A Crackling Rapport

The storm grows thick as the night wears on.

 

I can't feel the floor beneath me. The walls are so bare and this room, so dark. It causes me to grimace at how small it makes me feel. The furious air seeps through the cracks in the thin walls, like it wants to get in and tear apart whatever's left of me. The freezing cold inside is starting to burn.

 

I don't know if I can take much more of this. I don't--

 

"You must be Kieran."

 

I must not have been paying attention, because suddenly I'm not sitting on the floor anymore and my heart's starting to beat uselessly. It still beats occasionally when I think of something that makes me nervous or afraid, as if taunting me, an ineffectual tattoo beating against the walls of my unpalpable chest. Remember when you needed me, it whispers hatefully. Remember when I needed you.

 

"And wh-who are you?" There's no one there. There's no one there. There's . . .

 

But wait--why should I be afraid? I'm the dead guy in the room, and this is my own house. Was. Was my own house.

 

I ask again, more pressure in my voice this time, more self-righteous authority.

 

"Who are you? Why are you here? How do you know my name?"

 

"Ah." The voice chuckles, the b*****d. "So many questions, Grasshopper. Patience is key, right? Just relax. Relax. Let me tell you a story."

 

"A story? Seriously?"

 

"Yeah, one I think you'll appreciate. See, once there was a Civil War--"

 

"No! Really?"

 

"Yes, really." Apparently the voice is either dumb to sarcasm or is a smart-a*s itself. "There was once a prominent family, surnamed Montgomery, whose father and three sons were killed not at war, but upon returnin' to their plantation back home in the sweet land of the South. The mother, two little girls, and the youngest boy were killed beforehand."

 

"Well, who killed them? Yankee soldiers?"

 

"Nah, vampires disguised as Yankee soldiers."

 

"Smart-a*s."

 

"No, I'm serious. And I ain't finished."

 

"Whatever. Hey, if I'm going to have to listen to you for a long period of time, the least you can do is show me yourself. Then at least I can laugh at your sorry a*s inside my own head."

 

"If it would make you feel better," the voice says dryly.

 

"It really would," I reply.

 

There's a pause, and I wonder if maybe I really have snapped, but then a figure begins to form in a corner of the attic, a shapeless, rudimentary dark gray hole for a moment, then slowly taking shape: a black leather jacket, dark jeans stained with a darker matter, a good-looking but somehow simultaneously murderous face, even while wearing a smile. Like a shark, just like a shark.

 

And then I realize. Or think I do.

 

"You're . . . You're him," I whisper. "You're the boy who lived here . . . before."

 

To my surprise, instead of agreeing, he laughs. A hold-your-sides-don't-hold-back kind of laugh. Like what I just said was the funniest thing in the world.

 

"No," he says after he pulls himself together. "No way. That human guy," he says, like he's teasing someone not present. "Oh, no, that ain't me."

 

"Then . . . who are you?"

 

He laughs again, actually wipes a tear out of his . . . his red eye. "I'm the Devil," he says, waxing charming. "Welcome to Hell."

 

Outside, lightning flashes and then, less than a second later, thunder rumbles.

"Looks like the trick'er'treaters're gettin' their playtime cut short tonight," the stranger drawls.

 

I say nothing. And then somewhere the little elf people in control of my slow mind connect the wires and the electricity sparks a flare at last.

 

"It's Halloween!" My jaw falls open.

 

The Devil cracks a grin, making his cold eyes glint, icy, otherworldly.

 

"What was your first clue, kiddo? 'Round here it's Halloween every day of the year." Faster than the eye can follow, he comes across the dark, cramped room and stands before me. He reeks of smoke and sulfur. And something sickly sweet.

"Can you hear me?" He taps a long, cold finger to my forehead. I jerk away instinctively.

 

"N-No."

 

"Didn't think so." He grabs me by the shoulders, holds his palm to the side of my head, and whispers, "Hear me."

 

I try to squirm out of the grasp of this thing, this monster, but I find I can't move. I can't even blink. But it doesn't last long, and he--or it--steps back, making my strength fly out the nooks and crannies I've built up in the last few minutes. My knees go weak and if I were human I would have crashed to the floor. Things being as they are, I sink into the floor, my legs disappearing through the woodwork to the thigh.

 

For a minute, things are normal. Nothing's changed.

 

But then.

 

So what do you do for fun, Ghostboy?

 

No.

 

Yes.

 

NO! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!

 

Not likely. I'm a parasite, kid. I'm lookin' to stick around for a

long time.

 

The Devil smirks in triumph, disappearing in a thin, translucent cloud of hellsmoke.

Author's Note

This is from Kieran's POV. :]

Reviews

[Shep]

Well that was different, not what I expected at all. Oh hell it was fantastic. Great way draw me in. Now you have to keep hooked with more chapters. If you could see me I have one of those silly grinns. Get busy writing so can read more.