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Ouija Warning
Copyright (c) 1993, Ed Davis
All rights reserved
OUIJA WARNING
by Ed Davis
Laura Wells' refusal of a ride to her parent's home had raised
eyebrows, despite the funeral home operator's pretended understanding.
She needed the walk through the fallen maple leaves to sort her
thoughts and clear her mind. With her father buried alongside his
wife, his torments about her strange death six months earlier were
ended. Laura's remained.
When Laura's mother had perished, with an animal's fang marks at her
throat, the investigation had concluded that she suffered a heart
attack and was then mauled by the family dog. The authorities would
likely blame the same dog for Randolph Wells' similar death, except
that the aging pet had surrendered to time and died a month before his
master. Laura was battling anger and grief. Monday's inquest would
answer her questions, or she was going to the State Police. A second
mauled corpse changed the old explanations.
Laura stopped at the corner of her parent's property and smiled at
the old Victorian house they had treasured, while church bells chimed
six o'clock.
Built more than seventy years earlier, on the largest lot in town,
the white dwelling was encrusted with molding and gingerbread. Well
maintained, Randolph Wells would have had nothing less, the old house
was a showplace. The lawn was brilliant green, despite the season's
lateness.
The house looked sinister, now. Laura shook the thought out of her
mind, rejecting the idea that her home was anything but welcoming. The
trees had lost their leaves weeks ago, making the late afternoon
shadows more than blocked off light.
The first touches of winter jabbed icy fingers under the last warm
days, deepening the gloomy atmosphere. The last week in October and
the first in November always seemed uncertain about which season owned
them. Laura usually liked the erratic time. After the heat of the
summer, the contrast seemed a flashing caution of the coming winter.
The cold, like the summer, would wear into its own tedium, but the
transition was exciting, offering a change. Laura shook away the gloom
and smiled. November was a single evening away.
The day had been warm; tomorrow would likely be the opposite.
Shaking her head, she hoped she was wrong. She wanted another day of
sunshine, to ease into a world without her parents. While her father
had lived, her mother still seemed near. Like most couples who spent
their lives together, her parents had become personality clones. Now
that they were gone, Laura's world was empty. With her schoolmates
married or moved away, Laura was friendless, alone.
She shivered, as a puff of wind drove a cold burst of air down her
back. Abandoning her mental wandering, she moved along the wrought
iron fence to the gate and the walkway leading home.
Neighbors and old friends of her parents, stoics with haunting faces
leathered by years, had carried their sorrows into the house on
heirloom platters and old silver serving trays, polished especially for
the occasion. Three days later, Laura knew she could still eat the
ham, bread, and greens. The potato salad belonged in the trash.
Her large brass key slid into the front door lock and the mechanism
opened with a familiar rattle. She could remember her parents locking
the house on very few occasions. Vacations out of town... Every night
during the fighting in Korea and Viet Nam... The key was left under
the welcome mat during the vacations, but was withdrawn during the
wars. Her gentle parents had distrusted the uneasiness in the world.
The smell of her father's pipe still lingered. Laura smiled,
wondering how long the smell would stay. She locked the door behind
her, walked across the entry hall, and climbed the stairs to the second
floor. Turning right, past the attic door, she walked into her room.
Unchanged since her last college year, it was a time capsule. A school
banner, a poster cat still "Hanging In There", and the hair brush and
comb set from their Florida vacation, were the reminders of the years.
Many other memories were plastered on the walls, like annual layers of
wall paper. Her first broken heart had mended there. Her first,
second, and other loves were measured against her father in that same
security. The night she spent agonizing about "going all the way" with
Charles Montea had twisted her sheets into a sweaty mess. She was glad
she waited. Charles had turned into a real bastard. Laura tossed her
sweater onto the bed and decided to rehash her past after eating. Some
memories were better on a full stomach.
The attic door captured her attention, because the key was in the
lock. It should have been over the door, above the frame, like always.
Who moved it, she wondered. There had been a gaggle of people, some
she knew, some knew each other. Had someone invaded that part of the
house, too?
Laura twisted the door knob and was surprised when it turned and the
door opened. The darkness on the other side of the oak barrier was
frightening, as always. She was reluctant to enter the darkness, as
always. The only light was a single bulb, with its pull cord waiting
somewhere in the middle of all the darkness. An icy feeling of terror
griped her insides, as she realized that she was completely alone.
