Evil - Chapter 4
In the darkness, a hand crept toward me as I tossed and turned, fighting against the caffeine and an overactive mind.
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.
It's not easy being the Antichrist.
Anjelica’s mother never told her that she was a demon. Now, all she wants is her old life back, but that’s not possible for her. Not after what she’s seen.
Anjelica used to be a popular cheerleader with an awesome life, but that was before an evil cult of demons tried to use her blood to open a portal to Hell and start the Apocalypse.
She was rescued from that fate, barely, and because of the imminent threat to her life, her saviors ripped her from Los Angeles and brought her to a safe house in the middle of nowhere.
They said it was for her own good, but she would rather be dead than stuck in boring, old Bronard, Missouri. She was from the big city, so a sleepy, rural life wasn’t for her.
She longed for excitement.
So, when she met a young witch with a mysterious past who promised to show her everything she knew about opening portals and traveling between distant lands, they bonded immediately
I mean, what’s the worst that could happen, right?
It’s not like they would open an intergalactic gateway to another planet and get thrown into a brand, new world with no way to get back to Earth, right?
Join Anjelica in her own solo adventure and find out what happened to her immediately after the events in Magic.
In the darkness, a hand crept toward me as I tossed and turned, fighting against the caffeine and an overactive mind. Its knobby knuckles latched onto the foot of my bed and then inched up onto my mattress. It crept along my leg, and my eyes popped open at its touch. I tried to kick it off, but suddenly, I couldn’t move, except to let out a small whimper. I watched in horror as it skittered up my calf toward my thigh and hopped onto my stomach.
The wind left me as the hand continued up my chest until it reached my neck. It ringed my throat gently, gingerly caressing it with a finger. I shuddered at the touch of this foreign beast, but when I tried to jerk free, my body wouldn’t listen.
After a moment of stillness, every muscle on the beast tensed. It leaped into the air and shot forward, palm open, grasping at my arm and trying to wrench me off the bed. I fought against it with all the strength I could muster. It yanked me harder, and my arm popped out of its socket at the shoulder. I called out in pain, but nobody came to help. Latching on to the post at the foot of my bed with my good arm, I tried to pull back. With one more pull, the post buckled and snapped. I fell into the darkness and disa—
My eyes snapped open, and instinctively, I grabbed at my shoulder. The light from morning fell into my eyes while I sat up and took great gasps of air. It was all a dream. A horrible dream. Then, the door to my room swung open, and Lizzie stood at the entrance, dressed like Robert Smith from the Cure down to the dark eyeliner and floopy hair, armed with a skateboard in her hand.
“Rise and shine, girl,” she said.
I took another moment to calm my breath. It had felt so real. When my heart stopped racing, I looked at her. “Anjelica. My name is Anjelica.”
“And I already forgot again.” She looked down the hall. “The shower’s free. Hurry up, though. You don’t want to miss the bus. It’s a long walk to school.”
I nodded, and she shuffled down the stairs. I grabbed the bathroom essentials I kept on my dresser. The floor was cold beneath my feet as I stepped out of the room and shuffled across the hallway to the office and the bathroom situated inside of it. There was another one downstairs and in the master bedroom, but I valued my privacy, and it was the only one with a lock.
My mother wasn’t perfect, but she brought me up independent, often to my own detriment. It would have been nice for her to tell me I shouldn’t bleach my hair or get a nose ring, but I learned by doing, and I guess that was something. Carl and Junebug were already stifling me a bit, but their kindness—I shouldn’t complain.
The office was small and crowded, with a new computer sitting on a makeshift desk made from loose wood and stone blocks, and bookshelves along the other walls, filled with manuals and books of all types from self-help to sci-fi. When the book collection ended, the records began. They had the greatest collection of old records I had ever seen and a record player on the shelf.
A small door to my left was cracked to reveal a bathroom behind it. I luxuriated under the hot water, smoothing the knots in my tangled hair until the water ran cold. The pain of the last two days fell away from me as I stood in the steam.
“Breakfast is ready!” Junebug hollered up to me. I was toweling off, and when I was done drying, I wrapped my hair. I usually used two towels, but Junebug only gave me the one.
I pulled on a black flowing blouse I’d gotten from Dana’s the previous day along with a pair of jeans, then headed downstairs to breakfast. I was lucky if Mom threw cereal into a bowl for me, so seeing the dining room table covered in pancakes, bacon, eggs, and biscuits left me agog. It was more than ten people could eat.
“Hurry up,” Lizzie said. “We’ve only got about five minutes before the bus gets here. It’s never late.”
