The Grimoire of Leonard Hopkins

I work for the county sheriff’s office up in NorCal. I received a call in the predawn hours on May the 23rd, 2020 telling me to investigate the collapse of a residence on the street I grew up on. It was hardly surprising to see my friend’s house had gone down; the place was a dump and should’ve been condemned years ago. What has kept me awake at night for the past six years is what I found in the ruins of the house: a corpse, a ritual book, and the memoir of a man shot down a month later while attempting to carry out a mass casualty event at a mall.

The reason I’m posting this here is because on the six-year anniversary of the incident, I decided to take another look at the case. Can’t tell you why, just felt like maybe it would all make sense this time. It didn’t take me long to realize the book was missing.

I can’t begin to guess how anyone knew where to look for it in the evidence locker, let alone pass through the station without a single officer or camera catching sight of them. All I know is that the book is back out in the world, and I can’t ignore that fact in good conscience.

If I’m lucky, maybe someone here can help me understand why I have one friend dead, one friend missing, and one friend riddled with a dozen gunshot wounds on the eight o’clock news.

05/16/2020

In seventh grade, my homeroom teacher told us to give a short presentation on what we wanted to be when we grew up. I never heard the announcement; I was busy waging war against my friends at the back of the classroom, holding a notebook over my head to protect against the rain of eraser artillery as I prepared to bomb them with a wet wad of toilet paper. We all failed the assignment. I wish I’d given it more thought, because I sure as hell wouldn’t have answered “executioner”.

Twenty years later, I found myself working in HR for a tech company. My job was to carry out decisions the execs didn’t want to associate with so they could keep their images clean. Mostly, that meant ending my colleagues’ careers with clinical efficiency. When the pandemic hit, I was making 30 zoom layoffs a day. Three weeks in and I couldn’t so much as schedule a call without an employee having a panic attack. It wasn’t long after that the executives decided they could improve employee morale by cutting me off as well.

Two weeks later and more shots of jack than I’d like to admit, I was sitting with the knowledge that I had enough funds saved for another month of rent at best. It wouldn’t be long before I would have to ask my parents if I could reclaim the guestroom for a few months. Just until I get back on my feet of course. I felt the cracks form in my Sacramento apartment, the water seeping in. It was only a matter of time before I sank back into Saint’s Creek.

All the kids of Saint’s Creek had dreams of leaving one day, and nine times out of ten they came back, keeping the old gold rush settlement from earning its well-deserved rest. Fate had sentenced me to become the next statistic, but it brought me some comfort to know I wouldn’t be alone. Terry never left.

Five years since I’d spoken to Terry Wallace. I wish I could say that I’d been too busy to call, but that would be a lie too big to swallow. I just couldn’t stomach seeing what the potential star of Saint’s Creek had become. Once en route to becoming an Olympic athlete, he’d become the source of town gossip. Rumors said he never left his house, not even for food. My mother had heard from her friends that he’d become a pagan, or a witch, or a member of a satanic cult.

If I was going back home, I’d have to confront him eventually. I spent thirty minutes adjusting my text message before sending it off.

Me: Hey, it’s been a while since we talked. How’ve you been?

The speed of the reply caught me off guard.

Terry: Hey man! Not much going on here due to Covid, but my investments have seen better days. Must be hell where you are.

Now he knew I was looking at my messages. Shit.

Me: Won’t be for much longer. Just got laid off, gonna head back home and check on my parents. Wanted to give you a heads up.

Terry: No way, you too? David said he’s had enough of Chicago. Plans on coming back soon.

Me: Never expected Logan to be the last of us to hold a job.

Terry: The timing is perfect. I’ve been working on a secret project for a while now.

Oh no.

Terry: A sequel episode to our old ghost hunting adventures.

I let out a sigh in exasperation. After his career-ending injury, Terry’s mom started giving money to some Televangelist ministry in the hopes of healing her son. Terry’s obsession with ghost hunting and the occult manifested soon after. The same week Terry could walk on two feet, he’d already found a paranormally active house for our first foray into ghost hunting.

Terry had a tendency to be excessively invested in his interests. That was all fine when he was running; he even gave me some good tips when I tried going to the gym. Once the three of us were dragged into his hobby, we had to work together to keep his enthusiasm in check. If by working together, you mean Logan and David drinking brandy in another room while I tried to convince Terry that drinking a potion with jimsonweed was a bad idea.

Whether it was future divination or summoning a succubus, it always ended with me acting as the Terry wrangler while also trying to stop Logan and David from ending the night with a stomach pump.

I wondered what had become of Terry’s burning obsession after a dozen years. Unattended fire rarely remains contained.

Me: Don’t know how much time I’ll have for that, I’ve got to help my dad with some repairs around the house.

It wasn’t a lie necessarily — my father had asked me to get some supplies before arriving to help with plumbing issues and fence repair — though I was exaggerating the time commitment.

Terry: No worries, we can meet up if you’ve got some spare time. It would be great if we could get the group back together, even if it’s just one night.

I felt a little guilty after receiving that last text. Even after all this time, I made two friends since moving to Sacramento, one friend from work, one friend through a girlfriend. Then the former got a promotion and the latter disappeared after the breakup. The only tether I had to the city was my lease.

Terry was accepting me back with open arms, and I was going to refuse because of small-town gossip?

Me: I’ll be sure to make some time.

On a different note, I found my old laptop in a storage box I had lying around while packing my things. After another wave of nostalgia, I decided to boot up the old machine. I hadn’t used it for at least ten years, back when I’d tried writing short stories online.

It’s slower than I remember, but the feeling of the keyboard on my fingers is just as satisfying as it was back then. Maybe I’ll make some use of it; it could serve as a good distraction from all the turmoil.

05/18/2020

It took a while, but I finally found material that I felt compelled to write, all thanks to Terry. Unfortunately, a good interaction rarely makes for a good story.

My arrival back home yesterday went better than expected. I rolled into the driveway in the late afternoon, just in time for my mom to finish preparing my favorite dish. I even managed to finish fixing the plumbing issues, half the issues being solved by using a drain cleaner. In a desire to keep my momentum and get all my tasks out of the way, I decided to stop by Terry’s place the coming day.

When I finished my walk to his house this afternoon, I had to double check to see if I’d gotten the address wrong. Terry’s house had never looked amazing even when his mother was around, but it had weathered five decades in five years. The place looked abandoned, the front-facing windows boarded up with plywood. A layer of sheet metal and plastic covered what must’ve been a hole in the roof. The lawn looked as if it had died out years ago; even the topsoil had been blown away. The only living organism between me and the house was the overgrown oak tree; the brown leaves had turned sickly, yet still it had enough strength to shatter the walkway to the front porch, the shards of concrete set to odd angles.

If Saint’s Creek was long past retirement age, Terry’s house was haphazardly animated on life support. Every visual stimulus the house emitted told me it wished to be forgotten. Inexplicably, I still decided to walk up to the porch, careful not to trip on my way there. I reached the door, rapping the back of my hand against it. As I stood there waiting for a response, an intense uneasiness began churning my insides, almost causing me to turn back. I wish I could say that it was a decade strong bond that held me at the front door; in truth city life had made me frugal with my time management and I couldn’t justify wasting the walk.

From the other side I heard something shifting, then glass shattering. A familiar voice croaked “I’ll be there in a second!”, after which I heard broken glass shuffling against the floor. The door opened a knuckle’s width, a chain separating me from an eye that looked too red and opened too wide.

“Mitch, you came!”

The door slammed shut, then opened once more to reveal what was left of Terry Wallace. Lush gold hair faded to a mop of oily gray. His slim sporty figure turned gaunt. The bright vigour behind his eyes had been replaced by a different light, feverish and far too eager. His sweater sleeve hung loosely as he outstretched his arm towards me. It took me a moment to realize he was reaching for a fist bump; I hesitantly obliged.

“Sorry if the place is a mess, but you should’ve given me a heads up if you wanted the place cleaned.” He opened the door further, signaling for me to step in. “Best you keep your shoes on.”

I crossed the threshold into the living room, a sun beam from outside illuminating a cosmos of dust particulates floating in the air. The living room evoked the barren depths of space, housing little else but an old leather couch, a coffee table, and an empty fireplace. The only thing of note was the large metal door next to the staircase that led to the second floor. I walked over to inspect it, stepping on a few shards of glass Terry hadn’t successfully hidden under the table.

“The place is… homey.” I rested my hand on the door handle but thought better of it. “It’s been a while since we spoke. What’ve you been up to?”

“Where do I begin?!” Terry said, flopping down onto the couch. “You must be tired after the walk; have a seat.”

I sat on the opposite side of the couch, the leather and wood creaking as I set my weight on them.

“First, I’d like to apologize,” Terry said. “I’ve been busy with this project for the past few years; I kept on forgetting to check in. It’s my responsibility to show you this time hasn’t been wasted. So how about I make it up to you?”

I watched Terry’s gaze fade elsewhere. “You remember how we used to go to abandoned houses back in high school? I bought a second-hand Ouija Board, convinced we were speaking to ghosts. Then a year later Logan admitted that he and David were moving it around.”

I nodded, deciding it was best not to share that I was in on it too.

“Well, I decided I was finally going to take this seriously. No more Hasbro gimmicks or half-assed internet rituals. This Friday night, I am going to have irrefutable proof of the supernatural.”

