The Devils Game
21:46 May 12 2018
Times Read: 542
Pray, for devils have no reason
Satan waits to curse your ways
Have you seen it in his eyes in the sunset?
Have you wondered if he’s laughing when he plays?
“The Devil Game”
This is a set of instructions for how to speak with the Devil.
Which, as those of you with any sort of brains at all might note, is a patently moronic proposition on the face of it; one likely to culminate in any number of thoroughly unpleasant fates. Honestly, it would probably be smarter to publish your credit card number on Facebook, or take up a career in crocodile-wrestling.
But then, that isn’t going to stop you, is it? Not if you’re sincerely interested, at least. Technically, if you do everything just right, there’s a fair chance you’ll walk away scot-free; and that seems to be reason enough for some people to decide that it’s a good idea. Especially if you’re the fate-tempting, thrill-seeking, scare-junkie type. Or the desperate type.
Which brings me to a point of clarification I ought to make. This is NOT a manual for making any kind of Faustian bargain – you know, the whole sell-your-soul type of deal. Although if you happened to bring it up in conversation, he certainly wouldn’t be one to refuse. Following through with such a foolhardy bargain, however, would necessitate removing some the protections which you will put in place for your conversation, and I don’t think I need to spell out for you why that would be a BAD idea. If you’re really mathematically impaired enough to want to trade something that will last an infinite number of years for something that might last about 90 (tops), there are plenty of other rituals out there for you to follow. This one, if performed correctly, should only allow the two of you to talk.
This, perhaps, begs the question of WHY exactly you would want to speak with the Devil in the first place. (Maybe some of you just like the idea of making small talk with extremely dangerous occult entities, but for the sake of the human race I hope most of you aren’t quite that stupid.) Short answer is – he KNOWS things. Things that some of you may have a deep, vested interest in finding out. I mean, he’s not omniscient or anything – much as he might like to pretend otherwise, he’s not God – but he’s definitely got a supernatural advantage over the kind of knowledge any human would be able to obtain. For example, he probably wouldn’t be able to predict when the next World War will happen, or tell you the cure for cancer… but he could very well be able to predict the winning numbers of tomorrow’s $500 million Powerball drawing, or tell you what deadly, undiagnosed condition might be afflicting one of your loved ones.
Of course, the Prince of Darkness doesn’t just go around giving out winning lottery numbers to anybody who asks. And trusting any sort of information obtained from a being commonly described as “the father of all lies” is liable to land you in a worse situation than you were in when you started. However, if you’re really dead set on finding something out, and you’ve exhausted all other options, there IS a way to try to get accurate information out of the guy.
You see, like so many of the more urbane villains in popular culture, the Devil has a bit of a penchant for games and gambling. Of course, the reason he likes them so much is that he almost always wins. Unless you happen to be a fiddler named Johnny or are being represented by Daniel Webster, you’re probably going to get your ass handed to you. But, if you’re determined enough to want to face the risks and the long odds, there’s a certain game the two of you could play to try to win the information you need.
First things first, though. We’ll start off with a description of the summoning process, then get into the rules of the game, some tips for how to play, and finally, of course, the inevitable litany of arcane shit that might go horribly wrong.
In order to contact your conversational partner, you’ll need to go to a church at midnight. It doesn’t matter what kind of church – large or small, old or new, liberal or conservative – just as long as you’re sure it will be empty. The last thing you want is for some preacher to walk in on you while you’re in the middle of this (for the sake of the preacher’s well-being, as much as your own). The process will probably work best if you try it on a new moon, or a full moon, or Friday the 13th, or Halloween… the actual day is less important that the psychological effect it has on you (as long as you don’t try it on Christmas Eve or something stupid like that, you should be fine).
The time IS important, though. You don’t have to start or end your ritual at exactly 12:00:00am Greenwich Atomic time or anything, but as a general rule of thumb you ought to show up a bit before midnight and have everything set up by no later than ten or fifteen after. Show up a LOT before midnight if you don’t know how you’re going to get in. Shockingly enough, most Houses of God do tend to lock their doors at night, at least if no one’s there to watch over them (and remember, we want EMPTY, got it?)
There are, of course, certain things you need to bring, and certain things you can’t bring. For this ritual, you will NEED:
• A full can of salt – you won’t need to use all of it, but it’s always better to have more than you need than to have less.
• Seven candles, red or white being preferable.
• Something to light the candles with. You would be shocked how often people forget this. Occult ritual or not, they aren’t going to magically light themselves!
• A length of red string, rope, yarn, or thread.
• A full-length floor or wall mirror. Ideally, you’ll want to find one of these already present in the church (they’re a bit unwieldy to be lugging around with you during a break-in). However, if there really aren’t any there, you’ll have to bring your own.
You might also find it useful to bring some markers, pencils, paper, a flashlight, and any sort of tools that might be necessary to secure your entrance into the church.
You will NOT be permitted to bring in any electronic or timekeeping devices. THIS INCLUDES all cell phones, smartphones, tablets, E-Readers, mp3 players, PDAs, calculators, wristwatches, pocket watches, kitchen timers, hourglasses, etc, etc, etc. (Seriously, it’s worse than the SAT.) If you’re one of those people that has your smartphone practically wired into your brain, don’t worry – you can bring those things with you to the church as long as you leave them OUTSIDE the room in which you will be doing the ritual. If you brought a flashlight (helpful for finding your way around without attracting unwanted attention), leave that outside too.
