“Suck a bus?” Bubba said.
“Succubus,” Conrad corrected him. “It’s a female demon from hell that uses the sexual energy of men to feed on their life force. The devil has a sense of humor in the torment he hands out, it appears.”
“Baloney,” Cecil had to say. “No offense, Conrad, but you believe that bullshit?”
“Ah,” Conrad said, grinning. “A skeptic. And you, Bubba. Is this bullshit to you as well?”
“I don’t know,” Bubba said, looking back and forth between the skeptic and the believer. “There are things out there you can’t explain, I guess. Just put me in the middle of the road on it.”
“A dozen families have owned this house since the Reynolds tragedy,” Conrad said, returning to his story. “Seven young men have died in this house, all under mysterious circumstances. A world renowned medium, Maggie Tilson, came into contact with Hattie Mae in the sixties during an investigation of the house and the legend of Hattie Mae’s deal with Satan was born.
“There was a well-documented case in the seventies. It’s a matter of public record. A teenager named William Kelly entered the house on a dare one Halloween night. He came out hours later and he looked like he had aged thirty years. He was practically catatonic. When he recovered, he spoke of Hattie Mae seducing him. He even identified her from an old picture. He had no memory of how he got away from her.”
“I still don’t believe it,” Cecil said, sticking to his guns.
“But, Cecil, it’s a matter of public record,” Bubba reminded him.
“It doesn’t matter whether you believe or not,” Conrad said. “It won’t affect this investigation either way. We have a lot of ground to cover. Are you gentlemen ready to begin?”
Cecil and Bubba nodded in harmony.
“I want to go dark and cover this whole house. I figured we would do EVP sessions down here and upstairs. But I want to start with the hottest spot in the house. Hattie Mae’s bedroom,” Conrad said, excitedly.
They followed him up the stairs to one of the many rooms located at about the midway point of the house. They entered the room. The walls were gutted. A large, antique canopy bed resided there. The only other furnishing was a card table with three chairs surrounding it. The table and chairs sat within the chalk outline of a pentagram, bordered with a white candle at each point. It immediately sent Cecil’s hind hairs up.
“What is that?” he demanded, pointing to the pentagram.
“It’s a pentagram,” Conrad said, nonchalantly. “It’s a circle of protection.”
“We didn’t sign up for that,” Cecil said, suddenly wary.
“I gotta agree with Cecil on this one,” Bubba added. “That’s a thing of the devil.”
Conrad looked at the pentagram and then he laughed. “Well, Cecil, I thought you didn’t believe in this bullshit.”
Cecil shook his head. “I ain’t fooling around with that thing. No reason to take a chance if you don’t have to.”
“The pentagram is a form of protection against evil. It’s been perverted by heavy metal music and bad horror movies to mean something else,” Conrad insisted.
“Don’t care,” Cecil said. “I ain’t stepping foot in that thing.”
“We need protection for the séance,” Conrad explained.
Bubba and Cecil both looked at each other.
“Séance?” Bubba asked. “You mean calling upon the dead?”
“How else are we going to contact Hattie Mae? They don’t have cell phones on the other side.”
“We’re out,” Cecil said flatly. Bubba nodded in agreement.
They started to leave.
“Wait, boys,” Conrad said after them. “Is there anything that would entice you to stay and go through with this?”
“Well, we sure as hell won’t do it for a Scooby snack,” Cecil shot back. “Give us a minute.”
Cecil and Bubba conferred quietly but heatedly on the other side of the room. When they returned to Conrad, Bubba looked defeated. He had lost the argument.
“We want an extra hundred for the pentagram. And we want another hundred on top of that for the séance. And it is payable now. Or we scoot out of here,” Cecil informed Conrad. The boys knew their host could afford it.
Conrad smiled and pulled a wad of hundred dollar bills out of his slacks pocket. “You boys drive a hard bargain,” he said, removing a money clip from the pile and paying them. “And I’ll even buy the first round at the Busty and Lusty after this.”
Cecil was satisfied with the deal, but Bubba was still a little cautious about the entire thing.
Cecil stuffed the money in his leather jacket and then motioned to the bed. “I thought you said all of the stuff was out of here.”
