Sally's Portal Ch. 03

Chapter 3

Kendra gave her breakfast plate a quick rinse before loading it in the dishwasher, listening as the water in the shower cut off. Bren rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and stretched out in the same chair he'd sat in the night before.

"You didn't hear any weird noises from her room last night?" he asked.

Shaking her head, Kendra replied, "Nothing. Thanks for coming over, though."

Bren hummed back, not able to manage 'you're welcome' under the cold and dreary circumstances.

"I suppose that means she restrained herself like she promised," he admitted wearily.

"Probably not too hard," Kendra reminded him. "She looked exhausted."

They heard the door open down the hallway and Sally appeared down the hall, her hair wrapped in a small white towel while a red one securely covered her from chest to ankle.

A sleepy, satisfied grin on her face, she greeted both of her friends with a tired wave.

"Thanks, guys," she said. "I'll be ready in just a few minutes."

"Toast?" Kendra asked.

"Sure, thanks!" Sally popped into her bedroom and shut the door.

"Slept well, then," Bren observed through lidded eyes. "Seems pretty chipper."

"She looked weird," Kendra bit her knuckle again before putting a slice of bread in the toaster.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not sure," Kendra popped the bread down. "Maybe it's just because she came out of the shower."

"Her face looked redder than usual?"

Kendra shrugged, "Something."

"Maybe she's got her energy back," Bren pointed out, "People look fresher when they get sleep."

Despite this, Bren took out the notebook from the previous night and scribbled the simple detail of Kendra's observation into the day's notes.

Moments later, just as the toaster popped, Sally slid out of her bedroom into the hallway.

"Slept better?" Bren confirmed.

"Yes," Sally's eyes went wide with gratitude. "Thank you guys so much."

Bren looked at her carefully, mentally agreeing with Kendra that something crucial had changed about their mutual friend.

Same blue jeans, he looked her over critically as she buttered her toast. Standard red sweater with University logo. Hair and face freshly washed. What is it?

His face twitched.

"Your eyes," he blurted out.

"What?" Sally spoke through a crunchy mouthful of toast.

"They're darker," Kendra said.

"They're brown," Sally said, "and they always have been."

Bren shook his head and wrote in his notebook.

"What's that?" Sally ticked her chin at the book.

"Keeping track of everything," Bren explained.

"Like, stalking me?" Sally winced in the direction of his notes.

"Trying to keep us all safe," Kendra replied. "I think it's a good idea."

Bren finished his note and looked up at Sally.

"It also means," he firmed up his voice, "that you don't play with yourself without one of us around."

"What?! But I-"

"No, listen," Kendra said. "That was dangerous and scary, and you brought both of us into it."

"My privacy, though!" Sally protested, rising up in her chair.

"Do you want our help the next time things go sideways?" Bren glared at her.

Sally lurched to a stop, dead centre of the peak of her indignation.

"Fine!" she said, "I won't... masturbate without someone around."

She bit into her toast and finished the slice in silence.

"Thank you," Kendra rolled her eyes.

A few minutes later, as they departed for school, Sally turned on Bren.

"Are you planning on coming here early every morning?" she asked.

"For now, at least," he answered. "It's not far out of my way."

Sally hummed doubtfully.

Bren held the door open for both girls and Sally, last one out, locked the door behind her.

"Is it here?" Bren asked. "Is it still following you?"

"Yeah," Sally pocketed her keys and looked around the snow covered landscape, "It's here. But it's not as angry as before."

"You can feel it?" Kendra's eyebrows rose.

Sally nodded and they set out for school.

"I don't see any creepy hoof prints, at least," Bren said.

"It's not like, wait, what?!" Sally turned on him.

"What?" Bren asked.

"Hoof prints?" she clarified.

"It had hooves," Kendra agreed. "You didn't notice?"

Sally twisted her lips, but the dismay in her eyes evaporated almost as quickly as it had appeared.

"Doesn't matter," she shrugged it off. "You won't see its prints, obviously. It's not really there, for the most part, is it?"

"But you still feel it?" Kendra sighed.

"Yep."

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Having agreed to meet both girls at the end of the morning classes, Bren waited outdoors in the Arts quad, trying to keep an eye out for Sally and Kendra while huddling up against a stone pillar to stay out of the wind.

"Hey!" Kendra hissed out from behind him.