Also, don’t bring in any sort of religious paraphernalia to protect you, especially if it pertains to the Abrahamic religions. (And yes, if those goth-y black cross earrings you’re wearing are hanging right-side up, they count.) If you have any kind of holy symbols like that with you, the Devil will simply refuse to show up.
Don’t worry, you’re not going in totally unprotected. In fact, most of the supplies with you are not for any sort of Devil-summoning ritual, but for your own protection – old superstitions and folk magic remedies to guard oneself from evil. From what I know of it, the effect’s mostly based on the power of belief, so there are probably numerous other objects, artifacts, and procedures that would work just as well. If you’d like to risk being left helpless at the mercy of the Devil in order to test that theory, feel free to experiment! However, for anyone without a psychotic death wish, I’d recommend sticking to the ritual as follows:
Once you’re sure you have all the right supplies with you, make your way into the church and find someplace to set up. It can be anywhere from the main sanctuary where services are held, to a Sunday school classroom, to a walk-in supply closet – as long as you have a sufficient amount of open floor space and are certain not to be disturbed. Set up your mirror first – this is where the Devil will appear when you summon him. As such, you mustn’t complete the summoning until you’ve laid down certain wards around it.
First, surround the mirror with an unbroken circle of salt. If the mirror is hanging on a wall or door, lay down a semicircle around it instead, making sure that the salt touches the wall at both ends. Then, wrap your red string around the mirror several times. The color red, especially red string, is symbolic of protection in the folklore of many cultures and religions. This is also why red candles are a good idea.
Speaking of the candles, set them up around the outside of your circle (or semicircle) of salt, spaced at relatively even intervals. No, you do not have to get out measuring tape and make it exactly perfect, but do at least try to make it look as though it was set up by someone old enough to be trusted with matches. Light the candles in a clockwise fashion, being careful not to disturb the salt – if you break the circle, you’ll have to start all over again. Once all of the candles are lit and burning strongly, your protective wards are complete. You are now ready to proceed to the actual summoning.
To do so, you first must get the Devil’s attention and demonstrate your resolve by performing some sort of sacrilegious act in the holy space. Turning a crucifix or cross upside-down is fairly conventional, but it’s not the only option. For example, I know of a kid who once fulfilled this requirement by scribbling obnoxious graffiti all over a painting of Jesus hanging in his Sunday school classroom.
(The nice thing about turning a cross upside-down is that once you’ve finished your encounter – assuming you’ve survived it in one piece – you can just flip it right-side-up again and no one’s the wiser… sidestepping the relatively minor but still irritating risk of having your Sunday school turn into a reenactment of the Spanish Inquisition for the next month and a half.)
After you’ve finished doing whatever offensive thing you decide on, shut all doors to the room and turn off all of the lights, so that the space is lit only by the candles. Face the mirror and stare deeply into it, concentrating on your desired outcome. There are no incantations, no arcane strings of Latin you have to recite. Just look into the mirror and wish as hard as you can for the Devil to appear there. After a few moments of this, when you feel ready, close your eyes and count to ten. Then open them.
If all has gone correctly, you will no longer see your own reflection. You will be looking at the Devil… or at least, looking at the way the Devil has chosen to appear to you. Chances are, he won’t look like your conventional red, horned demon with goat legs and a pitchfork, nor any other sort of terrible apparition. No point in scaring you off now… better to lure you in, make you feel safe. To that end, he generally takes on the appearance of a fairly average, nondescript human being. If anything, he’s prone to vanity and will lean towards the more attractive end of the spectrum.
The only really frightening part of him will be his eyes. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t hide the sinister gleam smoldering deep within them, the malevolent amusement and hunger, like the eyes of a spider contemplating a fly struggling in its web. They’re supremely confident, those eyes… confident, and without pity. Don’t look into them too deeply, or you’ll begin to feel helpless and paralyzed with dread, losing your hope and your will to fight.
Since you’ll probably be just standing there staring at him in shock for a few moments (having on some level expected for the ritual to fail), he’ll initiate the conversation by asking you what it is you desire from him. If you can gather your wits enough to string together a coherent sentence, you should respond with something like: “I wish to challenge you in a game of question-and-response.”
Even if you don’t get the words exactly right, he’ll know what you mean, and he’ll accept your request with a wide, predatory grin of anticipation. He’s been playing this game for a long time, you see, and he’s very good at it. Most humans, on the other hand, are very bad at it. This gives him a chance to, at the very least, thoroughly mess with your mind, and at most… well, we’ll save that for the “litany of shit that could go wrong.” You’ll have to play it very smart to avoid justifying his expectations.
The general rules to the game are very simple, with a few caveats that can make things more complicated. He’ll begin by asking you a question (he always initiates the game). It can be anything from a piece of obscure trivia, to a riddle, to an extremely personal inquiry. Don’t worry, you won’t be immediately plunged into Hell if you get the wrong answer or anything like that. As a matter of fact, he won’t even tell you whether you got the answer right or wrong.
After you’ve answered his question, you get to ask him one in return. Now, here’s where the consequences of your response come in. If you answered his last question correctly, he will respond to your question as honestly and accurately as he is able. However, if you answered it incorrectly, he is free to lie to you as he sees fit. Perhaps if you’ve asked him something you’re better off not knowing, he’ll tell you the truth about it anyway. More likely, he’ll feed you the most insidious, damaging lie he can come up with. Either way, after he’s responded, he’ll ask you another question, and the process will repeat over and over again until you decide to call it quits.
Now, you may be sitting there thinking that it sounds fairly easy to get the information you need… all you have to do is wait for a question you can answer correctly, and then take that opportunity to ask him what you really want to know, ignoring everything else he’s said. Well, it’s not that simple. The Devil will never give you an easy question, one that you can be completely sure of the answer to.