I found that hard to believe. “So, this project you’re working on… You want to prove that ghosts exist?”

Terry smiled. “No, no. It’s best to present something that they can’t dismiss as video editing. I’ll show you what I mean.” The couch creaked once more as Terry lifted himself up, beckoning me toward the stairs. I followed him up the winding steps and through the second-floor hallway, wooden doors laying half open to either side revealing beds barely visible under piles of miscellaneous ‘gimmicks’ Terry had supposedly outgrown. At the end of the hall, across from the stairs leading up to the attic, was a large glass door. Terry pressed his thumb against the scanner, the mechanism clicking in answer. Thrown off by the unexpected display of opulence in the derelict house, I followed him into the room and he rushed to close the door behind me.

Rows of bookshelves were crammed into the room, leaving me little space to walk between them. Instead, I inspected a stack of books left on the desk by the door. Some titles I had heard of, such as the Lemegeton and the Voynich Manuscript. Other books were written in a variety of languages, spanning Latin, Arabic, and a plethora of others I couldn’t hope to guess.

“This is incredible, Terry,” I said.

“Most of these are mass-produced online,” he said. “What I have to show you is one of a kind. Over here.”

I obliged, walking between the two bookshelves to the back of the room. Terry stood by an open safe, holding a worn leather-bound book.

“What’s this supposed to be?” I asked.

“The Astronomer’s Key to Lower Emanations. The magnum opus of Leonard Hopkins, under which I will bind the greatest of entities.” Terry’s eyes shifted to me, the maddening flare behind them nearly forcing me to avert my gaze. “In four days, we will bind the devil in physical form for the world to see.”

“You think this book is going to help you summon the devil?”

“There are… circumstances that lead me to believe the work is legitimate.”

“And what makes you think that?”

“Leonard Hopkins is…an acquaintance of mine,” Terry said. He took notice of my incredulity. “Besides, I always knew you were a skeptic. You can doubt all you like, so long as you’re there to watch me pull it off this Friday. You’ll be there, right?”

The unattended fire had spread to the trees; the forest wouldn’t last much longer. Seeing it burn from afar was one thing, but could I watch it happen right before me?

“Of course Terry, wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

05/19/2020

Back when I was working overtime during the pandemic, I remember a call with my dad when he told me I should grow a backbone and tell my boss off. At the time, my excuse was that they’d likely fire me if I did that (which they did anyway). However, I started to wonder if he had a point after begrudgingly agreeing to pick David up from his bus stop, a one-way hour drive.

“So, how was the flight?” I asked.

“It’s fuckin’ creepy,” David said, removing his cap to rub at his growing bald spot. Seems time hadn’t been kind to any of us. “O’Hare was empty. Also had to spend the whole flight sober.”

“What brought you back then?”

“Oh…I just wasn’t feelin’ it anymore, y’know? Being so far from home and all. Haven’t been able to visit my parents in a while.”

“I thought you hated spending time with your parents.”

“Well, it’s been a while, maybe my dad’ll stop being such a hard ass.”

“Alright…” I took a swig from my cheap gas station coffee cup, then nearly spat it out as it burned my tongue.

“So, how’s Terry doin’?”

“Terry?” I shrugged. “You could say he’s become a bit eccentric.”

“Yeah, but like, has he lost it? The few times I talked to my dad, he said Terry looked like one of those crazy homeless guys you find in SF.”

I thought long and hard on the best way to address the nuances of the situation.

“Probably. He wants to summon the devil.”

“The what?!” David spat.

“The guy obviously needs help,” I said, “though I have no idea how we’re supposed to go about it.”

“Can’t we just drop him off at a psych ward or something?” David asked.

“We can’t, but Logan could if he wasn’t so busy. I talked to him this morning; he said the Sheriff’s Department is running him ragged. We probably won’t see him for another two weeks at best.”

“Then why not just let Terry do his thing?”

“There are multiple reasons we wouldn’t want Terry conducting a demonic summoning ritual.”

“Dude, you’re overthinking this. Just let Terry do his voodoo bullshit. Once it fails, I’m sure he’ll come around.”

“Playing into his delusions is probably the worst thing we could do,” I said. “Besides, it’s not like his previous failures convinced him.”

“You got a better idea?”

Admittedly I didn’t. A long pause was my answer.

“You make any plans for what to do after?” David asked.

“I was hoping we could stop it from happening altogether.”

“I’ll make sure to bring some beers n’ whatnot,” David said. “We can watch a movie when it’s over. Hope Terry’s got Netflix.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell David that Terry doesn’t own a TV.

After I dropped David off, I decided to do some research to better understand the beast I’d be grappling with. I couldn’t find anything on ‘The Astronomer’s Key to Lower Emanations’ no matter how long I searched. I did, however, find limited information regarding Leonard Hopkins. From what I gathered, he was a mathematics professor in Michigan, though was fired for unstated reasons. By chance, I found a publication from the early 1980s featuring an old man with wild hair no younger than seventy, stating Hopkins had been missing for over four months.

Professor Hopkins appeared to have a cult following online, having written multiple books on occult philosophy, as well as a few spell books. When browsing the sites, I’d invariably come across some mentions of a user having ‘more success’ with a specific ritual when using Hopkins’ theory of multi-dimensional manifolds, or of some occultist using the ‘Hopkins Method’ when performing Astrological Necromancy.

Maybe I’m overthinking it, but why would Terry use ‘acquaintance’ to refer to a guy who’s been missing for forty years? Even if he hadn’t died, he would have to be over a century old by now. I’ll try to get some more information out of Terry next time I see him.

05/22/2020

When I arrived at Terry’s place today, he brought me to the large metal door I’d been happy to ignore during the last visit.

“This is where we’ll be conducting the ritual tonight,” Terry said. He opened the door, gesturing me to go down the dimly lit staircase. “Best I show you the layout before we begin.”

Part of me wanted to run out the front door. I doubted Terry would lock me down there; I mean, surely he knew that my parents and David would look for me here. Surely.

“‘It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose.’” Terry didn’t laugh at the joke.

I walked down the basement stairs, the smell of herbs weighing thicker each step. At the base of the staircase was a single low-hanging bulb, its light casting odd shadows across the sigils and talismans along the walls. At the center of the room, a metal ring had been cast into the cement, around which arcane symbols were carved into the floor.

“How long did it take you to prepare all of this?” I asked.

“A few months,” Terry said, walking over to the plain desk at the far corner. “It would’ve taken longer if not for Mr. Hopkins.”

That name again.

“Terry, if you don’t mind me asking, who is Mr. Hopkins to you?”

“You could say he’s a… kindred spirit.” Terry let out a chuckle, though I don’t know why. “I’ve been speaking to him online for the past couple of years.”

It sounded to me as if ‘Mr. Hopkins’ had been scamming him for the past couple of years. Probably some internet troll taking advantage of Terry’s precarious mental state.

“So, you trust him?” I asked.

“I do. He’s helped me with my works on multiple occasions.”

I paused at that. “Those occasions being…”

“I’ve performed lesser summoning rituals in preparation for tonight.”

I thought this was a one-time stunt; it never occurred to me Terry had been so taken by his delusions.

“Terry, just so we’re clear, you’re not a satanist, right?”

Terry let out another laugh, this one a tad too loud to be genuine. “You should know better. I’ve never been the religious type.”

“Then what’s all this for? What are you trying to do here? There are other things you could be using your time for.”

Terry stood firm, lost in thought before answering. “Mitch, what’s your end goal?”

The question caught me off-guard. “What do you mean?”

“Is there something you’re working towards? A vision you have for the future? Something you want?”

I don’t know why I lied at the time. “I just want to be able to pay my bills. Maybe have a house someday, preferably not here.”

Terry nodded. He lifted a leather book off the desk. It was Mr. Hopkins’ Grimoire. “Y’know, I tried running again. During the first few months after the funeral. Was making decent progress too before my leg started acting up again.”

“I’m…sorry to hear that.”

Terry’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t be. It’s not the same when my mom isn’t waiting for me at the end.”

“Besides, after tomorrow, I’ll have achieved what I’ve set out to do, with my friends by my side.” Terry turned to his grand work, seemingly eager to drop the topic. “Tomorrow, we’re finally going to get the proof we need.”

“What then?” I asked. Terry didn’t answer. “You should probably have a look through the book,” he said, handing me Hopkins’ book. “Just familiarize yourself with the basics. Make sure to read pages three through nine — that should give you a rough idea of what we need to do. Also, I need you to set an alarm on your phone for tonight.” Before I could tell him I had better things to do, he’d already gone to the kitchen.

I turned the thin leather cover to the first page of the book. No introduction or table of contents to ease me in, just lists of materials. Even more jarring were the two forms of handwriting in the book. Marked onto the page in pencil were barely legible scratches of letters struggling to show the reader the list of tools. Next to it was a list of botanical ingredients written in bold black calligraphy that glided across the page, in a hand refined to an art.

There was no way Mr. Hopkins had written both sections, not unless he’d used both hands. I turned over to the section Terry asked me to read and skimmed over the details. I wrote down some of the rules on my phone, there was no way I’d remember them otherwise.

* Frankincense needs to be burning at all times

* Feet need to be kept bare on the ritual ground (this section said the ritual should be done at ground floor, but Terry is using the basement for some reason)

* Abstain from eating six hours before entering the basement (because we can’t have too much fun)

* Keep the light on at all times

I can’t be expected to take this seriously.

