Life's Bane

“There’s no time to explain” They choked out in a hurried breath, stopping only briefly to take their friend’s hand and continue running.

“Sammy, what’s going on?” she was confused, but felt an ominous presence.

“Zenia, I told you, no time now! Let’s go!”

They started sprinting down the abandoned misty main street of their town. Behind them, in the distance, were spectral laughs and the unsettling noises of sharp metal scraping against concrete.

“What the hell is that?” she pushed, “Sam!?”

They ignored Zenia’s inquiry, focused on finding a safe place to hide out for the time being. The sounds and laughter seemed to be getting closer, joined by tremors of heavy footsteps.

It’s getting closer.

They see an open bodega, “There!” they cry, heading straight for it. Zenia struggles to keep up, but manages to dash in after Sammy who bolts the door and topples a shelf in front of it to further barricade it.

“Quick, behind the counter.” They command, sneaking to the desired hiding spot.

“Okay, Sammy, now that we’re ‘SAFE’... would you mind telling me what exactly the fuck is going on!?”

“Keep your voice down. Okay… So, remember that book we found in the basement of Old Agatha’s dusty ass house?”

“Yes…”

“I kind o--”

A sharp, slow hiss interrupts Sammy’s explanation, followed by the drip of bloody saliva in between the two. They look up to find a grotesque, twisted version of what might have been a human at some point but now is a cracked skinned, bloody mouthed monster with tattered clothing and contorted limbs.

“Fuck… Zenia run!” Sammy yells, pulling out their switchblade.

Zenia bolts away and the humanoid creature turns to go after her when in an attempt to be heroic, Sammy belts out, “Hey, ugly! Come get some!” The creature turns back to an already lunging Sammy, who plunges his switchblade into the monster’s neck. It screeches in pain and slaps Sammy across the bodega with inhuman force. The humanoid thing rips the knife from its throat and throws it to the floor, where it clatters over near Zenia. It’s hurt, bleeding, and angry; its sights are set on Sammy, who is in a daze on the floor surrounded by bags of chips.

It perches on the countertop and prepares to launch through the air at Sammy. With a wild cry, it leaps. Sammy looks up as the creature closes in, as if in slow motion. But something sends the creature crashing down; Zenia, with a shovel, had wacked the creature before it could get to Sammy. Switchblade in hand, Zenia growls with all her might as she plunges down into the monster’s skull, killing the thing.

She slowly drags her gaze over to an awestruck Sammy, huffing and says mockingly, “‘Come get some’? ‘Hey ugly’? Who are you. Ash?”

“I thought it sounded cool.” Sammy shrugs, getting up.

“Ahuh…” She says dismissively.

A crash resonates from somewhere close outside the bodega and that same eerie laughter chases the cacophonous crash.

“Oh, fuck, all that noise we made. It’s not safe anymore. We gotta move!” They exclaim hurriedly.

Zenia nods and they both search for a backdoor into the alley. Behind the deli booth and by the meat locker is a flat steel door with a button handle to the outside.

“Here!” Zenia reveals the door to Sammy.

The glass of the bodega shatters and metal frames bend and creak violently as the laughing enters the bodega. Loud thumps draw near.

The laughing gets louder.

Zenia and Sammy scramble to get the door open; it seems to be stuck.

“Shit, shit, shit. Do you have the knife? We can pry it open.”

“Yeah,” Zenia clumsily grabs it out of her pocket, nearly dropping it, “Here.”

Sammy takes it and sticks it into the gap, trying to un-jam the door while zenia pushes and twists the button.

“Okay now tackle the door!”

They slam into the door again and again. The thumping footsteps get closer, the laughter, louder.

The door gives, but only a little; the metal screeching.

“Alright. On three, we give it our strongest kick.” Sammy instructs.

One.

Two.

THREE!

They both kick the door with everything they’ve got. It swings open and they run out just as the thumping and metal scraping gets to the back of the bodega.

The laughter echoes behind them in the alley as they quickly make their way to the nearest safe spot, splashing on the wet, broken pavement puddles. Maybe the library nearby.

“Maybe the library, it’s nearby.” Zenia suggests.

“Yeah, could be safe. Multiple levels. Lots of hiding places to keep us while I figure this shit out.”

