Kimberly.
The conversation at the table had devolved into a sort of mutually accepted silence until the waitress brought their food. Kimberly, having tried to explain what she'd seen without appearing as a raving loon, had, unsurprisingly, given up once William began nervously scratching his head.
His had been a glassy-eyed and partially lidded expression that spoke absolute volumes toward his opinions on the matter...
Yet her claims still hadn't been outright called into question through the medium of spoken words.
No doubt, in point, because 'he' was sitting at the table with a real-life monster straight from the darker side of folklore. One whose additional infernal bits weren't at all made with needle and thread.
Thankfully, the somewhat awkward air that had risen like a cloud to loom over them both was relatively short-lived as, lacking anyone else in the place save themselves, the cooks made quick work of their meal.
Their waitress sauntered out not long after taking their order, a plate held in each hand, the smell hitting Kimberly right in the face and the gut.
Her nose, much like a dog's, was already about the business of twitching as it pulled in the wonderfully hypnotic scents… The aroma of seared meat and spices was just 'doing things' to her that had Kimberly drooling.
It was that good.
The phantom sizzle of roasting beef, the tantalizing promise of its delicious juices…
Yes, Kimberly was nearly ready to go and find the damned steak herself by the time it made it within sight.
However, when she caught the momentary flicker of concern in her BFF's eye, Kimberly realized that the fantasy of drooling might just have a spark more of tangibility about it than she first thought…
A hand quickly wiped away the very real pool of dribble that had formed on her chin, manifesting as if she hadn't even noticed it. True, there were bigger things to concern herself with on the horizon, but she wasn't sure they would entirely excuse her acting like an animal.
All the same, William's brief look had been as fleeting as his smile was quick to cover for it. The large lug that had been with her for the majority of their shared lives applying a sort of mask that utterly dispelled his concerns.
Instead, he beamed as their waitress rounded the corner, perking up, fixing his posture, and even going so far as to lick his lips.
"Okay, guys! We've got the steak," Sarah chirped, grinning at both of them in turn, though doing so with marked hesitancy as she caught the demon's expectant eye.
Still, it was little more than a pebble to her road, hardly a speed bump for the slightly older woman who, much like William himself, adopted a persona carefully crafted to be used with any she might interact with while on shift.
Truly, the only reason Kimberly found herself so interested in it all was because the other woman's ears were clearly shifting with a sort of nervous energy.
The same sort that was sparking a kind of sensitivity to movement in her mind. She might have even called it a fixation for all she was drawn to it…
Kimberly felt herself nearly letting all else around her disappear as she sussed out the girl's restless animation, gaze imperceptibly narrowing.
To say that it held her attention was to say a cat was mildly interested in a den of mice. Kimberly's eyes all but locked onto the girl as various smells and tiny gestures made the other woman seem sort of—prey-like…
"And," The waitress continued, turning this time to William, who merrily accepted his meal before it could even reach the table. "The salad to start, I'll—just be right back with the burger and anything else you two might need?"
Sarah's words were posed more as a question, her gaze not sliding away from Will as though she were purposefully avoiding looking to her other side.
This time, Kimberly thought that her best friend was indeed noticing something a little weirder as Will's expression twitched, clearly trying to keep its typical cool without seeming to react, "No, thanks, I think we're good! Kimmie?"
"Nope, looks great!"
"Great!" Their waitress beamed, then turned around with a wave without so much as a lingering glance at Kimberly herself…
There was a moment, brief as it was, where the pair of friends just looked at one another, then all hell seemed to break loose as Kimberly's gaze fell towards the enticing meal set before her.
She had to fight the genuine urge not to just pick the slab right off the plate and eat it with her hands.
Instead, she unsheathed the fork and knife from their napkin prison and enthusiastically began carving away a juicy morsel. Kim found immense satisfaction in the way the steak started bleeding profusely on her plate…
"So..." Will began, leaning back with crossed arms while he watched his bestie sop her steak in as much of its own fluids as feasibly possible before moaning like a dockside hooker trying to entice sailors with bulging wallets… "You seem to be—enjoying…"
"Oh my god, you have no idea!" Kimberly groaned, eyes rolling with little exaggeration as her first bite all but melted in her mouth. "It's sooo good, I could literally die."
