Chapter Eight
Try hard as I did, I could not sleep. I was excited about moving for one thing, but that was not foremost on my mind – Satan was!
I kept telling myself that there was no way Nancy and Paul – Able – whatever his name was, could be right.
I really didn’t believe a demon could possess a person’s body. Still, the mere thought of a demon terrified me.
Yet, why could I not get Satan out of my mind. I found myself sitting up on the couch and tossing the sheet back. It was hot too, which wasn’t helping, but soon I would be in my little apartment with an AC that I fully intended to use.
Greg was sound asleep, so I slipped quietly over and opened up his laptop and went directly to the first Satanic website that I had come across earlier. Sure enough, there were instructions on how one could ‘dedicate’ to Satan.
Wasn’t that the term Erick used? He did say dedicate, didn’t he? And why did he know so much about Satan? Surely he wasn’t a Satanist. He was just too nice for that! But then, I wasn’t totally sure he was human. Still, he was a really good person. Hadn’t he been my very best friend through all of this? But where was he now? I hadn’t seen or heard from him in a while.
I thought about what I was doing. “Crap! I am losing it!” Quickly, I closed out the website, cleared my cookies and history, went to pee and then returned to bed.
Only I had one dream after another, and all were strange and weird and unclear to me: symbols, colors, letters that I didn’t understand, which I later came to recognize as runes.
I woke up the next morning in a cold sweat and realized that Greg was staring at me from the kitchen. “You okay?” he inquired, as he sipped on his coffee. “You’ve been mumbling in your sleep for a good half hour.”
“Just really crazy dreams.”
“Want to share?”
I sat up, placed my feet on the floor and stood. “I really can’t remember what they were about. Just that they were so strange. Kept seeing bright colors floating around in cloud-like forms, and little lights flashing here and there, and then there were these strange letters that I didn’t’ understand.”
“Hmmm,” he said, rinsing out his cup in the sink. He faced me. “I need to get over to the church right now. Have a couple coming in for marriage counseling.”
It was all I could do to stifle a laugh, but I managed. I didn’t want to piss him off at that particular moment. “Oh! Okay,” was all I said.
“Maybe later, if you remember enough, you can tell me more about your dreams.”
“Yeah. Sure. Maybe,” I said, smiling vaguely, but figuring no way in hell.
He grabbed up his Bible from the coffee table and bid me a good morning and quickly left.
I let out a sigh of relief. He would be at the church most of the day. And I was anxious to see if I could start moving into my apartment.
Soon as I was dressed and had my makeup on, I gave the Sharps a call. Adam answered in his somewhat gruff but friendly voice. He said there was a delay and it would be one more day before I could move in. I was a little disappointed, but he was very apologetic. Said there was a leak at the toilet base and it needed a new flange. He was apologetic for the delay, but they couldn’t get the plumber there until after five. He hoped that I wouldn’t mind waiting one more day.
I politely thanked him, knowing he was just being a good landlord, but I was definitely disappointed. I glanced around, doing a mental inventory. I had everything ready to go. My clothes were ready and packed. And I had a few dishes that I had picked up here and there, not wanting to take any from Greg, packed in a medium sized box and waiting in the trunk of my car. I let out a deep sigh and decided to take a walk. It was still early morning, and not too hot yet.
Naturally, I ended up at the park.
It had been so long since I had seen Erick; I was beginning to wonder if he was still around. Every time I realized a jogger was coming I’d look up immediately hoping it was him. And it wasn’t long and I got a surprise, instead of Erick coming down the runners’ path, Paul was. He had on black jogging shorts with white stripes on the sides, and a white tee-shirt. There was a black sweatband around his forehead. That necklace still hung around his neck though. It was hard for me to not stare at it.
Seeing me, he smiled right away and stopped running and approached. “Hey!” he said, as he came up to my bench. “Didn’t occur to me that I might see you here. How’s it going?”
“Okay, I guess. Disappointed though. Can’t move into my apartment until tomorrow. Toilet sprang a leak and the landlord’s having it fixed. But he can’t get the plumber out until later.”
“That sucks,” he said, wiping his cheeks with the bottom of his shirt. I couldn’t help but notice his well-defined, six-pack abs.
“I guess I’ll just deal with it,” I replied, glad he’d let his shirt down. His well-formed body was a bit distracting. It was no wonder Nancy was nuts about him.
“Look at it this way. Better now than after you move in.”
“You’re right.” I realized he wasn’t bad looking at all, with those dark, hooded eyes that sparkled mysteriously and that broad forehead. He had a really cute, quirky kind of grin that I’m sure that many a girl could find unnerving. I was certain that Nancy did. Probably melted her heart. “Where’s Nancy?”
“Oh! She got her job back. In fact, that was one of the reasons we were at Baskin Robbins when you came in. She was hoping that they had a spot for her… Turns out that the Hispanic woman that took her place had just quit. They were glad Nancy was back, rehired her on the spot.”
“That’s awesome!”
“We thought so.”
“Mind if I ask what you do for a living?”
“I work from my apartment,” he nodded towards the same apartment building where mine was.
“You live there?” I asked in surprise.
“Sure do.” His smile grew. “Don’t tell me that’s where you’re moving to?”
“Yes! The last one on this end. I think I lucked out. I can actually park my car beside it and not under the long canopy like the others. I have my own private overhang, shaded by shrubs on the street side. So no one can see my car from the road clearly.”
“Absolutely awesome!” He high-fived me.
“Does Nancy live close?”
“I’d say. She’s with me. We live together now.”
“Cool!”
“And to finish answering your original question, I work on my computer. I build websites for folks with less technological expertise,” he said with that quirky little grin.
“Is there good money in it?”
“I try not to be too expensive. Depending on what a client wants, I charge anywhere from a hundred and fifty to five hundred dollars. And I am a fast worker.” He nodded and wiped his face again, as the sweat was rolling in beads down his cheeks. “I make enough to pay rent, keep my Mazda in gas and eat all the pizza we want.”
“Sounds wonderful.”
He stood then. “Well, I should finish off my run for the morning. I have a website in the works that I need to get back to.”
“Thanks for the chat, Paul.”
“You’re mighty welcome. I’m sure we’ll see you soon.” He took off running then.
“Well, that was interesting,” I said to myself. Deciding that it was getting too hot to stay out in the sun, and the park was filling with mothers and their preschoolers in the shaded areas were the swings and slides were. I headed on back to Greg’s.