Sammy responds.

“So, again, what is ‘this shit’ that is going on?”

“I’ll tell you when we get somewhere where we can breathe easy.”

Zenia rolls her eyes and follows them to the library.

The massive double doors slam shut and echo in the dead silence of the library.

“Whoa…” they say, slowly traipsing into the foyer.

“We should probably go up into the upper levels, you think it can do stairs?”

“Sammy, I don’t even know what ‘IT’ is.”

“Right.”

They continue further in, feeling safer now that they can’t hear the ominous laughter and the metal-on-concrete noises.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

Zenia shoots him a death glare.

“Oh. Uhm, so yeah. The book… I sort of unleashed demons by reading a few spells from the book at the very center of Agatha’s basement, where apparently there was a huge summoning sigil I had not noticed until I finished and it was glowing this weird… magenta? Fuschia? Whatever, some sort of purple-y pink glow.”

Zenia stops dead in her tracks, “You WHAT?”

“I know it sounds bad, but in my defense, I don’t ever think the worst of people therefore I didn’t believe that Agatha was some Devil-worshipping witch or whatever.”

“You’re dense as fuck. Thanks. Now you’ve doomed us all to a Hell on Earth and probably killed us. Because you wanted to be ‘nice’ and not judge a weird, evil old lady.”

“I mean, if we can make it back there and read from the book again we can maybe reverse it?”

“Sure, but some god awful demon thing is after us and that won’t exactly un-kill everyone.”

“Okay, but it would save others from death.”

She squints at them and shakes her head, “Technically you’re right. And we won’t be torn to pieces.”

“Wouldn’t want that.”

“NOPE!”

Zenia’s voice echoed in the stairwell to the upper level, causing figures in the darkness to stir. Soft and swift shuffling sounds permeated the atmosphere, accompanied by low hissing. The hairs on Sammy’s neck stood on end and a shiver traveled down Zenia’s spine. They became hypervigilant, especially because of the experience they had in the bodega.

“Did you hear that?” Zenia asked.

“Yeah, we are not alone in here.”

“This place was spoopy to begin with, we didn’t need those ‘we’re gonna die’ warning noises.”

“Did you just say ‘spoopy’?”

“It’s kinda… unsavory to say it with the ‘K’ because of its history of anti-blackness.”

“You really worry about that now? Right now? When it’s just us and some undead things?”

“Well, what you say and do in private echoes your public beliefs, Sammy. Otherwise, you’re just a hypocrite.”

“You right.”

A bookshelf knocks over behind them and slams against others, causing a domino effect and the silence to break. They turn to see the calamity and the mess of strewn books with an audible gasp and possibly an expletive. From the ceiling above, something drops behind them undetected. A clicking-hissing combo fills their ears from behind.

“Shit.”

“You still have that knife?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I..?”

“Here.”

Zenia passes the knife to Sammy, the creature behind them about to strike. She drops, Sammy ducks and spins quickly, avoiding the undead thing’s grasp, and shoves the switchblade up under the jaw of the former human, twists it, and pulls it back out. It falls like a sack of potatoes.

“How are we good at this?” Zenia gets back up.

Sammy shrugs, “Video games?”

“You think there’s more in here?”

“Oh, after that? Most definitely. You know how it goes, where there’s one, there’s one-hundred.”

“I thought that was cockroaches.”

“Same diff.”

They continue on, more cautiously now, through the library hoping they don’t have to run into those awful creatures again. Outside, the rain is relentless, and the thunder began to crash in response to the lightning splitting the sky. The overcast isn’t the usual New England grey, no, it’s tinted with a reddish haze. There’s quiet stirring within their seeming sanctuary, like the skittering of insects and soft croaking of a newly awoken cicada. It’s heavy and teeming with a negative force not of this plane, though something somewhere survives. They hear a few short bursts of footsteps, too rhythmic and precise to be these lumbering monsters.

“Zenia, footsteps. Too rhythmic and precise to be these…”

“...These lumbering monsters? I heard them. But they sound below us.”

Sammy crouches into sneaking position, “Shh, I’m turning on listening mode.”

Zenia sighs, “This isn’t a video game.”

“Let me cope with my trauma how I want, okay?”

