RfH Ch. 04: Household of Three

I had mixed feelings about this. I had born a strong resentment towards that thing since the day we met, but was I really willing to let it die? The couch rocketed forward and despite everything, I leapt forward as well. Baring my shoulder, I threw my entire body weight into knocking that sofa off course. My arm immediately dislocated on impact, but it worked as the couch barely missed, smashing through the plaster, taking the window, our entire living room wall, and my beloved air conditioner with it. They all careened through the night sky into the street below in a thunderous pile of rubble and debris.

"You done?" Melissa snickered, with her voice finally clear. She held her hand out to the captive demon and recited an incomprehensible verse.

"Muinomead mutcurf inev! Et ivacov te muem sinaforp e setneurroc enimon ni!"

In response to her strange recitation, her palm glowed; dowsing the room in a radiating supernatural aura. The wine bottle suddenly hurtled across the room. Melissa managed to barely dodge it as it splattered into the wall behind her, showering her in a mist of alcohol and glass.

Unperturbed, Melissa continued her incantation. "Mamina ibit obad te, ammalf ceah muc!"

The demon's throat heaved open and involuntarily gushed forth a blast of odorous flame. The plume was swirled and sucked into nothing at Melissa's glowing hand, as if disappearing into some kind of gap in her palm. She defiantly absorbed the flames until the demon's explosive regurgitation was complete. The wound at the cadaver's neck sizzled and smoldered with seared flesh.

"Obad ibit oge sutirips ileac suiuh ni!" She shouted. The being's mouth's opened, and out poured throngs of glowing transparent forms. I tried not to think of the terms "ghosts," and "spirits," as their lamenting souls were torn from the demon and absorbed into Melissa's body.

"Grab the knife David!" Melissa told me, hollering over the wind and the wailing.

"What? Why?!" I asked.

"I need her blood for the next part of the spell! Just grab it and cut her!" She ordered.

I scrambled over to find where the blade had landed in the kitchen, finding it on the floor right next to the sink. The TV exploded against the wall just above me right as I bent over to pick up the dagger. Had I found the blade a moment later, that would have been me the television had smashed into. Dashing back to the restrained victim in center of the maelstrom, I stood there clueless with the blade in hand.

"What are you waiting for? Cut her!" Melissa demanded.

"Cut her? Where?!" I replied in hesitation. I had been opposed to helping my roommate with a murder from the start, yet here I was holding the same knife that had taken the lives of countless individuals, preparing to do just that. Staring up at the mutilated remains of the person in front of me, I realized that she wasn't alive anymore. Who ever this beautiful woman had been, she was dead now, and quite possibly had been all along. I was no fan of mutilating bodies of the deceased, but it beat having to actually kill someone. Besides, we were all going to be dead if I did nothing.

"Anywhere! Just cut the bitch already!" Melissa commanded frantically now, but I had no qualms left as I broadly slashed her across the torso.

"Menidutitrof et obad te, meniugnas coh ni!" My roommate chanted quickly in response to my action. The blood seeped and drained from the fresh wound, leaving behind only a mummified husk. The steamy plasma also flowed into Melissa where she sipped up every drop, but to be fair, there hadn't been much left to begin with.

No sooner had this happened, than several of the vines holding this body in place fell to the ground, severed recklessly by my careless swing.

"You idiot!" Melissa shrieked, but it was too late. The demon's now freed appendage lurched out and grabbed me. With supernatural animation, it yanked me off my feet and pulled me close using a limb that was little more than a tube of desiccated flesh and bone fragments.

"What now Melissa?" It whispered with the voice of a thousand dead men screaming for water from the dessert as their bones bleached. "If you open the gates of hell, he goes with me." It rasped.

"Wait, what do you mean hell? I thought we were just exorcising her?!" I yelped desperately.

"Shut up David." Melissa told me calmly.

"You can't let him die, you can't let him go, you love him." The demonic being offered. While I appreciated it trying to convince her not to send itself, and therefore also me, to hell, I don't think it was taking the right approach. Melissa had many strange and mysterious feelings and motivations towards me, but love was clearly not one of them.

I held my breath as Melissa sighed in exasperation. She impatiently stomped a little closer, and then to my horror, picked up the dagger I had dropped when I was nabbed.

"Amrof ibit od oge, enrac cah ni!" She bellowed as she lifted the dagger above us, threatening to strike.

"Melissa please..." I whimpered, but as the knife came down I closed my eyes and waited for the end.

An instant later my feet hit the ground. I saw the withered remains of the demon's arm lying dismembered on the ground next to me as Melissa retrieved the useless flesh. My roommate had cut me free! She really loves me! And she doesn't want to send me to hell!

"You do care!" I exclaimed in relief.

