I slam my tray down on the table, scaring a few people around me and causing the slop on the tray to splatter on the white tables.
Fuck them. Fuck this food. Fuck this entire place.
“Sibel!” a guard yells from across the room. I don’t even look at him. He has it out for me, I know he does. Ever since I’ve arrived in this god forsaken place, he’s always watching me. The demon finds any reason to get me in trouble and send me back to my room.
I know the way he looks at me. He’s scared of me.
He fucking should be.
“What!” I yell back. I sit down with a huff, already pissed off. The nurse came into my room at six o’clock in the morning to feed me more meds. I took them at first, when I first arrived here. But I stopped taking them a week ago.
I don’t want to be drugged up anymore. The more comatose I feel, the more I start to forget my henchmen. They don’t visit me in here. I haven’t heard what happened to them after the car accident. How badly they were hurt, or if any of them even survived. The possibility of one of them being
dead nearly does make me crazy.
No one will tell me. Maybe they were convicted of the murders, or maybe they also got sent to the loony bin.
Whatever the case, I miss them fiercely, and I don’t ever want to forget them. They were—are—everything to me. If I lose any of them, I’ll lose all my sanity and become the very thing everyone has always accused me of.
If they thought I was crazy before… I would fucking belong in here then. In a lunchroom with real crazy people and they’re all staring at me like I’m the one that’s fucking cracked.
“Clean your act up, or you’re going back to your room,” he threatens, a stern look on his ugly fucking face. There’s no way this man gets pussy. He’s far too ugly, with his greasy cornflower blonde hair, pinched brown eyes and acne scars all over his cheeks. He’s also too uptight, probably having been bullied his whole life so now he feels the need to take it out on anyone he deems inferior. Maybe I’ll suck his dick later to loosen him up so he leaves me the hell alone.
I ignore him and angrily scoop up some applesauce onto my spoon and shove it in my mouth.
This day is only going to get worse. I have another appointment with Dr.
Rosie today. She’s a conniving bitch that’s trying to convince me of false things. Over the past three months, she’s been trying to convince me I’m crazy. Talk of severe psychosis and paranoid schizophrenia have fallen from her and the nurses mouths a few times. Dr. Rosie officially diagnosed me as a paranoid schizophrenic with psychopathic tendencies after a week of being
here.
I laughed when she told me that.
I’m not fucking crazy, I’m enlightened! I’ve been doing a goddamn service to this world by getting rid of the evil. Who else was going to do it? That’s a question Dr. Rosie could never give me a straight answer to. She always spouts the same thing. That’s not for you to decide. You’re not the judge and
executioner.
Yeah, whatever, bitch.
I am. I’ve been doing what everyone else is too weak to do. Sniffing and snuffing out the evil. And I’m being punished for it.
I’m busy glaring into my applesauce when I feel someone sit down next to me. I ignore whoever it is, too focused on my daydream of maiming every
single employee in this place and escaping.
Every time I fantasize, I always see myself covered in blood and holding onto my pretty knife, running out of the building and straight into my henchmen’s arms. They’re all there waiting for me, big smiles on their made- up faces. They scoop me in their arms and tell me how proud they are of me.
And then they whisk me away and show me how much they missed me with their tongues and cocks.
The unwanted person leans too close to me. I get a whiff of poison berries, the kind Daddy had me pluck from the bushes and bake into pies when he deemed a follower unworthy.
I snap my head up, glaring at the intruder. Glenda. She’s looking into my applesauce, a contemplative look on her face.
“Did the applesauce wrong you somehow?” she asks, the wrinkles on her face crinkling as she speaks.
She’s an ancient woman. Apparently has been here since she was sixteen years old. There are rumors that she murdered her family with an axe because she believed they were all possessed by the devil. Chopped their heads off and then burned the bodies. I’ve never heard Glenda admit nor deny it. She doesn’t speak about it at all.
For whatever reason, she’s content in this place. It’s safe for her, and it’s all she’s known for at least sixty years. I guess they’ve tried to release her several times, stating she’s been rehabilitated and is no longer a danger to society. But every time, Glenda would attack a nurse, biting them until their flesh is ripped away. Just so she can stay in her home.
My brows furrow. “Why would you ask something so stupid?” I snap, before scooping another mouthful of applesauce into my mouth.
She didn’t deserve that. I deflate.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
Glenda has an odd smell to her. I’ve never smelt poison berries on anyone before, but I’m thinking she’s like Zade—like me. Another one of those people who have blackness residing in their souls, but not completely consumed by it.
I wish someone else could sniff out evil the way I could, just so they would tell me what I smell like. Daddy would say I smell like a demon. That was his favorite thing to call me.
“You reek of sin and evil, Sibel. I don’t know how I created such an
abomination.”
Glenda leans away, a smile on her face. “That’s okay, child. We all have bad days.”
“You say that as if good days exist,” I murmur, my anger bleeding into
sadness.
I’m really sad.
“They seem far away right now, but you’ll see them again.”
I don’t answer. I don’t believe a word coming out of her mouth. What does she know anyway? She’s content spending the rest of her life in this hellhole.
She’s content being locked up, away from society because it’s easier that way.
It’s easier to give up on life. To have no will to live. To have no desire for
freedom.
I want all those things and more.
I want my henchmen back. I want to go back to my life’s mission.
Executing the demons, all across the country. I want to feel my pretty knife plunging into flesh, tearing away at the sinewy muscles and hitting bone. To feel the warm blood spraying across my face and chest, coating my skin like oil. And then I want my henchmen to fuck me afterwards. Just like they always used to do.
Satan’s Affair provided me a luxury unlike anything else, and I’ll never have that again. They’re the only travelling haunted fair that I know of, and just like I’ve suspected, they are now taking serious precautions to make sure another person doesn’t slip under their radar.
“I’m never going to get out,” I whisper, my heart breaking as I say it.
I spent a couple months in the hospital first, healing from a severe concussion, several broken bones, a punctured lung and nasty lacerations across my body. I was chained to the fucking hospital bed, scared and alone. I pleaded to see my henchmen, but they would just tell me to rest, refusing to let me see any of them.
They don’t visit me here either, and after I asked Dr. Rosie if they could, she told me that we’d talk about it when I start healing. Always that stupid word. Healing. I am healed.
I was healed when I got to jail. And even more so when I saw the opportunity to kill another demon there.