There were no comforting sounds of movement coming from the rooms
below. Mastering her fear was a slow process. She breathed deeply
several times and gripped the door frame tightly. Childish, she
chastised herself, being afraid of the dark. She sucked in a lungful
of bravery and walked through the door.
The squealing protests of the stair treads and the dusty smell were
manageable, but the feeling of feathery fingers passing along her bare
legs brought chills racing in waves toward her neck. She thought about
rats and their naked, pink tails. She knew the light would chase the
darkness and fears away. A small smile, like whistling in a dark
alley, bolstered her courage.
The first landing was a disoriented moment of panic, until she
looked back to the lighted doorway and regained her bearings. Turning,
she ignored the renewed sensations of something reaching out to touch
her. She ran up the last four steps, preferring the more open attic to
the constricted walls of the stairwell. She groped around the air for
the pull cord, while the chills ended their race and began returning to
her ankles. Her hand finally found the string and its small brass
bell.
Electric illumination killed her fear. The attic was just a closed
up room, with its thin covering of dust. Cardboard cartons were
arranged along the walls, each labeled by a felt tipped marker.
Xmas... Thanksgiving... Toys... Dishes... Cards... The inventory
went around the room, like sentries awaiting a command. One corner was
not crowded by a box. Alone, as if it were a germ with terminal
penicillin, Laura's old Ouija board leaned against the corner.
Memories, of summer evenings spent searching for the name of her true
love, returned. Laura picked the board up and smiled, the shuttle had
been carefully taped to the board, more of her father's compulsive
neatness. With no visitors expected, Laura decided to spend a night
with Ouija. She scanned the remainder of the attic, rejected working
through the boxes, and walked across the room. Leaving the light
burning would make her descent easier, and tomorrow's ascent easier,
too. Has nothing to do with being scared, she lied. She took the
stairs slowly, proving her bravery.
Back within the security of the first floor, Laura decided to skip
supper. She folded her legs under the coffee table and faced the black
and gold Ouija board. What to ask, she wondered. Ideas came and went,
evaporating for lack of importance. The question she wanted answered,
needed answered, she did not dare ask: How had her father and mother
died?
Her eyes left the board and studied the metronome movement of the
grand father clock's pendulum. The Ouija shuttle began moving, under
her left hand. She started to lift her fingers, but decided to see
what answer Ouija would create.
The chalk-on-a-blackboard squeak of the shuttle's feet stopped.
Laura looked down and saw the number six in the small window. Now,
what does that mean? Silly game... A tiny spark of tension snapped in
the stillness, but went unnoticed. Her mind went back to searching for
a question, as her hand returned the shuttle to its starting place.
Movement started again, unasked, and the shuttle moved slowly across
the board, stopping over the number six once more. The snap of the
second spark was louder, but still unheard, as Laura's heart began
thumping loudly, a bass accompaniment for her chills. While she
watched, her mouth hanging open in amazement, the shuttle moved slowly
back to its starting place and returned to six again, carrying her
useless hand along.
"Six hundred sixty-six. What does that mean?" Her voice was a
strange sound, unrecognizable, but started her mind sorting through the
numbers that influenced her life. Chills held races on her legs, while
she searched. Nothing matched. There was no meaning... Her mind
scrambled for an explanation. Finally, she remembered a sermon she had
heard many years earlier. The number of the beast... 666. The sign
of the devil's disciple on earth. A new feeling grasped her, not fear,
horror.
The house seemed cold, as if wrapped in a blanket of ice. She knew
the furnace was working; she had been warm earlier. The cold was not
from the outside, her insides seemed frozen. Her brain filled with all
the images she had ever created concerning the devil. The memories
were flickering reds, yellows, and a terrible blackness. An occasional
tooth flashed white brilliance, but fiery colors filled the majority of
her mind, one morbid vision stacked over top of another.
"Why would the devil want Momma and Daddy...?" Her voice sounded
hollow in the emptiness, widening her terror.
The shuttle moved again. Letters were selected swiftly.
S...L...A...V...E...S.
"Insane... My parents were... Their lives were... Perfect." Her
voice climbed a ragged scale, ending in shrill panic.
The shuttle began moving again...
U... N...E...X...T.
The furnace had no hope against the cold, when the last letter was
reached. Her chills had to battle for space on her body and a tremor
started in her left leg. Suddenly, she was not at home. She had been
transported, somehow, to another house, a place of terrible evil. Her
living room would not be filled with such foul things and thoughts.
Even the air was different, sour and laced with threats of impending
violence. Her trembling began spreading.
"No!" Her single word exploded into the charged atmosphere.
