Demon

Ghosting across the grass, I pulled a small silver knife out of its sheath. Time to let the demon out. I stopped in the middle of the lawn and stared at the house.

The house was like any other; square, one story, and white. There were no other houses around, no one in sight. The demon in my head buzzed with anticipation. I gripped a small rock I had picked from the driveway in my left hand and stalked up to the sliding glass door. With a quick thrust, I smashed the rock into the glass. It cracked, spreading like webs, but it didn’t shatter. The demon was impatient. It forced it’s way into my body and rested my hands on both sides of the doorframe. The demon used my legs to kick the glass. With each kick another section of the door broke and shattered. When the door was completely gone it stepped into the house, glass crunching under my boots. I glanced back at the door. I didn’t do it, I thought, the demon did. We stalked over the broken glass and into the kitchen.

“Hello?” we taunted. “Anyone home tonight?” I heard a door slamming and a whimper down the hall, the demon carried me towards the sound. “I can hear you.” We sang. “Better just come out, it’ll be faster that way.”

The demon and I sauntered down the hall, past family pictures and decorations. I stopped and examined a large frame that held multiple pictures. The first thing I noticed was the pure joy and purity the family had captured. There was one woman and two children. All three had pale, blonde, ringlet curls. In one picture the sun was behind the family and light shone their hair, wresting them in light. Halos. I had happened upon a family of angels. How fitting, the demon purred.

I moved away from the pictures and continued down the hall. I opened the first door on my left with a bang. It was a bathroom. Standing in front of me holding a pair of scissors was a petite woman. Behind her, hiding in the bathtub, were two kids, one boy and one girl. The boy clung to his sister so tightly I thought he might leave bruises, but the girl didn’t cry. I flicked the lights on deliberately with my knife and all three of the family blinked. The woman brandished her scissors at me. Her white-blonde halo of hair framed her face.

I ducked underneath the threatening scissors and knocked the women’s feet out from under her. Her head cracked against the bathtub, but she didn’t faint, she began trying to get up immediately. Good, thought the demon. I kicked the scissors away from her searching hands and knelt next to the bathtub. “Your children are beautiful.” I crooned. “Do you have a husband to complete the set, or is it just you?” The woman didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. There was no man in any of the pictures. I examined the children; the boy was probably around two years old, the girl around five. They had matching ethereal brown eyes and wide faces. I had never seen a family as heavenly as this one. My angels, the demon purred.

The woman staggered up and brandished her retrieved scissors at me. I clicked my tongue and shook my head.

“We wouldn’t want to do that in front of the children.” I traced the tip of my knife lightly across the boys cheek. “Maybe it would be better to leave them here while we—“ the demon knocked the scissors out of her hands and slammed her against the wall. “—go to a different room.” I shoved the woman into the hall and slammed the door shut behind us. The demon blacked out the edges of my vision, giving the illusion of a tunnel. All I could see was her blonde hair. It matched her children’s, but her eyes were light green. She shook violently. The demon grinned at her. Time to have fun.

We slammed her into the wall, until she fainted. The demon poured boiling water on her, until she woke up. The demon beat her, cut her, broke her. And the woman screamed. I watched my hands peel away the woman’s scalp. Her hair was no longer blonde and curly, it was crimson and dripping. Her tears mixed with blood, making her face look like a canvas for watercolor paints. I didn’t do it, I told myself. The demon did.

We dragged her through the house, the demon threw her down the stairs. Every surface in the house was covered in blood, mostly hers, but sometimes mine. My blood was on the couch where she bit my hand, on the table where she scratched my face and in the sink where I washed the cuts.

With each new horror I reassured myself, the demon did it. Every cut on the woman's body was the demons doing, not mine. Every bruise, every burn was because of the demon. The demons fault.

The demon began to carve patterns on what was left of the woman’s face, digging the knife into her cheek and pulling it across the ridge of her nose. She didn’t struggle anymore, she hadn’t for awhile. The woman’s eyes fluttered shut.

The demon flicked her eyelid impatiently and wondered if she would wake up. If she didn’t it was the demon who killed her, not me. I kicked her side lazily and sat down on the couch. The demon shrank into the back of my head, content to savor the nights memory.

The demon had been with me for as long as I could remember. We got along quite well, the demon and I. He was there when I was bullied in school and he was there when I was in trouble. He taught me that the best defense was to make people afraid. When Michel Millers hit me in high school the demon hunted him down in the night. The knife I carry with me now had been Millers’. Whenever I was wronged or slandered the demon would fix the problem. The demon, not me. Now, to return the favor, I let him out every once in a while. The demon gets his fun and I get someone to blame.

There was a thud and a burning pain in my neck. I stood and whirled around, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror behind the couch. A pair of scissors was protruding from my neck. I lowered my gaze down to the little girl who had stabbed me. The demon wanted to leap out at her, to kill her, but it was too busy trying to hold my blood in. I fell to the floor and the girl climbed over the back of the couch to watch me. The demon pushed my hands against my neck while I stared at the girl. She perched on top of the couch and, with quivering hands, scooped up the little knife I had dropped on the cushions. My blood pulsed through my fingers and filled my throat as she advanced on me. I had one last thought.

She didn’t do this, her demon did.