They Say She Floats
by Brian Grisham

   Since her mother’s unexpected death, Janie felt that it was her responsibility to look out for her younger brother. She was eleven now and she knew that she had to set an example for him, and part of that was to accept her new stepmother and welcome her to the family. Moreover, she had to be supportive of her father, even though she felt that her father’s decision to remarry in such a short time was irrational and irresponsible, not only to himself, but to Janie and Sam as well.

   Sam was almost eight and even he knew something was undoubtedly wrong. The wedding happened way too soon, and their father fell in love much too quickly. Janie and Sam had only seen their father’s “then” girlfriend half a dozen times before the wedding. He didn’t even introduce them to her, as if she were some hidden secret, both sinister and disgusting.

   Janie and Sam Jenkins followed their father and new stepmother inside the house, feeling worn out and heart-broken. They did not like their new stepmother, and the wedding was like a continuation of a curse that seemed to get bigger and bigger within each passing day. They felt something strange about her the first time they had met, which really wasn’t very long. It was just a brief ‘hello- goodbye’ and the bedroom door closed them off, as if Janie and Sam were no longer important.

   Janie unbuttoned the corsage from her light green dress, which was rumpled from the long trip home, tossed it on the chair across the family room and sat sullenly on the couch as if she had just come home from a funeral, instead. Sam took his jacket off, threw it on the chair along with the corset and took a seat next to Janie with his arms folded and his head low.

   Janie looked at Sam and said, "I don’t like her."

   Sam gazed at his jacket in the chair and replied, "I don’t like her either. She’s always angry."

   "I know. She looks at us like we’re strangers. Like we have no right to be here," Janie whispered.

   Sam turned to Janie and asked, "What do you think is going to happen? I mean, to us."

   Janie looked at her brother then peered back down and said, "I have no idea. I think she wants us gone.”

   Sam started to cry.

   "No, no, no. Don’t cry, Sam. We’ll figure something out," said Janie as she hugged him tight.

   "Ah, there are my kids," their father, Michael, called out from behind a glass of scotch on the rocks.

   Janie looked up at her father and muttered, "Hi, Daddy."

   Michael gazed at Sam and asked, "What’s wrong? Is Sam crying?"

   Janie peered down at her brother then back at her dad and said, "No... well yeah-"

   "What? Why?"

   Janie rolled her eyes around the room, trying to think of something quick to tell her father then replied, "Uh, I told him one of my scary stories again. I’m sorry, I thought he’d like this one."

   Michael frowned and said, "Janie, you know how Sam reacts to your filth... to your devil story crap."

   "Yes, Daddy, but I thought-"

   "But you thought wrong, young lady," Michael interrupted. "I want the both of you to go to your rooms."

   Stunned, Janie cried, "What? But-"

   "No! I don’t want to hear it! The both of you go to your rooms, now," Michael replied fiercely.

   Sam began to cry louder.

"Shut up! Go to your rooms! Go, go, go!" Michael demanded as he pointed toward the stairway.

   Janie stood up, took Sam’s hand in hers and together they hurried up the stairs for their rooms. Michael watched them as they disappeared then heard their bedroom doors shut like cheap knives cutting through meat. He frowned then sat down on the couch, nursing his drink and thinking about the wonderful honeymoon next month. Away from the kids. He couldn’t wait.

   Janie sat on her bed against the headboard with her knees to her chin, pondering her newest problem- her stepmother, Sharon. Janie hardly knew her at all. Sharon was a fat woman with short, black hair and dark eyes; the kind of eyes that would catch anyone’s attention in a dark, windowless room. Her skin was pale and her eyebrows grew thick across her forehead like a dead caterpillar. Her fingers were long and grossly crooked, and her legs reminded Janie of an elephant’s; fat and putrid. And the smell! Janie could have sworn she smelled like dead fish.