My trial still isn’t for quite a while, but they threw me in the mental
institute after a month in jail. After that, they gave me a psych test and ultimately determined me as insane and delusional. What can I say? The demon smelt of rot and decay, and they looked so cute with a shank sticking out of their eye.
“Is that what your lawyer is saying?” Glenda asks, just as quietly.
I nod, a lone tear slipping down my pale cheek.
Another sad part—I don’t have any make up in here to hide behind. In here, my face is bared to the world. It feels like walking into war without any armor. Without a sword and shield, and heavy metal to protect my body.
I just feel… vulnerable.
Every day, I look in the mirror—the kind that doesn’t break, much to my dismay—and stare at the girl I’ve become. Pale face, round cheeks, plain brown eyes and a crooked nose. Dark circles rim my eyes, and my lips have become painfully chapped. My dark brown hair falls limply past my breasts, and every day, I’m tempted to cut it all off.
I stare at the mirror every day, and Mommy stares back at me.
“You look just like your mother. Are you even mine, Sibel?”
Every time he said that to me, I wanted to tell him I wasn’t. Just for the small hope that he’d let me go. But then, I knew he’d kill Mommy for infidelity. None of the women there were allowed to bed anyone else but him.
I hate that I look like a ghost, which is why I was happy to cover it with makeup. I can’t even bring myself to wear my pigtails anymore. Not when I don’t have my doll face painted on and my pretty knife in my hand.
“I don’t want to, but they say I’m crazy. I’m being forced to plead insanity.
The lawyer said Willowcreek Institute will provide me the best possible life, compared to prison.”
At least in prison, I could continue carrying out my mission. Prisons are filled to the brim with evil people. If I was sentenced to life, at least then I’d have nothing left to lose. I could keep killing, and still find some semblance of happiness. Even if my henchmen couldn’t be by my side.
Glenda stays quiet for a moment.
“The outsiders—people that think they’re normal—they don’t understand people like us. We see the world for what it is. This Earth is layered, just like an onion, and we’re only living in one of those layers. Us—we see the other layers. The energies that exist in this world and all the ugly and evil that comes alongside it. These layers are thin and strong entities can walk through
the cracks, into other layers and wreak havoc.
“They say it’s all in our head. But I think they’re just suppressed. The things we see—they’re not in our heads. They’re in our faces. In our lives.
And sometimes, in our bodies. They just can’t see them.”
I sigh. Despite what the doctors say, I’m not seeing or feeling anything that isn’t actually there. Glenda’s right. I know that the people I’ve killed were evil. I know that with every fiber of my being. I can smell their souls. I can smell the rot that’s festering inside their bodies from the inside out. And I’m not wrong for extinguishing those rotted souls.
I’m not I’m not I’m not I’m not I’m not— “Sibby?” My head snaps up. Glenda is staring at me, concern etched into her wrinkles. She’s not looking at me like I’m crazy. Like the nurses or doctor would be. And especially the rotten guards that leer at us like we’re scum. She’s looking at me like she knows exactly what I’m feeling.
“Did you do it?” I whisper.
She stares back at me, an unreadable emotion flashing in her eyes.
“Did I do what, dear?”
“Did you kill your family? Because they were demons?”
She smiles—almost a tired smile.
“Honey, they weren’t my family. They were Satan’s.”
That’s all the confirmation I need.
Glenda’s like me. She sensed the rot. She knew it to be true. And she got
rid of them.
“I’m glad you’re here, Glenda.”
I don’t say I’m glad I’m here because I’d rather be anywhere else but here.
But I know Glenda is glad she’s here, and since I’m forced to be here, I’m
glad she is too.
She pats my hand.
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think what you did was wrong.”
I open my mouth—to say what, I’m not sure. But I’m interrupted before I can figure it out.
“Sibel Dubois, let’s go!” The same, greasy guard is yelling for me.
Summoning me to see Dr. Rosie. I sigh, and Glenda winks and offers me a good luck.
Normally, I don’t need good luck. But lately, I do. Dealing with Dr. Rosie is a headache, and she claims every session is a new breakthrough. If you ask
me, the only thing she’s breaking is my control to not fucking rip her eyes from their sockets.
The guard escorts me to her office, knocking once on the door.
Doctor Aberlyn Rosie is written on a pretentious gold plaque on the door. I want my pretty knife so I can carve the word Bitch into the plaque alongside her name. Only then, would I be able to stand to look at it.
“Come in, Sibby,” she calls. A shudder works through me. She’s not my friend. Only my friends call me that.
I shoot the guard a nasty glare, purely for just existing and it makes me feel better, before storming into the room. The first thing that greets my nose is a woodsy scent. Dr. Rosie smells like pine trees. I wrinkle my nose. I don’t like the smell of pine trees, I like the smell of flowers.
“You’re not allowed to call me Sibby,” I gripe, aiming my glare her way.
Her bleached blonde hair is pulled back in a low ponytail and pink lip gloss is painted on her lips today, making her sterile blue eyes pop.
Every day, she wears a different color lipstick. She says it brings a little bit of brightness to an otherwise depressing place. I wanted to pluck her pen from her breast pocket and shove it in her throat for saying that.
She says that like it’s our fault it’s depressing. No. It’s theirs.
Crazy people are the most interesting people in the world if you’d just let them be who they are. Medicating and drugging people until they’re mindless zombies would make anyone depressed, you dumb bitch.
“Still don’t consider us friends?” she asks, her sculpted brow cocked with amusement. She doesn’t look intimidating like Zade did. She just looks like she’s trying to look cute and failing miserably.
What a miserable person.
“No,” I snap. “Friends don’t call other friends crazy.”
“Sibby…” at my dark look, she clears her throat and corrects herself, her patient tone undeterred. “Sibel. I never said you were crazy. I said you’re suffering from severe schizophrenia and delusions. There are millions of people who have the same condition, and live normal lives.”
Normal? What does normal even mean? Normal is subjective.
“I wouldn’t say they live normal lives, Dr. Rosie. Seeing things you aren’t capable of might be normal to them, but it certainly isn’t the same definition you have declared as normal.”
She smiles. “You’re right, Sibel. I suppose it's very uncultivated of me to
say their lives are normal.” Before I can open my mouth and tell her about herself some more, she moves on. “Tell me about your henchmen.”
My brow lowers and my heart sinks. Everything sinks.
