demon.Part 3 Hide and Seek

In The House on Banforth Street I placed a fictional house in a real street. This story takes place in the actual building that stands there. I was last there years ago as a child, but the design was as such that it stuck in my memory all those years. Here I have tried to recreate it as faithfully as possible.

As an additional note, the story that follows is actually rewritten from one I finished a good while ago in order to relate to the previous two, continuing the story of the demon that seems to be getting its own way..

'Don't want to'

She asked him again.

The young boy shook his head vigorously.

Why not? She asked, It will be fun.

Charlies thumb crept into his mouth.

His babysitter, her face an expression of disgust, grabbed his hand and pulled it away, the sudden movement making Charlies arm click,

'Little boys who suck their thumbs get them cut off and replaced with knives' her face twisted into evil glee, voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper..'so that when they sleep..the hand crawls up to their face and slides a...

Charlie burst into tears.

Pitiful thought the thing in the girls mind.

She cuddled him, apologising over and over again, soothing him until his tears faded to sniffles. Some snot from his nose dripped onto her shoulder, making her cringe slightly, both inhabitants feeling exactly the same at that moment.

'I'm sorry I scared you Charlie. It's just that you shouldn't suck your thumb like that. Didn't your mommy ever tell you?'

He nodded, offending digit still firmly wedged in place.

'well?'

The thumb came out.

'...sorry..'

'Pardon!?'

'i'm sorry'

she ruffled his hair.

'Good boy. How about some milk and a cookie, then a game of hide and seek?'

'Ok'

Satisfied with her trickery the two of them went into the kitchen, the unwilling host screaming silently at the boy to call his mom quickly while they were away.

Charlie stuck his thumb back in his mouth and toddled back down the hall. At six years old he was already exceptionally bright; the very thing that caught the entity's attention in the first place, prodigious with numbers and memory he could easily remember a full phone number and retain the information instantly.

So it was this very gift that attracted the demon which he used now to attempt to call for help. But before he could lift the reciever it rang.

'Hello? Is this S?'

Charlie politely told the voice on the other end of the phone that his mummy and daddy were not in, as he had been taught a year ago.

'Oh...replied the voice a bit flustered...'I must have misdialed. I have the wrong number'

Then the line went dead.

The boy replaced the hand set quietly then, as fast as he could, scurried upstairs to hide as the frantic voice in his head told him to.

Seconds later there was a loud crash in the kitchen and a scream that ripped through the walls, cealing and floor.

'YOU LITTLE SHIT!'

there was another bang as a door was torn from its hinges.

'I HAVE BEEN AFTER THAT SOUL FOR FUCKING AGES!!! AND YOU LET IT AWAY!!!

The voice rose as it screeched the words; cracking into silence on the last syllable causing a dog to bark outside.

The young boy squeezed his eyes shut, balled his fists and withdrew further under the bed as more shouts came from the thing downstairs. He didn't want to hear it, its vile words and screechy voice echoing through the building as it smashed and thumped its way upstairs, so he jammed his hands hard against his ears and began to hum twinkle, twinkle little star.

So he didn't know when it had stopped, listening for him intently on the landing, hearing his scared tune coming from his mommy's room. The first Charlie knew that he had been tricked again was when an instinct made him open his eyes, and an alien personality jumped strait into him from a dead girls mouth.

His parents arrived home at midnight. They had been gone for seven hours, first visiting the lawyer who had contacted them two days before, then, afterwards, going out to celebrate their good fortune. Both were tired, but happy and slightly drunk, so neither noticed anything untoward right away. His mummy gathered him up in her arms, kissed him and asked him what he had got up to.

'We played hide and seek mommy' he paused for a second as if considering '

But the girl watching me wasn't very good...he frowned, eyes sparkled as if he was remembering something. ' she kept hiding in the hall cupboard where the outside things are...