There was also a section detailing the ideal time to perform the summoning, though for some reason the section under it had been scribbled on until it was completely unreadable. The most important rule was at the bottom of page four, which the penciled hand had attempted to make legible by underlining the words multiple times.

* Once sulfur burns, DO NOT LET ANYTHING CROSS THE IRON CIRCLE

This is going to be a long night.

05/23/2020 Part 1

We should’ve brought Terry to the psych ward. Or just stayed home. Either option would’ve saved me from being stuck here.

David and I were called down into the basement around 1:00 a.m. As I heard David’s sneakers squeak against the cement floor, I preemptively cringed at the coming rant.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Terry shouted as he turned toward us, his flowing fluorescent white robes nearly tipping over the ceramic bowl beside him. He rested the ceremonial sword on the floor. “I told you not to step on the basement floor with shoes on!”

David groaned. “Come on man, my feet are sensitive. I’m sure Satan doesn’t care if my toes freeze off or not.”

“No one writes down instructions if they’re meant to be half-assed! I’m not going to have two years of work wasted because you’re fucking around!”

I put a hand on Terry’s shoulder. “Give me a minute with him, alright?” Terry looked at me suspiciously. “Fine,” he said, “just make sure it doesn’t take too long. We start in five minutes.”

I grabbed David by the arm and led him up the steps. We rose out of the miasma of incense into the living room. When I was sure we were far enough to be out of earshot, I asked David, “Didn’t we agree we’d play along tonight? If you screw around, he’s just going to think he failed because of us!”

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry. It just all feels too larpy; like the craziness will rub off on me if I take this too seriously.”

I sighed. “Let’s just get this over with. When he finishes, maybe we can convince him that we’d have a better time watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy.”

David laughed. “Been a while since I watched those. Could we watch it at your place? I’d rather watch it on your parents’ TV rather than having to cram together to watch it on your laptop screen.”

“So long as you don’t rub too many shoulders; my parents are getting older and I don’t want to risk them getting sick. And clean the Dorito dust off your shirt, Terry’ll freak out if he sees that.”

David brushed the crumbs off his shirt before following me back down into the basement, this time with his shoes off. Terry was waiting for us, giving us the same stink eye as before. He gave the impression he wanted to get mad about something else, but whatever it was he kept it to himself. Instead he said, “Make sure you stay behind me. And whatever you do, make sure nothing crosses the iron circle.”

David raised his hand in acknowledgement. Terry nodded and unsheathed the sword that lay beside him. “Stay quiet for this part,” he said. Then he turned to face the circle, sword pointing to the center.

“UNDER AUTHORITY VESTED IN ME BY THE SEVEN LUMINARIES, I COMMAND THEE MANIFEST WITHIN THE IRON VESSEL!”

The rest of his chant continued on for a few minutes. I stayed in place as Terry had asked, but I was starting to get tired of it all. I could see David yawning next to me as well. Once Terry finished, he rested the sword on the floor beside him and placed a leather glove on his right hand.

“We done?” asked David.

Terry remained in place. “Any second now…”

My phone alarm went off.

From the bowl he lifted a ball of soaked paper material, the excess dripping to the floor from his right hand. With a flourish, he produced a lighter in his left, the pale-yellow flame licking at the air. As he brought his hands together, the ball burst into light. He took one step forward, his outstretched arm remaining behind before rolling the blazing ball forth as well as any pro bowler I’d ever seen. Time slowed as the ball passed through the iron circle, my alarm ringing, ringing as tongues of fire brushed against the pile of yellow powder at the center. In a flourish of sparks, blue light radiated from the center, a flash of heat passing through me. Then the light died down, and the sparks settled.

We all stood there, the silence weighing heavy on the room. It was David who broke it.

“Okay, now we‘re done.”

Terry looked dumbfounded at the circle, his eyes going dull.

“Just want you to know I really appreciate this lightshow you set up, even if Satan didn’t. It’s just that… it’s late and I’m cold, so would you mind if I help clean this up tomorrow?”

“I made sure everything was perfect,” Terry mumbled. “I made sure everything was done by the letter three times over.” He turned to David, a sudden rage engulfing him. “You…” Vitriol dripped from every word. “I guess I did make a mistake. I needed you to support me for one night, but you just can’t help yourself. Just one night!”

“No one messed up anything in your stupid seance. Face it Terry, you failed. None of this is real, and now you’ve not only wasted your time, but our time as well. This is when a well-adjusted person would apologize for wasting their friends’ Friday night.”

“Guys…” I said, repeatedly pressing the power button. “I think my phone died.” The screen remained black.

“Maybe your phone’s haunted. Or you forgot to charge it. Terry, I’m sorry your stupid ritual failed. You up for a Lord of the Rings marathon tomorrow at Mitch’s place?”

“Fuck off,” Terry said.

“Suit yourself. Catch you tomorrow Mitch.” Terry and I watched David go up the steps; once he was out of view Terry slumped against the wall of the basement and slid down until he was sitting on the floor. I crouched down to meet him at eye level.

“I did everything perfectly. I don’t understand.”

“I’m sorry man.”

“I can’t go through this again! There has to be something…” Terry’s eyes frantically darted across the room. I’d only seen Terry like this once before at the State Championships in Clovis, collapsed onto the ground, nineteen meters away from the finish line. The day a star died.

I rested a hand on his shoulder. “You did everything right Terry. Sometimes, it’s just not meant to be.”

He looked up at me, pleading eyes lasting for but a moment. He deflated before me, his confidence diffusing into the haze of frankincense and sulfur dioxide. If there was a time to bring my old friend back, it was now.

“Terry, how ‘bout you rest down here and I can bring us both a can of beer?” I asked.

“TERRY, CAN YOU UNLOCK THE FRONT DOOR?” David yelled from upstairs.

Terry sighed in resignation as he pushed past me off the floor. As we walked up the stairs, I thought of some choice words I’d offer to David. When we reached the top, he was still tugging at the doorknob. It was an older mechanism; a key was needed to lock it from both the inside and out.

“Did you try pushing it instead?” I asked. David dropped me a deadpan stare. “Terry, pass me the key. Also, why even bother locking the doors here? Saint’s Creek hasn’t had a break-in since it was founded.”

“I didn’t lock anything,” Terry said. “I lost the house key years ago, never considered getting a new one.”

David stopped jostling the door. “Terry, I have zero patience for your bullshit right now; just get the key, unlock the door, and I promise I won’t try to get you thrown into a padded room.”

“You probably just broke the door,” Terry said. “How about instead you reimburse me for the damage.”

“Screw it, I’m trying the back door,” David said, storming off to the kitchen. Terry and I came in to see David pulling at the door, a metallic note ringing through the air as David stumbled back, the doorknob in hand.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Terry shouted.

David steadied himself before grabbing and twisting the hem of Terry’s shirt. “I’ll open a new hole in you if you don’t open this door.”

“For Christ’s sake!” I yelled. “It’s fucking late, and we’re two decades too old to be acting like this! Terry, you don’t know where the key is?”

“That’s what I just said.”

“David, just try the window then.”

David rolled his eyes. “You’d think I was two decades too old to be climbing through windows.” He set Terry down, then tugged at the window by the kitchen door. Wouldn’t budge.

“God dammit, is everything busted in this house?!”

Terry’s eyes went wide. “Could this be part of…”

I walked over to the window David was pulling at. The only thing keeping it closed was a simple latch that David had already opened. I tried opening some of the other windows, but none so much as rattled.

“Terry, you better not be messing with us,” I said.

“It’s still salvageable,” Terry muttered.

I was far too tired for this. Too thirsty too; Terry had told us to abstain from water as well as food six hours earlier. I grabbed the cleanest looking glass I could find from the cupboard and turned the spigot. The faucet sputtered a few times.

“Looks like the plumbing’s fucked as well,” I said before I noticed a dark viscous liquid start to ooze from the faucet into my glass. The smell of rot struck my nose like a brick. In disgust I threw the contents into the sink and shut off the faucet. Only against the stainless steel was the red visible.

David’s face twisted in revulsion. “Is that-”

“IT WORKED!” Terry squealed, pushing David and I aside to turn the spigot. Again, the dark red fluid leaked down. The smell reached me again; even when I tried breathing through my mouth, I could feel the stench sliding down my throat and twisting my guts. That was my breaking point.

I walked over to the old fireplace and picked up the old, rusted poker.

Terry was too busy watching the bloody faucet; it was David who tried to stop me. “Wait Mitch, you’re gonna shred your arms.”

Embedded within the kitchen door was a frosted glass pane, just barely wide enough to pass through. I bashed the glass pane with the poker, the glass shattering into hundreds of shards. It didn’t break though; the window remained intact. Instead, the poker had bent slightly, and the strike had sent a painful jolt through my arms.

The loud crash broke Terry out of his giddy trance. “Don’t bother,” Terry said.

“What do you mean ‘don’t bother’?” I asked.

“Once the ritual has begun, the house becomes hermetically sealed.”

Did he not care at all that I’d just tried to break the door? “Terry, tell us right now what’s going on,” I said.

“The door won’t open unless two people on either side of the door open it simultaneously,” Terry said.

“So we just need to get someone from outside to help us out?” David asked.

