Read Experiment in Terror 05 On Demon Wings Online
Authors: Karina Halle
Tags: #Fantasy, #Horror, #Romance, #Adult, #Mystery, #Suspense, #Goodreads 2012 Horror
cozy amount of heat. It was Saturday so my father was
working in the study, grading papers probably, and my
mother was out getting groceries. I didn’t feel like
introducing Rebecca to my father though (it would have
opened a can of worms), so we went upstairs to my room.
“Nice little room,” she said as she gazed at the posters
on the wal s. I grabbed my robe from behind the door and
told her to stay put while I had my shower. I didn’t need to
impress Rebecca but I didn’t want to smel like a dirty gym
sock either.
When I was done, feeling refreshed and more able to
handle my unexpected visitor, I emerged from the steamy
bathroom to hear a few strange squeals and giggles. I
walked down the hal to Ada’s room and pushed her door
open.
Rebecca was sitting on Ada’s fluffy bed, watching her
bring out various amounts of clothes from her closet, an
impromptu fashion show.
Ada swirled on the spot, the fringy dress she was
holding swaying with her movement.
“Hey!” she said to me with an excited grin. “I was just
showing your friend here my closet.”
I tightened my robe and leaned again the doorframe.
“Your entire closet? She’s not staying for a week, Ada.”
“Perry’s right, I just popped by to say hel o,” Rebecca put
in.
Ada placed the dress in Rebecca’s hands, who in turn
played with the silky fringes.
“Popped by to say hel o and check up on her,” Ada said
knowingly.
Rebecca and I exchanged a look. Had Ada been
listening to our conversation outside?
Ada shrugged, swung her bleached hair over her
shoulder and went back to peering at her overflowing walk-
in. “What? Rebecca’s your friend, right Perry? If I were your
friend and I heard what...” she lowered her voice
“...happened to you, I’d come check up on you too.”
“You’re not my friend?” I asked wryly.
She stuck her tongue out at me. “Only because I have to
be. Bound by blood and al that.”
I couldn’t help but smile.
“So, thank you for showing me your clothes,” Rebecca
said as she got up and handed the dress back to Ada. “But
Perry and I have got some catching up to do and I real y
can’t stay long. And I am checking up on her, natural y. But I
just had to come visit her famous fashionista sister as wel .”
She sure knew the right things to say because a pink
flush appeared on the apples of Ada’s cheeks and she
waved at Rebecca bashful y. Rebecca nervous, Ada
bashful; what was going on with people today?
We went back to my room and I shut the door behind us.
I sat on the chair at my desk, feeling a little too exposed,
while Rebecca perched graceful y at the edge of my bed.
My bedroom seemed incredibly juvenile with her presence
in it.
She drummed her magenta nails across her knees.
“Your sister seems lovely.”
“She can be.”
“You told me you guys weren’t al that close, no?”
I cleared my throat, wanting Rebecca to get to the point,
why she was real y here.
“No, we weren’t. But we’re getting better.”
She got the hint and sat up straighter.
“I know you think I’m here because of ulterior motives,”
she began, “like Dex hired me to come here or something
ridiculous, but just know it’s not true. Natural y he knows I
am here, or that I was going to try and see you, but it was al
my idea. I’ve been real y worried-”
“You’ve said that. And you obviously don’t need to be.
Look at me, I’m fine.”
She nodded. “I know. You look…good.”
I could have sworn there was a slight hesitation before
“good.”
“Wel , I just got out the shower,” I protested.
“You look fine, Perry.”
Ah, downgraded from Category Good to Category Fine.
What was next? Category OK?
“I wanted to see how you were handling things.”
I opened my mouth to say something but she continued.
“Come on, we both know what Dex did was a terrible,
terrible thing. When I found out, I was livid for weeks. I knew
how he felt about you-”
The anger built up in my abdomen again and caught the
edges of my chest.
“Felt about me?”
“Yes. I mean, he didn’t mean to hurt you. He meant to
hurt himself.”
I sprang to my feet, knocking the chair backward.
“I hope he fucking did hurt himself! Look, I don’t care
about what Dex did and why he did it. OK? That’s in the
past here. We were both to blame. I shouldn’t have been so
stupid and I shouldn’t have believed for one minute that he
thought of me more as more than a friend.”
“But he does.”
“Bul shit! Friends don’t fuck each other over. Or fuck
each other and
then
fuck each other over!”
“I know, I know, but he’s a messed-up little bugger and
he made a terrible mistake.”
I took a step closer to her and wagged my finger in her
face. “Are you
defending
him? Did you think you could
come here, to my house, to my life, and start defending
him? Fuck you, too.”
She reached for my hand but I snatched it out of her way
and glared at her. She gave me a steady look.
“I am not defending him,” she said with forced calm.
“Dex is an idiot and he has his issues. I just thought you‘d
like to know that he lost the most out of this.”
My mouth dropped open and I let out a gasp.
“Let me finish!” she raised her hands. “Let me finish
before you kick my bottom. I didn’t come here to tel you
about Dex or try to make you feel sorry for him. I’m just
tel ing you the truth, even if it’s the truth you don’t want to
hear or want to believe. What happened, even though it
was his fault, destroyed him total y. He was so far gone-”
“Rebecca!” I howled at her, the madness fil ing my face
with heat. “I said I don’t care! I know Dex is stil your friend
and that’s fine, but it’s al over. The show. Whatever thing
we had going on. Even you and me. I have a new life now. I
have a new job, I have new friends and I have new dreams.
You say you were worried about me; wel al I can say is that
I’m fine. I wasn’t fine for a while there, but I am now. It’s
over. OK?”
