Inner Demons

Daisy Stalks

Whitney looked as if she had smelled something awful, though the smell of corpses had never affected her expression before. Her lips formed a terribly thin line and she hissed through her nose. She wasn't happy, that much was clear. Lindsey smiled – grimaced – to soften the blow. A day after discovering she would work in solitude once again, he had popped her fragile bubble of joy. She had to let him work with her. She was required to.

"Alright," she finally said, more to the scalpel in her hand than to him. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Lindsey couldn't resist clapping his hands together, then wincing at the gunshot-like reverb in the silent basement. Whitney hissed again, like a snake whose burrow had been kicked in. Lindsey giggled nervously. "I'll be out, then. Thank you. Bye." He side-stepped out the door and skipped down the hallway.

She would get over it. If he kept quiet, she would learn to accept his presence. But silence was a difficult skill which he had yet to master. Lindsey made a mental note to ask Fan for advice and turned at the hanging light.

It was swinging. Lindsey paused halfway up the staircase and glanced back down at the light. Any breeze could move the thing – it hung only from a thin electrical cord – but it had been moving before Lindsey had passed it. He peered up the staircase, watching the door. It was shut, the light from the first floor leaking through the edges. He couldn't remember if he'd shut it all the way when he'd first stepped into the basement.

Lindsey looked back at the bulb. There was no reason for anyone to follow him. The other night scouts had returned to their quarters without a second glance in his direction; his ability was a novelty, not a holy blessing like Elijah's and Fan's strange gifts. Elijah - he had the motivation to follow Lindsey, though Lindsey didn't understand how someone he had met so briefly could hate him so much. And yet the odds that Elijah had followed him were slim given that the man had held himself like a marionette with broken strings the last time Lindsey had seen him.

He was probably just paranoid.

Lindsey tiptoed up the remainder of the staircase and turned the handle. The door opened, exposing the receptionist desk and its dreary occupant. Lindsey waved to the receptionist. He didn't look up from his paper.

Lindsey released a sigh of relief and made for the staircase across the room. He had probably mixed his memories – the lightbulb hadn't been swinging before he'd passed it, he was simply tired. How long had it been since he had last seen a pillow? At least twenty-four hours. That poor woman on the top floor had probably thought he was a lunatic. Admittedly, he didn't need to deprive himself of sleep for people to believe he was crazy.

Lindsey snickered to himself as he plodded up the final few floors to his and Fan's apartment. If he was going to participate in day scout missions, he would have to bring his umbrella. His vibrant purple umbrella would lead a battalion of soldiers clad in shades of grey identical to the cityscape. A huddle of grey following a grape.

Lindsey cracked the apartment door open and peered around the corner. Fan was asleep in her bed, to his relief. She would wake up soon, which meant he needed to hurry up and start pretending to sleep to avoid talking to her. The day scout situation would probably stress her out – she already had enough paranoia in her little skull to fill a football stadium.

Slipping his shoes off, Lindsey collapsed onto his own bed. He shut his eyes and imagined the good days, when the internet had existed and people mocked strange mannerisms instead of investigating them. He missed Netflix.

But what if the bulb really had been swinging before he had passed it? What if someone else had been following him, someone worse than Elijah?

Lindsey shook his head and pulled the covers over his face, as if the thin sheets would protect him from his own thoughts. There was nobody worse than Elijah.