Natalie Mcallister can’t quite understand why her first day of Senior year is going so terribly wrong so terribly early.

“Hey, do me a favor and kill me, Mike,” she groans, slamming her forehead against her locker with a drawn out whine. Her friend jumps abruptly at the sudden noise, a hand darting to his chest.

He purses his lips in concern. Michael awkwardly pats her in reassurance, the gesture mechanical and forced.

“I’d never do that to you,” Michael smiles, returning the misery in Natalie’s eyes with a sense of compassion. 

“Bad day?” he asks after a long hesitation. He watches her posture right itself, Natalie running her hands down her face with a sigh.

The events of the morning flash behind her eyelids like the reel of an old movie: the broken alarm clock, the bad hair day, the misplacement of expensive textbooks, and missing the bus. She knows she grabbed her backpack, but it feels suspiciously light, which is starting to build a sense of dread deep inside her gut.

Natalie’s stomach chooses this very moment to let out a miserable rumble.

“You could say that, yeah.”

Michael shifts his feet, closing his locker. “Want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

Dumping her morning woes onto her best friend doesn’t seem fair. Natalie swallows the grumbling she’s tempted to let loose, choosing to offer him a smile instead of a complaint.

“Thank you, Michael. I’m sure it’s just an off morning. I’ll bounce back.” As if to prove it, Natalie gives him two hearty slaps to his shoulder that has him stumbling. He returns her grin, convinced that she’s telling him the truth.

“I’ve got to babysit after school today, but I’m free tonight if you wanted to watch a movie or something. Take your mind off it,” he offers, running his hands through his short hair. Michael anxiously averts his eyes before darting them back to her face.

The bell rings, drawing the attention of the students in the hall, abruptly cutting their brief conversation to a halt. Natalie nods, struggling to open her locker which appears to be jammed. After a punch or two, it finally opens. She shoves what little contents in her backpack inside.

“It’s a date.”

She doesn’t catch the excitement that bleeds into his cheeks, too preoccupied with her bookbag.

“Do you, uh. Want me to wait for you?”

Natalie notices him watching the thinning herd of students exiting the hallway. His body language is antsy, but she knows he’s too kind to leave her there alone to be late by herself. She smiles at him, waving him away.

“I’ll catch up to you.”

Michael almost protests before he reluctantly acquiesces, bumping into her shoulder playfully on his way out. When he’s no longer there, Natalie hurries to take stock of her school supplies and mentally curses. There are definitely missing pens and binders.

Well, that explains the lightweight backpack.

This is going to be a long day, she bemoans, silently wondering why everything has gone to hell on today of all days.

It isn’t like her to let minor, petty things get to her on a more than superficial level. But for an unknown reason this morning, every small setback seems to be more irritating; like a pebble wedged inside a shoe.

As Natalie organizes her belongings, aware of the few straggling teenagers in the now empty hallway, she feels the familiar but unwelcome throb against her side.

A hand runs against her abdomen, soothing the growing ache with a long exhale through her nostrils. If she remembers correctly, it is about that time of the month. A week of mood swings, bloating, and feeling like the gutted carcass of a dying seal is surely all she has to look forward to, if this foreboding pain is anything to go by.

“Why today?” she mutters, the will to go on dwindling. The cherry on top of a shit cake.

The heavy slab of metal gives a final thud, slamming shut after the last of the students exit the building and take refuge in their respected classrooms. Natalie straightens, peering around the empty hall that’s doing a mighty good impression of a ghost town.

She’s going to be late, there is no doubt about that. 

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me.” Natalie leans over her backpack like a wilted flower when finding an empty stall, two lone feminine products in her bag. Pads. “What happened to my tampons?”

She shakes the backpack in her annoyance. A pencil and eraser land atop her sneaker, scratching her bare shin along the way. She fingers at a hole in the bottom of the bag, lilting sideways and resting her temple against the wall.

“This day cannot possibly get any worse.”

As if on cue, another stab of pain slices across her abdomen. Natalie cradles her side with a whine that’s overshadowed by the final bell’s chime. She sits alone in the silence of the restroom, miserable and in agony.

After the ache subsides, she reaches into her bag and pulls out a pad, tearing it’s wrapper off quickly in her haste. It won’t ease the cramping, but it’s a definite necessity for the day.