   From next-door, Janie heard the sounds of chains rattling, which were what the neighbors tied their dog with every night before they went to bed. The scratching steel sound made her think of ghosts, and ghosts were what she feared the most, yet she loved that dark, eerie feeling. Especially at night. It was like existing in a Vincent Price flick where the walls would open up to dungeon rooms that locked away corpses, skeletons and old, dirty tombs.

   Yeah, Janie hated that dog next door. It was some sort of cross-breed between a Chihuahua and a Cocker Spaniel. Sometimes she imagined herself sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night and slitting the dog’s throat with a steak knife. She smiled and peered out of her bedroom window into the evening sky. Her room slowly grew dark, and as she stood up to take a peek at the dog next door, she heard her stepmother’s voice from downstairs. It sounded like the shrill scream of a woman on the verge of being run down by a diesel truck.

   Janie cringed while she gazed at the door, imagining it as a beating heart full of flesh and blood and stringy, wet veins ready to burst with each ka-thump it made, and just before she could turn away, there came a light knock from the other side. Janie jumped and watched the door through the darkness with wide eyes. The knocking came again, this time barely audible. Janie thought for a moment then hopped off her bed, snuck to the door and slowly opened it. Her brother’s eyes peered in from the other side.

   "Let me in, Janie," Sam whispered desperately.

   Janie gasped then opened the door and pulled her brother inside. After shutting it behind her, she whispered, "Did you get a look down there?"

   "No," said Sam. "I can still hear their voices, and I’m too afraid to look."

   "Stay here. I’ll go take a peek then."

   "No, what if you get caught?"

   "Don’t worry, I won’t. I’ve been doing this for years," Janie replied as she neared the door. She grabbed the knob, turned to Sam and stuck her index finger vertically against her lips and shut the door quietly behind her. Sam backed away, sat motionless on her bed and feared what was to come.

   From the shadows, Janie heard her father and her newstep mother talk in the family room. Their voices were low but tense. She got down on her hands and knees, snuck to the stairway then slowly craned her head around the corner. Sharon’s back was turned toward her. She still wore her red wedding gown and had her bouquet in her hands. Her father was on the couch with a saddened expression across his face. Janie continued to eavesdrop from the darkened stairway, hoping she wouldn’t get caught.

   "But, Sharon...," said Michael.

   "No, I want you to sell this house," Sharon said harshly. "I want you to sell it right away. I want a bigger house that’s in both of our names."

   Michael looked up at her and said, "It’s going to take some time."

   "What of it? Sell it for double of what it’s worth," Sharon demanded.

   "I still think we should wait a while. What about the kids? This is their home too."

   Sharon looked at him sternly then turned to think for a second. At last, she looked back and said, "I want you to sell the house, Michael. It brings back sad memories of your wife... I can see it in your face, and I don’t want to see you like this. I can’t take it."

   Michael grabbed his glass and swallowed what was left of the scotch. He closed his eyes for a moment then sighed deeply. "Okay, okay, I’ll sell the house. If it’s going to make you happy, I’ll sell it and we’ll find a new one somewhere-"

   "No," Sharon interrupted as she slapped the bouquet down on the coffee table. "I know the house that we want to buy. It’s big, roomy, and under the right ownership, it can be worth a lot of money."

   Michael peered back up at Sharon and said hoarsely, "This may be a problem for the kids. They think a lot of their mother and wouldn’t be as swift to give up their house, or their memories."

   "Can you forget about those little brats for ten seconds? They’ll conform. Plus, they’ll have a nice new school to attend, a beautiful new home to live in and a fresh start ahead of them. They’ll thank you, Michael. And they’ll thank me, too. Watch, you’ll see."

   "Ugh, you better be right about this," Michael replied.

   "You worry too much, my husband," said Sharon as she slowly sank down to her hands and knees with an evil but playful smile stretched across her face. "Mmm, it’s so big." Sharon ran her hand over Michael’s crotch then unbuttoned his pants and pulled out his hard cock. She slid it in her mouth and began to suck slowly.

   Michael closed his eyes, leaned back and whispered, "You’d better be right..."

