Chapter 7 #2
“Fuck you! Do not speak of my mother!” I raged at the fiend.
It paused a few feet from Phil, mercury-colored eyes locking on me.
I could see a face, and then not. One second a human mask, then one that had no nose or lips but still managed to smile at me.
A grim grin much like that of the groundskeeper.
“Ah, little Chinaman, your devotion to a woman long dead is admirable.” I shot to my feet, ready to take a swing, when he drew back, his face disappearing into a cloud of black smoke.
It paused, took a step back, then another, as it clawed at me like a cornered cat.
“The stench of a mother of magic oozes from your pores like a plague.”
“Yeah, I know I stink!” I shouted but had no idea what I was really saying.
I just wanted to be sure this thing didn’t sink its claws into Phil again.
Fumbling about like Velma from Scooby-Doo without my glasses, I bumped into Phil’s big boot, planted my feet, and did the only thing that I thought might matter.
I reached into my pocket to extract the gris-gris bag.
The Smoke Man dove into Phil as if he were a pool of water.
My boyfriend trembled madly, his eyes flying open as he began to levitate off the cold floor.
His camera hit the ground with a sickly snap of plastic, the sleeping bag slid from his lap, and upward he floated until his chest rested on the water-stained ceiling.
Fuck. I had really fucked this up. Instead of keeping this thing from Phil, I pushed it into possessing him. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I stood there like a brick, staring at my love levitating at the ceiling, his body stiff as a board, his breathing rapid, and I had a moment of utter panic.
This was way out of my knowledge. This being, this Smoke Man, was not the run-of-the-mill phantom.
I feared this being was malevolent. That scared me to my marrow, but I had to do something to help Phil.
Looking around, I found a card table that had been flung aside in the highly unfriendly interactive’s—and I was pretty sure this was what we were dealing with because, wow, was he unfriendly—rampage a few moments ago.
It wasn’t the sturdiest thing I’d ever seen, but it would have to do.
I dragged it under where Phil was floating, climbed up on it, and placed the gris-gris bag against Phil’s back.
The expulsion of the entity was instantaneous.
A huge smoky form exited Phil with a shriek that made my ears ring.
Once the smoky form fled through the ceiling, Phil fell.
Right into my arms. The table splintered under us, and we crashed to the floor in a heap of arms, legs, and broken card table.
The impact was jarring. Phil groaned as his pretty blue eyes fluttered open.
He lay atop me, his face a mere inch from mine, my wheezing exhalations hitting him in the face. And I had yet to brush my damn teeth.
He seemed stunned, his vision fuzzy perhaps.
“You are so heavy,” I rasped as I reached up to cradle his face. “This is…why I top.”
The joke fell flatter than I was at the moment.
Phil inhaled a shaky breath and then began to weep.
Huge, racking, heartbreaking sobs. “Oh, baby, oh, baby,” I murmured, over and over, as he buried his face into my neck.
I held him close, battling for every breath, as he wept like a newborn. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
“No, no, it’s not,” he managed to croak out and then pushed back to sit on his heels.
I sucked in all the cold air that I could manage to draw in and slowly sat up.
My ass was sore from the impact to the tile floor, and my shoulder ached, but nothing felt broken.
Other than my poor boyfriend, who was now crying into his hands.
“Oh God, my dreams were so fucked up. My mom…I never…what I told you and everyone…lies…”
He broke down again, his shoulders heaving.
I shimmied up to hug him to my side. I stroked his hair, rubbed his neck, and did what I could to try to ease him through it.
The memory of harboring another soul inside my body overwhelmed me for a moment, but I pushed it aside.
That night at the lake had been voluntary.
I’d opened myself up for a ghostly child to inhabit.
She had been a lovely spirit, full of childlike wonder, but even so, my life force had been drained by her presence.
I’d felt cold inside for weeks, weak as a kitten, and overly sensitive to paranormal fluxes around me.
“You’ll be okay. It’ll wear off soon,” I cooed, holding him close. The sobs began to fracture and dwindle, his chest slowing as he ran out of energy to carry on. “It chills you right down to the bone.”