“Don’t,” Terry said, with a surety that scared me. “You won’t be able to reach anyone from town. Those you can reach, well… best we wait until the culmination of the ritual.”

“How long will we have to wait for you to finish?” I asked.

“The original summoning was supposed to take three days. I improvised and created a shortened version because I knew you two wouldn’t stay longer than a single night. This means we’ll have to take the long route.” Terry was beaming, rows of yellowing teeth spread across his face. “I can do it. In fact, under these conditions, I can do more…”

The fire had returned to Terry’s eyes, more feverish than before. “I can bring proof to everyone.”

“We don’t need to prove anything; we need to get out of here! What went wrong and how do we fix it?”

“I already told you how we fix it,” Terry said. “We need to perform the longer version of the ritual. The order of operations is off, but that shouldn’t really matter. As for what went wrong… no clue.”

Terry returned to the basement soon after, but not before telling us that the prior ruleset still applied. It took a few hours and a nap on Terry’s couch, but the fear has been replaced by a growing tension in the air.

We tried using David’s cell to call for help, but his phone died too. My laptop still works, but there’s no internet. The time on my laptop says it’s 8 am, but the sky is dark. The power still works, and we bought some soft drinks along with the beer.

We should be able to last three days. I hope.

05/23/2020 Part 2

I’ll continue from where I left off earlier today. Even before I finished typing up the last entry, David was begging me to start playing some of the movies I’d downloaded to the laptop. I obliged; I figured we could both use the distraction. It wasn’t long before David settled into his side of the couch, though try as I might, my mind couldn’t stop struggling against its restraints, the walls of the house always feeling a little too close. It was almost a relief when Terry emerged from the basement; I’d had enough.

“I need your help setting up some equipment around the house,” he said.

“Can you come again in about an hour? It’s been a while since I watched Die Hard, and we’re just about to get to the end.”

I eagerly closed the lid of the laptop. “Anything to get us out of here faster.” David groaned.

Terry led us to the guest room upstairs, though it was more of a storage unit, a plethora of knickknacks and tools stacked up to the ceiling in some places; in others the makeshift towers had collapsed under their own weight. We found the cameras and tripods easily enough, but it took us a half hour of fishing through cardboard boxes before we found the motion sensors. Once we’d finished collecting everything, Terry instructed us to place a tripod in the upstairs hallway, one facing the kitchen next to the stairs, one in the living room, and one in the basement.

“I thought spirits don’t appear on camera?” I asked Terry as we finished setting up the basement tripod. I immediately regretted the question; I was getting a little too drawn into the fantasy.

“They don’t, but they cause distortions in the feed when they pass by. The phenomenon is reliable enough to keep track of a spirit’s movement.” He’d begun speaking faster and with more enthusiasm near the end.

“Why the motion sensors then?” I asked.

“Backup. The range is short and I only have two, but they’re more reliable than the cameras. We’ll be placing them at the top and bottom of the basement staircase; it should let us know if something is coming out of the basement.”

“Wait, isn’t the whole point of all this to keep it in the circle?”

“When we started the ritual, we opened a door wide enough for a high-ranking entity. Lesser entities can use the chance to pass through during the summoning process — they won’t be bound by the same rules.”

Knowing the risks to his life and ours, he still decided to conduct the ritual. It struck me as gross negligence, but I refused to admit it — I’d have to give ground to Terry’s delusions first.

Terry gestured towards the desk at the corner. “I suggest taking a look at the book. The more you know of Hopkins’ work, the less anxious you’ll be.”

The book sat open on the table before me, its arcane sigils beckoning to me. I hadn’t the first clue of how to get out of this. What if my only hope for escape was through Terry’s narrative?

I lifted the book and shut it between my hands.

“Get yourself something to eat,” he said. “I doubt I’ll need you in the next six hours, but you never know.”

I walked back up the stairs to see David exactly where we left him. He’d agreed to set up the cameras on the upper levels, but he said he’d have nothing to do with the basement anymore.

David eyed the book. “Don’t tell me we’ve got another convert.”

“It’s not like there’s anything better to do.”

“We could build a pillow fort?”

I sighed. “We’ll save that for day three.”

I sat down on the couch beside David and thumbed through the pages towards the sections I’d previously skimmed. Unfortunately, it seemed the more I read, the more confused I became. Hopkins’ original work had a habit of explaining concepts in excruciating depth, all the while going off into tangents. At least I thought it was his original work; the pencil writings were worn and aged. In the places where the original text had faded, the pen had shored up the holes. Still, the text was hard to read; the pencil followed no rule of structure as it scribbled along the page. The spaces it left behind were usually filled with a comment in pen. Occasionally, when the pencil had taken up the whole page, the pen would just write over the pencil. The constant shift between the two forms of handwriting combined with the smell seeping up from the basement was giving me a headache. By the time I rested the book on the coffee table, David had fallen asleep again.

I opened my laptop to check the time again — 2 pm. I hadn’t eaten anything since getting stuck in the house. I remembered Terry’s earlier suggestion; I could probably get away with skipping the fasting, but I didn’t want to risk getting Terry riled up. Best to eat sooner rather than later. I stood up from the couch, turning towards the kitchen.

We were past midday, but the view outside was dark as night. I brought my face up to the window, trying to get a good view of the sky. Was there a storm cloud blocking the sun? It couldn’t have been nighttime; there weren’t any stars in the sky. Except there was one, shining brilliantly near the horizon, near the tree line-

Something stood in the yard among the trees, just beyond the reach of the light emanating from the kitchen windows. It was unclear enough that I could tell myself I was just looking at another tree, but the shape was just a little too wide.

I climbed back up to the guestroom, fishing through boxes until I found a massive handheld spotlight. I struggled to stay upright with the uneven weight as I came back down the stairs and up to the window. The flashlight was too heavy to hold up steadily, so I rested the front end on the windowsill. I switched the beam on, and in an instant the entire backyard was flooded with daylight. The beam reached all the way to the wall of trees at the end of the yard. Whatever I thought I saw earlier, it was no longer there.

I shot up as a single knock struck the front door. A moment passed, then another. Enough time for me to wonder if I’d just imagined it.

Then another knock.

Before I could finish running to the door, a third knock, then a fourth had struck the door. “Hello?” I asked.

No reply came besides a knock. Then another.

“Hello?!” I said again. “Who’s there?”

“Eeehhh…OO?”

My throat was seized by some instinct beyond my control.

“Eeehhlll…OO?”

*Knock*

David began to stir on the couch. I silently begged that he’d stop making noise.

“OO? Eeehhllllll… eeehhll…” Whatever had been at the door, it was starting to walk away. My throat relaxed, letting out a breath I didn’t notice I’d been holding.

David sat upright on the couch, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Hey Mitch, was there someone at the door just now?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so…”

David rolled his eyes. “God, not you too.” David got off the couch, his shoes slapping against the wooden floorboards as he stomped towards the door. “I’m not gonna stay here waiting to get infected with your collective psychosis!”

“David wait, I don’t think you should-”

“For fuck’s sake Mitch! I thought better of you!” David banged against the door three times. “Hello?! We’re stuck in here! We need help getting out!” Three more times. “HELLOOOO?!”

“ehhllooo?” It was distant, but I could hear something moving through the front yard. I slowly backed away from the door.

“Thank god! We’ve been stuck here for hours; you’ve gotta help us open the door.”

“Oohh…ohppen?” It banged against the door three times.

“David please,” I whispered.

“Mitch, shut up,” David said. “Stay in the crackpot as long as you like, but I’m not going to sit here waiting to starve!”

“Ohpen the dooorr?” The voice warbled and strained, suddenly able to better pronounce the words.

David’s demeanor flipped like a switch. “Look man, it might be easier if you just call for help.”

“Hhelp. Help open?” *Bang-bang-bang* “Help open the dooorr?!”

David stepped back from the door.

“Open the doorr?!”

I felt the words pressing against my skull, searching for a crack.

*Bang-bang-bang* “HEelloo0000000000”

I wouldn’t last much longer.

Tripping over myself as I ran to the basement door, I threw it open and rushed down the steps. Terry looked up in shock at the sudden entrance. “What the hell-”

I grabbed Terry by the shoulders. I tried speaking, warning him, but I couldn’t get a word out between my gasps for air.

“Breathe Mitch. I need you to calm down and tell me what happened.”

My diaphragm remained out of my control. “There — there was — at the door— talking-”

“Shit,” Terry rasped. “Where’s David?”

I’d completely forgotten about him. “Up —upstairs…”

He shouted up the base of the stairs, “David, get down to the basement right now!” David came soon after, closing the basement door on his way down, nonverbal, pale.

Terry looked livid. “Did you speak with it?!”

“I think — David spoke to it,” I said, nearly in control of my breath once again.

Terry yelled in frustration and nearly kicked over a jar of incense before stopping himself. “What did you say to it?”

“N-nothing man,” David muttered. “Just asked it to help us open the door.”

Terry’s eyes went wide. “You requested a favor?”

“I guess-”

“For fuck’s sake David, giving permission would’ve been bad enough. It expects payment for fulfilling a request!”

My fear was quickly shifting into anger. “Well, it would’ve been nice to know all of this before last night! If you knew this ritual was going to be life threatening, why the hell did you bring us here in the first place!”

“Don’t give me that bullshit, I told you exactly what we were going to do! It’s not my fault you two chose not to listen!”

