"You know that 'The Flintstones' is only partly based on fact? Dinosaurs and man did not coexist. Dinosaurs had long gone before man arrived. Extinct, kaput. What, you don't believe us?" - Stephen Merchant
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"Knock-knock." said Sock.
Jonathan was reading from a heavy-looking hardback book in his bedroom. He sat at the edge of his bed, while Sock was floating next to him.
Sock began to jump on Jonathan's bed like a little kid. Since Sock was incorporeal, his jumping didn't cause the bed springs to squeak, or the mattress to move, but to Sock, it was still just as fun as jumping on a bed when he was alive. He just kept talking as he jumped.
"Knock-knock! Knock-knock! Kn-"
"Who's there?" Jonathan finally grumbled. He hoped that if he let Sock tell his joke, Sock would leave him alone and let him finish reading. Even for a minute or two. Anything for a relief.
"Knock-knock!" said Sock.
Jonathan rolled his eyes. Sock obviously hadn't heard him. Was this boy for real? thought Jon.
"I just said, 'Who's there?'" repeated the teen.
"Oh, right!" Sock blinked in surprise. "Um… Boo!"
"'Boo' who?"
"Hush now, don't cry!"
Sock began to laugh. He was almost cry-laughing. Jonathan just stared at him like he was an idiot.
After Sock found himself again, he looked at the object in Jonathan's hands. "Whatcha reading?"
Jonathan didn't even bother answering. He just held up his book higher so Sock could read the cover himself.
Sock looked. It was a textbook on math, with the usual image of an abstract fractal design on the cover. Because nothing says 'fun with math' more than that.
"Any good?" Sock inquired.
"This sentence I've been reading for the last ten minutes is great so far." said Jonathan in a monotone voice.
Sock didn't seem to take the hint, because he replied with, "You sure it's more fun than dying?"
Jonathan ignored him, getting up and sitting down at his desk across the room. Sock just followed him. He sat down on the floor next to the desk, and looked up at Jonathan with green, hopeful eyes. Jon kept trying to read the book. He felt like the guy from The Da Vinci Code, trying to make sense of the complicated text.
"Knock-knock." said Sock, hovering above Jon. This time, Sock even mimed knocking on a non-existent door with his knuckles.
Jonathan sighed and closed his textbook with a loud thud. So much for studying.
"Who the hell is it this time?" he snapped.
That stopped Sock short.
He floated down to prop his elbows on Jonathan's desk.
"Jonathan, I'm not saying I'm Sherlock or anything, but... You sound bored to me."
"You never cease to astonish me, Holmes." replied Jonathan dryly.
"You are talking to a demon! Pay attention! Aren't you even a little bit scared?"
"I've gotten used to seeing you. And you're not scary. Just annoying."
"But I am scary!"
"You just suck at your job." said Jonathan.
That did it for Sock.
The little demon just looked at the blond teen with the most upset expression on his face. Jonathan wasn't sure whether to laugh or feel sorry for him.
"I… I'm scary!" Socky floated up. His shoulders were hunched up and his hands were clenched into fists.
Jon's deadpan expression told Sock that he still wasn't buying it. After a brief moment of silence, Jonathan went back to reading his math book.
"I-I bet I can scare you the next time I walk through this wall." said Sock, pointing towards the wall opposite Jonathan's desk.
Jonathan looked up from his math textbook. He seemed interested, and Sock beamed at the thought of this.
"How much?" asked Jonathan, raising an eyebrow.
"I bet your life!" yelled Sock with a grin.
"No."
"What's the matter? Scared I'll win?"
"I'm not an idiot. There's no way I'll bet my life on anything." said Jonathan.
"Thirty bucks then!" Sock yelled. "Deal?"
Jonathan thought for a moment. He had the money, and he could always use more.
"You're a demon. What would you even do with money, anyway?"
Sock shrugged. Jonathan guessed that that was the only answer he was going to get.
"So… You're serious about this, then?" said Jon.
"Yeah..."
Jonathan considered this for a moment.
"How about this," said Jon slowly, making sure to word it all properly. "If you can scare me the next time you enter this room, I'll give you thirty dollars, and I'll pay undivided attention to you for the rest of the day. If you can't, you have to give me thirty dollars and leave me alone for the rest of the day."
"Sounds good to me," said Sock. "Deal!"
"Deal!"
There was a sudden 'thump' sound from Sock and Jonathan. Not really even a real sound, more like a feeling. It seemed to have come from within the depths of their souls and vibrate through their bones (even Sock's incorporeal bones). The feeling felt small and subtle, yet huge and unmistakable.
It gave both the boys a chilling sensation.
It took them a moment to realise what had just happened.
"Did we just- Did I just make a deal with a demon?" said Jonathan. He had no idea just saying 'deal' could or would do that.
