Monica

The locket isn’t bleeding tonight.

That can’t be good.

It belonged to a friend of my sister. She died for the second time nine days ago. A simple, brass, heart-shaped thing that measured life from one cheap chain to another over its eleven-year run around the neck of Abigail Rossi. She was a nice girl, abrasive at times, but pleasant once the emotional walls lowered. After she died, the locket transferred in ownership to my sister. And, when Izzy found the whole thing a little too odd, it passed to me. Well, technically, it passed from Izzy to my mother to the garbage can and finally to me. It felt wrong leaving it in a dumpster.

If you’re curious about what kind of attack killed a seventeen-year-old girl and why it seems so normalized in my life, you may want to stop reading. That isn’t a threat or an attempt to sound edgy, I just don’t know how to explain it. God, this all sounds pretentious, doesn’t it? And being self-aware doesn’t help. I sound like a dick. Huh.

Anyway, the easiest way to explain myself is that the government accidentally let demons loose on society. Accident is a loose, but operative, word here. Files on top of files were released holding supposedly vetted (and liberally redacted) information regarding the chain of events that created a religious fanatics wet dream. While no gods to look toward have come forward, the religious definition of the species known as demons were (and still are) roaming the Earth. Every house received whatever holy items the occupants marked on the mailed-out papers or online forms. Atheists and those too lazy to fill out a survey (which side of the coin I fall on is irrelevant) received a single, nine-ounce glass jar of blessed salt. My parents got five rosaries and a recurring delivery of eight-gallon jugs filled to the brim with holy water, holy oil, and communion wine. They repackaged them into portable containers and delivered them to F.E.M.A. shelters and homeless camps. Izzy keeps our collective property in her backpack because she knows I would leave mine on my nightstand if left to my own devices which is why I don’t think she cares I have the locket. She expects me to lose it.

A demonic apocalypse, it turns out, is less about fear and more about bureaucracy. The government doesn’t care how much people lose as long as they keep spending money, and the economy stays above the crashing point. Within days of the revelation, the riots started. People tried to stop going to work and the fanatics took to the streets with words of rapture and devils and release. Crime rates rose across the board as more and more police officers walked away from their shifts. The government didn’t take that lying down.

Government agents and religiously approved experts are posted in each state’s capital and, originally, made promises to travel the smaller cities on a bi-monthly basis to look at cases and answer questions. However, massive workloads have made it more like a semi-annual basis for medium-sized cities and non-existent for small ones. People are not to engage with the Fallen, as they have been named by the government. No matter what. One is always to flee, find a means of escape, or contact one of the appointed exorcism consultants for their county. All requests for assistance are met with the standard pile of paperwork and professional indifference. We are no longer people in the eyes of the government, but statistics in relation to the numbers on possession, death, and rising.

Abbi was a Risen. She wasn’t the first, but her transformation was unexpected, nonetheless. She was on a trip with my parents to deliver communion wine to Zion, Chicago’s biggest homeless camp. My mom said everything had been fine. Nick Cutter, one of the freelancers that toured with my parents, had been their guide. He was a good man as far as empty suits went with a nice smile and more than a few good jokes. His hands didn’t shake when he worked, and the timber of his voice was always even and firm. I didn’t (and still don’t) trust many people, and I never trusted Nick, but I trusted him a hell of a lot more than I should have.

Two women, old if I remember right, came from a ruined tent just off the main path. Spindly black veins laid under their rotting skin, undulating with feverish hunger unlike most vessels used to transport blood. These veins were, in a way, sentient. They were an extension of the demon. The part that caused the physical change. A vaccine went to trial but never made it past testing because demons have nothing to do with viruses. This isn’t a sickness. I understand that now.

My parents said Nick did his best, but everyone has bad days and there is always someone quicker. While he was processing the attack, Abbi was living it. The women didn’t descend on her the same way George Romero thought zombies did, but in a violent, sadistic kind of way. These two were fully aware of what they were doing and enjoyed each second. My father’s refusal to make eye contact and the way my mother sobbed after her nightmares told me everything I needed to know. They hadn’t told us everything.

My suspicions were confirmed when we went to church. Abbi’s parents were the kind of absent Christians still finding their faith amidst the confusion. Live funerals weren’t outright banned, but they weren’t promoted either. I wore a black dress. Izzy wore a blue one. Blue was Abbi’s favorite color.

Abbi rose seven minutes into the service, shrieking and spitting non-stop until her mouth closed around the preacher’s throat. People screamed and ran. Nick, still recovering from her death, was again pitifully slow on the draw. Abbi killed eight people including her parents and little brother before Nick, with help from my family, managed to kill her a second time. I recorded it all on my phone, filled out the appropriate paperwork, and waited for them back at the van.