Again, the waitress returned, their final plate in hand as she deposited it on the table. Sparing but a moment's glance at the succubus who was busily devouring her meal as though little else in the world mattered. The face she gave William, however, was one of open concern…
Yet he waved it away without bothering to hesitate, smiling grimly at their waitress as he nodded his thanks. "Appreciate the food, hun, but skedaddle, will you? I need to have a 'conversation' with my bestie…"
As if sensing eyes upon her like she were some feral animal, Kimberly's attention lifted to see the two others at their table looking her way. The woman's near gnashing, chewing, and somewhat elevated breathing, slowing down to a much more subtle pace that some might name—close to normal…
"Right..." Sarah intoned, peering between them both one final time before shrugging with the air of someone who'd just decided she didn't want to get involved. "Like I said, enjoy, and if you need anything, you know where to find me!" And, with that, the girl was on her way, departing with a slight shake of her head while rounding a corner out of sight.
"Okay," Will agreed, clearing his throat to speak, "I see the weird now… not the ears, don't get excited!" He warned, shutting Kimberly down before she even had a chance to be smug. "But, that girl definitely thought something was up with you. She was, like, totally unsettled just to be nearby. Honestly, I'd say it was jealousy if it wasn't for your thing about the ears, really strange stuff… Or, maybe it was just your barbaric table manners!"
"Is it problematic to say she sort of smelled like—food?"
"I mean, pffft… in what way? Socially? Mentally? Fucking Humanly?"
"That's a dumb word."
"It's in the Scrabble dictionary, so it doesn't matter. But, really, Kim, prey? Do you even hear yourself?"
"I do! I just also happened to notice all the—terrified signals I was getting, and actively trying to ignore."
"Yeah…" William scoffed, shoving the enormous and terribly greasy burger in his friend's direction as he watched her liberally coat the last possible bite of her steak in its own liquids... Of which had been eaten in what might earnestly have been some sort of record time. The man honestly half expected she might just pick up the bone and start going after the marrow…
"I had a feeling things were getting a little ominous, so I'm doubly glad I got you that as extra."
Kimberly's eyes narrowed at the enormous pile of calories, bacon, cheese, and beef that William had shoved to her side of the table. Her gaze slowly drifted towards her friend, who was utterly unapologetic in his expression. "That's way too much…" She tried to complain, desperately attempting to ignore just how badly she wanted to reach out and stuff her face…
"You say too much, I say an insurance policy. Given how much 'new' Kimmie really seems to like meat, and how fast you freaking ate that steak, I'm stipulating here and now that we're adopting a; 'Kimberly's never allowed to be hungry' policy, going forwards…"
"I wouldn't, you know, nibble while you were sleeping..."
"Kay, I know you're trying to be cute and funny, hun, but that shit just gave me actual chills! You're heh… pretty scary right now, Kim…"
The woman tilted her head at that, regarding her best friend with a degree less flippancy than she'd held a moment prior, slowly nodding as she, in that second, accepted that Will might just have a point…
Then, her hand all but twitched with eagerness to reach out and snag the nightmarish amalgamation of fat and calories that she'd otherwise be loath to touch for fear of ruining her figure…
It wasn't long before she gave in, holding the disturbingly hefty thing and happily dabbing it in the remnants of her steak while Will just watched on with very uneasy eyes.
They were on the road and driving with the intent of heading back home not long after. Stopping to ensure there was no shortage of protein-based snacks for Kimberly to munch.
Nuts, jerky, pork rinds, she never actually stopped eating, continuously chewing and reaching for more while chatting away with her BFF, primarily as they theorized over her strange new changes or simply sang along to a song on her playlist.
It was nice, a taste, as it were, of a slight return to normality that both of them desperately needed.
