Experiment in Terror 05 On Demon Wings (28 page)

Lovecraft couldn’t have thought it up himself.

It had the body of an overgrown baby but with longer

limbs. Pearly claws for fingers and toes.

Bat wings that were marked with veins and crawling with

lice.

Its head was slightly too round to be a human’s. It had no

ears. No nose. Just solid red eyes that, up close, bulged

out of its head like a rat and an impossibly wide mouth fil ed

with double rows of shark-like teeth. A familiar smile, now in

its original form.

I watched it, afraid to take my eyes away, as my lower

body swung beneath me. I was getting tired. It wanted a

staring contest and I didn’t know if I could win.

Just when my arms began to slip an inch, my dad

appeared back at the window with a rope. He threw it

toward me and told me to grab on.

Meanwhile, I could hear my mom scurrying on the ground

below, hauling something metal on the bricks, most likely,

hopeful y, a ladder.

“Grab the rope, it’s easier,” he yel ed. I looked up at him

and I’l never forget it. The amount of pain and excruciating

worry on his face was something I never wanted to see

again. There he was in his pajamas, hair messed, face red

and sweating, trying to save his daughter from imminent

harm. Trying to save her from herself. I kept focused on that

– on him – not the thing above, and with my last bit of

strength I grabbed the rope.

The rough fibers cut into my scraped hands but I gritted

my teeth and let him and Ada haul me up until my feet were

at the gutter, and I was able to push off and fling myself on

the window ledge.

Two pairs of arms reached out, grabbed me around my

waist and shoulders, and I was final y inside. I col apsed to

the ground, panting hard, aching al over and bleeding from

my hands and feet, covered in extra abrasions from the

shingles.

I made it.

I was alive.

