Demon Girl: Keeley Thomson Author's Addition, #1

By P.S. Power

When Keeley Thomson started at a new school, she didn't think that her problems would involve more than going to a football game she didn't care about, or trying to get better grades. Then she met Darla and the gang. They're pretty, popular and have all the right moves. Only something is very wrong with Darla Gibson.

 

A thing so dark that Keeley might not be the same when she get's through with her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Orange Cat Publishing
• Release date: Sep 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215916339

Book preview

Chapter one

Keeley didn't really care about much at the moment, she realized.

It was, from the feeling of what was going on inside of her, a warm thing, not a cold or hateful one. A soft focus on the world around her that was constricting, tightening reality into a pinpoint. An alteration of what she normally felt like, into something... More.

Which was showing itself to her as a sense of emptiness, of course. That was a new thing in her life but there it was, coloring her entire world as she stood there. Waiting.

Normally she did well enough on that score, being fairly sympathetic to the plight of others, trying to get good grades and all the wonderful stuff a good girl could ever want to be. The things that a normal, decently proper young lady should be concerned about. At the moment though, she just couldn't be bothered.

Not about school, even if she normally at least phoned in some concern that way. Not about some stupid starlight dance that she wouldn't be going to anyway, and certainly not about some moronic football game that had no impact on either her life, or the world at large.

There wasn’t, after noting the feeling inside of herself, even a thought given to any of that. They were simply ephemera. A set of things that, even as a teen girl, she innately understood would never mean anything at all to the greater world around her.

It was probably hard to tell from the outside, given what she was doing at the moment. Even she understood that could very easily be taken as a sign of peppy interest, or possibly a lame attempt at social climbing. It was neither of those things. Moving up the popularity ladder of a high school didn't make a lot of sense, after all. She'd be leaving in a few years anyway, so any work she did toward that end would be wasted. Unless her goal was to marry the football team captain, before he turned into an alcoholic insurance salesman by age thirty-two. It was actually kind of funny, thinking about being that lame but Keeley Thomson held her face straight and didn't let anything show on the outside.

It was work time.

Fun, if possibly psychotic, work.

The starlight dance in question was being advertised on a rather nice poster that looked rather professional, if she did say so herself. The white border was glossy, and the letters in the center were made up out of very tiny, slightly irregularly shaped boxes that were blue and orange, as was the football helmet in the center of the piece, surrounded by very sharp looking black print describing how incredible the event would be. Made up from Raintree’s hideous school colors, as well as a high contrast image that played tricks on the visual processing centers of the human brain, making the whole thing seem to shift and shimmer a little if you looked for more than a second.

That was for the moment, all she truly cared about.

The way it looked, the tricking of a mind and eye for a brief moment, not the advertisement itself. That, the text about the dance, was simply cover for the rest of what was happening. She might have gotten away with simply putting another image up, like a magic eye poster, or interesting art piece, instead. Keeley and even considered the idea, for a while. This, an advertisement, simply made more sense, and anyone in power there seeing it could only concluded that the new girl was being helpful and a team player, on seeing it. So, in that way, it was a cover as well as a trap.

People, not understanding why it looked odd on a conscious level, would be drawn to it, stopping to read the new message. Staring, trying to force their mind to understand what they were seeing. Standing in place, for far longer than was normal at that flow point in the school hallway. At precisely the time she needed them to be. Moments after the last bell of the day had rung.

At least if she'd done it right.

The big game of the week was before the dance, Homecoming, which for some reason was held a full month and a half after the start of the school year at Raintree High. The name of the event always made her wonder who was supposed to be coming home. Obviously, someone that wasn't planning to graduate, not coming in that late.

Keeley brushed her long brown hair out of her face, straight and bland, mainly held back with a plain brown scrunchy that her mom had gotten her a fifty pack of the Christmas before. A few wisps carelessly flying around the sides that late in the day, knocked out of place by her glasses earlier when she'd taken them off to clean them. She wore one hair tie or scrunchy daily and generally got a week's worth of use out of each before something happened them. She'd lose it, or use one to hold something together, to mark a book page, or as part of an explosives package.

Things came up.

It didn't matter. No one ever noticed overly, because no one really saw her most of the time. In fact, she knew, if she didn't move her little size six jeans back to the far wall in about five seconds she was going to end up in the mess.

That being what she was there for, to create, that afternoon.

The wonderful and delicious disaster that was about to start in the school's main hallway in mere moments.

The bell rang, loud and strong, followed by the clatter of hundreds of chairs in classrooms and then even more pairs of feet padding rapidly on the highly polished yellow and blue tile that was supposed to somehow engender school spirit in the masses forced to walk the hallways each day. Rather than headaches from eye strain, which was mainly what actually happened. The yellow was supposed to be orange but no one made bright orange tile in the right color for some reason.

