Page 30 of Fed By Fear

It would be nice if demons were all as choosy. Most others aren’t. Fear is fear. Hunt and Gator will scare and feed from anyone who crosses their path or into their domain. Any adult, that is. Having standards isn’t a common quality among our kind. We’re grateful none of those closest to us have a taste for children. That’s a weaker demon’s game. It’s far more satisfying to induce fear in a grown man. The challenge, the opportunity, it takes skill.

Showing our true face is enough to scare most people to death. We’re careful, easing them into it. Our record is three months of scaring the same person. Driving him mad was an absolute delight.

We’d been drawn to a sanatorium. The entire place reeked of fear on a daily basis. But the minds of so many of its residents were already broken. We don’t eat leftovers. It’s the breaking that’s fun for us.

When he walked in, we knew he was ours. A corrupt man who had spent his days in an overpriced suit, wheelingand dealing at the expense of all those around him. He did some very bad things to some very unlucky women. When it came time to pay for his sins, he faked hallucinations and voices. They deemed him unfit to stand trial.

The privileged idiot thought he’d be rolled into that place, given art supplies and daily therapy for a few weeks, and then go back to his normal life.

His mind was so strong. Unblemished, practically. He’d spent so much of his life being in power. There was almost nothing he feared.

We changed that.

He tried to keep us to himself at first. Stayed quiet, even when we scared him until he soiled himself. He forced us to get…creative. We’ll never forget the sweet taste of his fear the moment he cracked. Banging on the door, screaming, “Help me! Monster! Help me!”

The doctors determined his hallucinations had gotten worse. Our favorite song became the tune of his fists against the door after dark. He pounded until his knuckles were bloodied and fractured, screaming for someone to save him.

We swear he tasted better than normal because he was so worthy of punishment.

Eventually, he wanted out of that room so badly he told the doctors the truth. There were rivers of tears when he admitted he’d lied to avoid prison, trusting that his lawyer would be able to get him off after he pretended to recover. The story was true. We knew that from the start. But his erratic and increasingly concerning behavior over those past few months meant no one believed him.

That’s what happens when you’ve been banging on a hospital door all night and day, screaming about somethingin the darkness. Saying one thing that’s too farfetched can damn you. One lie, one crazy thought, people stop takingany of your words as truth. The more you try to convince them, the crazier you sound.

Eventually his heart gave out. It was a pity. He was our most fun and fruitful conquest.

Three months.

We doubt Gator’s victims ever last more than three minutes. He’s all about instant gratification. Chomping and choking things down. We don’t even have to kill to consume. It happens, though. Fear from the living is tasty. Fear from someone on the brink of death is downright divine. The final push over the edge and into death is too easy a line to cross.

Githany squirms her hips against us, yanking us from our thoughts and bringing our attentions back into the maze of mirrors. Our little ghost girl is a complex one. It took not one, but three types of fear to get her into peak reaping condition.

Physical fear from being chased by Hunt, mental fear from her old room and memories, and the life-or-death fear from being crushed inside a glass box. We did slow the box once she got closer to climax. She was so lost in desire, she likely didn’t notice the way her shoulder and hip sockets had begun to give way.

To our lovely surprise, Githany is not only a challenge to scare, she’s also turned on by it. The part of her brain that should reduce her to a blubbering mess of tears and despair must be missing. The more we scare her, the more she smells of want and sex.

She’s been nothing but terrorized by us. Instead of begging for it to stop, it seems she can’t get enough.

If she really wants more, then she deserves to see us for the nightmares we are. Scary masks and chiseled abs canmake any girl wet. Demons in the flesh, with our true faces exposed. That will be the true test.

We retract the walls just enough to allow her to breathe freely.

“Githany?”

“Yes?”

“Are you afraid of the dark?”

She’s smart enough to nod as best she can in the tight space.Good girl.

Laughter thunders out of us as we rip the clown mask free. This won’t be the last time we take the form of a clown. It works too well with our specific style of terror.

We whisper the words that summoned us into existence. Upon whose lips they were spoken, we’ll never know. Unlike the others, we were created. “Come forth from darkness, deeper than darkness, darker than night, the embodiment of fright.”

Skin vanishes like smoke, burning away as the darkness spills out. Growing, filling the walls, pouring into the maze beyond. We are quite large when we aren’t squeezing beneath beds and behind mirrors.

Our human face cleaves in two, what a pity. He was very handsome. Githany thought so too. There was a brief spike in her scent when she saw the dark eyes and sharp jaw after we dropped our mask. Both the clown face and human skin were too tight for us to move freely.

The many mirrors allow us dozens of perspectives as Githany’s eyes bulge. Horrified fascination on her enchanting face looks hopelessly sexy.