She idly notes the new design on the item, tracing the pattern with her eyes briefly before shrugging it off. Companies putting designs on products like this make no sense. It’s not like it’s an item that’s going to be looked at for long, so why waste the money on any kind of beautification?

She buttons her shorts, zipping up her backpack with the knowledge that she’ll have to forgo her plans for a movie tonight to go to the store for a replacement bag and some proper hygiene products.

Natalie tugs at the back of her shorts in annoyance, shimmying in place. “I always feel like I’m wearing a diaper with these things-”

Unexpectedly, the bathroom door swings open, shutting definitively as someone steps into the restroom, leaving the two of them alone.

Natalie smothers her mouth quickly with her palms, embarrassment bleeding up her neck. They didn’t hear that, did they? Gosh, she really hopes they didn’t hear her talking to herself. Natalie lifts her feet up, resting on the toilet in hopes that they haven’t noticed her presence.

To save face, it’s probably best to stay silent until they use the restroom and leave, just in case. But . . .

There is no other sound in the room, no footsteps to indicate they’ve moved away from the door, nor the shifting of clothing. Natalie cranes her head, trying to peer out of the narrow crack between the stall door and the wall, but all that’s visible is part of the edge of a sink.

Why isn’t she using the toilet? Natalie thinks, baffled. She grips her backpack to her chest, leaning forward and raising her nose to the air.

They aren’t smoking, and Natalie’s sure people don’t come into the bathroom to drink in private. Besides, who would want to drink at eight in the morning, anyway? So what is she doing?

Then, carefully, she makes out the sound of footsteps. Slow, heavy, confident. Natalie isn’t sure what to do when they stop just outside of her stall. She feels an anxious shiver down her back when she glances down.

Those absolutely aren’t the feet of a teenage girl. Stiff, frozen now, Natalie stares at two large feet, wrapped in what appears to be weathered leather sandals. They wait patiently, unmoving.

Even with hands over her mouth and nose, she wonders if they can hear her breathing. How else would they know what stall she’s in? She didn’t make a peep. Who is this weirdo?

“U-um, it’s occupied,” Natalie offers when her nerves get the best of her. Perhaps if she acknowledges them they’ll leave her alone?

When they still refuse to move, she swallows around the lump in her throat and digs blindly for the pepper spray she knows her dad stashes in her bookbag. If some pervert wants to get off on pestering girls in high school restrooms, then she’s not gonna sit quietly about it.

“I said- What the . . . ?”

The stranger shifts their feet finally. They must’ve been slouching or something, because when they curl their fingers slow and sure over the top of the stall door and rise up, Natalie gawks, gobsmacked, at a pair of . . . horns?

The door is suddenly jerked back, enough force to break the lock, but still keep it on its hinges. The bolts fly across the room, hitting the wall like ball bearings fired from a BB gun. Natalie yelps, wincing away from the impact as they clatter to the tiles. Her hands are shaking when she holds out the pepper spray container, aiming it at the stranger now slipping in through the broken door.

There are no words to conjure up in her shock, wide eyed in disbelief as a shirtless man in a tattered skirt towers over her with a look of murder in his eyes. The amber flashes when his eyes narrow, like polished gold bathed in sunlight. His lip peels over his teeth in a sneer as he takes in the sight of the speechless teenager pointing a canister towards his torso.

Natalie wonders idly in her shock if she’s seeing things when the red of his horns - Oh my God, those are real life horns - bleeds like an over saturated watercolor canvas into the dwindling yellow tips.

The already small stall feels like a closet as he takes a step inside. Everything about him radiates intimidation, from the taught wall of muscle, to the rigid clench of his sharp jawline.

“Oh my God,” Natalie breathes.

He reaches forward, liquid fluidity, and plucks the canister from her hands, raising his eyebrow with less than no amusement. “Not quite.”

She’s given no warning to react, too distracted by the deep rumble of his gruff voice. He places his foot against the lip of the toilet seat, bending in half to rest his elbow against his knee. The tight lipped smile on his face doesn’t reach his eyes when he taps her nose. “Little girl, where am I?”

It takes a moment to arrange the words properly against her tongue. Natalie wets her lips. “My, um, my high school.”

The stranger hums a sound of acknowledgment. “I see. And why am I in a bathroom?”

Natalie shifts. “Because you’re a pervert?”

His smile pulls tighter, the veins in his neck prominent, now. Natalie can’t look away from the way his eyes glimmer in the red luminescence of his horns. He looks like a very pretty bug zapper.

