Hell's Bells

by K. B. Draper

  I’d forgone buying the hundred-dollar jeans with their designer rips when my favorite jeans had rips a la demon with super bitchy sharp claws, and the forty-plus washes it took to get the blood out gave them the worn-in look. I’d taken polish to my black boots, bringing them back to their original shine. A cuff of bracelets on one wrist, a black watch on the other, and some snot-like product Ashlyn put in my hair and wham-o blam-o here I stood, not too shabby if I did say so myself.

  “Hey, Mols, how’s it going?”

  “I’m so glad you’re here! I didn’t think you’d come. I tried to reach out to you via Facebook, but—”

  “Yeah, I don’t do Facebook. Or Twitter. Or Instagram.” But, oh, imagine if I did. #DemonFighting #WhippedAss #HellTrip and lay in some dead demon selfies … I’d totally own that shit.

  Molly giggled. For no reason besides the fact that Molly was a giggler.

  “How are you doing? You become a …” I searched my brain files remembering only that Molly had gone off to college to be something extra smart and it had lots of intro letters, then “lo” combined with “gist” at the end.

  “Endocrinologist,” Molly supplied.

  “Yeah, that. How did that go?”

  “You may call me Doctor Molly,” Molly said with a curtsy.

  “Congrats, Dr. Molly. I never had any doubt.”

  “Thank you! What about you? What did you end up doing? Architect at some fancy firm?”

  Yeah, I should’ve maybe anticipated this line of Q&A. I opened my mouth to answer, but closed it again.

  “AJ won’t brag on herself, but she’s in law enforcement, a special department that hunts down the really bad guys,” Ashlyn supplied in my prolonged silence. “Hi, I’m Ashlyn.” Ashlyn offered Molly her hand.

  “Nice to meet you.” She looked at me, dot – looked at Ashlyn, dot and ... connect. Her smile widened. “I’m so glad you two could make it. I didn’t trust—”

  “Molly! You think you can get in here anytime in the near future?” A banshee yelled from the gym door.

  “... they’d send you an invite,” she finished, her chipper dialed down a few notches. And just like that my dislike for Lilly’s tribe cranked up another notch. “I better get in there. I’m,” she air quoted, “refreshments supervisor. I have to make sure we don’t run out of fancy nuts.”

  I glanced at the door. “I don’t think there’s a chance of that.” Molly giggled at my double meaning. “It’s good to see you. We’ll catch up inside,” I suggested. I turned to Ashlyn after Molly had jogged off. “Okay, that fo’ sure qualifies as attending. I spoke to someone. We had a good laugh.” I waved at Molly as she disappeared inside. “Technically, she did all of the laughing, but still.”

  Ashlyn took my arm and started leading me toward the double doors. “Mia and Danny are already inside. Give it an hour and if you’re completely miserable, we can leave, but only if you behave.”

  I snorted. “Which means I’m totally fucked.”

  She poked me in the ribs. “Not yet, but again, if you behave there’s a better than not chance that you will be.”

  “I want to just skip to that part,” I whined.

  “Not until we go mingle.”

  “I can’t wait until the “obey” part of the vows kick in,” I muttered.

  Ashlyn chuckled, leaning more into me. “You understand that is never going to happen, right?”

  “A girl can dream.” And nightmare apparently, as I opened a door for her and stepped into my past.

  I glanced around at the lobby of the gym that had once been lined with glass cases full of team photos, trophies, dusty sports memorabilia, and an unimpressive concessions counter. Now it was pure crepe paper hell. Streams upon streams of it were draped everywhere, creating a silver-and-blue-striped tunnel. “I’m pretty sure this is how every high school horror story starts.”

  “Welcome to or back to I should say,” a too bubbly voice started somewhere down the faux passageway, “Come on in. This way and I’ll get you checked in.” Ashlyn pulled me toward the pop-up check-in table.

  “Good evening,” Ashlyn return-greeted, a little extra bubble in her voice as she gave me an elbow, bringing my focus from trying to remember the locations of the nearby exit points down to Mary Ellsworth’s dutiful smile. Which was immediately replaced with a dutiful scowl as soon as she realized whom she’d just greeted. Me.

