Several days later Jabber and his friends were gathered at Rospo Seccant’s house for a night of gremlin fighting. Gremlins were annoying pests from the Nether Regions that appeared in most human homes at one point or another. Similar to rats drawn to garbage, gremlins sniffed out negative energies piling up in human psyches or relationships. They were nocturnal and made no noise, so an infestation could go unnoticed for years as the gremlin caused mechanical equipment to fail, socks to be lost, and things to be misplaced.

Once they invaded a home they were nearly impossible to get rid of without a rather complicated exorcism of the entire house that involved, among other things, placing lamps everywhere to remove all darkness and shadow, a deep cleaning of every nook and cranny of the dwelling, a complete list of the inhabitants’ fears and resentments which must be urinated on and then incinerated in a bonfire, and burning rue seeds in every room. Even with all that effort the chance of a recurring gremlin infestation was fifty-fifty.

Given gremlins were only a minor nuisance–and the amount of effort it would take to get rid of them–most people let them be.

Gremlins, however, hated others of their kind and would fight nearly to the death to defend their territories. This animosity is what, eventually, led to the extremely entertaining sport of gremlin fighting.

Master Jabber, his golem, Fokso, Charlesly Landcaster, and Dred Scott were all sitting around a four foot tall octagonal cage that had been placed in Rospo’s living room. All of them had brought their own gremlins (besides the golem who had none but still enjoyed watching and betting on the fights) in tiny silver cages that could be attached to the larger cage. When a fight began, the sliding doors of the little cages were lifted and the two gremlins would charge at one another fearlessly fighting, biting, and kicking until one of them was knocked unconscious or ran back into its own cage.

Master Jabber’s own gremlin was a grizzled veteran he had named Ratacus. The old gremlin had lived with the magician for over half a century to the point that Jabber almost thought of him as an old friend. Currently, Ratacus sat on a miniature bench in his cage dressed in a furry black and white rat's skin cloak, the head of the dead rat draped over his crown like a hood. He calmly smoked a tiny cigarette while the other gremlins cursed insults at each other and made obscene hand gestures involving various combinations of fingers, groin, and buttocks.

The next fight was between Rospo’s gremlin and Ratacus. Rospo’s gremlin had appeared a week or so ago in their new house after the Seccants had moved to the Red Coast from New Limbo. He was a young strapping demonling of about 8 inches, rusty red skin, and large muscles, with a tattoo of a cherub shooting an arrow through a heart on full display across his broad chest. He wore only a lime green speedo. Needless to say, everyone was betting on Rospo’s as-yet-unnamed gremlin to win except Jabber himself.

On the count of three Jabber and Rospo lifted the trap doors of their cages. Rospo’s gremlin leaped out with a snarl, arms wide, shouting curses in his infernal language. Ratacus meanwhile, took a few more pokes from his cigarette, ground the butt on his bench, stood up, stretched his back, and finally limped slowly into the arena of the larger cage (he had a bum knee that acted up when it rained).

In the blink of an eye Rospo’s gremlin was atop Ratacus. Everyone cheered as he punched the smaller gremlin in the gut and then did a forward flip to bring his heel down on top of his opponent's head. Ratacus crumpled to the ground.

“Suck on that Jabber!” Rospo called out excitedly. “I won!”

But Jabber held up a hand, grinning. “Hold on one second.” Ratacus was stirring to his feet. He swayed unsteadily for a moment and then backed slowly to the edge of the cage. Rospo’s gremlin, who had been doing a victory dance that consisted of jumping and pointing to his lime-green covered groin, noticed Jabber’s gremlin limping away. He looked up at Rospo, gave him a thumbs up, and then charged. When he was only a few inches away he leaped into the air shouting, “Hiyaa!”, as he extended his leg into a flying front kick.

Ratacus turned swiftly, grabbed the other gremlin’s leg and guided it forcefully into an opening of the cage’s metal mesh. Rospo’s gremlin was now stuck on the wall of the cage, doing the splits with a pained expression on his face. Rospo groaned while Dred Scott laughed. Fokso patted Jabber on the back as the magician’s gremlin proceeded to punch his opponent in the groin, one fist after another until the younger gremlin’s eyes rolled up in his head and he passed out.

Jabber leaped to his feet shouting for joy while the other’s congratulated him.

Below them, Jabber’s gremlin looked up in disdain at the humans towering above and shouted, “Ikh blikh tikh plikh? Khish tish khikh stikh?” Then he spat on the ground and limped back to his own cage. (Gremlinese is notoriously difficult to translate but the general gist of what Ratacus said is, “Are you not entertained? Is this not what you paid for?”)