He may instead give you questions that you have some vague knowledge of, that you think MAYBE you know the answer to but aren’t really confident… thus forcing you to endlessly second-guess yourself, obsessing over whether or not you can trust the information that he gave you next. Perhaps you’ll think that what he said was a lie, WISH it was a lie, but be eternally consumed by doubt, unable to fully convince yourself that you were wrong. Or perhaps you’ll have to make a huge choice based on the information that he gave you, and be tormented by fear and indecisiveness as you realize that your fate (and perhaps that of others, as well) rests entirely upon whether or not you were able to correctly recall some arcane piece of trivia that you don’t even remember now.
(You’ll never remember the exact questions the Devil asked you, by the way; that would make it too easy for you to go back and check on your responses).
Or maybe, instead of testing your knowledge, he’ll ask you something personal, something you even lie to yourself about. You’ll answer back to him, thinking you’ve gotten the question correct (“No, I don’t resent my sister”… “Yes, I would turn the money in to the police!”) – but he’ll know better. He’ll know better than you do that you’re lying, and he’ll lie to you in return. And you’ll believe him. You’ll believe him until you are no longer able to deceive yourself, and by then it might be too late…
Or maybe… maybe he won’t even give you a chance to get an accurate response at all. Maybe he’ll just ask you endless strings of completely impossible questions, making you more and more frustrated and disheartened as you realize you’ll never be able to force him to tell you the truth. Questions like:
“What was the exact height of Mount Everest in centimeters in the year 1666?”
Or “What is the air-speed-velocity of an un-laden swallow?”
(Although, knowing his sense of humor, if he ever asked the latter he might consider “African or European?” a correct response.)
There ARE a couple of ways to short-circuit this particular strategy, however – additional rules and courses of action that make the game more interesting and prevent you from being stonewalled completely. Although in all honesty, he probably wants for you to try one of those options anyway.
The first option is to ask him a riddle instead of a question. If you somehow manage to stump him and he answers the riddle wrong or gives up, he’ll be obligated to give you a truthful response to your next question. If he answers the riddle correctly – once again, don’t worry, he won’t pounce on you like a sphinx or drag you into Hell. What WILL happen is that he will get a “pass,” allowing him to lie in response to one question he would otherwise be obligated to answer truthfully.
Honestly, if he gets a pass, you might as well just give up and quit the game right there. It’s nearly impossible to determine when he’s telling you the truth under the best of conditions. Adding another layer of complexity by constantly trying to figure out when and if he’s used his pass… it’s about enough to make any normal person’s brain explode. There’s no way. Just forget it.
The second option is for you to take a “dare” from him. If you accept it and vow to follow through, then once again he’ll have to answer your next question truthfully. If you choose instead to reject it, he’ll get another “pass.”
Now before you freak out and reject that whole idea completely, you should know that he won’t ask you to do anything overly dramatic or unspeakably evil, like blow up a hospital or murder somebody. As a rule of thumb, most dares won’t involve direct loss of life or any major felonies. However, they certainly won’t be easy. Inflicting severe pain on yourself, doing something that terrifies the shit out of you… cutting off a treasured relationship, publicly humiliating yourself or someone you love… all of these things and more, things you might not even be able to imagine, are completely on the table.
If you’re willing to go that far, to put yourself in that kind of position… you’ll get your answer. However, if he manages to come up with the one thing you know you simply can’t or won’t do… well, then once again you might as well just quit.
One last thing – DON’T think you can just tell him you’re going to do something and then not do it. If you accept a dare and then don’t follow through with it… well, let’s just say there will be consequences. Just suck it up and keep your promise, no matter WHAT it was. Trust me, you’re better off that way.
Finally, when you’ve either gotten the information you wanted or given up on it completely, you may end the ritual by simply thanking the Devil for accepting your request, bowing politely at the waist, and bidding him farewell. The surface of the mirror will seem to swim and flicker for a moment, and then you will be looking at your own reflection again. Only when you are absolutely certain that you’re looking into your own two eyes again may you turn away from the mirror, flick the lights back on, and begin dismantling your protections.
Now – and this is important – even if you haven’t gotten the information that you wanted, you MUST end the ritual in this manner before 66 minutes have elapsed. Well, I suppose that technically you have 66 minutes and 6 seconds (subtle, right?), but if you’re seriously going to try to cut it that close without any kind of timekeeping device, you’re probably screwed anyway. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that you keep to this time limit. I’ll save the reason behind that for the end, but don’t skip ahead… I’ve still got a few important tips on how to play:
1. Be very careful what sort of personal information you give out. Try not to talk about yourself, especially your emotions and problems, any more than absolutely necessary. This guy knows human psychology like the back of his hand, and he WILL get inside of your head. It’s like talking to Hannibal Lecter. Give him enough to work with and, even if you don’t believe a single word he says, he will still find ways to fuck with your mind like nobody’s business. If anything he asks makes you even remotely uncomfortable, do not hesitate to lie through your teeth. There will be plenty of other questions.
2. On a similar note, try to keep the game on track and moving briskly. Unstructured interactions of any kind are to be avoided. Chances are that at some point he will try to draw you off on a tangent – discussing something that fascinates you, analyzing a response you’ve given him, or finding some other excuse to speak at length without moving the game forward. This is not only a waste of valuable time but also another excellent opportunity to mess with your mind.
