I followed the covered walkway with its infrequent lights past the Emergency department, where there was usually a random assortment of people loitering outside. Mostly sucking desperately on a cigarette or vape pen. Technically it was banned across the entire hospital site, but the staff turned a blind eye to the poor, unfortunate souls forced to wait hours for an understaffed emergency team to see them.

Still … super gross.

Tonight, however, there was no one leaning against a post. There was no tell-tale glow of a lit ciggie. No sickly-sweet cloud of flavoured vape. No little rectangles of light as people scrolled through social media while they sucked in their hit of nicotine.

It was deserted.

“Weird,” I mumbled, huddling deeper into my puffy parka. There was no one around … but I felt like I was being watched.

Everything in me screamed to run as fast as I could the rest of the way to my car, get in and lock the doors. But something made me stop and peer deeper into the gloom beyond the awning lights.

“Is someone there?” I squeaked.

Gosh, was the temperature rising? I was sweating inside my parka. I unzipped it a little, flapping the collar to let some chilly air in to cool my heated skin.

Something was there. In the dark. No … it was someone. A very tall, broad someone. A someone lurking so deep in the shadows that I couldn’t make out a single feature.

“What are you doing back there, creeper?” I demanded, adjusting my glasses and peering into the shadows. The shadowy someone sighed. A cloud of smoke puffed out of his (their … its?) mouth.

I coughed. “Eww! What are you smoking? That smells like … rotten eggs!”

The shadow blew another burst of the noxious gas at me, and I gagged. I staggered back from them … him … I was sure it was a ‘him’; this behaviour reeked of alphahole obnoxiousness … him and his sulphuric haze.

“Oh my God!” I gasped, finally finding air that didn’t reek like the worst fart I’d ever smelled. “You are the worst!”

The shadowy alphahole said nothing as I spun on my heel and marched away. I made it all the way back to my car and was zipping out onto the main road before I realised that I’d forgotten to feel frightened for the rest of the dark, creepy walk back to my car.

Well, thank the Stinky Shadow Man for small mercies.

2. Bubble Bath … Interrupted

Chapter 2

Bubble Bath … Interrupted

SJ

“Phew! That was close, Boss! Good thinking, using the miasma on her!”

“Yeah, if she’d come any closer, she would’ve run smack into you!”

“What happens when humans touch the Devil, anyway? Do they just burst into flames?”

“I am not the Devil,” I sighed, still staring in the direction the girl had gone long after she’d disappeared. “My father is.”