The Summoning of Astaroth

A sudden bang causes Lucy to jolt up in her bed. Her wide eyes scan the dark room. Lucretia St. Germain had always kept her room tidy. Despite the lack of light, Lucy can still see the outlines of her things. She sees nothing out of place.

She begins to notice voices coming from the other side of the wall. She turns. Placing her hands upon her headboard, she pulls her ear to the wall. She definitely hears voices.

Lucy climbs out of bed. She is small for a nine year old. She steps into her slippers and walks to her brother's room. She can see dim light coming from under his door. She can now hear that the voices are really only one voice, her brother's.

She listens for a moment at the door before knocking. Her brother, Martin, is speaking in an unfamiliar language. It seems to contain a lot of grunting and "V" sounds.

Lucy knocks on Martin's door. "Go away." Martin goes back to chanting.

Lucy opens the door and walks inside. Martin is sitting on the floor in front of a large pentagram made of salt. There is a candle on each point of the pentagram. In the center of the circled star is their mother's big salad bowl with some kind of liquid in it. Lucy bends down to smell the bowl. It smells foul, yet spicy, and not wholly unpleasant.

"What are you doing?" She asks.

"Summoning the demon, Astaroth."

"You're going to wake up mom and dad."

"No, I'm not. They were up late with the Kettlemans doing adult stuff. They just went to sleep. Nothing's going to wake them up before noon."

"Why are you summoning a demon?"

"None of your business. Now shut up. I'm trying to conjure here."

"Can I watch?"

"Sure, just be quiet." Martin returns to his guttural chanting.

Lucy looks around the candle-lit room. Rather than clean up, Martin just pushed the permanent mess on his floor off to the side to make room for the pentagram.

"Are those my seven-day candles?" She asks.

Martin gives her an angry look and continues chanting. His words began to get louder. A wind starts to swirl around the pentagram. The candles flicker. The wind grows stronger. Salt starts to fly off the floor.

In a sudden explosion of light, sound, and fury a giant red demon springs out of the bowl. His massive upper body fills the center of the room. His lower body is presumably still in the salad bowl. The candle flames roar to life like torches. The angry demon speaks in a voice of black thunder.

"Who dares to summon me forth on this day of all days?"

"I did." Martin stands. "My name is Martin St. Germain, and I call upon you to help me grow a moustache."

"A moustache?" His sister asks.

"That's right. I want a moustache. Jimmy Alderalli has one, and I'm almost six months older than him. It's not fair."

"Jimmy Alderalli eats boogers. I've seen it." Lucy says. "You don't want to be like him."

"I didn't say that I want to be like him. I just want a moustache."

"Silence!" The demon shouts. "You callow neophytes drag me into this putrid dimension to ask for facial hair? Today?"

Martin seems confused. "But today is perfect. The seasons are changing, the moon is waxing, and the stars are all properly aligned. What's wrong with today?"

Astaroth looks down on Martin in disgust. "Because today is Saturday. I don't work on Saturdays. I golf on Saturdays. You sucked me away from my recreation so you could look like booger-eating Jimmy Alderalli?"

"Well, not like him, just the moustache."

"Wretched stripling!" The demon bellows. "You'll have your moustache, but I'll be taking a sacrifice." Astaroth stretches out his arm and grabs Lucy by the throat with his huge hand. He pulls the screaming girl to him and shrinks back into the salad bowl.

Martin instinctively leaps into the bowl after them. Martin had never been the best big brother, but he always stood up for his sister. When April Rankin made her cry by saying that Lucy's big eyes made her look like a frog, Martin punched her brother Phil in the nose. He blackened both of Phil's eyes,+ making him look like a raccoon. April kept her comments to herself after that.

Martin falls for a long time. He lands hard on his stomach. A cloud of red dust flies from the ground he lands on. He gasps for breath. Astaroth stands in front of him laughing. The Great Duke of Hell stands nearly twenty feet tall. Still holding Lucy by the throat, he pushes her into the wall. Snakes come out of the living wall to bind her. They wrap around her arms, legs, waist, and neck. One wraps itself around her forehead and holds her large eyes open.

"Watch carefully, little girl." The demon laughs.

He claps his hands and a pack of hell hounds pounce upon her brother. Part monkey, part feline, part demonic hyenas, they leap on Martin and shred him into pieces. He screams in agony. Blood, limbs, and intestines fly. Lucy is overwrought with horror and anguish. Tears flood from her shocked, petrified eyes.

The hulking Hell god leans his face into hers. His horse-shaped nose sniffs the terrified child deeply as if he were inhaling nutrients.

"Ah, the delectable taste of the living." Astaroth says, "Your agony is ambrosial to me. We don't receive many living souls down here. The fresh, clean pain and misery you emit is simply intoxicating."