Still, as it so often did, the day transitioned to twilight, and the mood within the car followed it. Turning the air between them somewhat somber with weary fatigue… Those long hours spent on the highways bearing down on them both until Kimberly felt they'd had enough.
"Cheap motel or fancy hotel?" She asked, yawning while pulling out her phone and quickly throwing in a lazy search to see what was available.
William merely shrugged his shoulders, glancing her way with momentary consideration before sharing his opinion on the matter. "Well—unless you've suddenly discovered your bank account has several extra zeros tacked on, I'd say we shouldn't hold out for a Ritz Carlton..."
"Cheap motel it is!"
"I mean, normally I'd check you on that and make up something about how I refuse to stay in anything that approaches seedy buuuut… I'm now honestly wondering if we should be trying to find the worst place to stay rather than something middling."
"And risk bedbugs?" She demanded, eyes wide with mock surprise while William outright shuddered, a full-body shiver spreading from head to toe as if he could feel hundreds of legs crawling up his spine…
"Okay, well, what about something without bedbugs but still, you know, cheap? Christ's sake, we're not fucking poor!"
Kimberly just kept smiling, already tapping away on her phone and looking for something that fit their rather reasonable and short list.
What transpired was a relatively painless search that led them slightly off the beaten interstate laneways. Will followed in along with her directions as they pulled into a somewhat sleepy suburb in a decidedly less-than-affluent neighborhood.
The pavement was cracked and filled with potholes, the lawns lacking professional care or even moderate interest in upkeep… Buildings were of a more worn and aged variety. Speaking towards an antiquated and elderly architecture of older Italian-style homes. Each one possessing an excessive use of concrete and rusted metal fencing.
They drove through a fairly weathered downtown, the main artery of the community appearing humble in the sense of its amenities.
All the usual suspects were there, of course: gas stations, supermarkets, a small handful of mom-and-pop businesses, and, naturally, the fast food juggernauts that were a staple of their society no matter where one went…
Their short journey through the community's not-so-bustling heart finally coming to an end as they pulled up upon the King's Eight Ball.
It was by no means a prestigious-looking accommodation… The large crown painted around an even larger black and faded pool ball sitting atop a crumbling red-brick building. The motel's mascot looking down upon his working-class subjects with an exaggeratedly goofy and cartoon-like face.
The parking lot was filled with all manner of vehicles, the predominant of which was easily the various takes on white and bare-bones work trucks or partially rusting cargo vans. Only the occasional car interspersed between the greater mass of what she'd name working vehicles.
Kimberly and Will got one good look at the place, neither of them entirely confident given the sheer quantity of people present before Will inevitably kept driving without ever entering the lot…
"Maybe something with…mhm, one less star?" He tried, not wanting to exactly mention the elephant in the room, but, honestly, Kimberly was sort of with him…
People were the exact opposite of what she wanted to deal with right now… And with so many around, well… even if she was extremely careful with her appearance, she knew she'd feel a good deal more comfortable with fewer strangers about…
Will hadn't been wrong to be concerned about her demonic half playing nice with others… After all, a day hadn't even yet gone by since she last killed someone using her strange powers.
Forget her own sake, Kimberly really didn't want to learn that her life going forwards would be rife with the insatiable murder of innocents…
"There was that place we went by, like, five minutes ago..." Kimberly tried, finding her nose wrinkling at the mere thought of the building they'd passed... Remembering the multitude of tractor-trailers that had been sitting behind it, along with the outright miserable-looking exterior…
It had, for lack of a better description, been a hole… There just wasn't a nicer way to put it. Yet, in a way, a hole was precisely the kind of place they needed.
Beside her, William just grimaced at her suggestion, his thoughts clearly moving in and along a somewhat similar pattern to her own... Right up to and including the moment he seemed to realize it was probably their best bet… Pulling back around with a U-turn, he drove back through half the distance he'd already taken them after coming off the highway.
