Horror and Thriller Fiction posted July 7, 2024 |
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The consequences of playing with a Ouija board
The Contract You Agreed To
by Gary Rubidge
“I found the message in my bag the day after we drunkenly played with Olivia’s Ouija board.” Serena sat on the edge of her chair nervously chewing her lip, her hands visibly shaking as she passed the message to her boyfriend, Alan.
Alan watched Serena for a moment and noticed how visibly frightened she was. He opened the folded paper. It was an ordinary note pad page with lines for writing on. There were no visible markings such as ink blots or coffee stains. He read the typed note silently to himself.
You’re mine!
Wherever you go, whatever you do, I’ll be watching, lurking in the shadows where all horrors hide, toying with your imagination, waiting with eager anticipation for the right time to collect.
Nowhere is safe. I’ll know where you hide. My terms are expensive, but you knew that before you played with me.
The price you must pay for willfully summonsing me, without reason, on your Ouija…is with your soul!
Confused and concerned, he handed the letter back to Serena.
“We laughed it off but things started happening.” Serena continued in a jittery voice as she looked apprehensively about the room, her shaking hands folding the letter and placing it in her back pocket.
“When did you play this game?” Alan calmly asked. He searched her face for clues as to her state of mind, drug or medication use and injury.
“Friday night two weeks ago. As I said, we were drunk. Olivia was passed out, so Jill and I found the board at the bottom of her cupboard when we went looking for a game to play. We set it up and read out a few spells Olivia had written on a tattered piece of paper we found inside the board. Then, in a made-up voice, I jokingly called out to the great spirit to come take us if he dared. It was a laugh. I never thought anything more about it”
“And Jill was the one who died in the car crash later that night?”
Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Yeah. They said she drove home drunk and hit a tree. Her car rolled and exploded in a massive fireball. There wasn’t much left for a positive I.D but they matched the dental records. I’d only met her that night, so I wasn’t that affected by it.”
“But Olivia was?”
“Yeah. She was devastated. She flew home to be with her parents yesterday after the funeral. I never got to discuss any of this with her.”
Alan sat and considered what he was being told. There was obviously more to learn because nothing seemed to make sense now. He decided the best course of action was to ask questions and listen. “When you say you read out some spells you found, tell me about them.”
Serena shrugged her shoulders. “There was a notepad with the Ouija board and Olivia had written words down across the page.”
“You mean random words?”
“Yes, no! I can’t remember. All I know is Jill read them out and we laughed. Then I faked a deep voice and demanded that we were available for any challenge so to come and get us, or something like that.”
“Did anything happen?”
“No. So we laughingly made a few spells up and laughed. Eventually, we felt tired and fell asleep.”
“Did you notice anything at all at the time?”
Serena sat quietly in concentration for a moment. “Nothing at the time. But later…”
Serena began trembling again as a hidden memory resurfaced. She reached for the glass of water on the table and spilt some of it as she tried to take a sip. Once she put the glass down, she placed both hands over her face and began sobbing.
“What? What did you see?” Alan asked, torn between understanding what was happening and his concern for Serena’s well-being.
“I thought it was a nightmare.” Serena sobbed. “It must’ve been about the time Jill crashed her car…”
“That night? What was it?”
“I didn’t think much of it.”
Alan needed to know more. “Much of what? What was it you saw?”
“The, the walls were red. Blood was … oozing from them.” Serena stammered as she searched for the right words to describe what she saw. She paused, took a deep breath, then closed her eyes to relive the experience. “I heard a noise like a car skidding, followed by a scream and a sickening thud.” Serena paused, opening her eyes and looked vacantly across the room. “I felt heat, like I was sitting too close to a campfire. I woke up half screaming and I was soaked in sweat. There was nobody there. Olivia was still passed out, so I went back to sleep.” Her eyes were now fixed on Alan, sheer panic expressed by the tears streaming down her cheeks. “I didn’t know Jill had gone until I woke up.”
“What about the walls?” Alan pressed.
“I…oh, the walls.” Serena stammered as she wiped away the tears. She faced Alan and the sheer terror was still plain to see. “When I heard the screaming and car crash, the image that accompanied it was the walls in the room oozing blood.” She clasped her hands in her lap but her nerves betrayed the calmness she was trying to portray and she began to rub her balled fists. “Of course, there was no blood oozing down the wall when I looked.”
The lights flickered and died, throwing the room into a semi-darkness. Alan silently cursed, wearily pulled himself out of his seat and walked slowly towards the kitchen. His football game the day before was taking it’s toll on him. Muscles ached as he walked, especially on his left side where a corked thigh was causing him to limp.
