Terms and Conditions

A sudden blast of lightning lit the graveyard in a flash of brief, white light. The gathered teenagers shivered involuntarily.

Except for Alice. Alice surveyed the scene with mild interest. This wasn't her first midnight trip to a graveyard, and it wouldn't be her last.

"Yes, thank you, Primal. Very dramatic, we're all very impressed. Now, if I could please be allowed to continue without further interruptions, lightning or otherwise!" The demon named Angst, who'd been in the middle of a speech when the bolt hit, was starting to lose her cool.

Primal, short for 'Primal Fear', the demon who had dragged Alice to the gloomy graveyard in the first place, smiled apologetically.

"So sorry, it's just that in my day--"

"Oh, spare us the 'in my day' speech," said Mortification, rolling his eyes. "Every time, I swear. . ."

"Why are you even here?" demanded Angst.

"Well, I have a human in play," muttered Primal.

Alice looked at the tiny, ancient demon with something almost, but not quite, like pity. He'd clearly been around for a while. He barely came up to Alice's waist, his leathery black wings were tattered and droopy, and at least three of his sharp, rancid teeth were missing. His face was so lined you almost couldn't see his eyes, which were yellow. All demons had yellow eyes, but Primal's were the parchment yellow of age, not the bright, angry glow of his younger colleagues.

"Seriously?" said Mortification with a snort. "How?!?"

"I picked up a haunted Kist on the side of the road," said Alice, when it seemed like Primal was too embarrassed to answer. "It had the words, 'FREE! And definitely not haunted!' written on it," she added, helpfully.

Silence.

"You're quite stupid, aren't you?" said Angst after a pause, surveying Alice critically. She was a red demon who towered above the hostages, her scaly wings spanning nearly the entire graveyard. It seemed impossible that the cars driving by couldn't see her, but if you were a demon, you got to play by different rules. "No one picks up Primal's traps. That's the way he likes it! He only sets them in the first place to avoid termination!"

Alice shrugged.

"It's a nice Kist," she said. When this was met with silence, she flipped her long white-blond curls back and added, "Vintage is the new vogue."

Mortification shifted his enormous purple claws. The tombstones shuddered in response and a crack appeared in the side of a crypt.

"Very stupid," said Mortification, looking all the way down his very long snout at Alice.

"Can we get on with things?" demanded Angst. "Only I have six of these meetings to attend in the next five seconds, and time-bending or no time-bending, I'd rather not stand around chit-chatting!"

"Yes, yes, of course!" stuttered Primal, obsequiously. "Please, continue!"

"What I was saying was, WELCOME TO HELL, MORTALS!" said Angst, her voice rattling Alice down to her very core, her bones groaning in response to the demon's heavy tones.

One of the other girls whimpered, and Alice glanced over. Seven other children, all presenting as female, all about fifteen years old, just like Alice.

Unlike Alice, they were terrified, glassy eyes staring at the monsters in front of them in horror.

Mortification raised one of his clawed feet and brought it down with a crash. The ground between him and Angst split open with a loud, sound-barrier breaking crack. Alice slammed her hands over her ears, but kept her eyes firmly open, staying on her feet even as the the sound drove the others to their knees.

The graveyard was lit once more, this time by the orange and red light spilling from the crack.

One of the other girls was screaming. With a lazy wave of a clawed hand, Angst shut her mouth with a snap. The girl's fingers tore at her mouth trying to open it again, but she couldn't.

"Plenty of time for screaming later," said Angst. "You're all here tonight because you signed your souls over to myself and Mortification here." Angst paused. "Except for those of you who idiotically go shopping on the side of the road," she added.

"Hold on," said another girl, "but I didn't sign anything!"

Angst leaned forward, her head bowing until one enormous yellow eye was just a little higher than the girl's head.

"Downloaded any apps recently?" asked the demon. "TikTok, perhaps? Click a little too hastily on the 'I accept the Terms and Conditions' button?"

The girl looked confused for a moment, and then her face cleared.

"But you can't do that!"

"We can. And we do," said Angst, straightening once more. "Nobody reads those things! They just sign, and then they're ours!"

"Huh. Smart," said Alice, but only Primal heard her.

"Sh!" he said, desperately. "Don't draw attention to yourself!"

"You're not really cut out for this line of work, are you?" said Alice in a whisper.

"It's just that I've been doing it for so long!" he hissed. "Since before you people appeared. It was easier with the damn dinosaurs. . ."

"Are we dead?" asked a quivering girl. "If we're going to hell. . .?"

"Oh no! Not at all!" said Mortification with something that might have been meant to be a smile on his face. "No, you all have long, long lives ahead of you. You lucky girls are about to enter Hell's Living Intern Program!"