She smashed her fist against the Ouija shuttle and saw it crumple,
as she scrambled away from the disgusting device. One leg rolled away,
tumbling to the carpet. The shuttle moved one last time, without her
help this time, resting finally over the single word. "YES."
Laura screamed, her throat threatening to explode with the force of
the sound. Nothing except the sound had any space in the room, except
the obscene feelings crowded into the corners. Nothing made any sense,
except the feeling that the board told the truth. A wave of nausea
crashed into her control and she rushed down the hall, toward the
kitchen sink. Her stomach was empty, but two steps before she reached
the sink she felt her revulsion turn to moving fluids, and she lunged
forward. The edge of the kitchen counter hit her breasts and added
pain to her raw edged emotions. Her throbbing breasts robbed her of
her stomach's second warning and she was racked with more agony, as it
expelled the last of its contents.
Sobbing, with fear, pain, and frustration, Laura wiped her lips with
a dish towel and hammered her fist against the counter top. Her mind
was howling negatives. Her breath was coming in gulps. Her heart was
hammering the beat of some insane drummer. Her legs quivered
violently.
As her senses slowly returned closer to normal, she heard faint
rustlings on the second floor. No one was in the house. What was the
sound...? Her pulse remained frantic, as her ears were suddenly much
more sensitive. She could hear individual foot steps, while someone
walked across the floor. A pace at a time, the steps moved out of her
father's room and thumped their way to the sewing room. There, they
stopped. Laura listened to her own heart for several rapid beats and
committed herself to flight. What ever was up there, whoever was
making the noise, it was not part of this world. Everything was
happening too quickly, crowding her ability to think into a corner of
screaming terror. Sucking her lungs full of air, she started toward
the front door. No matter what, she pledged, I'll never come back.
Her hand wrapped around the door knob, just as the foot steps
started again. She turned the knob and pulled. Nothing happened. She
remembered the key and felt for it. It was gone. She recalled putting
it in her purse, and putting her purse on her bed. The foot steps were
headed toward that room.
"You need these, Baby?" Her father's voice drifted down the
staircase, from her room, harsher than she remembered. She knew he was
holding her keys in his hand. She was terrified of the price he would
demand for their return. Chills stopped forming new prickles on her
body, there was no room. The old bumps simply grew taller, as each
moment added to the terror devouring her middle. Her throat had
constricted, when her father's voice had started. Her lungs were
aching, now. She battled the door and her breathing, neither worked
the way they should. Her eyes leaked involuntary tears and her knees
threatened to collapse. Wanting to scream, to breathe, she battled for
life.
The back door, she suddenly thought, the idea breaking through the
oxygen starved barrier of her brain. Her lungs came back into
operation at the same instant and she gratefully filled them again.
Pushing away from the locked door, she rushed back down the hall past
the kitchen and into the pantry. Her hand twisted the knob and her
heart plummeted. It was locked. She saw that the key was missing,
too. The basement was the only other exit, except climbing the stairs
to the second floor, and her father.
She tore back through the hallway and jerked the basement door open.
With her throat ripped open, dripping blood down her lace trimmed
burial dress, Laura's mother held out her arms and smiled to her
daughter. The stench of rotted meat and burned sulphur threatened to
ignite the wooden doorway. Terrified of her mother's renewed
existence, Laura screamed. Her voice xylophoned down through the
scales, ending in a throaty growl, better suited to something wild.
Her mother simply smiled and beckoned. "It's easy, Baby. I fought,
too. Randolph was even worse. You listen to Momma..."
Laura threw up again. Nothing but rancid bile came out. A new
foulness filled her mouth and lungs.
"Never!" Laura's single word answer was a burst of fire edged fury.
The woman in the doorway stepped back slightly, then smiled again.
"You go to hell, if you must." Laura screamed her terror into her
mother's face. "Whatever you are... I'll never accept that... that
bastard. You can all rot." Laura slammed the door, wishing she had
been able to design a proper curse. She felt very puny.
Footsteps, coming down the stairs, were sounding again. Laura did
not want to face her father. The pain was too recent, the memories of
his love too strong. She turned through the kitchen and went swiftly
across the dining room into the living room.
As the footsteps moved down the hall, Laura dashed up the stairs.
The attic key would allow her to open the downstairs doors.
Her room was unchanged, except for filthy foot prints on the
carpeting. Unlike the downstairs windows, steel barred barriers since
her mother's bizarre death, her window was a tempting escape hatch.