Sock was, at first, just as surprised as Jonathan, but quickly shrugged it off. "Well, I guess that means we can't undo it." he smiled.
Jon just sat dumbfounded at his desk, silently thanking his good sense to not bet anything he wasn't unwilling to give up.
"Okay," said Sock with an exciting grin. "I'll go and get ready. You stay here and get ready for the scariest moment of your life so far."
Sock quickly floated up and dived through the floor like a swimmer at a springboard.
Sock was now in the kitchen of Jonathan's house. He thought of all the scary movies he'd seen in his lifetime. And others he'd only recently seen in his afterlifetime with Jonathan after school.
But what could he do to scare Jonathan?
He thought about quickly nipping Downstairs and asking for advice from some of his demon colleagues. But he felt like that would be semi-cheating and unsportsmanlike to get outside help. A lot of the other demons were jerks anyway.
He decided to try and scare Jonathan the old-fashioned way: Via a good old jump scare.
Sock drifted to the downstairs bathroom. He needed to find a mirror, and just hope that he could see himself in it. Luckily, he could.
Sock looked at himself in the large, framed mirror above the sink. Sock drank it all in: The star-spangled hat, the blood-red scarf, the blue shirt, the tan vest with yellow pockets, the skirt, ripped jeans, the goggles, and- seriously, did Sock just steal every eccentric article of clothing from a jumble of rummage sale rejects or what?
After admiring his apparellel, Sock realised that scaring Jonathan would have been so much easier if he had his knife. On the one hand, ear-flapped hats, purple skirts, and striped socks made you look less like a suspicious serial killer to the authorities, but on the other hand, it made you look less credible as a demon worth running away from.
Sock pondered for a moment. What was scary that he could mimic?
Sock held his arms up and folded them like a dinosaur.
Why not? Dinosaurs, according to Sock's logic, were scary.
Sock opened his mouth to display his sharp demon teeth. Teeth? Check. He felt like he was making good progress. After all, all dinosaurs had sharp teeth (except the ones that didn't, but Sock's knowledge on dinosaurs was fairly limited).
Sock began to make dinosaur noises. "Rawr...Rawr. Rawr!" He tried to make his hands like claws.
He smiled at himself, falling back to his relaxed stance. He felt ready now.
With a determined look on his face, Sock skimmed up to Jonathan's room again.
Jon was hunched over at his desk, working on what looked like homework. His back was facing Sock.
Sock stalked up behind Jonathan.
When he got close enough, Sock yelled and made a face, showing his teeth and holding his arms like a land reptile from the Mesozoic Era.
"Rawr!"
Jonathan turned around.
...
Sock walked into the sterile-white office.
Mephistopheles was at his desk with a stack of paperwork that literally went up to the ceiling. A step ladder had been placed next to it, and Sock stood there wondering what would happen if the office's portable fan suddenly turned on. Mephistopheles stopped busily writing and smiled at Sock.
"Hey Sock," he said. "How's the job? Is he still making passes at you?"
"Well, i-it's going well. Been telling him to go 'do it'..."
"Shuffle off his mortal coil?" grinned Sock's employer.
"Yeah."
Pause. And it was a very long, very awkward pause.
Somewhere, a clock was ticking. It seemed to Sock that the ticking sounded uneven, like one tick would count a second three times longer than the tock before. But then, this was an office in Hell, and maybe demons had decided that seconds were just too slow, or too fast, and how's about a clock that can do a minute in twenty seconds? Or eighty-five seconds? That way, they could get more, or less, hours in a day than the land of living.
Or maybe, thought Sock, Mephistopheles was just really, really bad at managing time. Or even figuring out how it worked exactly.
The pause was still going, so Sock broke it with, "You... couldn't lend me thirty dollars, could you?"
Mephistopheles stared at Sock.
"Oh, cripes. You didn't."
He didn't even need to ask what the thirty dollars were for. He could tell from Sock's expression what had happened. The defeated look. The drooping head. The disappointment in his eyes.
"Yup, I did. Sorry..." Then Sock paused for a moment. "I'm not going to get fired, am I?"
Mephistopheles' face softened. "No. Don't sweat it, Socks. It was a little bit my fault. I should have told you about the whole 'demon deals' thing. I've just been so busy. You've still got your job."
"Thanks. And if you want, I'll pay you back sometime-"
"Oh, no, no, no- you're paying for it. All of it. Whatever the bet was, you still lost. So you'll need to pay him."
Sock didn't like the sound of this.
"How? Where am I going to earn the money from?"
"Well," said Mephistopheles, pondering for a moment with a hand to his chin, "Death and three of his colleagues have been looking for someone who can temporarily muck out their horses' stables. You see, the other person who used to do it-"
"Oh!" beamed Sock. "You mean the Four Horses of the Apoc-"
"Yes, I do. " Mephistopheles quickly broke in.