[ WP ] Your house is possessed , but you 're used to it . Now you 're having guests over and you expect it to behave itself .

I could smell it from upstairs. The scent of natural gas, filling up the house. I shook my head disapprovingly, unimpressed, and walked down the stairs and into the kitchen. Four stoveburners were turned on high and were flamlessly expelling gas, noxious, flammable, deadly, into the house. 
 
 *Tsssssssss... * 
 
 `` Really?'' I said as I turned them off, one by one. 
 
 *Tsp. Tsp. Tsp. Tsp. * 
 
 A cold hand gripped my shoulder. I looked at the hand: shrivelled fingers with gnarled puffy arthritic knuckles; rotting bluegreen flesh; long sharp and yellowish fingernails. I turned around to look at the body to which the hand belonged but as I turned the hand disappeared and there was no body to be seen. 
 
 Despite being long-familiar with Strendahl's shenanigans, the bumps and crashes late in the night, the appearing and disappearing corpses, the grotesque visions in mirrors, the bedsheets lighting on fire as I slept nestled in them, despite knowing that no real harm ever came to me from them, despite knowing that he actually rather liked me, and that haunting, scaring and terrifying me, was just his way of playing, joking around, socializing, it still gave me the creeps when things like that happened. It still creeped me out to be grabbed by a festering hand that melts away into the air before my very eyes. 
 
 I went to open some windows to clear out the gas, to secure the gas-trap, the one-spark-away-from-the-front-page that my kitchen and house presently were. 
 
 A croaky voice spoke right in my ear: `` Your firstborn shall wail amidst fires.'' 
 
 `` Yes, yes,'' I said as I opened yet another window. I needed to get a couple on each level of the house so a nice draft would get going. Otherwise the gas would never clear out in time for the party. 
 
 As I rushed around, I tried to maintain my composure, my air of purposiveness: the last thing I needed was for him to know how worried I was that he would ham things up during the evening to come. 
 
 Upstairs there was a crash. I knew by the sound of it, and where the sound had come from, exactly what he had broken. I hustled up the stairs and entered the restroom, only to confirm my suspicion: the wall-sized mirror that usually sat over the sink had come crashing down, and now lay all about, scattered in a million sharp fragments, reflecting bits and pieces of my fragmented reality. 
 
 I sighed heavily and stomped downstairs to get my broom and dustpan. This was really getting to be too much. I opened the closet door and just as I went to reach for the broom it slammed shut. I pulled it open and tried again, but it slammed shut again. Finally, the third time, I wrestled it open and snatched the broom. Then I grabbed the dustpan. And then I went back upstairs to sweep up the mirror mess. 
 
 When I entered the washroom I watched as all the sharp mirror fragments trembled on the floor. Then they began to hover up into the air and hang there suspended. All the sharp points were aimed directly at me. 
 
 `` No,'' I said firmly. 
 
 One sharp fragment came whizzing by and cut my arm just enough to draw a little blood. 
 
 `` No! No! No! NO!'' I shouted. I smacked the fragments down with my broom. `` This is enough!'' 
 
 The door slammed behind me and the lights went out. On the wall where the mirror usually hung, an pentagram made of demon-fire burned. 
 
 `` Are you not afraid?'' croaked the voice. 
 
 `` This is enough!'' I said. `` I've had enough. Turn on the lights! Strendahl!'' 
 
 `` Do not use my name,'' the dark voice croaked. 
 
 `` Strendahl!'' 
 
 `` My name is forbidden,'' it said, louder. 
 
 `` Strendahl!'' 
 
 `` It can not be uttered without consequence!'' 
 
 `` Strendahl, turn the lights on right now! I mean it!'' 
 
 The lights came on. A collection of shadows bled out from the walls and coalesced before me in the shadowy form of a human. Eventually the shadows turned into the ghostly figure of a chubby, middle-aged man. 
 
 `` You're not supposed to say my name!'' he complained. `` It ruins the fun.'' 
 
 `` I told you about what I have going on tonight,'' I said sternly. `` This is not a good time. I really do n't appreciate it.'' 
 
 `` But I'm a demon!'' he said. `` I'm not supposed to care about minor stuff like that. I'm supposed to breed fear in the world, birth chaos and ruination, fester in the hopeful parts of the human spirit until it decays, and all that is left in its place is madness.'' 
 
 `` We do n't have that kind of relationship,'' I said. `` And you know that. So please. Tonight, just tonight. No more haunting. Behave yourself.'' 
 
 `` This is stupid,'' he said, sulking. 
 
 `` Well,'' I said. `` That's just too bad. Because it's the way it is. You understand?'' 
 
 `` Yes,'' he said quietly, looking away. 
 
 `` I said do you understand?'' 
 
 `` I do,'' he said. `` Yes, okay, I do.'' 
 
 `` Good,'' I said. `` Now help me get this all cleaned up. People will start arriving in less than an hour, and if a person tonight gets even the smallest of cuts from this broken glass, or leaves a room complaining about an eery chill, I'm blaming you for it. And I will not be pleasant about it after the party is over, believe you me.'' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