   Sharon began to suck even harder and Michael shuddered with pleasure. Janie jerked away in disgust then turned to crawl back to her room, and as she did so, the stairs creaked faintly underneath her. Immediately, Janie froze. She waited a few seconds before she slowly looked back at her father and stepmother to make sure they hadn’t heard, and there she saw her new stepmother, sucking her father’s cock while looking right at her with flashing, white eyes. Her hair twisted around her head like angry snakes, and her skin was transparent, revealing her stomach, heart and brain and the rest of her organs and blood vessels. Janie let out a quick breath and stared into those alien eyes of hers. Sharon grinned. Janie wanted to run for her life, but she couldn’t. She was trapped in her stepmother’s glare as if she were hypnotized.

   At last, Janie was able to muster up enough strength to slowly back away, and as she did so she, bumped against the wall behind her. Janie peered down at her step mother again, but she was no longer staring at her. Her skin was back to normal and her head was bobbing up and down as she continued working on Michael.

   Janie carefully crept back down the hall and into her room. She looked at Sam as she closed the door without a sound and said under her breath, "She wants Daddy to sell the house."

   Sam reached out for Janie and started to cry.

   Janie held her brother in her arms and whispered, "Everything’s going to be okay. Somehow we’ll get through all of this, okay?"

   Sam whispered from behind her shoulders, "I think she floats."

   Janie blinked. "What do you mean, she floats?"

   "I’ve seen her. She floats up the stairs and goes into your bedroom at night."

   Janie froze momentarily, pulled Sam back in front of her and looked deep into his eyes. "What are you talking about? She doesn’t come in here."

   Sam nodded yes and replied, "Yes, she does. The first time I saw her I was going to go to the bathroom. I opened my door and your door had just shut, but before it closed I saw Sharon. She was floating."

   "Uh, I don’t think so, Sam. I think I’d know if someone went into my room. Especially if she were floating," said Janie. Then she thought for a moment. Hadn’t she seen, or thought she’d seen Sharon float into the kitchen not too long ago? No, she couldn’t have, Janie thought, but yet, she could have sworn that she was floating. Janie shivered. And, what of the strange vision she had just seen of her? Her step mother’s body appeared transparent and alien as if she were some sort of creature trying to invade her home.

   Janie then looked at Sam seriously and said, "I want you to go back to your room, okay?"

   "But..."

   "No buts, Sam. You have to go back to your room before we’re caught," Janie whispered harshly.

   Sam looked at Janie and hesitated for a moment then said, "Okay, I will." He got up on his feet, turned around from the door and said, "Goodnight, Janie."

   "Night, night Sam," Janie replied back as she watched Sam disappear behind her door into the black depths of darkness.

   Janie hopped up on her bed. It creaked like a dead tree in the middle of a vast, yellow field. She curled up in her blankets and pillows and waited for her new stepmother- to see if she actually did sneak into her bedroom. And if so, why would she do such a thing? Had she tried to kill her? Steal her things?

   Janie shook her head. She would wait and see, but what would she do if her brother was right? Janie sighed and shivered in the darkness. The only light in the room came from the street lamp outside her window. She sniffled and smelled the cold, stale air that never really did circulate within the house, or at least it never felt like it did. Janie breathed in deeply and eyed the digital clock. It read, 12:34. She sighed, rubbed her eyes and sank deeper into her covers. Minutes later she was asleep, and within those minutes Janie’s bedroom door slowly opened as if it were drifting through air then stopped with a sudden jerk as it reached the wall.

   The room remained silent and still. Janie snored then turned to her side as she felt something brush against her arm. She stirred and mumbled under her breath. Then she felt something hard on her chest. She was dreaming of dead people climbing up mountain cliffs to a broken castle that was empty and ruined. They were gray figures with rotten flesh, rotten clothes and eyes that seemed to stare off into nowhere. Their arms climbed slowly. Their mouths churned and twisted in the dusk of the orange sky. Janie was there. She stood in the castle courtyard with another woman. She was tall, grossly overweight, and her face was cold and emotionless. Janie touched her hand. It was cold like porcelain. The lady looked down upon her, and Janie saw that it was her stepmother. Janie peered at the hand she held and watched the skin crack, peel and float down over the cliff... into infinity. She then craned her head back up and saw her stepmother as she truly was; a rotted, flesh-eaten corpse. Her eyes were filled with blood and pus, and her lips were black with breath-stench decay. Her skin was transparent-gray with larva and worms sliding in and out of her cadaver. Janie screamed and dropped Sharon’s hand in terror.

