Bump in the Night

It was 9pm on October 27^th when I got the call. Grandpa Al had a heart attack. He died while I was at a stoplight, one block away from the hospital. I wanted to crush the cell phone that delivered this hateful message. I cried, instead.

Grandpa and I were close. My favorite of our chats involved the supernatural. We must have watched The Haunted and read The Amityville Horror a hundred times. Not to mention anything we could find on the Discovery channel involving hauntings or similar phenomena.

Grandpa always got frustrated when the TV showed clergy denying the existence of ghosts and demons.

"If they teach all that crap about God being good and the Devil being bad, then obviously there is evil. So why won't they deal with it?"

It seemed terribly hypocritical to me, too.

But those days are over. Grandpa Al had all the answers now. However, Grandpa wasn't quite through in the world of the living, and he had one last gift for his granddaughter:Grandpa's will delegated to the family a few interesting items; the biggest being his old summer country house, which he, amazingly, left to me.

As I slid my bed into its new place in my grandfather's old bedroom, I realized that these times were gone forever, and tears burned my eyes again. I collapsed on the bed, exhausted and staring at all the other boxes waiting to be unpacked.

They could wait longer. It was time to pass into the oblivion of sleep, hopefully for at least eight hours this time.

I got through about two minutes before it started.

At first, it felt as though a cat had leapt lightly onto the bed. It didn't alarm me until I realized that my cat was still at my parents' place. I half-opened my eyes. And the world exploded.

I say "exploded" because it really did sound like it. Simultaneously the bed, dressers, lamps, walls just... shook. This went on for about ten seconds and then everything was still.

I sat up in bed and fumbled for the nearby light switch, feeling temporary relief as light washed over the room.

Dreaming, I thought, feeling a pang of guilt over my scorn of those families on TV who take forever to say all right, guess we're haunted.

That was when I noticed the smell. The pungent odor of decaying organic matter. You know. Death-smell.

I didn't stop to fabricate "dead mouse under the carpet". This had DEMON written all over it and because I understood that, I managed to avoid the lamp that was launched straight at my head half a second later.

With a loud expletive, I was up, out, gone from the room. I headed straight for the box where I knew I had my smudge stick- a bundle of the protective herb, sage, used to for centuries to repel evil. This alone won't drive off a cranky demon, mind you, but it will shut it up for a while.

Years of research had taught me, when you get a demon, there's no use fleeing. It latches on and it'll go right with you. Your car, your mother's house, an igloo in the middle of Antarctica... It'll find you. Distance is nothing to a demon. So then I had one option.

Get rid of it.

I wondered what brought this thing on, and why grandpa hadn't mentioned it to me. It wasn't until I went through grandpa's old, dusty study that I understood.

Amidst the endless books on the occult, folders of newspaper clippings and photo albums of "ghost" pictures he used to show me, I found a notebook.

Grandpa's handwriting was atrocious anyway, but some pages I couldn't discern at all because they were covered in strange letters and symbols.

I wanted to read all of it that I could, so I sat on the soft recliner and turned the first page.

I was enthralled. Talk of the Outer World, its denizens, a very ...different... take on the myth of creation, runes, sigils, incantations, and some very dire warnings. I felt a bit cheated, though, like I was reading the cliff notes to a book of pure magnificence.

Then I read something that made my blood run cold:

I was careless. A paper cut and... Blood on a sigil in the damn Necronomicon! And now IT howls, calling for me like it called the poor bastard that transcribed it. I think I released a very foul demon named HAWUMWA. Or at least, part of its essence. Even now, my study shakes as if there were an earthquake. It's coming. Gods help me! I don't want to see it! They say its face

That's where the writing ended. I began to search the study for the mentioned book. After about five minutes of poring over the elaborate supply of literature, I found it.

It had an old leather cover that smelled vaguely of mildew and sawdust. I flipped through thick, unwieldy pages. Toward the end was the darker subject matter; the ancient evil beings and their symbols and names and rituals. It was in this nest of pages that I found the brownish-red thumb print, right smack over the sigil of HAWUMWA.

While I professed to know the ins and outs of hauntings, I also knew when I was outmatched. This demon was from a very, very long time ago.