3. If you choose to give him a riddle, use one you’ve made up yourself. If your riddle has ever been written down anywhere at all, from the pages of “The Hobbit” to some long-lost tome of ancient magic, he will already know the answer. That said, it still has to be a LEGITIMATE riddle, with an answer that makes logical sense from some angle. You can’t just ask something like “What’s green, has ten legs, and hops?” then claim for some inexplicable reason that the answer was “marshmallows.” Nor can you ask him a straight question like “What have I got in my pocket?” (he probably knows that, anyway). There are no hard-and-fast rules to determine whether a riddle makes sense or not, but you’re a reasonable human being. Your ancestors ate from the Tree of Knowledge. Please, for the love of crap, use common sense.
4. If you choose to take a dare, there is a slight chance that the Devil will ask you to do something seemingly easy… deliver a letter, for instance, or scribble a ten-digit number in a public restroom stall. If he does ask you for something like this, and you have even a shred of common decency in you, do NOT accept. Chances are that he’s using you to further some sinister plot, one liable to ruin a lot of lives and harm a lot of people. Who knows, maybe you’re the type of person who really doesn’t mind throwing an unknown number of total strangers under a bus to find out what you want to know… but at least be aware that that IS what you’re doing.
5. Last, but not least, be very aware of the time. It might be helpful to do some practicing beforehand and get a feel for how long an hour is without a watch. The Devil will probably put off discussing the things you’re most keen to find out for as long as he can; and as you near the 66 minute deadline, he’ll start trying harder and harder to distract you, captivate you, and otherwise keep you playing until it’s too late. He’ll string you along, feed you little glimmers of false hope, keep you thinking: “Just a few more minutes… I’m almost there!” Don’t fall for it. Don’t go over the time limit. No matter what.
Now, you might be thinking that this game really doesn’t sound all that dangerous so far… threats of psychological damage rarely seem to carry the same weight as threats of physical damage, even though their costs are often just as great. Hate to burst your bubble, but the game is FAR from safe. There are plenty of ways for you to seriously screw yourself over both physically and mentally (not to mention spiritually). And it is with these that I will conclude, in the vain hope that they may make some sort of impression…
First, while you are speaking with the Devil, do NOT let him out of your sight. Keep staring into the mirror no matter what happens. He will undoubtedly try various tricks to make you look away… You will hear noises behind you, feel eyes on the back of your neck, see shadowy phantoms writhing in the depths of the mirror. A cold breath will blow upon you from behind, smelling like the crypt. A deep silence will settle, only to be interrupted by a loud SMACK directly behind your head, giving you about the worst jump-scare you’ve ever had. Hell, the Devil may even abandon a measure of his own dignified façade and give a sudden jump of feigned shock, shouting loudly and pointing behind you with a very convincing look of terror on his face. Whatever he might test you with, you must not look away from him. If you look away, if you lose sight of him completely – even for one second – you will look back at the mirror to find him gone.
Well, not gone. Out of the mirror. In the room.
With you.
Exactly how much of your body the police will find the next morning, and what state it’s in, will depend entirely on the sort of mood he’s in.
The same thing goes if you break any of the protections you laid down before beginning the ritual. Interrupting the circle of salt, letting the red string unwind, knocking over a candle or letting one go out… any of these things will free him from the mirror, and then – well, you’re all a bunch of creative horror junkies. I’m sure you can fill in the blanks.
On a different topic, you may reach a point in the game (probably after a long series of maddeningly impossible questions) where the Devil asks you the deceptively simple question “What is your full name?” You MUST NOT give it to him. Names can be things of great power. Although the Devil will, of course, already know your name, telling it to him yourself is akin to inviting a vampire into your home. Your name is deeply synonymous with your own, inner self; thus, giving him your name is powerfully symbolic of giving him your self. If you are foolish enough to make this mistake, all of your protections will be for naught, and he will seize upon your unwitting offer with malicious glee, stealing away your soul and dragging it back with him into Hell.
At least this way the police will find a complete, identifiable body. As a matter of fact, your vacant shell will be totally unblemished, seemingly having dropped dead of sheer terror.
Last, but certainly not least, there’s the matter of what happens if you go over the time limit. This is arguably the worst thing you can do. You won’t think so at first… the Devil will give you no indication that you have in fact exceeded the time limit and you will conclude the ritual as if nothing had gone wrong. Perhaps, as the Devil’s image in the mirror trembles and gives way, you’ll see a particularly nasty, triumphant smirk flash across his face, but this will be easily dismissed as your imagination. You’ll turn the lights back on, gather your belongings, and go to leave the room. But, when you open the door, you will see… nothing.
That’s right, nothing. Just a flat, white void extending infinitely in all directions. Only the room which was reflected in the mirror will now exist.
Incidentally, if you turn back around to face the mirror again, you may catch a last glimpse of your own reflection. Perhaps it will even turn and favor you with a smirk and a cheeky wave before sweeping out the door into the perfectly normal church hallway outside.
As you may have already figured out, you yourself are no longer in the church. Your soul is now trapped in the mirror, and the Devil has taken the liberty of possessing your body, now that you are no longer using it.
Pound on the glass and scream all you like, you’ll never get out on your own, and no exorcist can help you. But don’t worry, it’s not like you’re in Hell, right? At least, not necessarily…
What you have to understand, see, is that a human soul stripped bare of its flesh is a deeply volatile and vulnerable thing, especially when trapped in the land of the living. You are now an entity of purely mental properties, and as such, the barriers between what is real to you and what is imaginary have been completely dissolved. As you fill that reflected room with your anger, your sorrow, your fear at being trapped, these emotions will begin to coalesce, given form by your mind. If you’re not particularly imaginative, these creatures may not be too terrible, may not be able to inflict too much horror and pain. With time, you may even be able to teach yourself to get rid of them.
