CHAPTER 16

Hogan's Sprint came to a slow and steady halt when he saw a group of people gathered at the front of the Willow's. Squinting against the moonlight, he noticed the costumes and recognised his friends.

"Hey" Hogan spoke up between pants for breath.

"Have you seen Sarah? She asked us to come here and we've been waiting" May's voice was muffled against Jameson's chest.

"Let's just go in, for all we know she's waiting for us inside" Hogan shrugged

"That will be truly surprising. I wonder why she finally agreed to come here in the first place after the persuasion" Thompson chipped in.

"Let's find out" Hogan side stepped them as he placed his hands on the door.

"We've already tried, the door isn't openi-" the door creaked open. Hogan casted a smug look at Thompson and Jameson. "With all your muscles y'all couldn't even open a damn door", he chuckled and walked inside. Cobwebs kissed his face, he began screaming and tearing at the light threads of webs on his face.

Thompson was full on laughing while Jameson and May were chuckling at the sight of screaming Hogan. Tripping over a loose floor board, Hogan's screams evolved into a groan as he connected with the wooden floor.

"Ouch, that must hurt" May made a move to check on Hogan who was lying still. She poked him as he remained still unbreathing.

"Guys? He's not moving" fear cripped into May's voice as she began shaking Hogan.

The moonlight spilled into the house through the open doors, brightening half of the room.

"Knowing Hogan it's just one of his tricks" Thompson said as he and Jameson gazed at the different objects in the house.

"Check his heart, he can stop his breathing but not his heartbeat" Thompson finally looked at the duo on the floor.

May crouched and lowered her right ear towards Hogan's chest, slowly like she'd wake him.

"Boo"

May jumped back and screamed. Hogan stood up in a laughing fit watching May clutch her heaving chest.

"Hogan it's not funny" May walked towards him and hit him in the arm

"You should have seen your face, you were like" Hogan made gesticulation and facial expressions suggesting the manner May had ran towards the wall.

Jameson smiled at the friends as he walked towards May and engulfed her in a hug. The hug lasted for a second then minutes and what felt like hours.

There was an awkward cough from behind. The duo broke apart.

"I'm Hogan" Hogan stretched forth his hands towards Jameson.

"I'm Jameson" He accepted the hand shake, Hogan's hands felt warm and soft. He winked. Jameson flushed and removed his hands.

In the awkward silence, the door slammed shut. They jumped back to see the cause of the noise, there was no one. Thompson quickly switched on his phone torch and saw floor boards wedged between the door handles.

"That's weird" he moved forward to investigate when a running figure besides him caught his attention. He quickly directed the light towards the direction of the running figure, no one.

"Guys, I'm scared" May outed her fear, unconsciously, Jameson wrapped an arm around her waist.

They heard guttural sounds coming from the kitchen towards the parlour, a slow steady thud against the carpeted floor. Thompson slowly turned his light towards the door. First fingers then a whole body walking on it's hands and feet came out.

Thompson paled, silence enveloped the group as the thing stopped walking.

It stood on it's feet and waited. Swaying and rotating it's head as the guttural sound emanated from it's throat.

It dashed towards them, May screamed, they ran up the stairs leaping over broken floor boards. At the top of the stairs another one stayed, swaying.

It took a step towards them.

They screamed and ran down; now stuck between two of them at the top and bottom of the stairs. Slowly moving towards them, each took a step. Whimpers escaped their lips as they shuddered. They both stopped.

Laughter's escaped their lips as the things removed their costumes.

"You guys should have seen your faces" a voice familiar to them laughed.

"Yes, you were at the verge of dying" a strange voice said.

"Sarah?" May removed herself from the vice like grip of Jameson and moved towards the top of the stairs.

"Yes?" Sarah said in-between fits of laughter.

"Oh my God it isn't funny, I almost had a heart attack" May breathed out. The rest of the group being men slightly chuckled at the humourous display of May's rage turning away the beam of focus as they didn't want to be called out on their false masculinity.

"And who's that?" May pointed to the figure at the bottom of the stairs

"Oh his name is Edward" Edward removed his cloak and waved at the group of friends on the stairs.

Silence washed on them as everyone focused on May trying to steady her breathing.

"Well let's check this place out shall we?" Hogan broke the brewing silence.