"What the?" Bren cursed. "Where'd you come from?"

"Our class was inside," Kendra stuck a thumb out at the doors behind her. "Come on."

Thankful to get out of the blistering winter weather, he followed her through the doors to find Sally leaning her butt and shoulder blades against an interior concrete wall, oblivious to the throng of students moving around her.

"Sal," Bren put a note of warning in his voice, "you look a little pale? You okay?"

Sally shook her head, her hair flowing in front of her face before she swept it back and looked up into Bren's eyes.

"It's gone," she whispered.

"The, uh, demon?" Bren kept his voice low.

"Yeah," Sally nodded, her voice deep with worry, "It just left me during our Lit lecture."

Bren glanced over at Kendra, got nothing but a shrug in response, and asked Sally, "Isn't that good?"

"Doesn't feel good," Sally's dilated pupils stared up into Bren's eyes in near panic.

"Okay," Bren drawled.

Is she attached to this thing? Addicted, even?

"C'mon!" Sally stood bolt upright. "This way."

"Where we going?" Kendra asked, but Sally had already struck out for the double doors leading to the stairwell.

Chasing her frantically, Bren and Kendra followed Sally through the doors and down a doubled back set of stairs into the basement.

"Sally, where are we-?" Bren called out, but she'd already headed down a second set of stairs.

There's a sub-basement? he wondered, still chasing his panicked friend.

"Wait, Sal!" Kendra shouted, just behind Bren as Sally pulled open the doors at the bottom of the stairs and strode forward into the space beyond it.

Rushing after her, they found they had entered the lowest level of the building, the door opening onto a wide area of sealed concrete floors and unpainted walls, the ceiling a maze of exposed pipes.

Sally paused in the middle of the open space, her arms extending from her body as if she searched for something in a darkened room.

"It came down here... somewhere," Sally's voice came out in a desperate whisper. Her voice weakened further, its certainty disappearing, "I think."

"You think?" Kendra asked, warily turning her body to face away from Sally as if she expected an attack from behind them.

Sally crouched down, laying her bare hands on the concrete floor as if she expected to sense the demon with her fingertips.

"It's underneath us, maybe," the confusion in Sally's voice didn't give her friends much confidence.

Doors burst and all three of them twisted around to look down at the far end of the space, some twenty metres away. Through three separate doors, three girls strode, their eyes searching the area for only a moment before locking on Sally.

"There you are!" the middle one declared, her eyes burning.

"You know them?" Bren asked.

Sally shook her head.

Okay. Who are these? Bren wished he could put some space between himself and their naked aggression, lamenting the fact he needed to stay next to Sally. Goth pale, all three of them. Just one of them is Asian, but the other two have dyed their hair black.

Together with the black clothing, including their long winter jackets, the trio looked like someone had revived a decades old trend in clothing.

Not much makeup, though, Bren reminded himself. Just an overall pale-skin-and-girl-in-black motif.

Bren and Kendra came up on Sally's sides, bracketing her as if they expected a fight. The three girls marched up to Sally and Bren counted himself surprised to discover them shorter than he.

Why are we so worried about the three of them, then? Why do they feel so tall?

"You!" The middle one held a finger out in Sally's face. "You need to stop this nonsense!"

"What?" Sally asked. "I don't under-"

On either side the speaker, the two other girls held their hands out at their sides like gunslingers expecting to draw weapons from non-existent holsters, their eyes locked entirely on Sally as if Bren and Kendra didn't exist -- or at least didn't matter. Looking at the way they waited on the balls of their feet, Bren wondered if they planned to start a fight.

It's absurd, they aren't even that big. What business do they have thinking they can take us on?

"Of course, you don't understand," the same girl cut Sally off. "That's why you need to stop."

On her right, a shorter girl with blue eyes leaned in and put a hand on the leader's shoulder, "Kase, it's coming back."

'Kase' turned her head slightly to nod back at her compatriot without ever letting her eyes leave Sally.

"You're in trouble," Kase warned Sally. "And you're making it worse."

All three of the goth girls started backing away warily.

"You have to call it off before it gets worse," Kase announced finally, at which point all three girls, deciding they'd reached a safe distance, turned and ran back out the doors through which they'd entered.

"What the fuck?" Bren asked, once the doors had closed.

"That was scary," Kendra admitted.

