The Struggles of Dating a Demon [Completed]

Newfound Knowledge

Even more terrible curses were falling from Mabel's lips when—but two days later—she was out grocery shopping and saw "Death" standing in the Frozen Foods aisle. He was towering (as usual) over a woman who looked like she'd either been sucked through a tornado, or was just frazzled beyond belief.

Something told Mabel it was the latter.

Shadow-man bent forward to say something in the woman's ear, and when he pulled back the woman was crying hysterically. "No!" she shouted, falling to her knees, eyes bloodshot and crazed, "Please, no! Death, please!"

So everyone calls him Death, Mabel realized, watching with rapt attention as a male store employee rushed up to the woman, looking bewildered. "Ma'am," he cried, kneeling next to the sobbing woman. "Are you alright? What's wrong?" he shifted to look at Mabel. "Did you see what happened?"

Snapping out of her daze, Mabel shook her head to the negative and wandered closer. "Excuse me," she called softly, "Miss, what's going on?"

Still no answer, as the woman only rocked back and forth, clutching her knees to her chest and looking like someone had ripped the world out from under her. The employee continued talking to the woman, and Mabel tore her gaze away, looking for the so-called Death.

He stood at the end of the aisle, his face grim. Mabel cocked an eyebrow in question, but he only shook his head slowly. Just as she was considering the idea of cornering him and demanding answers, Death took a step back, nodded at Mabel, and melted away.

Realizing nothing could be done, she twisted back around, returning her efforts to the woman on the floor. "Ma'am, please," she tried again, sharing a desperate look with the employee, "we can't help you if we don't know what's wrong."

As if Mabel had cast a spell, the woman stopped crying and sat up abruptly. "You can't help me," she murmured slowly, eyes wide as they soaked in some terrible realization. "Oh, God! No one can help me now. I need to—I need t-to go," she scrambled up, stumbling multiple times as she careened unsteadily out of the store.

Mabel was left with the stunned store employee, and neither said anything for several minutes. Finally, the store employee shook his head, as if clearing it of cobwebs, and asked, "What the Hell just happened?"

Gazing at him for a beat, then returning her stare to where the woman had disappeared through the front doors, Mabel wasn't sure she wanted to find out. "I have no idea." she muttered, "But I don't think it was anything good."

That statement was confirmed when, the very next day, the woman's vacant eyes and blue lips were pasted on the local news.

***

"Hey, Herman?" Mabel asked several weeks later, flipping through a stack of order forms she had yet to fill.

There was a thud in the older man's office, and then Herman careened around the corner, almost tripping several times. "Yes, Mabel, what is it?" His salt-and-pepper hair was especially disheveled, and his circular glasses laid crooked on his face.

Choosing to ignore his behavior (it was a Saturday, after all, and he was always a klutz when he was hungover from Friday night binge-drinking), she tapped her pen against the papers. "I'm trying to finish up Mr. Gruden's order, but I can't find any mustard seed powder. We're not out, are we?"

Herman tapped a hand against his chin, yawned, and then teetered to the side, barely catching himself before he fell over entirely. "What? I mean, yes. No. In the back room." He blinked hard, eyes squinted against the light.