{Victoria}

Of course at the stroke of midnight my little buddies decided to start bickering again.

"We should ask her…" Little Buddie One asked.

"No, she won't agree with it," Little Buddie Two snapped. "She's tried to seal off the portal already. I doubt she wants to live with us. She'd have to-"

I groaned and got out of bed. I knew they were talking about me going to their home in Hell to live.

I went down the hallway and grabbed my silver bat because I found out that silver can keep my little buddies at bay at least for a little bit. I walked towards the closet that led to the attic with my bat at the ready in case I had to take a swing.

The whispering grew louder and I went to open the door and right when one of my little buddies decided to crawl out of it I took a swing but instead of hitting them I hit the light bulb in the closet and broke it. The little buddy that crawled out of the closet shrieked and went back up the attic.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" I cursed underneath my breath. "You guys know that I can't make the closets off limits, so stay in the attic or the basement and shut the fuck up!"

"Uh, Victoria? Are you okay?" I turned around when I saw Walter and I felt my face turn red.

My little buddies seem to have a habit of making me look like a fool because they know how I'll react to them. "Uh, yeah I'm fine. I, um… Just attacking one of my hallucinations."

"We are not hallucinations Vicky…" Little Buddie One said. "We just choose to appear to your first and you know it."

"Did you hear that?" Walter asked.

I shook my head. "Hear what? What are you talking about?"

"That voice that called you Vicky? Did you hear it?" Walter said.

My eyes went wide. "You can hear the voice too?"

He nodded. "Yeah I can hear it."

"Shit!" I exclaimed.

"Okay then-" Walter started.

Before he could finish his sentence I threw the bat up in the air and it smacked the door that led towards the attic and fell to the ground with a small thud. I could feel my heartbeat speed up and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I felt like I couldn't move and I was frozen in place.

"Victoria! Victoria, what's wrong? Speak to me," Walter said.

I felt tears in my eyes as I squeaked, "Um… I don't know! It feels… Hard to breathe!"

"Oh crap," Walter said. He scooped me up in his arms as if I weighed nothing and brought me to the living room and sat me down on the couch. "Wait here, I'll go get your medicine."

I nodded. A moment later he came back with my anti-anxiety meds and a glass of water. I took one of the pills and chased it down with the water. Or at least I tried to. It felt like the pill got stuck in the back of my throat so I started to cough.

Walter didn't panic, he patted my back trying to settle the coughing fit down and it didn't work.

"The soda," I wheezed.

"The what?" He asked.

"On the… Bottom shelf at the right in the front in the refrigerator there should be a Mt Dew that I normally use to take… My medicine with…" I wheezed as I coughed.

"Okay then, I'll be right back," Walter said.

He returned with the soda that I told him to get. I figured it'd be easy to find since every time I use a soda to take my medicine with, I mark it as 'take with medicine' with a sharpie.

I a couple of gulps of the soda and sighed with relief when coughing fit calmed down. "This is exactly why I take my medicine with soda and not water."

He nodded. "Alright, I'll keep that in mind. Feeling better?"

"Yeah I am," I said. I looked over at the clock sitting on the stand next to the Tv and it said it was 1:30 am.

"Waaaaaalter…." I heard Little Buddie One say.

"Shut up!" Little Buddie Two said, "We can not appear to him yet! It's not time!"

"Well then we should ask mas-" Little Buddie One started.

"Shut up! Let the humans sleep, they tend to be a little crazy without their sleep," Little Buddie Two snapped.

"Says the one who decided to start arguing with me in the middle of night!" Little Buddie One snapped back. "You know humans like to sleep at night-"

"Alright ready!" I said, while glaring at the closet. "Would you two shut up! Geez man, you're driving me crazy!"

"Uh, Victoria?" Walter said, "Why am I hearing voices coming from the closet?"

"Again, you can hear the voices too?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yeah I can hear them. They called my name this time around."

"I see," I said.

He shrugged. "Well, maybe it has something to do with the house? It could be that something's not installed properly."

"I have no idea," I said. "I haven't been in the attic or the basement for a couple of weeks now and I don't intend to go down there or up there any time soon."

"Maybe you should check-" Walter said.

I cut him off, "Nope. It's not happening."

"But-"

I narrowed my eyes. "No, it's not happening."