If, however, yours is a mind haunted by monsters…a mind that is vibrantly creative and imaginative and more than usually twisted… well, there’s no telling what horrors might come clawing their way out of the maelstrom, tasting sweet release from the confines of your subconscious, hungering for your terror and suffering. They will refuse to be banished, dragging you kicking and screaming into an endless positive feedback loop of pain and fear.
Needless to say, if you’re a regular patron of websites like this one, you’re probably pretty well fucked.
There’s only one way to find release from the mirror and the world that you’ve created therein. They say that if you call to the Devil once more and ask him to free you from the mirror, he’ll be willing to take you out.
For the usual fee, of course.
Who knows, maybe if your imagination is twisted and powerful enough to create a personal Hell that leaves you begging for the real thing, those talents might be put to good use. There are over seven billion people in the world, after all; even the Devil himself can’t be messing with all of their minds at once. Talented help is always appreciated.
Of course, the corollary to your being trapped inside the mirror is that the Devil now gets to do whatever he wants in your body until sunrise. At around that time, your body will mercifully drop dead from the strain of the possession; autopsy will probably identify the cause as some kind of coronary event. Don’t get too relieved, though, he’s perfectly capable of stirring up plenty of trouble in those few hours.
For instance, he may decide to do something big and dramatic, like purchase a large meat cleaver and go on a murder spree, starting with the names in your address book and working his way out to complete strangers if he has time. Or perhaps he’ll focus on only one person, someone who trusts you completely, using your persona to get him or her alone and vulnerable, and then… well, no need to describe it here. Once again, I’m sure you can think of a few things.
Starting to see why I called this the worst outcome yet?
Of course, there’s also a chance he won’t lay a finger on any of your loved ones, instead deciding to do something a little more subtle… more insidious. Like drop off a few nondescript, unmarked packages on certain doorsteps in the dangerous part of town. Or locate a particular dusty, age-yellowed text in the storeroom of your local library and intentionally misfile it in the Young Adult Literature section. Or whisper seven very choice words into the ear of the distracted-looking young redhead waiting for the 3am subway train.
Or maybe he’ll decide that, in this age of waning superstition, not enough people are getting interested in his games, and the knowledge of them is in danger of being lost. Maybe he’ll decide he needs to get the word out a bit more, do a bit of networking, attract some new suckers… ahem, “challengers.” Maybe he’ll take a quick peek at your browser history, see where the impressionable, curious minds are hanging out these days. Maybe he’ll even write a quick tutorial, in modern parlance rather than some inscrutable, obsolete demonological text… post it on the Internet and see how many bites he gets…
Haha, maybe I really shouldn’t have gone there. But if you’ve made it this far without shying, a little twist at the end isn’t going to put you off, is it, dear Reader? I’m sure there are plenty of intrepid adventurers among you with burning questions you’d like answered. And you’re all a smart bunch. You know the pitfalls, you know the conventions, you live and breathe this sort of thing, do you not? There’s no way YOU’D fall into any of the obvious traps, right? You’re not some Dick or Jane off the street, after all; you’d be bringing a whole new level of competition. You would…
Oh, excuse me just a moment, I think I hear someone calling for me…
What? You want out that badly ALREADY? Must be one Hell of an imagination you’ve got on you.
Attention All Shoppers!
12:57 May 12 2018
Times Read: 564
Attention All Shoppers!
I’m going to post this here for one reason, and one reason only: because I am NOT a bad person. Yes, I had a few issues with family members growing up- nothing traumatic, and I’ve taken my fair share of teasing and bullying in high school but there is absolutely nothing mentally wrong with me other than I have had ENOUGH. I know the media nowadays likes to take stories like mine and try to find some sort of illness or something to blame…but rest assured: all my eggs are in the right basket, whether you agree with me or not.
Let me explain a little bit better. My name? Don’t worry about it. Where do I live? Don’t worry about that either. The only details I will give you about myself are the following: 1.) I work in a retail store that I am 99.9% certain all of you have heard of, been to, and shopped at at least once in your lives. I’ve worked there for several years now having held various positions from cashier to backroom to shelf stocking to my most recent position, the customer service desk. And 2.) Up until very recently, I would have never dreamed of harming another person. I was raised to be well mannered, sensitive, sympathetic, empathetic, caring and helpful, and I continue to be most of the time…
Multiple years in retail have given me the incredible skill of bottling up my emotions and hiding them super well. I could be boiling angry on the inside and still smiling and remaining cool as a cucumber on the outside. That said, it’d probably be good to give you some info on what exactly I do at my job: I know this is a lot of prefacing, but trust me, this is important for later. At the service desk where I work, we handle returns and refunds, process money transfers, cash checks, and sell and print money orders for customers. Sounds easy, right? Phff. Well, while the tasks themselves are not complicated in the slightest, the stupidity and attitudes of the customers make it quite the challenge sometimes.
Now, do you remember the “golden rule” from pre-school? If not, the golden rule simply says: “Treat others the way you’d like to be treated.” Sounds fair, right? Well, maybe it’s due to my upbringing in a mostly loving family combined with my strong desire as a child and even still in adulthood to make people happy, but I have always lived as if this wasn’t just a rule. To me, it was always the golden law; the “North” on my moral compass if you will. And here, I believe, I can begin my story.
