Lightning flared across the dark, raging sky over the small town in northern Louisiana. The wind was blowing at an annoying 60 mph, howling and whining through every tight space. Stray and wild animals took desperate cover under anything they could find: vehicles, old parts, carelessly open sheds and even in garbage cans. The rain was coming down horizontally, pelting the stained window of an intriguing dark green house on Silver Street. Inside that house were three best friends, taking refuge around a warm fireplace, which happened to be their only light source after the storm knocked out the power. One girl, the owner of the interesting little house, was staring bluntly out the stained window and watching as leaves and various other debris flew and tumbled down her street.
"The rain's really coming down," she noted, letting the blind fall back into place. She heaved a sigh. "Of course it storms on the day I actually had plans."
"Hey, if you ask me, this Mike guy missed out on a perfect opportunity to comfort and cuddle you in front of a fireplace during a spooky storm," One of the other girls piped up, warming her hands in front of the flames. "He's a dunce and not worth your time."
"You say that about every guy I date."
"Are you even dating him yet, Zoe? I mean, you technically had to cancel your first official date, so where does that leave you?" The third girl asked, snuggling into a tighter ball under a fleece blanket in the corner of the couch that the girls had pushed over to face the fire.
"In limbo," Zoe sighed again, plopping herself down onto the couch. "I can't even text or call him because there's no cell service. The storm's screwing with the tower."
"Maybe you should take this storm as a sign to move on,"
Zoe glared down at her friend, who was huddled close to the fire.
"Meridah," she warned.
Meridah shrugged and turned away, muttering "just saying" under her breath.
"I don't understand what your problem with him is," Zoe argued. "I mean, he's a nice guy! You've barely given him a chance."
"He's a nice guy to you because he wants to get you in bed," Meridah replied firmly. "He's not a nice guy in general. Him and his jock friends are public enemy number one to everybody in this town. Just ask Rose, she'll tell you the truth. Rose?"
The other girl on the couch shook her head defiantly.
"Nope, no way am I getting involved in this one. Why don't we get our minds off of it and play a board game or cards or something? If I have to be trapped in a house with arguing girls I'm going to die."
"That's a great idea, actually," Meridah agreed, standing up from the fireplace. "Zoe, you keep your board games in the hallway closet, right?"
"Yeah, top shelf. There's tons there; they were all my mom's at one time or another. Just pick whatever you want. Here, take this candle with you."
Zoe handed her friend a candle for light and Meridah bravely trekked into the dark shadows of the tiny house to choose a game.
"Ugh, I hate storms," Rose muttered, hiding half of her face behind the blanket. "Ever since Katrina hit they scare the ever-living crap out of me."
"I know what you mean," Zoe murmured, fidgeting with her pant leg.
She'd lost her mother during Hurricane Katrina. She could remember everything about the day so clearly. She'd been in Dallas, Texas for a meeting, and she could remember coming back to her hotel room and getting the call that her mother was gone. She cried for days and had to cancel all of her meetings. She couldn't fly back to Clarks, Louisiana right away, since no planes were going there. So she'd been stranded in Dallas, remembering how her mother's face had looked so much like her own. Every time she looked into the mirror she could see her mother in her long, wavy chocolate brown hair, bright, icy blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and warm complexion. During that time, she'd realized she didn't gain much from her father look-wise.
"Zoe! Oh my god, Zoe!" Meridah's voice shocked the two girls a little, causing them to jump.
Meridah came skidding into the living room, nearly sliding right into the arm of the couch. Her frizzy pale blonde hair was sticking out everywhere in a mass of curls and her blue eyes were wide behind navy glasses as she stared at the box she was holding. Rose tilted her auburn head back to read the back of the box.
"Ouija: The Mystifying Oracle," she read. "Oh, no way in hell am I playing that. You two knock yourselves out."
"What?!" Meridah snapped. "Don't be such a wuss! Are you kidding me? None of this stuff is real, Rose. It's just a game."
"I don't care, I don't like them. My Nana always told me to never, ever touch one. They're bad, you guys. They open doorways for bad things to get through." Rose shook her head and snuggled under her blanket.
"Ugh, whatever," Meridah rolled her eyes. "Are you playing at least, Zoe? Why didn't you tell me you had a Ouija board?"
Zoe shrugged. "Honestly I don't know half the board games I own. I never play them. But yeah, I'll play with you. How does it work?"
The girls sat beside one another and set the board on the floor in front of the fireplace. They put the wooden planchette in the centre of the board and poured over the instructions. Rose didn't speak a word.
"Seems pretty basic to me," Meridah said, tossing the paper instructions on the ground. "What if we contact a ghost, Zoe? Are you gonna scream and cry like a little girl?"
Zoe smirked. "There's no such thing as ghosts. These boards are based off of involuntary muscle movements anyway. I can't believe you don't wanna play, Rose. It's not a big deal."
"To me it's a big deal," Rose muttered. "Just play the stupid thing but leave me out of it."
Zoe shrugged. "Okay, so we put our fingers on the thing like this?"
"Yeah, and we move it around in three circles and then we just barely touch it. One, two, three…ask a question, Zoe."
"Why do I have to ask?"
"Because I told you to ask."
"Yeah, because that's a valid reason—"
"Ugh, is there anybody here with us right now?" The room fell dead silent at Meridah's sudden question. As is expected when trying to contact the dead, a spooky sort of suspense settled on the girls' shoulders.
The planchette didn't move an inch.
"What's your name?" Meridah asked.
Zoe, who had been biting her lip with anxiety, suddenly opened her mouth.
"Do you know our names?" she asked.
