Not All Monsters Get Along

“Is he happy?” A woman asked, her eyes peering down at my hands, which were wrapped in a dark blue cloth that might've been her son's baby blanket at some point, but was ratty and moth-eaten now.

I looked over at the man sitting to my left, which no one else could see. He was pale, with half of his face missing from where it had been grated on the pavement like his face had been cheese and the pavement had been a cheese grater. I didn't like asking them how they had died.

He stared at me with his one good eye and smiled with his barely-working lips.

“Yes, I'm happy here,” he told me, his voice hoarse.

“Yes, he's happy,” I told his mother and he looked at his mother with what could have been a grimace.

“Has he forgiven me?” She asked and this time I knew the look on her son's face was a frown. He looked at his mother with such a hatred, I was surprised. The air was thick with it, and it took me a few seconds to recover from the assault.

“No. What she did was unforgivable. Tell her not to bother me again,” he told me without looking at me and stood up. The chair he had been sitting on crashed to the floor and he looked surprised. But not as surprised as everyone else in the room.

“He believes what you did was unforgivable,“ I told his mother and watched the young man walk from the room through the walls.

The woman began to sob violently and my father escorted her from the room.

“You did well,” the old woman sitting in the corner of the room said and I let the dark blue fabric flutter to the floor.

“Thank you, Ms. Irel,” I muttered and stood up.

Ms. Irel was 87 years old, and practically ran the community I lived in. She helped my parents with their businesses and in exchange, I helped her communicate with the Devil each month. Unfortunately, each time I spoke with the Devil, I found myself just a little bit weaker, more susceptible to the dead until I thought they would overcome me with their wailing and raging.

I left the room politely and went into a private room. I wiped the sweat from my brow, and rubbed the goosebumps from my arms.

“They're just going to keep using you, until you die from all of this,” he said and I looked around the room for the young, dead, blue-lipped teen I had befriended when he found he could talk to me.

“That's why I'm going to run away, before the next full moon. They always have me contact the Devil on the full moon, and if I'm not there, then they can't and another person will not die.”

“And if you fail, they'll lock you up. You better have a good plan,” James said, and touched my arm. I shivered and pulled back. Having the dead touch you is a strange sensation. It's not even a touch, more like... a heat or cold that presses against that one place.

“I won't fail, James. You'll be helping me, so I don't get caught.” He nodded and I slipped past him, back into the room where another customer was waiting.