   "You’re mine," Sharon bellowed. "You belong to me now!"

   Janie screamed over and over until she awoke... and there she saw her stepmother in her room, floating over her bed like some kind of decomposing banshee with spilling organs hanging from her ripped flesh and black blood dripping out of her orifices onto Janie’s face and body.

   Janie screamed in all out horror.

   "You can’t stop me, Janie! Your father is mine and so are you! Die you little bastard bitch! Die!" Sharon then grabbed Janie by the throat, pulled her upward and bit into her skull. Blood shot out everywhere as her screams drowned her ears and her sight. Quickly, Sharon tore away a huge gash from Janie’s head and her brains and blood spilled onto her bed. Sharon laughed and screeched hideously.

   Janie shot up out of bed immediately, fully awake. She tried to gather her senses by telling herself that it was just a nightmare, that was all. A nightmare. She laid back down and stared up at the ceiling. Her mind raced for what seemed like a million miles a second. Did she understand what she saw? Not in the slightest. But, a part of her knew that it was indeed another world that she was in. Another world in another time.

   You belong to me now!

   Could it have been her stepmother? Janie asked herself that question and yes, she did know the answer. It shook her as if a branding iron was pressed against her forehead. She wanted to scream as loud as she could, but she didn’t. All she could do was lay in bed, awake, and listen to the stupid neighbor’s dog next-door.

   Hap, hap, hap, hap!

   She wanted to kill that dog...

   Hap, hap, hap, hap, hap, hap, hap!

   Janie counted three hundred ‘haps’ before she fell back to sleep. No more nightmares invaded her dreams and she slept soundly for the rest of the night, but the next morning she couldn’t shake the nightmare from her head. It was as if she was somehow drawn to that world.

   Two days went by and Janie had not said a thing to her father. She wanted to but her father’s temper had gone from bad to worse. Just yesterday, he had hit Sam in the head. Sam ran out of the room, crying as hard as he could and Janie... well, all she could do was follow him upstairs to his room and comfort him.

   Janie didn’t know if she could tell her father anything. It was as if Sharon had him under her control and was killing him from the inside out. Was that what she was doing? Janie didn’t know. She felt as if she didn’t know anything anymore. She just knew that she missed her mother and that she wanted her old life back. She needed a second chance to hug her, to say hi to her and just listen to her voice one more time. But, she couldn’t. Her mother was dead.

   Janie felt alone.

   You’re mine...

   It was the voice in the dream that had come back to her. It was the voice of Sharon. She was evil in some way, and perhaps her father had not seen it. Or, he did not want to see it. He just drank. Drank and drank.

   Janie went out into the garage to talk with her father. She wanted to tell him of the things that she knew... or that she thought she knew. She wanted to tell him what Sam had told her two nights ago. ‘She floats, daddy. She floats.’ But, she just couldn’t muster up the strength to say anything, except, ‘hi.’

   Michael looked at her with cold eyes and Janie saw something inside of them. Or, rather a lack of something. Warmth. A soul. It was as if he had just given her a blank stare- looking at her but looking past her at the same time. And Janie grew very afraid for her and her father.

   Janie took a step back and said again, "Hi, Dad."

   Michael blinked and looked at Janie again for a long moment as if he had just woken up and uttered, "Hey, sweetie. Why don’t you go inside the house and play with Sam. I’m busy here right now."

   "What are you doing?" Janie asked, wondering what he was busy with.

   Michael swallowed hard and in a stern tone he demanded, "I said go Janie. Go play." He then shooed her with his hand.