But I was far from safe.

~~~

“Perry, are you listening to me?” my mother asked as she

brought the car off the freeway and down a one-way street

downtown.

I wasn’t. I wasn’t even aware of where I was.

Oh, right. Heading to the head doctor. Going to see if

there was something wrong with the old noggin.

Things were moving slower now. Slower now that I was

conscious and taking in the dead winter trees on the side of

the street and the glum faces of pedestrians as they faced

another grey day. Things were slow. And then they would

speed up. Like the morning. I went through on autopilot but

had no idea what I did or said.

I kept starting at one place and ending up in another. I

was missing parts of my life. Something had happened on

the roof last night, but I didn’t know what. My parents were

afraid I had crawled up there, wanting to jump. I couldn’t tel

them yes or no. I wasn’t suicidal. But I had no answers. Just

the truth. And they couldn’t handle the truth.

“Earth to Perry,” my sister chimed in my ear. I tilted my

head ever so slightly in her direction and eyed her in my

peripheral vision.

She had decided to come along for my appointment,

and then we were to drop her off at school. I didn’t think

mom would go for it, but Ada pleaded her case of moral

support and she relented. I think my mom was relieved,

actual y. She didn’t want to be alone with me. Especial y

after the whole…wel , after the whole yesterday.

Secretly, I was comforted that I had Ada with me. It made

the return to Dr. Freedman and the nasty case of déjà vu

more bearable. I felt like I was losing everything. I needed

someone in my corner, and at the moment, she was al I

had.

I used to have Dex for that. Then again, I used to have a

lot of things.

Thinking about him for that brief instance made me sad.

Heart-fluttering like a broken leaf, that kind of sad. I

swal owed it and forgot about it. It was better to be angry, if I

had to stil be anything.

“What’s wrong?” she asked in a quieter voice. She

glimpsed the sadness briefly.

I shook my head and cleared my throat. “Just nervous.”

My mom shot me a quick look. “The doctor wil help you,

Perry. Just like he did before.”

Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of
, I thought. I knew what he

was going to say, what he was going to think and do. It

hadn’t been that long. He’d make me talk, pretend to listen,

and write me a prescription. I’d continue to look like a

raving loon until the pil s squared that away.

I was going to become Dex. He had been on

medication, he probably stil was. It was meds meant to

keep the ghosts away, and for the most part, they did a

good job. I had said before, in a fit of anger, that it was

cheating. That it wasn’t fair that I had to deal with them and

he didn’t. Now I had that same opportunity to make them al

go away.

But how could I do that? I knew now what was behind the

curtain. I saw the shadows, the ghosts, the lost ones, the

demons. How could I wil ingly go on blindly, knowing they

stil lurked and stil wanted me. Somehow it was worse to

be in the dark about it. That’s when they’d real y sneak up

on you.

Minutes later we had parked and were making our way

into a nondescript medical building. The memories – the

injustice – came flooding back. The shiny floors that made

your boots squeak. The drab yel owing wal s. The ugly faux

wood paneling in the elevators.

We got off on the third floor and turned left down the

carpeted hal . A few people emerged from one office,

chattering to each other. Feeling self-conscious, I pul ed

down my sleeves so that you couldn’t see the ugly bruises,

scratches and abrasions that had cloaked my body in the

last 24 hours.

With my mom leading the way in her tweed pencil skirt,

we squeezed past the pack of people who didn’t give us

much of a berth. I kept my eyes focused on the floor, not

wanting to acknowledge the strangers. Ada stumbled

slightly in front of me, apparently elbowed by a blur of shiny

maroon.

She rubbed her arm and then I heard a barely audible

gasp escape from her lips.

I raised my head. She was stumbling sideways,

watching someone over my shoulder.

I stopped and turned around to see. At the very end of

the group of people who were now halfway down the hal ,

was the back of a lavender-haired woman in a stiff maroon

bal gown, gliding above the carpet.

Not part of the group. Not even alive.

I looked back at Ada, who had also stopped along with

my mom.

“What is it?” my mother asked her anxiously.

Ada kept her expression in ful bewilderment and

watched Creepy Clown Lady float away, then she looked at

me with wide eyes.

Knowing eyes.

It wasn’t just me. Ada saw her too.

“You saw her!” I exclaimed.

She shook her head ever so slightly then turned to face

mom. “It was nothing. Someone bumped into me.”

“No,” I cried out, grabbing Ada by the shoulders. “It

wasn’t someone, it was her! You saw her too! Creepy

Clown Lady!”

“Creepy Clown what?” my mother asked, perplexed.

Then she grunted and threw her hands up in the air. “Forget

it, I don’t want to know.”

She started walking down the hal and Ada quickly

trailed after her, ripping herself out of my hands and

avoiding my eyes.

I turned a final time to see Pippa standing at the end of

the hal , watching us go.

I forced my thoughts at her with al my strength.

Is that it?
I asked.
You don’t even stop to say hello?

Don’t take the pills
, was her brief answer.
Don’t let her

trick you
.
She tricked me.

I was taken aback. I wished I could see her expression

clearly at that distance.

Pills?
Who tricked you?

“Perry!” my mother cal ed.

I crooked my head to face her. “I’m coming.”

She crossed her arms. “No, now.”

I nodded absently, then looked back at Pippa. The hal

was empty.

I sighed, frustrated and suddenly angry again, and

scurried down the hal after my mother and entered Doctor

Freedman’s office.

Nothing had changed.

There was stil Bethany, the white-haired receptionist

who sat on the other side of a frosted pane of sliding glass.

The waiting room was windowless and suffocating with only

two magazines and one
Reader’s Digest
, al from the late

nineties. There were a few other people waiting for other

doctors, looking blankly at each other, at the wal s, at the

floor.

We didn’t wait long. Doctor Freedman appeared outside

his door.

He had a beard now, but other than that he looked the

same, down to the blasé expression on his face.

“Perry,” he said with false warmth. “Come on in.”

I got up and was surprised to see my mother rise too.

“Thank you for seeing her on such short notice,” my

mother said in a sickly sweet voice.

I shot her a look. “Where are you going?”

“I’d like to come in.”

Over my dead body
, I thought. I looked at the doctor. He

gave my mom a gentle smile.

“I’m very sorry, Mrs. Palomino,” he said. “I’l need to see

Perry alone.”

I gave my mother a triumphant look, finding only smal

victories, and went over to join the doctor.

His office looked the same. The same window that

looked out onto the same maple trees that were bare and

wet with late winter. I sat down on the couch like it was

second nature. It
had
changed. The cushions were firmer.

Or maybe my ass wasn’t built like a hippo’s anymore.

“You’ve lost a lot of weight, Perry,” he said, pointing his

pen at me. I briefly wondered if he could hear my thoughts.

No, but it was his job to read me. “Since I last saw you, of

course.”

“Yeah,” I said, not feeling like elaborating.

“No more blue hair, either.”

“Nope.”

“I’ve watched your show, you know.”

I grimaced involuntarily.

“It was interesting,” he continued, already scrawling shit

down on his stupid notepad. “I understand you’re no longer

doing it.”

“Yup.”

“Good. I don’t think that’s the best profession for

someone like you.”

I nearly laughed at the word profession, then realized he

was making fun of me.

“It had its moments,” I said dryly.

He made an agreeable little sound, almost like a sigh.

Then he crossed his legs and leaned forward on them, his

ful attention on me.

“Your mother explained what has been happening to

you. I’d like to hear your story.”

I was getting real y bored of rehashing the past few

weeks. I took a deep breath and dove into it, trying not to

get bogged down in too much detail. But I told him

everything. He already thought I was crazy by nature, so

what did it matter? I never cared what he thought anyway.

He listened, nodded, scribbled, rinsed, repeated.

“And what of this man who broke your heart?” he asked

when I concluded with the incident on the roof last night and

the time skips in the morning.

“What?” Why was he asking about that? Didn’t he just

hear what I said? Demons on the roof!

“Your mom had said something about you being upset

over a man. That you were in love with him.”

“What the hel does that have to do with anything?”

He didn’t say anything. He just nodded to himself and

made an “mmhmm” noise.

“That was a long time ago. Last year.”

“It takes time to heal, Perry.”

“I
am
healed.”

“Then why do you think you’re here?”

I made an irritated noise in my throat. I could feel my

anger levels rising from my toes to my fingers. I did not like

where he was going with this.

“I
told
you why I’m here.”

“You think you’re haunted, possibly possessed.”

It sounded so insane coming out of his mouth but I had to

stick to my guns. I couldn’t pretend. I couldn’t back down.

“Yes. That is what I think is happening. And the last time

this happened, people said I tried to burn down a house.

Now, if you don’t want a repeat of that, I suggest you

believe me.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Is that a threat?”

I narrowed mine back. “No. I’m just tel ing you how it is.

This has nothing to do with Dex.”

“Perry,” he said. He took off his glasses and rubbed his