Charlie was used to seeing some weird shit during the graveyard shift. It was only natural some freakiness would occur during the night, especially when you happened to be the guardian of Columbus City Graveyard.
The thing that had scared him the most happened just a few years ago; when the church clock had struck midnight that night, hands shot up from the wet ground. And not just a couple- the entire graveyard looked like a sea. A sea of fucking hands. Combined with the storm raging that night, it made for a truly nightmarish sight.
It took Charlie about five seconds to make the decision of getting the hell out and using his sick days. But a human mind is a wondrous thing, capable of rationalizing just about everything. So after a couple of bottles of bourbon and some rest, he'd come back to the job.
Yeah, Charlie'd seen some shit. So a group of teenagers trying to sneak in the graveyard left him completely unfazed.
"I'm giving you two minutes before I'm calling the police!" he shouted when he'd spotted them.
As far as he could tell, there were five of them, two girls and three boys. The group seemed incomplete. He realized just how much when a hand holding some kind of rag clamped over his mouth. The last cohesive thought Charlie'd had before blacking out was "Who the fuck uses chloroform?"
"Jesus, Chad, did you really have to do that?" Chelsea did not like the idea of going to the graveyard and summoning… she didn't even know what the fuck those idiots wanted to summon, but drugging the guard was definitely not part of the plan.
"For fuck's sake, Chelsea, if you'd been quieter, I wouldn't have had to do it," Chad replied, shaking his head. Some days he wondered why he tolerated Chelsea. His gaze traveled down to her cleavage and he was reminded.
"Look, we don't have much time. Let's just find the grave and get on with this." Chad's brother Todd was the one who'd come up with the idea, and the most enthusiastic one about it. Talking his brother into this gave him some credibility since Chad was one of the most popular jocks in their high school. Todd, on the other side, hung out with the weird kids. There was Casey, a thin girl who claimed she could talk to ghosts; Eric, Todd's best friend, but a total pussy, though he claimed he would 'take care of the logistics' from the safety of his home; and Tyler, the neighbor and a truly strange kid whose only friend was imaginary. Todd brought him along out of pity- there's a limited number of times you can hear him talk about his day when he's the only one in the room without your conscience kicking in.
Chelsea also dragged her sister into this because one dumb blonde apparently wasn't enough. Rachel stood to the side and just seemed uncomfortable with the situation. And so the six of them now stood in front of a grave with an empty gravestone.
"Can someone please explain why this one?" asked Rachel no one in particular. Tyler answered.
"If it doesn't work, Todd can simply blame it all on the empty grave."
"Fuck off, Tyler. No one thinks you're funny except your imaginary friend. What's his name, Flurryface?"
Before Tyler could correct him, Casey spoke.
"Since there's no name, the link to the other side is more… general. Of course, the best thing would be a satanist's grave, but not like that's gonna be written anywhere."
"You're all fucking weird, you know that?" Chad stated, and no one argued with him.
Todd pulled out a small knife out of his pocket and held it up. The blade gleamed under the moonlight, and a wave of cold brought by the wind washed over the group, and no one could hold back a shiver.
"You ready?" he asked.
Instead of answers, he got small nods and some confirmative noises from Chad. It was enough for Todd who dragged the knife across his palm, drawing blood. He handed it to the person on his left, and so it continued until everyone had blood dripping from their palms, small crimson pools forming where the drops fell.
"Now hold your hands over the grave," Todd commanded. After the group obeyed, he began chanting in Latin.
Rachel barely held back her groan. Jenna had offered her a cosy night in with some Netflix and chill, but no, she had to listen to her sister and come along. So now she stood in the middle of a graveyard, surrounded by weirdos who wanted to summon the Devil.
Imagine her surprise when the earth cracked and shook. Light shone through the cracks, and Chelsea screamed. Or perhaps it was Chad.
As Todd continued his chanting, the light grew brighter, blinding them all for a moment. They all turned their heads away when it stopped.
Then there was just silence and darkness. No one wanted to be the first to look at the grave in case something was actually there.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" a male voice asked, and every single person in the circle suddenly regretted coming here.
Surprisingly, it was Chelsea who glanced first. A man stood on the grave. He seemed normal, maybe kind of tipsy if the wobbling and the shot glass in his hand meant anything.
"I was having a great time," the man continued. "This prophet and me were hitting it off, drinking, bonding like cavemen if old. There were also these two brothers, a real pain in the ass while I'm sober, but great drinking buddies. And Cas, he was our wingman. Well, not mine, I have my own pair of wings, but for the Winchesters. In fact…" he paused as if trying to remember something.
Todd used the pause to speak.
"Who are you?" his voice somehow didn't falter or shake, and the others were impressed.
"Let me answer that with a question of my own: who did you call, shitface? It sure as hell weren't Ghostbusters!"
"We called for Lu-"
"And here I am! Can't even have a drink without some satanist wannabe summoning me to grant him a wish. I'm not a genie, you know? Some respect would be nice, or at least a chair or something." He swung his glass as he spun around, spilling half of the content. When he noticed the rest, he groaned.
"Is there really nothing better a bunch of teenagers can do at… What's the time?"
"Two in the morning," Casey answered after checking her watch.
"Two in the morning! What's wrong with you? Can't you just sit in some park, make out and do drugs?" The Devil leaned on the gravestone. The fact that he sounded like a disappointed grandpa was so funny to Rachel she began to giggle.
"What's so funny?" Lucifer asked her.
"This entire fucking situation," she answered, still holding back a laughing fit.
"Funny is not the word I'd use. Fucking annoying is more like it. Now Chuck's gonna make up some story about how Dean'd gotten so drunk Cas carried him home, even though we all know it's a matter of time before they end up in a bathroom stall sucking each other off. So you morons just cost me a drink."
"We could buy you one," Chad suggested. The kids all seemed so apologetic Lucifer laughed.
"It would kind of ruin my reputation as the Lord of Hell and Commander of Demons if I was seen babysitting a bunch of kids. No offense."
"Todd," Tyler began, "was there a point to this? Like a wish or something?"
"Nope. Honestly, I didn't believe something would actually happen." He glanced at Lucifer who was just downing what was left in his glass. "Certainly didn't expect a drunk cranky Devil to appear."
"Hey, I'm not drunk. Or cranky. You've hurt my feelings," he mumbled sarcastically.
"We've hurt the Devil's feelings?" Tyler asked.
"Yeah. My name's Lucifer and I care what you think," he said, staring directly in Tyler's eyes. A second later, Tyler's face got a horrified expression and he simply turned around, practically running out of the graveyard.
"I recommend you follow him. And if I get back to the bar and find out I've lost the bet, I'll send hellhounds after you."
It didn't take long for the group to follow Tyler. As they walked away, they could still hear Lucifer grumbling.
"At least there were virgins included before…"
As Sun rose over Columbus, Charlie woke up from his chloroform-induced slumber. He sluggishly glanced around and was surprised to see nothing. No pentagrams or crosses or desecrated graves. After inspecting the whole graveyard, the weirdest thing he'd found was a discarded shot glass with a note attached to it.
'No hellhounds needed. Action in the stall AND in the car. Chuck bought drinks for me and the brother.
Do drugs from now on. Please. Or at least bring virgins next time.'
The previous night might not have been the scariest in Charlie's time on the job, but it definitely was the strangest.