Terry continued after calming himself. “Look, I didn’t expect any of this to happen. This wasn’t supposed to take more than a few hours, and I’ve been busy trying to figure out what went wrong. Wait down here for another ten minutes; by then it should’ve gone away. Have either of you had anything to eat in the past six hours?”

We both shook our heads.

“I suggest you do. Tomorrow I’ll give you two some basic instructions; as long as you follow them, we should get out of this with no issue.”

After leaving the basement, I threw Terry’s junk off the bed in the guest bedroom and took it as my own. I think I’ll rest for a while; there’s too much going on.

At least the power still works. I wish we had water running through the taps, I’m getting tired of drinking Pepsi.

05/23/2020 Part 3

David woke me up as Terry requested. He was uncharacteristically quiet as we headed toward the basement. I wasn’t going to complain; I didn’t feel like talking much either.

When we reached the basement, Terry was waiting for us cross-legged in front of the circle. He gestured for us to sit on the floor. I almost suggested bringing some chairs from upstairs, but I didn’t have the energy to argue. I sat down and David followed. The smells near the ground were nauseating; a full day of burning incense combined with the burning sulfur made it near impossible to breathe.

I’ll write a shortened version of Terry’s monologue. The sun would not rise, and we would not leave until we finished the ritual.

Terry emphasized not to speak to or look at anything on the outside. Ideally, ignore them entirely; he said they tended to become more ‘present’ the more you acknowledged them.

“There’s a small chance you might hear or see them passing through the house,” Terry said. “Explaining four-dimensional geometry would take too long but suffice to say even though they appear to be in the house, they’re not actually there. They should ignore you so long as you don’t stare or try talking to them.” Terry paused. “Make sure to warn me if they appear.”

“What about the thing that was at the door?” I asked.

“Now that you’ve spoken to them once, it’s highly likely they’ll come again.” Terry looked to David. “They’re going to offer you a way out. Do NOT speak with them again. Understood?”

David nodded. His gaze never moved from the floor.

“Actually Terry, I’ve got a question,” I said. This would be a gamble, but I had no other way to gain more information.

Terry gestured for me to speak.

“Did you add the pen annotations to the book?”

The question stunned Terry. “Well, what do you mean by that?”

“It’s just that I’ve noticed you haven’t been following most of Mr. Hopkins’ instructions,” I said, with more confidence than I felt.

Terry’s expression soured. “Well, surely you’ve got some examples.”

“We were supposed to conduct the ritual at ground level. The metaphysics is beyond me, but Hopkins goes to great lengths to explain his rationale.”

“I’m going to head on upstairs,” David said, slinking back up the steps as we continued arguing.

“Well, if you would’ve bothered to look at the footnote-”

“I would’ve seen the pen annotation that says to conduct the ritual underground. A single sentence. Don’t you find it odd that the newer additions are far less detailed than Mr. Hopkins’ writings?”

“So what? A correction was needed to finish the work.”

He confirmed the pen writing was a later addition.

“What about the five candles?” I gestured to the candles placed around the iron circle.

“Let me guess. You’re going to say that it should be four.”

I felt my face going flush. “Well, you’re right. The book again explicitly states to place the four candles-”

“‘-around the circle to mark the cardinal directions.’ Mitch, do you think you can upstage me by quoting MY book?”

“Terry, what are you hiding from us?”

As I saw Terry’s eyes flare up and a venomous smile grace his lips, I realized I could’ve chosen my words better. “Why should I put in the effort to hide anything? You think I don’t notice the two of you talking behind my back? I’m not dense enough to believe you’ll take anything I say seriously!”

“Answer the question. Why aren’t you following Hopkins’ instructions?”

“Because he failed, Mitch! He died during his attempt, so he asked me to finish the ritual.”

I’d received more information than I knew what to do with. “Wait, so you believe you were talking to a dead man online? And you decided to follow a ritual you knew had already failed?!”

Terry took a step back from me. “The ritual’s going to work this time; that’s what the pen annotations are for. As to how I confirmed the identity of Hopkins, he told me where to find the book.” Terry stopped, as if he didn’t want to continue the line of questioning any further.

But I had to prod for more.

“That doesn’t tell me anything. Why do you believe you were talking to Hopkins?”

“He helped me find the book.”

“You’re lying to me Terry…”

“I found the book on him! He told me where to find his body and I found the book there!”

His only saving grace was the shame in his eyes. “You took a book off a corpse? Terry… What the hell happened to you?”

“You’re going to stand there and patronize me?! I heard your conversation with David upstairs; I know what you did for work. You don’t have the right to judge me! Now get the fuck out of my basement.”

I returned to the living room, collapsing onto the couch next to David and knocking over a few aluminum cans.

“Told you he was a schizo,” David said. “Come on, let’s watch another movie while we wait.”

I picked up one of the cans off the floor. “David, have you been drinking?”

“I’ve had one or two,” David said sheepishly. “Maybe more…”

“David, our only source of hydration is half a bottle of tonic water in the fridge and the soft drinks we brought.”

“The beer should be fine. Didn’t they drink it instead of water in the dark ages?”

I was too tired to deal with this.

“Just don’t be stupid about it.” I stood back up from the couch, taking the laptop in hand.

“Hey, where you going?”

“Back to sleep.” I was planning on writing this entry first, but I didn’t feel like spending time in anyone’s company then.

“Alright then…”

As I walked up another flight of stairs, I heard the click and hiss of another open can. As I write this entry, all I can think about is that I’d rather be back at my parent’s place, sitting in the sun on my dad’s porch.

05/24/2020

I woke up feeling just as tired as I’d been when I went to bed. I stayed there for what felt like an hour trying to get more rest, but none came. Eventually, the bed was too hot to be comfortable, giving me an excellent reason to continue reading the book. The penciled sections were a pain to read; I even came across multiple simple spelling errors. But at least they were thorough. I wondered if Terry had made the additions in pen with the help of ‘Hopkins’.

I’d need to confront Terry, but I couldn’t risk agitating him any further. I’d struck a nerve yesterday, and as much as I hate to admit it, there’s no way we’re getting out of this situation without him. The best thing I could do was offer to help Terry get things done faster.

I walked down the stairs to find David passed out on the couch, empty beer cans doubled around him and a bottle of vodka with a sizable fraction of its contents missing.

I weighed the pros and cons of murder as I shook him awake.

“Uuuhhhh… Huh? Oh, Mitch… Could you- Could you be a pal and bring me a glass of water?”

“We don’t have water David! Do you want me to bring you the sludge from the tap instead?!”

I received no answer from David, who had passed out once again. In a flash of rage, I kicked the side of the couch, burying a scream in my hands.

Terry shouted from the basement, “Mitch, I can’t focus when you’re shouting!”, his voice barely audible over the incessant hum of the basement ventilation system. I went back down the stairs; thankfully most of the sulfur smell had faded out, though the frankincense still hung heavy in the air. I found Terry at the desk again, this time looking intently at a graph and a diagram, pressing against the bridge of his nose, mumbling to himself. “That doesn’t seem right…”

“What the hell happened to David while I was asleep?”

“I found him last night drinking out of the bottle. I took it away from him and put it in the freezer.”

“Well, you should’ve done a better job hiding it. He’s one swig away from needing an IV drip.”

Terry groaned. “I should’ve never brought you here.”

It would take less than a second for my hands to reach his neck. I held myself back. “Not much to do about it after the fact. How about I help you finish your ritual so we can get out of here faster?”

Terry motioned for me to stand beside him. He then opened the lid of his laptop, showing me the live video feed.

“It appears we had a visitor last night,” Terry said, as he pulled up the recording of the living room. He rewound the time to 3 am. “A shame David wasn’t awake to receive it.”

The video was obscured by static for almost thirty minutes before it began to return to normal. “That thing stood next to David the whole time,” I said.

“Which means they can sense him,” Terry said. “Lucky for us, he was probably too inebriated to notice it. That’s not the part that matters.”

“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” I asked. Terry ignored me and brought up another recording, this one of the stairs. “I used the cameras to track its movement through the house.” The recording showed light static before it flooded the view. “Aaand here’s the last recording.” Terry switched over to the camera at the top of the stairs.

My skin went numb as I saw the static on the upstairs camera. “Was it standing next to me too?” I asked.

“Doubtful. In its current stage of physicality, it wouldn’t have been able to open the guestroom. That’s where the problem lies. Do you know where to find the section on wards in the book?”

“I think I’ve skimmed over it.”

“Great, that makes things easier. The recordings show the entity used a breach in the attic to enter and exit. Take the book to the attic; you’ll find a hole in the roof there. I need you to copy the ward sigil onto the tarp and place it over the hole. That should stop any more entities from coming in.”

“You left a hole in the roof?!”

“Better we discover it now than later. Here, you’ll need this.” Terry handed me a transceiver. “I’ll watch the live feed while you direct the camera into the attic. If I see a disturbance, I’ll let you know.” Terry also passed me a brush and a jar of red fluid. I knew better than to ask what it was.

“Terry, this is going too fast. I don’t know anything about… whatever this is.”

“It’s been staring you in the face for the past thirty-five hours and you still can’t call it what it is.” Terry shook his head. “So be it. Soon enough I’ll have visible evidence of the supernatural. Then neither you, nor David, nor anyone else will be able to deny it.”