"They seemed just as frightened of us, to be honest," Bren put in.

"Not us," Sally interjected with a roll of her eyes. She thumped her thumb proudly against her sternum. "Me."

"Not even you," Bren felt the need to take Sally down a peg. "It. The demon thing."

Sally twisted her lips but didn't argue the point.

"Is it back?" Kendra asked. "The demon?"

With a slow look around the apparently empty space, Sally nodded, "It's here somewhere, yeah."

"They were really scared of it," Bren warned. "Who are they, anyway? Do you recognize them?"

"Never seen 'em before," Sally admitted.

"I've seen them around," Kendra squinted into her memories. "I thought they were just Drama students or something. Who dresses like that anymore?"

Sally ignored this, continuing to scan around the space.

"Can we get out of here, now?" Kendra prodded.

Vaguely acknowledging her friend's request with a tick of her chin, Sally turned toward the doors and led them out of the sub-basement.

"Sal," Kendra spoke quietly as she followed her friend out, "makes you think, right?"

The note of hope in Kendra's voice didn't seem to touch Sally.

"Yeah, it does," Sally turned for a moment, her eyes alight. "It makes me think the demon keeps me safe somehow?"

"What?" Kendra's eyes widened.

"Did you see how scared they were?" Sally's opened her arms in excitement.

"Yes, Sal," Bren said. "Scared of the beast of hell you let loose."

"It's not loose," Sally retorted, rolling her eyes as she walked backwards up the stairs. "It's following me. Staying near me."

"Ri-ight," Kendra stammered, looking over at Bren but getting no response.

Sally ran off ahead of them.

"I don't think she gets it," Kendra said.

"No," Bren turned and looked behind them. "But those other girls did. If they're afraid of Sal, maybe I should see if I can talk to them."

Kendra nodded, "Sure. I'll look after Sal."

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Giant, fluffy snowflakes falling all around them, Bren and Kendra waited for Sally in the late afternoon. Sally approached, walking through the snow, absolutely energized while Bren and Kendra remained tight lipped with concern.

"Any luck?" Kendra muttered, her voice barely carrying over the sound of snow crunching under Sally's feet.

"No," Bren shook his head. "It's like they vaporized."

"Crap," Kendra whispered.

Sally, heedless, stepped up between them, putting her arms around her friends as they started walking.

"Guys," she said. "I'm a bit worried."

"Good," Kendra said, "You should be."

Bren, however, read Sally's expression completely differently.

She ought to be worried about the demon that's stalking her, he thought. But that's not what I'm detecting in her voice.

"What are you worried about?" he prodded.

"The demon," Sally peered at the trees around them. "He's out here somewhere and getting angrier. I need to calm him down before he does something bad -- or hurts someone."

"Calm him down or get rid of him?" Kendra hoped out loud. "Send him back, maybe?"

"Sure, sure," Sally jogged her head in a gesture clearly mean to placate her friend.

Bren closed his eyes and took a deep breath before speaking, knowing ahead of time exactly how Sally would answer the question he planned to ask.

"Sally," he kept his voice soft, "How do you want to calm him down?"

"Well," Sally also took a deep breath, "You know what he wants, right? I have to do it again -- and maybe if I get it right, he'll settle down once and for all."

"Seriously, Sal?" Kendra begged. "Come on-"

"You saw how scared those goth girls were, right?" Sally pointed out, her arms pulling her friends in tight. "This is bad. We have to take care of this thing."

"Right," Bren frowned.

"Good," Sal nodded, "You guys go ahead. I've got one more class, so I'll see you at five when I get home."

With that, she peeled away from them and headed off to her last lecture, heedless of the way her paralyzed friends watched her leave.

"Now what?" Kendra asked.

"Come on," Bren said, ticking his chin toward a strip mall across the street, "Let's go."

"Where are we going?" Kendra jerked to a start to keep up with Bren.

"One, Two, Three Dollar," he pointed at the discount store in the plaza across the street from the University buildings. "The thing doesn't like electric lights, and Sal burns through candles like nothing once she, you know, starts going."

"Masturbating," Kendra clarified.

"Yeah, that."

---------=============--------

Quarter after five rolled around and Sally hadn't returned home. Kendra and Bren waited nervously, worried that she'd either lost control of her demon or started masturbating somewhere else.

