Happy Halloween, a little light reading for you...

OK, so once again not really a blog as such. I thought I would just post a little story for Halloween. This has never been published anywhere before. Don't get too excited, it is something and nothing, just a bit of fun and mischief as befits the season. Hope you enjoy it. Oh, and please don't reproduce it anywhere else without my permission, it is copyrighted material but you knew that anyway didn't you. Finally, just a trigger warning, there are censored curse words ('bleeped out') for those who do not like such things. Enjoy. :-)

*

Ouija

The room was wrapped in intense darkness, except for the little tea-light, flickering and spitting in its amber glass holder. It filled the air with the smell of paraffin wax and a cloying, cheap, musky perfume.

Steve, Chris and Becky were breathing heavily. Becky ran her tongue across her dry lips, then gave a little involuntary squeak of alarm. With a hollow, rasping, the glass scraped across the table toward the letters arranged around it.

'B,' they chorused, in a hushed whisper. It moved again.

'E,'

'W'

The sad thing was, that none of them could see what was really pushing the glass.

'A'

None of them could see the wizened little hand, with its taut and blotchy skin.

'R'

No, they could not see the black, spindled talon, that rested beside their fingers.

'E,' they said, with a sharp intake of breath, as they realised what they had just spelled out.

*

Eric strutted through the night as if he owned it but then he did. He was a big cat, his heavy-set tabby shoulders rolled, his wide paws silently paced, it was a tiger's walk.

He was happy in his dark kingdom, until he felt it, the vibration that didn't belong. The 'wall between' was ripping, just a little tear but like tightly stretched skin, it could soon rupture into something far worse.

They're doing it again, he thought, the ugly dork-lings are spoiling my f*****g evening. Part of him contemplated leaving them to it but he knew Becky would be there. True, she wasn't at Steve's as often as his best mate Chris but then, she was only his girlfriend. Why you hang with those two I do not know, Eric thought with a disgruntled little thrash of the tail.

It will be f*****g Ouija again, you're using the scrabble tiles for Ouija, aren't you? How thick are humans. Would you stand in the middle of a forest called "Thieves Wood," yelling, "I'm over here?" No! But you're all quite happy to ask, "Is there anybody there?"

Rising up suddenly into the moon silvered night, he slapped a moth out of the air with one fast flick of a paw; it did little to relieve his frustration.

Resignedly, he headed for home.

*

The tension in the room was unbearable, the glass was moving quickly and they could no more break the circle than break an arm.

'O'

'F'

The candle flame flared, sending macabre black shadows racing around the room, like sooty little demons.

'T'

'H'

'E'

*

The cat flap lifted. Eric slipped quietly in. He padded softly along the shadowed, empty hallway, toward the line of quivering candlelight from the half open lounge door.

Becky, I thought you were smart but you still let Steve involve you in supernatural s**t. Chris, I can understand, he's a nodding dog on the parcel shelf of Steve's life.... He stopped his train of thought, edging his head around the door. Crouching on the table top, shrouded in black tatters and shadows was a stunted grotesque. In appearance, it was somewhere between an old woman and a stillborn child. Its wet, piggy little eyes focused on the glass; it did not see him.

It's a Hag-let, he thought. The human eye is f*****g rubbish; you really can't see it can you? Anyway, you wouldn't know what you were looking at if you could see it. It's a Hag-let! Every time you have a half-formed idea and abandon it, or let a good intention fall by the wayside, a Hag-let is born. Incomplete and bitter, angry and resentful at being forgotten. They hover in the darkness, waiting their chance for revenge.

They only live for f*****g mischief and you let one in! If it's not dealt with, it will hook onto one of you, like a parasite, draining all your luck, stifling achievement. If you let one in, more of the little f*****s always follow.

Eric stopped, the Hag-let's squashed, wet nostrils twitched, slowly, it turned its pale, moon like face to peer myopically over its shoulder. It knows I'm here, oh well; I never did do subtlety...

Eric bushed his tail, flattened his ears, the fur along his back rising like a cockscomb, a low, keening, both eerie and threatening, emerged from deep inside of him.

'Eric?' Steve said, apprehensively, 'Is that you mate?'

I hate Hag-lets, Eric thought, they're so f*****g... chewy.

The cat howled and threw himself across the darkened room. Steve, Chris and Becky leapt to their feet, swearing in a frightened way, their chairs toppling and clattering. Eric landed on the table, the glass flew across the room, shattering into a myriad glittering slivers. The letter tiles scattered with a sound like hail on a tin roof.

He was up on his hind legs, front paws flying. The Hag-let tried to grab at his thick, tabby forelegs but he was too fast. He slipped in under its wiry arms and wrapped his forelegs around its head, biting into the spongy flesh of its throat, like a lion bringing down an antelope. His luminous green eyes locked with the little twitching jet beads of the Hag-lets. He bit down harder; tasted its bitter blood, breathed in the sour smell of its flesh.

The guttering candle went out, plunging the room into complete darkness.

The blackness was impenetrable, filled with scuffling sounds and the ragged, frightened breathing of the humans, then all went quiet.

Two little points of St Elmo's fire, were glowing in the dark, Eric's eyes.

Becky turned the light on. Eric was sitting calmly in the middle of the table, legs tucked underneath him, as if nothing had happened.

'Eric, have you gone off your head?' Steve asked, as if he expected the cat to answer.

'You Leave him alone, he was just scared seeing us all sitting in the dark, he's all right now, aren't you Ezzy?' Becky said gently, stroking his head. Eric purred, pushing his broad, striped head into her chest.

'We'll never know the end of the message now,' Chris said peevishly. 'Beware of the..., what?'

Just three scrabble tiles remained on the table top.

'C'

'A'

'T'

*

There really was an Eric, he was the coolest cat in Birmingham. Whether he actually spent his days neutralising supernatural, threats is not known for certain.

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