Page 32 of Devil Inside

Men. Women. Children. Anyone. Everyone.

I do not wish to be tied down. Bound by these bodies. I wish to be free.

Free.

Until then, I am merely whispers. Voices inside your head.

Let me in...

Hundreds of bodies—thousands, perhaps, why keep count—all in one day. We won’t look back. Not at Jordan. We leave him behind. Isn’t that what started all of this?

Is that what we’re running from? Even now? We don’t need him. Don’t want him.

but we do

no

We are free. Free from Jordan. The pull of him. The gravity at the center of his black hole heart. The way he calls for us, even now, so far away. The way he feels like home.

We are finally—

Tires skid. We hear the peal of rubber, that abrupt squeal filling the air.

A car, braking.

We don’t see the vehicle until it’s too late. The car comes outof nowhere. More likely we came out of nowhere, running into its path. What does it matter? I haven’t been aware of where I am or who I’m even in, a blur of bodies, so when the fender finds our flesh and we are sent hurtling against their windshield, our head smashing against glass, I feel unmoored from this flesh, my grip loosening. The darkness that embraces us can only be death. It is quick and complete, a blanket of black wrapping us up, enveloping us.

When I wake, I know I have returnedhome again...

Home again...

jiggety...

jig

trial separation

Greg

“What the hell has gotten into you?”

Greg didn’t recognize her anymore.Kim.His own wife. A completely different person. The things she’d said at the dinner table, in front of Rich and Caroline...

Christ.Who says things like that? To their—well, technicallyhis—friends?

Who was this woman?

Greg checked on the kids in bed, fast asleep. Seemed like Kim didn’t care. Ben could snooze his way through an earthquake, all ten years of him. Francesca was a much lighter sleeper, waking at the simplest creak in the floorboards, so Greg tried to be as nimble about it as possible, peeking his head in and catching a glimpse of their slumbering bodies.

The two kids still shared a bedroom. Greg wasn’t ready to sacrifice his workout station just yet. One day. Later. When they were older and couldn’t stand sharing the same space anymore.

Their room was a technicolor blend of warring stylistic ideologies. Pretty rainbow ponies and snarling dinosaurs. Greg sided with the dinos.

Ben had just gotten this dino-light for his birthday. Greghad to admit, it was pretty cool. At night, when the lights were out, this apparatus blasted shadowed patterns of T-Rexes and brontosauruses across the ceiling and walls. There they were now, a silent stampede of prehistoric shadows, charging over the walls, spinning in an eternal circle around the room.

Francesca stirred, sensing Greg’s presence. She had a sixth sense for that sort of thing, always knowing when someone was watching. He dipped his head out of their room.

Back to Kim.Christ.Here we go.