Free How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend (Necon Modern Horror Book 9) by Linda Addison

faded. Claire held each piece of paper, each ribbon, trying
to remember the joy on their face when they brought each item home.
    Scott, her oldest son, had few
papers in the box. He joined the Navy as soon as they would take him. Despite
all the fighting between him and his father that was the one time they had agreed.
She had wanted Scott to finish high school.
    “He’s always in trouble. He’d get
thrown out of school for good one day. At least he’ll be a man when the Navy
finishes with him,” Ron had said.
    Matt left home as soon as he
finished high school. He sent an occasional postcard from Los Angeles, where he
worked odd jobs.
    Only Jenny’s leaving really upset
Ron. She was the youngest and the only girl. There had been less fighting
between them. Their final fight came when she told him that she had found a job
and was going to share an apartment with two girls. The more he yelled the less
she said, until finally he stomped out of the house. Jenny left the next day.
    Ron blamed Claire. She should
have more control over her children, he said. She had pretended to be surprised
about the whole thing, though Jenny had told her two weeks earlier. Claire had
asked her to wait until the summer was over, but Jenny told her that she
couldn’t stand to be in the same house with him any longer, live by rules that
didn’t allow her to have a social life, put up with his verbal abuse.
    ...to unite this man and woman...
    Claire had tried to comfort them
with stories of how strict her father had been, but they had not inherited her
understanding. She didn’t tell them about her drunken father’s raving and
physical abuse; her mother’s endless patience. They wouldn’t have understood.
    The emptiness spread to her arms
and legs. Each piece of paper became harder and harder to hold.
    At the bottom of the box were
five picture albums. Pictures of her pregnant for the first time, Scott on his
first bike, Matt’s first birthday party. There had been happier times in the
beginning. As the years went by there were pictures of unsmiling children in
drab surroundings. In the few pictures of Ron and the children together, he
stood in the background like a prison guard. There were even fewer pictures of
Claire and him together.
    She couldn’t open the last
picture album.
    “Why?” she asked out loud. The
emptiness pierced her heart and sent chills through her arms and legs.
    ...speak now...
    A vision of the rest of her life
uncoiled in her mind. She saw the emptiness continuing to feed on her day after
day. It would consume her from the inside until nothing was left except a dry
shell.
    ...or forever...
    It took Claire three hours to go
through the pictures of Ron and her with the scissors.
    A pile of little pieces of paper
collected on the bed. She smiled as each picture was transformed into a smaller
picture of her alone. The emptiness began to bubble away.
    She stuffed the money from Sharon
in her blouse pocket and packed quickly, hoping for the first time Ron wouldn’t
return early. Claire took only things that belonged to her, leaving behind his
clothes and the little pieces of paper sprinkled throughout the room like
confetti.

Sharp, Shiny, Hurting Things
     
     
    Don’t
sit with your back to the door
    change
seats 3 times on a public bus
    sleep
with the windows closed.
     
    These
rules will keep them away
    from
day time dreams
    and
night time desire.
     
    Look
at me twice but no more
    don’t
touch your ears
    or
remove your gloves.
     
    These
rules will keep me away
    from
shadowed doorways
    and
multi-plexed garages.
     
    Or do
as you wish
    I’ll
bring my toys
    and
we can make the stars cry.

Future, Past, Imperfect
     
     
    Rising Wind crouched in the hole
and rubbed the bone charm on the braided deerskin necklace, as she always did
before the Run began. The necklace was the only thing she had from the time
before being devoured by the Blood Moon Beast.
    “I will find a way to kill it,”
she said to herself.