Have you ever tried running holding a keyboard? It's surprisingly diffucult. Hold it sideways and you add resistance, slowing you down. Hold it upright to your chest and your arms aren't swinging, making your pace sluggish and awkward.

Myself, I ended up tucking it in my armpit, and throwing one foot in front of the other just fast enough to not trip over each other, letting the cord flail behind me.

Let me back up a little bit. I work for a guy named Eli. That's an entire story on it's own but today we're discussing Keith Kline. 

I pulled up to the gates of a non-metaphorical castle. Sprawling stone towers lined the edges of the property, connected by a dense iron fence. I wasn't surprised such a wealthy client had good security, but this looked more like a battle base setup than a residence. 

I was in the middle of a conversation that was the usual level of frustrating with Eli. 

"Yes, Eli, I rang the bell. 10 minutes ago. What do you want me to do, slip through the bars?"

"Would your ass fit through?"

I expelled a breath and dropped my forehead into my hand. 

"I swear to god, Eli."

"Okay, okay. Let me text him."

"Just call me bac-"

"Keep your britches on, witches."

I let out another sigh, and right before I'm about to tell Eli I'm adding a sarcasm service fee, the gate buzzes me in and the giant silver bars sway apart to let me in. I hang up on Eli.

I hop back in my truck and breeze on in, pretending not to notice the dozen or so armed guards posted all around me. 

Eli had given me just about no information about this guy except that his keyboard was malfunctioning and that it was a priority case. 

The door was THICK. Like, wrist to elbow thick and the sound the giant brass knocker made on it was like an ancient gong. It actually made me jump a little. 

The clients name was Keith, and after a few minutes of no answer, I called it out while knocking once more. 

I heard a strangled but firm "it's open" and gingerly pushed the massive door inwards. 

"Mr. Kline?" I wiped my feet on the mat and adjusted my duffel on my shoulder, padding through pristine carpets and slick hallways. I passed golden frames with assorted photos of wildlife, ranging from brightly colored frogs to the greyish white of polar bear fur. 

"It's in here."

I followed the voice to a main chamber of sorts, a big room filled with assorted chairs and tables, with a large Grey sectional as the centerpiece. 

I started at my first glance at the man on the couch, adjusting the bag on my shoulder to cover it. 

"Ah, hey there, Mr. Kline. You can call me Piper. Having some keyboard trouble today?" 

The man on the couch looked swollen, red. He looked like a man who'd recently gained a lot of weight, his skin stretched taut, his lips shiny. Something was off, though, something about his general shape? Like, someone had drawn in his dimensions from memory and some pieces were over or under inflated.

He spoke in short, measured bursts.

"Yes. I've been fiddling with the damned thing for 4 hours and I'm just about to my limit."

"Of course, that can be frustrating! Sometimes a fresh set of eyes is all you need." I smiled at him and he seemed to deflate a bit, settling more comfortably in his seat. His lips deplumped and I could see more of his pupil underneath his swollen cheek. 

I slung my bag over my shoulder and set it delicately on the ground. The case was padded so it's not like I would hurt anything in it, but something told me to tread carefully. 

"So, what's the story on this guy?" I gestured towards the keyboard sitting on his marble coffee table. 

He seemed to swell a bit at the question and I leaned a little away from him, unsure of, well, what the hell was going on in this guy's skin. 

"Well, I bought this computer from my no-good nephew," as he spoke, his neck began swelling, "he gave me this keyboard and it hasn't worked all morning. I have very important WORK that needs to get DONE," his voice got rougher, courser with every word he spoke. 

I took one hesitant step back from him and he flinched back in a mirror motion before heaving an enourmous sigh and seeming to collect himself. 

"Look," his neck was triple the size it was when I first walked in, but every breath he took lessened the swelling a bit, "I do day trading. My last computer fried itself somehow, and I'm losing thousands every minute I'm not online. My nephew knows this, but he had some party to go to and refused to stay to set it up. I'm not a tech guy, I'm a money guy."

By the time he'd finished his rant, he was back down to what I would call a dursley amount of swelling and had folded his plump red hands, as best he could, in his lap. 

Listen, I'm not trying to fatshame here. I've got some extra pounds on myself, which did not help with the eventual keyboard running. But I think the polite amount of fat to be is one where I can still fit in the room and I was beginning to suspect that there might not be a high enough ceiling for the both of us. I scoped out the exits, and frowned behind my back as I noted the only way in or out was the doorway I'd come through.

I offered him an empathetic smile and some platitudes while I inspected the keyboard, flipping it around in search of the offending piece. 

I am awful at small talk, but I got the feeling that I needed to lay on the emotional support a little thicker with this one. 

"Day trading sounds cool. You making the big bucks, huh?"

He smiled, "I do okay."

"How come you didn't just go out for a new one?"