Rose whined behind them.
Suddenly the triangle-shaped planchette began to shift and twitch in the centre of the board. The colour momentarily drained out of all the girls' faces. It began to slide towards the lower right half of the board.
"A-are you…?" Meridah breathed.
Zoe shook her head. "Nope…"
The planchette began to move more erratically and with more speed. In the circular glass window near its top, the letters Z, O, and E appeared in quick succession. The girls didn't even get to read them out as it landed on them.
"Oh my fucking god, Zoe," Meridah whispered.
"What do I do…?" Zoe asked, stunned.
"Ask more questions! Obviously it—or they—want to talk to you."
"Oh, um…who are you?" she asked.
The planchette ominously shifted back to the Z and stayed there. The girls moved it back to the centre of the board after a moment.
"Z, okay…that didn't answer much," Zoe breathed nervously. "Um, do you know me?"
If shifted to YES.
"Zoe, what if it's…" Meridah's voice died out before she could finish. She didn't want to say the words. She still wasn't sure how to address it around her friend.
Zoe swallowed and straightened her back a little.
"Mom?" she whispered softly.
The planchette very slowly slid across the board to NO.
Meridah's face scrunched up. "Who are you then? Who's Z?"
"I don't know," Zoe shrugged. "Maybe it wanted to spell my name again."
"This is really weird. I swear I'm not moving it! Ask it something else."
"What are you doing here?" Zoe asked.
The planchette slid across to several letters, this time letting the girls call them out as it landed on each one.
"P, R, O, T, E, C, T," they said in unison.
"Who are you protecting?" Zoe asked eagerly. "What are you protecting them from?"
The planchette didn't move an inch. Suddenly the candles that were on the coffee table and all around the couch went out all at once in a blur of wind and smoke. All the girls jumped and screamed. Zoe released the planchette and jumped back, skittering into the edge of the couch. Meridah hastily said goodbye and wiped the planchette across the words, not noticing that her friend didn't do the same thing, which was supposed to close off any connections they made with spirits.
"Oh my god that was terrifying," Zoe said, clutching her chest as her heart raced beneath her fingers.
"Can you guys stop playing now?" Rose squeaked, now entirely hidden and shaking under the fleece blanket.
"Yeah we're done we both said goodbye to whoever we were talking to," Meridah confirmed.
Zoe froze and gave the blonde girl a look. "When did we say goodbye?"
"Just now," Meridah said. "I wiped the thing across the GOODBYE on the board and said it. You have to do that to seal off the 'portals' or whatever. Everyone playing has to do it for protection."
"I didn't do it," Zoe shook her head.
"Zoe!" Rose exclaimed, pulling the blanket down a little. "You probably opened a doorway in your house!"
Zoe took a moment and then rolled her eyes.
"Don't be stupid, Rose. You do realize how ridiculous that sounds, right? That's some Hollywood crap, really it is."
"Oooh, the demon's gonna come out and get you, Zoe!" Meridah giggled darkly, wiggling her fingers in Zoe's face. "You invited him in!"
Zoe playfully slapped her friend's fingers away. "First of all, if ghosts don't exist, demons sure as hell don't. You guys are nutcases, I swear."
Meridah laughed along with her friend and put a hand on her belly.
"I'm kinda peckish," she announced. "What do you got that doesn't involve baking or cooking or microwaving?"
"I think I have some Jell-O in the pantry," Zoe smirked.
"C'mon, you gotta have something!" Meridah groaned. "I've just had a muffin all day."
"Alright, c'mon guys we'll go see if I have anything," Zoe stood up and stepped over the Ouija on the floor, grabbing a match from her pocket and re-lighting a candle to take. "We can play the game called 'who can close the fridge door fastest to conserve the freshness of my food in a power outage.'"
"Sounds like a lot more fun than the dumb game you were playing before," Rose grumbled, finally getting up off the couch still wrapped in the blanket.
"Oh, get over it, you crazy," Meridah said. "It's just a game."
"Then how do you explain the candles all going out, huh?"
"I don't know; some breeze from outside must've gotten in somewhere. It was nothing."
The three girls traipsed into the kitchen to hunt for food, forgetting all about the Ouija board still lying on the living room floor. The planchette sat in the centre of the board at an eerie, disturbed-looking angle. What the girls didn't know was what they couldn't see: the Ouija board wasn't the only thing seated on that floor. There was a dark man sitting cross legged on the opposite side of the board. His ringed fingers were lightly pressed on the pointy edge of the planchette, the opposite end from where the girls had been touching it. He was dressed in black pants and a thin black dress shirt that only generously showed his defined muscles and parts of the odd, rune-like tattoos on his arms, with pale skin that was being drowned in the dancing shadow of the firelight. His hair was as black as the darkest corner of Zoe's house, and it was flipped up in a spiky fin atop his head. Very slowly, he turned his face from the board game to follow the girls as they walked out. His eyes, the colour of indicolite, were trained on Zoe's back: the one who had freed him. And then, in a blink of those same eyes, all colour had vanished from them. He no longer had an iris or a pupil; it looked like his eyes were drowning in a deep black oil slick.
Finally, someone slipped up and he was free. After centuries of trying to escape from hell, he finally had his chance. He just had one more step to complete before he could be completely whole again; no longer an invisible ghost, but entirely capable of walking amongst the humans and being mistaken for one. It gave him a perverse amount of pleasure knowing all he had to do was seduce or terrify the poor girl into giving him what he wanted. Soon he'd be able to seize the world once again, and Zoe would help him do it.
She'd forgotten to say goodbye and in doing so, she had unknowingly released hell on earth.