Probably because it was an ugly color. Just a hideous choice, that someone long ago, probably not realizing they were partially color blind, had foisted on generations to come.

For a brief moment, she mused about the school spirit being who was coming home that week. Then she let that go. It was a bad joke, and not worth her time, at the moment. It was clear that the people coming home were supposed to be alumni, who would, in theory, give money and other aid to school programs. If only they could suck up to them hard enough. It probably worked in tiny ways. The rare student who hadn’t hated school with a passion would make it in life, and then turn around and buy an ad in the school paper that they didn’t need, or donate some cash to the football team for new helmets. Whatever worked to remind them of when they’d peaked, at age seventeen, before the real world had taught them all about being a small fish in a freaking ocean, instead of the King of the Prom, or what have you.

As the flood of students moved toward her, looking alternately happy and relieved that the school day was done, and likely rejoicing for a few minutes that the weekend had finally arrived, Keeley pushed her back against the far wall solidly and got ready. If this went as planned she'd need the protection. The distance from the fray, and press of bodies. If it didn't, she'd still want to be in a protected location, just for different reasons.

The boy who stopped to look at the poster first, was tall, one of the basketball team she thought, which was perfect. Big and in shape but also feeling a little out of place, his season not having really started yet.

He couldn't make out exactly what he was seeing. So, naturally, the visual illusion catching his attention, he stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the effect. Right in the middle of the stream of moving bodies. That caused a log jam of teenagers. Not a huge one, it was only a poster after all, for a dance that everyone knew was coming anyway, and advertising a football game that their school only had a twelve percent chance of winning. Even the people who didn’t bother doing the math knew that their team sucked monkey balls. It was a joke, if one only mentioned when the sullen and angry team wasn’t around to hear it.

On the good side, the loose group in the hall was just big enough so that when Quince and his jock buddies came around the corner at a full run, trying to get to football practice before the coach could scream at them for being late, they couldn't quite stop before the collision took place. Not right there just around the corner, where the poster had been conveniently placed.

Perfectly arranged, for maximum impact.

It had happened before of course, hence the little trick Keeley had set up for the day.

Mainly because when the jerks had hit her and tiny Maria Gonzales, who had both stopped to look at the cork board, they'd managed to send the girl and Keeley both flying on to the ugly floor, and Maria into the dentist's office with two missing front teeth.

They had been put back in, sure, at a decent expense to Maria's parents but none of the guys had even stopped to see if they were all right. They'd just kept running, laughing while they did.

That was what had pissed her off. The laughing. The cackling as they ignored the results of their actions.

Keeley had carried the tiny girl to the school office and ridden with her in the ambulance to the emergency room. She'd cried the whole way, sobbing and shaking, worried that she was deformed for life. It had been pitiful. Worse, when Keeley had complained to the principal, explaining the whole thing, the man had written it off as a mere accident, and had promised only that it wouldn’t happen again. That he’d talk to the team, so they’d be more careful. That, the extra care, had lasted about a week. Four days, to be exact. Keeley had stood in place and was hit again, so she could complain to the man in charge. He, being protective of his horrible team of would be heroes, had dismissed her with more platitudes and clearly hadn’t even spoken to the boys after the second event.

This time it was going to be a little different. That was the plan at least.

That tangle of bodies that hit the floor included six members of the football team and nearly ten random students who had been minding their own business, momentarily entranced by the slightly dancing picture on the wall. No one seemed hurt but that was coming. Keeley would make sure of it. Without that part of things, some actual damage being done, her plan was just an annoyance.

Meaning it was time to finish the project and get out before anyone noticed her.

Keeley pitched her voice carefully trying to make it sound horrified. A little indignant as well. It was over the top, as far as acting went but most people responded to things like that pretty well. Probably because they watched too many bad videos on the computer, and didn't really think anyone would ever be doing something like this. What was happening was too convoluted to be a prank, or done on purpose, after all.

"Oh my god." She called this out loudly enough for the whole hallway to hear.

Her voice pitched to sound like a valley girl from an old movie. Again, it didn’t sound real at all but it wasn’t about tricking anyone. Just about planting a seed in the right people’s mind.

Those guys from the football team actually attacked a bunch of people, like they said they were going to at lunch? Well, I guess we'll see if they really can just get away with doing anything they want here, like they said they could...

Oh, it sounded exactly phony as anything she'd ever said but in the pile of bodies it was clear that a few people had heard her, and weren't exactly pleased about being attacked.

Then she walked away.

