Cursed

“This is our upstairs loft where we can just sit and relax, almost like another living room.” I brought Marissa out into the hallway and motioned to the loft area that overlooked the downstairs.

“And that is the bathroom right over there.” I motioned to a door directly across the hallway.

Marissa nodded her head in agreement, and then furrowed her eyebrows. She pointed towards the bathroom door. “How come you have another bathroom out here when you already have one in your room?” She asked.

“Oh, that one’s just for guests. Our spare room right over there,” I pointed at a door a few feet away from the bathroom, “doesn’t have a bathroom in it, so we put a bathroom out here in case someone stays at the house, and they won’t have to go all the way downstairs just to use the bathroom.” I explained.

“Ahhh…” She said, and nodded her head understandingly.

“You can stay in the spare room if you like. I mean, I know you don’t sleep, but it would be nice to at least have a room to stay in to make you feel more comfortable.”

She looked at me with her wide eye. “Really?” She asked.

I laughed. “Yeah, sure. Why not?”

“Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!” She clasped her hands together in excitement.

I had to laugh at her again. She was just too cute. I think her staying here will actually be kind of fun.

I motioned for her to follow me downstairs. As we rounded the corner at the bottom, I was met with a confused looking Mark with a towel in his right hand.

“What?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow up at him.

“Who the hell are you talking to?” He asked, squinting his eyes at me.

I looked at Marissa and we both busted up laughing. Oops, I guess I forgot to tell my brother that a dead person was staying in our house.

“My bad,” I said, trying to breath in between laughs, “I forgot to tell you that…” I laughed again. “…the girl in my bedroom this morning is going to live with us for a while.” I laughed again. “So I was showing her around the house.”

“Oh, and you just decided this without even asking me first?” He cocked an eyebrow up at me.

I was finally starting to calm down. “Oh, come on. Don’t be such a crab. It’s not like we have to do anything special. She doesn’t eat, she doesn’t sleep so we don’t have to worry about cleaning her bed, and she can stay in the same clothes forever since she doesn’t get stinky.” I shrugged my shoulders, Marissa softly chuckling behind me.

Mark put the hand with the rag in it on his hip. “Yeah, but how do I know she won’t go snooping at night and spy on me or look at me while I’m taking a shower? I can’t see her, so how do I know she won't spy on me?"

“Oh my goodness… She wouldn’t do that.” I turned to look at Marissa. “Would you Marissa?”

She shook her head back and forth quickly, the smile completely off her face now. “No, no, of course I wouldn’t. I would never invade his privacy like that.”

I turned back towards my brother. “You see? She said she would never invade your privacy like that. Now can she please stay?”

“How do you know she’s not just a demon in disguise trying to get to you?”

“I would be able to tell. My wolf senses would be tingling right now.”

I’m not joking; I really do have wolf senses. That’s how I know when to hunt; I get this tugging feeling inside me that lets me know when a demon is nearby. But I can understand my brother worrying, because a demon actually tried to mask their self as a lost soul and tried to get me to let them stay at the house. But I outsmarted them. God was pretty smart when he created me, because as soon as I got near the demon pretending to be a lost soul, my wolf senses started tingling and I got this really bad feeling around them. And they stink really bad, like horrid smell. You think dead people smell bad? Ugh, you have to get a whiff of a demon straight from hell. It’s like a combination of rotting and decay, burnt flesh, rotten eggs, spoiled milk, horse shit, and sewer all mixed in one. Sometimes I don’t even need my wolf senses to tell me when a demon is nearby. All I have to do is sniff the air and I can tell. That’s why it’s kind of hard to be a wolf and defeat a demon; their amazing sense of smell just make demons smell worse. All I want to do is plug my nose the entire time. It sucks.

But Marissa smells decent. She’s alright.

Mark sighed and closed his eyes. “Fine. Yeah, sure, she can stay with us.” I smiled and slapped hands with Marissa. “But as soon as trouble starts arising because of this, she leaves. No questions. Got it?” He pointed a finger at me, since he couldn’t exactly see Marissa.

“Yup.” I popped the ‘p.’

Mark walked away to the kitchen to finish cleaning up. Meanwhile, Marissa and I sat down in the living room. I grabbed the remote and turned on the T.V. As soon as the picture showed up on the screen, there was a news report about a car accident only a few streets from our house. A young man was hit by a truck that ran a red light at an intersection, and he was now in a coma. I shook my head back and forth as the reporter kept talking. There are so many stupid drivers out there who only think about themselves. They don’t bother to think of the consequences of their actions and who they could hurt in the long run.

My eyes trailed over to Marissa who was intently looking at the T.V. screen. They were showing a picture of the young man who got hit. She had her eyebrows furrowed and she was leaning forward on the reclining chair. I raised an eyebrow at her, even though she wasn’t paying attention to me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

When she didn’t reply, I thought she hadn’t heard me. I was about to repeat myself when she answered, “I know that man. He used to go to my school…” She never once tore her eyes away from the T.V.

“Oh, really? Were you two friends?”

Again, it took her a few minutes to reply. Once the reporter started talking about the price of gas going up, Marissa turned towards me. “We dated for a while. Other than that, we didn’t really talk.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. Do you still like him?”

Forgive me. I’m a nosy person.

“Kind of. When he broke up with me, I cried for days. It took me a while to get over it, but seeing his face again made me miss him.” She looked down and started picking at the hem of her tank top.

I left it at that and decided to change the channel, since the talk about gas prices was boring me. I mean come on; everyone knows gas prices are too high. It’s not really ‘news’ anymore. They’ve been too high for years already. Build a bridge and get over it.

I changed the channel to Cartoon Network. Courage the Cowardly Dog was currently on. I loved this show as a kid. It’s a shame you can only catch the show sometimes, and the rest of the time is taken up by the stupid shows they make now. I mean, seriously. Have you seen Cartoon Network lately? The show Chowder, what’s the deal with it? There’s absolutely no point to the show. At least in Courage the Cowardly Dog, Courage has to beat off weird things in every episode. I have no clue what the fuck Chowder does for a living, but I bet he’s not awesome enough to beat off weird things like Courage does.

Wait a minute… You know what I just realized? My life is kind of like Courage’s. I have to beat off weird things almost every day of my life, and so does Courage. I’m even part dog. Well, canine is the proper term, if you want to be specific. I smiled to myself as I pictured myself staring in a cartoon show: Ronnie the Cowardly Werewolf or something like that. That would be awesome, no?

My mind steered back to the T.V. I started imagining myself being Courage for one day, defeating the monster he was currently dealing with, which so happened to be Freaky Fred who liked to shave people’s hair off. If he ever tried touching my hair, I’d scratch his eyeballs out. Then he won’t even be able to see what he’s doing. Ha!

Wow, I get way too caught up in my daydreams.