"You don't think she'd do that?" Bren asked.

"Probably not," Kendra said. "She seemed at least a little more rational than-"

The front door clicked open, prompting both of them to stand up.

"Guys?" Sally's desperate call came from the front door.

Kendra's eyes widened as much as Bren's did, hearing the panic in their friend's voice.

"What's wrong?" Bren rushed around the corner to see Sally frantically stripping off her black winter coat even while trying to kick off her boots.

"It's bad," Sally panted. "Really bad. It started smashing things all around me. I had to run home. I hope no one noticed."

"What should we do?" Kendra asked.

"Bedroom," Sally shrugged, looking around the small entryway with concern. "Fast."

She took off her beret, a crocheted, raspberry red model, and moved to set it on the little wooden table by the door, but the entire table kicked itself off the floor and flipped over in mid-air. Bren and Kendra ducked as the three legged piece of furniture spun between them and over their heads.

"Holy shit!" Bren gasped. "Sal?"

"Now," she insisted. "Let's go."

She rushed into her bedroom, with the contents of the foyer closet clattering on their hangers. Doors rattled as she passed down the narrow hallway and plunged into her bedroom. Bren followed her in, with Kendra on his heels.

"Candles," Bren declared.

"Right," Sally agreed. "Those stupid LED bulbs are expensive."

Taking this tacit agreement for permission, Bren opened Sally's dresser drawer and fetched her lighter. From his pocket, his produced a six pack of cheap tea lights and ripped it open.

"Don't set my god damn room on fire," Sally warned him as she unbuttoned her jeans.

She's getting pretty casual about her body, Bren noted, even while he admitted to himself the urgency of their circumstances. He set the tea lights out on the dresser, patiently waiting for each one to catch the flame from the lighter and started placing them around the room. Two remained on the dresser while three went on Sally's desk and the last one went on her nightstand. Kendra raised a wary eyebrow at this and moved it away from the bed, placing it on the floor next to the wall behind the door.

With the room suitably lit by candles, Kendra clicked off the bedroom light. As Bren took up his note book, he turned to look at Sally, who sat in middle of her bed with her legs spread and knees spread.

Alright, then, Bren examined the desperation in her features and noted down in his book how pale she looked, how much sweat shone on her forehead and the positions of the candles around the room. What else is worth noting?

The legs at the feet of the bed jumped off the floor and slammed back down, knocking everything on the nightstand over. Bren nodded a mental thank you at Kendra for moving the candle.

'No candles near bed!' he scribbled in his note book.

Backing away into the corner to find a place out of the way, but still having a good angle on the proceedings, he noticed the bright, violet light shining out Sally's panties.

Christ, it's starting.

The candles he could see from his spot on the floor spat and flickered, a bewildering display nothing like the brilliance that had issued from a single candle during their previous night. As the bed creaked under an unseen weight and the window began to rattle, Bren started to feel the fear return in the quivering of his writing hand.

Why did I volunteer to do this again?

Sally plunged her hands under her panties, letting out an aggrieved moan, her patience having long since run out.

She shouldn't be like this, Bren thought. The fear should have slowed her down a little. The presence of this demon stalker must be affecting her. Who gets horny when she's scared?

No doubt could exist about Sally's state, though, the brilliant light issuing from between her legs speaking for all. It seemed as if the light came directly from her vagina, growing brighter and darker as her furious masturbation parted and closed her lips in alternation.

The rattling of bed and window pane grew louder, the candles sputtering maniacally.

"Sal!" Bren yelled. "Wait, I-"

He quickly realized that Sally had long passed the point where he could communicate with her. If he moved quickly enough, however, he might at least learn something.

Careful to stay out of range of the demon, Bren moved to the dresser and shifted one of the tea lights along its surface. Sputtering wax hit the back of his wrist, making him jerk away, but he managed to nudge it along while keeping an eye on Sally. Suddenly, the candle light changed, flaring up into a steady, exuberant flame.

Got it! he beamed triumphantly.

Sally moaned and the purple glow increased between her and beast jerking itself off over her body.

Moving quickly, Bren took the second tea light, holding it in his hand and moving it in an arc around the sexual players and their creepy ritual. The splatter of the wax proved too dangerous and Bren had to place the tiny cylinder on the floor, pushing it along until it too flared into a steady flame.