“Terry, I don’t understand-”

“Here’s what you need to understand. You take the brush, you paint the sigil from the book onto the tarp, you focus on how much you don’t want the lesser demons to pass the barrier. I figure the latter half won’t be too hard for you.”

I swallowed my pride and nodded. We tested the transceiver before I left for the attic. Before I continued up, I stopped to examine David. That thing from the outside had been standing next to him for thirty minutes. I shuddered at the thought.

Once upstairs, I grabbed the camera from the tripod and tucked the book under my arm. I clicked the side of the transceiver with my free hand. “Terry, can you still hear me?”

“Barely, but tha-……-xpected.”

“I’ll continue as planned.” A cold draft drifted down from the attic entryway. At the end of the hall, the dusty staircase led up to the doorway, revealing the dark opening above. The echo of a metallic arrhythmic beat came from up high, my own heart pounding in protest.

I’ve had this feeling before. A memory from an age ago. The four of us, sleeping overnight on the first floor of one of Terry’s abandoned haunted houses in the light of the electric lantern. Except I couldn’t fall asleep. I alone was awake to hear the creaking sounds coming from the darkness of the second floor. I felt exposed, prey in an open field. The feeling persisted no matter how deep I crawled into my sleeping bag.

That same feeling struck me as I hid out of view of the attic while I pointed the camera upward.

“Any sign of something up there?” I whispered into the transceiver. I almost wished he’d say yes; it would save me the trip up there.

“Can’t see-………….”

The rest of whatever Terry had to say drowned in incomprehensible static.

I walked back across the hall to the top of the stairs. “Terry, can you hear me now?”

“The connec-……-worse than I thought it would be.”

“Is there anything in the attic?!”

“Seems like it’s clear.”

I would’ve preferred a plainer assertion. Our main issue now was that the transceiver was completely unreliable. I tried shouting to him from the top of the stairs, but my voice was likely drowned out by the ventilation system.

“Mitch, stop dragging your feet and get it done.”

Unable to come up with a good enough excuse to return downstairs, I began my trek up the steps, the inside of the attic revealing more with every step. Rows and columns of rotting cardboard boxes lined either side of the attic floor, creating a path towards a rusted boiler at its end, the fluorescent orange tarp drumming against it.

We tried conducting another check when I reached the top of the attic steps. It came back negative, but I’d had to run back down to the second floor to get my answer, forcing me to walk up the steps once again.

There was nothing stopping whatever was outside from coming through that hole. I had to work fast.

I rested the camera at the foot of the stairs, fishing the brush and jar from my pocket and onto the tarp. Both hands now free, I rushed through the pages of the book. Once I reached the section on wards, I noticed an immediate problem. The penciled section showed a detailed description on how to inscribe the Jupiter Seal, a pattern that ultimately produced an X inside a circle. The pen annotation at the bottom showed a typical pentacle.

“Terry, there are two protection wards in the book. Which one do I use?”

“Mit-……………-atic-…………..”

“I can’t understand a word you’re saying. The pencil or the pen?”

“…………………………………….”

There was no way I’d muster the courage to go up these steps again. Judging from Terry’s comments on the late Mr. Hopkins, he’d probably want me to use the one written in pen.

The handwriting had two possible sources, neither of them reliable. It could be whoever was pretending to be Mr. Hopkins, at this point I wouldn’t feel much better if it was him. It could also be from Terry, a person who I’d once considered a close friend, who turned into someone I hardly recognized while I’d been too immersed in myself to notice. Maybe a better friend would’ve made the occasional phone call. Maybe that could’ve saved my friend.

I wish I could write that I had a sudden change of heart; that I believed deep down the old Terry was still there and had our best interests in mind. I inscribed the pen sigil on the tarp because the alternative was to follow a dead man’s steps into the grave. Once I was finished, I used some zip ties to attach the tarp to the rivets that had been drilled into the roof. I collected the camera from beside the door and closed the attic door behind me, setting the small copper latch into place. Once again, I tried to speak to Terry through the transceiver, hoping that the connection would improve outside the attic.

“Terry, can you hear me?”

“It’s clear Mitch.” I was surprised by the sudden lack of static, the comment coming through the speaker as clearly as if he stood next to me.

“I finished transcribing the sigil on the tarp. I couldn’t catch your instructions, so I assumed you wanted the pen sigil.”

“That’s what I expected to hear Mitch.”

There was something off about how Terry was replying. “Is there anything else that needs to be done up here before I come back to the basement?” I wasn’t planning on coming back up here if I could avoid it.

“It’s done Mitch.”

“What’s done? My work in the attic? Your work downstairs?”

“My work is done. Is done.”

I paused. “What do you mean it’s ‘done’. Does this mean you’re closer to ending the ritual-

“The ritual is done.”

“It’s over?” I asked. “I can finally go back home?” I felt a warm pool of elation envelop my fears.

“It’s over Mitch. You can finally go back home.”

I could forget this entire ordeal. I could go home, have a nice cold beer on the porch with my dad.

“-a nice cold beer on the porch with your dad.”

Maybe I could help him set up the birdhouse-

“-in the garden, the one he finished making on the day you arrived. All you need to do is open the door.”

All that I needed to do to leave this hell was to open the door.

“We can help open the door from the other side.”

I could finally go back home.

“Help open the door.”

“Mitch?” David’s voice broke me from my trance. I found myself at the front door of the house, my hand reaching out to the brass doorknob.

“You good man?” David asked again, a hint of concern audible through the drunken drawl.

The transceiver was in my other hand, continuous static playing from the speaker. I shut it off.

“Y-yeah, I’m fine…”

Were they standing on the other side of the door, waiting for me to turn the knob?

Unfortunately, that would have to wait. The bottle of vodka was back on the table. More of it had been drained.

That was it. My fragile psyche finally snapped, and all the anger flooded through me at once. I grasped the neck of the bottle and threw it into the kitchen, liquor and glass crashing against the floor. My sudden rage seemed to cause David to sit up a little straighter.

“God dammit David, I can’t deal with this right now!”

“Look man, I’m sorry I-”

“‘Sorry’ doesn’t cut it. Why on god’s green earth have you decided now of all times to get plastered on the couch?”

“It knows my name Mitch,” he said. It was the most sober I’d heard him all day. “When you went downstairs yesterday, it said my name.”

The cold front that blew past threatened to smother my anger. “I don’t get what that has to do with anything.”

It was clear David was struggling to get the words out. “I wasn’t…I didn’t tell you the real reason I came back.” David paused, leaving me room to interject, maybe in the hopes I’d spare him from revealing some terrible truth. I was too tired to say anything; I just gestured for him to continue, much to his dismay.

“Y’know, I finally found a girl. One who was willing to stomach me for more than a single night.” David looked at the table where the bottle had been. “She’s incredible. Funny, smarter than me, has a heart of gold. She even convinced me I could be better. She told me she was… Oh god!”

Tears began rolling down David’s face. “I promised her I’d stay with her Mitch, but-” A sudden sob interrupted his confession. “I wasn’t ready — I can barely take responsibility for myself! She offered me everything a man could ever want and I got scared.”

With that, I felt the last remnants of my anger snuff out. I sat next to David on the couch and put a hand on his shoulder. “It sounds like she’s really special to you. It’s only been a few days, David. I’m sure she’ll forgive you if you’re earnest.”

David just shook his head. “They’re in my head Mitch,” he whispered. “It spoke to me in my dream, offered me a way out. And I almost said yes.”

“David, what deal did they offer you?”

“I don’t deserve this. God knows I don’t deserve this.”

That was all I could get out of David. He soon sank back into unconsciousness, after which I returned to the basement to give Terry a recount of what I’d just been told.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Terry said, pulling back his greasy hair. I think that was the first time I’d seen fear in him since we started, but it was cast away as quick as it had appeared.

“What David is saying isn’t possible; they shouldn’t be able to make contact with us so long as the seal is intact.”

“Terry, I’m not going to pretend I understand how any of this works, but David is in distress. If there’s something wrong-”

“I haven’t made any mistakes. If you have so little trust in me, I have no need for you.”

I’m at a loss of what I’m supposed to do. I tried reading the section in the book on seals, but I’ve read enough to know that this material is far beyond anything I can hope to understand in a few hours. I think back to what happened on those attic stairs. My heart tells me that I should’ve told Terry about the voice from the transceiver. I should’ve told him what almost happened.

It’s getting late now. I’m staying up in the guestroom with the door closed. We’re on our last bottle of soda, so I’m trying to limit my fluid intake. You’d think that with all the time Terry took to triple check his ritual, he would’ve prepared some supplies.

I wish I could end this entry with something more insightful. Truth is, I’m feeling more worn out by the day. I’ve never been someone who can remember dreams, but somehow I know mine are getting worse. I wake up multiple times a night, my heart pounding against my chest.

All I can hope is that the ritual ends on day three.

05/25/2020 Part 1

I lost the book. I tried looking everywhere in the guestroom; I must’ve spent hours tearing through piles of discarded books and ghost hunting equipment. I left it on the floor next to the bed, right? The memory begins to distort as I replay it over and over again. Could I have left it on the desk? Downstairs? Maybe I gave it back to Terry? If Terry found out I lost Mr. Hopkins’ book…

My mind returned to the events back up in the attic. If they were capable of bringing me down two flights of stairs and to the front door…

I’m too frustrated and too tired to feel shame at this point. I cried — tears, snot, the whole set of water works, for a solid quarter of an hour. I’d had enough of this house, enough of Terry and David, and I just wanted my old life back. It’s still hard to believe I’d come to that conclusion. During my time in Sacramento, I went to sleep every night dreading having to wake up the next morning. I’d go back there in a heartbeat. In fact, I can say without any degree of embellishment that I’d rather be anywhere else.

