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Hunted by the Ghost of Hell

Billy didn’t believe in ghouls, demons, ghosts and all of that, but there was something about his bedroom…something eerie and not altogether friendly—if a bunch of ghost could be called friendly or otherwise—that made him stop and rethink that disbelief. Of course, the instant he allowed a sliver of doubt to enter his thoughts, all the scary stories he had heard as a boy came crowding to the forefront of his mind. And that just wouldn’t do.

It is 3AM. All the remoteness of that hour is present here...he can feel it. The sky was now grown very much darker, and there was in the blue of it a heavy gloom, as though a vast blackness peered through it upon the earth. As still and quiet as deep space. Billy rolled his shoulders a little to ease the tension in them. He pulled up the bulky headphones from their position around his neck before turning on the recorder. His ears immediately filled with the soft hiss of static from the recorder’s audio. He was sitting cross-legged on the bed, dark jeans and gray flannel over a dark t-shirt, headphones mashing his unruly hair back to his head where it escaped from under his baseball cap. The room around him looked simple, ordinary; a bedroom like any other. Nothing there that should inspire the sense of nervous anticipation running up his spine.

Billy knew better.

His attention was split between the ouija board spread out on the comforter in front of him and the EMF reader lying next to it. He knew better than to believe the facade of normality around him; but knowing and proof were very different things.

Just then, Billy heard a howl in the distance and the wind began to blow hard. This time he was going to leave with that proof. So, he sat up, crawled to the end of the bed, climbed down to the floor, walked up to the television.

  Shadow-images moved in the snow, shaped in the static.

 “Hello,” he rasped, heavy dust deadening the sound of his foot. Each step that he took, seemed a greater effort than the one before. An intolerable ache, knew him in every joint and limb, as he trod his way, with a weary uncertainty.

It’s just your imagination,

Billy, there’s nothing out there.

He silently chastised himself.

Another snap in the distance echoed around Billy.

“Wh—who’s there?” he muttered into the darkness.

Taking a deep, steadying breath and slowly releasing it, “Are you there?” Billy answered in wonder. He wasn’t afraid, only curious, or just a little amazed.

  Muffled whispers crept out of the screen. A voice. No, many voices, moving as the shapes moved. Semiforms with semivoices, calling, moving, shifting.

A strange grabbled growl could be heard from beyond the profuse room. At the same time there was more shuffling coming from what seemed to be the opposite direction, causing Billy to spin around. Trying to control the slight tremor in his hand, he tightened his grip on his flashlight.

 As he listened and waited for the inevitable, the shuffling from both sides started to recede into the distance until they were gone.

“Hello?”  Billy's voice echoed around him.

Tense, ready to take action the twelve-year-old stood where he was and waited . . . and waited.

A good fifteen minutes had pasted without a single sound or movement from the room. Allowing his body to relax, Billy sat back down by the bed. Releasing a long, slow breath that seemed to come from the tips of his toes, Billy calmed himself, leaned back against his pillow and pulled a blanket over him. Pleasurable fingers of warmth spread through his body as he dark shadow's heat from the wall worked its magic on the child and his eyes started to drift close. He was just on the edge of sleep when his eyes snapped open and he bolted upright in a panic. Billy looked around trying to find the source of the noise that had abruptly awakened him.

The whispers then grew. Tiny flashes of light sparked across the screen now, like microscopic photon explosions, crystals of light.

Don’t be an idiot, Billy, he silently berated himself. Closing his eyes again, Billy drifted off to sleep.

Bbbbillllyyyy

A different voice called, but Billy paid it no mind. Something else far more horrible held his attention.

Jumping to his feet, Billy’s legs became entangled in his blanket causing him to stumble and fall. He was back on his feet in an instant. His breath caught in his throat when he saw an eerie red glow eyes penetrating through under the bed and something fluttered in front of it then was gone.

Whirling around the frightened child saw another spectral figure floating through a tv screen.

 There’s nothing out there, Billy told himself inside his mind. Do you hear me? There’s nothing out there!

He shivered as a preternatural cold penetrated his body. There was no response, just the eerie glow coming from two directions with shadowy figures floating in the wall front of him.

