Whittled Bone and Raven Feathers

“Wait, we’re actually doing this?” Wesley asked, rolling his bike through the open doorway of Jared’s house.

“Yeah,” Tom replied, slamming the door shut so hard that the glass quivered. He stretched out his broad shoulders, bringing his hands down on the marble kitchen counter. “I mean, Jared’s parents aren’t here, so we might as well.”

“Jared’s parents are never here,” Wesley replied, shouldering past his brawny friend.

“True, but Alec’s been going on and on about it since yesterday and…”

“Alec’s been here since yesterday?”

“Yeah. He slept over. Not everybody’s dating their own mum like you.”

         Wesley gave a half-hearted laugh. He’d heard the joke a thousand times and was prepared to hear it a thousand more. “So, what exactly is it we’re supposed to do?”

         “I dunno the details,” Tom muttered, grabbing something from the fridge. “Stand in a pentagon, say a chant, something happens and poof, we have a little demon friend.”

         “Nice,” Wesley sighed, passing through the obnoxiously vast living room and reaching the double doors to the basement. “You know we have that history assignment due Monday right?”

         “Bro, you love history, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finishing it,” Tom called from the living room as he tried to vault over a decadent leather sofa, resulting in an avalanche of throw pillows. It was fine with Wesley, he’d rather do it by himself than have Tom mess it up for the both of them.

         “Open the door,” Wesley called, rapping his knuckles the robust redwood.

         The patter of hurried footsteps was followed by a click and Alec’s pink haired head popped out. “Hey… uh… it’s a bit messy down there right now, so…”

         “We don’t care,” Tom huffed, pushing the door open and nearly knocking Alec down the stairs.

         “Dickhead,” Alec said under his breath as Tom sauntered past him.

         Wesley laughed, clapping Alec’s shoulder as they descended.

         Alec wasn’t lying. The needlessly huge man-cave basement was strewn about with pillows and printouts of weird symbols and haphazard art materials, an unfamiliar makeover to the basement they’d spent so many years rocking out to Green Day and Arctic Monkeys in. Jared, as usual, was splayed out along the four-seater couch, reaching both ends with his uncannily long body, his phone held unsettlingly close to his face. “Did you purposefully put on a button up shirt and pants, just to come to my basement?” Jared asked, squinting at Wesley.

         “No, as a matter of fact I didn’t. I’d been planning to meet the president but I decided he could wait. Couldn’t miss out on Alec’s demon summoning plans,” Wesley responded with a smile, sitting down courteously on a hanging chair.

         Tom plopped himself down on the sofa, reclining against Jared’s midsection, cracked open the can he’d taken from the fridge and proceeded to glug like his life depended on it.

         “Dude,” Jared hissed. “Is that my dad’s beer?”

         “Naw,” Tom replied. “It’s your mums. Don’t worry I asked her for it last night. Hey Alec how long’s it gonna be?”

         “Relax a second!” Alec hollered, organizing some papers into stacks. “You know it’s not easy to figure this stuff out with empty soda cans and wrappers everywhere, not to mention the endless array of half used art stuff. Like what the hell? How do you have eight different, half-finished tubes of purple paint?”

         Jared shrugged, returning his attention to his over-the-top, latest edition phone. “I’m an artistic prodigy, mate. Not my fault.”

         Wesley unslung his canvas backpack and pulled out a beaten-up book on debates about the cradle of mankind, which he’d found in the deepest reaches of his school library.

         “God damnit, Wesley, be a teenager for once,” Tom cried, finishing the can and tossing it upwards. It fell directly onto Jared’s unnecessarily long, perfectly styled yet incredibly messy, undercut hair. He responded with a slap to Tom’s bicep, to which Tom said, “Bro, you couldn’t kill a wingless, legless fly with that slap.” 

         “Oh buzz off, caveman,” Jared lolled his head back so Alec entered his field of vision. “Hurry up,” he groaned.

         Alec didn’t look up this time, arranging a group of thick black candles on plates. He scrolled through his phone a moment, then gathered up some scattered printouts and proceeded to write something in big, scratchy letters on the wall.

         “I hope that’s a whiteboard marker,” Wesley laughed, allowing his hanging chair to swing a bit.