   Janie backed away, peering at her father one last time before retreating into the house, and what she saw was a broken down man. A man who looked like he lost all hope in himself and the world. He appeared tired and old like he’d seen too much life for being the thirty-five year old man that he was.

   Finally, Janie spun around to head back inside when she almost bumped into Sharon. Sharon’s hard eyes gleamed at her wickedly, as if she were telling her that she was unwanted. Also, Janie noticed something else; that Sharon didn’t make any noise when she came up behind her. It was almost as if she had... floated into the room.

   Janie opened her mouth but couldn’t speak.

   Sharon smiled at her and asked rather callously, "What’s the matter, dog bite your tongue?"

   Janie let out a tiny whine, ran quickly inside the house and shut the garage door hard behind her.

   "Stupid kid," Sharon muttered to herself.

   Michael peered up at Sharon, still somewhat dazed, and asked, "What was that, hon?"

   Sharon wrinkled her nose and replied, "It was nothing, dear. Nothing important anyway." She then eyed the musty garage and said, "You know, I think we should move out of this house by the first of the month."

   Michael looked up at her again with wide eyes that showed a fierce sparkle of life within them and said, "In three weeks?"

   "I believe we need to move out of here as soon as possible. This house holds a lot of memories... sad, hurtful memories for both you and your children," Sharon said, trying to reassure him with a friendly smile that looked more like a mocking grin than anything else. But, Michael couldn’t see it, and Sharon knew it.

   "Are you so sure I can sell this house so quickly?"

   Sharon rested both of her hands on his shoulders and said with a deep sigh, "Yes, yes, Michael. The real estate market is booming. There’s a shortage of houses and the demand for them is far greater than its been in decades." She turned Michael around so that he faced her, and she peered into his eyes as if she were truly concerned and whispered sweetly, "Our life together will be perfect, my love, and selling this house is the next step. If you love me, you will do it."

   Michael looked into Sharon’s eyes a moment longer. He didn’t see the ghosts inside of them. He didn’t see the human skeletons and rotten flesh begging for release. He could only see her eyes- her beautiful dark eyes- that caressed his soul each time they made love in their dim, candlelit room.

   "I’ll do it," he muttered to her almost desperately as if he were afraid of losing her. "I’ll sell the house. For us and the kids."

   Janie spent the rest of the day in her room, thinking about her dream and her stepmother, and when evening fell, the neighbor’s yelping dog began its nightly rounds.

   Hap, hap, hap, hap, non-stop.

   Janie just laid in bed and counted the ‘happings’... hap, hap!

   She dreamed she was back on the barren, rocky terrain, overlooking the great vacant castle. The castle stabbed high into the sky like a crooked knife, plunging deep into the heart of whatever world she was on. The sky was a hazy gray with streaks of orange and red along the horizon. A touch of cold breeze ruffled her long, black hair that hung down past her shoulders, and she could feel this breeze caress her neck and her cheeks ever so gently, like a hand belonging to a lonely demon who yearned to feel the warmth of mortality just one more time. But, could not.

   From behind, the gray, shapeless figures carried steel beams over their shoulders as if they were slaves of some kind. Their faces revealed their pain and suffering, and their mouths were opened in a twisted sort of emotion which Janie could only recognize as agony.

   Their moaning was barely audible under the churning noise that came from the castle behind her. It sounded as if construction was going on with a great iron wheel, rotating a little bit at a time with metal screeching against metal ever so slowly.

   What horrible refuge was Janie in? She did not know, only that this was the place where she had seen her stepmother. Where she had felt her cold, clammy hand holding hers. Janie saw the evil that stabbed out of her eyes, and she could also smell it on the gray figures as they walked single filed past her and toward the great castle. To her, it smelled like death. The kind of death that not only took souls, but hearts, flesh and blood. The kind of death that made sure suffering was done on a pole among a vast field of impaled soldiers.