Compared to the King's fine establishment, this one was notably rougher…
Not the crookedly hanging sign, about to be organ harvested, blood on the furniture kind of place but—probably only a small smidge in a more positive direction...
This parking lot was also filled with an assortment of work vehicles, though there were far fewer.
Presumably, whoever decided that this was to be their workers' place of rest for the evening hated them or, quite possibly, just hated parting with that extra bit of money, which probably meant they hated themselves as well.
The key feature, so far as Kimberly could really see, was the myriad of larger eighteen-wheelers that all collected about themselves like a school of land-whales, just in the nearby tarmac.
There had to be nearly ten of the things all lined up and parked for the evening… Though as to whether truckers slept in the trucks or in the motel, she really couldn't say…
"Are you coming in or…"
"Staying," Kimberly replied curtly, Will not bothering to question her decision and instead pulling into a nearby space and popping the door. "Well, I'll be right back, try not to, you know, get hangry at anyone…"
The sour look she gave the asshole was promptly ignored. Will just patted the roof of her car twice before leaving her with the ignition running.
The Clover, an unpretentious enterprise if ever she'd seen one, was a quaint two-story complex without any major redeeming qualities beyond—well… okay. Maybe she didn't really have much of anything significant to say about it, but it was less packed than the last place, so a partial win?
It didn't take more than three or so minutes for Will to reappear outside. A neutral smile saying all she needed to know about their presumed lodging.
"Forgot the wallet..." He mumbled, only popping in for a quick moment before turning back around, his movements stiff and lifeless.
Honestly, she sort of got it… In all honesty, she was a little scatterbrained as well. But, now she was interested! If Will was fighting back that hard over his true feelings then why not take a peek herself?
Morbid curiosity and all that...
She pulled the keys and followed after him; the hoodie she'd put on, while a little warm for the evening, did a decent enough job at hiding her hair, which had been done up in a quick pony. Without the wings, it was at least somewhat easy to blend in.
She passed through the dingy glass door and stepped into a world of abject mediocrity.
Paneled trailer-like walls, old tiled floors, the reek of tobacco, regardless of no smoking signs. And, of course, an overhead fan that possessed a certain—rhythmic clicking to it were all among the things she first noticed.
The absolute horror that was the communal ice-bin with accompanying scoop held by a chain was... novel in the sense of experiences and germs, she supposed…
And though the young clerk standing behind the counter wasn't expressly abnormal… Kimberly already felt as though she might be regretting the woman's laissez-faire attitude of work ethics towards this particular location.
The expression on Will's face was carefully crafted to hide his utter disgust. Only their longtime relationship with each other allowed her to see just beyond the thin veneer and towards the outright discomfort he was currently feeling.
Yes, the clerk at the counter did have the massive disc earrings that her BFF seemed to loathe with a prejudice that wasn't at all warranted. Especially for something she felt was merely a way people liked to express themselves.
His disdain for that specific accessory was odd, but it might have stemmed from a bad experience with an ex-boyfriend of his.
Throw in the few piercings and a bunch of visible tattoos, and the clerk was totally submerged in her chosen sense of fashion. That, however, wasn't enough to cause Will to fight back a retch.
No, beyond the ears, he probably didn't have a single issue with anything the girl had chosen to pierce or tat.
However, there was one other person in the room with them all that she hadn't yet mentioned. As it happened, it was another dude.
The man was around six feet, on the lankier side of proportions and the scruffier side of self-upkeep. His skin weatherworn and deeply tanned, flesh pulling against wiry muscle and bone in a way that made him look like he might be in his late forties…
But, his laughing eyes, sandy and unruly hair, not to mention baggy clothes, on which, a fat character cartoon rabbit was busy flipping off the world from the shirt he wore, all indicated he could be relatively younger.
He had only slightly stained yellow teeth. Reeking breath scented notably of tobacco and liquor, all of which were revealed as he smiled at her. Yet, it was all eclipsed by what happened next.
Arm deep in the icebox, the man pushed the hidden object in his hand through what sounded like a mountain of glacial chunks! The tiny cubes rattled and scattered as he swept the chest's interior before retrieving his whole and hairy arm to reveal a scotch glass now filled to the brim with ice.
