Archie showed them out. It was getting dark. Perfect time to slip away but also it meant that someone would likely be coming soon. Xir and possibly Clay would be be busy with the virus.

With them gone, Archie leaned a tied arms onto his desk and looked at the floor. What was this feeling he felt? Guilt? He didn't even recognize it anymore.

"Sir..." came a voice peaking behind the door. It was his loyal assistant. "Do you want me to fix you some for dinner?"

"Tabitha..." Archie said in a low voice.

"Yes sir?"

"Get the fuck out."

Without another word Tabitha closed the door obediently.

"Mousy bitch" Archie thought, then sighed and shook his head, feeling bad about it. She was loyal as the day was long. She had no one. Her entire family had died from the virus. He was mean to her only because she was weak. He could smell it on her. But she was loyal and honestly, if he could still get his dick hard and was into that sort of thing she might be good for a fuck now and then.

He sat in his chair, unable to stand any longer.

"Weak" he muttered to himself. "I'm getting so weak"

But the plan was going as he'd hoped. The foolish siblings had accepted his errand, knowing what they were getting into and even after he had told them why the tree thing worked. What fools.

He knew about the cave of course. He knew the "somebody" they were talking about too. Poor Joey. It was his fault, really. He hadn't know enough about the rituals at the time and sent him to a certain death. He still didn't know enough. But with luck, these two siblings would fill in the gaps the way he hadn't been able to.

He looked at the picture on his desk and sighed again. It was him and Joey and their friends from back then. They'd all grown up together in upstate New York in the same small, shitty town. Joey was the last one to their little group. He moved out from Indiana, but even though he was the last he was the one Archie hit it off with the most. They became the best of friends.

Joey's family had moved into an old farm house just outside of town. There were a lot of rumors and legends about that house. In those days, he'd been a natural skeptic, not believing in such nonsense. His friends, though, not so much. They loved the idea that the house was haunted or that some sort of ax murder had happened there. One day to shut them all up, Archie had suggested they use Ouija Board to "talk to the ghosts." They loved the idea and he rolled his eyes.

It didn't turn out the way he thought it would. Not one bit.

They started by asking the usual questions people do with messing with those things.

Is anyone out there?

Would anyone like to communicate?

It was Chelsea, the self-appointed group leader, asking them. She was older than all of them by a year and was on the verge of becoming smoking hot. If she'd lived another year she might have developed some big juicy D tits like her mom.

The planchette aggressively shot to YES.

Everyone spent the next minute accusing each other of doing it. He rolled his eyes.

"What's your name?" Chelsea had asked loudly to shut them up.

The planchette begin to move again, this time to the letters.

X

I

R

It spelled.

"Xir?" he'd asked with a snort. "Come on guys, you've got to at least come up with a real name..."

At that moment, Archie had felt something. A coldness over his entire body that rocked him to his core. He couldn't explain it, but something was there. It just needed permission and Chelsea was about to give it to it.

"Show yourself to us" Chelsea demanded.

And that's what it did. There was a moments pause. Everyone was quite and then Chelsea flopped to the ground and begin to twitch and convulse.

Everyone laughed at first. They all thought she was joking. But not Archie. Archie knew. He raced over and screamed her name over and over. Everyone realized it was serious now and rushed beside her as well.

Then, all at once, it stopped. Chelsea's eyes opened, only they weren't Chelsea's eyes. They were yellow and with black centers. The eyes of a beast.

Her head turned and looked Archie right in his steel blue eyes.

"You believe in me now" came a voice that wasn't Chelsea's. It had an echo to it and was deep and raspy and masculine. Her breath smelled of sulfur and brimstone.

Then she was on top of Archie, slashing at him with her perfectly manicured nails. Joey was the first to try to pull her off as her nails slashed Archie's face, but he failed. Everyone took a turn and Archie's face bled more and more. She was strong, so strong, but that's because it wasn't her.

Then the choking started. Two hands wrapped firmly around his neck tightly. He thought his windpipe would crush. He couldn't breath and the world begin to turn white, the voices of his friends screaming and pulling at the beast that was now Chelsea becoming fainter and fainter. A light appeared and he felt himself lift towards it but at the last moment he heard a loud thud and felt warmth splash his face and suddenly he felt himself back in his body. He looked up and the world begin to come back into focus.

Above him was the house's ornamental ceiling and his friends standing over him dumbfounded. He felt something laying on top of him and realized the hands were still around his neck, but no longer pressing.

He looked down and thought he'd see the top of Chelsea's head -- that curly blonde mop. But instead it was a tangled mass of blood, skin and bone and to his left above it stood Joey, holding a bloody marble bust of Abe Lincoln in his hand.