He sighed. "My nephew has been down on his luck and needed the cash. I should have just given him some and gotten a new one in addition. By the time I'd resigned myself to it, I was...well, you can see my condition."

I measured my response options for that one. Someone talking about their own condition is one thing, anyone else talking about it is a minefield I wasn't ready to tread carelessly on. Plus, at his highest point, he'd resembled some kind of demonic bullfrog, so in addition to my experience dealing with Eli, I was pretty sure this was no human disease. 

"Yeah, that must be really frustrating. If my livelihood depended on me keeping calm, half this city would be craters."

He regarded me a moment.

"You're a swift one. Most don't put it together so quickly," he seemed to be calming quite a bit and deflating into what, despite all logic, seemed to look like just an average sized dude. Maybe 230, at 6 foot something? The resemblance to the frog demon he was moments ago almost vanished. 

He had green eyes and sand blonde hair, slightly crooked front teeth and a full bottom lip. His skin showed no massive drooping, despite being four times it's size just moments ago. 

"Thanks, man. Speaking of my illustrious intelligence, I think I've figured out your issue. The batteries in this thing are rusted to hell. Let me q-tip some coke on this bad boy and it should be good,"

At the mention of more delay, he seemed to swell a bit but pushed it down and nodded. 

"In the meantime, I've got a spare here, so why don't I go ahead and set you up so you can get working? I'll fix the wireless guy after I've got you going,"

He fully deflated and gave me a charming smile that amusingly bellied the monstrosity he was a minute ago. 

I popped my spare keyboard on the thing and booted her up. A loading screen for Linux came up, causing a shoot of anxiety to spear my belly. There's no fucking way this finance bro used linux. I spared a weary glance his way, and he was squinting at the screen. My breath stopped. He had no idea what this was. 

"Okay, Keith," I hadn't used his first name yet but I was putting all my charm and tricks into this sentence, so first name it was, "I am guessing this does not look familiar to you."

He shook his head, and the couch creaked. His face started swelling first, then his chest, slowly inflating more and more as I slowly rose from my squat. 

"Lewis told me it was all ready with all my software...I've been waiting HOURS. Why would he lie to me like that? Does he have any idea how much fucking money he's losing me?"

The stech of rotten eggs filled the room and I frantically searched my mental weird-ictionary. Doesn't rotten egg smell normally come from the demonic? Or is that only in the old English lore? 

I flicked a glance at the doorway, this man was expanding way too fast. He already took up half the couch, like a satisfied tick, full of blood. There were no flaps, no folds of fat, it looked as though he were being blown up at the fair into a big fat balloon. 

"Keith, listen to me. I will break the speed limit and I will go get you the best computer I can find," as I began to babble, black soot started to leak out of his nostrils, "KEITH, look at me. I'm a NERD, Keith, I know exactly what kind of computer would work best for you, I will set you up and you won't need to buy a computer for decades."

"THAT. LITTLE. FUCKER," he was lost, a stream of obscenities and curses leaking steadily out of his flat, smothered, mouth. Black streaks started making their way down his chest as his mouth began to leak the substance as well. 

I glanced longingly at the door, but the couch was at an awkward angle right next to it, and he'd clearly lost control of himself. I was nervous to run. Was he going to explode, making any attempts to run useless? Would running just piss him off more, hastening whatever the fuck was the culmination of this swelling?

I swallowed heavily, reaching for tact I wasn't sure I had. 

"Mr. KLINE," I almost screamed his name, courtesy now dumped out the window. His eyes flicked towards me, or at least I think they did. It was becoming hard to see them.

"You're making me nervous, and I fart when I'm nervous!" I was just about shouting this as well, which felt utterly ridiculous, but if there's one thing I know about anger, it's that humor is it's mortal enemy. I was just hoping I could distract him just enough to listen to reason. 

It worked. He gave me the most flabbergasted look a human bouncy ball can muster and then exploded in laughter, shrinking in seizing, jerking segments. 

I gave him a sheepish smile back, and a little shrug, before taking a deep breath and continuing.

"If there's anything you can do online, there's a browser in Linux and it works mostly the same as any other browser. I'm sure there's some of your work you can do there. Give me a few hours and I'll go get you whatever you want and set it up for you, okay? easy peezy, lemon squeezy?" 

He had halved in size, then quartered, then finally shrank down back to the human face I'd seen before. He wiped a tear from his eye, now miraculously open and wrinkle-less, though still stained from the soot. He almost looked like he'd been crying with mascara, if it weren't for the deep black stains around his mouth as well. 

I stretched my chest with a relieved sigh and cautiously turned back to the desktop. It was loaded up by this point and I froze in place. The screen had a picture of a flat blue hat with a shield on the front and the login was 'OURTOWNPD'. 

I felt his gaze sharpen behind me and the room got 20 degrees hotter, like I was a bun being shoved in the oven, suddenly surrounded by heat. I turned in a cringe, to face what I was sure had to be a man on fire. I was not prepared for what I saw.

