Chapter 3
Kendra gave her breakfast plate a quick rinse before loading it in the dishwasher, listening as the water in the shower cut off. Bren rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and stretched out in the same chair he'd sat in the night before.
"You didn't hear any weird noises from her room last night?" he asked.
Shaking her head, Kendra replied, "Nothing. Thanks for coming over, though."
Bren hummed back, not able to manage 'you're welcome' under the cold and dreary circumstances.
"I suppose that means she restrained herself like she promised," he admitted wearily.
"Probably not too hard," Kendra reminded him. "She looked exhausted."
They heard the door open down the hallway and Sally appeared down the hall, her hair wrapped in a small white towel while a red one securely covered her from chest to ankle.
A sleepy, satisfied grin on her face, she greeted both of her friends with a tired wave.
"Thanks, guys," she said. "I'll be ready in just a few minutes."
"Toast?" Kendra asked.
"Sure, thanks!" Sally popped into her bedroom and shut the door.
"Slept well, then," Bren observed through lidded eyes. "Seems pretty chipper."
"She looked weird," Kendra bit her knuckle again before putting a slice of bread in the toaster.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm not sure," Kendra popped the bread down. "Maybe it's just because she came out of the shower."
"Her face looked redder than usual?"
Kendra shrugged, "Something."
"Maybe she's got her energy back," Bren pointed out, "People look fresher when they get sleep."
Despite this, Bren took out the notebook from the previous night and scribbled the simple detail of Kendra's observation into the day's notes.
Moments later, just as the toaster popped, Sally slid out of her bedroom into the hallway.
"Slept better?" Bren confirmed.
"Yes," Sally's eyes went wide with gratitude. "Thank you guys
so
much."
Bren looked at her carefully, mentally agreeing with Kendra that something crucial had changed about their mutual friend.
Same blue jeans,
he looked her over critically as she buttered her toast.
Standard red sweater with University logo.
Hair and face freshly washed.
What is it?
His face twitched.
"Your eyes," he blurted out.
"What?" Sally spoke through a crunchy mouthful of toast.
"They're darker," Kendra said.
"They're brown," Sally said, "and they always have been."
Bren shook his head and wrote in his notebook.
"What's that?" Sally ticked her chin at the book.
"Keeping track of everything," Bren explained.
"Like, stalking me?" Sally winced in the direction of his notes.
"Trying to keep us all safe," Kendra replied. "I think it's a good idea."
Bren finished his note and looked up at Sally.
"It also means," he firmed up his voice, "that you don't play with yourself without one of us around."
"What?! But I-"
"No, listen," Kendra said. "That was dangerous and scary, and you brought both of us into it."
"My privacy, though!" Sally protested, rising up in her chair.
"Do you want our help the next time things go sideways?" Bren glared at her.
Sally lurched to a stop, dead centre of the peak of her indignation.
"Fine!" she said, "I won't... masturbate without someone around."
She bit into her toast and finished the slice in silence.
"
Thank you
," Kendra rolled her eyes.
A few minutes later, as they departed for school, Sally turned on Bren.
"Are you planning on coming here early every morning?" she asked.
"For now, at least," he answered. "It's not far out of my way."
Sally hummed doubtfully.
Bren held the door open for both girls and Sally, last one out, locked the door behind her.
"Is it here?" Bren asked. "Is it still following you?"
"Yeah," Sally pocketed her keys and looked around the snow covered landscape, "It's here. But it's not as angry as before."
"You can
feel
it?" Kendra's eyebrows rose.
Sally nodded and they set out for school.
"I don't see any creepy hoof prints, at least," Bren said.
"It's not like, wait, what?!" Sally turned on him.
"What?" Bren asked.
"
Hoof
prints?" she clarified.
"It had hooves," Kendra agreed. "You didn't notice?"
Sally twisted her lips, but the dismay in her eyes evaporated almost as quickly as it had appeared.
"Doesn't matter," she shrugged it off. "You won't see its prints, obviously. It's not really there, for the most part, is it?"
"But you still feel it?" Kendra sighed.
"Yep."
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Having agreed to meet both girls at the end of the morning classes, Bren waited outdoors in the Arts quad, trying to keep an eye out for Sally and Kendra while huddling up against a stone pillar to stay out of the wind.
"Hey!" Kendra hissed out from behind him.
"What the?" Bren cursed. "Where'd you come from?"
"Our class was inside," Kendra stuck a thumb out at the doors behind her. "Come on."
Thankful to get out of the blistering winter weather, he followed her through the doors to find Sally leaning her butt and shoulder blades against an interior concrete wall, oblivious to the throng of students moving around her.
"Sal," Bren put a note of warning in his voice, "you look a little pale? You okay?"
Sally shook her head, her hair flowing in front of her face before she swept it back and looked up into Bren's eyes.
"It's gone," she whispered.
"The, uh, demon?" Bren kept his voice low.
"Yeah," Sally nodded, her voice deep with worry, "It just left me during our Lit lecture."
Bren glanced over at Kendra, got nothing but a shrug in response, and asked Sally, "Isn't that good?"
"Doesn't feel good," Sally's dilated pupils stared up into Bren's eyes in near panic.
"Okay," Bren drawled.
Is she attached to this thing?
Addicted, even?
"C'mon!" Sally stood bolt upright. "This way."
"Where we going?" Kendra asked, but Sally had already struck out for the double doors leading to the stairwell.
Chasing her frantically, Bren and Kendra followed Sally through the doors and down a doubled back set of stairs into the basement.
"Sally, where are we-?" Bren called out, but she'd already headed down a second set of stairs.
There's a
sub
-basement?
he wondered, still chasing his panicked friend.
"Wait, Sal!" Kendra shouted, just behind Bren as Sally pulled open the doors at the bottom of the stairs and strode forward into the space beyond it.
Rushing after her, they found they had entered the lowest level of the building, the door opening onto a wide area of sealed concrete floors and unpainted walls, the ceiling a maze of exposed pipes.
Sally paused in the middle of the open space, her arms extending from her body as if she searched for something in a darkened room.
"It came down here... somewhere," Sally's voice came out in a desperate whisper. Her voice weakened further, its certainty disappearing, "I think."
"You think?" Kendra asked, warily turning her body to face away from Sally as if she expected an attack from behind them.
Sally crouched down, laying her bare hands on the concrete floor as if she expected to sense the demon with her fingertips.
"It's underneath us, maybe," the confusion in Sally's voice didn't give her friends much confidence.
Doors burst and all three of them twisted around to look down at the far end of the space, some twenty metres away. Through three separate doors, three girls strode, their eyes searching the area for only a moment before locking on Sally.
"There you are!" the middle one declared, her eyes burning.
"You know them?" Bren asked.
Sally shook her head.
Okay.
Who are these?
Bren wished he could put some space between himself and their naked aggression, lamenting the fact he needed to stay next to Sally.
Goth pale, all three of them.
Just one of them is Asian, but the other two have dyed their hair black.
Together with the black clothing, including their long winter jackets, the trio looked like someone had revived a decades old trend in clothing.
Not much makeup, though,
Bren reminded himself.
Just an overall pale-skin-and-girl-in-black motif.
Bren and Kendra came up on Sally's sides, bracketing her as if they expected a fight. The three girls marched up to Sally and Bren counted himself surprised to discover them shorter than he.
Why are we so worried about the three of them, then? Why do they feel so tall?
"You!" The middle one held a finger out in Sally's face. "You need to stop this nonsense!"