Almost every Friday since I’ve been employed at that store, a particular woman has come in with whom I have had many, many issues. I believe the first time I had the misfortune of meeting her, she threw her DVD case at me because I, as store policy and my manager dictated, refused her return of an open copy of “Old Yeller”. The only reason I remember this is because I was thinking to myself what a coincidence it was that an older lady was yelling at me about a movie called “Old Yeller”. I know- I’m corny. Whatever. Anyway, she insisted she wanted to return it because she’d never watch it again because it was too sappy for her. Fair enough, but not permitted at our store. I smiled sympathetically and said “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do. If you really want to get your money back for it, I’d suggest trying to sell it on eBay or something. It’s easy and you may even end up getting more than you paid for it here!” She snorted indignantly and told my manager that I was “just trying to shut her up and get her to leave” to which my manager did nothing to reprimand me but still! The nerve of this lady! I was just trying to help! Since then, she’s been nothing but nasty to me. One time when I wasn’t looking, she stole my pen that I got while at my favorite vacation spot. Another time, she yelled at me in front of a whole line of customers because “I was going too slow, and if I can’t do my job quick enough then I shouldn’t be working here!” to which everyone in line behind her agreed, making me feel so humiliated and angry inside. You have to understand: to this day, our registers are not that fast! They’re old, outdated, and corporate refuses to upgrade. I can only work with what I’ve got, and I can only go as fast as my register can. I’m HUMAN!
I mentioned that I’ve been working there for several years now, though, and as they’ve gone by, they’ve only made her more belligerent, rude, and ignorant. She was already over the hill in the early years of my career there, and over the last few years, she’s been allegedly developing some “medical issues” which, if you ask me, are bullshit. I honestly think she’s just looking for attention because nowadays, she’ll come into the store with no cane, no limp, and virtually no signs of physical decline whatsoever, but then she’ll take one of the electric scooter carts that our store has as a courtesy to those who really are disabled. I am not even lying- this bitch once told a young lady who had only ONE LEG that she’d have to wait if she wanted to use it because, as she said, “I got here first!” I know! What kind of raging fucking lunatic!?
So, now that I’ve painted you a hopefully sufficient picture of how horrible this woman is to me, and to many other associates with whom I share retail tales, let me digress again to explain to you another key piece of information. I mentioned earlier that I had some issues with people in my family while I was growing up, however, this does not include my grandmother. She and I were incredibly close ever since I can remember, and I loved her more than just about everyone else in the world- with the exception of maybe my parents. Sadly, about 3 years ago, she was diagnosed with cancer, and was given about 6 months tops to live. Fortunately for me, my grandmother was one of the most stubborn people to ever walk this Earth and walked out of that doctor’s office and didn’t come back for almost 2 years. After that, her health really took a turn for the worse and I tried to spend as much time as possible with her because any second could’ve been her last, and I needed to be there for her. Of course, however, I still had bills to pay. College was expensive, car insurance and gas were expensive, and I had a maxed-out credit card with a boat load of money due in minimum payments every month. So, while I was at work, another family member would go up to my grandma’s house to keep an eye on her and tend to her needs, with specific instructions to call my cell if ANYTHING were to give them reason to believe that her end was near.
One night, the night that stains my memory like red wine on white carpet, I was working from 1pm until 10pm. It was a Friday, around 6:00, and as usual, the rude bitch I described earlier walked in and sat her ass down in one of the electric scooters, as always. She parked it in front of my register at the service desk and stood up, demanding that I, for the umpteenth time, process a money transfer for her to send $500 to her daughter in Florida. I was just in the middle of counting the monster lady’s money, when I heard my phone ring loudly in my pocket. Panicked, and fully shifting my focus from this miserable old bat to my phone hoping that it wasn’t bad news about my grandma, I dropped her money onto the counter and whipped out my phone. I looked at the caller ID to recognize the number as my aunt’s, who was currently looking after my grandma. I instantly pressed “Answer” and my mouth went dry as cotton. I’ll never forget how much my legs were shaking or how my stomach dropped as I put the phone to my ear.
“Hello?” I asked, waiting for the worst news of my life.
“Honey, I’m so sorry. I-it all happened so fast…” was all that I heard my aunt say before I flipped it closed. I heard a loud ringing in my ears, my mouth was as dry as a desert floor, and I began to feel my face turn bright, bright red as it began to feel 100 or more degrees hotter than usual. At last, the tears. The tears poured down my cheeks like summer rain and my legs, quaking like a shifting fault line, finally gave out. Right there, behind the service desk of the store…I began to cry like a baby. It had finally happened. I remember to this day how I used to lay awake at night as a 5 or 6-year-old, terrified that my grandma was going to die someday, and now, she had finally gone. It was the worst nightmare I could never wake up from, and I realized that my life was never going to be the same again.
Naturally, the girl that was working at the register next to me knew exactly why I was crying. I was very open to my coworkers about how much I loved and cared about my grandma, and they were all on edge, praying for her health and for my mental strength during these rough times. She didn’t even have to ask me. She just placed her hand on my shoulder, gently rubbed my back, and that’s when I heard it:
“UMM! EXCUSE ME! I’m still WAITING here! What the hell is this little jerk’s problem!? I’ve got a lot to do tonight!”
If I have to tell you who it was that said this, you haven’t been paying attention. Instantly, tears stopped coming out of my eyes. I swallowed every drop of sadness and forced myself to stand up. Everything- and I mean everything from the ceiling, to the floor, to register buttons, to the merchandise sitting on the shelves down the aisle across from the service desk- suddenly had a red tint to it. Standing face to face with this bitch, I stretched my sleeves down past my wrists, dried my eyes, and choked out “Nothing. I’m fine. I apologize.” That was all I could spit out. One more word and I would’ve lost it again, but I knew I had to finish this transaction.
