Chapter 3 – Chap 3

Things started to go south when my cousin Alyssa decided to make me a surprise visit.

Pandora knew that I enjoyed a quiet lifestyle, that my only visitor was Mr. C – who knew better than to enter the house – and that my stern parents would rather slit their throats than show up unannounced at someone’s house.

Alyssa and I weren’t particularly close because, despite being my cousin, she was several years older than me, so I saw her more as an aunt. She was that member of your family that always ends up taking care of the elders, or who cooks for you when you have a horrible flu; the type of person that would always go the extra mile for an act of kindness.

Unfortunately, this extra mile almost cost Alyssa an eye.

I mentioned before that my property has a gate, but it’s more of a glorified fence; just a short thing that keeps the hens from escaping to the road, and prevents that the cars get too close and run over my animals.

In other words, it’s pretty easy for an average adult to just jump over it.

I was still in bed when she crossed the small gate, one of the rare occasions that I wasn’t up yet by 11 AM because I had a bad migraine that had been lasting a few days.

“Dammit!” the already familiar voice of Old Lady ringed in my ears. “Stay there and cover your head, Madam, something’s coming.”

I complied. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the footsteps, as they weren’t particularly heavy or scary.

The front door opened with a thud, as I heard two feminine voices yelling.

“You fucking bitch! No one allowed you in!” [metallic noises] “Shit what is th-ARGHHHH”

I recognized my cousin’s voice as the second woman. Afraid to break Pandora’s rules, I asked my bodyguard ghosts to immediately explain the situation and ask Pandora to stop.

“Melinda, are you there? It’s me, Alyssa. Whatever the fuck happened”, she cried a little, two rooms away. “I just brought you some food because your mother said you have a migraine.”

I can’t recall a time that I felt worse for someone else’s kindness.

I ran towards the entrance and saw my really nice cousin all disheveled, sitting on the floor with a line of blood running from her hairline to the side of her face, protectively holding a casserole all draped in in a pretty dishcloth like it was her newborn son.

One of her eyes was black and swollen, and my heaviest frying pan — a cast skilled made entirely of iron — sat sadly beside her, slightly deformed; on the farthest side of the room, Pandora stood menacingly, still holding her usual weird weapon and growling like a rabid dog.

“Bitch can’t see me or hear me if I don’t want her to”, Pandora informed me, in a very scary tone. “Tell her to call beforehand like a normal person, or at the very least stand by the gate. Unless she’d love to lose her stupid head the next time.”

She then disappeared. A part of me wanted to scream in frustration at Pandora, but well… horrible supernatural things roamed around the house. Given the situation, I won’t say that she was wrong to attack anyone who entered our property uninvited, but she could at least show regret for hurting someone innocent and unsuspecting.

Besides, it would be really hard to explain to Alyssa why I was yelling at the walls on the top of everything I had to deal with. I helped my cousin get up and convinced her that she absolutely needed urgent medical attention. I apologized profusely and started putting my shoes on to drive her to the nearest hospital, but she just shook her head sadly.

“My mom is in the car. I jumped your fence so you could open the gate for us to let her in because the doorbell didn’t work, but now I guess she’ll drive me”, she placed the casserole in my hands, defeated.

“I’m so, so sorry, Alyssa. Thank you for being so kind, I hope we can catch up some other day”, I awkwardly circled around her, trying to come up with some excuse as to why a 6-pound skillet went flying straight to her cranium the moment she entered my house.

“It’s… okay, honey”, she managed, but we both knew none of this was okay. “I think some houses are just like that. They reject people. I’m glad you seem to be unhurt here.”

“Thank you, Alyssa, I… what can I do for you?”

“You take care of yourself. I saw a suspicious truck taking some leaps near your farm”, she replied. As soon as her words entered my brain and I realized all the horrible things that it could mean, I started to hyperventilate.

Great, now I (at the very best) gave Alyssa a concussion and made her worry about me over something she told me.

“Oh, it’s not him”, she quickly explained. “I saw the driver, it’s a way younger guy. Like, younger than you. It’s probably nothing but please just… lock your doors and leave alone whatever force that’s controlling your house.”

I nodded, a feeling a little calmer.

She squeezed my hand and started to leave. “And maybe get a priest to sprinkle some holy water around here.”

The world seemed to spin ten times faster as Pandora screamed at the top of her lungs “Come back here again and I’ll kill you, stupid bitch!”

And, judging by how Alyssa twitched in fear and ran across my yard without looking back, I knew that this time my housemate meant to be heard.

***

We were both sour when I went upstairs to feed Pandora her lunch an hour later; her because someone violated her rules, me because she was being unnecessarily mean and putting me in a hard situation.

“Good afternoon, asshole!” she gave me a callous greeting. “Just leave my next chickens on the kitchen table and I’ll grab them myself. We won’t be on talking terms for a while”.

My eyes filled up with tears, but I kept my dignity and didn’t say anything. If someone enters your yard and you have a violent dog, it’s your fault that the person got hurt, right? They had no business trespassing, but you can’t blame the animal because it’s just how its nature is.

The stupid one was me for thinking of a demon as a friend, when she was more of an intelligent beast.

***

It’s funny how the human mind works; during daytime I kept busy and even felt more joyful than not, but as soon I lied in bed, I started having a bad panic attack. It happened for a few nights after my cousin’s incident – I was at the same time worried about my family’s reaction, frustrated at myself for treating a demon like I’d treat any girl around my age that lived with me, and scared about possibly being stalked.

“It’s okay, Madam, soon she’ll act like nothing happened and be nice to you again”, Old Lady tried to comfort me; it was the first time one of the ghosts talked to me without being ordered to by Pandora.

“Shh, you know you can’t talk out of turn. The Master can hear all our thoughts!” Goofy Voice whispered, concerned.

“It’s fine, stupidhead. She’s not home.”

Although the friendly ghosts did their best to help me, my nights were restless, filled with cold sweat and waking up screaming.

Five nights after our fight, I was in the middle of a nightmare, sweating and whimpering. Like in most of my horrible dreams, I was being stalked and tortured by my ex, then his face turned to a younger man I didn’t know, but they never stopped hurting me.

Suddenly I felt half-conscious, like a light state of sleep paralysis.

“There, there, Housemate. Have better dreams now, will you?”, Pandora spoke softly, as she patted my head like an older sister — lubberly but with nice intentions — and I felt her weight getting up from my mattress.

Her gesture was incredibly sweet; still, I couldn’t help but notice that her hand smelled faintly of blood and rotting flesh.