High Schoolers got into trouble. It was part of growing up, Kyle knew, this teenage urge to test authority, to push limits. As frustrating as it was for the adults in their lives, kids needed to do sometimes stupid things. How else could they learn?

Maybe by listening to you.

“Don’t you mean you?”

That, too.

But Kyle knew he was far luckier than most of the folks in his position. Yes, he had to deal with teenagers and all the bullshit they brought along with them. But thanks to Ryka - and the very real threat he posed - they had learned to tone it down. Except for a few rare instances, most of the kids in his school were on their best behavior the majority of the time. Fights still happened, though they were usually of the verbal variety. And there was no shortage of harmless shenanigans. The kids all seemed to know what was safe and what wasn’t. They tread carefully, that was for sure.

Sometimes, Kyle worried they were growing up with too much fear in their lives. That the possibility of demonic intervention was causing irreparable mental harm. But as Ryka always reminded him, it was a little suffering now - to set them on the right path - or a lot of suffering later if they went astray.

It’s unfortunate how many of them I won’t be seeing again.

“For you.”

That’s what I said, I -

But Kyle didn’t get to hear the rest. Because the last diploma had just been handed out, and excited shouts and cheers were filling the gymnasium. Unable to wipe the smile from his face, he joined in. His class of reformed trouble-makers had finally made it to graduation, every last one of them racking up high honors.

It was bittersweet seeing them all cross that stage in caps and gowns. He was proud of them for turning themselves around and putting in the hard work to be not just better students, but better humans. Most were going off to college, some to trade schools, some right to work. None, Ryka bitterly confirmed, were Hell-bound.

As glad as Kyle was to see them - and all their peers - succeed, he was also going to miss them. They’d been the first class to truly know him, know his darkest secret, and still like him anyway. He’d miss running into them in the halls. He doubted they’d miss him as much.

Quit being such a sad-sack. You’re not done with them yet. We still have one more night with these little fuckers, don’t we?

“We do.” That very night, in fact. To celebrate the new graduates, the school put on an overnight party at the local YMCA. It had been a tradition for more than a decade, and although he’d heard many of the seniors mocking the event, they had still all signed up to attend. Something for which all concerned adults were very grateful.

Because the kids would be locked in all night - from nine to six - assuring no one got up to any serious trouble. No wild parties, no underage drinking, and no devastating accidents as a result. They were going to be as safe as they could be, given that their demon-possessed former teacher would be locked in with them.

This time, Kyle had volunteered to chaperone. He knew the kids would all be more interested in spending time with each other before they all headed off in separate directions, but it would be nice to see them this one last time. Even if it was just to be handing out snacks and sodas.

***

Once the Pomp and Circumstance was concluded and the whole class successfully passed this major milestone, it was time for them to party. Safely. Thanks to their parents’ fundraising efforts, there were lots of things to keep the kids entertained, aside from the usual Y offerings, like the pool. They had movies to watch, video games to play, photo booths, and a giant inflatable obstacle course. Special entertainment had also been hired: caricaturists, a hypnotist, a psychic and a tarot card reader. Kyle planned on staying well away from those last three, no matter how much of it was bunk. No need to give Ryka the opportunity to mess with them.

Cheesy as some of the fun was, the kids all took advantage. And the chaperones - mostly their teachers and a few helicopter parents - were happy to sit back and watch.

Ryka, of course, was terribly bored. Everyone was being good, and seemed quite inclined to keep at it. And since, no matter how much he begged, Kyle continued to refuse to let him play in the pool - or fuck with the hypnotist - Ryka had nothing to entertain him.

Though to be honest, Kyle was a wee bit bored himself. He’d been passing out soda and chips for hours, and everyone seemed to have achieved an adequate level of caffeination. Meaning he’d been standing around, twiddling his thumbs, for what felt like the better part of the night. Even if his watch insisted it had only been forty-five minutes since his last visitor.

Smoke break?

“Why not?”

The building was under lockdown - no one could get in or out - but that didn’t have to stop him. Ryka could easily get them out the door, but Kyle didn’t want to risk getting caught. So the next best option was to hide himself in one of the lesser-used stairwells.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

After telling his neighboring chaperone he was going to stretch his legs, he snuck through a doorway in a deserted hall. He had fully expected the stairwell to have become the evening’s hot makeout spot, and was pleasantly surprised to find that wasn’t the case.

Which wasn’t to say it was unoccupied. Lighting a cigarette, he glanced over the railing. Two floors below him - on the ground level - a group of four girls sat huddled together, chatting and giggling. Their laughter echoed in the concrete and metal shaft, and although the door opening and Kyle’s footsteps had done the same, they hadn’t heard him over their own amplified voices.