The group moved towards the top of the stairs deciding to work their way from top to bottom. Drumming her fingers against the wooden dusty cracked walls of the home, May created a steady rhythm.

Each step they took, the floor board creaked. "How old is this place?" Thompson asked as he rotated his torch among stained walls and faded paintings. No response.

"No one knows exactly how old it is, all they know is that the people that lived in here used to perform some dark ancient mystical arts" Edwards spoke.

"You know?" Thompson glanced at him

"Well I kind of study ancient history and art so yeah". The group fell quiet only the creaks of the floor board overshadowed their breaths.

"Well this is boring, there's no spirit here" May stopped drumming her fingers "I can't believe you were afraid of this place Sarah". May waited expecting a comeback but heard none. She turned "Sarah? Guys I've not seen Sarah".

Their movement stopped , they turned . "Sarah?" They called at different interjections. No response.

They walked back towards their starting point and noticed a slightly opened door.

"Guys?" Sarah poked her head through the door. Sighs of relief escaped their lips. Edward walked towards her and engulfed her in a hug to which she blushed.

"I found something" Sarah opened the door for the group to enter.

"What the hell is that?" Hogan was the first to speak

"Isn't that some voodoo shit?" Jameson spoke next

"Well Edward master of all ancient history what the hell is this?" May spoke.

Edward chuckled. He stared hard at the floor boards. The candles placed at every circumpunct at the edge of every triangle. The diagram had slowly faded due to time. He walked around the diagram slightly reading the inscriptions beside it.

"It's an occultic symbol for starters but..." Edward looked around and saw a disposed plaster of Paris chiseled into a chalk like form casted at the floor growing webs, he moved towards it.

"Cult? As in the Illuminati kind of cult?" Hogan's voice raised a tone.

"Are you sure you should touch that?" Sarah slowly moved towards Edward who bent to pick the plaster.

"Don't worry , it's fine".

"Well for some reason, the inscriptions are in Hebrew but the last symbol isn't correct". Edward picked the plaster and moved towards the end of the inscription.

"What does it say?"

"And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew tongue is..."

"The last word is meant to be Abaddon but the letters are misspelled.

Instead of this symbol א" "

Edward made an inscription of the symbol on the floor "the person used an ordinary 'x' ", he made another symbol on the floor.

He wrote over the symbols, and corrected it אֲבַדּוֹן‎

Immediately the windows slammed, the candles lit and the air became tense.

"W-what is happening?" Fear had crawled back into Sarah, feeling herself draining off of the encouragement she was given by Edward.

"I-i don't know" Edward stepped back as the rest of the group moved away from the symbol. From the beginning each lettered glowed till it reached the end and the candles went off.

The cupboards opened with force and an ear piercing scream tore through the tense air.

The group scampered towards the door. As they burst through the house of the Willow's they felt relief wash over them. Sucking in as much oxygen they could they ran as far away as possible from the house and from the party close by.

* * *

"31st October 2000

I found a love interest at the Halloween party that I didn't want to go to. But that night took an wrong detour. I went to the Willow's house and to say it creeped me out will be an understatement. The weird part of tonight was that I found a strange text of the bible inscribed on the floor at the edges of a famous cult symbol. I should have just left it alone but no I had to intervene.The inscriptions were: והיה להם מלך עליהם שהוא מלאך הבור חסר הקרקע ששמו בלשון עברית עבדון

And when I corrected the mistake that was made, some things happened. I heard these voices in my head and by the looks on the faces of the people in the room, they couldn't hear it. The voices were telling me that they were coming for me. I don't know what to do or who to tell I..." A noise distracted the writer.

"Hello?" He called to no one in particular, "look I'm calling the cops if you don't show yourself" he stood up, dialled the cops, no service

"The hell?"

He picked up his baseball bat beside his bed and walked slowly towards the parlour.

Each step he took his heart beat faster, he poked his head through the railing on the stairs and saw some papers had been knocked over and the windows were left opened.

"It's just the wind" he muttered to himself as he walked by to close the window and arrange the papers. He walked back to his room and closed his door.

He sat on his bed.

A hand grabbed his feet from under his bed. He screamed, he felt the pull, stronger than his resilience. Slowly his screams were muffled under his bed by clusters of hands and body parts.