Now Alice did shudder.

"An internship?" she said, loudly. "Unpaid grunt work with ridiculous hours?"

"Oh yes," said Angst, with glee. "Even worse: it's a live-in internship!"

Alice gasped. Her grandmother had warned her about those!

"You will, among other things, feed the hell hounds (that's a once-off gig, I'm afraid) mop up lava spills (with your faces), and swim the river Acheron looking for those coins that some of the dearly departed keep brining with them for some reason (scuba gear and anti-zombie equipment not provided). Are we feeling excited yet, interns?"

The girl with no mouth fainted.

"What is the duration of the contract?" demanded Alice.

"Until death, naturally," said Mortification. "At which point you'll join hell as a resident, given all that consorting with demons you got up to while alive."

"Alright, everyone!" said Angst, clapping her hands. "Pop into the crevice! Quickly now, we haven't got all day!"

Alice felt herself being inexorably drawn towards the bubbling crack in the ground, her feet moving of their own accord.

"Not so fast!" said an elderly, crumbling voice.

Alice's feet stopped as the demons looked around in confusion.

Alice turned to see an old, bent woman perched on the edge of a grave, knitting what appeared to be a scarf in a shade of silver very similar to her hair. And her cardigan.

And her eyes.

Alice smiled.

"Hi gran," she said. "I was starting to think you'd forgotten about me."

"It would serve you right," said the old lady. "Picking up haunted merchandise on the side of the highway--"

"Hey, I just wanted to see what would happen!" said Alice, defensively. "You're always saying I don't get out enough!"

"Yes, but I was thinking a trip to Thailand, not a quick jaunt to the local cemetery. I mean, don't you get enough of this place as it is?"

"Fresh company can make all the difference," said Alice.

Her grandmother smiled. "Fresh meat," she added.

Angst and Mortification were looking between Alice and her grandmother in perplexment. The huge furrows on their scaly brows made Alice giggle.

"Ida!" squeaked Primal suddenly. He stumbled backwards, landing on his backside with a grunt.

Alice laughed harder.

Ida, Alice's grandmother, leaned forward slightly and squinted at Primal through her thick spectacles.

"Primal!" she said, with a smirk. "Still up to your old ways, are you? Not very successful, judging by your size."

"Friends," said Primal, voice trembling. "We have to get out of here. Now! Take the kids too!"

"What are you talking about?" demanded Angst. "Does this little old lady frighten you?"

"Yes!" screeched Primal. "Very fucking much, thank you! We have to leave now!"

"Now, where would be the fun in that?" asked Ida.

With a flick of her wrists, balls of silver yarn shot forth from her knitting bag, growing in length and girth before Alice's eyes. A tendril struck Mortification, who screamed in agony.

"It burns!" he yelled. "What the hell is this stuff?"

"Now would be a good time to run," whispered Primal to Alice. "Very far away!"

Alice ignored him.

Another tendril of yarn struck Angst in the eye.

"Nice one, gran!" yelled Alice.

The two large demons darted for the hell crevice, knocking tombstones over with every step, but Ida's yarn proved too much for them. As the tendrils wrapped their way around the struggling demons, their screams turned to whimpers until they were just two enormous silver-wrapped mounds of pain.

The other girls had watched in shock that slowly changed to relief as they realized what was happening.

"Your gran isn't what you think she is!" whispered Primal, urgently. "As I own your soul I feel responsible for you. I need to get you out of here!" He grabbed Alice's hand and pulled, but she didn't budge.

"Thank you, ma'am!" one of the girls was babbling, tears flowing freely down her face. "Are you some kind of super hero or something?"

"Something like that," hissed Ida.

The smiles on the other girls' faces dimmed and then faded altogether as Ida's body lengthened, widened, grew until she was a swaying tube of stretched, silver flesh towering above them.

"Run!" screamed Primal. "All of you idiots, run!" He tugged at Alice's arm again. "Do you see what I mean?" he said. "Get away from her!"

"Gran!" said Alice, ignoring Primal's persistence. "That's against the rules!"

Ida's swaying body swung round, Two empty silver eyes protruding from bulbous sacs blinked once at Alice. A slit opened just below them in the wrinkled silver flesh and said, "I won't tell if you don't."

Alice smiled.

"Fair enough," she said.

In one swift motion, Ida's lower jaw detached. Her mouth widened, a huge, gaping cavern, as she plunged towards the now screaming children.

"I. . .I don't understand. . .," stuttered Primal.

Alice turned towards him. Her body was already elongating as she started to take on her true form.

"Look on the bright side," she said. "You won't have to get up for work tomorrow."

She leapt.