to weanling like whining as the two men stepped over the threshold and into my home.
"Rowdy, get back!" I remember shouting to my oversized mutt. He had tensed beside me, as though uncertain whether to listen or to stay and attempt to protect me.
I knew that I was in trouble. When every base instinct had told me that the two men at my door were anything but who they claimed, I had gone and flat out ignored it. My dog made a feeble go of a growl, seemingly growing back the balls he'd lost when I adopted him, and lunged for Townes.
The smile had not left the blonde's sharp features even as the big Lab mix showcased his long canines and snapped at the agent's leg. Townes' smooth voice simply remarked, "How adorable. Puppy wants to play."
In the next moment, 'puppy' had been thrown across my living room and clear into the kitchen without ever having a hand laid on him. I heard Rowdy yelp in pain, but my body would not allow for me to turn and check to see how badly he was hurt. Through no will of my own I found that I could not even back away from the intruders.
"How…who..?" I stammered, unable to find my words. Barnes and Townes leered over me as though I were a lamb led into a lion's den.
Their eyes remained unmistakably the color of pitch. Every part had been covered. The iris and the whites were indistinguishable from each other; it was as though somebody had taken the ink of a squid and filled in their sockets. While I had always entertained the idea of the paranormal and supernatural being more than fairy tales I never thought I would wind up one of those people with a story to tell.
Admittedly, my first thought was an ironic one. What if they were aliens posing as FBI agents and my neighbor, Dean, was their secret leader? Of course, it sounded ridiculous after I had finished the thought and it was clear to me that I was dealing with something much more dangerous and fearsome.
Townes had the heart to let me in on their little secret, and to this day I have difficulty making sense that I was ever involved.
"Ah, look, I think she's noticed we aren't exactly human. Isn't that precious? Are you afraid?"
I clenched my jaw and tried my best to appear brave. My trembling voice, however, would give me up. "Not really."
"It's not nice to lie." Barnes smirked at me. His sausage fingers clamped a vice grip on my cheeks and pressed them in until I felt my molars cutting into the flesh of my mouth.
I raised my arms and gripped at Barnes' arm and dug my fingernails into the flesh trying to get him to release me. It didn't work. He hadn't even seemed to feel it, and his grip got tighter.
"Play nice." Townes cooed and stepped up next to his partner. I had not noticed it before, but there was something strangely effeminate about the way the guy spoke. Coupled with the enormity of weird unfolding before me I had started summoning up my willpower to wake up.
There was no way that any of this wasn't a dream. I'd fallen asleep while reading, and at any moment I would snap awake to the feel of lukewarm tea dribbled down my pajamas.
Fortunately for me, Townes had apparently been the one calling all the shots. Barnes finally let me go, only for his hand to be replaced by the slender fingers of the blond.
Shining, black eyes held my gaze as though trying to penetrate my skull. My arms hung limply at my sides. I had given up fighting them. If Townes could telekinetically throw an eighty pound dog across a room I wouldn't stand a gnat's chance in honey trying to break free. I surrendered myself.
"…are you going to kill me?" I whispered as my resolve faded.
Townes pursed his lips as though this had never crossed his mind in the first place. "Oh, I really think that depends on how things go with your neighbor. Tell you what: If it all runs hunky-dory, I'll let you go and you'll never have to even remember this night happened."
"What are you going to do to Dean?"
"Don't worry about it just do as you're told." Barnes piped up. Apparently, playing the part of back-up singer was ill-suited to him, though Townes silenced him immediately with a wave of his free hand.
"What my colleague suggests is highly recommended. You'll find out soon enough, and I think you'll see it through your own eyes." The slender agent leaned in closer. I had the fleeting notion he would try to kiss me, though my mind was quickly focused on the two fingers prying my jaw down to open my mouth.
I tried to shake my head when the pads of the fingers pressed into my tongue. The whole situation had just gone from weird to utterly bizarre when Townes threw his head back, opened his mouth, and an oily, black smoke poured forth. I could hear Rowdy whimpering, giving me, for the time, a bit of relief that he was alright.
Outside, the wind had howled fiercely and the static of the electric storm had swept into my house. The energy revolved around Townes' body and it had clicked in my head that the smoke had possessed the man.
When the curl of smog snaked toward me I began to scream in a panic. I had never heard myself make such a racket like the one I did that night, but it was short-lived. The thick, cloudy pillar forced its way past my lips and nixed any sound trying to leave me. My eyes watered and my nostrils burned. I could taste heat and pollution; the scent of rotten eggs- like sulfur- overwhelmed me. Gagging, I was totally helpless against the invasion.
Within a few seconds the transfer completed. My mouth closed, but it wasn't my mouth anymore. I had become a vessel to this intruder, this thing that writhed inside my body and made itself at home. No movement belonged to me as the body-snatcher checked over its new suit. I screamed, but it only echoed into the mind we were both sharing.