“Where are you going?” Serena asked, feeling the panic rise in her chest as she watched his shadow walking away.
“Just checking in case the fuse has blown or tripped the power.” Alan sighed. “Sit tight, you’re getting too worked up.”
Alone in the dark, Serena opened her bag and felt around for a box of Xanax tablets she’d been prescribed by her doctor before the funeral. Shadows danced across the walls in the room from the flickering street light filtering through the curtains. Serena’s imagination saw all sorts of horrible things moving in the dark and she shuddered at what those shadows might be.
Several tablets fell onto the table. Serena scooped them up, closed her eyes again and popped the tablets into her mouth. She picked the cup from the table. It was shaking but she managed to take a swig of water and swallowed. After a moment, she opened her eyes and silently searched the room. It felt like a tablet was stuck in her throat, so Serena took another large gulp from the cup. It tasted like blood and she spat the water out.
Those red eyes were boring into her back again. She didn’t need to see them, she could feel them. They’d followed her everywhere since she’d received the message. Her heart was racing so fast she could feel the palpitations in her chest suggesting her heart was trying to escape by bursting forth.
Her paranoia had grown intensely throughout the past fortnight, and she now felt unsafe, especially if left alone. It seemed that wherever she looked, Serena would catch a glimpse of the eyes but they would quickly disappear before she got a good look at them.
The doctor who prescribed the medication suggested she check into a clinic for the weekend to help come to terms with the loss of her friend. Serena rejected the idea because she felt she hadn’t really known Jill and wasn’t affected by the death.
With her friends all out of town on a camping trip for the holiday weekend, Serena was unable to contact them. Her family lived interstate. She hadn’t told anyone else about the note but they were aware of the jitteriness she was displaying since Jill’s death.
Alan was all she had. The two of them had been together for about three months. An amateur football player, he was ruggedly handsome at six foot two, wavy brown shoulder length hair and a physique to match her idea of a stereotypical footballer. Surprisingly, he was working on a Phd in education at the University nearby. It was where she met him in the canteen just after she’d moved to town to commence her own Phd course at the University, and their romance had blossomed since then. Serena felt so lucky to have such a wonderful man in her life.
They had planned to spend the weekend away together until Alan’s house had been broken into earlier that day. The landlord had explicitly reminded him to stay home and wait for someone to come and fix the damage. This had scuttled their planned trip away.
Serena still wanted to spend time with him but chose to complete a few house chores at her home first.
Earlier that night, Serena had felt tense and agitated. She took a long, hot shower to relax. With the room filling up with steam, Serena began to relax and, feeling tired, started thinking about diving under the covers and getting a good nights’ sleep instead.
Serena noticed the toilet roll on the floor as she turned the water off and climbed out of the shower. Shrugging it off, she’d wrapped a towel around her head to soak the wetness of her soaked hair before she started to dry the rest of herself. A sudden chill ran through her and, wrapping the towel tight, Serena saw the window had swung open.
The window had never been opened before so Serena made a concerted effort to examine the handle for any sign of damage due to a break-in or wind damage. Convinced there was none, she turned and caught a glimpse of something in the mirror. Serena spun around expecting to see someone behind her in the bathroom, but there was nobody there. The shower was still running.
Hadn’t she turned it off?
Hot steam was filling up the bathroom again. This seemed like a good thing because the earlier steam had disappeared when the window swung open.
Bending over to give her hair a good rub, Serena pondered the toilet roll again. Then two red two eyes appeared in the steamed mirror when she looked up. Below them was the word “CONTRACT”.
Frightened and startled at the same time, Serena quickly threw on her old clothes, grabbed her bag, ran to her car, and drove to Alan’s house as fast as she could. Now she was sitting alone in the dark at his house pondering the red traffic light she ran through. The camera had flashed, and she’d wondered if she looked good for the photo in her old clothes and wet hair.
Serena jumped at the sound of her phone. Picking it up she noticed a number she didn’t recognize.
“Hello?” She asked three times.
Silence.
Serena quickly hung up the phone.
“I couldn’t find anything wrong. The other houses in the street seem to be blacked out too. Who was that?” Alan asked as he waltzed back into the room.
“Nobody. They didn’t speak.” Serena replied, quickly placing the phone into her pocket and shivering. “Can we go somewhere else?” Serena pleaded in a wavering voice that failed to hide the fact she was beginning to sob. “Somewhere where there’s people, and lights, and noise”. Her teary eyes darting about, looking for the eyes she knew were there.