They buried Chelsea in secret. Dumped her body in the swamp using rocks. They swore to never tell anyone. Over the next weeks, the entire town searched for her, thinking she's ran away or been kidnapped, but they never found her.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

But this was their first real lesson about Xir: you can destroy the vessel it inhabits, but you can't destroy Xir and it will attach to another. Over the next three weeks it took out first Jeff and then Sarah. There were more bodies to dump in the swamp in secret and more searches by the town that came up empty handed.

By then, it was just him and Joey left. Through library research, they'd figured out the ritual or so they thought, but it was another botch ritual.

Only, they didn't know that. They thought it worked Xir had disappeared, or so they thought. They didn't know it would not banish Xir, only to cause it to attach to an object.

The object of choice had been a My Pet Monster. A birthday gift months earlier from Joey's grandmother.

Nothing happened for awhile and they both tried to forget. The experience had made their bond even stronger, even to the point where they became more than friends... at least for awhile.

But then Joey moved back to Indiana. His family had finally managed to sell the farm house. They wanted to get away after all that had happened. That was a hard day for Archie.

At first they exchanged letters everyday. Love letters. But soon Joey moved on. For him, it had been at most a phase. For Archie it had been more. Soon Joey wrote about a girl he had met. A girl that would become his wife and they would start a family together.

When he turned 18, Archie moved to New York City. He was done with the small town bullshit. He couldn't live near that swamp anymore either.

Years passed. He got a wedding invitation from Joey, he didn't go. He got a invitation to meet his new baby girl, he didn't go.

Then a call came. It was one that had shaken him to his core.

When he had moved, the My Pet Monster had been packed away and stored in a storage facility for years. During that time it was there three workers died of mysterious accidents and they were 18 deadly automobile accidents on the nearby road. So many pets were run over there locals had started calling it "Pet Cemetery Road."

But Joey hadn't known any of this and when the time came to move into his home with his family eventually his mom and dad insisted he come get his childhood things because they were tied of paying the storage fees after so many years. So he did and the stuffed monster came home. Xir came home.

In the call Archie received that day Joey sounded like an old man. His voice was filled with exhausted. He sounded like someone at the end of this rope. He'd figured out Xir was inside the stuffed toy and he detailed all the horrors that had happened since it had come home with them. No one had died yet, but he feared it would soon.

Archie told his old friend he would learn everything he could and he didn't, but he did learn something. He found that spot inside the cave. He thought he knew what to do.

But when he tried to call Joey the call never went through. It had been Xir. He was sure of it. So he sent a letter. He told Joey what to do. He was suppose to meet Joey when he arrived, but Joey never showed and he found his dead body in the cave the next day.

He left it there. He was not dumping another body in the swamp. He felt terrible his family wouldn't know what happened to him, but he didn't know how to explain. At least they would be safe.

The only silver lining he could was the burned marks and puff of fur and melted plastic from the Pet Monster's plastic handcuffs inside the cave. It was all evidence the ritual had worked. He left it all there and tried to forget and returned home to NYC.

But it hadn't worked. The virus came and soon Xir followed.

Archie rubbed his misty eyes and laughed.

"Not suppose to touch your face" he said, leaning back in his chair.

There was much he didn't know still. How had Xir come back? Why did he come back when he did? There had been such a large gap of time. He felt the siblings hadn't told him everything, but what they had--

"What was that 'dad' shit?" Archie asked himself out loud, remembering. Xir had taken a special interest to the... no, it couldn't be. Could it?

"Maybe the old man?"

Archie shook his head. The idea was absurd. But one thing he did know was that Xir had grown far more powerful somehow. He could now take on multiple forms: the beast, the old man, the priest and others. Archie had read Xir could possess multiple bodies and combine them into one if he grew powerful enough and it seemed that was what was happening.

"Dad?" Archie questioned again. "What the fuck?"

A knock at the door.

Archie stood up quick. Too quick. His bones all hurt.

"Yes?" he asked. Was it Clay? Xir?

"Mr. Archie?"

It was Tabitha. He sighed in relief. He didn't have the strength for anyone else right now.

"Yes Tabitha?" he asked. Tabitha opened the door slightly and peered inside.

"Charlotte came by. Her son saw your guests from earlier and told her. I played dumb and told her we hadn't seen anyone and that Glover has an overactive imagination. I think she bought it. I kept an eye on her and they went straight back to her shop, not running off to tell the Sheriff. I thought I'd let you know."

Archie nodded. The spell he had cast on the kid had worked long enough to keep him from telling while they were here but had warn off. His magic was getting weak because he was getting weak.

He slumped back in his chair.

"You look tired, sir" Tabitha asked with concern.

"I'm fine" he assured her, even managing a smile. "Good work."

Tabitha smiled.

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

She began to leave before Archie stopped her.

"Oh and Tabitha? I'll take that dinner now."

Tabitha's smiled widen.

"Yes sir!" and she immediately closed the door.

"It'll all be over soon" Archie said, reassuring himself, and begin to chant the ritual to bring life back into his body.