He put his hands up to say he surrendered. "Okay, okay, we won't go into the basement or up into the attic. Got it."

I nodded and then yawned. "Alrighty then, now that that's taken care of, I'm going back to bed. See you in the morning."

Without another word I turned around and went back to bed.

***

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

{omniscient}

Two tall humanlike figures stood outside the house that Victoria bought a year ago. They had been watching the house like their master told them to wondering why their master doesn't want them to take Victoria back with them to Hell. The only thing they know is Victoria along with the man named Walter living with her are important to their master.

The two humanlike figures have names and their names are Jezebel and Gray. They are what Victoria calls her little buddies.

They stood on the porch just watching the front door but they didn't open it or enter the house. Every time Jezebel and Gray talked it sounded like whispers but it was just their normal talking voices so hearing a conversation between them might make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

Jezebel leaned on the small fence in front of the porch and crossed her arms in front of her. "When do you think our master is going to tell us to bring her home?"

Gray shook his head. "I have no idea. He's very determined to wait until New Year's Eve to take her back and hopefully she will have gotten close to Walter by then. And hopefully we will be able to reveal ourselves to Walter soon. Although it does seem that we're accidentally revealing ourselves because of how much power we leaked when revealing ourselves to Vicky."

Jezebel nodded. "Yeah that makes sense. But it was fun messing with her and I don't know about you but I think messing with Vicky will never get old."

Gray chuckled, "Oh yeah, the furniture moving trick! That never gets old, we should do that again soon. I wonder if Vicky's going to pick up on the hint that we want light bulbs to play with, preferably ones that don't break every time we touch them?"

She shrugged. "I have no idea. Honestly, I don't think she cares about that at the moment. We're driving her nuts still and everyone around her thinks she's crazy."

"Yeah, it's a shame though because even if her symptoms go away, she'll forever be labeled as crazy," Gray said. He frowned. "Humans are the weirdest creatures to have ever popped up out of nowhere."

"I totally agree but we should probably go back into the basement and let Vicky think she's in control," Jezebel laughed. "Humans, they really think they can grab a demon by the balls so to speak with their silly little rituals that they do."

"No kidding, but Vicky's not human either, she's just walking around in a human skin," Gray said. "And Walter's not human either and I can't wait until they find out the truth."

Jezebel nodded in agreement and they went back to the basement in Victoria's house.

***

{Walter}

So far working with Victoria has been rather interesting. Last night when I heard the voices coming from the closet that lead to the attic, Victoria seemed rather annoyed by the voices. However, the voices made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

The next morning I woke up around about 7am like I always did for work and Victoria was still sleeping. She told me about her sleeping schedule and how she likes to sleep about twelve hours a night. But with the voices and seeing things that's preventing her from sleeping as much as she wants to.

She went to bed around midnight, she probably won't be up until around noon. That gives me plenty of time to go for my morning walk and do my morning routine. I went for a walk after I got dressed for the day and then I came back and took a shower and got ready for the day.

I sat down at the island in the kitchen on a stool and checked my emails, messages and I smiled when I saw one from my sister:

Hey there, I heard you're doing another live-in caretaker job. What's your client like?

I responded: She's a nice lady, almost the same age as I am and no I'm looking to date anyone and neither is she.

My sister texted back: Aww man, that sucks! But hey there's plenty of other fish in the sea LOL. Anyway, when are you coming back home for a visit? I haven't seen you in a while.

I rolled my eyes. My sister lives at home with Mom and Dad because she's not even old enough to live on her own yet. She's not even old enough to work a part time job because she's only thirteen and she's still in elementary school. Of course Mom and Dad would put her up to try and guilt trip me into visiting them before the holidays.

Ever since I moved out of the house and went to college my relationship with my parents has been rather strained and I think it's because they didn't want me to be out from under their thumb. They wanted to be able to control me but with me out of the house and in another state, they have practically no say in what I do.

Me: Not until the holidays. I have to work and I have a life that they really need to let go of the need to control me when I'm a grown ass man!

Sis: Okay, okay geez man take a chill pill! Maybe you can meet up with me at least before the holidays?

Me: Sure I'll meet up with you. When?

Sis: Cool, when are your days off?

Me: I signed the contract and I get the weekends off because Victoria will be with her brother or sister during that time.