"Keri Waller," my voice had spoken my name without any consent from me. The thing inside shrugged my shoulders and then slowly ran my hands over every part of my body. I would have shuddered if I had the choice at being so thoroughly checked out by a strange entity. "Nice rack."
I groaned, inwardly, and watched through my eyes as though I were looking through a camera lens out at the world. The only benefit I could find in being possessed was that I was introduced to information about my assailant that I had not before known. For instance, I discovered that despite being a stream of black smoke the thing inside me was female. She also felt infinitely more comfortable inside of my body than inside the FBI agent.
I also learned the truth about what exactly I had come face to face with: Demons. Honest to God demons straight out of the pits of Hell. I was never particularly religious though my grandfather had hammered it into my head all of the stories in the Bible and how demons walked among us. I'd assumed it all allegorical, yet here they were. One in front of me wearing a human man's body while poking the toe of his shoe at the freed man who had either fainted or was stone cold dead, and the other made herself nice and cozy smack inside me.
Well, there was no denying what Grandpa taught me anymore. I wondered if he believed in the stories he told me, and thought that it was a damn good thing he had been so religiously devout. I doubted that Hell would have suited him from the flashes of memory I had gotten from my hijacker.
Barnes motioned toward the opened doorway where the electrical storm raged just beyond. My lips curved into a slight grin and I walked past the huge, demon possessed man and out. I could feel my hair whipping freely around my face as we—I and the evil inside—briskly clipped to Dean's house. Barnes had remained behind in order to keep up appearances that it was just me paying a visit to my neighbor.
In my pajamas.
At seven-thirty in the evening.
My kidnapper showed no sign of this being worrisome. It was as though she had access to every memory stored away, and apparently I had done much too much of walking around outside in my nightclothes.
The soft glow from a lamp inside of Dean's home shone through the front bay window invitingly. I tried to will him out of his front room where we could clearly see him eased into a cushy armchair watching some spaghetti Western on his boxy television.
"Man, talk about being behind the times." She muttered, clearly entertained by the sight. "Must be too cheap to spring for a flat screen, huh?"
If she had expected me to answer her I disappointed. After a moment longer, my hand knocked rapidly on the yellow painted door.
The old man turned his head and adjusted his glasses before he realized who he thought to be me standing on his porch. Any inclination I had that he was somehow in the know of what was going down that evening drained away from me. My resolve that Dean had told me to lock my doors and warned me out of knowledge of coming events had deflated completely when he came to answer my knocking.
It's a trap! I wanted to shout at him. And then I was quickly reminded that my life was, too, in jeopardy.
What an irritating conundrum.
A minute passed before Dean finally opened the door to us and he glanced past it at the storm. He sighed, as though wondering why he was being bothered.
"Sorry to interrupt your down time." My voice sounded oddly foreign. "I was hoping that you could help me out for a sec?"
Green eyes squinted and his lips pressed together as though he tried to hold back his annoyance.
"If you came to borrow a cup of sugar I'll let you know now I don't have any. Diabetic." He spat out the last word as though something bitter had touched his tongue.
"Remind me not to bake you any pies." The demon quipped easily and then moved my arms to hug my body against the chill. "Could I come in and talk? I really should've grabbed a jacket, but I didn't think it'd get this cold."
Don't do it. Tell her you're busy. I begged from my internal prison for him to shut the door in my face.
Oh, please. Like that could stop me, princess. The demon shot back at me in my voice, inside my head, as simply as one of my thoughts.
Dean didn't hesitate one moment. He swung the door open and shuffled his rheumatic body backward to allow room for us to walk right inside.
Once inside, he closed and locked the door and guided the way to his living room. The demon took stock of the layout. Bookshelves overflowed, knick-knacks that the elderly always seemed to collect over time were situated in no distinctive order, a sofa, the armchair, and the outdated television. The room was pulled together by a beige throw rug tossed on top of a thick, blue carpet. Quite clearly, the wife had done all the decorating and Dean hadn't changed a thing since he lost her.
"Why don't you have a seat?" He offered, gesturing to the plush couch against the far wall.
"Thanks, but this won't take very long."
The elderly man made way past 'us' and then turned his back to the television so that we were eye to eye. There was a gleam in his eye that I had thought he'd lost; only one who kept a particularly juicy secret could have that gleam.
"So then what can I help with, sweetheart?"
In that moment, I had realized that I should be ashamed for ever doubting that my neighbor was ill-equipped for what was happening.
The demon moved us forward two steps, and on the third all of my muscles froze. It was though an invisible wall prevented us from going any further. She tried once more and then, upon failing, groaned in frustration.
"You're an ass, Dean Winchester." More curses tumbled out of my mouth. When she finally calmed down my arms crossed over my chest and my jaw clenched.
My neighbor smirked underneath his whiskers and settled into his armchair. "Hello Meg. Long time, no see."
