Deliver Us

“There was only one rule: don’t open the door,” the boy said.

“Why Charlie?” Jon bent down, “Why can’t I open it?”

Charlie’s eyes walked to the door; his voice became very small, “You ever been touched by evil, mister?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Reckon you be gone soon then.”

Jimmy walked in, he’d been unpacking,“Why’d you say that?”

“Ain’t nobody last here long… not nobody since the preacher.”

“What happened to him?” Jon asked

“He went miss’n. He and his lady praying the devil outta folk. One night he come hollering down the road, wet and red. Ain’t nobody seen him since.”

“What about his wife?”

Charlie chewed a lip, his eyes sunk to the floor.

“Bet she lives in the basement,” Jon winked and snatched a flashlight. He walked to the door, turned the handle. A bell tolled. Jimmy jumped, Jon froze. Three times it chimed. He looked back at Jimmy and laughed, “The old grandfather! It got me.”

“It got me too—but it got Charlie good,” Jimmy pointed out the front door. The boy was running for the hills.

Jon opened the door. Warm sunlight crawled down the stairs into an abyss of lurid darkness.

“God, it smells,” Jon started down.

There was a whisper of feet. Above him? The door shut. Absolute darkness. A latch slipped into place, but on this side. Jon spun up the stairs, “This isn’t funny!” But he was stopped. The warm, intimate breath of another touched his lips. His hand on the flashlight. Did he dare? His thumb pushed the switch and there she was. Down from the ceiling she came, head wrong way up, smiling lips adorned in malevolence.

“Deliver us…” she whispered as she pressed her mouth to his and took the light from his hands.