Alan quietly observed Serena in the dark, her agitated state worsening. He calmly and quietly approached Serena then, reassuringly, placed his arms around her. She clung onto him sobbing into his chest. Her damp hair smelled like lavender and Alan inhaled deeply to enjoy the aroma. He liked her long black hair. Second to her large brown eyes as his favourite feature of her lithe body.
Eventually, Alan pulled back, looked at the damaged window and decided. “I know I shouldn’t be leaving here tonight.” He glanced back at the window for a moment, deep in thought. “Let’s go to the mall. I know a great coffee shop where we can have some privacy. We can hang out there for a while and discuss what’s happening. I’ll take my car. I don’t think you should be driving the way you are at the moment.”
Alan had concerns and reservations about Serenas mental health. She was obviously distressed, and Alan was prepared to believe it was a sort of delayed reaction to Jill’s death. However, the note was unnerving. He wondered if any of her friends had sent it to her before they went away, or if Olivia was blaming Serena for what happened to Jill. Either way, they had a lot to discuss before deciding on a course of action.
Serena silently nodded, grabbed a tissue, blew her nose and wiped away the tears. She gathered her belongings and followed Alan to the kitchen where he used his torch to find his phone and car keys next to each other on the bench. Her eyes were still watery, and her nose was sniffly. “Have you got another tissue? I forgot mine.” Serena asked.
Alan picked up a box of tissues and handed one to Serena. As she took it, Serena noticed a knife was missing from the knife rack. It was the largest, sharpest knife he had. Alan must’ve noticed it too but hadn’t said anything. She looked at him closely in the dark.
“What?”
“Where’s the knife?” she pointed at the rack.
“Not sure. It was missing after the break in.”
Serena backed away, hands up defensively, fear clear across her face. Alan seemed to have a convenient excuse.
Alan was unsure why she may suspect him but chose to try and be reassuring. “Babe, I don’t have it hidden on me. Seriously” He held up his hands in surrender. “Let’s go.”
Serena gasped. Alan’s eyes were glowing red for a moment and now they weren’t. Was it a carbrake reflecting in his eyes. Surely, not in the kitchen?
Alan tried to take her mind off the note, knife and Jill. “I’m not sure if you saw the news tonight.” He asked, opening the kitchen door and entered the garage.
“No, why?” Serena replied suspiciously, keeping her distance. What was Alan up to?
“The whole world is up in arms over the fiasco at the world cup. I don’t know how the referee hoped to get away with such a biased performance for the host nation. Anyway, he’s been sacked, fined and charged with corruption. They believe the corruption is more widespread and now they’re looking at other matches. There’s a delay in playing the remaining games and the whole cup is in danger of being terminated”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Didn’t you say your dad had something to do with a corruption investigation somewhere?”
Serena was half listening to the conversation. She was studying the imaginary bulge in Alans jumper as he made his way to the far side of the garage to open the door. “Yeah. Something like that.” She mumbled. Serena nervously checked the garage for any sign of danger.
Alan manually opened the door and streetlight streamed into the garage, allowing Serena to observe things more easily. She moved to the passenger side of the car and, for no particular reason, glanced down.
The tyres she could see were slashed.
“See! I told you.” Serena screamed hysterically as she pointed at the car, looking at the slashed tyres.
Alan grunted. Then there was silence.
Serena stepped back from the car and looked to Alan for reassurance that he was not up to no-good.
Alan was staring down, open mouthed at the deep cut across his lower to mid abdomen. He was holding onto his intestines in a hopeless effort to stop them spilling out all over the floor. He looked up at Serena, confusion etched across his face. Then a blade poked through the middle of his chest from behind, making a large hole where his heart should be. Alan’s lifeless body slumped to the floor surrounded by a growing pool of blood and intestines.
A shadowy figure floated over the body and drifted towards Serena. A grotesque smile was planted on a pale, lopsided face. Two red eyes bored deep into her keeping her rooted to the spot in fear and confusion. Serena raised her hands to her face and began screaming as tears rolled down her cheeks again. “No, no, no, no…”
The garage door dropped to the ground in the closed position as a gnarled hand covered her mouth to stop the screaming. A raspy voice whispered in her ear “Hello Serena. Remember the contract you agreed to? It’s time to join Jill. I’ve come for your soul.”
The coroner would later rule the cause of death as murder – suicide.
Horror Writing Contest contest entry
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