Free Pool of Crimson by Suzanne M. Sabol Page B

I’d managed to push it, and my family, from my mind, my life, and my reality. I’d shoved them deep inside myself into a tight black box to seal them away so that the horror of what she’d done to me wouldn’t ever show.
    I’d grown up in a small town in Eastern Ohio and being different in a small town wasn’t something I advertised. I’ve seen spirits since the age of five. I knew I was different at around five when I asked my mother if the guy standing next to her in our kitchen could have a lick of the brownie mix from the spoon, too. She looked at me in horror, I knew I had done something wrong. I tried never to mention them again. In fact, I got really good at ignoring the spirits to the point where I didn’t even notice them anymore. They had turned into a soft gray blur at the edge of my vision. The other night in the attic had brought all of my painful past back to me with a vengeance.
    I’d been fine all through childhood and adolescence, managing my strange ability, no one the wiser, until I was sixteen. Brennan, my high school boyfriend, had decided it would be fun to try and scare me and probably get a chance to cop a feel. The whole night had been a bad idea. I usually avoided cemeteries if I could and from the moment we stepped onto the consecrated soil, I had been completely bombarded by spirits from every angle. They screamed, cried, laughed, poked, and prodded at me the entire night. Brennan had had no clue until I touched him.
    He’d been trying to open something and had a knife in his hands. I’d wanted to leave. Once I’d touched him to get his attention, he saw what I saw. He swung his arm, swatted at a spirit and cut me in the process. My blood bubbled to the surface, coating my skin with its warmth. The scent of fresh blood drew something quick and primal out of the darkness of the woods surrounding the cemetery. The thing attacked us, latching on to my arm with its small razor sharp teeth, sinking them into my skin. Its small childlike hands gripped me for dear life as I screamed and tried to shake it off. I instinctually gripped the creature’s head in my other hand without a thought and twisted until I heard a quick snap of its neck. The creature fell to the ground, dead. It had been such a tiny thing, no bigger than a toddler but the marks it had left on my arm gushed blood. The wounds burned, making me lightheaded with pain and blood loss. I’d managed to catch up with Brennan as he ran. We got the hell out of there and never went back.
    Once we were safe, I told my parents everything and paid for it. To this day, Brennan kept what had happened to us hidden. He’d turned to God instead and the priesthood.
    I had to live with the agony of knowing that my parents thought I was crazy. The psychiatrist they’d forced me to see had said electroshock therapy would help. All it did was teach me to keep my mouth shut and keep what I saw to myself.
    I pushed the covers away and got out of bed. There was no way in hell I was getting back to sleep after that nightmare. The morning was young. The clock flashed 4:45 a.m. in an angry red digital font. I knew exactly how it felt.
    I trudged down the stairs in my flannel pajama bottoms and a tank top with some hesitancy. I remembered that Jade was sleeping on the couch. I made my way into my dining room where my corner desk and computer were set up.
    Might as well get some work done.
    I fired up the computer and started with Google. I searched for ‘demons’, ‘protective amulets’, and ‘Ahriman’ with no results and was pretty frustrated when I heard a scuffle at the door.
    “So, you can’t sleep either?” Jade asked as she pushed a handful of dark hair from her face.
    “Nope.” I wasn’t up for talking yet.
    “Whatcha doin’?” she asked as she pulled up a chair next to me and squinted at the computer screen. She wasn’t awake yet either. It took her a few blinks and a hard rub at her eyes to really focus. “I should’ve taken