Mimi's Demons

Chapter 4: She Must Want Attention

Luckily, seeing things counted as an emergency and Mimi found herself in a doctor's office with her tight stomach aching and her little brother fussing around his binky. Tom was bouncing the baby nervously besides her to try and get him to stop crying.

The doctor didn't seem to mind though, which made sense to Mimi. He was a kid doctor. Probably had to make babies cry all the time since babies had to get so many shots.

She hoped shots weren't involved in making monsters go away.

She'd seen more monsters on their way there, out wandering around or hanging on people's shoulders. Some had big weird spiders sitting on their heads. One of the nurse assistants in the front office hadn't had monsters, but big bat like wings coming out of her back.

When she included this in all that she had seen to the doctor, he watched her face carefully. Then rechecked the numbers the nurse had written on the clipboard about her height, weight, and temperature. He asked Tom a bunch of questions about 'family history' and Tom had done his best, but it wasn't like he was Mimi's real dad. Her baby brother got fussier and Tom finally gave in and took him out of the tiny office.

Alone with the doctor, Mimi found her desperation to have someone, anyone on her side renewed. She pled with the doctor, even crying though she'd never been one to use tears to try and convince adults. She told him how scared she was, how she couldn't leave her bed and peed it, how she was afraid of what these monsters could do.

In answer, he took her hands, looked at them closely, then asked her some annoying questions about how she dreamed, whether she'd seen any scary movies about devils lately, or if she'd eaten anything funny.

She insisted she hadn't seen Fantasia in a long time and that it didn't particularly scare her. The devil on the mountain had interested her for a moment, but then it had actually gotten quite boring, especially when it went away and it was just random lights and some lady singing. She hadn't gotten sick recently and her dreams were, well, she often knew when she was dreaming so they had actually been a lot of fun. She'd been flying a lot.

He wrote something on the clip board, tapped it with his pen for a minute, then gave Mimi a serious look.

"Are you doing this so your parents will worry about you? Do you think they don't care enough about you? It's okay if you're honest with me, you won't get in trouble."

Mimi dropped her face in her hands and cried.

Because the doctor didn't believe her either. And if he didn't, he couldn't make the monsters go away.

He gave Tom what he called a 'reference' and Tom used it to set up another appointment on his phone for Mimi to another doctor that specialized in 'kid brains.' Her baby brother finally fell asleep on the way home and Tom called into his own job sick, because he didn't want Mimi to go to school all covered in snot and tears. Once there, Mimi slunked into her room, only to eye the darkness beneath her bed warily.

No clawed hands stuck out, but she still got the feeling that something there looked back out at her.

It made her mad. It was her bed. Couldn't she at least have that?

Instead, she went to her parents room and crawled onto their bed, since she couldn't see the slinky devil around there.

She ended up falling asleep and waking up later to her mom patting her head. Mimi could smell food cooking in the kitchen and it was dark outside. It must be dinner time.

She soaked in her mother's touch for as long as her mother allowed it.

"Am I a bad mom?" Mom asked. "Am I not giving you enough attention?"

"No, you're a good mom," Mimi said automatically. She didn't want her mom to be sad.

Mom nodded. "Dinner will be ready in a bit."

Everything seemed normal again. There were no devils about, her parents included her in their talk about the food and brain science, and her little brother gummed on pickles in his high chair.

Then bedtime came.

Mimi begged to be allowed to sleep with her mother, but her mother had an ongoing battle with her tendency to sleep very lightly and wouldn't get any sleep at all if she allowed it, so Mimi was forced to reluctantly climb into bed. Tom checked under the bed, but Mimi didn't expect him to see even if there was a devil under there. He couldn't see the one that had reappeared on his shoulder. He couldn't even feel it.

Then, she was left alone, with nothing but her brother's nightlight as lingering comfort from her parents.

She understood. She really did. Tom and Mom both had to work so they could have their apartment and food and they couldn't do that without getting sleep. If not that, they'd get grouchy and mean without sleep. A house and food was really important.

Mimi would just have to figure out a way to deal with the devils on her own.

So, gathering every bit of courage she could muster and several prayers to God, she latched herself to her mattress and leaned her head down over the edge of her bed.

She half-expected to see nothing, like Tom had.

But staring back at her, through the darkness, was two, luminous green eyes.

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