Slowly. Her hand touching the wall on the right, because as a rule no one walked that close to it. It left a corridor for her to travel in right now. The line was invisible to most people, or at least they acted that way, so she only had to step around one or two guys who had leaned into the space, watching the goings on at the center of the hall.

The real mess didn't start until after she was outside, as the six football team members were joined by four others, and they started pushing some of the boys in the hallway. What they were saying Keeley couldn't make out but it honestly didn't matter, because the whole thing was taking place in front of the principal's office.

The first punch came from one of the big guys, a linebacker, who so obviously took steroids that it was almost mean of her to set him up. He triggered into a rage at the accusations people threw at him, and couldn't control himself at all. That he hit a tiny fellow about half his weight who wasn't really involved made her wince a little but it had to be done. Hopefully the kid would be all right. The principal and three teachers tried to jump into the fray, the older man in his reddish brown suit catching an elbow to the eye from one of the football team. Hard.

The point of the elbow couldn’t have been timed better if it had been a practiced move, and probably cracked the bone on the underside of the eye socket. Right here the nerve came out, which would make it horribly painful for the older man. The one who hadn’t bothered to fix the problem in the first place, wanting his team of special pets to do well, instead of caring about a girl having the front of her face bashed in.

No one deserved it more.

It was his failure to call the football team on their actions that had set her in motion to begin with. If they'd learned to just walk through the hallway, or even just to slow down on the corners, nothing would have happened that day, at all. No one had required them to change after the Maria incident, so they hadn't. Keeley had even talked to the man about it herself, twice but had a strong sense that he didn't really get what she was going on about.

Which was due to him not really caring what happened to the grind, the average kids, on a daily basis there. The Maria’s and Keeley’s didn’t count, because he couldn’t see them as profitable to himself. Which was a little bit off, in her case. She was going to be the top student in the school, after all. A thing that the man hadn’t noticed yet, because she was new, and the grades hadn’t been posted to draw his attention to that idea.

It took a few minutes for the fight to break up, the whole group of jocks taken into the office along with half a hallway of rather upset students who really hadn't done much of anything at all. A few had been bruised in the attack even, the initial one. Nice marks on their faces from the punches thrown as well.

That would help make sure that the whole thing wasn't just put down to youthful energy or boys being boys. That people had the idea it was on purpose in mind already would prevent it from going away too easily. There would be no easy walking away with a slap on the wrist this time.

No, that had gone away the second the faculty had taken injuries. That part really wasn't anyone's fault, not even the football players who had been caught up in the fray. The adults had gotten in the way after all. If you didn't want to be hit, you really shouldn't jump into the middle of a fight. It was so common sense that everyone would see it, if they thought about that kind of thing for even a moment. If people were fighting, and you tried to grab them, part of the time you were going to be struck, even if it was an honest accident.

Not that it had been total happenstance. It was, she knew, her fault. Keeley’s plan had worked, exactly as she’d wanted it to. At least in part. The rest would be down to the football team members, she knew. If they were repentant, humble and apologized instantly, with the boy who had thrown the first punch owning it, and protecting the others, the staff might well suck up their bumps and bruises, and let them largely go.

Keeley doubted that was going to happen. People were scarred little bunnies inside, and that meant they’d try to protect themselves, by lying and casting blame on others, even if the obvious way out was in taking responsibility for what had happened. Even the parts outside of their control. Doing that would impress those in charge. It took a certain amount of will and intelligence to understand that and apply it however.

As she watched through the large set of nearly floor to ceiling windows, she couldn't help but smile a little more. So much so that if Keeley had been watching herself do it, she'd have figured the whole thing out instantly. No one else would. Most people didn't pay enough attention to her to see that she had any effect on the world at all.

She was too... Keeley, for that.

This wasn't justice of course, that was clear. Not even good revenge. Not really. None of the football team had lost teeth over it for instance but at least they'd pay a little for what they’d done to Maria, even if they didn't know why it was happening. Keeley knew it, so it counted.

After a fashion.

The grass was a little spare and weedy under foot but in Arizona that was only to be expected given the time of year. Most times of year, to be fair. At least the heat wasn't brutal that day. When she'd first moved to the area with her parents two months before it had been incredible. Oppressive. Bleak and like sticking her head in a furnace any time she stepped outside, away from the air conditioning.

She kind of liked it.

The desolate landscapes, and warmth all the time touched something in her. It was a beautiful place really, filled with life, if you bothered to look for it. Small things that crawled and scuttled mainly but there was a simple grace to even the smallest of creatures.

That was the odd part really. Back in Washington State everything had been green most of the year where they lived. Here it just wasn't. The contrast sent a thrill through