When I finally calmed down, I read my entry from last night to check where I might have left the book. It didn’t take long to find its last marked location, but that would be the last place I looked. Instead, I’d ask David if he’d seen the book; if that failed, I’d look in the basement.

That’s what led me to find David standing in the kitchen with the lights off, staring at the kitchen door.

“David, do you know where the book is?”

No response. The tension in the air had been stretched to its breaking point, and wrong movement or word would break it. I stepped over to him, quiet, careful. Slowly his face came into view, the stench of vomit and urine emanating from him. Glassy eyes stared off into a world beyond me.

“Are you okay?”

“Do you see it?” he asked, my gaze following his pointed finger to the shattered glass door. My eyes finished adjusting to the dark.

“Mitch, please tell me you can see it.”

I shook my head. “There’s nothing there.”

David’s laugh unnerved me. “It’s messin’ with me!” David moved toward the kitchen door, nearly falling over in his drunk state.

I grabbed hold of his wrist. “Where are you going?”

David attempted to shake me off. “Let go of me!”

“What’s going on up there?” Terry asked from the basement.

“I’m getting out of here. I don’t care what’s outside… I just… let me out!”

I was never in good physical shape; I struggled to keep David from going into the kitchen even in his drunk state. I couldn’t see anything there, but there was no way in hell I was letting David open that door.

“TERRY! He’s trying to get to the door!”

“Let go of me Mitch! I’ll kill you! Let go of me!”

I used my foot and David’s stupor to trip him, sending us both to the floor. I’d expected a violent response, but David was now stuck in his own trance, crawling towards the kitchen exit. Terry finally made his way to us from downstairs.

“I need you to help me drag him to the basement,” Terry said.

I nodded. Each of us took up an arm, dragging David to the living room.

“Help! Someone please help! They’re not letting me leave!”

I saw it then. In my last glimpse of the kitchen, out of the corner of my eye, creeping over from the frosted door towards the windows. Its form broke and reshaped as it moved along the distorted glass, a voice in my head from before human history warned me that the image of it would condemn my mind till the day it rotted into the earth. I shut my eyes and clasped my hand over David’s mouth.

Getting David down the basement steps was a nightmare; halfway down, he’d managed to get his hand free and smack Terry down the steps. It took us ten minutes to get his hands and feet bound in zip ties. We used a spare rag as a makeshift gag and tied him to the brazier in the corner.

“I think it’s best if you stay down here as well,” Terry said. “Just in case he manages to get free.”

I brought my laptop from the guestroom, careful to avert my eyes from the kitchen on the way. When David eventually went quiet, Terry suggested we remove the gag.

“It’s not like he can do much in that state anyway,” Terry said. “Best he isn’t too uncomfortable so he can rest.”

As I removed the rag from David’s mouth, I noticed an uncharacteristic calm had settled over him.

“Hey Mitch,” David whispered. “I need to tell you something.”

Against my better judgement, I brought my ear closer.

“It asked me to tell you that the book is in the attic.”

05/25/2020 Part 2

I found the book.

When I’d first come down to the basement, there hadn’t been a hair out of place on Terry’s desk. Every book was stacked with the binding facing out, every paper filed into a cubbyhole of folders.

Now, as I watched him shuffle between diagrams from the depths of pandemonium, I noticed I hadn’t seen Terry sleep once since Friday night. In fact, I hadn’t seen him leave the basement unless he was taking a sip from the soda bottle or using the restroom. The signs of exhaustion were there: deep bags under red eyes. The light in them was different now, frantic, lashing out to feed a dwindling fuel source as his eyes darted around.

I made the excuse that I wanted to use the restroom; Terry didn’t even look up from the notes on his desk.

It’s hard to explain the feeling I had as I walked back up into the living room, as if something had fundamentally changed. The feeling you get when a room has been completely redecorated or rearranged. The couch looked to be an inch out of place, the walls’ dimensions a little skewed. I swear the cracked pattern in the kitchen door had changed.

It wouldn’t be long before Terry asked for the book. The desperation emanating from him nearly overpowered the frankincense. Our navigator was reaching the end of his rope, and if I was to have any hope of making it out of these waters, I’d need to retrieve his map.

As I walked up to the second story, each footfall causing a creak in the old woodwork, I told myself I was overreacting. As I tested multiple flashlights I found in the guestroom without a single one working, I convinced myself there was nothing to fear upstairs. As the temperature plummeted with every step towards the attic and the air whistled through the crack at the bottom of the door, I rationalized that the wind was likely blowing in beneath the tarp.

Then the air began to speak. It wasn’t any word I’d know or any language I’d heard. Neither was the one that came after. Too late, I realized that there was no whistle, but a whisper. I knew they were speaking to me — trying to find the right collection of syllables that would make me understand.

I didn’t want to understand. I already knew what they said. I could feel their rage and their ecstasy. I knew what they wanted me to do. The small copper latch rattled in place. The visitors from beyond the door beckoned me forth, getting louder, more impatient.

The words crawled over one another to take hold of my attention, yet as soon as one was in reach it was dragged down by three more. Not whispers now. Getting louder.

A cacophony of spoken sentence. A muttered phrase, a violent curse. A crowd of guests stuffed in the attic, waiting for admittance into the party below. Not waiting any longer. Not a moment longer. The door rattled violently as they demanded entry, the barrier between me and them held by a tiny copper clasp, struggling against the wind.

They found the words.

“Help open the-”

I ran down the attic staircase, down the hall, fell down the second staircase. I heard screaming, I don’t know if it was mine.

The copper latch snapped, a doorbell marking their arrival.

The house rattled as I slammed the basement door closed, rattled like the copper latch, like the rail under a train, as they burst through the upper floors. I turned, back against the cold metal door, hands against my ears as the wooden walls splintered, the glass windows shattered, drowned out by the roar of the crowd waging war against the silence.

A doomed confrontation. The voices faded away, candle smoke against the breeze. The groan of the wooden structure and the crackling of glass soon gave way to the tyranny of silence.

My trembling legs struggled to take me to the floor of the basement. The adrenaline began to fade. Sharp pain stabbed at my core. I’d likely broken a rib during my fall.

David was awake now, eyes wide in shock. Terry stood petrified by his desk. Only now did I notice his confidence had been holding us firm.

“Mitch, what did you do?” he asked, his voice trembling.

His fear multiplied my own.

“I-I didn’t do anything, I just went upstairs to find something in the guest room and I heard something in the attic-”

“Hhelloo?”

Terry’s shock turned to horror. “Sit down facing away from the stairs,” he said. “Don’t say anything and do not look at it.”

David’s voice trembled. “Can you p-please untie me?”

I heard the door handle turning at the top of the stairs.

“Guys, I’m stuck. Please, you need to help me!”

I sat in front of the circle, eyes shut, fingernails pressing into my palms.

“HhellooooOO?”

The door creaked open. The first motion sensor triggered.

I stifled a gasp, pain shooting through my ribcage. I held my breath, clenched my teeth.

“Daavviiiid?”

David whimpered. “No, no please-”

“Hhellp Pleeeeeeese…”

The second motion sensor triggered.

“Terry! Terry, you’ve gotta untie me, please!” David cried.

“Pleeese? Pleeese ohpen?”

“Mitch? Mitch, what do I do?”

My fingernails drew blood against my palms.

“Davviiid?”

“I’ll take the deal! I accept! You can have the kid, just please let me live!”

“Aksseept?”

“Yes, yes, I accept, just… oh god no.”

David’s scream went uninterrupted for five minutes, twisting and distorting until his voice broke. After that, it went back up the stairs, the motion sensors signaling its departure. It even closed the door on the way out.

It was another twenty minutes before I opened my eyes. I found David in a catatonic state, eyes glazed like a dead man. Wrists still tied to the brazier. He’s not showing signs of life besides shallow breathing.

I found the book though. It had been placed right before me.

05/27/2020

We finished the last of the soda this morning. I couldn’t sleep, so instead I’ve been lying on the ground growing more bored and hungry by the hour. For a moment I even considered powering on the laptop to watch a movie before I remembered I left my headphones in my bag upstairs. Imagine that! Suffering from boredom while being stuck halfway to hell.

I hadn’t seen David blink once. Still, he was breathing, albeit slowly. I thought we could maybe get him to a hospital when this was all over, though even as the thought floated up, a wave of cynical realism beat it back down. It looked as if Terry had reached the end of his rope.

Hoping the increased blood flow would help, I set David’s legs up against the wall, then laid back beside them.

“Is there anything we can do for David?”

He sat against the opposite wall, eyes closed. It was the first time I’d seen him off his feet since Friday.

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t just give me a ‘don’t know’. He’s dying Terry!”

“You want an answer? Fine. He’s gone. The most he’ll ever be able to do is shit and breathe, and I doubt he can do either for long.”

“No — no I won’t accept that!” The pain in my rib forced me to settle down. “This whole thing is your mess; there is no way in hell I’m letting you get away with it.”