  Trust me, the feeling was mutual. Mrs. High and Mighty, head of every high School committee and participant of every beauty pageant in the tristate region since she was four, “for the scholarships” of course, tried for a smile. It failed. Kind of like the condom that had ended her reign nine months after doing Mike Berry on prom night.

  Last I heard they had three kids, and the only title she’d held since then was PTA secretary. A position she kept for a whopping two months before being put on indefinite probation after she got arrested for taking a flat iron to Mike’s man-plum after she found him with the Quik-Lube attendant getting his “rear axle greased.” You can run with that one yourself. And yes, I did say single man-plum as he’d lost the other one in the ball return of a skeet machine at the county fair. Trust me, you’re not the only one with questions.

  “Oh. Hello, Addison. Or, I’m sorry, are we still going by AJ,” Mary asked, drawing out the J as if it was the shit part of a shit sandwich.

  “Hey, Mary, pregnant again I see.” I reached for the black marker and the stack of stickers. “Twins?”

  She growled. “I’m not pregnant.”

  “Oh wow, sorry, my bad,” I said not looking back up at her, knowing my smile was a little too extra at the moment.

  “Well, well, well, I didn’t think you’d be brave enough to show your face here,” Lilly Likenberry said coming up to stand beside Mary.

  I took my time finishing the J on my Hello My Name Is sticker. I took more time to peel off the back, and even more time still to ensure that it was perfectly placed on my left lapel before finally bringing my gaze to meet my once teenage nemesis. “Lilly Licks-a-lot, how are you doing?” I did a double finger circle in the area of my mouth. “I see you finally found a potion to clear up those lip herpes.”

  Lilly’s mouth opened, closed, opened, closed, opened, “Why did you even bother coming?”

  “Said your mom to your dad,” I quipped. It was weak as far as insults go, but it was enough to have Lilly huffing, spinning on a heel, and leaving my air space.

  “She’s pleasant,” Ashlyn said.

  “Very,” I agreed, turning back to the table to grab a name tag for her.

  “I take it you two weren’t besties?” Ashlyn asked in a low whisper.

  I led her to the end of the table out of the flow of traffic and prying ears, and where I could take a little too much joy in placing her name tag on her chest. “Actually, in elementary and middle school, we were kind of close. We lived a couple of blocks from each other and played all the time. But when freshman year came around, she got a stick up her butt about one of her crushes having a thing for me and yeah.”

  Ashlyn looked down at her name tag, taking only a second to ponder the “AAC” suffix I’d added to the end of her name. “AJ’s Arm Candy?”

  “You know it, hot stuff,” I leaned in, giving her cheek a quick smooch, before jetting out an elbow.

  She wound her arm with mine. “I guess I’ve been called worse.”

  We paused at the entrance to the gym. The wood bleachers that usually lined one side of the court were collapsed into the wall, so the place seemed significantly larger than the last time I’d stepped into it during what I like to call my “so-long-farewell-auf wiedersehen-adieu-to you and you and you” celebration or what the common folks would call graduation.

  I took an exaggerated step over the threshold, dipping a toe in, tapping the floor with it, and retreating to the entry. I breathed in, then released it.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Making sure it’s not a hellmouth.”

  A
shlyn rolled her eyes. “Come on; we’ve made it this far.”

  “The precise words of every horror movie’s next victim.” I got an exhausted sigh. “Seriously, think about it.” Ashlyn started pulling me further into the depths of the gym. “This is totally the setup for the ultimate ironic movie plot twist. Me, all these years out there as a demon hunter, surviving, making it through hell and back, only to die before the big fight because of …” I swept a hand at the room I was now being pulled through. “… this.”

  “This what?” Ashlyn asked, as she led us through the smattering of tables.

  “Party décor. Crepe paper, latex balloons … so many, many balloons.” I flicked one with a finger as I passed. “Holy crap, what if I’m allergic to latex?” I paused. “That would explain that red rash after Danny and I crashed the happy hour at that nurses’ convention in Tulsa.”

  “Danny and you crashed?” she asked, heavy with the convincing tone.

  “Fine. Me. I crashed, but still … that rash was there for like a week.”

  “Oh my god, one of you two need to take her.” Ashlyn pulled me forward to come curbside to Danny and Mia.