Would you like to know something funny? When you come to a store like the one I work at where you can send money to other countries and states, or cash a paycheck, or even return an item without a receipt, usually, you’re required to show some form of identification. While this thoughtless, ungrateful, unsympathetic, arrogant, ignorant, self-important, unbelievable bitch was standing at my register, proverbially kicking me while I was more down than I have ever been in my entire life, after years and years of tormenting me over stupid, petty bullshit, there, propped up facing me in between a small crack in the lid of the receipt paper printer, sat this bitch’s driver’s license.
I cracked. I admit it. But you know what? I don’t regret what I did. Not in the least. I had the procedure for transferring money memorized to the point where I didn’t even have to look at the screen to know what I was doing, so while my fingers did the work, my eyes burned the image of this lady’s name and address- which duh, I’m not going to share and incriminate myself- into my memory bank.
After I was certain that I’d given myself enough time to remember the necessary information, under the guise that my register was “being slow”, I finally gave the unsuspecting old hag her ID back, printed the receipt, collected her signature at the bottom, and told her to have a very nice night, and apologized again for the inconvenience my register and my emotions had caused her. There was no way in Hell I was going to give her any actual excuse to get me in trouble at this job. At that point, one tiny negative comment toward her might have given anyone within earshot a reason to suspect me of committing the atrocious crimes that I was secretly plotting.
Once she had left, I removed my worker’s vest, threw on my jacket and clocked out, sputtering “I have to go…Grandma…” as I passed my manager on the walk out the door. I had driven to my grandma’s house every single Sunday and sometimes other days during the week too for the last 6 years. Usually, I would stop off at the food store and pick us up a carrot cake for dessert or pull into the flower shop’s parking lot and get her a dozen roses just to make her smile. This time however, it felt like I was driving an entire world away. Every car that I got stuck behind seemed to be going 50 miles per hour too slow. Every red light I had to stop at seemed to be red 10 times longer than they normally did. And when I finally arrived, and parked outside her house, it seemed like a complete stranger’s house. The house that I had come to feel more at home at than even the house I’d grown up in now felt so sorrowful, depressing and cold. I ascended the front porch steps, opened the front door, and shoved aside family members who were already there and trying to console me and brace me for the impact of the sight of the cold, shriveling corpse of the woman who was not only my grandmother, but my very best friend in the entire world. I walked into her bedroom, saw her lying there under her blankets, limply snuggling the stuffed dog that resembled her old puppy, Bella, and immediately broke down.
I felt like I had failed her by not being there. I felt like I’d betrayed her. And I promised myself that I would never forgive myself for not being able to say good bye. I should have done more. I don’t know exactly what I could’ve done, but I could’ve figured something out somehow that would’ve allowed me to be there the moment she decided that her cancer was finally too much to bear, and that it was time to depart from this world. I know that if it was her choice, she would’ve waited to see me too, but it was my responsibility to be there for her. Not the other way around.
The funeral was beautiful. I’ve never seen so many people in one small room. And I’ve never seen so many people crying in the same room. She touched so many lives in so many ways. That night, my family and I had a party in her honor that consisted of 3 cases of beer, and a pyramid of empty cans that reached the chandelier hanging above the kitchen table. We told stories and shared memories of her and did the best we could to help each other through this terrible, terrible tragedy.
Something was still nagging at me in the back of my mind though: that bitch. The way she had disrespected me the night my grandma passed away was unforgiveable. It was the very, very last straw. She needed to be taught a lesson, and at the funeral, I vowed in a prayer while kneeling before my grandma’s urn that that rude, selfish monster would regret the day she had ever been rude to me. So, I began planning. And planning. And one night, I went shopping for the equipment I needed to bring my swift, iron-fisted justice. I bought a few feet of rope and a bucket from one store, a collapsible folding chair from another, a baseball bat from another, and some razor wire from another.
When I was sure enough time had passed to take any suspicion off of myself, using some latex gloves and a lock-pick fashioned out of a paper clip, I snuck into that bitch’s house in the dead of night. The house was old and empty, and as I prowled around her cozy homestead’s hallways, random floorboards would creak and moan. It was so dark, but I was confident and careful. After hearing an intruder ascend the staircase, she came out into the hallway threatening to call the police if whoever it was didn’t leave immediately. No. Way. In. Hell. I bolted toward the sound of her voice, bat in hand, and cracked her a good one right in the skull. I can still hear the thud her body made as she crashed cold onto the floor.
She awoke to me pouring a bucket of cold water on her in her basement. I had gagged her with a pair of her own socks and used the rope to tie her to the folding chair. She began panicking, surely wondering what was going on, who would do this to her, what did they want, and was this going to be the end? Her mind must’ve been racing a mile a minute, trying to figure out exactly who it was that she had wronged so badly that they would do something so horrible to her. But believe me: as long as I let her sit there in the dark, terrified and confused, contemplating and wondering, I never once came into her mind. I could tell when I finally turned on the light to reveal myself to her, by the look in her eyes- the look of shock, and then regret…and then disgust. Disgust! Even as my captive, she still looked at me as a piece of vermin; a cockroach that needed to be squished. She never once imagined that I- a piece of store-register-machinery rather than human- would ever be capable of finding her and punishing her.
“Hello, bitch.” I sneered. “Do you remember me? Do you recognize me? Sure you do.” She began wiggling in the chair, trying to break free, desperate to get the sock out of her mouth so she could doubtlessly spew more filth from that facial shit hole.
