Mimi's Demons

Chapter 8: Kids Can Be Cruel

IMPORTANT FROM AUTHOR: I've rearranged some later chapters into the beginning to ease the flow of the story, so I strongly advise you go back and skim over previous chapters for the ones you haven't read yet (since they were originally later in the story and haven't been posted--until now).

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Mimi made some new friends in third grade. It was a new school again, but this meant no one would know she'd gone to 'the crazy house.' This meant she could have someone to play pretend or army and not just be a forever 'it' in games of tag or hide and seek.

After a whole month with her two new friends, Mimi thought she could trust them. They were having a sleep over and everyone was telling their secrets. Tracey still had problems peeing the bed sometimes and Bree once saw her uncle coming out of her mom's bedroom with his wee wee out. Mimi didn't know what to make of that last one.

So, since Mimi didn't have many secrets outside of the one, and after many reassurances from her two new wonderful friends, and since she really, really wanted someone else to know, she told them.

"I can see devils."

Both her friends had cocked their heads in confusion, so she went on to explain how they looked, how they liked to snack on the air of people, especially if those people didn't look happy, how they all liked to hide when she looked at them, and how they all came running if she cut herself.

Also, how the one under her bed had seemed to follow her from her old house and sometimes covered her in stuffed animals while she slept.

She knew the look they were giving her, but she'd never seen it on a kids face. It meant they were having a hard time believing her, as well as maybe a little bit afraid. Her mother wore it whenever Mimi's devils were mentioned.

"They like to lick your blood?" whispered Tracey.

"They made your brother stop crying once?" squeaked Bree.

Yeah, that had been a weird night. Mimi had gotten a nosebleed with a bad headache and when the duo of devils that reached her asked wheezed 'exchange, exchange!' she'd asked if they could get her baby brother to stop screaming so her head would stop hurting and she could sleep. She didn't know what they did, but her brother's crying instantly stopped and when she woke up the next morning, her mom had a sleepy toddler on her hip, per usual, but he ended up getting a really bad cold that day. She didn't want to make her baby brother sick, so she didn't ask again, especially because she didn't want to have to make herself bleed just to do it.

She had wondered, at the time, why the monster under her bed hadn't come out for blood. She still had yet to see what they looked like outside the clawed hand and green eyes.

Mimi continue to tell stories about what she'd seen late into the night, and none of them got much sleep, least of all Mimi, who didn't like seeing that look on her friends faces. She said everything she could think of to prove herself.

For a few days, it seemed like they had believed her. Occasionally one would ask if she could see any devils at the moment or on their teacher. One even asked if the devils were vampires, but Mimi didn't think so. They didn't suck her blood, for one. They only came when it had already come out on its own.

The questions trailed off and, for a time, nothing major happened between the devils, Mimi, or her friends.

Then, one fall morning, Mimi came out late from lunch due to taking a test to skip grades to find her two friends running towards her with a passel of other kids, their faces flushed and excited.

"Tell them where the devils are, Mimi," they said. "Tell them what they do!"

Somehow, Mimi found herself in the middle of a wild, unspoken game where she'd squint and point out whatever tail or flash of flesh she could see and kids would run off, screeching like banshees. She let herself play along in confusion until they started laughing.