“You think you’re being funny, don’t you?”

“Not particularly. What do you want from me, exactly? Just take it and go.” As if to prove herself genuine, Natalie holds up her worn out backpack to him in an offering. The stranger bats it away. She can clearly see she has offended him this time.

“Your soul.”

Natalie’s eyes dart away, peering in confusion at his pinched expression. Did she just hear that right?

“Excuse me?”

“I said, I want your soul. Which leaves me baffled because I don’t see any blood offering around here, do you? So, why would I want your soul? Clearly I do, though, because I wouldn’t just poof into some random crapper for a measly little soul because I enjoy that sort of thing, would I? That isn’t something I just do, is it?” The stranger’s tone rises in his hysterics, a disbelieving string of laughter booming from inside of him.

She doesn’t know what to say. Natalie idly wonders if this is a prank of some sort. There’s no way this is real. But who would want to pull something like this on her? Surely not her dad or Michael. What even is the punchline for this exchange, anyway?

Her phone sits heavy in her pocket, the urge to report this half naked madman to the police growing more palpable by the minute.

“Listen, I don’t know what you’re talking about-” she starts, but is silenced but a finger in her face. He’s no longer smiling.

“I have a contract with you, girl. I have a contract with you and I’m trying to figure out how,” he sneers, his words acidic. “How did you know to summon me? You don’t look like you’re into the occult. Jesus Christ, you look like Polly Pocket.”

Natalie frowns as he looks her up and down, revulsion evident on his face.

“I told you. I don’t know what’s going on, either. You barged in on me, remember?”

The stranger opens his mouth to retort when he pauses. Something catches his eye, and before Natalie can twist around to see what it is, the color bleeds out of his face and he lunges forward.

Natalie is thrown from the stall, forced onto her hands and knees with a grunt. Quickly, she turns and sees him with the discarded wrapper in his trembling hands. He opens his mouth and closes it a few times like a dying trout on land, then storms towards her.

The wrapper is thrust into her eye line without so much as a warning.

“Where did you get this?” he demands. There’s a cocktail of emotions flitting across his features, but Natalie catches disbelief, anger, and - is that fear? “Well?” he insists.

“At the grocery store. They’re new, I think. What’s the big deal?” Natalie uncomfortably pushes the wrapper away from her face, her nose scrunching when she remembers the waste bin it had just been sticking out of.

It’s a peaceful Wednesday morning in August and here she is being interrogated by a crossdressing pad fanatic. Natalie bites her lip, her fingers itching for her cell phone.

If the stranger notices, it doesn’t appear that he seems to care. His wide torso looms over her like an eclipse to the bulbs above them, a grip so tight against her forearm that it causes her to wince. When he speaks again, he’s close enough to feel the warmth of his breath against her cheeks.

“What. Store.” His words are no louder than a soft utterance, but they’re soaked with sulfur. “Take me to it.”

The request . . . No, this isn’t a request. His demand echoes inside the confines of her skull before the meaning of what it entails sinks in. She balks.

“Wh-what? Here? Now?”

He pulls her to her feet with no more effort than it would take to lift a jacket to wear. Natalie is beside herself at the strength contained in this man. She’s never met someone who can effortlessly break a lock with just one tug, or lift an entire person with only one hand.

“I need to see it for myself. You wouldn’t dare lie to me.” There is a threat in his warning as he scopes her over.

“Wait, wait, stop! Slow down, already! Who is ‘me’?” Natalie blurts, drunk off her confusion.

The stranger shoots the baffled girl a pointed look down the bridge of his nose, pressing his lips together in contemplation. She doesn’t know what he sees when he looks at her, but it makes him slacken his grip enough to slink out of.

She rubs at the abused skin of her arm, raising her eyebrows into her hairline as the lights flicker above them. She watches them hesitantly before directing her attention back to the bare chested stranger.

The air is different somehow. There’s a static looming between them, raising the hairs on her arms when it touches her flesh.

Natalie takes an unsure step away as the lights give a final gasp. Blanketed in a dimness, save for the fire in his feverish gaze, she can almost swear his shadow is slithering across the floor, hissing like vipers around his ankles.

The stranger juts his chin up and bears his teeth in a rueful smile, sharp like daggers and just as deadly.

“A shame. But it looks like you’ve just sold your soul to the Devil, kid.”