“My mess?! Everything would’ve been fine if you just set up the ward as I asked. You know what? Maybe it is my fault, I shouldn’t have expected anything from you.”

“I prepared the ward from the pen section exactly as you asked!”

“This again? For god’s sake Mitch, I already told you there is no ward written in pen!”

“Sure about that?” The book hadn’t been moved since its return. I hesitated to pick it back up, but whatever curse that thing might have left on the book was overcome by momentary anger. I turned to the section I’d used to inscribe the ward. “Here it is Terry! Maybe you’d’ve known about it if you read your own book!”

Terry raised his brow. “This doesn’t make any sense.” Without warning, Terry snatched the book from me and took it to his desk. He stared at the page for a long while, then flipped between a few more, pausing at times to shuffle through the nest of papers on his desk. I felt my stomach form into knots as I watched his face grow more pale with each page turn.

That’s when it dawned on me. I still hadn’t told him about the false voice in the transceiver.

“Terry, what’s going on?”

“We’re finished,” Terry said. “I can’t use this. It’s all wrong.”

“What the fuck do you mean ‘it’s all wrong’?”

“It wasn’t wrong before! Well, at least it didn’t look wrong before. I never expected anything from Mr. Hopkins’ early work; I surmised it led to a dead end before I finished reading his notes. The other writings…” Terry trailed off. “In theory, it was flawless. But now? Everything written in pen is incomplete, inaccurate, or false. All of it.”

“Terry, I don’t want to hear about how ‘incomplete’ or ‘false’ the map is after it led us to the gates of hell!” I slammed my hand into the table, rage fueled by hunger and thirst. “You better find a way to get us out of here, because I refuse to die in this basement with you!”

Terry lifted his head to meet my gaze. The fire was out.

“There might still be a way out. At the end of the book… it shows a shorter version of the ritual.”

I took the book from the desk and turned to the last pages. There, in pen, a far simpler ritual was inscribed.

“The longer ritual was made with the intent of avoiding some of the more extreme measures… without having to give up something of too much value…”

“Terry, get to the point.”

“He likes to make deals. We haven’t offered him one yet.”

Terry turned his head to the opposite corner of the room and I followed. Over to David.

“He might let us strike a deal if we give a proper offering,” Terry said, his voice cold.

“You can’t mean… no, we can’t!”

“Mitch, I don’t know any other way. If we stay here much longer, we’ll die. If you go outside, you’ll wish you’d died.”

I was tired. I didn’t have the energy to argue anymore. “Just give me the book.” Terry let me take it without protest.

I spent the rest of the day reading through the whole book; the first page to the last, through every pencil smudge and every pen notation at the corner of the page. And you know what? I couldn’t understand a goddamn thing.

05/29/2020 Part 1

Time blew past as Terry and I sat waiting against opposing walls. Were we waiting for one of us to make a decision? For divine salvation? For the hunger to take us? We’d already made preparations to quench our thirst if any one of us was brave enough to take up the yellow bottle in the corner.

“I’m sorry.”

I thought I misheard.

“Mitch, I said I’m sorry.”

“That’s great Terry. How many calories can I get from an apology?”

He had no answer. Silence returned yet again, but I decided I’d had my fill of it.

“Terry, what are you really after?”

“What do you mean?”

“Humor me Terry. After everything we’ve gone through, don’t I deserve to know that much?”

“It’s just that… I need to know. That there’s something beyond this.” Terry’s expression softened, and for the last time I saw my childhood friend, with the same look he had five years ago as they lowered his mother into the cold earth.

He looked toward me, stared into me, trying to find a hint of understanding, of a kindred spirit, but in that moment we both knew that I would never understand.

“I guess I wanted someone to be there when I reached the finish line,” Terry said. We stopped talking after that. Neither of us felt like talking to a stranger.

I closed my eyes once again, hoping sleep would release me from this hell. Maybe if I dreamed long enough, I could escape this basement. Alas, sleep didn’t come. I tried thinking back on fond memories, but none came to mind. I even tried thinking of all the dreams and aspirations I’d pursue once I got out of here.

My hunger consumed my thoughts, and as it gnawed on me, broke me down piece by piece, I realized I wouldn’t have the strength to do what needed to be done for much longer.

“Let’s make a deal with the devil,” I said. Terry nodded solemnly.

I thought I’d feel something more as we prepared the ritual circle. I could’ve been angry at Terry for bringing us here. I could’ve felt guilty for not revealing what happened in the attic. Honestly, all I felt was hungry.

Terry finished inscribing the last of the incantation around the circle; and when he stood from his work, I knew it was time.

The hunger had seen fit to leave me with a single memory. The smell of chlorine water. The warm sun on my back. The weight of David on my shoulders as we played chicken in the public swimming pool. I can’t tell you what made him so much heavier as we carried his limp body over to the center of the new circle. Was I out of shape? Was it the weight of the hour? Was it the pain in my side?

Terry couldn’t do it in the end. His hand went limp as he tried to hold onto the sword he’d waved around so effortlessly before.

“I can find another way,” Terry said. “Give me the book again, I can figure out what I did wrong-”

Another memory, this one more familiar. The question from that presentation an eternity ago.

I would’ve wanted to be a writer.

I took the sword from Terry in one hand and rested the blade against the other. Candle fire reflected off the blade, dancing across a face that should’ve belonged to me but that I no longer knew. Twenty years made me a stranger to myself, but I suppose that’s my own fault. I never tried to be anyone else.

I placed the sword against David’s carotid artery and pulled.

We laid David on the couch cushions to soak the blood and keep the basement floor clear. Terry’s gone back to work after collecting a chalice of it. I’m lying against the wall writing on my laptop. There’s half a battery left.

Someone please forgive me.

05/29/2020 Part 2

Our arms moved like clockwork as we set up the ritual. I replaced the frankincense with yellow sulfur. Terry inscribed new sigils over the old. We both knew time was our greatest enemy. We wouldn’t have the strength to move around much longer. The whole time, I couldn’t help but think that if we’d killed David sooner, I wouldn’t have had to endure these past few days.

The great work was complete in six hours.

“You know what’s funny?” Terry asked. I didn’t provide a response.

“After everything we’ve done down here… I think I’d rather not know.”

We lit the censers one after the other, the sulfur oxide fumes burrowing down my nostrils. For once, I was grateful there was nothing left in my stomach.

“I’ll say it one last time,” Terry said, as he once more lifted the ceremonial sword, most of the blood having dripped off. “The entity demands the utmost respect. I suggest you don’t lift your eyes from the floor.” I wouldn’t have been able to look regardless. I knelt before the iron circle and cast my eyes to the cold cement. Terry remained standing, sword pointing towards the circle, eyes looking forward with an intensity I’d never seen before.

The incantation this time was shorter. Three sentences was all it took for the candles to go out, for the smell of sulfur to become so overwhelming I felt I would choke on it. Terry knelt down beside me, sword placed between us. The winds in the room began to twist around us as waves of heat singed my hair and burned my skin. I didn’t look up. Despite the light shining before me, beautiful as the sun at dawn, alluring as the esca of the anglerfish, I didn’t look up Terry.

He refused to speak in words; such instruments are too primitive for such a being. Instead He spoke in emotion and thought. He let us know the offering wasn’t sufficient for our request. No devil was so charitable as to accept one soul for two.

I expected Terry to say something. Maybe try to barter with it, like in the stories we heard when we were kids. I almost expected him to say, “Well, I guess we’ll find another way.” Terry stood to look up at Him, a final act of defiance against our jailor.

I’m sorry Terry. We both knew there was only one way out. I wish I could’ve done it as cleanly as I had with David, but I was scared Terry. My eyes were shut, my hands shook, and the chest is a far larger target than the neck.

I’m sorry Terry. I should’ve made sure to drag you back before making the offering. Maybe then, your blood wouldn’t have flowed out past the iron circle. Maybe then He wouldn’t have passed through the breach.
He couldn’t contain himself. I felt His bloodlust and ecstasy, His mix of wrath and delight that no mortal should comprehend. As the glow from inside the circle faded, I crawled away from the circle, reaching for the last remaining source of light. As I lifted the screen of my laptop towards the circle, desperate to keep Him outside His domain, I realized that my efforts to appease Him were futile. He hadn’t yet agreed to the terms.

I know those aren’t your eyes. These are of a different fire, dark stars that feed off the light of the laptop monitor. I need to finish this quickly. The battery drains away in His presence. A decision must be made before the count runs out.

He tells me I can still make it out. He makes me know what I must do to escape the pit. A better man would refuse, but I? I came to this interview with experience. My soul’s already been condemned. Was there ever a contest between a few dozen lives over the light of the sun?

You know what else is funny Terry? He tried to form words using your mouth, but the sword was impaled through your windpipe. As He sticks His finger into your wound and writes using your blood, I finally find out who wrote the text in pen.

End Note

That’s all we found on the hard drive. Honestly, I can’t tell if I feel better after posting this. I guess my feelings on the matter aren’t the point.

If you find Leonard Hopkins’ book, don’t pick it up. Better yet, burn it. It’s taken too much from too many. Friends lost. Sons lost. Many nights of sleep lost.

I can’t sleep, not after seeing what was written on the floor in blood. I hear the words every night on the boundary of my nightmares.

‘I always knew he’d reach the finish line.’

Credit: Logan Kosta

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