  “Now what did she do?” Danny asked.

  “Nothing; she thinks she’s allergic to balloons.”

  “More specifically latex. That’s totally a thing by the way. I heard it on a porn documentary. This one girl’s money donut swole up like …” I ballooned my hands out to the size of a dinner plate.

  The newly formed boy-girl-girl band looked among themselves, then back at me. “I think you’ll survive,” they said in perfect unison.

  Mia stepped forward. “Why don’t we go get some food. Added bonus, we can try to make Lilly’s left eye twitch by using the wrong plates and serving utensils.”

  I eyed the extra-long buffet table, which was currently being supervised by Lilly and manned by her coven.

  Mia leaned in for an exaggerated whisper. “You could probably break her completely if you used your fingers to pick up the shrimp rolls.”

  “Um, I could eat. Babe, can I bring you anything?” I asked Ashlyn.

  “Just the broken wills of your teenage tormenters.”

  “Want salsa or ranch dip with that?”

  “Surprise me.”

  Mia and I took our time at the table asking a number of questions just to be annoying, because I could, and with every one of them the vein at the side of Lilly’s temple pulsed a little more intensely. “Grass-fed or cheap hormone-infused beef?”

  “It’s spinach dip,” Lilly growled.

  “Oh. Do you know what pesticide they used on the spinach? I read about this one time at a county cook-off that a lady didn’t wash the spinach before entering her soufflé, and she gave half the town explosive diarrhea. The local grocery store ran out of toilet paper and Imodium. They had to go to the next county over where there was a Sam’s Club and …” Leann Linnew, a quiet girl in school, replaced the spoonful of dip she’d been about to put on her plate and slid out of line. “They just opened the container truck in the middle of downtown and started handing out rolls of TP, Febreze, and hand sanitizer.”

  Mia snickered as she refilled her glass of punch.

  A deeper chuckle came from the space Leann had just vacated. “I see you are charming as ever.”

  I whirled on the voice, nearly losing a rogue taquito, but luckily its desertion was stopped by the wall of little smokies. “Sammy?” I gave my one-time friend the once-over and damn, Shazam. “Holy crap, you’re a Chippendale dancer?” I gave him another up and down. “And not a low-rent one that tours Iowa either.”

  Sammy smiled. “Um, I think that’s a compliment?”

  Sammy had been the friend that you had absolutely nothing in common with, but there was something that drew you together. It could have been that time he’d come to my rescue in second grade after David and Tommy, the double-mint twins who rolled through school like two storm fronts: individually destructive and combo-ed completely devasting. This particular storm front, I’d been headed home on my bike and they’d cut me off. I’d jerked my handlebars to avoid the collision, over-corrected and ended up in the ditch. My left hand landed smack dab in the middle of a small, but super stupid cactus.

  Sammy had come along shortly after and got me and my bike out of the ditch and home to my mom where she’d spent the next hour and a half pulling stickers out of my hand. Sammy had hung out with us the entire time, entertaining my mother and distracting me with his drawings and stories of dragons, monsters, and other winged warriors that had filled his vivid imagination. We’d gone our separate social circle ways once we’d entered high school. He to the quiet, artistic, tortured soul gang. Me? I went more the way of the social pariah crew. But we always shared smiles and the friendly fist bump when we passed each other in the halls.

  His adult version had shed the black hoodie, studded belt, grunge tee, too big jeans, and the “maybe I washed my hair and maybe I didn’t” look for nerdy cool: pressed jeans and some still clean sneakers. He still sported a graphic tee, but his tastes had moved from dingy thrift store death metal bands to a tee I suspected rivaled the cost of my boots. And I don’t skimp on my boots. “Yeah, you’re looking good, pretty boy.”

  Sammy ran a hand through his hair until it hit his man bun. “Thanks. You too. You’re all …”

  “Badass?” I offered.

  He laughed. “Exactly.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hey, Sam,” Mia said, stepping up to make us a trio. “Thanks again for your team’s work last week. It was perfect.”

  “Yeah, no problem.”

  Mia answered my questioning brow. “Sam owns one of the fastest growing and,” she gave him a playful elbow, “the way coolest graphic design companies in Chicago. He helps me pretty up my work.”