The moment I turned around seemed to be the culminating moment of his transition, he was full on Violet Beauregaurd, swollen to be almost perfect cylilndrical. It would have been cartoonishly hilarious if I weren't SURE I were about to lose my life. Or at least a bunch of my skin.

Just then, he popped. It was a surprisingly quiet sound, and it had the visuals of the skin popping off of a grape. His skin seemed to just slide off, like a balloon on a ball of ice, and what was revealed rooted me to the ground. 

He stood easily over 7 feet. My doubt about the ceilings doubled at this point. But more importantly, he looked NOTHING like he did before. He was dark, blood red, so rich I wondered if he weren't inside out. But the skin was sinewy, rough, leathery. He stood on two legs inverted, like a satyr, ending at blackened hooves on the feet and claws on the hands. The head was all bone. I was so far outside the human realm of understanding, all I could do was gape like a guppy, looking him up and down. 

There was no skin on the face and neck, so I cannot fathom how, but a strangled voice seemed to bite out, "RUN," so I did. I didn't think about the keyboard in my arms but I didn't want to just fling it. Professionalism was still a thing, I guess. 

Sweat absolutely poured off me, both due to being a fatass who suddenly had to sprint and the house now feeling like the inside of a pizza oven. The soot was everywhere now, leaking out of the walls, up from the floorboard cracks, creating pitch black splatters. I almost slipped on it but waved my arms around like a madwoman, using the keyboard to catch wind resistance. Knew that thing would come in handy. 

I booked it out the front door, hearing that thing crashing through the hall, stomping though the floorboards. As I scrambled over the lawn, I turned and caught sight of the door, frame included, busting down in a bundle of smoke. 

I turned frontward and sprinted another ten feet before chancing a look behind me, and at this point I realized two facts. One, the many guards posted around were shooting the former Mr. Kline with what looked like tranquilizer darts, but they were cartoonishly large, filled with bubbling purple goo. The second realization was that I was never making it to the gate before he caught up with me. Each of the monsters steps were gobbling up 3 times my height, stomping out the distance between us with each stride. I might have well have been a toddler making an escape at the mall from a tired parent.

The best defense against Demons is some sigil of faith, but as crazy as this is going to sound, I'm an atheist. As many supernatural spooks that I've seen, the big guy in the sky just wasn't one of them I'd ever been moved towards. My brain flooded with every meaningful thing in my life. A picture of my family or friends? My phone? Maybe I could just drop to my knees and pray to whatever listened? 

No, I'd had my experiences with the Ole ethereal CB radio and it had not gone well. That's a tale for another time, but it is also why I never trust a mime. 

I stopped running to give myself a nanosecond to think. Can't think and chew bubblegum at the same time. 

In desperation, I pushed my hands in my pockets and pulled them inside out like a cartoon pauper. A small silver object fell against the rock littered walkway.

I swooped down and picked it up, inspiration finally striking. I popped back up and held it up toward Kline, in a last ditch effort. 

"Recovery Key!" I squealed.

I don't know if it worked, or if that purple goo had finally permeated that thick red skin, but the monster stopped somewhat sleepily, swaying. It cocked it's head like a confused puppy and took a slow, labourous step forward. I flinched backward but it grunted urgently and pitched a small patch of goo at me, which I dodged like it were acid. Before I knew what happened, it sat childishly on the ground, slamming shockwaves through the cement under us. 

I kept looking from him, to the object, and back again. I slowly, very slowly, bent to pick it up, never losing eye (bone??) contact. 

I snatched the object, booked it back to the gate and squeezed through. It turns out my ass indeed almost did not fit, but I wiggled it out. I would come back or get reimbursed for my poor, sweet truck, but there was no way I was staying another second in there. 

As I peaked through the bars, I saw Kline begin to dissolve, almost like those bad CGI videos where someone ages a ton in a short time. The dark red skin turned grey, ashed away and began to blow in the wind. The guards seemed to relax, so I guess that's what happens at the end of...that. 

When I finally caught my breath and came up from being doubled over, I scraped the object on my pants, wiping the black traces of goo and blood off of it. 

It was a credit card. 

Guess I'm going back. Hopefully he's calmed down...or regenerated? His body dissolved, half of it was already swept into the street. I don't know how his form gets back in his human body or if he's possessing humans and stealing them?

Regardless, I'm in an uber now, going to get him a computer. I know most of you are going to tell me to quit and that it's not worth it, but Eli pays too well and I have student loans. In addition, he's intimated that leaving his employ would be much more difficult than entering it. And entering it was no cake walk.

I'm hoping he'll be calmer when I get back, and that no startup issues bring back the red menace. 

Because I was lucky this time, but they were shooting him for a solid 30 seconds from several dozen directions before he even slowed down. 

What happens when they run out of goo? 

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