“I personally requested that Hattie Mae’s bed be brought in for this investigation. It’s where the many offenses occurred. Spirits will usually have a connection with a material object,” Conrad elucidated.
Conrad took a silver lighter from the card table and began lighting the candles with it. Once all five were lit and burning, he asked Bubba to turn off the bedroom light. They all sat at the table. Conrad switched on a digital recorder and put it on the table. He then stretched out his arms.
“Let’s take each other’s hands,” he instructed.
Bubba and Cecil were hesitant.
“Guys, this isn’t a sexual proclivity,” Conrad said, a little exasperated with the two. “We need to raise energy.”
“As long as that’s all that’s being raised,” Cecil muttered.
Bubba snickered.
They all took hands.
“Hattie Mae,” Conrad began. “We respectfully request that you grace us with your presence, tonight. Please, give us a sign that you are with us.”
There was a large banging sound in the room. Bubba gasped softly, almost taking his hands back. Conrad and Cecil held them in place.
“That was the quickest reaction I have ever encountered,” Conrad beamed. “Was that you, Hattie Mae?” he asked the darkness.
“Probably just a loose pipe or something,” Cecil wagered, sure the noise had been a natural one.
Conrad hushed him.
There was silence. Conrad frowned and continued to request Hattie Mae’s presence. This went on for a long time. Bubba and Cecil’s hands began to sweat. Almost ready to abandon the room and focus elsewhere in the house, Conrad gave it one more attempt.
“Hattie Mae, come forth and make yourself known,” he said with authority.
Suddenly, the flames of the candles shot several feet into the air. The boys could feel the heat coming off of them and they smelled the melting wax. The flames died back down.
Bubba sat in silence, afraid to move.
“Tricks candles, Conrad? Kind of lame,” Cecil said, suspiciously but with a little bit of apprehension mixed in.
“I assure you, I had nothing to do with that,” Conrad claimed, sounding as surprised by the incident as the boys.
A breeze picked up in the room, chilling them all.
“Tell me you got something to do with this, Conrad,” Bubba implored him. “If it’s a joke, I won’t be mad.”
“Yeah, what is this? Is it a TV program or something?” Cecil asked, waiting for the crew to rush through the door. “Y’all better not make me look stupid.”
Conrad shook his head. “This isn’t my doing,” he promised.
The room began to shake, as if caught in a sudden earthquake. The men gripped tighter to each other’s hands. White dust and flakes of spackle rained on them. The shaking carried on for a long time, and it was making Bubba queasy as hell. Finally, after a lesser tremor or two rocked them for a second, the room was still.
The men sat with white knuckles; each to his own silence.
Cecil’s eyes crawled quickly around the room. “If that was a special effect, it was a God damn expensive one,” he said.
There was a clear female sigh in the room. It had come from the canopy bed. They all trained their eyes on the m
attress. An eerie glow lit up the room. Something stirred the bedding, and grew under the sheets of the bed. The sheets and blankets were slowly pressed upward. A body blossomed there, underneath.
When the figure had finished rising, the canopy bed held a corpse. Then, the bed dressing slowly retreated away from the cadaver. The satin sheets slid to the floor. A female form was revealed to the room. The body was still. Life was slowly assembling in it.
“Stay in the circle,” Conrad warned, fascinated and afraid at the same time.
Bubba looked to Cecil for reassurance. There wasn’t any.
Cecil looked just as stunned.
The shapely figure found its breath and existence and slowly rose up off of the bed. The ghost moved as if swept by a gentle breeze. It was a beautiful woman, wrapped in a white see-through nightgown. She had dark red hair and a fair complexion. Faint summer freckles dotted her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were green and seemed to give off a light of their own. She smiled tenderly, and all three of the men smiled back, despite their fear. They couldn’t help themselves.
“You have called and I have come,” Hattie Mae spoke softly, standing next to the bed.
They could make out her curves through the nightgown. She had a large bosom. Her light pink nipples blended into her skin and were barely visible from a distance. Bubba had a hard time getting his gaze past Hattie Mae’s chest; his lips puckered involuntarily toward her breasts. Cecil studied her body further down, preferring things he could stick his prick in. She was one of the finest pieces of ass Cecil had ever gazed upon, and he noticed that the carpet most definitely matched the drapes.
