Daunting howl

Chapter Eight

"After you." Marty opened the door to his house. I walked in and noticed that the entire house was dark.

"Oh, it seems like nobody's home." He looked around after turning the lights on.

"Hey." A girl came out of his sister's room and scared me to death.

"Oh hey Nora. I didn't know you were here."

"I was just waiting for you to come home. Hello, I'm Nora. Nice to meet you." She seemed to be very pleasant. I was expecting Damballa to jump out of nowhere any second and as the time went by I was worried even though she was getting on my nerves I still missed her.

"I'm Gina. Nice to meet you too."

"Okay, so... I guess I'm going now."

"You can stay if you want. We can watch a movie or something. It's Gina's birthday so we should celebrate."

"Really? Happy birthday!" She was excited as if she knew me for years.

"Thank you."

"But still... I have to go home. I'll see you tomorrow Marty. Bye!"

"Bye!" He closed the door behind her. "Isn't she great?"

"Yeah. Who is she?"

"She's our babysitter. You know since mom's no longer around we needed someone to take care of the girls."

"You seem like it's not hard for you to talk about that at all. If I didn't know what this was about I would think you were talking about losing a bike."

"Of course it is hard, Gina. I just don't see a point in screaming or crying when I have to be strong for my sisters. But inside I'm thorned apart either you believe it or not. I guess that's just how I deal with things..."

"I'm sorry for bringing that up. That was too much..."

"No, I'm glad you did. I don't want you to think of me as some kind of a weirdo. Do you want something to drink?"

"Some juice maybe..." I sat down at the dining table while he was getting me a juice out of the fridge.

"I only have orange." He frowned because he knew I hated it.

"That's okay." He poured the juice into a glass and put it in front of me. "Thank you."

"I wish we had cake. But I do think we have some cookies..." He stood up from his chair.

"No, no, I'm fine."

"Alright." He sat down. "We shouldn't talk loud so the girls don't wake up." He said in a silent tone.

"Okay..."

"Are you still upset over what happened with Alicia?"

"Why? Do I look upset?"

"Kinda..."

"The truth is... I don't know how to feel about that. She's an irrelevant person in my life, you know... But then again whatever she says to me hurts me even though I know I shouldn't take it personally."

"I'm a monster!" His little sister came out of the hallway.

At that same moment Damballa appeared by my side and I gasped for air.

"What's wrong? I'm not really a monster..." His sister Lucy approached the table.

"You shouldn't scare people like that, Lucy. That wasn't very nice of you. You should apologize to Gina."

"I'm sorry, Gina." She seemed guilty.

"No, that's okay. She's just playing."

"She might be playing but I'm certainly not." Damballa said. I looked at her for a second only to see her face expression and then I looked back at Marty and Lucy. Damballa seemed deadly serious.