Super Charged

Follow the narrator as he summons a demon using not a soul, but a battery. Chaos and hilarity ensues.

I had everything set up correctly, I think. A star within a pentagram within a circle, each point illuminated by a candle. I got as many of the called for herbs from the local farmers' market, but what couldn't be found there I got from the spice aisle in the supermarket. I figured fresh and organic was better, but I didn't know enough to know if there were things you could substitute. And I was only going to risk one substitution today.

I got out the piece of paper I had the Latin phrases typed, with their phonetic pronunciations penciled in over the top.

Here goes nothing.

I had a bowl of sage close by if I had to dispel the demon, but nothing was certain as I was switching out the main ingredient of the summoning: the soul. I began the chant smoothly, having practiced all the words and phrases for hours before starting. I felt the energy in the room building up, and I got a little nervous as well.

Palms beginning to sweat, I got to the last line. Now for the real test. The summoning ritual called for a bronze knife to be plunged into the sacrifice's chest. If I was right, this would satisfy the first half, and I would be left with the business of making a very carefully worded deal with a demon. If I was wrong, I would be electrocuted before it was even finished, and possibly release a partially summoned demon loose on Earth.

I swung the knife into the battery, closing my eyes at the last second. I felt a light jolt, then nothing. Opening my eyes and fearing the worst. Before me in the circle stood the demon, and the essence from the battery swirled as a bright blue light in the collection bowl at my feet. Wicked.

"Alright, let's get started-" I began.

"Deal!" interrupted the demon.

"Pardon?"

"Whatever you want kid, it's a deal. You could ask for my rotted mother's corpse to be reanimated and for her to be set as President of the United States and I'd say yes. Deal, deal, deal, deal, deal!"

"Holy s**t," I said.

"An odd choice," the demon commented, "but it can be done. Nice doing business; with this much juice I can probably take on Hades." In a puff of a acrid sulfur cloud he was gone.

It had been four days since I summoned the demon that gave me a free ticket, which I then mistakenly squandered on divine dumps. After the initial shock wore off, two things became my priority: 1. Get more of everything that I had just used exactly so I could summon another demon, and 2. Take a poop.

I ended up doing number two first. I wasn't sure to expect, so it took a while for everything to happen. It wasn't exactly a transcendent experience, but I left the bathroom with a sense of well-being I hadn't felt in some time.

I had to wait a day until the farmer's market was open again, so I spent that day picking up what I could at the store. It seemed to be a blustery autumn day, but I didn't feel a breeze at all. I chalked it up to my exultant excretion. The next morning I woke up freezing cold, even though it wasn't supposed to be below 70 degrees all day. There was frost on the windows, and I could see my breath in front of my face.

My groggy mind couldn't take in the implications right away. "The f**k? I swear if the landlord did this because I was late last month I'm moving." That's when I saw it. Scratched onto the frost on the window, just one word: More.

Shivers ran up and down my spine, and for my sanity I assumed it was from the cold. More. I'd heard of practitioners joining with the demons they summoned, and communing with them, but I hadn't even touched this one. He shouldn't have a connection with me to even reach out to me like this. Unless one simple, little battery was enough to make him powerful enough to reach me without help?

I didn't leave my apartment that day, and even though it was 80 degrees outside I had the heat on. The frost took an unnaturally long time to melt. I hated to do it, but I needed help. I made up my mind to go the last place on earth I wanted to go: church- and it wasn't even a Sunday.

I walked briskly towards the steeple that was visible from every part of town. Reaching the church, the large door seemed ominous and forbidding. I opened the doors and walked through. A sign inside the entrance read: "Confessions 4:30 - 6:30." I tried to remember what verse that was, then realized that's where you go in the box and tell the bald guy your deep dark past. I shrugged, there were worse ways to tell a servant of God you summoned a demon.

I walked into the box, and sat on one side of the grate, not being able to see the priest on the other side.

I began, "Father, I have a problem. I've done something wrong."

"I'd say," came the reply, "You should've called me hours ago."

"You know what I did?" I asked, thinking he could somehow tell that a demon had entered Earth through my misdeeds. The partition was suddenly pulled back, and I saw the priest.

His eyes were red.

"I was hoping you'd ring, so we could talk like normal," he began, "I need more buddy.. More!"

I started to get up slowly.

"You don't text, you don't call, you don't draw a pentagram and chant in Latin! I have to burn up precious energy just to jump into this lump of a man!"

I got up and ran from the confessional box, out of the church, and through the streets, not really with a destination in mind, just getting away.

Still sitting in the booth, the demon giggled, started to get up, was struck with inspiration, and sat back down.

The next parishioner entered the booth.

"What have we been doing, my child?"

I slowed to a walk, tired of running, and I had to think. If he found me in the church, where would I be safe hiding? Looking around, I saw a neon sign for a Mexican Family Diner. Thinking it was as good a place as any to try and hide, I went inside.

I ended up getting a burrito and one of those cool orange sodas, and when the burrito arrived it was the size of my plate. I was a just finishing my burrito when the door swung open, and I could just feel him walk in.