Hattie Mae began to glide slowly toward them, her arms extended.
Cecil and Bubba had to fight the urge to stand up and greet those widely spread arms with their bodies. They were gripped by her but the feeling of absolute dread in them still trumped that; though not by a large margin. This was due to the fractional attention she gave them. Had she given the boys all of her energy, they would have been hers entirely. But she seemed more attracted to their host.
“Conrad,” Hattie Mae spoke, zeroing in on him like a predator that had spotted the weakest of the herd. Whatever made him most vulnerable was her secret.
Her lithe body pulled toward him. “Come to me, Conrad.”
“Take your own advice. Be strong, man,” Cecil said, noticing that all of Hattie Mae’s attention was focused on Conrad now. It freed Cecil further from her charm but also made him jealous as hell.
“She’s a suck a bus, Conrad,” Bubba cautioned, pulling more out of Hattie Mae’s spell, himself.
“Succubus,” Conrad corrected Bubba inattentively, his eyes never straying from Hattie Mae. He looked deep into Hattie Mae’s eyes and the boys could see that he was a goner.
“Hold onto him, Bubba,” Cecil instructed. “Don’t let him break out of the circle.”
Cecil and Bubba tightened their grips on Conrad, who was already starting to pull away.
“Let go of me,” Conrad commanded in a thick voice. “She wants me. Don’t you see?”
“She’s only using you for your life force,” Bubba said, having a hard time holding the slender guy down.
Hattie Mae stared straight into Conrad’s essence. “Come,” she beckoned. She licked her lips and pawed at her body. “Don’t you want me?”
“Oh, baby,” Conrad whispered. He suddenly bound up, nearly knocking the boys over, and tore away from their grip.
The circle was broken. Conrad smeared the chalk pentagram with his heels as he moved, scarring and ruining the ring of protection. He stepped hastily to Hattie Mae.
“Don’t do it, man!” Cecil warned. “She’ll kill you!”
Conrad wrapped his arms around her. Hattie Mae kissed him hungrily. She hiked one of her legs around him, pulling him in closer. The color faded from her eyes, and they became soulless white orbs. Her skin began to twist and sag, turning so ashen that her blue veins stood out like deep scars running the length of her body. Puss-filled sores grew all over her and a thick green fluid trickled from the corner of her mouth. Her countenance took on that of a demonic crone. She glowered evilly.
Conrad pulled away and looked at the thing he had been kissing. He turned back to Cecil and Bubba. He grinned, the green bile on his lips and chin. “Look at her! Isn’t she beautiful?”
“No man! She’s an ugly ass demon!” Cecil shouted, wondering why Conrad didn’t see that. And as ugly as she was, Cecil still wanted to fuck the thing something fierce.
“Get away from her!” Bubba hollered as well; concern and envy doing a strange bop together inside of him.
Hattie Mae began to kiss Conrad again. Her blackened tongue snaked into his mouth. The sight almost made Bubba puke. Conrad’s moans of pleasure slowly turned to muffled screams of pain and fear. Hattie Mae broke off the kiss. She stared delightedly at Conrad, who now screamed at the top of his lungs. His face began to shrivel and grow old. His hair all fell out and his spine began to curl. As this happened, Hattie Mae’s beauty slowly began to restore itself.
Conrad shrank inside of his clothes and his face became gaunt. Hattie Mae dropped him to the floor. The husk that had once been Conrad Woods looked at the boys with dying, gray eyes. Conrad’s concluding breath shook his chest on its way out. He looked like a hundred-year-old corpse.
Hattie Mae, beautiful by mortal standards once again, stood for a second with closed eyes, savoring the taste of the life she had just ingested. She slowly opened her eyes, and looked to the mess on the floor.
“Get up, lazy bones,” Hattie Mae said to the body. “All Hallow’s Eve is near. And there are things to be done.”