“I don’t want to talk about them,” I growl.
She cocks her head. “Why is that, Sibby? Is it because they left?”
I sniff. Tears burn my eyes and line the edges of my lids. I refuse to let them fall. I refuse to show any kind of weakness in front of Dr. Rosie. She’ll
eat it up like a starved dog.
“Yes,” I hiss through gritted teeth.
“Why do you think they left?”
I shrug a shoulder before crossing my arms and looking away. I’m sulking, and I have the right to. We promised we’d always be together, and they left me. They lied.
“Probably because they didn’t want to get caught, too.”
She writes something down in her notebook. The urge to stab the pen in her eye comes back with a vengeance. I’d really like to know what she writes
about me.
Crazy. She's saying I’m fucking crazy.
“Sibby, how did you meet your henchmen?”
I sigh with impatience, but don’t bother correcting her this time. “At Satan's Affair in a small town in Ohio. I had just escaped from Daddy’s cult when I came across the travelling fair, and snuck into a haunted house after it closed down. I didn’t have anywhere to sleep, nowhere warm, so I decided to sleep in one of the haunted houses for a night. There, I met my henchmen, standing over a dead body. They told me he was evil and it was like the world aligned. I knew my purpose in life but I knew it wasn’t the right time to start until I was positive I could do it undetected. You know—by the normal people?
“My henchmen offered me that. They said I could stay within the walls and cast my judgements. Once I did, they’d help me carry out their punishment.”
I had already told her all about Daddy’s cult and how I ultimately escaped.
It was five years ago when I had enough. He had just murdered an innocent woman for not following his rules. I don’t even remember what exactly she did wrong anymore—Daddy always had rules that contradicted each other.
A woman cannot take a man's seed into her body unwed.
If you don’t drink God’s nectar, you will be damned to Hell for all eternity.
Don’t fuck without being married, but oh no, if you don’t suck on my cock, you’re the unholy one.
I snapped when I saw an innocent woman dead because of a deranged man.
If anyone was crazy—it was Daddy. He wasn’t listening to God's voice in his head. He was listening to Satan’s.
So I killed him. I grabbed the same knife that he stabbed into that woman's ear and turned it on him. I stabbed him well over a hundred times, until I was sitting on two hundred pounds of meat and bone, and I couldn’t physically lift my arm anymore.
And then I set everyone free. Most were angry and cried. But I saw it deep in their eyes—they were relieved, too. They were just angry that they had to find their own purpose in life instead of blindly following the purpose that was handed to them by the devil.
“The other employees that worked in the dollhouse. Did any of them have friendships with your henchmen?” Dr. Rosie asks, bringing me back to the conversation.
I shrug. “Not that I know of. They stayed to themselves. They did their jobs and then helped me with mine.”
Out of anger, I told my lawyer that I had help from my henchmen. My lawyer said they would look into it, but since then, he refused to talk to me about what’s going on with them. If they’ve ever been caught. Or if there’s an active manhunt for five deadly men.
He says I need to focus on myself right now, and he'll worry about the rest.
There’s no point in trying to protect them now. They didn’t protect me, and law enforcement already knew I had help since they were chasing after them, too.
“What about you? Did any of them know about you?”
I scoff. “No, I stayed inside the walls. The less they knew about me, the better. If no one ever saw me, then they wouldn’t be able to pin anything on them in case I was caught.”
Dr. Rosie hums, writing more baseless words down in her leather notebook. I wonder, is she one of those girls who write in their feelings in journals? Does she take a pen to paper every time she’s called a bitch by a patient? Does she talk about how unappreciated she is in her job, but if she could help just one person, it would all be worth it? I scoff again.
“Sibel, did you ever see your henchmen interact with other staff?”
I frown, furrowing my brow. “Why—”
“Just think about it. Humor me.”
Irritation flares but I do it anyway. I think back to all the times during operation hours. I’d see staff look at them, but they always passed on by without talking to them. Everyone always seemed to look through them. Like they were so insignificant. My henchmen never seemed to notice or care.
“I guess not,” I finally answer, confused on where she’s going with this. So what if others didn’t talk to them? Maybe they were scared of them.
“Why do you think that is?”
I open my mouth, but no sound comes out. “What kind of question is that?” I snap, my irritation growing. But it’s not just irritation I’m feeling. Its fear, too.
My heart kicks into overdrive and Dr. Rosie eyes me.
“Do you think they’re real?”
I jerk back with widened eyes, taken aback by her question but yet, not surprised by it. That question is exactly what I was fearing.
“Why the hell would you ask me that?”
Dr. Rosie shifts, as if she’s settling in for a long conversation.
“Sibel. We found your henchmen.”
Whiplash. She's jerking me back and forth. I can’t keep up.
“Okay, and?” I snap. “Have they been apprehended?”
Her lips tighten into a thin line. “Sibel,” she starts again. “They’re mannequins.”
My world tilts on its axis. A rock forms in my throat, steadily growing until I feel the need to claw at my throat. I can’t breathe past it. My hands dart to the armrests, gripping them so tightly, my nails start to crack.
Everything is spinning and Dr. Rosie's clinical voice is muffled, sounding like I’m trapped underwater and she’s yelling at me from above.
“Sibby? Are you with me?” Her voice comes raging back, loud and abrasive.
I flinch away, but finally suck in a breath. “That’s not true,” I whisper. My chest is tight, and my eyes can’t focus. “That’s not true!” I say again, shouting the words.
Dr. Rosie rises from her seat and gently prods me to bend over. I listen and tuck my head between my knees and just try to breathe. I need to claw at my chest, my throat. Tear at the muscle until it lets me breathe again. Dr. Rosie
holds my hand, reminding me that I can breathe.
Over the next several minutes, I’m completely seized by the panic gripping onto me like a leech. Until finally, I feel my chest loosening and my breathing evening out.
This isn’t the first time I’ve found myself in this position in Dr. Rosie’s office. It’s why I hate coming here.
“You’re wrong,” I gasp, my breath still erratic and choppy.
Dr. Rosie sighs and makes her way back to her chair. “Sibel, you’ve had enough today. Let’s continue this next week.”
“No!” I roar, my spine snapping straight. It makes me dizzy but I power through until my doctor’s blank face comes back into focus. “Tell me what you mean. Now.”