He slid into the booth across from me and stared at me, grinning. He slowly folded his hands, looked down at his hands, frowned, and put them flat on the table.

"For such a large guy you sure got here fast," I said. I put the rest of my food down on my plate, appetite gone.

"The leg muscles on this guy are insane," he said. "I think all the standing up, sitting down, kneeling, then standing again actually gives him a work out."

"So," I hoped to get him talking, "I think we got off on the wrong foot. My name is Jake, and yours is?"

"Hah!" he laughed, "Fat chance. You can use this guy's name," he pointed to himself, "Donny."

"So, Donny, what would it take for you to just leave me alone?"

He thought about it for a second. "I'd think about, say, a couple hundred more summonings with exchanges ought to do it."

"A couple hundred?" I gaped. "You went from what I guess can be called normal to creepy ex-boyfriend stalker with just one, I don't know what a few hundred more will do to you."

"How about this:" he countered, "either you give me more artificial juice, or I'll start collecting on everyone close to you. I already made a couple, ahem, early collections at the church today."

"You're sick," I said, and I got up and left the diner, leaving a twenty on the table. I was halfway up the sidewalk before Donny caught up to me.

"Listen here," he growled, grabbing my arm, "You don't get to make decisions any more. You gave that up when you called me." I tried to pull away, and suddenly he put a hand around my throat and slammed me against the wall.

He leaned in close, "I know exactly which street your mom lives in Minnesota, and which bar your alcoholic dad frequents in North Dakota. Stop. F*****g. Around."

My gut lurched, and I couldn't help it. I farted. I succumbed to the heavenly feeling, and a sweet fragrance filled the air.

Donny let go of my neck, suddenly gasping for air. "What the hell?"

"Actually, heaven," I said. "You should know, you gave it to me!"

"I didn't have to inhale this toxic crap," he yelped. "I'm out. I'll be back for you, ya little s**t." With a sound like fingernails on chalkboard, Donny bent over and spewed out black bile from his mouth.

Donny, now the priest, sat back with a startled expression on his face. "Aw man, again?"

I went to the farmers' market, vowing to come back once this was all over to get food that I would actually eat. Everything else I needed for the summoning was still at my apartment.

I got everything set up, and brought out my old piece of paper with the Latin on it. Double, and then triple checking everything. This time, instead of a Double A battery, I had the battery from my truck.

I was about to start, when a thought crossed my mind. I pulled out my phone and dialed a number. It went to voicemail. I heard the cheery: "Leave a message at the beep!"

"Hey Mom," I started. "I just wanted to tell you I love you." I sighed, this was harder than I thought. "And if something were to ever happen to me, promise me you won't... Don't go to church. Ok? Anyways, I'll see you Saturday. Bye."

I swallowed nervously, this time would be much different, I was switching out something much, much more important than a little battery. I was probably very stupid. Steeling myself, I began the incantation. I got to the part where in Latin it says: "A demon," and I took a deep breath, and said "Hades, Lord of Hell," and slammed the bronze knife into the battery. There. Done.

For a moment nothing happened, and I thought maybe for a second it didn't work. Then a noise like two discordant tuning forks began, and it got loud. Darkness swirled inside the pentagram, with a fiery center beginning to be seen.

A deep, sepulchral voice emanated from the cloud: "You summon me, mere mortal, thinking your childish chalk lines will hold me?"

"It's not chalk," I interrupted.

"I- What?"

"It's not chalk," I said again.

The cloud seemed to observe for the first time, that instead of chalk I had painted the lines with my feces.

"That is disgusting," Hades said. The fiery cloud pulsed, and it seemed to be flexing against the bindings in the pentagram. "This is thoroughly irritating," he intoned, sounding more bored than irritated.

"Nonetheless, I see you have brought merely one soul. Even those before thought to bring at least six."

"But this is no ordinary soul," I argued, and for the first time I looked down at the bowl that held the essence at my feet. Instead of the cool electric blue, this one was a fiery red, that crackled and jumped instead of swirling easily.

"And it isn't even a human soul-" he began, and then paused. I swear I heard the cloud sniff.

"Deal," Hades said.

"It's two items," I began.

"That matters not. Deal."

"First, the demon who has called himself 'Donny' must be confined to the lowest reaches of Hell, never to come out again."

"Second, after our talk here, portals connecting Earth to Hell are never to be opened again," I finished.

"Wait," Hades began.

"Nope, you already agreed to the terms," I said.

The cloud paused, seeming to mull over the situation.

"Not the most foresightful deal I have ever made," it spoke, "but not a poor deal nonetheless. Goodbye mortal."

With that, Hades left my apartment, and I was left there with poop on my floor.

I'm don't think I'm getting my security deposit back.

Reviews

[Carol Cashes]

This was funny AND creepy. Not to mention well written. I'm impressed with your skill in laying out the story - just right! - and hope to read more of your work.

The last line slayed me...genius.

Brilliantly penned, Will E. Pische.