A hand of smoke, formless but cold, without substance, exuded from the television screen toward Billy. Without form, yet somehow. A figure stepped out of a large dark shadowy figure cast by a wall to my left and he had to bite his lip to keep from screaming in terror.

“Ok…” fear tightened my throat, preventing the rest of his sentence from being spoken aloud.

 Then it rose, this handlessness rose above Billy and stretched farther into the room, stretched its pulsing tendrils along an ectoplasmic arm that grew longer every second, remaining attached to the screen—stretched until the hand hovered above the bed, above the peaceful sleeper.

  Slowly, deliberately, it lowered itself to the bed, to each figure in turn. First it settled over the boy, pushed a cold finger in the slight depression of his chest, stroked his cheek, muffled his whimpers.

  It crawled along his soft skin, rolled him over, pressed him down, while another finger wrapped around Billy’s leg, squeezed, grew.

  Presently it rose again, hung above them in the air once more. Billy watched in fascination. Its fingers never ceased moving, probing. Finally, it reached the wall above the bed and stopped, its

shadowy figure extending the length of the room. It grew brighter, it was engorged with light . . . when all at once it shot out of the set and into the wall with a deafening BAM.

  “demon, I come on behalf of my mother,” Billy demanded, his jaw rigid, adjusting the volume higher on his headphones. Done enough homework, to know that provocation was dangerous, but a sense of desperation had driven him to recklessness. Needed something to happen. He would make something happen.

“Bring back my mother or I condemn you back to Hell!” Billy taunted, looking around quickly, he noticed the dark shadowy figure standing behind him and moved off.

 Only the static of silence greeted him from his headphones.

“I know you’re here!” He shouted.

Nothing. Not even the faintest feeling of being watched.

  Billy turned his head, scanning the room for any sign that his words had caught the attention of something. He waited, hoping patience might pay off where provocation had failed. He took soft, shallow breaths, straining to hear any voice that might come through the recorder. His gaze flicked from the room to the board, the EMF reader, and back again. The device registered a baseline of 0.0 mG. The bedroom remained ordinary. Empty.

Disappointment curled in his gut as long moments passed. He had been so sure that it would work this time. Bily’s shoulders sagged as he sighed dejectedly. He reached out and stopped recording, pulling his headphones off and dropping them back around his neck. Time to pack up and go. It seemed that Rocky had no interest in playing his game tonight. Billy leaned forward to begin packing away his equipment. He pulled off his headphones completely and laid them on the bed to avoid tangling himself in the cord. He moved to fold up the ouija board first.

His fingers had just curled around the edge of the board when the planchet flew across the surface to the word “No.” The EMF reader lying next to it suddenly jumped from 0 to 2 mG.

Presses his ear to the device, “Mom? Can you hear me?” Billy asked, torn between hesitation and hope.

  The EMF meter fluctuated wildly, lighting up and beeping erratically every time it spiked past 5 mG. Billy felt the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end, the atmosphere around him suddenly heavy and oppressive. The persistent normality of the bedroom now seemed almost uncanny, as if it was too normal to be trusted. Billy flinched a little at a prolonged tonal beep from the EMF meter before it flat-lined back to 0 mG.

Billy reached out for it, unsettled by its sudden silence. Turning up the volume all the way up. The hissssssss of static fills the room.

  “Mom, are you—”

  The EMF reader was ripped violently away from his fingers as an unseen force sent it and the ouija board flying across the room. The sound of heavy, rattling breaths filled the silence in the wake of the resulting clatter. Fear spidered up the back of Billy’s neck as he raised his eyes to the figure standing in front of the bed. Alone in the dark, stares into the corner of the room. Blue eyes adjust, making out a shape.

A tinkling laugh filled the forbidding silence. Another step closer and she emerged into a patch of moonlight. Imposter mom wore Billy mother’s habit that seemed to be made of draping shadows as much as cloth. Her face was obscured by darkness, but Billy could feel her rage bleeding into the air around him.

Then waits for a response, but none comes. But, something resembling concern crosses his face.

Her dark eyes flashed with a yellow light and her body began to jerk and twist like a marionette performing some weird dance at the behest of its puppeteer. Inkish skin began to sprout along her arms, legs, and neck. The sound of tearing cloth filled the air as her clothing—too constricting for her new form—began to burst at the seams.