“Fine, I’ll stay still and quiet. Tell me what you hear and where.”

Everything stops for a moment, and the sound goes into a muted echoing. The steps can be heard from below, along with whispering and low panting, as if the person were trying to stifle their anxiety. Sammy can also hear the surrounding possessed undead, and they seem to be closing in on the poor unfortunate soul.

“Well..?”

“So there’s definitely someone alive down there but there’s a shit ton of deadbois in the area too.”

“Deadbois?” Zenia is endlessly astounded by Sammy’s ability to name things.

“Zenia, por favor, don’t judge me and let’s go help.”

Slightly flustered, she follows them down ready for a fight if necessary. The stairs are old and creak with every step, alerting the deadbois to their presence, but only as a suspicion.

Quietly, Sammy instructs Zenia that “We have to do this Metal Gear style.”

To which Zenia replies, “So you mean kill like two of them stealthily but then get caught, have them chase you around while taking down a couple more as they call for reinforcements and then lose them, go around them to where you need to go and only leave undetected after the fact?”

Sammy stops and looks down wide eyed for a moment before nodding, “Uh, yeah. That.”

They make it down to the first floor again, awkwardly crouch walking toward unsuspecting enemies that have dissolved their alerted state. They each take a couple of them down behind bookcases, strangling or stabbing them to death. To avoid being seen, they grab heavy books and toss them opposite of where they need to head as a way to lure the once human creatures away. As Sammy closes in on the location of the survivor, a guttural roar erupts from behind.

“Fuck.”

“Just like Metal Gear!” Zenia yells quickly sprinting away.

“Will you stop?!” Sammy responds to the empty space she used to occupy beside him, “Oh, shit, way to ghost!”

“It’s better if we split up and lose them that way then we can meet up again at the same spot!”

“Smart!” They say, then screaming wildly with occasional expletives attempting to escape.

The survivor whimpers under the checkout desk, absolutely frightened of what the two strange new people may bring to them.

After a while of running and leading the creatures away and hiding undetected, the alert phase dissipates and the creatures cautiously search around the area the duo were last seen, which is pretty far from where they actually are. Slowly they make their way unseen to the survivor.

“What up, my name is Sammy, and this is Zenia. We heard you here alone and figured we’d, uh, rescue you?”

“Good job.” the survivor says sarcastically, “I’m Rebel…. My parents were huge Bowie and Star Wars fans.”

“Ahhh…” Zenia and Sammy say in unison.

“What are you two doing here?” Rebel inquires.

“Oh,” Sammy starts, “we’re hiding out from a giant, grotesque demon thing that wields an ambiguous large sharp object we figure it uses to not only instill fear, horror, and unbridled panic by scraping it against concrete surfaces to create that horrible scraping sound while slowly thumping behind us like some sort of 80s slasher villain, but to kill in terrifyingly gory ways.”

Both Zenia and rebel just sort of blankly stare at them before Rebel responds with, “Well, that’s nice. And you’re bringing that here?”

“We’re sure we lost it.” Zenia retorts.

“How sure?”

“Like about ninety per--” Sammy says before being interrupted by that same scraping and thumping they described coming closer and closer. “Like about seventy-ish percent? Maybe less now.”

“MAYBE LESS NOW?!” Rebel exclaims softly.

“I mean, that could be anything.”

“You just described that sound like thirty seconds ago!”

“Sammy, Rebel’s got a point, you did just--”

“I KNOW! Fine, okay, maybe the ruckus we made tipped the damned thing off, okay? What do you want from me?”

“There’s that ‘maybe’ again.”

“Rebel, shut up, you just met me, you don’t get to sass me like she does. Clear? Clear. Clear.”

“Clear…” Rebel sighs.

They huddle up under the checkout counter trying to come up with an escape plan while the thumping draws nearer and nearer and the library is still crawling with the dead ones.Every silent moment quickly interrupted by the corrupted beings hissing and clicking, the echoing scraping of the massive bladed object in the demon’s possession, and the soft whimpers of escaping Rebel’s lips. It seems hopeless, every plan Sammy and Zenia think of ends in at least one of them dying. They can’t run, they can’t stay. They’re doomed to die in a public library.