   Were the gray figures prisoners here? Or did they belong here just as the waking world belonged in the light? Janie could only guess the answer. In this world, dreams were a given and answers lay in the bottom of the heart of thoughts. Her thoughts... their thoughts. Dead thoughts.

   Janie traveled along side the shapeless, gray figures to the castle gates. There, she found the courtyard, and once inside she recognized the woman in the cage set forth upon a giant mantle against a broken wall. The woman was her mother and beside her stood her stepmother, Sharon. They were kissing deeply... passionately as if lovers.

   Janie recoiled and tried to turn away, but she couldn’t. She could only watch the horror happen before her, and she couldn’t believe it. It was like seeing Robin Hood kissing the sheriff of Nottingham or Dracula savoring a tender moment with Van Helsing.

   Janie closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see any more. She wanted to leave this place for good and wake up in a home that was no longer... haunted. A home that was still a part of her. Janie wanted to wake up from this nightmare once and for all, but the dream wouldn’t let her. Sharon wouldn’t let her.

   "She floats! She floats!" Cried the gray figures behind her.

   Sharon pulled away from Janie’s mother and smiled wickedly at her with eyes too bright to be human. They were something animalistic, but not quite even that. Then she bellowed, with her black hair swirling in the wind, "You all taste gooooood! You all taste sooooooo good!”

   Sharon opened up her mouth and a beam of white light shot out and into Janie’s mouth. Janie struggled to break free as she felt her energy being drained, and she fell to her knees, surrendering to Sharon’s power. Everything slowly faded out of view and Janie could only hear muffled screams from afar, but they were her own screams.

   Janie snapped awake, breathing hard and fast within the sunrise hour. Her heart pounded in her chest and sweat covered her body and her sheets. The image of her mother trapped in the cage kissing Sharon was burned into her mind like a camera flash in a dark room, and she couldn’t get rid of it.

   As she laid her head back down, she ran her hands underneath her pillow, but the sheets didn’t feel quite right. Janie lifted her head up once again and she saw something in the new morning light. It was just inches from her view. Slowly, she sat up to inspect it and discovered that it was the dog from next-door, dead in bed beside her. Its tongue was cut out and nailed to its forehead.

   Janie didn’t leave her bedroom the next day, and on Monday she left for school without saying a word. Sam tried to speak to her, but not even he could break down the barriers that she had put up. In class, Janie didn’t pay any attention to her teacher. She just sat there at her desk, looking off into nowhere and thinking about the nightmare from the night before.

   Her father never tried to start a conversation with her as he drove her home from school. It was like he was dead inside. Dull. Bland. Sucked dry.

   ‘You all taste sooooooo good!’

   ‘She floats...’

   Perhaps Sam was right when he told her that Sharon floats. But, why wasn’t she using him as she was using Janie and her father? Janie thought that perhaps Sam was too young to "feed" on. This also could have been the reason why Sam was scared of her from the start; that Sharon wasn’t who or what she claimed to be, as if Sam picked up some vibration.

   Janie felt something odd about her as well, but she just dismissed it. Actually, she didn’t like her because Sharon was "new". She felt that it was too soon for "new", and she wanted her mother back. Except, now... she knew that Sharon wasn’t who or what she pretended to be. She was some sort of evil that perhaps found a vulnerability in the hearts of good people. Sorrow. Forsakenness. Guilt.

   Janie remembered something she had watched on a television program a couple of nights ago. It had something to do with a creature who stole men’s souls in their sleep. Like a vampire of sorts. Although, Janie couldn’t quite remember what, exactly, it was called.

   Sucucub? Sucibi? It was something along those lines. Janie’s eyes lit up and she went to her father’s study and grabbed the Webster’s Dictionary. It was heavy and she swore it weighed a good fifty pounds. She opened it to the "S" section and fingered down the list of words until she finally found what she was searching for. Succubus. The word stabbed into the pit of her stomach, and as she read on her body began to shiver.