Conrad’s corpse began to twitch and jerk. Slowly, the lean zombie rose up off of the floor. It straightened, its head lolling around like it had a screw loose somewhere. The dead thing that had been Conrad lurched to attention in front of its mistress. With a bent head that rested on its scrawny shoulder, the zombie regarded Hattie Mae. Its obedient white eyes looked to the succubus for instruction. The mouth on zombie Conrad drooped to one side.
At the sight of Conrad, despite the fear pumping fast and hard in his veins, Bubba was suddenly reminded of his grandmother after her stroke.
The boys could have snuck off while this was happening, but they were rooted there by fear, fascination and the affection for Hattie Mae that was being supernaturally inspired in their hearts and loins.
“Minions always come in handy,” Hattie Mae said, tenderly stroking Conrad’s cold and prominent forehead. “Go clean the house. We are having a party tomorrow, and this place must shine.”
The zombie turned itself toward the door and shuffled to it. Before it left the room, its dull gaze found Bubba.
“Bbbbbbuuuuuuubbbbbbbbaaaaaa,” it said slowly, and Bubba wished he had let the name Turner stand. He never wanted to hear his name played out of that dead and sideways mouth ever again.
“Your friends will join you shortly,” Hattie Mae promised the lifeless Conrad.
It moved clumsily out of the room.
“You boys have pulled me in a little early for the festivities this year. I plan on going back to the darkness with a full belly this time,” Hattie Mae said, turning her full attention back to Cecil and Bubba. “I’ve always enjoyed two at once,” she murmured, moving in on them.
They wanted to run and they wanted to stay. Those beautiful green eyes of hers held them there, and they were petrified in their love for her.
“Worse ways to go,” Cecil decided, mesmerized.
The boys had no more will left. Hattie Mae placed a hand on both of them. She chose Cecil first; he was the more depraved of the two and he would certainly have more flavors. She came in for a kiss, and then stopped herself. She pulled back and stared at the pair curiously. She sniffed at them. And then a hiss escaped from her angry lips. Hattie Mae put her hellish face back on. There was no reason to hold them anymore. She shoved them both to the ground.
Cecil and Bubba s
napped out of Hattie Mae’s spell and balled up fearfully on the floor as she raged at them.
“Your souls have stains upon them!” Hattie Mae shrieked in a demonic voice. “You have been cursed!”
Bubba looked at Cecil. “I told you so,” he scolded, despite the presence of death in front of him.
“I’m starving but I cannot feast on you! You are bad meat! The accursed! You are the damned!” Hattie Mae shouted. She shook angrily. “Be gone! Leave my home and take your black souls with you!”
Cecil and Bubba ran from the room. They heard her wicked laughter behind them in the distance as they navigated the stairway as quickly and carefully as they could.
They passed Conrad in the formal room. The reanimated subordinate was wiping down a window with a dirty rag.
“Hold up,” Cecil said, running back toward Conrad.
“What the hell, man?” Bubba called after him. “We ain’t bringing him with!”
Cecil patted down dead Conrad. The jostling attention did not take the zombie away from his chore. Bubba watched as Cecil returned, Conrad’s money quickly going into Cecil’s own pocket.
“That’s like robbing a walking grave, man,” Bubba said, frowning on it.
“He don’t need it no more. And we deserve it,” Cecil said simply, as the pair approached the front door.
They made it out of the house and jumped into Cecil’s truck. Cecil started it and they took off. They went about fifty feet, and then Cecil slammed on the brakes. He looked to Bubba.
“This ain’t right,” Cecil said firmly.
“You’re damn right it ain’t,” Bubba said, stomping the floor board with his heavy foot. “We’re not moving! Get us the hell out of here!”
“We were hired to protect him.”
“Well, I don’t think he’ll be asking for a refund.”
“We gotta take revenge in his name,” Cecil said, opening his door and stepping outside.
“Cecil! Shit!” Bubba cried, following Cecil out of the truck.
Cecil walked to the back of his truck and pulled out an emergency gas can. He carried it because of the busted gas gauge.
“What are you doing with that?” Bubba asked, concerned.
“I’m burning the bitch’s house down,” Cecil announced, going back to the house and dousing the front porch with gas.