She stares at me, seeming to contemplate if she should continue. She sighs again, but humors me. “All of the men that match the description of your henchmen—they’re mannequins. They are mechanical mannequins that move, but they're not… living.”
I shake my head, the tears I tried so hard to hold in are now streaming down my cheeks. She’s lying. She has to be. I’ve seen them with my own two eyes. Touched them. Kissed them. Talked to them. For five years!
Zade… he saw them, didn’t he?
“But we… we were together,” I insist, wiping snot from my nose. “I felt them.”
Dr. Rosie keeps her face neutral, but something like sympathy shines in her blue eyes. I still want to stab them. Now more than ever.
“There were traces of your DNA found on the mannequins, Sibby. Along with sex toys.”
I rear back once again. “I have never used those in my life!” I exclaim, aghast by her implications. I feel the blood rushing to my cheeks, and I’m angry that she’s seeing me embarrassed. I’ve never been embarrassed in my life.
“You think people wouldn’t have noticed me carrying around mannequins and fucking them?” I snap, disgusted by her implications.
She sighs. “You have a very complex condition. It’s impossible to say exactly what your actions looked like, but it’s safe to say that the majority of your interactions with your henchmen were hallucinated. I suspect after fair hours, when you wanted to feel a bit more of a connection is when you
physically interacted with the mannequins.
“Otherwise, there’s no evidence of you carrying them around. They weren’t found in the cop car you stole, nor did any of the staff ever see the mannequins go missing during operating hours.”
I shake my head. The memories, they are so real. So vivid. There’s no way I imagined it. Flashbacks of all the ways they touched me. We laughed, cried and killed together. And she’s telling me those memories are all fake. She’s telling me I fabricated every single interaction. That’s just not fucking possible.
“You were experiencing auditory, visual and somatic hallucinations,” she continues, her tone clinical. “You were seeing, hearing and feeling things that weren’t actually there. You saw the mannequins and brought them to life in your head. You were alone, scared and very lost, Sibby.” I don’t correct her this time. What she’s describing is what I’m feeling right now. “So to bring yourself comfort in a time of loneliness, you created friends in your head, inspired by the mannequins in the house. They were just figments of your imagination.”
I blink at her, shocked by her stupidity.
“Then who buried the bodies? Who cleaned up the messes? My henchmen always did that.”
“You did, Sibel. Your henchmen were just an extension of you. Everything your henchmen did, was actually you. You completely disassociated from the acts you were doing because you were convinced it was your henchmen that was doing them.”
Flashes of meaningless things flicker in my mind. A shovel gripped in my hand, cutting through dirt and grass. Blisters lining the palms of my hands.
Sweat pouring down my face and neck as I throw bags of human remains in holes.
More flashes. Knocking over a mannequin so the cops would get distracted, and then running down the stairs. Getting into the car—the driver’s wheel gripped in my hands. The foreign feeling of controlling a car… Just small, sporadic glimpses that don’t make any sense. None at all. Those were my henchmen doing those things… She’s just trying to confuse me. She has to be. Trying to make me feel crazy so they can keep me locked in this hellhole forever.
I wipe more tears off my cheeks angrily, glaring at her through blurred vision.
“What else was fake then, huh? Were the people I killed fake, too? Are you saying they weren’t demons?”
Dr. Rosie shakes her head slowly. “They were very real people, Sibby.
They were human. The smells you associate with people is called olfactory hallucinations, and the belief that they were demonic were delusions. I suspect the trauma from your father and his cult is what triggered this. Due to the extent of abuse he inflicted on you, we suspect that he caused severe damage to your brain. He was an extremely sick man, Sibby, and he subjected you to awful abuse. Your brain was protecting itself in the only way it knew how.
“By the time you killed your father, he had brainwashed you with his own delusions. With the combination of brain damage and his brainwashing, that ultimately led you to create your own delusions and hallucinations. That these people were demons and you believed that you could smell the evil on them, or the purity on the others. This was how you justified killing.
“And your father was evil, Sibby. So, when you killed him, you felt you were doing something right. You felt it was your purpose to continue that path.”
I shake my head, and keep shaking it, adamant she has everything wrong.
The only thing she’s right about is Daddy causing severe head trauma. One night, he had beat me so brutally, I was bedridden for months, and he had to pay a doctor come see me on a daily basis. He had a niche for kicking me in the head, so Daddy causing some type of damage isn’t surprising.
But she is wrong about the rest. I know this just as I know that my henchmen are real.
“So, you’re trying to tell me the people I killed weren’t evil?”
The detectives started combing through missing persons in all the locations Satan’s Affair resides in for the past five years. They’ve been able to find numerous bodies and connect them to me, but they haven’t found all of them yet. Some of them were too decomposed, and others were far too destroyed by my hands to get much DNA.
But they know I did it. They know it was me who killed them all.
“Some of the people they were able to identify did have records. But a lot of them were petty crimes. There’s no way for us to really know if they were
evil like you claimed.”
I keep shaking my head. “My henchmen are real,” I say, quite pathetically.
“And those people were evil. I know it. Jennifer’s boyfriend raped her! I heard it from her mouth, and he confessed before he died!”
Dr. Rosie nods her head slowly. “Jennifer Whitley?”
When I nod in confirmation, she writes something down her pad. “I don’t know if that’s true or not, but regardless, it doesn’t matter, Sibby. Even if every single one of them were evil people, that wasn’t for you to act on. You know that right?”
Her words prick at me, but instead of reacting in anger, I take a deep breath and dry my tears. Glenda's words come back to me. I may not be normal, but that doesn’t mean I’m crazy. That doesn’t mean what I’m seeing isn’t real.
Dr. Rosie—she can’t see and smell the things I can. She wasn’t blessed with gifts I was blessed with. I just have to remember that. No matter what she tells me, she’s wrong. She’s speaking from a place of ignorance.
How can you tell me I’m not seeing what I’m seeing, just because you can’t see it, too? Why do the shortsighted people get to claim what is and
isn’t sane?
Slowly but surely, I calm.
“They’re real,” I say with conviction.
“We're real,” a familiar voice whispers. My head snaps towards the voice, and I gasp when my eyes clash with familiar red eyes.
Mortis. Standing in the corner of the room, behind Dr. Rosie. Decked out in his red paint and red contact lens. A small, knowing smile on his face.
“Do you see something, Sibby?” the doctor asks, her brow furrowing. My eyes slide back to her, and I work hard to keep my face blank.