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“How about we take a little break?” Rospo suggested. Everyone nodded in agreement and walked over to the nearby couches, leaving their gremlins to nurse their wounds. Jabber accepted the congratulations of his friends with equanimity.

“I’m as shocked as you are. What a fight, eh?” He said, smiling happily. It was a good night.

As they all sat Rospo poured whiskey into shot glasses for each of them. He was a shorter chubby man, with flat brown hair and a wide chin that made him look like a toad when he smiled.

When he came to Jabber he asked, “Where were you the other night?”

“What night?” Jabber said, accepting the shot glass from his friend.

“The battered demons event. You know for that charity Shana works with.”

“Which event was that? I didn’t get an invite.”

“Really? We mailed it to you over a month ago.”

Jabber shrugged. “Must have gotten lost in the mail. I never got It.”

“Well, that’s sad, we would have loved to have you there.”

“It really is sad,” Jabber replied. “I love those types of functions. But maybe next time, ay?”

As Jabber sat down, he saw Fokso smiling at him suspiciously. Jabber grinned back as they raised their glasses to each other.

Rospo then counted out the winnings and handed them to Jabber, saying, “That was some move your gremlin pulled back there!”

“That’s the ticket!” Jabber said as he took the small stack of banknotes, kissed them, and put them in his pocket. “Thank you all, I really needed this . . . I saw my doctor this week and he said I might have daemonoplasmosis.”

Blank stares all around the room. The golem pulled out his pocket watch.

“What’s that again?” Fokso asked, from the opposite coach.

“Oh you’re all such ignoramuses . . . Daemonoplasmosis!” Jabber said. “It’s a kind of demon possession.”

Dred Scott winked at him from beneath his burgundy tricorne hat. “That isn’t so bad. I’d love to get possessed by a few of those fresh-out-of-hell demonesses.” He pursed his lips as he sucked in air with delight.

“No, not contractual possession,” Jabber said, exasperated. “The malignant kind . . . you know like you get from a bite from a satanic rat or something.”

“So what’s the prognosis?” Rospo asked. He was sitting back in his seat, his shot glass resting on his knee.

“Not good,” Jabber sighed. “Nothing’s for certain yet, but if it’s malignant, the good doctor said I’ll lose my soul in a couple of weeks to whatever infernal entity infected me. I’ll be its thrall until I die.” The magician looked down at the ground in complete despondency.

“Oh Dear God Missing Above,” Fokso said. “That’s awful. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you,” Jabber replied, looking around the room as the rest gave him their condolences. “That means a lot to me. It really does.”

“Also, I have to add,” Fokso continued. “Just so you know, if you do lose your soul and are enthralled to something from the Nether Regions, well, I can’t be your friend anymore . . . the permanently possessed are outside my friendship wheelhouse.”

“I have to agree with Fokso here,” Charlesly interjected. “If you become some demon’s meat puppet, I’ll cut you off completely.” The magician made a chopping motion with his bony hand. “No contact!”

Jabber nodded, looking around the room as everyone else murmured agreement. “Well, that goes without saying.”

Dred Scott scooted forward on his couch. “My old man scratched his hand on a Hell’s Rose when he went to visit my mum after she died. He turned into one of those walking vegetable men, shambling all around town, smelling like rotten asparagus. I took one look at him and locked him out of the house. Never spoke to him again.”

“Really?” Rospo asked. “What happened to him?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Dred Scott replied as he tipped his hat and sat back on the couch.

“Wow!” the golem said among the muttered exclamations of impressed amazement.

At this Jabber raised his shot glass. “Alright then, I’d like to propose an agreement, a compact if you will, an anti-demon-infestation pact among friends.”

Muttered words of encouragement.

“If any one of us is ever infected by infernal demon spawn, or becomes the thrawl of any hellish entity, the rest of us will never talk to him again! It’ll be as if we never knew them! Wiped from history!”

Jabber raised his glass and stood. The rest of the group stood as well shouting “Here! Here!” and “Indeed!” as they clinked their shot glasses together to seal the vow.

“Anyone up for a couple more fights?” Rospo asked.

Everyone cheered in assent and returned to the gremlin fight cage.

“Ikh dikh blekh flekh!*,” Ratacus growled as he saw them surround the cage again. Then he crushed his cigarette butt into his bench, stood, and began doing squats.

* “The devil take you soon!”