PETERS SPELL

Brick had an ashen face, back at his house. Heavy rain poured down the pipes in the room, and he wondered for a split second if he was going to have to postpone the sleepover at the old Wellington house, due to the conditions. Or maybe he didn’t need to have a sleepover. Maybe just a Halloween meeting of some type. But where? Suddenly, Brick remembered the small broken down tree house at the bottom of the village, a few block away form his house. The tree house had fallen from a monstrous oak tree, and had landed on a surprised young man disabling his life forever. Many littler kids had been reluctant to go in there, but Brick himself had never feared the tree house. He’d been inside for at least two times during summer, and both times the isolated room had been dry, stable, and safe. The room could be the answer… Brick snapped out of his thoughts. Out of all the positive circumstances of the room, the whole thing was problematic. Brick was planning for petrified faces, grotesque expressions, and various types of terrorizing screams. He decided to get there early t dampen up the place with some bloodier props before his friends arrived. Brick grabbed a bottle of ketchup and headed for the door. Little did he know that the tree house was already a house of horror…

BAM! A sharp bolt of brilliant lighting slammed itself against the wooden tree house walls. The room was flooded with water, just like Peter had planned. However, the situation was frightening. Peter felt naive just thinking he had done it. I’m hallucinating. He thought bitterly to himself as he saw a dark shadow across the room. For a slight moment, things went off track and Peter almost passed out, but he had held himself together and clawed the pieces back together again. The turbulent water threw Peter against the walls, playing him like a toy, but Peter had remained calm with anticipation. Finally, he heard the hesitant eerie crunching of feet on dry leaves, and slowly, the wild thrashing rhythm of his heartbeat softened, and the plan came into silent action.

***

Brick walked into the tree house, shivering. His black leather jacket was drenched, the black silk sticking to his skin. He swore he heard a young male’s ghastly singing voice.

“Up the mountains, towards the sky
Into the fire, of the burning hells.”

Brick had never felt this unsure or scared. He was frozen in fear, of what he saw beyond him, after his eyes had adjusted. There on the wet floor was Peter, soaked up in his own blood. Bricks blood drained from his face. He tried to scream, but his mouth was as dry as cotton, and his throat felt like it was on fire. He scampered desperately towards the tree house door but to his horror, the door didn’t budge. He felt a ghostly twitching behind him, and he heard a bloodcurdling scream. It was his own. He fell silently against the damp wall, and closed him eyes. He didn’t dare breath. Something light and mushy touched his shoulder. Brick smelt sour warm breathing by his neck, and he listened, paralyzed with fear, to the raucous voice hovering around in the air.

“Haggard Brick, you must listen carefully.” Brick had never heard anyone call him by his first name. “

“I’ll do anything is you let me go!” He pleaded

“I don’t need you to do anything.” The voice whispered. ‘This is nothing you can get away with. Remember the man that got crushed by this tree house?” Brick nodded fearfully. “Well, his life was like a daunting puzzle. Nothing fit together.

“Why are you telling me this?” Brick screamed.

“SH…” The voice whispered. “You see, when you get stuck on a puzzle, you start at the edges. Then you figure out the rest. This is what we did to that man. We did the edges, and then let him figure out the rest. Then he regretted the edges we gave him. Now he has a hole in his afterlife. So listen very carefully. You must start from the center of the puzzle. Then you finish the edges last.”

“What?” Brick yelled. But the voice was fading.

“The edge of death…” Brick understood now. The middle was life. The edge was death. If he started at the edge, he would have no middle. If he started at the middle, he would have both. So this is what he had been doing to Peter all along. Building the pain, the suicidal feeling. Building the edge of Peters puzzle. He wouldn’t terrorize anyone, anymore. The hideous sting of death was in the air. Brick took one last solemn glance at Peter, and then got up, turned the knob, and walked out the door.

After a while, Peter opened his eyes and licked the corn syrup blood off his lips. He sat up and rubbed his sore head.

“The spirits have done you well, Brick.” He chuckled as he walked out the door to the way home.

The end