   Janie left her father’s study and retreated to her bedroom. She knew Sharon would feed on her again tonight and she had to figure out a way to stop her. But, how does one stop a succubus? The dreams from the past couple of nights made their way back into her thoughts, and Janie remembered the gray, shapeless figures who were slaves to the broken world. Indeed, they weren’t slaves at all, but Sharon’s victims who were now her prisoners.

   They were souls of men and women, and her mother was there as well. Another victim locked away. Does she suffer like the rest of the souls? Janie figured, yes. Also, she knew that if she didn’t plan something soon, she and her father would become a permanent part of that world. Still, she had to tell him, and hopefully she would still be able to reach him in time.

   Janie brought Sam with her to the kitchen where their father was overlooking a legal document pertaining to the house. Janie and Sam remained apprehensive, as they knew Sharon tended to pop up when they least expected it. With any luck they would have a few good minutes to express their concerns, and they prayed whole-heartedly that they wouldn’t fall on deaf ears.

   "Daddy," said Janie in a tiny voice.

   "Uh, what is it?" he asked without looking up.

   Janie took a step closer and muttered, "It’s about Sharon, Daddy."

   "Uh huh."

   "Daddy," Janie paused for a moment to think how to exactly word it, then continued, "She floats."

   Michael took a drink of scotch and continued to read through the stack of papers, ignoring what Janie had just told him. Janie and Sam could already tell that he was upset.

   Then, in that same tiny voice Sam said, "She floats, Dad. I saw her. She floats into Janie’s bedroom at night and-"

   Michael sighed heavily, holding his hand in his forehead.

   Janie then stepped closer to him and put her hand on her father’s shoulder and asked, "Daddy? Are you okay?"

   Swiftly, Michael rose up from his seat, scaring them both and shouted with all his lungs would allow, "Leave me alone! Sharon is my wife and like it or not she’s now your new mother! She loves the both of you and you dare to complain to me about her?" He pointed to them and continued, "Go to your rooms, now!"

   "But," Janie squeaked.

   "Go!" Michael roared as he took a step toward them as if he was ready to pounce on them.

   Janie and Sam spun around, bumping into each other, then ran as fast as they could out of the room. Sharon, who stood a few feet away from them and had heard everything they had said, smiled vindictively and rubbed her hand along her crotch, taking delight in what she just witnessed.

   "Children," she muttered to Michael as she watched Janie and Sam run up to their rooms. "They’re so adorable... kind of like small dogs, in a way." She then laughed lightly to herself.

   Michael sat back down in his seat and gave Sharon a small smile, although he didn’t really know what she was talking about. He was, in fact, hers after all.

  Janie and Sam hid in Janie’s room. There they waited for footsteps rushing up the stairs or screaming and hollering, but all remained silent. Janie and Sam stayed together until bed time, talking about Sharon, their father, and Janie’s strange nightmares. She also spoke up about the dog next-door and how Janie found it in her bed. Sam cried when Janie told him, and Sam asked her behind a teary face if he was going to be next.

   Janie did not know.

   When it became late, Janie urged Sam to go to his bed, but Sam was too afraid. Sharon was a demon. A creature from another life and another time. A seducer of men, a life-drainer and a dream-snatcher. Sam did not want to leave Janie and be alone in his bed, though Janie finally talked him into it. If Sharon was floating into Janie’s room, then Sam should be safe in his. Janie knew that she was the target. She was older and she knew who and what Sharon truly was.

   Before Sam left the room, he said to Janie, "I love you."

   "I love you, too, Sam," Janie whispered back and Sam vanished behind the door.

   Janie had a plan in her head and it involved returning to the nightmare where Sharon ruled. Janie climbed into bed and snuggled up. The annoying sound of the dog next-door was gone. All was quiet, and she wished that it wasn’t. She had no choice but to dump the dead dog in the garbage outside. What else could she have done? She sure as hell couldn’t explain it all to the neighbors.

   ‘Excuse me, sir? I found your dog dead in my bed with its tongue nailed to its forehead. Oh, and may I borrow some sugar?’

   Nah, it wouldn’t fly well at all.

