Keeping up with the Joneses

Part Sixteen

FOUR MONTHS LATER

Sara absently placed drinks down on one of her tables, asking if they needed anything else while they waited. They declined, giving her a smile and she returned to the kitchen. She checked her phone to make sure she hadn't missed any texts from Joey, who should've been getting home from school at around that time.

He had texted her his usual 'home,' when he arrived, and she closed her phone after replying with the time she would be home and an I love you.

It had been a long process of trying to heal after what happened with Dean. She was as skinny as ever, but still just barely managed to skim above the sickly level. She looked at one of the cooks, who was eyeing her from behind her station.

"You okay?" The tall redhead befriended Sara just days into her working at the restaurant. They had a normal coworker relationship, complaining about customers and oversharing their personal life. Sara considered her a friend now, having gone out a couple times for drinks and exchanging phone numbers.

"Yeah, just making sure Joey got home okay. How are you doing, Tess?"

"I'm good. I got a date tonight." Sara gaped, her lips stretching up in a smile.

"Spill."

"Well, he's tall, Italian..."

"Ooh," Sara remarked, leaning back on the steel topped counter.

"Yeah. He's a bartender over in Hoboken and we met through a mutual friend."

"Wow. That sounds amazing."

"Hell yeah it does. If all goes well, I might even put out."

"Tessa!" Sara laughed, throwing a plastic container meant for sauce at her friend.

"What? I can't even remember the last time I got some. Whoever said women didn't have a sex drive was obviously a virgin."

Sara laughed again, punching in an order she had gotten from another table. "Yeah, tell me about it."

"You still hung up on that one guy? I can totally see if Rob has any cute friends."

"Yeah... We'll see. You can ask, but I don't really know right now." She watched as Tessa shrugged, going back to putting together a salad. Sara went back out onto the floor to make her rounds to her tables, collecting dishes and asking if anyone needed anything. The rest of her shift went by relatively quickly, and she made her way into the chilly night to go home.

--

Sara woke to her phone buzzing on her bedside table. She squinted at it, Avery's name lighting up her phone screen.

"Hello?"

"Sara, listen," Avery spoke in a hushed voice. "You and your brother need to leave town. Get off the grid."

"What? Avery, why?"

"I-- I can't. They're gonna kill me if they find out I even warned you. Just grab your shit and get out. Hurry."

Her end clicked, leaving a growing pit in Sara's stomach. She turned on her lamp, jumping out of the bed and running to Joey's room to wake him up. She apologized, told him to grab only the essentials and began doing the same herself.

As she was throwing a pair of comfy pants into her backpack, she heard her door fly off its hinges. She yelped, running and grabbing her gun from her bedside table and cocking it. She walked out of her room, seeing someone caught in the doorway right on top of the welcome mat. Right where the devil's trap was drawn.

Someone behind that demon snapped their fingers, and the floor cracked open. The circle was broken, leaving them free to march right into her apartment.

Sara had the gun pointed to them, and shot three rounds. One of the demons fell, but the two others simply smiled menacingly. She shouted for Joey to lock his door, and he did. She went back into her room, frantically texting Bobby 911. GPS is on. She stuffed her phone into the biker shorts she wore under her sweats, grabbing an identical looking phone from where her gun was stashed. One of the demons entered her room, and she fired three more shots into the thing's chest. He didn't stop, but walked forward, grabbing the gun from her right hand and the phone from her left. He threw the phone to the ground, stomping on it and shattering it.

Considering the circumstances, she was satisfied the phony phone worked and prayed that they didn't pat her down. She heard Joey grunt from the other room, just then noticing that his door was ajar.

"Joey!" She screamed, trying to run past the demon. He grabbed her by the throat, squeezing tightly as he took a syringe from his pocket. He jabbed it into her neck, and she almost instantly went limp.