Aside from being somewhere they really shouldn’t have been, they weren’t doing anything wrong, so Kyle determined it was best to let the girls be. After all, it was their last night of high school ever.

All the more reason to take advantage. I’ll never get to feed on them again.

“Absolutely not,” Kyle muttered. At least the girls were downwind and hadn’t smelled the smoke yet. The smoke detector had tried, but Ryka had cut it off before it had managed a single sound.

In the annoyed silence that followed, snippets of the conversation below bounced up to him.

“Oh my God, ask it if Patrick likes you!”

Now intrigued, Kyle peered back over the railing. And noticed that they weren’t just idly gossiping, they were seated around a Ouija board. Each of the girls had two fingers on the planchette and were staring down at the board with intense concentration.

No doubt one of them had brought the game in. Most of the kids had brought backpacks, and those had all been checked for alcohol and drugs. But they had been encouraged to bring some of their own entertainment along as well. So this wasn’t by any means a forbidden item, or something they shouldn’t have been playing with. They had just taken it somewhere they weren’t supposed to be.

But based on the questions this group was asking, they had absconded to the empty stairwell to avoid their crushes overhearing any of what was asked.

Surely they knew the game was fake, Kyle thought. The souls of the dead didn’t linger on Earth, and they certainly didn’t sit around waiting to answer kids’ questions about whether or not the object of their affection liked them back. The only thing moving the planchette across the board was the will of the people touching it.

It doesn’t have to be.

“No, don’t do it,” Kyle pleaded. To no avail.

Down on the ground floor, the conversation was changing. Having apparently finished inquiring about Patrick and whoever else, the girls were now asking the “spirit” they had summoned to tell them about itself.

“What’s your name?” one of the girls - Lisa, Kyle now remembered - inquired.

As if they knew they had acquired an audience, they did him the favor of spelling aloud the “spirit’s” responses.

“C-A-N-T-S-A-Y.”

“You mean shouldn’t?” Kyle corrected, snuffing out his cigarette on the bottom of his shoe and tossing the butt into a corner. It had friends already there waiting for it, so he didn’t feel guilty.

That, too. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m trying to have a conversation.

Rolling his eyes, Kyle folded his arms on the metal rail. There would be no getting out of this. But what better did he have to be doing?

“Aw, you can tell us! We won’t tell anyone else.” Lisa had become the spokeswoman it seemed, though her friends were only mildly amused.

“You really think there’s someone there?” one of them asked, voice tinged with a healthy dose of skepticism.

“I mean, I don’t know.”

By all rights, with their attention elsewhere, the planchette shouldn’t have been able to move, even if they all still had their fingers on it. And there were small squeals of surprise when it did just that.

“I-M-H-E-R-E,” they all spelled out in unison.

“But ….” another of the group started, staring down at the board in disbelief.

“I-M-R-E-A-L.”

“Then tell us your name. Please?” Lisa asked.

“Y-O-U-K-N-O-W-I-T.” A couple of the girls giggled at that. But the other two seemed anxious, and only offered half-hearted laughter.

“We do? How would we know your name, spirit?”

“N-O-T-A-S-P-I-R-I-T.”

That cut all the giggling - nervous or otherwise - short. And there it was, what Ryka had been waiting for. Anxiety. Fear’s precursor. The appetizer course.

With her voice now wavering, Lisa forged on. “W-what are you, then?”

“G-U-E-S-S.”

“We should stop,” one of the group wisely suggested.

Lisa, their fearless ringleader and very likely the one who had masterminded this activity, was much less gung-ho about questioning the not-so-dead now. “Yeah, you’re right.”

As one, the girls removed their fingertips from the planchette, and one prepared to pick it up and stow it safely back in its box. But it evaded capture, darting to the far side of the game board. Here came the main course, Kyle thought, Ryka already forcing him to take deeper inhalations.

There were nervous squeals, and all four girls leaned away from the board. “How?” one squeaked.

Only Lisa still had the wherewithal to read out what was spelled next. “L-O-O-K-U-P.”

And that’s when the lights went out. The ones above Kyle, anyhow. Which meant his shadow was stretched up the wall behind him. Or it would have been, if Ryka’s hadn’t taken over the position. He didn’t need to look and check; he could feel the blistering heat of its grin, see the air ripple around him.

Besides, if he’d looked away, he wouldn’t have been able to offer the girls an apologetic shrug and a small wave. None of them returned the gesture. They screamed instead. And continued screaming as they gathered up their belongings, crammed them into backpacks and scrambled out the nearest exit.

The Hellfire burning the back of his neck dissipated and the lights popped back on. “Y-”

Save your breath. I’m done. But this is boring as fuck; I needed to do something.

“Well, thanks, I guess, for at least not spelling anything wrong.”

F-U-C-K-Y-O-U.