“Holy fucking shit dude, the second floor! Back of the library! There’s a window we can escape from! I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner.” Zenia finally states, remembering the days she used to break into the library to read Karl Marx and various philosophy books.

“Is that your, uh, nerdy rebellion window that you used to climb into to read Kafka or some shit because your parents are pentecostal nutbags?” Sammy adds.

“Fuck Kafka. No, but yes. Shut up, let’s go.”

Rebel just looks on confused but grateful that they might survive this place. Together they crouch walk to the stairs and motion to each other which ones to avoid and where to keep from creaking and alerting the bloodthirsty monsters on the first floor. With every lightning strike, they anticipate the thunder to use as an opportunity to move quickly, as it would muffle the sounds of their steps. As they creep closer to the window, the front doors of the library burst open violently, splintering to the ground, making way for the eerie, awful laughter of the bladed demon to fill the library with dread.

Their eyes widen with fear, “Shit-fuck-mother-of-frank’n’furter! We gotta go, it’s here!” Sammy exclaims, shocking Rebel back from a frozen panic.

They all shoot up from crouching and run the short distance to the window, scrambling to get it open but it won’t budge. All of the creatures begin to savagely rush up to their location when Rebel lets out a desperate bellow running toward the wind with a chair and smashing it through.

“Well, shit. Didn’t know you had that in you. Good work, let’s get the hell out of here.” Sammy says, taken aback.

“Tuck and roll!” Zenia yells, jumping out from the window.

The other two follow, surprisingly unscathed.

Sammy looks back into the broken window and laughs, “Haha! Can’t get us now motherfu--

The so-called ‘Deadbois’ start crawling out of the window and jumping, “--ck-oh, shit!”

The trio continues running, heading in the direction of the old witch’s house. Ducking in and out of alleyways and through abandoned yards, running on pure adrenaline. The rain masks their footsteps, making them undetectable by any roaming demonic possessed things, as they make their mad dash towards the origin of this evil. They’re almost there, they can see the solitary house at the end of the street, all dark and adorned with animal bones; should have been a sign, honestly.

“There it is! All dark and decorated with animal bones!”

“Sammy, don’t you think that should have been a sign?” Zenia pokes.

“Honestly!” Rebel adds.

They get to the door, but it seems too easy. Zenia jiggles the doorknob after a long pause of them all looking at each other silently trying to figure out who’d be the one to try. It’s not locked, but they’re not easily fooled.

“Listen, it’s open, but we all know that when it’s open like this, as soon as the door swings open all the way, BOOM! Jumpscare.” Zenia explains.

Rebel stutters in fear, “I-I-I don’t l-like jumpscares.”

“Really? You literally just threw a chair out a window and it’s jumpscares?” Sammy chides.

“Shut up, you two. Let’s go around back, she won’t expect us there.”

Around back, the door is locked, but it looks like the kitchen window might be open. They look around suspiciously before Sammy says, “Alright, the door’s locked, but it looks like the kitchen window is open. We should climb through.” and motions Zenia and Rebel to follow. They slide open the window fully and carefully, so as not to make a sound and alert Agatha to their presence. The old rickety house with peeling paint and broken gutters, somehow has very new windows.

“How is this house all to’up from the flo’up, and yet, the windows are mint?” Zenia asks, bewildered.

“Insulation is important in New England and these are energy efficient?” Rebel answers reluctantly.

Sammy and Zenia turn their heads and shoot him a glare that says ‘really?’ then continue with the window, climbing in.

Rebel goes last, flopping on the kitchen floor and grunting before getting up. The other two are looking at him in wonder as to how this kid really broke through a window and jumped. Rebel looks up and past them, frozen.

“What? That fall wasn’t that bad was it?” Sammy states, seeing the look on Rebel’s face.

“I think he--” Zenia is interrupted by Rebel pointing behind them. They slowly turn, but nothing’s there.

“Rebel, what the fuck, you had me shi…” Sammy says trailing off as they turned back to Rebel and seeing Agatha’s decrepit face behind them.

“RUN!” Zenia and Sammy yell, Agatha screeching wildly behind Rebel and swiping to catch them, but missing as Rebel jetted like a human cheetah.

“How they so fast--TO THE BASEMENT!” Zenia commands.