Maybe I spoke too soon, there was a sickening crack as the floor began to split under my legs. I have never smelt brimstone in my life, but I immediately recognized the acrid odor leaking up from below. Melissa had her glowing hand out, preparing to commence the next part of the spell whether I was standing there or not. I wasn't too eager to test if she was willing to wait for me before opening a doorway to hell, so I scrambled out of the way quickly.

Ignoring me, Melissa took a small bite out of the disgusting chunk of dried skin, and with some effort, swallowed it before continuing. "Saipoc sirbenet ecce, saipoc sirbenet setnegilloc!"

The floor around the demon collapsed, revealing the smoldering hellscape below. The lamentations of souls completely devoid of hope wafted up to our ears, along with the smell of sulfur and burnt flesh.

The vegetable being's tendrils rapidly released and scurried away from the sweltering heat and dryness billowing up from the pits of hell. As the battered, withered, corpse of what had previously been our guest began to fall, she grabbed onto the edge meekly with the remained fingers on her mangled hand.

"David please! I'm not really evil! She made me do it! I had no choice! Please help me, you don't have to do this!" The woman begged, helpless, desperate, and despite everything; human. Tears leaked from her eyeless sockets. I considered helping her, but Melissa made her choice sooner.

With out hesitation, she strolled up and used her high heel to stomp the damned thing in the face repeatedly.

"Fucking die already!" She yelled as the slashed, broken, and desiccated flesh in the woman's hand finally gave out, dropping her body screaming, sobbing, and burning into the fiery realm below.

The portal coughed up one last obfuscating billow of smoke before the sounds mercifully disappeared. Upon looking back through the hole in the floor, I could now only see the shaken wreckage of our neighbor's apartment below.

The unnatural gale finally stilled, and the ground finally stopped shaking. Relishing the silence, I looked at the mess and gore strewn around the place, gaze finally resting on Melissa.

One of her dress straps had snapped. Her pale shoulders, and voluptuous cleavage were indiscriminately spattered with blood, wine, and glass shards. Her body and face was peppered with bruises. Her eyes burned diabolically, and for a moment I thought I was still gazing into the depths of hell.

Speaking of which, she still had that dagger, and I found myself once again standing there wondering if she would use it. After all we'd been through, I would like to think she could cut me some slack. But had anything really changed? Had I really just gone through all of that just to be murdered anyway? I was so tired, there was no way I could resist. Resigned to her decision, I took a deep breath, and prepared to accept my fate.

I cringed as she dashed over to me at blinding speed. She grabbed my shirt by the collar and forcefully yanked my face down to her height. Our lips collided explosively in a blazing impact of desire, no, demand. I could only stand there in shock as she violently kissed me with her passion, her fury, and all of her madness.

There was a thud on the floor as she dropped the dagger. Using her now empty hand, she wrapped her arm around my head to pull me in closer. She pried my jaws open and lecherously explored the bewildered confines of my oral cavity.

She plunged herself into me so adamantly that our teeth were beginning to draw blood, but I didn't care.

Her forceful tugging and unabated roughness painfully aggravated the bruises and cuts we both had, but I didn't care.

My insane, murderous, powerful roommate was tongue fucking me in crumbling remains of our once comfortable apartment surrounded by the limp tentacles of an unspeakably dangerous abomination, but I didn't care.

It was all I could do to simply hold her for the first time, as she moaned tenderly into my mouth.

After the moment died out and we had stood there in silence just holding each other for a perfect eternity, she finally spoke.

"I never planned for things to happen like this, but I'm glad they did." She whispered.

"Yeah, it's really good we had that thing in the corner, otherwise we would have been in a lot of trouble." I commented blissfully.

"Wait, what thing in the corner?" She asked suddenly, drawing back enough to look me in the eyes.

"Oh come on! After all we've been through, you can't tell me you haven't noticed the freaky tree thing in our living room!" I responded frustrated but cheerful. I was willing to accept a lot of things, but going back to pretending like that thing didn't exist wasn't one of them.

"You can see it?!" She exclaimed, beginning to pull away from me now.

"Of course I can see it, why wouldn't I be able to see it? Come on, we jus-" I stammered as I tried to pull her back into my embrace. But she suddenly lashed out at me, knocking my arms aside and leaping back.

"Don't touch me!" She screamed. I had seen a wide variety of emotions on Melissa that night while facing a demonic corpse in our living room, but not even for an instant was fear one of them. But I saw it now. Unmistakable terror in those once fearless eyes, directed solely at me.

Walking cautiously to the now demolished living room wall, she held her hand out into the night sky. A broom drifted down from the fire escape, landing neatly into her grasp. She mounted it expertly as it lifted her off the ground. Turning back to me one last time, she murmured "What the hell are you?" and flew away.