“You’re not allowed to call me Sibby,” I reply.
“They tried to get rid of us,” Mortis says, stepping away from the wall and walking up behind Dr. Rosie. Slowly, and methodically. She doesn’t acknowledge him. Instead she’s staring at me, a hard look on her face. “Did you stop taking the medications, Sibby?”
I nod, a small imperceptible dip of my chin as to keep the suspicions down from the doctor sitting across from me. Staring and dissecting. Trying to pick me apart and figure me out. She’s just like the rest of them. She thinks I’m crazy.
Mortis stands directly behind her. The smirk on his face grows as he rests
his red hands on her shoulders. Yet, she still doesn’t acknowledge him.
Doesn’t even seem to feel him touching her. She just keeps staring at me.
“I know how to get us out of here, Sibby. You know what to do,” he says, pointing towards the pen in her breast pocket. “Do it. Then we can be free,
and then we can all be together again.”
A slow smile spreads across my face.
Dr. Rosie scoots towards the end of her chair, now looking more alarmed.
See? She can sense her death, just like I can sense the evil that surrounds us every day. “Sibby? What’s going on?”
I stand. “Shh. It’ll all be over soon, Dr. Rosie.”
THE END
Thank you for reading Satan’s Affair! I hope you found Sibby as fascinating as I did.
This year, I am releasing a brand new duet! The first book, Haunting Adeline, will be coming this summer. Turn the page to read the first chapter of Haunting Adeline:
Chapter 1 The Manipulator
Sometimes I have very dark thoughts about my mother—thoughts no sane
daughter should ever have.
Sometimes, I’m not always sane.
“Addie, you’re being ridiculous,” Mom says through the speaker on my phone. I glare at it in response, refusing to argue with her. When I have nothing to say, she sighs loudly. I wrinkle my nose. It blows my mind that this woman always called Nana dramatic yet can’t see her own flair for the dramatics.
“Just because your grandparents gave you the house, doesn’t mean you have to actually live in it. It’s old and would be doing everyone in that city a favor if it were torn down.”
I thump my head against the headrest, rolling my eyes upward and trying to find patience weaved into the stained roof of my car.
How did I manage to get ketchup up there?
“And just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean I can’t live in it,” I retort dryly.
My mother is a bitch. Plain and simple. She’s always had a chip on her shoulder, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.
“You’ll be living an hour from us! That will be incredibly inconvenient for
you to come visit us, won’t it?”
Oh, how will I ever survive?
Pretty sure my gynecologist is an hour away, too, but I still make the effort to go see her once a year. And those visits are far more painful.
“Nope,” I reply, popping the P. I’m over this conversation. My patience lasts up to an entire sixty seconds talking to my mother. After that, I’m running on fumes and have no desire to put in any more effort to keep the conversation moving along.
If it’s not one thing, it’s the other. She always manages to find something to complain about. This time, it’s my choice to live in the house my grandparents gave to me. I grew up in this house, running the halls alongside
the ghosts and baking cookies with Nana. I have fond memories here— memories I refuse to let go of just because Mom didn’t get along with Nana.
I never understood the tension between them, but as I got older and started to comprehend Mom’s snarkiness and underhanded insults for what they were, it made sense.
Nana always had a positive, sunny outlook on life, viewing the world through rose-colored glasses. She was always smiling and humming, while Mom is cursed with a perpetual scowl on her face and looking at life like her glasses got smashed when she was plunged out of Nana’s vagina. I don’t know why her personality never developed past that of a porcupine—she was never raised to be that way.
Growing up, my mom and dad had a house only a mile away from Parsons Manor. She could barely tolerate me, so I spent most of my childhood in this house. It wasn’t until I left for college that Mom moved out of town an hour away. When I quit college, I moved in with her until I got back on my feet and my writing career took off.
And when it did, I decided to travel around the country, never really settling on one place.
Nana died about a year ago, gifting me the house in her will, but my grief hindered me from moving into Parsons Manor. Until now.
Mom sighs again through the phone. “I just wish you had more ambition in life, instead of staying in the town you grew up in, sweetie. Do something more with your life than waste away in that house like your grandmother did.
I don’t want you to become worthless like her.”
A snarl overtakes my face, fury tearing throughout my chest. “Hey,
Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Fuck off.”
I hang up the phone, angrily smashing my finger into the screen until I hear the telltale chime that the call has ended.
How dare she speak of her own mother that way when she was nothing but loved and cherished? Nana certainly didn’t treat her the way she treats me, that’s for damn sure.
I rip a page from Mom’s book and let loose a dramatic sigh, turning to look out my side window. Said house stands tall, the tip of the black roof spearing through the gloomy clouds, looming over the vastly wooded area as if to say
you shall fear me. Peering over my shoulder, the dense thicket of trees is no more inviting—its own shadows crawling from the overgrowth with outstretched claws.
I shiver, delighting in the ominous feeling radiating from this small portion of the cliff. It looks exactly as it did from my childhood, and it gives me no less of a thrill to peer into the infinite blackness.
Up here, you’re well and truly alone. Parsons Manor is a recluse house stationed on a cliffside overlooking the Bay. My driveway stretches a mile long through a heavily wooded area, the congregation of trees separating this house from the rest of the world.
Sometimes, Parsons Manor makes you feel like you’re on an entirely different planet, ostracized from civilization. The whole area has a menacing,
sorrowful aura.
And I fucking love it.
The house has begun to decay, but it can be fixed up to look like new again with a little TLC. The black siding is fading to a gray and starting to peel away, and the black paint around the windows is chipping like cheap nail polish. I’ll have to hire someone to give the large front porch a facelift since it’s starting to sag on one side.
The lawn is long overdue for a haircut, the blades of grass nearly as tall as me, and the three acres of clearing bursting with weeds. I bet plenty of snakes have settled in nicely since the lawn has last been mowed.
Nana used to have to offset the house’s dark coloring with blooms of colorful flowers during the spring season. Hyacinths, primroses, violas and rhododendron.
And in autumn, sunflowers would be crawling up the sides of the house, the bright yellows and oranges in the petals a beautiful contrast against the black siding.
I can plant a garden around the front of the house again when the season calls for it. This time, I’ll plant strawberries, lettuce, and herbs as well.
I’m deep in my musings when my eyes snag on movement from above.