They all make a break to the main hall that leads to the basement. The door is stuck, which they find out by crashing into it at the same time. They kick the door repeatedly to force it open, the screeching of the witch getting closer and then stopping.

“Where did she go? She just… Stopped.”

“Wait, listen. You hear that?”

Thumping can be heard in the distance getting closer along with the singing they all fear.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no! We gotta get this open now!” Sammy says, with the feeling of impending doom.

They all nod in agreement, going back to beating on the door. Still won’t budge, as if reinforced. Rebel looks around the room for something to pry it open with Sammy and Zenia still going at it.

“It’s gonna get you, there’s no escape, you’re all gonna die and I’m gonna eat you.” The voice of the witch Agatha sings, as if from everywhere all at once.

The singing repeats driving them into madness. Rebel finds a large hoe and brings it to the door and to the duo, “I’ve got this hoe! Maybe it’ll help.”

“Rebel now’s not the ti--oh. That kind of hoe.” Sammy says jokingly, then adds when he feels their glares, “Listen, I’m losing my shit and I’d rather laugh than cry so just gimme that big ass hoe and let me bust that open!”

Zenia and Rebel shake their head, Rebel hands the hoe over to Sammy who sticks the sharp end into the crack between the door and the wall. The thumping is so loud they can feel it, hearing the ‘Lalala’ as well as the witch’s song simultaneously. Sammy struggles , the others join in and together they pop the door open. It swings and slams against the wall and the crash of the main door mutes the sound of the basement door.

The demon is in.

The three of them scream and rush through the doorway with the demon right behind. A squishy plunge is heard behind them, then silence.

A cry of agony fills their ears. Zenia and Rebel look back, shock and fear in their eyes; Zenia’s welling with tears.

“Go! Read from the book! Undo my mistakes!” Sammy chokes out, dying, a large blade protruding from their chest, “Go! You can’t… Save…”

The demon roars and flings Sammy’s lifeless body back into the main hall where it splatters against the stair’s banister. Rebel pulls Zenia down the basement with them to escape the demon’s wrath.

“No!” Both Agatha and Zenia scream, each with their own reason. Zenia’s heartbreak; Agatha’s fear of being thwarted.

Below, Rebel and Zenia search for the book all over the apocryphal altars and study desks covered in old texts and grimoires until finally they come across a book that reads: LIFE’S BANE.

“This must be it!” Rebel exclaims.

Zenia rushes over, “Life’s Bane, bound in snake skin, bones as the… quite literal spine.” She flips through the pages trying to locate the incantation that will undo this evil and send the demon back.

“Luckily, the witch wrote this in English and not Latin or Ancient Sumerian or something.” Rebel jests.

Zenia scoffs and smirks, “Nice reference--Found it!”

Rebel’s eyes light up, then quickly turn dark, “Zenia behind you!”

Agatha lets out a blood curdling scream, “Die!” and thrusts a pair of old style steel scissors into Zenia’s neck.

Zenia’s eyes widen and fill with tears as she drops down to her knees, “Read… the… passage…” she falls dead.

Outside the sky turns more red than before, thunder crashing, crimson lightning breaking the sky. The rain falls heavily now, and droves of possessed surround the house with the demon roaring ferociously in the main hall. The sigil on the ground glows an ominous shade of magenta, or maybe fuschia, as Zenia’s blood is absorbed by the ground. Rebel panics, Agatha paces toward them cackling, “you’re next, bitch.”

Rebel’s voice cracks, crying out and diving for the book. Agatha tries to stop them, but Rebel is much too quick. They get up and find the page, the witch lunges for them, Rebel deflect her with a forceful book-slap and she goes down long enough for Rebel to read the passage that will reverse everything.

“Blood above, blood below; Souls of damned and dead shall go back to the shores of Styx; Hades waits for his kin to return to land between and betwixt; All that did rise must fall once more; LET THE DEVIL'S RAIN POUR; ON THE PLAIN YOU’LL BE NO MORE!”

A thousand roars can be heard in unison erupt and quickly cease. Agatha along with them. The sky clears and the sun shines once more, and the sounds of birds chirping break the dead silence.

It’s done.

A FEW DAYS LATER…

“Hey, stranger, heh heh heh…”

END