A Deal With the Devil Himself

“Cadence, I don’t think this will go well for us!” I rolled my eyes and kept walking up the hill. “C’mon, Sam! Do you really want to back out of this dare? I do not believe the devil truly resides in this old house.” Sam grabbed my arm. “Of course you don’t! Can we at least talk about this? Listen, Cay, Tammy, and Lila can just take the win; it’s a stupid dare anyway.” Well, I suppose I should introduce myself and Sam. My name is Cadence Dowry. I’m 5’7, and I have long brown hair and hazel eyes. Sam is my best friend. He’s 6'1, with short blond hair that falls into his green eyes, and he’s a total scaredy cat. Sam has apparently done so much research on the one historical house in our little town outside of mainstream L.A. Tammy and Lila are a few of our best friends. When we lost the bet, they dared us to come to this haunted house where the devil himself had supposedly possessed three people. “Sam, we are not losing this dare, okay? We already lost the bet because you were too scared to ask out Rebecca, so deal with the consequences.” He sighed. “Fine! But did you at least bring your throwing knives?” I rolled my eyes. “As always, Sam, yes. Not that it's going to do much against the devil if he really is here.” I pulled one out of my back pocket to show it to him. “Okay, okay. Let’s go.” We trudged up to the house, which was surprisingly not rotting like I thought it would be. It was rather dusty, but the outer wood and brick were pretty solid. A black cat scampered out of the open door. “Typical.” I scoffed as Sam jumped. All of a sudden, in a flurry of motion, two people came racing out the door. Sam screamed a little, but the two didn’t seem to notice. “Sasha, I am not going back in there!” the red-headed girl said. “But Molly! We didn’t even get to the kitchen!” The black cat came slinking back, and the blond, who I guess was Shasha, scooped her up. “Look, Wisp’s okay with it!” The redhead rolled her eyes. “No way. There is something in there that I don’t want to mess with. You can take Wisper and go with these two; they look like they're about to go exploring. I’m leaving.” With that, she left, and I half thought Sam would follow. The blond turned to us. “Sorry about her. That’s Molly, my best friend but a certified wimp. I’m Sasha, this is Whisper, and we’re going to go back in there despite Molly being afraid of a gust of wind.” I grinned a little. “I’m Cadence. This is Sam, who’s also afraid of everything and probably would have left too, but he’s not going to because we lost a bet.” Sasha grinned. “After you then.”

xXx

The floorboards creaked as I walked into the main hallway. “This was about where we made it before the gust came from down the hall,” Sasha said. Sam grabbed my free hand, which wasn’t holding the flashlight. I shook my head in amusement but didn’t let go. “Alright, here was our plan: We were going to sit in each room for a couple of minutes, maybe have a snack or something, and just see what happens,” I said. Sasha nodded. “Sounds good to me.” We started in the kitchen and sat down. I pulled out some grapes, and we passed them around. Everything went well from then on. In each room we went into, nothing happened. Again and again and again. We fed the cat some food, played around, made tic-tac-toe in the dust, and then it was time for the last room. The basement. Sam shook his head, “Cay, this is where everyone has been getting possessed. What if we just skipped this room?” I sighed but then looked at my watch. “C’mon, Sam! We’ll be fine. It’s nowhere near dinner, and nothing has been happening.” He frowned. “We’ll be fine,” I repeated. “Famous last words.” He muttered before tramping down the stairs after Sasha and Whisper. 

xXx

“Okay! That’s time!” Sam sighed with relief. As we got up, a loud noise sounded, and my heart sank. Sam went white when Sasha ran to the stairs but stopped at the bottom. “That was the door!” She said. Sam looked at me and gasped; when I looked to my side, my hair was floating beside me. I snatched my hair down and put it into a messy bun. “It’s fine. We’re all fine. Maybe the wind shoved the door shut.” Sam stood up, “And your hair?!” I shook my head, “doesn't matter!” I tentatively walked up the first two steps and then got more confident, but as soon as I reached the door, I went flying back down. Sam caught me. “Oh my God, Cay! Are you okay!?” I nodded and started back up again, but Sam caught my arm. The small window had gotten dark all of a sudden, and the shadows stood out. Sasha checked her watch. “It is not early enough to get dark out, and when we came in here, there was no sign of rain, so why the hell is it so dark!?” Suddenly, my vision went blurry, and Sam and Sasha flew backward; I sank to my knees. “Stop, please!” I whispered to no one in particular. “Take me instead. Take me and let them go, please. I’ll do anything you want.” Suddenly, the room brightened, the door swung open, and my friends got up miraculously unharmed. But me? I still felt it; the presence was inside my very being. Sam came over to help me, but I leaped up. “No, don’t touch me! I don’t know what he did to me, but I don’t want you to get hurt.” The slight color left in Sam's face drained. “Who, Cay?” I shook my head. “The devil himself.”