"You killed Martin, you asshole!" Lucy cries.

"Oh, your brother's not dead," says the demon. "Not yet."

Astaroth turns away from Lucy and gestures with his hand. The blood and gore are gone, as are the hell hounds. Martin falls hard to the ground in front of them. He's hurt and gasping for air.

"Lucy...you're alive?"

"Of course she is." The monster says. "I plan on keeping the two of you alive as long as possible so you can watch each other die over and over again. I will erase your memories so it's always fresh and new, like the first time. There's nothing like the first time, is there? The shock, the horror, the overwhelming sense of hopelessness, the pain of the living is delicious. It almost makes up for pissing away a perfectly planned golf outing."

The snakes unwind, and Lucy falls to the ground. Astaroth walks over to a throne made of bones, sinew, and crawling insects. He sits and smiles. Lucy runs to her brother. "Are you okay?" She asks, helping him up.

"No. Okay is something I am definitely not." He struggles to speak. "I'm sorry. I did this and I can't undo it. I don't know how to fix this."

Lucy glares at Astaroth, "You're a big stupid jerk and you stink! You can't keep us here!" She shouts in defiance.

Astaroth glares back at the child. "You opened the portal and invited yourselves into my realm. In my realm, I do as I please."

"Not with my babies!"

At the sound of their mother's voice, Martin and Lucy turn around only to see a bolt of purple lightning streaking past them and striking Astaroth where he sits. The conscience and furious purple energy wrestles the Great Duke of Hell in his royal seat. Spiders, roaches, and centipedes scurry from Astaroth's throne.

Martin and Lucy stare transfixed as their infernal jailer struggles with an intangible adversary that somehow resembles their mom. Two hands grab the children’s shoulders. It's Mrs. Kettleman. "Come with me quickly." She takes the kids hands and roughly pulls them towards a glowing, shimmering hole on the distant wall.

Martin had never thought of Mrs. Kettleman as attractive. She was plain, old, and matronly. As they ran for their lives, he began to see her differently. Maybe it was because he was grateful that she had come to rescue them or maybe it was the shockingly provocative lingerie she was wearing. Either way, Martin had begun to see her differently. He began to see a lot of things differently. On the skin above his lip, one small follicle opens up and the first signs of a peach fuzz moustache slowly begin to bloom.

Mrs. Kettleman lifts Lucy and pushes her into the glowing hole. A hand reaches out and grabs the child. Mr. Kettleman pulls Lucy up through the hole in Martin's floor. He sits her down gently. He is in his underwear and wearing a dog collar for some reason.

Lucy's father sits in front of the hole. His eyes are closed. His hands are stretched out with his palms up. He's chanting in the same grunty, "V" filled language that Martin used to open the portal.

Mr. Kettleman pulls Martin out of the floor, and then does the same for his wife. Mrs. Kettleman then yells into the hole, "We're all out! Come on, Elizabeth! The kids are safe."

With that, the purple bolt of lightning leaps out of the floor. The children's father slowly closes his hands together. The portal closes with them. The disembodied purple energy quickly morphs into the children's mother.

"Is everyone okay?" Mr. St. Germain asks.

The children say "yes". Mrs. Kettleman nods as she removes a blanket from Martin's bed to cover his mother's nudity. Elizabeth St. Germain is visibly shaken. "What happened here?" She asks her frazzled offspring.

"I was trying to summon the demon, Astaroth," Martin says timidly.

"On the weekend?" His father asks incredulously.

"Oh children," their mother says exasperated. "You really need to be more careful. Now let's get you back to bed."

"And no more conjuring." Their father adds "Not tonight anyway."

The children return to their beds, and the adults go to the kitchen for a drink.

"So..." Mr. Kettleman says uncomfortably, "you're like...witches or something?"

"Something like that." Says Mr. St. Germain. "Why, is that a problem for you?"

"No, no. Of course not." Says Mr. Kettleman. "We're open-minded folks."

"That's right." His wife adds. "My sister married a Lutheran." She says proudly.

"It's just that...we're pretty much as close as two couples could be." Says Mr. Kettleman. "It just seems like something you'd share."

"We're sorry, Bill." Mrs. St. Germain touches Bill's arm. "We didn't want to freak you out."

"I'm not freaked out," says Mrs. Kettleman. "I think it's exciting. Makes me think that I'm not completely finished tonight."

Elizabeth smiles "Shall I retrieve the ball gag?"

The two ladies giggle and head to the bedroom. Their husbands follow.

"You know, Mark," Bill Kettleman starts, "I'm up for a big promotion at work...is there any way you could help me out with a little hocus pocus?"

Mark pats his friend's back. "I'm sure we can work something out."