“Fucking hell, look at this freak,” someone shouted.
And they were off.
Laughing and insulting me, they were tearing me apart before I even set a foot over the threshold.
There were two buffet lines taking the right and left sides of the front of the room, with food lines on both sides of the buffet to keep things moving. Behind them were a bunch of small, round tables perfect for all the time I was destined to spend eating alone. First looks told me this used to be the manor’s ballroom.
A floor grand, polished, and perfect for dancing was stomped on by muddy boots, pounded by hooves, and scratched by clawed feet. High above our heads, bone chandeliers clung to the rafters, showering us in dim, almost romantic, candlelight.
“Fucking disgusting piece of maggoty shit! I’d punch that nasty face in but it’d probably pop like a pus-filled balloon!”
Almostromantic. But even so, I wasn’t about to let their unpleasantness get to me.
I wasn’t a little kid anymore. What did petty, juvenile insults matter when life was heaping real problems on your head?
Taking a look around, I saw red eyes on top of red eyes. Everyone was a demon, and nearly all of them were holding something I’d never expected to see in hell—cellphones. With as many people were sneering at me, there were just as much kicking back with their feet on the table, messing about with their phones. But I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. If a someone could invent phones in their human life, why wouldn’t they invent it in their afterlife?
I have to wonder what else hell and earth have in common? Besides bullies.
Steeling myself, I raised my chin, stepped fully inside, and shut the door behind me. “Good morning, gentlemen,” I said to raised brows and growing frowns. “I hope you had a good night to go with a great day. I’m looking forward to getting to know you all—”
Something came whizzing at me out of the corner of my eye.
I yelped, shooting back as a plate went sailing through the spot my head had just been in. If that had made contact, it definitely would’ve busted open one of my warts—and my skull.
“What the hell are you rambling about, freak!” shouted the same angry fellow. He stepped out from the line, bringing me eye to eye with an eight-foot-tall behemoth. “Are you mocking me?”
“No,” I cried. “I—”
“He’s definitely making fun of you, man,” someone called, snickering away. “You’re getting dogged out by a walking wart. Pathetic.”
The elephant demon snarled, his red eyes flashing dark with hate.
I likened him to an elephant because he had loose, saggy gray skin; huge, leaf-shaped ears; and two lethal, ivory tusks protruding from his mouth.
But that’s where the similarities ended. He didn’t have a long trunk, kind eyes, or a gentle nature. The demon before me was nothing but muscle on muscle, girth on girth, and anger on hatred. He punched his fists together and sparks—real blinding sparks—shot off his colliding knuckles.
“I’ll teach you to fuck with me.” Growling, he snatched up the collection of steak knives helpfully placed next to the pile of plates he threw.
“Wait, stop!” I bellowed, but it was drowned out.
“Yeah, kill him!”
“Stake him!”
“Aim for his eyes!”
The bloodthirsty hellish crowd screamed and stomped for my death and maiming, curdling my heart to paste.
“What is wrong with all of you!” I bellowed to an unhearing crowd. “Stop this! Stop!”
The elephant demon wound back and flung the knives—all aiming for my head and chest.
I dropped to the ground, hitting the marble painfully, and ripping a furious hiss out of Sabrina as the door opened behind me.
Everything stopped. The shouting, the banging, the stomping, the gleeful sociopathic lust for blood and pain.
Silence fell so fast and sudden, I wiggled on the ground—clapping my hands over my ears to see if I’d lost my hearing, and craning my neck to see what had happened.
