Page 2 of Monstrous

Leaning back with my hands on my knees, biting my lower lip, I stare at the empty page. Will Jedi mind tricks get it to fill? Nope. The stick man stands alone and smiles at me. The smug little asshole.

Right after the murder, I’d have been lucky if my depression spiral only lasted two weeks. Because I hadn’t been recognizable as a human being. More like a disgusting wreck. Staying in bed for days at a time without eating. My brown hair turned into a rat’s nest, and no matter what happened, I was stuck in my misery.

So just hearing the reminder on the news strikes up a swell of anxiety that nips at my insides like pissed off little fire ants with a vendetta.

We’d been the pair people emulated, and the memory has my lower lips trembling. Walker Toth and Marianna Fortune, a match made in heaven. I thought it, my mother thought it, his parents—

I lost it all when I lost him. And no one knows the details of the night like I do.

Memories swamp me when I close my eyes and, because I’m weak, I give in to them.

The two of us had strolled down the street, full from our dinner date, my arm in his. We’d both decided a saunter through the park might be nice, not only because it was a beautiful night but because when Walker got too full, he liked to walk. His own play on words. And he argued it was only a block away.

We could cut through the alley to get there.Come on, Mari! Don’t be scared. I’m here.

Yeah, and Mom always told me not to invite trouble. Cutting through a skeezy alley? Inviting trouble.

Walker insisted on it, and I didn’t want to put him down or seem like a worrier.

He hadn’t noticed the strange seeping darkness that rose out of nowhere. Not until it was too late. This mass of black tar had separated itself from the building and poured over him like an ocean wave. Devoured him whole.

And I’d been so close to joining him. I’dwantedto join him, because a part of me couldn’t comprehend that he was gone. But my fear had kept me frozen in place until a force I couldn’t name jolted me into action. I’d scrambled in the opposite direction, away from the smoking husk of nothing, and left Walker to his fate.

The name of the game since then? Suffering. Mentally, physically, and emotionally.

I shake my head to clear it and bring me back to the present.

Nothing good comes from remembering that night. Not even a conviction, although how the hell can the police find the murderer when it’s africkenmonster?

Doesn’t matter. It’s time to get to work. I’m drawing something tonight come hell or…Hell, really. Shifting around, I bring the nearly empty sketchbook to my lap.

My hand remains above the paper, so I give it a good shake to remind it who is boss. Me. Not the crippling anxiety and depression. Certainly not the date on the calendar or the nightmares.

“Focus,” I growl out. “This is ridiculous. I’m an artist. I create art for a living!”

Actually, I count money for a living, but it feels like semantics at this point.

As the only witness to the puzzling crime, a witness the police openly called unreliable after I described the attack, it has always seemed so clear to me that Walker’s murder wasn’t an ordinary crime.

But I’ve learned to keep those thoughts to myself because no one wants to hear that I’m certain of the killer’s identity.

A fucking demon.

There’s no other explanation.

It’s too freaky for any logical explanation, from the way the thing appeared to what it did to Walker’s body. Through the squirming mass of black tendrils, I swore I saw a face. Glowing eyes and horns.

What else could it be but a demon?

My stomach flips again and I press my free hand against the twisting, turning sensation like it’s actually going to make a difference. It doesn’t, of course, because my hands refuse to do anything these days.

In my mind, I call the thing that took Walker from meDarkness. And, to this day, I’m not sure if the creature somehow told me its name or if that is simply how my mind has chosen to frame the horror of how it materialized.

He. How he had materialized from the shadows of the building to engulf Walker and suck the literal life out of his body, leaving behind an unnatural black, petrified shell. It’s weird, but I’ve always gotten a distinctly masculine sense from the monster.

As though he wanted me to see him, to recognize him.

That night had traumatized me to the point where not only depression set in, but visions. And it wasn’t like my mind was a decent and fun place before then. Things took a nosedive into terrible town. Nightmares that don’t belong in this world.

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