Junebug set a plate down in front of an empty seat. “I made you a plate.” She looked at my hair. “You are gonna catch your death of cold going out like that. Lizzie, go up and get her one of your little hats.”
“They’re beanies, Mom.” Lizzie rolled her eyes before disappearing up the stairs. “God.”
“Well, go on, sit,” Junebug said, and I did, digging into the pancakes on instinct. “This isn’t an everyday thing, but I wanted your first day here to be special. Should’ve gotten you up earlier, but, well, figured you needed the sleep.”
“I did. Thank you.”
I had barely finished my plate before Lizzie hopped down the stairs and tossed me a black beanie with a skull on the brow. “Here. I don’t like this one anymore.”
“Thanks.”
Junebug walked past me while I was busy shoveling eggs into my face and pulled a puffy pink coat off the rack. “I know it’s not fashionable, but it’s warm enough. We’ll get you something nicer as soon as we can get to the mall.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Better than freezing to death. Thank you.”
I pulled the towel off my head and stuffed my hair inside the beanie. Then, I put on the coat and threw on my shoes. When I was done, Carl came over, holding a purple bookbag.
“This was Lizzie’s before she went through her—” He circled her with his finger. “Whatever this is.” He handed it to me. “Still works fine. I filled it with some pens, pencils, notebooks, and the like. We already set everything up with the principal based on the documents Kimberly gave us for you.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a license. “Your name is Anjelica Arnold—no, wait. Now it’s Anjelica Campbell, cuz we’re the Campbells. We adopted you out of a foster program in Los Angeles. Your mom was a junkie who died when you were ten.” He handed me the license. “Anything else, you just say you’re too upset to talk about it. Got it?”
I nodded. “I got it. Seriously, I can’t tha—”
Lizzie tapped me on the shoulder. “Come on, I see the bus. We gotta get out there.”
“Thank you,” I said, looking from Carl to Junebug before Lizzie dragged me out of the house.
***
“Welcome back, Ms. Campbell,” a tall, bald, white man in a gray suit said as Lizzie hopped off the bus. How could he not have a hat on in this blistering cold?
“Morning, Principal Shaw.” She nodded her head toward me. “This is my new sister, I guess. Anjelica, this is the principal.”
Principal Shaw smiled, never revealing his teeth, which caused the fat rolls under his chin to tighten unnaturally. “Nice to meet you, Anjelica. We have sorted everything for you. Your arrival is a real treat.” He pointed toward the kids funneling into the school. “Go on inside and to your right, and Vicki will have your schedule printed out.”
“Thanks…um…I’m happy to be here, I guess.” I nodded once, then a second time, more fervently. I was determined to make the best of this situation. “No, yeah. I’m happy to be here. Thank you very much for accommodating me.”
The bell rang, and Principal Shaw looked back toward the school. “Hurry up, ladies. It’s time to learn.” He clapped his hands together. “How exciting.”
I made it through the current of students toward the large, frosted glass door with the word OFFICE written across it. The woman who greeted me was straight out of the 1950s, complete with poodle skirt and pointed glasses, a golden chain connecting the sides together in the back of her feathered, black hair.
“Good morning,” she said, smiling at me as she made her way to her desk. “I’m Ms. Vicki. You must be Anjelica.”
“How can you tell?”
“I know every student in this school, and I’ve never seen you before. Two and two make four, and all that.” She picked up a postcard with two dainty fingers and handed it to me. “This is your class schedule. I think you’re gonna like it here.”
“Well, you are all very nice, which is an interesting change of pace from Los Angeles.”
“City of angels.” She slid into her seat and put her head in her hands, whimsically. “What’s it like there? I would love to visit.”
“It’s all right. Kind of gross, but it’s home.”
“Who’s the most famous person you’ve ever met?”
“Umm…that’s not really how it—” I saw her face falter. “I mean, I once saw Lou Ferrigno pumping gas, and we went on a studio tour for school once and met Johnny Carson.”
“The Johnny Carson?” she said, giddy with excitement. “Wow, that is the wildest story I have ever heard.”
“Yup. It was pretty wild.” I looked down at my paper. “So, where is Mrs. Cooper’s room?”
The second bell rang, jolting Ms. Vicki back to reality. “Oh, yes…of course.” She stood up and pointed down the hall. “Room 123. Head down the hall and take the first right, then it’s the third down on the left.”
“Thanks.” On my way out, I turned back to her. “I hope you do get out to LA someday. I really loved it there.”
I bit my lip to avoid crying as I walked toward my first class of my new life. The first day of the rest of my life.
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.