Curtains flutter in the single window at the very top of the house.
The attic.
Last time I checked, there’s no central air up there. Nothing should be able to move those curtains, but yet I don’t doubt what I saw.
That coupled with the looming storm in the background, the house looks
like a scene out of a horror film. I suck my bottom lip between my teeth, unable to stop the smile from forming on my face.
I love that.
I can’t explain why, but I do.
Fuck what my mother says. I’m living here. I’m a successful writer and have the freedom to live anywhere. So, what if I decide to live in a place that means a lot to me? That doesn’t make me a lowlife for staying in my hometown. I travel enough with book tours and conferences; settling down in a house won’t change that. I know what the fuck I want, and I don’t give a
shit what anyone else thinks about it.
Especially mommy dearest.
The clouds yawn, and rain spills from their mouths. I grab my purse and step out of my car, inhaling the scent of fresh rain. In a matter of seconds, it turns from a light sprinkle to a torrential downpour. I bolt up the front porch steps, flinging drops of water off my arms and shaking my body out like a wet dog.
I love storms—I just don’t like to be in them. I’d prefer to cuddle up under the blankets with a mug of tea and a book while watching the rain fall.
I slide the key into the lock and turn it. But it’s stuck, refusing to give me even a millimeter. I jimmy the key, wrestling with it until the mechanism finally turns and I’m able to unlock the door.
Guess I’m gonna have to fix that soon, too.
A chilling draft welcomes me as I open the door. I shiver from the mixture of freezing rain still wet on my skin and the cold, stale air. The interior of the house is cast in shadows. Dim light shines through the windows, gradually fading as the sun disappears behind gray storm clouds.
I feel as if I should start my story with “it was a dark stormy night...”
I look up and smile when I see the black ribbed ceiling, made up of hundreds of thin, long pieces of wood. A grand chandelier is hanging over my head, golden steel warped in an intricate design with crystals dangling from the tips. It’s always been Nana’s most prized possession.
The black and white checkered floors lead directly into the black grand staircase—large enough to fit a piano through sideways—and flow off into the living room. My boots squeak against the tiles as I venture further into the dark house.
This floor is primarily an open concept, making it feel like the monstrosity
of the home could swallow you whole.
The living area is to the left of the staircase. I purse my lips and look around, nostalgia hitting me straight in the gut. Dust coats every surface and the smell of mothballs is overpowering, but it looks exactly how I last saw it, right before Nana died last year.
A large black stone fireplace is the center of the living room on the far left wall, with red velvet couches squared around it. An ornate wooden coffee table sits in the middle, an empty vase atop the dark wood. Nana used to fill it with lilies, but now it only collects dust and bug carcasses.
The walls are covered in black paisley wallpaper, offset by heavy golden curtains. It’s going to take forever to get the dust out of those.
One of my favorite parts is the large bay window at the front of the house, giving a beautiful view of the forest stretched beyond Parsons Manor. Placed right in front of it is a red velvet rocking chair with a matching stool. Nana used to sit there and watch the rain, and she said her mother would always do the same.
The checkered tiling extends into the kitchen with beautiful black stained cabinets, and marble countertops. A massive island sits in the middle with black barstools lining one side. Grandpa and I used to sit there and watch Nana cook, enjoying her humming to herself as she whipped up delicious meals.
Shaking away the memories, I rush over to a tall lamp by the rocking chair and flick on the light. I release a sigh of relief when a buttery soft glow emits from the bulb. I had called a few days ago to get the utilities turned on in my name, but you can never be too sure when dealing with an old house.
Then I walk over to the thermostat, the number causing another shiver to
wrack my body.
Sixty-two goddamn degrees.
I press my thumb into the up arrow and don’t stop until the temperature is set to seventy-four. I don’t mind cooler temperatures, but I’d prefer it if my nipples didn’t cut through all of my clothing.
I turn back around and face a home that’s both old and new—a home that’s housed my heart since I could remember, even if my body left for a little while.
And then I smile, basking in the gothic glory of Parsons Manor. It’s how my great-grandparents decorated the house, and the taste has passed down
through the generations. Nana used to say that she liked it best when she was the brightest thing in the room. Despite that, she still had old people’s taste.
I mean, really, why do those white throw pillows have a border of lace around them and a weird, embroidered bouquet of flowers in the middle?
That’s not cute. That’s ugly.
I sigh.
“Well, Nana, I came back. Just like I promised,” I whisper to the dead air.
“Are you ready?” my personal assistant asks from beside me. I glance over at Marietta, noting how she’s absently holding out the mic to me, her attention ensnared on the people still filtering into the small building. This local bookstore wasn’t built for a large number of people, but somehow, they’re making it work anyway.
Hordes of people are piling into the cramped space, converging in a uniform line, and waiting for the signing to start. My eyes rove over the crowd, silently counting in my head. I lose count after thirty.
“Yep,” I say. I grab the mic, and after catching everyone’s attention, the murmurs fade to silence. Dozens of sets of eyeballs bore into me, creating a flush all the way to my cheeks. It makes my skin crawl, but I love my readers, so I power through it.
“Before we start, I just wanted to take a quick second to thank you all for coming. I appreciate each and every one of you, and I’m incredibly excited to meet you all. Everyone ready?!” I ask, forcing excitement into my tone.
It’s not that I’m not excited, I just tend to get incredibly awkward during book signings. I’m not a natural when it comes to social interactions. I’m the type to stare dead into your face with a frozen smile after being asked a question, while my brain processes the fact that I didn’t even hear the question. Usually because my heart is thumping too loud in my ears.
I settle down in my chair and ready my sharpie. Marietta runs off to handle other matters, shooting me a quick good luck. She’s witnessed my mishaps with readers and has the tendency to get secondhand embarrassment with me.
Guess it’s one of the downfalls of representing a social pariah.
Come back, Marietta. It’s so much more fun when I’m not the only one
getting embarrassed.
The first reader approaches me, my book The Wanderer, in her hands and a beaming smile on her freckled face.
“Oh my god, it’s so awesome to meet you!” she exclaims, nearly shoving
the book in my face. Totally a me move.
I smile wide and gently take the book.
“It’s awesome to meet you, too,” I return. “And hey, Team Freckles,” I tack on, waving my forefinger between her face and mine. She gives a bit of an awkward laugh, her fingers drifting over her cheeks. “What’s your name?”
