I Accidentally Summoned a Demon and Named Him Fred

Broken Barriers

The only place I could think to kill time was the movies.

Haime needed space for his second "cleansing," and I needed... not to be in that house. Preferably not anywhere within holy-water-splashing distance.

I didn't even check showtimes. By the time I got there, half the movies had already started. So I picked the obvious option.

Marvel.

Big mistake.

Two hours later, my eyes burned, my brain was mush, and the post-credit scene wasn't worth the spinal damage from that awful seat. I dragged myself out with the rest of the herd, checking my phone as the lobby lights came up.

Exactly midnight.

Way past my preferred bedtime, and suddenly every horror movie I'd ever seen tried to live rent‑free in my head.

Because nothing says "perfect horror setup" like walking alone to your car in the middle of the night.

Outside, the world was quieter than it had any right to be. The parking lot stretched out in front of me—wide, mostly empty, and just badly lit enough to make my survival instincts complain.

A handful of sickly orange streetlights cast broken circles across cracked pavement, leaving long strips of darkness between them. The wind cut through my hoodie, sharp and restless.

That's when I saw them.

A small cluster of teenagers stood near my car, their shadows warped and stretched by the single lamppost above them. Their low voices escalated into sharp, frustrated shouts that bounced off the concrete.

At first, I figured they were just another group of high school students from another school messing around.

But the uniforms—

Yeah. No.

There's only one private school in this town, and that was definitely not ours.

My steps slowed.

One boy wore a black jacket over his uniform, hands shoved deep in his pockets, shoulders tense.

A blonde girl stood in front of them, skirt far too short for the October wind whipping around her legs. Her hair snapped around her face, and she looked furious.

Like... scary furious.

Off to the side, leaning against a lamppost like he'd been born knowing how to smolder, was another guy.

Tall.

Unnaturally tall.

He didn't look up from his phone once; the screen's glow lit the sharp line of his jaw. He looked like he'd stepped out of a drama and into the wrong parking lot.

Their voices carried easily across the empty space.

"Can your damn spirit guide work any slower?" the blonde snapped, her teeth chattering between words.

"Hey, he's doing his best," the boy in the wrinkled shirt shot back. "It's not like he has GPS."

"Oh yeah?" she hissed. "Because from where I'm standing, your 'best' is doing absolutely nothing."

Spirit guide?

I slowed further, squinting.

"...We should've just let Alex send one of his summonings—" she began.

I stopped.

Summonings?

"—but no," she went on, "you had to try to prove something. Like your lame-ass spirit guide could do better."