But if one could summon such an abomination, then surely one could unsummon it, I thought. And with further reading, I found there were quite a few rituals to banish these beings. Unfortunately I lacked most of the key ingredients, like effigies, amulets and sacrificial daggers. I did, however, possess a fair amount of salt, water, a dagger from the Renaissance Faire.

Necronomicon in hand, I left the study in search of these implements when the stench returned. It was ten times fouler than before, and I was hard pressed not to gag, outright.

That was when I saw It.

At first, as I squinted the length of the dimly lit corridor, I thought it was a shadow. But then a vaguely humanoid shape materialized, with brown, insect-like arms and scaled legs that bent backward and extended into hooves. Its misshapen head was far too large for its body and, when It took a step closer, I saw that the "face" was a huge mass of shining, wet...

Entrails.

Entrails that squirmed.

It said something that sounded like "Kttulaxaxax!" in a watery, impossible rasp.

Oh, how I ran.

It tore after me, hooves thundering unnaturally on the linoleum. I veered sharply into the kitchen, extending one hand to grab the cardboard cylinder of salt and the other for a half drunk bottle of water as I raced by, continuing out of the mercifully placed second entrance, via the dining room.

A deafening shriek erupted in the distance that sounded like a cross between a lion, eagle, and something from the Jurassic era. I collected myself and leaped into the bedroom, slamming the door behind me.

Expletives dropped from my mouth like autumn leaves in a windstorm. Now I knew what had caused Grandpa Al's heart attack.

I grabbed the tools I needed and hurriedly poured a large circle of salt around me. I lit sage with unsteady hands.

Another unearthly scream echoed through the house. I froze, deer-in-the-headlights terrified until It burst through the bedroom door like a train, showering the room in splintered wood.

It moved... unnaturally, almost like it was animated clay. This was no apparition. It was as solid as the floor I stood on and it took every bit of courage I had to stay inside that circle.

It gurgled through the writhing intestines, the sound as nauseating as Its odor. I had no doubt that this disgusting abomination was HAWUMWA.

The horror of it! I couldn't even bring myself to scream. I simply threw my arms over my face and waited for what would surely be an agonizing death.

It never came. I opened an eye and saw It stomping around the salted circle, snorting and bubbling and clearly upset at this inconvenient barrier.

Still violently shaking, I took the dagger and nicked my finger with it, drawing as quickly as I dared one of the protective sigils on the floor with my own blood. I yelled one of the banishment incantations from the book with as much authority as I could muster:

"BARRA HAWUMWA! BACK INTO THE EARTH! BACK BENEATH THE MOUNTAIN! BARRA HAWUMWA!"

The entire house began to shake. Pictures fell from the walls, books flew from their shelves, lamps shattered. The howls of HAWUMWA were deafening. I continued the chant, splashing the dagger with water from a bottle and sprinkling salt onto it.

I stood, trembling and trying not to retch from the horrible odor the demon exuded. I clutched the dagger, white-knuckled, and stepped out of the circle.

Delighted, HAWUMWA shook Its grotesque head and, with a vomiting bray, charged.

The dagger and my arm sank into the demon's dripping face as It barreled into me. It was sickening. My arm felt as though it were encased in ice and fire at once. I yelled in pain, but I had nothing in volume compared to the deafening shrieks that HAWUMWA expelled.

The screaming, the stench, the horror of it all was simply too much. My battered mind had enough. It shut off and I knew only darkness.

* * *

I can never describe to you what transpired in the state of my unconsciousness, for that is when They have easiest access to our minds and there are simply some things that are better left unsaid. For both of our safety.

Know only that the displeasure of the Ancient Ones is something you should never hope to encounter. They do not forget you.

I lived only because I had anointed the dagger with common, protective elements and fierce determination when reciting the banishment. But I can feel It hovering, watching, waiting... I fear not just for my life, but for my very soul.

There is Evil in this world. Let there be no doubt about that. You can tell yourself all the foolish lies in the book- you know, the ones your parents fed you so you could sleep after you watched your first scary movie. That point in your painfully receptive childhood when you start to think maybe there are things out there that can't be turned off, blinked or slept away.

There damn well could be a monster in your closet or under your bed. There's not a very high probability of it, but the chance is there. And by the way, just because it isn't there now doesn't mean it won't show up later.

Of course our world is not the only world out there. How egotistical and self centered to assume otherwise.

No, there are unnatural... Things. Out there.

Pray that you never meet one.