Sharu Valley

Chapter Two - Greeting the Dead Wanderer

Monnie the demon wasn't that big of a threat, come to find out. He possessed no ability to touch physical objects, nor could he speak curses, nor could he use demonic magic. In fact, after a few hours of tolerating him had gone by, Remi was quite sure she might be just hallucinating him. However, every now and then, he'd find an object he could pick up, and it would ruin Remi's belief that he wasn't real. Yes, somehow, when her kitchenware was unable to touch him, random items were able to be picked up by him. This included: a lightbulb, the corner of a rug, the beaded string that pulled the blinds, light switches, Remi's hidden teenage diary he somehow found in her old room, and most impressively, a bag of chips.

But as far as the both of them were concerned, that was the limit of his power. He could pull up the blinds and eat chips. He wasn't even strong enough to kill a mouse.

Remi couldn't sleep that night nonetheless. In fact, she didn't sleep at all, nor did she even try to. She was busy observing Monnie with great distrust. She watched him make a bigger mess with his slime, and she watched him curiously try to find what other items in her house he was able to touch. Deep into the night, he was still up and about, continuing his nonsense and being overly obnoxious.

Apparently, demons don't sleep.

By the time morning came, Remi had had enough demon adventures for one night. Tired of having to put up with Monnie because of his annoying mannerisms, Remi decided to put some space between herself and the house, just to escape him. She was going grocery shopping.

However, when she sat in her car and turned the keys to manage her escape, the rearview mirror betrayed her. There he was. A demon sitting in the back seat of her car like a five-year-old.

"What are you doing?" Remi frowned.

"You can't leave without me."

"Yes, I can. Go back inside. The adult needs some adult time."

"No, you can't leave without me," Monnie said with more serious vindication.

Remi stared at him sourly for a few seconds before saying, "get out."

So Monnie stepped out of the car and stood awkwardly in the open daylight. She pulled the car into reverse and escaped her own driveway. He stayed standing there, staring at her with his bulbous ominous eye. And Remi turned out to head to town.

Getting to the end of the road, Remi flipped on her turn signal and glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure she was clear. Monnie's face stared back at her.

Remi quickly slammed on the brakes. "What the HELL?!"

"I told you! You can't leave without me!"

"Get out!"

"I can't! We can only have so much distance between us before I get yanked right back to you! It's not my fault!" Monnie said with exaggerated slimy hand motions.

"This is all your fault," Remi said through gritted teeth as she turned onto the road that would lead her into town.

Coming back to the house, Remi had to take all the grocery bags in by herself because the demon wasn't even useful enough to pick up a flimsy piece of plastic containing a loaf of bread. Monnie didn't care, but he was really starting to get under Remi's skin. On her final trip out to the car to get her last load, Monnie grabbed her attention, again.

"Hey, was the deer on the roof when we left?" he asked, pointing to the red-tiled roof of Remi's old family house. There, rotting upon it, was the corpse of a deer.

"Yeah, it was," Remi said, brushing it off. The deer was being swarmed by colorful large butterflies which were nibbling at its bones.

"I don't remember seeing those earlier," Monnie said, in reference to the butterflies.