 “Shit,” he muttered softly. “Too far.”

  She wasn’t moving, a frozen image at the foot of the bed, just watching him. Waiting to see what he would do next. He knew that he needed to get out of there, his animal hindbrain screaming at him to leave everything behind and just run.

  He couldn’t run though. Not if he wanted proof.

 A pair of yellow eyes flashed to the forefront of his memory, and he flinched. Eyelids were feeling rather heavy so for once in his life. “I was just trying to get my mom,” he said in the most placating tone he could manage around the lump of fear in his throat.

A multiple murmur of voices and the echo of footsteps reached his ears.

  A faint noise hissed out of his discarded headphones and Billy scrambled to put them back on. A gruff, dark voice rasped over the static background: “Out…out..out.” Then the whisper trails off....more static.

Billy moved slowly, leaning over the edge of the bed towards where his backpack sat, trying not to take his eyes off the sinister figure in front of him if he could possibly help it. A lamp on the bedside table crashed to the floor, narrowly missing him as he jerked upright, bag in hand.

Billy spoke in reassuring tones to himself, “Just getting my things,” he said nervously.

The chanting grew louder through the headphones. “Out…Out…OUT!” Another hushed whisper, almost indistinct from the static save for the whistle of sibilants.

  Fumbled discreetly for his phone and felt a hot surge of triumph as his fingers closed around it. He kept his face still, wide eyes stares silently. He was going to get his proof. He thumbed over to the camera function with a furtive glance then swiftly brought the phone up to snap a picture.

Her face was illuminated, inhuman eyes set in a pallid face covered by a tracery of ink-like veins. Her shadow-bruised mouth dropped open impossibly wide as she let out a screech that Billy felt down to his bones before she abruptly vanished. He looked down hastily to check the picture and muttered a few choice words under his breath. The room was there, but the demon was not. He grimaced as he picked up the audio recorder and realized he hadn’t been recording. He turned it back on with a huff of frustration.

“mom?” He called out again.

  The sound of his own racing heartbeat was all he heard in response.

  “Give me something,” he demanded. “Anything!”

Billy didn’t wait to be told a second time. Ran to his room, locked the door and sat on his bed with his knees pulled to his chin.

  The feeling of unreality still permeated the room, but no further sign of his mother’s spirit manifested. Billy switched off the recorder and packed up. He mentally berated himself for the missed opportunity and the perversity of spirits only showing up when his equipment was off. He opened the bedroom door to the hallway and with a last, unhappy look over his shoulder stepped through.

Billy walked out of the closet on the opposite side of the bedroom and stopped dead in disbelief.

  He looked between the closet and the door he had left through in confusion, trying to make sense of what happened. He’d gone out through the door in front of him. He knew he had.

“What the hell?” Billy whispered to himself, alarm sinking in. Bolted for the bedroom door again only to be spat back out through the closet. This couldn’t be happening. There was no way. He panted frantically, his mouth gone dry from the fear that had hooked itself deep into his chest, and headed for the window. Billy opened it to feel the chill, night air rushing in from the neighborhood beyond. He looked between the nearby houses for signs of their occupants.

  “Hello? Somebody?” He yelled desperately. “HELP!" Billy yelled with as much bravado he could force into his voice, hoping he didn’t sound as panicky as he felt.

All the surrounding houses were dark. No one could hear him. The clawing need to get out by any means possible had supplanted any previous desire for his proof. The door wasn’t an option anymore but the window might work. He was on the second story of the house and the darkened yard was several feet more below him than he was really comfortable thinking about. Billy swung his legs over the windowsill in preparation to jump. The fall would probably hurt, he knew, but anything was better than staying where he was. He tossed his backpack out ahead of him and felt his heart stutter in his chest as he heard it tumble through the closet door again behind him.

“Oh no.” blurted out the first thing that came to his mind.

  Sat there for the briefest moment, half in and half out of the window, as it began to dawn on him just how much trouble he was really in. Normally, when things were unsettled, he was as nervous as Rocky, but his silence was just one of the many mysteries in a very peculiar night.

The ice-cold impact of the demon’s invincible hands propelled him forward. Billy cried silently as the sharp pain burned its way up his arm and into the tender flesh of his shoulder.