         Jared let out a groan of exasperation. Most would leap to their feet in protest at the sight of somebody literally vandalizing their wall, but not Jared.

         “Ok… ok I think it’s done,” Alec called, capping the marker and tossing it aside.

         “Right, how fast can we get this over with, I’ve got to meet Kristina at four,” Tom told the others.

         “Dude, everybody knows you’re not boning Kristina,” Alec responded, dissonantly.

         “True,” Tom replied, “I just wasn’t comfortable doing her and your mum at the same time. Had to pick one.”

         Alec rolled his eyes.

         “So,” Wesley started, standing up and slipping the book back into his bag. “How’re we supposed to get into pentagon formation if there are only four of us?”

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         “C’mon man, that’s a myth,” Alec said, as if it was common knowledge.

         “Jared, dim the lights as much as you can,” Alec called.

         The long boy scrolled his thumb down his phone and the lights responded accordingly.

         “Right, everybody come here. Jared, in order to do that, get off the couch.”

         Jared groaned and stood up, like a giraffe and joined the others.

         “Ok now hold hands.”

         “I’m not holding Tom’s hand,” Jared muttered, finally pocketing his phone.

          “Wait, one of has to record this,” Alec realized.

         “Why?” Wesley asked. “You think it’s going to work?”

         “No,” Alec said quickly. “Wait, you guys thought I was doing this because I thought it was going to work? Idiots, my brother made a bet with me… said I was too scared to do it. Look at me. Look at me Allan! Yeah, screw you.”

         Wesley blinked, taking a moment to process the stuttered, zooming words as they tumbled out of Alec’s mouth. “Um… ok.”

         “No need to record, I’ve got security cameras,” Jared said with a lazy hand wave.

         “You can access the files? Good,” Alec started. “Ok um… now be quiet.” He started reading something aloud from a sheet of paper that looked like it had been photocopied from a book written in 600 A.D.

         Wesley mused about what year the book could have been written in and by which people. Whatever Alec was reading, it wasn’t English. In fact, Wesley couldn’t grasp which language it was, and he was usually very good at that.

         Alec paused abruptly. “Damn, this website was made in 2004? Is that trust worthy?” he asked, squinting at the tiny date of publication in the corner.

         “Get on with it!” Tom shouted.

         “Ok ok,” Alec fussed, muttering a few more incomprehensible syllables. “Alright,” he pulled a swiss knife from his pocket. “Everybody give me your hand.”

         Wesley looked his black clothed friend in the eye. “What?”

         “Oh, just do it already,” Tom muttered, shoving his hand forward.

         “Ok so when I slice your hand,” Alec explained as he pressed into Tom’s palm. Wesley jaw tightened at the sight of blood. “You have to extinguish one of the candles. Make sure you do, and make sure you only extinguish one, or we’ve screwed it up. Tom, do you understand?”

         Tom scrunched his hand into a fist, letting out far more blood than necessary and completely pummeled the candle closest to him. A weak plume of smoke snaked upwards. Tom let out a devilish cackle. “Alright Wes, you’re next.”

         “This is a terrible idea,” Wesley muttered, putting his hand forward. “My mom’s going to ask questions.”

         “Your mum would ask questions if a strand of your hair was out of place,” Tom responded, wiping his bloody hand on his faded old cargo shorts.

         The blade was sharp and it didn’t dig deep into Wesley’s palm, but he couldn’t help but wince as he watched his blood drip off the side of his hand. It missed the candle.

         “C’mon man,” Alec hurried.

         He let another drop fall, but it hit the floor instead.

         “Damnit man stop getting blood all over,” Jared groaned.

         “This is why your toilet’s so messy,” Tom sneered with a laugh.

         Wesley made a face, crouching and holding his hand directly over the flame. One drop made the candle flicker and smoke. The next extinguished it. “Jared, your turn.”

         “What? I’m supposed to do this to?”

         “No idiot, it was just them,” Alec jeered. “Pass your hand.”

         “No! Tom will give me herpes.”

         “God damnit Jared I did the test. You were even there!” Tom protested.

         Jared scowled as Alec snatched his hand, making as small a cut as possible. Jared winced and sucked in air through gritted teeth.