She looked down at her immaculately manicured nails. I
was breathing hard and starting to feel faint again. I felt bad
for blowing up at her but she should have known just what
she was walking into when she showed up here.
“OK,” she said, then sighed. She looked around the
room again, avoiding my eyes. “I’l get going.”
She got up and made her way for the door. A smal part
of me wanted her to stay, to tel me more about how
miserable Dex was and about how far he’d fal en. But that
was the part of me that stil cried over love songs sung by a
bug-eyed pianist and I was pretty good at burying her
needs and wants.
She opened the door and was about to step out when I
cal ed out after her. Something had been bugging me for
the past few months, something I had no way of finding out.
She paused, her hand on the door, and looked at me
with hopeful, glittering eyes.
“What?”
“Did Dex ever say anything to you about the EVP
tapes?”
“EVP tapes?” She shook her head, her bob swinging
back and forth. “No. What are those?”
I sighed, disappointed. “We record sounds of what’s
going on around us when we do our shoots. I…I had
listened to one of the tapes and there was some pretty
important stuff on it. But Dex wouldn’t have had a chance to
listen to it until after I…left.”
“Oh. Sorry. Dex hasn’t mentioned anything about it to
me.”
I sucked on my lip and thought things over. “Do you know
who Declan O’Shea is?”
“No. Is that Dex?”
“I’m not too sure,” I said honestly. In the recording that
Creepy Clown Lady (or Pippa, as she introduced herself
as) had left, she had told me to ask my parents who Declan
O’Shea was. I did about a week after I arrived home, when I
final y calmed down enough to talk without sobbing or
punching things. I asked my father, anyway, since he has a
greater memory and he’s a lot smarter than my mom. He
seemed surprised that I asked but he said he had no idea.
Then of course he wanted to know why I was asking. I
couldn’t very wel say “wel there’s this old lady who looks
like a clown. I think she’s dead. Anyway, she said you’d
know,” so I just said I had heard the name mentioned once
and wasn’t sure if he was a friend of the family’s or not.
Regardless, Declan O’Shea was definitely
not
a friend of
the family.
“I could ask Dex for you, if you want,” she said in a smal
voice.
The thought of that made my heart race and a strange
heat creep up the back of my neck.
“No, that’s OK. I’m sure it wasn’t important anyway. You
know how ghosts are.”
“Sure…” she said uncertainly. Then she smiled. “I’m glad
you’re doing OK, Perry. I real y am. I hope we’l meet again
one day.”
I nodded absently as she gave me a short wave with her
dainty fingers and left my room. I heard her go down the
stairs and shut the front door behind her. Then the car
started up noisily and seconds later, Rebecca was gone
and out of my life again. Perhaps forever.
I sank to my knees and felt tiny prickles of moisture
stinging the corners of my eyes.
I didn’t know how I felt, but I felt…alone.
“You need a friend?” Ada asked. I looked up. She was
standing at the doorway, looking down at me with pity, or
maybe it was affection. “And not a forced friend either.”
I smiled grateful y as Ada sat down on the ground beside
me and enveloped me in a much-needed hug.
“Death! Death! It’s al about death! Satan inside, ripping
out of my skin!” screamed the eyebrow-less lead singer for
this metal band cal ed Eat the Goat or something like that.
I was standing in the far back of a gritty, jam-packed club
with Ash, watching the band perform. It was the first act of
the lineup and if it was any indication of the talent that was
to fol ow, I needed to drink a lot more beer. I was only on my
first one and it wasn’t making them sound any better.
“May I?” Ash asked me, holding out his hand for my
drink. Though Ash had handsome features and was tal ,
lanky and carried himself with an air of maturity, he was stil
only 20 and wasn’t al owed to buy any booze. So he
pilfered mine most of the time. I didn’t mind, though. He’d
been good to me so far.
“Sure,” I said, and handed him my cup, looking around
the dark venue to see if any narcs were watching. Al I saw
were headbanging bald guys in denim vests and cargo
shorts.
Ash took a big sip, relishing it with a smile. Draft beer in
plastic cups tasted
a lot
better when you were underage.
He handed it back to me considerably emptier and said,
“I thought with a name like Eat the Goat, these guys would
be hel of a lot better. They are pretty gnarly.”
“Gnarly as in good?”
“Gnarly as in terrible. Sorry for dragging you out here.”
I shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. Thanks for inviting me.
Though, I would have thought the rest of the crew would
have showed up.”
The lead singer went into a piercing wail, giving Jim
Gil ette a run for his money. I put my free hand over my ear.
“Mikeala is closing tonight,” Ash shouted over the noise,
which was somehow increasing, “and everyone else was
smart enough to stay away. You’re real y my only friend who
likes this type of music!”
I snorted. “I don’t like
thi s
type of music. I like good
music.”
We turned our attention back to the stage as the guitarist
blasted out a generic solo.
“What did you do today, anyway?” he asked
conversational y, eying my beer like a hungry dog. I took a
sip and handed it to him again.
“Not much. I went for a jog. Then ran into someone I
didn’t want to see.”
“Ooooh,” he said with wag of his eyebrows.
“She’s a girl.”
“Ooooooooh.”
“No, she has a girlfriend.”
“Triple ooooh!”
I laughed and punched Ash in his arm, causing the beer
I laughed and punched Ash in his arm, causing the beer
to spil out sideways and onto his skate shoes. He looked
down with acute disappointment, probably more for his lost
beer than his shoes.
“Wel , I guess that’s a sign to get another one,” I said,