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On a moonless night, just before the stroke of
midnight, two figures stirred in the dark and silent
courtyard of the Westminster School for Boys. As one
nervously held a flashlight the other drew a pentagram
on the cobblestone path with a piece of chalk stolen
from his geometry class.
"Freddy?” Ritchie whispered as he watched the dorms
for movement. “I-I don't know if we should be doing
this."
Freddy completed the pentagram before looking up. "You turning chicken on me, Ritchie?"
"N-No, it's just, you sure you can pull this thing
off?"
"No sweat," Freddy responded, spilling the contents of
a paper bag onto the floor. "The gypsy gave me
everything we need to call up the meanest, ugliest,
worst demon in hell. She even wrote down the
instructions. See?" He held out a crumpled piece of
yellow notepaper for Ritchie to inspect.
Ritchie took his word for it. "Yeah, but --"
"Yeah, but what?” Freddy snapped. “Look, do you wanna get Reichmann or not?" Freddy folded his arms up across his chest and held a finger up to his lips.
"You do remember Reichmann, don't you?” He said as he did a nasally impersonation of their headmaster. “The guy who catches us whenever we go out for a smoke. Hmmmmmm? The guy who made us copy the Encyclopedia Britannica because our reports were late. The guy who calls you . . . Dickie? Hmmmmmm, Dickie?
Ritchie turned a red so bright that it was visible
even in the backwash of the flashlight. "Don't call me
that."
"What's the matter Dickie,” Ritchie continued
gleefully. “Don't like being called Dickie, hmmmmmm?"
Ritchie threw up his hands. "All right! All right!
Just tell me what to do."
Freddy smiled. "Here, hold this." He handed Ritchie a
heavy stone mortar they'd ‘borrowed’ from the kitchen.
As Ritchie held it up, Freddy began dumping little
packets of horrible smelling powders into it.
"Ugh! What is this stuff?"
"Magic herbs,” Freddie told him. “Now hold out your
hand." Ritchie obediently held out his right hand and
Freddy stuck him in the thumb with a safety pin.
"Owww! Hey, what did you do that for?"
"I need the blood of an innocent," Freddy said with a
grin, "and I figure they don't get much more innocent
than you."
Ritchie glared at him. "Bastard."
Freddy ignored him as he squeezed three droplets of
blood from Ritchie's thumb into the mortar. "I can't
wait to see Reichmann's face, when we send a demon
after him. This time we're going to catch him off
guard. This time we're going to beat him to the punch.
You just wait and see Ritchie. We'll get that
bald-headed, beady-eyed, public school graduate."
Freddy stirred the mixture and muttered something
under his breath. "I know just what I want the demon
to say to him too -- Helloooo baldy, hmmmmmm? And what are we up to now, hmmmmmm?" Freddy laughed and the sound made Ritchie shiver.
Ritchie looked over his shoulder at the administrative
building. The doorway was empty but he had visions of
Mr. Reichmann walking out to ask them what they were
doing. The best thing now, he thought, is to forget
the whole thing. Just get back to their rooms and be
grateful they didn't get caught. Ritchie was about to
say so when the stuff in the mortar began to glow.
"Freddy, i-it's smoking."
"All right!"
Ritchie wasn't as enthusiastic. The mortar in his
hands began to tremble and shake, like something was
rolling around in it trying to climb out. "Freddy, I-I
can't hold it. It's shaking too hard. F-Freddy? Look
out!" The mortar exploded out of Ritchie's hands,
knocking both of them to the ground.
Ritchie's first reaction was to run but he was
overwhelmed by the stench of sulfur. As he tried to
keep from gagging, the pentagram that Freddy had drawn on the ground began to glow with a sickly green light.
The light pulsed with the rhythm of a heartbeat and
the hairs on the back of Ritchie's neck stood on end.
The light from the pentagram grew stronger with every
beat, until the entire courtyard was lit with the
strange and unearthly glow. The only place that wasn't
lit was the center of the pentagram. The darkness
there was so thick it was as if light couldn't
penetrate it.
Then, a figure began to emerge from that darkness.
Ritchie tried to back away from it while still on his
hands and knees. He didn't want any part of it. He
didn't care if they got caught. He didn't care if
Reichmann called him Dickie for the rest of his life.
All he wanted was to get out of there.
But that's when he saw it. Just for an instant
something lurched into the light and it made Ritchie's
blood freeze. It was horrible. Ritchie tried to say
something but he couldn't find his voice. He tried to
get up but his legs were like rubber. Freddy! He had
to warn Freddy. But it was too late. Freddy had
already gotten to his feet and was moving towards the
pentagram. He hadn't seen it. As Ritchie watched in
horror, the thing in the Pentagram turned to face
Freddy.
"All right!" Freddy screamed, not caring who caught
them now. "We did it Ritchie! We did it!" He literally
danced as the monster from hell slowly unfolded
itself. "It's a real-life demon Ritchie! Look at him.
He looks like Godzilla! Check out those beady little
eyes, that huge bald head, and those, those . . ."
That's when Freddy's face went white.
The creature was now standing fully in the glow of the
pentagram and was completely visible. With his arms
folded up against his chest, and a taloned finger
pressed lightly against his lips, he smiled ever so
sweetly at them and said: "Hello boys, hmmmmmmmm? And what are we up to now, hmmmmmmmmm?"
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