Billy stumbled through the closet door, arms flailing wildly as his brain tried to orient itself to the sudden shift in reality. He didn’t get a chance to regain his balance before demon’s hand closed hard around the back of his neck. She slammed his head sharply against the wooden closet.

He blinked at the ceiling, dazed and prone on the floor. Her shadow-draped form walked away from him towards the bedroom door as a force latched onto his feet and flung him across the floor back into the closet. The room spat him back out the bedroom door directly into the ghostly nun’s path. Her foot crashed down hard on his chest, an impossible, immeasurable weight pinning him down. Billy wheezed desperately against the pressure, fumbling in his pocket for something to defend himself. She loomed over him, a glint of silver in her right hand catching his attention. It was a crucifix, its base sharpened into a point like a sacrificial dagger. She held it raised over her head and swung her hand downwards, intent to end his life. Billy managed to free the pentacle from his pocket and held it up in front of his face as a meager shield, eyes screwed shut as he braced himself for the impending pain.

  Nothing.

Cautiously, Billy opened one eye, then the other.

  His own hands, trembling as they held up the large pendant, were the only things in his immediate line of view. He struggled into a seated position and looked around the empty room. His ears were still ringing from the blow to the head and it took him a moment to really register the sound of his discarded EMF meter. It lay on the floor where it had been flung out of his hands, emitting a shrill, electronic tone each time it registered a fluctuation above 5 mg. The beeping was regular and measured, like a heartbeat.

  Billy swallowed heavily and clutched the pentacle a little tighter, drawing it closer to his chest. He wanted him to panic at this point. 

Cold fingers wrapped around his face and Billy screamed, scrambling away from the hand as terror consumed him. An unseen force gripped his ankles, dragging him across the floor and towards the bed. Billy’s frantic pleas were downed out by the constant screech of the EMF meter. His fingers dug into the carpet. He could feel his nails ripping as he tried futilely to drag himself away from whatever was pulling at him.

 Billy vanished beneath the bed. His world became a blinding wash of pain, every nerve on fire from the inside out. The only noise was a desperate, high keen of an animal being devoured. He couldn’t even recognize it as his own voice.

  As swiftly as it started, Billy was flung back out the far side of the bed and slammed hard against the wall. He stayed sprawled there for a moment, his breathing labored as he failed to pull enough oxygen into his burning lungs. He coughed hard, a metallic taste falling thick across his tongue. A dark red smear of blood stained his palm and dripped down his chin as he pulled his hand away. Billy stared at it in something close to bemusement, shock setting in swiftly as his vision started to close in around him.

The room suddenly began shaking, the window cracked, pictures dropped from the walls, light bulbs exploded. The ceramic figurines flew across the room, shattered against the dresser.

  And then, just as suddenly, everything stopped. The room fell into an unnatural hush. Outside, the storm passed away utterly.

He stops when he sees something, ignites and holds up his light-sabre, the glow allowing him to make out the deep, violent scratch marks running downwards on the inside of the door as if someone were trying to claw their way out.

For a long moment, no one—nothing—moved.

  And then someone whispered: “They’re here.”

The insistent fingers of sleep had plucked at him until she had finally released. “Definitely too far,” he choked out as blackness rose up to claim him.

Billy was tired, and took little notice. Closed his eyes in a state of drowsy, semi-unconsciousness. Once or twice—as though coming through thick mists—he heard noises, faintly. Then he must have slept.

Come on, Billy, It’s only October 31st, nothing more, nothing less.

For a moment, panic once more clawed at him, wrapping his blanket around his shoulders, with a quick shake of his head he banished those thoughts and huddled close to his nightlight and made sure he kept it blazing throughout the long, dark night.

“Billy, stop it! It’s only a nightmare!” A familiar, baritone voice soothed. The panic eased, and he realized that he wasn’t sightless at all; instead, he was staring into the dark fabric of his former friend’s shirt, filling him with a sense of peace he hadn’t felt for a long while.

A nightmare? Blue eyes fluttered open and, when he glances up, the figure is gone. Once he was convinced that he was no longer in the grips of

his night terror. The friend soft melodious voice filled the quiet night that ends the tales of ghostly horror, putting to rest another Halloween night.