  He responded with an “oh shucks” shrug.

  “Nice. Congratulations. I’m glad to hear you put that creative mind to good use.”

  “Thanks. But really I’m not sure I would’ve done it without your mom.”

  “My mom?”

  “Yeah, she really pushed me all through school to pursue my drawing. My art. Encouraging me to stay true to my passion despite what my …” He hesitated. “… my parents planned for me.”

  I ignored the parent slight. I’d never met them, but had the impression they were the uber-religious, uber-strict type. I grinned instead. “Sounds like Mom.”

  “I planned on swinging by and seeing her during my visit. Are you going to be around? I’d love to catch up.”

  “She’d love that, and, yeah, we’re around for another day or so.”

  “Great. We’ll come find you. I left my wife, Ari, talking to Marie Winnsterom or I guess its Marie Biles now. I’d love for you to meet her. She’s heard all about you from me and of course from Joy when they met at our wedding.”

  Wife? Wedding? And yeah, I’m a total jackass. Yet, another person that had once meant a lot to me, and I’d not so much as kept up with his life. Didn’t even know that he’d gotten married. “Yeah, yeah of course. Absolutely. I’d love to meet the woman that reeled you in.”

  Mia and I watched Sammy walk away, her eyes a little lower than mine. “Ari is one lucky woman.”

  I sighed. “I didn’t even know he was married.”

  “You were a little distracted with, you know, all the fighting demons and saving the world stuff,” Mia offered.

  “Still,” I muttered. I turned back to find Ashlyn and Danny as a new weight shackled itself around my emotional ankle. I’d barricaded myself off from so many people that had once made up my whole world. My family, Vera, Mia, Jose, the crew, even Sammy. There were others I could throw on the pile and well … just damn it.

  I held out the small plate of goods that I’d hunted and gathered. Ashlyn took it as she tried to get a read on my mood barometer. “I’m good,” I assured her. “Just not hungry.”

  “But there’s little smokies,” Ashlyn said, knowing my fondness of the little bits of
saucy goodness.

  “They’re probably veggie logs. Lilly’s a bitch like that.”

  Mia fed Danny a chip. He took her hand and kissed away the dip from her fingertip. I groaned, turning the channel from the Ninety-Day Fiancé: Mia and Danny to the History channel playing out on the gym floor. I watched as the people who had surrounded me for nearly half my life smiled, shook hands, chatted, and showed each other pictures on their phones. Sure, other characters have been introduced, husbands and wives, partners and, well, Geri’s mom, which is a whole different side plot. But the totality of potential loss was becoming all the more real to me. Sure, I knew the “world” was at stake. But I’d subconsciously shrunk that down to my world, the people that played center stage in my life. I hadn’t spent any significant time thinking about all the “extras,” the people that were on the periphery of my life, but played the main characters in others. I—

  “Add-i-son,” Trevor Miller said as if each syllable of my name was a drumbeat. “Or is it AJ. I can’t get the vibe. All the Ronnies are Ron now. Sammy–Sam.”

  “AJ, still just AJ.”

  “Cool. Cool. Well then AJ, I just gotta say you look smokin’.”

  “Back at ya, Trev. Smokin’.” Qualifying the statement more by the smell of pot wafting off of him versus his attractiveness, which was a seven-ish out of ten. “How’ve you been? What’ve you been up to?”

  “Good. Good. I moved to Colorado and jumped in on the marijuana biz.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yep, my company is Grow with the Flow.” He surfer waved his arms as he smiled at his genius.

  I chuckled as well. “I like it.”

  “Hey, if you ever find yourself in Colorado, I’ll give you the friends and family discount. You and this pretty lady, of course,” he offered as Ashlyn turned her attention to us.

  “Ashlyn, Trevor. Trevor, Ashlyn.” They did the polite back and forth that two strangers do when first introed. I was glad for the momentary reprieve of forming full sentences. Totally comfortable with the downgrade to the occasional nod and chuckle. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Trevor. He was a good guy or at least had been in school. It was that my previous thoughts combined with the fact I hadn’t been in a room with this many people since… well, the graduation ceremony for the Seattle PD, and I was getting itchy.