“I’ve come here tonight, pretty much at your own invitation.” I said. “You see, you’ve come into my store on a weekly basis for years and treated me, my coworkers, and our other customers, as if we owe you something; as if you are God’s gift to the God damn world. As you know, I have processed many money transfers to your daughter in Florida over the last few years, and you, foolishly, handed over all the necessary information that I needed to make your life absolutely miserable while you were doing it. You gave me your driver’s license with your address on it which led me right to you. Don’t you think it’s sad that I showed up here, knowing that you’re such a bitch that I wouldn’t have any trouble having to fight a husband or boyfriend? You’re just a miserable old hag who preys on the kind and polite because you know we can’t say anything back or else we’ll get in trouble with our managers. All we try to do is help you and do our jobs, but you just always have to find something to bitch about.”
Honestly, at this point, it was as if I was speaking to a deaf woman. Clearly, the severity of the situation was not sinking in, so I decided to just get right to the point. Why draw it out any longer than I needed to?
“Do you love your daughter?” I asked, scratching my head, in a tone that revealed that I was completely in control of the situation. Her eyes shot open wide as if to ask, “What do you care?”
“Well,” I explained, reaching into my pocket. “More than likely you do. I can’t even begin to fathom how you managed to trick some poor man into fucking you. I can only hope it was through the use of some form of date rape drug and that the poor man never had to face the sight of his own dick disappearing into your decrepit cunt. But your daughter? She’s probably the only person in this world you’ve ever treated like an actual human being, isn’t she? Someone you used to read bedtime stories to, and sing lullabies to, and take shopping during “girls days out” as you paraded through town treating store clerk after store clerk like me more and more like shit as the day went on?”
At last, I saw a tiny bit of reflection in her eyes as she began reliving tiny moments of her past with her daughter in this highly tense, unpredictable situation she was stuck in.
“I imagine your daughter is nowhere near as rude to others as you are.” I said. “She’s probably beautiful, and married, with kids of her own. Maybe that’s even why you’re so bitter.”
I carefully pulled the sharp razor wire out of my pocket and slowly approached her, letting it rest, dangling around her neck past her shoulders. She squirmed and began to panic even more, desperately trying to wriggle free, to no avail.
“It’s a shame you couldn’t have realized that people like me? We’re not going to take people like yours shit anymore. If you had…perhaps you might have saved your poor, beautiful daughter’s life.”
From deep behind the socks jammed in her mouth, I heard the enraged and confused screech that was most certainly the word “What!?”
“You heard me right, bitch. Your daughter is dead. So are her kids. So is her husband. And it’s all your fault. You led me right to them!”
Wait- oh, yeah. I never mentioned this part, did I? So, in order to transfer the money to someone at our service desk, we need not only the state that it’s going to, but also the city in which the recipient is going to be picking it up. During my bereavement time off from work, I took a quick flight down to Florida to “clear my head”, as I told my family. I took an even quicker drive to the town in which the bitch had sent money, and, using a good old-fashioned phone book, managed to find the exact address of the daughter’s house!
“I don’t know if your parents are still alive,” I said, “but I’m going to assume that they croaked many years ago considering how old and miserable you are, although I want you to know, if I had any information on them, they’d be my next targets for ever bringing a miserable creature like you into this world. Oh, and if you don’t believe me about your daughter, here’s a picture to prove it!” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small 6 by 4 piece of photo paper. It was a picture of her daughter, her husband, and their kids, all with slashed throats, sitting on their living room couch…with big red smiles painted with blood on each of their faces. Her eyes widened so far I thought they might pop out.
At last, the moment I had been waiting for! She started crying! She had stopped wriggling in her restraints and had finally just given up, bawling a river of tears down her cheeks. I had never seen her so powerless. Usually, at the store, she had a look of pure smug and superiority. Now, I had reduced her to a sobbing puddle of tied up skin and bones. It was wonderful. I had never felt so alive, but I kept my cool, and did to her exactly what she did to me. I furiously stomped my foot as hard as I could and shouted, “UMM! EXCUSE ME! I’m still WAITING here! What the hell is your problem!? I’ve got a lot to do tonight!”
It was over. I had completely broken her. She had learned her lesson, and I finally knew that I had proven my point. I removed the socks from her mouth and gave her a chance to speak.
“If you have anything to say to me, now is the time to say it.” I warned. She was crying so much she could barely breathe. With each sob she let out, I felt more and more relief and more sure that what I had done had worked. Sure, it was a shame that it had to come to this. But she brought it to this.
“You’re a monster!” she cried, humiliated and defeated. I laughed hysterically.
“Well! Then what does that make you, bitch?” I asked, but before she could vocally shit out one more word, I grabbed the ends of the razor wire wrapped around her neck and pulled them in opposite directions, severing her head from her shoulders. I then untied her, took the rope, the chair, the razor wire, the bat and the bucket and left her house before the sun came up.
Over the next few days, reports of the decapitated woman and her daughter’s slaughtered family dominated the news. Nobody could figure out a motive or reason why anyone would ever do this to an elderly woman and “her beloved family”. There were no prints found at the scene, no murder weapon found, and no incriminating evidence whatsoever was recovered.
As for me? Well…here’s something for you to think about. I’m still out there somewhere. Like I said, I’m not a bad person. If I was, why would I even be telling you all this? I want you all to hear this and let it serve as a warning: be careful how you treat others- no matter who they are, no matter where you meet them. You never know who you might push over the edge, and you never know what it might cost you.
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