The worst part? Kimberly could clearly see the remnant discoloration of leftover booze, just forming a singular and wet ring around the interior base of the cup.
Had he?
Yes… he had!
Oh dear…
Oh my, oh dear!
Every single fiber of Kimberly's inner and vestigial germaphobe screamed at her that she had to leave, leave now!
Now, now, now, now!
This was beyond distressing… The communal icebox—tainted in a way she really just couldn't put to words… It was already so bad to begin with, and now?
Profaned!
Was that the right word?
Either way, it would have to be burned, all of it burned… The licking flames, the glorious warmth!
The screams of sinners repenting their wrongdoings upon a pyre of their own misdeeds!
Magnificent flames flickered in her eyes! Consuming all they touched! Her imagination running wild as she stood outside the building, an entire crate of Molotov cocktails already burning and ready to be thrown…
"Mark! For fuck's sake! Use the ice scooper!"
"Oh… hah! Yeah, that thing…" So saying, and with a goofy smile, the possibly old, possibly young but hard-lived man tapped at the dangling plastic shovel with a single uninterested finger. "Babe, when you're done, you do me a favor and grab some Mickey D's for us; I'm a little, ugh, too lit to drive..."
Grinning like nothing at all was wrong in the world, the creature lazily wandered back towards and around the counter, wrapping one arm around the clerk and nuzzling in at her neck while the woman sneered, her sharp words not—exactly reflected in the way that she pushed back into his touch,
"I'm working, just go fuck off for a few more hours, and I'll make a quick run out."
"Hehe, love you, babe!" Mark drawled, patting her affectionately on the rump before disappearing through a beaded curtain and into what looked like a very messy apartment just behind it.
"Fuck, sorry dude. You got your card?"
"Mmmmhmm." Will nodded, handing over said credit-filled plastic without looking as though he wanted to touch a thing around him.
Kimberly could only stare in awe of the truly unexpected…
Well, she really didn't know what to call this, but it was certainly not on her bingo card for how bad it could be.
Though she wasn't about to invite the comparison to bedbugs as that was probably the tail end of the worst one could really get—this had been reasonably close to roaches in the continental breakfast by her best estimates...
Maybe somewhere between used needles and finding someone left an upper-decker in the hotel room…
The fact the ice was labeled 'communal' just made everything so much worse…
How many had come down looking for a chilly solution to their drink problems, only to get scotch backwash as an unintended extra flavoring?
Heinous...
"Alright! We got the deposit, here are the room keys, you're in fifteen, wifi is on the receipt here… oh, and checkout's at noon. Enjoy your stay!"
The girl glanced at Kimberly, face expectant as if she had another customer to attend to, but the demon just pointed at the man already turning her way, which got the other girl to smile and shrug. Not ten seconds passing before she was picking up her phone and immersing herself in whatever it was she found so immediately interesting.
"Let's go…" William hissed, just low enough that only Kim could reasonably hear it in his passing.
"Ooooo, you think our rooms have carpet in the bathrooms?" Kimberly hummed, almost vibrating with the excitement of gritty adventure!
"Kay, not even as a joke would that be funny. And It's room, not rooms?"
"Why?"
"Two parts."
Which are?" Kimberly drawled, eyeing her BFF with admittedly worried suspicion. She didn't want to outright accuse him of still being under her pheromonal influence, but she felt she had a responsibility to them both to at least check.
"First, I really don't want to let you out of my sight right now, not only for me but for others. I feel like I could probably, like, help deal with any existential issues that might—pop up and cause you to go all… murder happy…"
"Harsh but fair."
"Also, because it's the only room left with working air conditioning."
"It's more about the second thing, isn't it?" She challenged, eyes narrowed as she spoke.
"Well, if you want to go get your own room without AC, then by all means, but it's muggy as hell outside, and I'm not sweating my ass off all night and rolling in my sleep!"