I rush out, before we get stuck on a weird conversation about skin conditions.
Geez, Addie, what if she hates her freckles? Dumbass.
“Megan,” she replies, and then spells the name out for me. My hand trembles as I carefully write out her name and a quick appreciation note. My signature is sloppy, but that pretty much represents the entirety of my existence.
I hand the book back and thank her with a genuine smile.
As the next reader approaches, pressure settles on my face. Someone is staring at me. But that’s a fucking stupid thought because everyone is staring at me.
I try to ignore it, and give the next reader a big ass smile, but the feeling only intensifies until it feels like bees are buzzing beneath the surface of my skin, while a torch is being held to my flesh. It’s… it’s unlike anything I’ve felt before. The hairs on the back of my neck rise, and I feel the apples of my cheeks heating to a bright red.
Half of my attention is on the book I'm signing and the gushing reader, while the other half is on the crowd. My eyes subtly sweep the expanse of the bookstore, attempting to scope out the source of my discomfort without making it obvious.
My gaze hooks on a lone person standing in the very back. A man. The majority of his body is shrouded by the crowd, only bits of his face peeking through the gaps between people’s heads. But what I do see has my hand stilling, mid-writing.
His eyes. One so dark and bottomless, it feels like staring into a well. And the other, an ice blue so light, it’s nearly white, reminding me of a husky’s eyes. A scar slashes straight down through the discolored eye, as if it didn’t already demand attention.
When a throat clears, I jump, snatching my eyes away and looking back to the book. My sharpie has been resting in the same spot, creating a big black ink dot.
“Sorry,” I mutter, finishing off my signature. I reach over and snag a bookmark, sign that too and tuck it in the book as an apology.
The reader beams at me, mistake already forgotten and scurries off with her book. When I look back to find the man, he’s gone.
“Addie, you need to get laid."
In response, I wrap my lips around my straw and slurp my blueberry martini as deeply as my mouth will allow. My best friend, Daya, eyes me.
Unimpressed and impatient based on the quirk of her brow.
I think I need a bigger mouth. More alcohol would fit in it.
I don’t say this out loud because her follow-up response would be to use it for a bigger dick instead. I know this because we think the same and it’s exactly what I would’ve said to her.
When I continue sucking on the straw, she reaches over and rips the plastic from my lips. I’ve reached the bottom of the glass a solid fifteen seconds ago and have just been sucking air through the straw. It’s the most action my mouth has gotten in a year now.
“Whoa, personal space,” I mumble, setting the glass down. I avoid Daya’s eyes, searching the restaurant for the waitress so I can order another martini.
The faster I have the straw in my mouth again, the sooner I can avoid this
conversation some more.
“Don’t deflect, bitch. You suck at it.”
Our eyes meet, a beat passes, and we both burst into laughter.
“I suck at getting laid, too, apparently,” I say after our laughing calms.
Daya gives me a droll look. “You've had plenty of opportunities. You just don’t take them. You’re a hot twenty-six-year-old woman with freckles, a great pair of tits, and an ass to die for. The men are out here waiting.”
I shrug, deflecting again. Daya isn't exactly wrong—at least about having options. I’m just not interested in any of them. They all bore me. All I get is what are you wearing and wanna come over, winky face at one o’clock in the
morning. I’m wearing the same sweatpants I’ve been wearing the past week, there’s a mysterious stain on my crotch, and no, I don’t want to fucking come over.
She flips out an expectant hand. “Give me your phone.”
My eyes widen. “Fuck, no.”
“Adeline Reilly. Give me. Your. Fucking. Phone.”
“Or what?” I taunt.
“Or I will throw myself across the table, embarrass the absolute shit out of you, and get my way anyways.”
My eyes finally catch on our waitress and I flag her down. Desperately.
She rushes over, probably thinking I found a hair in my food, when really my best friend just has one up her ass right now.
I procrastinate a little bit longer, asking the waitress what drink she prefers.
I’d look through the drink menu a second time if it weren’t rude to keep her waiting when she has other tables. So alas, I pick a strawberry martini in favor of the green apple, and the waitress rushes off again.
Sigh.
I hand the phone over, slapping it in Daya’s still outstretched hand extra firm because I hate her. She smiles triumphantly and starts typing away, the mischievous glimmer in her eye growing brighter. Her thumbs go into turbo speed, causing the golden rings wrapped around them to nearly blur.
Her sage green eyes are illuminated with a type of evilness you would only find in Satan’s Bible. If I did a little digging, I’m sure I’d find her picture somewhere in there, too. A bombshell with dark brown skin, pin-straight black hair and a gold hoop in her nose.
She’s probably an evil succubus or something.
“Who are you texting?” I groan, nearly stomping my feet like a child. I refrain, but come close to allowing a little of my social anxiety to air out and do something crazy like throw a temper tantrum in the middle of the restaurant. It probably doesn’t help that I’m on my third martini and feeling a tad adventurous right about now.
She glances up, ignores me, and a few seconds later, locks my phone and hands it back over. Immediately, I unlock it again and start searching through my messages. I groan aloud once more when I see she sexted Greyson. Not texted. Sexted.
“Come over tonight and lick my pussy. I’ve been craving your huge cock,”
I read aloud dryly. That’s not even all of it. The rest goes into how horny I am and touch myself every night to the thought of him.
I growl and give her the filthiest look I can manage. My face would make a dumpster look like Mr. Clean’s house.
“I wouldn’t even say that!” I complain. “That doesn’t even sound like me, you bitch.”
Daya cackles, the teeny little gap between her front teeth on full display.
I really do hate her.
My phone pings. Daya is nearly bouncing in her seat while I’m contemplating googling 1000 Ways to Die’s contact information so I can send them a new story.
“Read it,” she demands, her grabby hands already reaching for my phone so she can see what he said. I jerk it out of her reach and pull up the message.
GREYSON: About time u came to your senses, baby. Be over at 8.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, but I really fucking hate you,” I grumble, giving her another scowl.
She smiles, and slurps on her drink. “I love you too, baby girl.”
“Fuck, Addie, I’ve missed you,” Greyson breathes into my neck, humping me against the wall. My tailbone is going to be bruised in the morning. I roll my eyes when he slurps at my neck again, groaning when he rolls his dick into the apex of my thighs.
