8. Madness
Madness
Darkness is a living, breathing thing. It’s life-giving, offering a home to those things too terrible to be brought into the light.
We are always in the dark, because we are the dark.
We are the thing that’s watching from beneath the bed.
Quick to grab your ankles should you choose to run.
We are the eyes peering into your darkened window when you lie awake at night.
Ready to crawl atop your ceiling should you try to scream.
We are the face in the mirror when you look away and back again.
The reason you rush to turn on the lights.
The greatest skill of the darkness is to play tricks on the mind.
There is no greater trick than staring straight into the eyes of someone trying to convince themselves that there’s nothing to be afraid of.
They mutter it again and again. Even as we move toward them.
Even as we drop down onto their bed. Even as we dig our claws inside their minds and twist, twist, twist.
Everyone is afraid of the dark.
So why does no one believe you when you say there’s something in it? Such a paradox.
The constant doubt is a boon for us. We flash our teeth from beneath the bed, someone screams, the lights come on: “It was just this crumpled-up sweater.” “You must have been dreaming.” “It was a reflection from the headlights outside your window.”
Never in our entire existence has someone immediately believed and taken the side of the person we are scaring. It gives us more freedom and power than any demon should have. Power that could easily turn to corruption.
Good thing we enjoy preying on those who already have dark souls. Some might say we’re doing the world a favor when we scramble their thoughts to the edge of insanity.
It would be nice if demons were all as choosy.
Most others aren’t. Fear is fear. Hunt and Gator will scare and feed from anyone who crosses their path or into their domain.
Any adult, that is. Having standards isn’t a common quality among our kind.
We’re grateful none of those closest to us have a taste for children.
That’s a weaker demon’s game. It’s far more satisfying to induce fear in a grown man.
The challenge, the opportunity, it takes skill.
Showing our true face is enough to scare most people to death. We’re careful, easing them into it. Our record is three months of scaring the same person. Driving him mad was an absolute delight.
We’d been drawn to a sanatorium. The entire place reeked of fear on a daily basis. But the minds of so many of its residents were already broken. We don’t eat leftovers. It’s the breaking that’s fun for us.
When he walked in, we knew he was ours. A corrupt man who had spent his days in an overpriced suit, wheeling and dealing at the expense of all those around him.
He did some very bad things to some very unlucky women.
When it came time to pay for his sins, he faked hallucinations and voices. They deemed him unfit to stand trial.
The privileged idiot thought he’d be rolled into that place, given art supplies and daily therapy for a few weeks, and then go back to his normal life.
His mind was so strong. Unblemished, practically. He’d spent so much of his life being in power. There was almost nothing he feared.
We changed that.
He tried to keep us to himself at first. Stayed quiet, even when we scared him until he soiled himself. He forced us to get…creative. We’ll never forget the sweet taste of his fear the moment he cracked. Banging on the door, screaming, “Help me! Monster! Help me!”
The doctors determined his hallucinations had gotten worse. Our favorite song became the tune of his fists against the door after dark. He pounded until his knuckles were bloodied and fractured, screaming for someone to save him.
We swear he tasted better than normal because he was so worthy of punishment.
Eventually, he wanted out of that room so badly he told the doctors the truth.
There were rivers of tears when he admitted he’d lied to avoid prison, trusting that his lawyer would be able to get him off after he pretended to recover.
The story was true. We knew that from the start.
But his erratic and increasingly concerning behavior over those past few months meant no one believed him.
That’s what happens when you’ve been banging on a hospital door all night and day, screaming about some thing in the darkness.
Saying one thing that’s too farfetched can damn you.
One lie, one crazy thought, people stop taking any of your words as truth.
The more you try to convince them, the crazier you sound.
Eventually his heart gave out. It was a pity. He was our most fun and fruitful conquest.
Three months.
We doubt Gator’s victims ever last more than three minutes.
He’s all about instant gratification. Chomping and choking things down.
We don’t even have to kill to consume. It happens, though.
Fear from the living is tasty. Fear from someone on the brink of death is downright divine.
The final push over the edge and into death is too easy a line to cross.
