Ouija (Part Two)

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

Will and Graham were stunned into silence, and they chose to stay exactly where they were, half in and half out of the doorway, at least until they sensed a movement behind them. A spider as big as a collie, black and shiny with a complex spiral pattern on its abdomen, clambered over the half stripped bannister, lowered itself to the tiles on a silken thread and scampered off into the kitchen. It was followed by a slightly smaller one, and the two men decided that they would be safer in the back room with the abomination rather than in the hall. “Sit down, please,” the thing in the armchair said. Will closed the door, and they did as they were asked.

The creature was the size of a small man, it had a head and two arms and two legs, but that was where the resemblance to a human being ended. Its skin had the appearance of furnace coke, it was lumpy and grey and pitted; in places it was cracked, and a nauseating bloody yellow fluid seeped out, dripping onto the carpet and the upholstery. Its upper limbs, which were long and spindly, ended in three fingered hands with curved black claws, and they were jointed in several places. Its lower limbs were more stoutly built and covered in dirty white fur, and they ended in huge, flattened hooves with iron shoes nailed to the bottoms. The creature's head was way too big for its body. Its huge mouth, which cut its head neatly in two, was lined with irregular yellow teeth, and a thick purple tongue snaked in and out. Its watery eyes, set in deep sockets, were the worst feature of all; they were a pale baby blue, and in a human face it would be easy to make the mistake of thinking that they were full of compassion.

“I see you don't care much for my appearance,” the thing said. “I'll change it for something less alarming if you wish, then you won't have to gaze on my Satanic ghastliness while we chat.” All of a sudden a chubby old man sat in the monster's place, a big smile spreading across his face, and he had the same watery blue eyes. “Better?”

“Marginally,” Graham mumbled. “What..... what do you want?”

“I'm about to explain that,” Bertie said. “Let's get down to the nitty-gritty. This is the deal, my friends, this is how it amuses me to do business. I want each of you to give me the name of someone in your close family that you're willing to sacrifice. It could be an old person on the verge of death, it could be a newborn baby, I'm not particularly fussed. The fun of the matter is that you each have to choose someone – someone you don't particularly like, maybe, or perhaps there's no one in your families that you dislike, in which case you'll have to choose someone less deserving of agonising eternal damnation. Don't try inventing false names, it's a common trick and I'm wise to it, I'll know if you do that, believe me. Give me a name, each of you, and I'll let you be and take your chosen victims instead. Isn't that awfully nice of me? You've got five minutes, and if I don't have two bona_fide names by then I'm taking you both home with me.”

“That's very nice of you,” Will said. “I hope you've sorted out somewhere comfy for us to sleep - or, maybe, our carefully selected stand-ins - and made sure that the freezer's stocked up with tasty goodies. And I hope you've arranged some good company, that's frightfully important, you know.”

“Indeed, I have arranged everything I could possibly need to make the stay of my guests at Château Bertie, ummm..... comfortable, shall we say.”

“I should bloody well think so,” Will said, pacing around the room while Graham gave him a 'What the fuck do you think you're playing at?' look. “I'd hate to get to your place only to find that it's a filthy, stinking hovel and you haven't aired the beds, changed the sheets and fluffed up the pillows for us.”

“No no, my place is a veritable palace, boys, and you – or your stand-ins – will love it. You've got three minutes left.”

“I have something that might interest you, Bertie, if you'll allow me to get it,” Will said, approaching the bureau.

“Fair enough, but no foolish tricks – don't think of shooting me or stabbing me, because it won't work, you can't harm me that way. Two minutes.....”

Will opened the bureau and pulled out an old, fancy looking bottle of dark blue glass, making sure that the label was concealed by his hand, and as he approached the demon he pulled out the stopper. “Smell this, Bertie,” he said. “It's a divine substance from a place beyond this planet, I think you'll like it.” He shook the contents of the bottle in the monster's face, the liquid instantly turning its baby blue eyes white and eating into its skin like acid. “Taste holy water from Lourdes, Bertie, you fucking freak!”

Bertie squealed like a girl and covered his face with his hands, his flesh dropping off in great swathes, but beneath the man flesh the grey thing was unharmed. It stepped out of its dissolving hide as casually as someone taking off a bathrobe, and it grinned malevolently at Will. “Time up, boys. Thought I'd fall that easily, did you?” Bertie growled, grabbing Will's head in its smoking hands, its red hot claws burning straight through his cheeks. Will opened his mouth to scream, and the monster's long purple tongue slipped down his throat, sucking him dry in seconds.

Graham turned and fled, yanking open the door only to find the hall crammed with monster spiders. His legs turned to jelly as he turned around, and he witnessed a stream of smaller, faster many-legged horrors tumbling down the chimney and scuttling towards him. “Shall I let the spiders have you, or shall I suck you dry myself?” Bertie said, casting aside Will's dry, almost weightless husk like an empty sweet wrapper. “It's a difficult choice, but I think I'll be selfish and take you myself.” The creature grabbed Graham's face and squeezed with its hot claws until he opened his mouth, and its tongue slipped in and began to do its wicked work. One of the monsters clawed hands shot under Graham's ribcage and pulled out his still beating heart, gleefully showing it to its former owner and swallowing it whole before the last vestige of life flickered out of his eyes.