Deciding I needed to get over myself and blow off some steam, I didn’t cancel on Greyson like I wanted to. Like I want to. I regret that decision.
Currently, he has me pinned against the wall in my creepy hallway. Old fashioned sconces line the blood red walls, with dozens of pictures of family from generations in between. I feel like they’re watching me, scorn and disappointment in their eyes as they witness their descendant about to get railed against the wall.
Only a few of the lights work, and they just serve to illuminate the spiderwebs they’re crawling with. The rest of the hallway is shadowed entirely, and I’m just waiting for the demon from The Grudge to come crawling out so I have an excuse to run.
I would definitely trip Greyson on the way out at this point and not one inch of me is ashamed.
He murmurs some more dirty things into my ear while I inspect the sconce hanging above our heads. Greyson said in passing once that he’s scared of spiders. I wonder if I can discreetly reach up, pluck a spider from its web and put it down the back of Greyson’s shirt.
That would light a fire under his ass to get out of here and he’d probably be too embarrassed to talk to me again. Win, win.
Just when I actually go to do it, he rears back, panting from all the solo French kissing he’s been doing with my throat. It’s like he was waiting for my neck to lick him back or something.
His copper hair is mussed from my hands, and his pale skin is stained with a blush. The curse of being a redhead, I suppose.
Greyson has everything else going for him in the looks department. He’s hot as sin, has a beautiful body and a killer smile. Too bad he can’t fuck and is a complete, and utter douchebag.
“Let’s take this to the bedroom. I need to be inside of you now.”
Internally, I cringe. Externally… I cringe. I try to play it off by jerking my shirt over my head. He has the attention span of a beagle. And just like I suspected, he’s already forgotten about my little blunder and is staring intensely at my tits.
Daya was right about that, too. I do have great tits.
He reaches up to tear the bra from my body—I probably would’ve smacked him if he actually ripped it—but he freezes when loud banging interrupts us from the main floor.
The sound is so sudden, so violently loud that I gasp, my heart pounding in my chest. Our eyes meet in stunned silence. Someone is pounding on my front door, and they don’t sound too nice.
“Are you expecting someone?” he asks, his hand dropping to his side, seemingly frustrated about the interruption.
“No,” I breathe. I quickly tug my shirt back on—backwards—and rush down the creaky steps. Taking a moment to check outside the window next to the door, I see the front porch is vacant. My brow lowers. Letting the curtain fall, I stand in front of the door, the stillness of the night closing in on the manor.
Greyson walks up beside me, and looks over at me with a confused
expression.
“Uh, you gonna answer that?” he asks dumbly, pointing at the door as if I didn’t know it was right in front of me. I almost thank him for the directions just to be an ass, but refrain. Something about that knock has my instincts blaring Code Red. The knock sounded aggressive. Angry. Like someone had pounded on the door with all their strength.
A real man would offer to open the door for me after hearing such a violent sound. Especially when we’re surrounded by a mile of thick woods and a hundred-foot drop into the water.
But instead, Greyson stares at me expectantly. And a little like I’m stupid.
Huffing, I unlock the door and whip it open.
Again, no one is there. I step out onto the porch, the rotting floorboards groaning beneath my weight. Cold wind stirs my cinnamon hair, the strands tickling my face and sending shivers racing across my skin. Goosebumps rise as I tuck my hair behind my ears and walk over to one end of the porch.
Leaning over the rail, I look down the side of the house. No one.
No one on the other side of the house, either.
There could easily be someone watching me in the woods, but with it being so dark, I have no way of knowing. Not unless I go out there and search myself.
And as much as I love horror films, I have no interest in starring in one.
Greyson joins me on the porch, his own eyes scanning the trees.
There’s someone watching me. I can feel it. I’m as sure of it as I am about the existence of gravity. Eerily, it feels a lot like the day of my book signing, when the man with mismatched eyes pinned me to the chair.
Chills run down my spine, accompanied by a burst of adrenaline. It’s the same feeling I get when I watch a scary movie. It begins with the beat of my heart, then a heavy weight settles deep in my stomach, eventually sinking to my core. I shift, not entirely comfortable with the feeling right now.
Huffing, I rush back into the house, and up the steps. Greyson trails behind me. I don’t notice he’s in the middle of undressing as he walks down the hallway until he steps into my room after me. When I turn, he’s stark naked.
“Seriously?” I bite out. What a fucking idiot. Someone just banged on my door like the wood personally put a splinter in their ass, and he’s immediately ready to pick up where he left off. Slurping on my neck like one would slurp jello out of a container.
“What?” he asks incredulously, splaying his arms out to his sides.
“Did you not just hear what I heard? Someone was banging on my door, and it was kind of scary. I’m not in the mood to have sex right now.”
What happened to chivalry? I would think a normal man would ask if I’m okay. Feel out how I’m feeling. Maybe try to make sure I’m nice and relaxed
before sticking their dick inside me.
You know, read the fucking room.
“You serious?” he questions, anger sparking in his brown eyes. They’re a shitty color, just like his shitty personality and even shittier stroke game. The dude gives fish a run for their money, the way he flops when he fucks. Might as well lay out naked in the fish market—he’d have a better chance of finding someone to take him home. That person is not going to be me.
“Yes, I’m serious,” I say with exasperation.
“God dammit, Addie,” he snaps, angrily swiping up a sock and putting it on. He looks like an idiot—completely naked save for a single sock because the rest of his clothes are still thrown haphazardly in my hallway.
He storms out of my room, snatching up articles of clothing as he goes.
When he gets about halfway down the long hallway, he stops and turns to me.
“You’re such a bitch, Addie. All you do is give me blue balls and I’m sick of it. I’m done with you and this creepy fucking house,” he seethes, pointing a finger at me.
“And you’re an asshole. Get the fuck out of my house, Greyson.” His eyes widen with shock first, and then narrow into thin slits, brimming with fury.
He turns, cocks his arm back and sends his fist flying into the drywall.
A gasp is ripped from my throat when half of his arm disappears, my mouth parting in both shock and disbelief.
“Since I’m not getting yours, thought I’d create my own hole to get into tonight. Fix that bitch,” he spits. Still sporting only one sock and an arm full of clothes, he storms off.
“You dick!” I rage, stomping towards the large hole in my wall he just created.
The front door slams a minute later from below.
I hope the mysterious person is still out there. Let the asshole get murdered wearing a single sock.
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