Githany squirms her hips against us, yanking us from our thoughts and bringing our attentions back into the maze of mirrors. Our little ghost girl is a complex one. It took not one, but three types of fear to get her into peak reaping condition.
Physical fear from being chased by Hunt, mental fear from her old room and memories, and the life-or-death fear from being crushed inside a glass box.
We did slow the box once she got closer to climax.
She was so lost in desire, she likely didn’t notice the way her shoulder and hip sockets had begun to give way.
To our lovely surprise, Githany is not only a challenge to scare, she’s also turned on by it. The part of her brain that should reduce her to a blubbering mess of tears and despair must be missing. The more we scare her, the more she smells of want and sex.
She’s been nothing but terrorized by us. Instead of begging for it to stop, it seems she can’t get enough.
If she really wants more, then she deserves to see us for the nightmares we are. Scary masks and chiseled abs can make any girl wet. Demons in the flesh, with our true faces exposed. That will be the true test.
We retract the walls just enough to allow her to breathe freely.
“Githany?”
“Yes?”
“Are you afraid of the dark?”
She’s smart enough to nod as best she can in the tight space. Good girl.
Laughter thunders out of us as we rip the clown mask free. This won’t be the last time we take the form of a clown. It works too well with our specific style of terror.
We whisper the words that summoned us into existence. Upon whose lips they were spoken, we’ll never know. Unlike the others, we were created. “Come forth from darkness, deeper than darkness, darker than night, the embodiment of fright.”
Skin vanishes like smoke, burning away as the darkness spills out. Growing, filling the walls, pouring into the maze beyond. We are quite large when we aren’t squeezing beneath beds and behind mirrors.
Our human face cleaves in two, what a pity. He was very handsome. Githany thought so too. There was a brief spike in her scent when she saw the dark eyes and sharp jaw after we dropped our mask. Both the clown face and human skin were too tight for us to move freely.
The many mirrors allow us dozens of perspectives as Githany’s eyes bulge. Horrified fascination on her enchanting face looks hopelessly sexy.
Coffee-colored irises flick from one set of our glowing red eyes to the other. Two faces, one mind, one goal. We are quite formidable like this. Billowing higher, we consume the air until our presence is an ominous wall of darkness.
The sight of us unleashes a new level of fear in Githany. Her scent ladles into our two mouths, a potion of sweet berries and rotting corpses. Our eyes fall shut with the pleasure of it all. There’s darkness in our little Githany’s soul. Such terrible darkness.
We bend lower, both mouths speaking in unison. “Why aren’t you laughing?”
When Githany opens her mouth, only a squeak comes out. The blood has drained from her face, giving her already-pale complexion a starlight glow.
There’s a soft tapping on the glass around her. Fingernails trembling against the panes. We suck in another lungful of her terror-tinged scent.
Gator may be the one who eats his victims, but Githany’s smell makes us want to devour her whole.
Elongating both of our tongues is liberating. They’d been quite cramped behind our human face. Githany’s breathing quickens as she watches the squirming appendages descend on her. Alternating our tongues, we swipe them up the column of her throat. One side, then the other.
She inhales deeply, slowing her rapid breaths. One of the best parts about our body is that we have no set shape. We can be anywhere, anything, or everywhere.
The seams of her bra and panties dissolve as our form expands beneath them.
Our darkness wraps around her, caressing every bit of skin.
The boots she’s wearing impede our actions.
They’ll have to go. Shoes are all that’s left between us and every last inch of Githany’s supple body.
Pulverizing the boots is easy work. Githany drops several inches without her platforms. Such a tiny thing.
Even with the restricted movement, Githany works to widen her stance.
We know just what she needs. Shaping our lower half allows us endless creativity.
We start with the long, thick shape of a human cock.
It’s satisfactory, but not nearly amusing enough.
Small fingers of shadow sprout from tip to base, they whip around, thrashing in every direction.
That’s more like it. Dozens of independently moving tendrils groping at every part of our ghost girl, inside and out.
All while we thrust into her until we’re deep enough to be tasted.