Page 54 of Devil Inside
The whisper is so faint, at first. She doesn’t hear me. Or perhaps she chooses not to.
Is she pretending not to notice?
She is at home, in her apartment. Alone. There is no light beyond a green string of tiny bulbs branching across the walls, illuminated thorns on a rosebush. The walls are adorned with flyers for musicians. Film posters for a local theater. Have I seen any of these films? I’ve ventured into the cinema before. I sat inthe shadows, hidden amongst the rest—faceless, nameless, everyone’s attention enraptured by the lightshow. I found myself transfixed as well, for a spell, marveling at the moving images.
What a fond memory. How I miss film. The beam of light reaching across the darkness, casting its shadows over the white tundra of the screen. The fluid motion of images, the pictures at play, the crackle of celluloid within the projector, the hum of its motor at the rear of the theater, the faintest scent of cigarettes from the man behind us, the smoke drifting in the air, suspended within the darkened space, a spirit, a lonesome ghost, a phantom finding that beam of light and filling it, consuming it, eddies of burnt tobacco swirling over our heads, while I, without my vessel, found myself drifting throughout the theater, body to body to body, a river of skin, mimicking the motions of those bodies onscreen, coalescing giants, their towering shadows bending and flexing and moaning.
Wouldn’t it be nice to go to the movies again? Sit in a darkened space, before that blank void of a screen, until it’s filled with light? With stories?
I wonder if Jordan would ever go to the movies with us. Maybe we could take him.
What’s his favorite film? I wonder...
Sorry. Where were we? Our present vessel, yes. Our lovely little void...
Cara.
She’s a movie house in and of herself, an empty theater yearning for the show to begin. What film will we screen inside her mind tonight? What blissful cinema will I project inside her? She moved to this city only a few months ago. There is an absence at the very center of herself. A wishing well in her chest. So lonely. So ambitious. She wishes to make a film of her own, endless hours spent toiling away, crafting her story for the screen. Already her self-doubt has gnawed away at her confidence, a dozen different rats chewing upon her assuredness, wriggling into her heart and roosting there. Her self-worth hasdimmed, her faith faltering. She would sell her soul to make a movie. Be famous. A star.
That’s where I enter the picture.
Let me in...
She is so focused on the book in her hand, a novel I never read. She’s hiding in its pages without actually reading them, avoiding me. Pretending she can’t hear me calling.
Her darkness is faint, barely a passing shadow, but there’s enough for me to inhabit.
Let me in...
There’s no denying that she hears me now. My voice permeates the atmosphere all around her. It tickles her ear, bristling the hairs along the back of her neck.
Her book falls to her feet, pages fluttering. Cara turns to see where the voice could have come from. She swore it had been right over her shoulder.
No one is there.
The apartment is empty. Of course it is.
Cara lives alone.
“Who’s there?” She waits. Sits in the silence. Listening. Breath held.
Let me in...
There I am again. This time, the whisper is more forceful. So near. It comes from within, pressing against her temples.
There it is. Her eyes dilate. Her lower jaw slackens just so. She remembers me. My voice. It all comes crashing back, the memory ofus. The gentle lick of my whisper scrapes against the inside of her skull. Only the spiders in her mind, crawling. How it tickles.
Cara stands. She takes in the room around her, even though she knows—positive now—that no one is there.Here.With her.
Only me.
She’s still searching, desperate to see. To find me.
“What do you want?” Cara steps back, away from the couch. She’s backing toward the wall. She’s searching, searching for something to see, convinced she’ll find me.
It’s already too late. I’m inside now.
Peek-a-boo.