   Janie laid awake for a good hour and a half, thinking about what was to come. She was worried that she may be too nervous to fall asleep at all. It had happened on occasion, especially on nights before the first days of school. Those long nights can be very exasperating, not to mention energy draining.

   Despite everything, sleep finally began to close Janie’s eyelids and take her away into the land of shut-in-darkness. However, this time she didn’t find herself in the familiar world of rocky terrain and with the gray, soulless figures. Instead, she was in a room of stone and construction. The windows revealed the same charred sky as before, and a strong wind blew past her, as if a storm of sorts was on its way.

   Surely she was in the castle.

   There she stood, facing a standing mirror that showed a reflection of the young woman that she was, but her clothes had changed. She was draped in a blue gown and her hair was done up in a bun, beautiful and neat. Her fingernails were painted blue as were her lips, and on her ears dangled a pair of sapphire and gold ear rings.

   Janie gazed at the rest of the room and found all sorts of bookshelves against walls with books and papers in disarray. On them were silver feathered quills in jars of black ink. On her other side stood stone statues of men and women dressed as kings, queens and warriors with open gowns and robes revealing their bodies. Where exactly was she?

   "You’re standing in the heart of the world," spoke a familiar voice behind her.

   Janie turned around, and there she found her mother dressed in a blue robe with medallions hung from her neck. Her green eyes were bright as they pierced through the shadowy darkness, and her black hair was long over her shoulders and strangely untouched by the fierce winds that blew passed them.

   Janie broke out into a smile and ran up to her mother to hug her, but her mother only looked down at her with a smile that was indeed loving, but it also told her that she had moved on.

   Janie took her mother’s hand in hers and exclaimed, "We need to get out of here, Mom! We need to leave this place before Sharon returns!"

   The woman in the blue robe that was her mother pulled her hand away from Janie and said with a tender voice that seemed to come from all around them, "I belong here, Janie. And soon you too will realize that you belong here."

   Janie’s face slacked. She didn’t know what to say or do but to grab her mother’s hand again and pull her toward her. However, her mother wouldn’t budge. She just continued to smile down at Janie as if her presence was not entirely real.

   "Mom, come on! We need to get out!"

   "Don’t fight it, my daughter... my sweetness. You are one of us. You always were..."

   Janie stopped and looked around, and there she saw Sharon step out from the shadows. Her eyes were bright just as her mother’s were. Right then, she realized that she was too late. Her mother was somehow one of them. She, like Sharon, was a succubus.

   "I always was," said her mother in that same, dream-like voice. "And so are you, Janie."

   "You are one of us, Janie," Sharon spoke without moving her lips. “You are part of us and a part of this world."

   Janie shook her head, disbelieving it all. Then both her mother and Sharon opened their mouths and out from both came a beam of energy. They shot out into Janie’s mouth, and once again she felt as if she were being drained. She fell to her knees with her arms spread outward, unable to move to free herself. Then, unexpectedly, her strength returned to her and the two beams of energy ceased. Slowly, Janie got back on her feet, turned around and eyed herself in the mirror. There, she found not the young girl she had known in her lifetime, but a creature with brilliant, bright eyes like her mother’s. The dress was gone and her body was naked and free with dripping, black organs hanging loose from her transparent skin. Her long, black hair draped over her shoulders and her fingers and toes were webbed with sharp, tiny claws.

   Janie smiled at herself in the mirror without smiling, which was an expression only humans could make. But, she was no longer human. She finally knew what she was now. A succubus. Janie then opened her eyes in the waking world and floated out of her bedroom and into Sam’s where she hovered over him, pressing down hard on his chest.

   Sam cried for her to stop, but Janie was hungry and, after all, she loved her brother. Janie’s eyes flashed white as a beam of white energy shot out from her mouth into Sam’s, and she began to suck her brother dry of all energy to leave him lifeless and empty. His gray, drained soul belonged to her now in the growing kingdom of nightly dreams.

 ©2004 Brian Grisham

Black Roses In Delirium
http://covenroses.com/