“I feel sick, like violated. I’m sorry. I just sat down to check the battery and covered up and I fell asleep.
Then I had dreams, bad dreams, shit that I hate to think about during the day.
” He swiped at his damp eyes with his coat sleeve and then seemed to finally gain a little focus. “Where are your glasses?”
“Over there.” I rolled my hand in the air. “I can see you fine now. Do you want some water or a snack bar?” He nodded, falling from his heels to sit on the floor with his long legs out in front of him. “Okay, sit and breathe. I’ll get you something to help with the aftereffects.”
I crawled over to find my glasses, plunked them on my head, and then rifled through our bags for water and something sweet.
I’d found that sugar helped after a body was physically drained like that.
Honey was best as it was all natural energy, so I grabbed two bottles of slushy water and a box of honey and oats granola bars.
Phil was holding something when I returned, his pallor upsetting. “It broke,” he explained in a tone that tore me in two.
“Here, eat this and have a drink.” I smiled encouragingly at him as he passed over the busted Wi-Fi extender. “Damn, that sucks. You’ll have to get your folks to send you another one when we get back home.”
He shook his head wearily as he pulled off the wrapper on the granola bar with quaking fingers. “I’m sure they’ll do it when you ask. I know you said they don’t approve of you dating a guy or doing this whole thing but—”
“No, you don’t understand. They won’t send it, Arch. I borrowed this one from the film studies department, and now I’ll have to pay them back.” His exhalation was laced with tragedy that seemed over the top for one busted little gizmo.
“Phil, baby, I get how upset you are. I mean, being taken over by an entity is terrible, but this thing maybe costs a couple hundred bucks at the most?”
He lifted his melancholy blue eyes from the extender and his trusty—and obviously more rugged—camcorder to meet my stare. “Nah, about eighty bucks for a nice one.” He lowered the half a granola bar to his leg. “I don’t have eighty bucks.”
I pulled the sleeping bag over him, concerned about how chilled a person got after housing an otherworldly being. “Your father is a congressman. I know they make pretty big bank. And if he’s not willing to cough it up over some sort of homophobic shit, then—”
He shook his head strongly. “No, Arch, he cut me off when I refused to go to the college he wanted. He’s pretty conservative.
He hates that I’m at some woke college and dating a man.
We’ve not talked since I started here as a freshman.
Of course that’s all hush-hush, but yeah, no money from the congressman.
Only what my mom sends me out of guilt. That’s all on the sly too since she doesn’t want to cause a scandal by having someone find out their only child is mopping floors or flipping burgers.
Two hundred bucks don’t go far, you know. ”
I sat there stunned. Like truly stunned for a moment, but then as I began to mull things over, flipping through memories of our past, a lot of what he was admitting to now began to gel.
I’d often wondered why the son of a senator slash congressman would be attending a college like Liverswell.
Sure, it was nice, but small and certainly not Ivy League.
And why he seemed to always be borrowing equipment and eating at the cheapest places and wearing old sneakers.
The list was endless now that the cat was out of the bag.
Poor Phil. Man, what shitty parents. I was doubly glad he had Grandpa and Monique in his life.
“I’m sorry. You hate me, don’t you?” His question struck me in the chest like a fist.
I jerked my sight from his camera. He looked like a sickly whipped dog.
“No, I do not hate you. I love you,” I assured him and leaned in to kiss his stubbly cheek.
That made him cry again. Oh shit, this poor man.
I dabbed at his tears until they stopped and placed a finger under his chin to lift his eyes from his honey and nut bar to me.
“I could never hate you. I’m confused as to why you would lie to me since I’m as poor as they come.
I wouldn’t give a shit if you were broke, dude.
I’m in a perpetual state of financial ruin. ”
“I don’t know. I think I wanted to believe the bullshit lies about my loving family.” My eyes flared. “You’re so smart, and I’m this dopey ass nobody who’d be eating out of the trash can behind the campus cafeteria if not for room and board being covered by my scholarship.”
“Phil, holy shit, baby, I am not in any better shape financially than you are. Did you forget we’re sitting here in this freezing cold asylum at eleven at night on New Year’s Eve because I’m so poor I need to make money to pay the taxes on the shop?”