Unlike the rest of them, I prefer to remain uninvolved. Waiting for them, with the Devil Went Down to Georgia on the radio was the first time I saw the locket do anything besides be a locket. My mom had wanted Izzy to wear it in, but she refused. I didn’t know at the time that this wasn’t the first time the locket did something lockets aren’t supposed to do. Water streamed from the crack separating the back from the front as if it were crying with its eyes closed. I opened it. Inside was a picture of a black lab. Abbi’s dog, Scotto.

The tears kept streaming out of the locket. I watched it until my parents came out. Izzy followed a few seconds later with a limping Nick Cutter. She doted over the man (boy, really), talking like he alone would save humanity. I didn’t tell anyone about the tears. Instead, I placed the locket back in the cupholder I found it in. Once home, I filed a report.

Despite living in Chicago, no one ever investigates the reports I file. Our government appointees are the saviors-on-paper types and not the go-out-and-do-somethings people expected. That’s why my family and Nick did what they did. People needed help. My parents needed help. Nick needed help. They had Izzy. I did what I could by looking over their records and filling out reports. Just because the world is infested doesn’t mean I don’t have a life of my own. I do and the Kwik Mart still expects me at every shift. I work the third shift when no one comes in and I get to keep the doors locked until I can verify if the potential customer is the species they claim. A company shotgun is kept on a rack behind the counter with blessed bullets. I’ve never fired it, just filled out reports. Being wrong still carries consequences no matter how scared someone might be.

The locket bled the day Nick Cutter died. He cut his throat in my parent’s kitchen. I had come up from the basement to get some apple juice when it happened. My parents had been talking in frenzied, hushed voices that came with lots of touching, the kind people use when they don’t know what else to do. Nick was sobbing and I didn’t know where my sister was. Probably school. Just like work, it doesn’t matter what’s going on. There will always be school.

Nick was trembling. His eyes went black. And he cut his throat.

Abbi’s demon had one more attack added to their roster.

After I got back to my room there was a wet spot under the locket. After it bled, it cried. I filled out a report.

I watched the locket bleed and cry for five days and, each day, I knew someone was going to die. I filled out reports. I never heard a thing. I even made phone calls to the city headquarters and the C.D.C. Again, nothing. That’s not true, I did get one automated response telling me not to panic. I filled out a complaint and went to work. My manager, Todd, was killed. Two friends were butchered. My uncle, Mark, became a demon and killed my cousin, Alex. Bleeding. Crying. Bleeding. Crying. Bleeding. Crying. A never-ending cycle of destruction.

I don’t sleep anymore because, when I do, Abbi visits me. I don’t know if it’s actually her or not, but I think the message would remain the same regardless. My family was doing work the demons didn’t like so the people around us became targets. They were vulnerable and we became vulnerable through them. I was expected to do something about it. I contacted the police department, the district office, and filled out another set of forms.

I haven’t told my parents about the locket, and I don’t think I will. I tried to talk to Izzy but couldn’t find a way for the words to make sense. Demons are real, but ghosts remain a foreign concept to the mainstream. No one wants to believe a ghost is trying to help people when demons are already killing them. Besides, the government told them ghosts are impossible. Demons weren’t supernatural, they were real. They were a problem yet to receive an appropriate explanation. Time will pass, as it always does, and life will move on.

Life moves on because the economy depends on it the same way the government depends on the economy. Geez, I think I have a problem with getting cyclical. Sorry. Izzy hasn’t woken up yet. Neither have my parents, though I heard my dad a little bit ago. He’s always running to the bathroom.

Currently, it’s eleven p.m. I’m getting ready for my shift at Kwik Mart.

The locket isn’t bleeding. It isn’t crying either.

Today, the heart-shaped locket is squishing a black, viscous ooze through its crack and onto my nightstand. I have lots of ideas about what this means, but nothing concrete. It’s not my job to be concrete about these things. But don’t worry, I filled out a report. I’m worried about my grammar. My vision has been wonky all day and I’m exhausted. The black marks on my neck are nothing to worry about, just a trick of the light now hidden under a collar. Besides, I filled out a report.

My name is Monica Sheehan. I work at the Kwik Mart on Clark Street forty hours a week because the government told me it is better to work than stay home with my family. For once, I think that might be a good thing. Andrea the day-shifter used the shotgun yesterday. She posted the video in our work chat. I hope she remembered to reload. It’s my turn to use it.