She stood in the doorway for several heart beats, measuring her chances
of eluding the downstairs terrors. The tree outside her window had
been a summertime ladder, years ago. Was she limber enough? Was the
tree still able to hold her weight? Would the limbs even be in the
right places? Her father would hear the window opening, he would
remember, too.
Knowing her life, her soul, depended on her choice, she stole one
more minute. Escape was not all she needed. She had to destroy the
evil that had taken her parents. How...?
The answer was both simple and terrible. She would have to destroy
the last of her past. Fire was her only weapon. She would have to
burn them. More revulsion hit her stomach, but there was no choice
left.
Moving around the second floor with the caution of a cat burglar,
she gathered her tools. Her mother's decorative lanterns were the
nucleus of her arsenal. Alcohol, liniment, and toiletries with alcohol
in them added to the small stack of bottles. She remembered the gallon
of moonshine she had brought home as a gag and retrieved it from her
father's closet. Not much to fight with, she thought, as the small
bottles of liquid began gurgling onto the carpet at the head of the
stairs.
Saving the moonshine, in its earthen ware jug, Laura dropped the key
from the attic door into her bra and knelt to strike a match. Her
nervous fingers dropped the first paper match, and she heard footsteps
approaching. She forced herself to calm her hands. The red tip of the
second match exploded into life, as her mother's ravaged remains
stepped into view. Laura dropped the flame onto the carpet. Nothing
happened. She battled with another match, while her mother began
climbing the stairs. Her hand carried the second flaming match to the
carpet and felt the heat of the invisible flame from the burning
alcohol. The carpet suddenly burst into a familiar red flame.
Laura saw her father, through the flames. His ripped throat was an
angry grimace below his own smiling lips. "Baby... Come. We can be a
family forever."
Tears trailing down her cheeks, Laura shook her head, uncertain that
she could say no. Her resolve weakened, but she turned from the
spreading flames and hurried to the window. Not opened for years, it
was reluctant. Laura wished she had tried her last way out, before
closing her only other option with flame. She pulled with all her
strength and felt the framed panes begin to move. Slowly, like a
curtain opening for a stage performance, the window surrendered.
The night air was sweet, and fed new power to the already roaring
fire. Laura grabbed the brown jug and stepped through the dormer
window and onto the roof.
The familiar tree limb was gone. She felt new panic and then looked
up. There it was, it had grown taller, as had she. Her free hand
grasped the old friend and she swung to the trunk. Her descent was
awkward, with one hand.
She raced to the front door and looked inside. Flames danced behind
and above the two figures still standing at the bottom of the stairs.
Laura fished between her still aching breasts and retrieved the brass
key. The door surrendered easily and moved noiselessly into the room.
Laura whispered a prayer that the jug would break and dashed it onto
the floor. It bounced. Cursing her frustration, she moved a single
step into the horror filled house. Her father turned, smiled, and
stepped forward slowly. Filled with disgust at the sight of the
creature her father had become, Laura quickly grabbed the brown jug and
bashed it against an umbrella rack. The jug exploded, scattering
crockery and raw whiskey everywhere. Laura looked up to see the
whiteness of her father's teeth and the matching white of his torn wind
pipe. Fresh chills climbed her spine and stood her hair on end.
She searched between her breasts again and extracted her matches.
Fumbling with hands that had lost their connection to her brain, she
tore three matches from the book and struck all three. The smell of
the burning sulphur was lost in the stronger stench that surrounded
her, but the lighted matches fell onto the soaked carpet. Tinged with
blue, the nearly invisible flames licked upward. Laura moved back
quickly. She backed out the door and closed it, just as her parents
reached the other side and pulled. Laura fought them for possession of
the door, and struggled to lock it at the same time. The lock clicked
into place, finally.
Laura looked up into her father's eyes, just as the flames washed up
across his face. He seemed startled, then apologetic. An instant
later he was lost in a black swirl of smoke. The glass of the door's
window darkened and shattered from the heat. Laura felt her cheek
open, as a sliver of the window sliced into her. She felt the pain,
but the deeper hurt in her heart made it small.
"Gone... Everything... I... I'm sorry, Daddy... Momma. I love
you." Laura's whispered epitaph was lost in the fire's roar.
She turned to walk away, as a distant church bell clanged out,
eleven times. October was nearly over.
Lifting her head, she saw the front yard for the first time since
the horror had started. Everyone from the funeral, all her parent's
friends, were standing before her. The flames of the burning house lit
their gaping, blood streaked throats.