         “Freaking barbie doll,” Tom muttered.

Alec laughed at the little quip, holding Jared’s hand over the candle and squeezing it until the candle went out. It was getting dark.

“Alright, just me left,” Alec muttered to himself. “Wait, Jared where’re you going?”

“To disinfect this,” the lanky boy called as he strode towards the bathroom.

Tom facepalmed.

“Can we finish it while he’s not here?”

“Hurry up!” Alec called, slitting his palm effortlessly and extinguishing the last candle.  

Jared returned after a painstakingly bloody wait.

“Great, now let’s all hold hands and close eyes,” Alec instructed, clasping Tom and Wesley’s.

“Just like preschool,” Tom said contently.

Wesley could feel Alec’s warm blood trickling down his palm. It made him uneasy.

Alec uttered more words in the strange, guttural language that sounded like it had too many consonants.

A moment passed.

“Can I check my phone? Just got a message,” Jared asked.

“Shhh,” Alec hissed. “Keep your eyes closed!”

Halfway through the sentence, Wesley felt a sudden drop in temperature. He cracked open one eye but saw nothing but darkness. The lights had been dimmed, not switched off. Why was it so dark?

“Well that was anticlimactic,” Tom breathed.

Wesley let go of Alec and Jared’s hands. Did the others not feel the temperature drop?

The light from Jared’s phone shone like a beacon against his thin, angular face. “Ha. Teresa liked my post about the sunset café.”

“Ok glad that’s done,” Alec said with an awkward laugh. “Allan will finally shut up abou-”

It was like as if the darkness around them condensed.

Wesley throat throbbed, but no breaths came. He staggered, bumping into Alec who nearly toppled over, also clutching at his throat.

Jared’s phone clattered out of his hand, the screen shattering, but the light shone upwards, showing Tom’s reddened face.

The thick darkness swelled around them, easing between their limbs and gently lifting them off the floor. Wesley felt ice, moving like an earthquake from his bone marrow, into his flesh. He thrashed, but one cannot fight the dark with movement, and so his muscles didn’t bother to respond.

He saw terrified visage of the other boys, each desperately clawing at the darkness filled nothing between each other, their words too petrified to leave their tongues and their tongues too defeated to command more words.

The phone light went off.

A stench, like that of frozen corpse or a hurricane bearing bodies long since forgotten, slunk up their nostrils.

A voice like whittled bone and mirrors at midnight pierced the boy’s ears. “Soul… so bright…weaklings you are… I am forced…it will traverse…” the voice was in pain. Tired, hungry pain. “Chains of the spirit can be forged… quickness is now… go… go… go… I will go… we will go… help has arrived, and fire will learn how it feels to burn.”

The voice shriveled off like a rat’s tail.

Then a sudden flash of light struck out through room and Wesley saw its hideous form. The inhuman bones, raven feathers, insect pieces and pockets of netted darkness holding it all together.

Then it was gone.

The boys were left to breathe its reek.

Wesley doubled over coughing, as did the others.

“Holy shit! Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” Jared hollered through coughs. He picked himself up and took off, tripping over cannisters of paint and threw himself into the bathroom.

Wesley couldn’t be bothered by the sound of Jared vomiting. Not after such a sight.

When his breath steadied, he opened his eyes. The lights, though dimmed, had returned, revealing Alec, pressed to this wall, his legs kicking out, his fingers twitching and his eyes darting. “Hey,” Wesley called.

Alec’s breath sped up and his fingers clawed at the carpet.

Wesley moved to his friend’s side, holding his jaw so Alec’s gaze met his. “Breathe,” he ordered.

Incoherent sounds tumbled out of his friend’s mouth.

“Slow down. Slow… down… remember the rise and fall… rise and fall Alec, ok?”

Alec nodded vigorously. Wesley took his hand.

“Breathe.”

Alec’s breath eventually returned to him too, but his eyes refused to stop shifting. “It… it took…”

“What?” Wesley asked, leaning in to hear Alec’s soft voice.

“It took Tom.”

Wesley whipped around, eyes scanning the vast basement. There was no sign of Tom, just bloodied, extinguished, black candles.