Sis: Okay then, meet me at McDonalds on Saturday at five?

Me: Sure I can do that. See you then!

Sis: Later!

I smiled as I put my phone down on the countertop and went back to looking at my social media accounts that I have. My smile turned into a frown when I saw on my Facebook account that I got a handful of messages from my ex. She and I didn't work out because she was too controlling and insufferable.

I'm not dating anyone at the moment and I don't plan on getting back together with her anytime soon. I have half a mind to block her but I can be a little too nice for my own good sometimes so I just put her on read and ignored her.

I was getting ready to look at something else when I heard a thumping noise coming from upstairs. I ignored it thinking that maybe I was just hearing things because Victoria would still be asleep at the moment so it couldn't be her, right?

I decided to pull out my headphones and watch random videos on YouTube. I watched videos for an hour or so and I was bored so I decided to watch some Tv and read a book. As soon as I put my headphones away I turned around and saw Victoria standing at the bottom of the steps staring off into space.

I walked slowly up to her. "Victoria? Victoria, are you okay? It's not time for you to be up yet."

"Mommy? Mommy, where'd you go?" Victoria asked.

The fact that Victoria was staring off into space and not even noticing my presence was a little concerning and it told me that she might be sleep walking. I would wake her up but I know that probably wouldn't be a good idea because I didn't want to scare her so I grabbed her hand lead gently up the stairs and back to bed.

"Mom? Why are you so mean?" Victoria mumbled. "You know what? Fuck you! I hate you and go to hell! I can't believe I loved you!"

I paused and covered my mouth with my hand to stifle a gasp. I mean I know things were bad between Victoria and her mother but my heart just broke knowing that Victoria loved her mother once upon a time. She probably even worshiped the very ground her mother walked on. I wonder why she started hating her mother so much?

I thought about waking her up but when I looked at the clock it was only 10am so I decided to let her sleep. Once I walked out of the room I heard the thumping noises again. This time I knew that it wasn't Victoria because she was sleeping in her bed. I heard the thumping noises going away from me towards the closet that leads to the attic.

That reminded me that I needed to replace the lightbulb in it. I went downstairs and grabbed my cell phone and as soon as I went back upstairs I heard the thumping noises again. I walked down the hallway towards the closet where the thumping noises were.

I tried the doorknob and the closet seemed like it was locked at first but then when I tried the doorknob again it opened. I used my cellphone to shine a light up at the ceiling and since I was tall I could easily reach the ceiling without a stepping stool. I pushed at the door that led to the attic trying to open it but it didn't budge.

I heard the thumping noises again and the door stayed shut as I kept trying to open. After a moment or two I stopped trying to open the door.

It scared the crap out of me when suddenly my phone went off. It was playing a custom made ringtone. It was the sound of me and friends chanting a song around the campfire. We were drunk and partying that night. When I heard the ringtone I tried not to laugh.

"We're all going to Hell… We're all going to Hell…"

After trying not to laugh at my ringtone after the third ring I answered the call. "Hello?"

"Yo, Walter! What's up? I haven't heard from you in a while," my best friend Aiden said.

I went back to the living room and sat down on the couch. "I'm doing alright, just busy with work. I started another live-in caretaker job today."

"Oh really? How long is the contract for this time?" Aiden asked.

"A year unless I want to renew it for longer," I answered. "Sorry I didn't pick up right away. I was too busy laughing at my ringtone on my phone."

Aiden chuckled. "You still have us doing that chanting? Yeah that ringtone never gets old. Just whatever you do, don't play that at church on Sunday."

I burst into laughter because Aiden knows that I don't go to church. But I am sort of a spiritual person still. I have morals and standards that I go by. I composed myself. "Yeah no, I would not only keep the ringtone on but I'd probably turn the volume up and I just might dance around because we know that's the easiest way to summon a portal to hell."

Aiden laughed even harder at that statement. When he stopped laughing he said, "So, what's your new client like and are they okay with me stopping in every once and a while for a visit?"

"Well my new client is a woman and as far as you dropping by goes I'll have to ask her about that," I said.

"Okay then, cool," Aiden said.

We talked a little bit on the phone about nothing and then Aiden hung up. I thought about going to see if I could open the door to the attic again but I changed my mind. Taking care of Victoria is my top priority, looking at things like the attic can wait.