What the heck is going on? I gasped for air and pulled the blanket to my chin.
Another image was focusing: terrified dogs, poked to agitation with sticks and then thrown together to rip at one another’s flesh while the surrounding crowd of people jeered, clapped, pointed, and laughed. Stop! It’s not funny! I was sickened by the panic in the animals’ eyes and the human hunger for violence. I continued to gasp, unable to fill my lungs.
A boy now, no older than me, in some sort of basement or cellar, tying a rope to a beam and the other end around his own neck. I shook my head, trying to dispel his crushing feelings of self-doubt and loneliness that reached out to me like dark, strangling fingers. I held a hand out to him. Let me help you, I pleaded. You’re not alone. But his eyes were empty and he let himself drop.
No! I yelled as he twitched and swung. He disappeared in a haze of thought.
A girl slashing the tender skin of her arm with a razor, cutting deeper, hating her life, wanting to shadow that pain with a pain of her own choosing.
A frail old woman robbed and raped, left bloody on the floor in her own house with no hope that either of her busy children would call or visit in time to find her alive.
One terrifying image was replaced by another. Emotions so heavy I thought I might suffocate on despair. I shook my head back and forth, back and forth, begging it to stop. Someone help them! Visions came faster now, even more vivid.
A little girl pretending to sleep as the shadow of a man loomed over her bed.
A teenage boy facedown in a pile of his own vomit.
An unarmed tribe, families with young children, hacked by dull machetes as they begged on their knees for mercy.
A mother with glazed eyes staring down at her red-faced crying infant, plunging him under the water, holding him down in the tub until his flailing stopped. Her dead eyes never looking away.
“No! No!” I clawed at my hair, which was wet with tears.
Five men were now standing over someone on the ground, filled with unfounded hatred and blind fear as they kicked him. The victim continued to change: He was black; he was white; he was Muslim; he was Jewish; he was gay. And the five men kicked and kicked, radiating hate for each victim, terrified of what they could not understand. And there was a final crunching stomp on his face that ended it all.
These were the very atrocities I’d avoided thinking about all my life, but they were out there whether I’d acknowledged them or not. I couldn’t just lie there and take it any longer. I had to move.
Banging sounded on my door, and the knob rattled.
“Anna?” Patti said. “What’s going on in there? Open up!”
I opened my eyes, trying to focus, and I saw them in a flickering flash of lightning.
Demons.
They took turns coming at me, whispering. The spirits were as large as men, but with grimacing gargoyle faces and slow-flapping black wings that overlapped one another, even spanning through the walls. Some had horns and fangs and claws.
Come, follow us to hell, where you belong....
I screamed, scrambling backward until I banged into the headboard.
“Anna!” Patti pounded now, but I could barely hear her. “Open the door!”
Incest. Kidnapping. Molestation. A serial killer taking his time with a begging victim.
The demons surrounded me, at least ten of them, and they were cackling.
What’s the matter, little girl? Scared of the bogeymen?
“Leave me alone!” I cried. “Get out of my head!”
They basked in my fear.
I stumbled from the bed, falling toward my book bag and spinning to press my back against the wall as I ripped open the zipper and pulled out the box.
Soon you’ll be in your rightful home, and we can really have fun with you.
I stood, fumbling for the box’s clasp and losing my grip. It fell to the floor with a crack. I went to my knees, reaching around uselessly. The spirits blurred my night vision. I rocked back on my heels and squeezed my eyes shut.
Please make them leave!
Inhuman shrieks filled the room, making my eyes fly open. Demons were being sucked out through my window as if by a vacuum, until they were gone. A sudden stillness fell, and the only sound was rain crashing outside.
There was a rattling beside me, and then my door swung open and Patti switched on the light. I gasped at the sight of her guardian angel. He was clear to me now. I could make out his features and wings. He was stoic and majestic and huge, like a soldier. He peered around the room and pointed under my bed. The box was halfway underneath. He must have known what was in it. I crawled over and grabbed the box, crushing it to my chest.
“What happened, Anna?” Patti asked, near tears.
She held a flathead screwdriver that she’d used to remove the doorknob.
“I can see the demons now, and they were... giving me nightmares.”