Ritual
By Casey Douglass
As part of #fridayflash
Kenneth felt the plate
crack in his hands, the noise itself muffled by the sudsy water.
‘Bloody hell!’ he
shouted.
He held on to both
pieces and lifted them from the water. They chinked as he pressed one
on top of the other and headed across to the kitchen bin. He stomped
on the peddle, the tiny mechanism launching the lid into the wall
with a metallic clang. He dropped the two halves inside, swearing as
one malicious corner scraped along his thumb. The lid closed with a
thump as he assessed the damage.
‘Good afternoon Sir.’
Kenneth spun around to
face the voice behind him. He let his hand fall to his side, his
dripping blood forgotten. A stout fat red thing sat on the draining
board, for all the world looking like a demon.
‘Correct! Bravo!’
Two taloned hands clapped rapidly, like the sound of someone popping
lots of bubble wrap.
‘What..?’
‘Who would be more
polite my dear boy but I’ll excuse your ignorance of etiquette, you
look a bit frazzled.’
Kenneth moved nearer, a
slight whiff of sulphur and scorched flesh hung in the air, the demon
giving off the faintest shimmer of heat haze. He watched it lift a
wrist and gaze at a small heavy looking watch.
‘What do you want?’
The demon prodded the
watch with a long finger and clucked.
‘Too much heat! Oh
sorry...to cut a long story short, from the moment of your birth,
your every action, thought, desire and chance happening was
preordained to form part of a ritual, known as the Great Completion.
When it is finished, in...oh around five minutes, my master will
achieve his desired result and the world will change to his will. Do
you follow?’
Kenneth shook his head
slowly but the colour draining from his face showed that he did, at
least partly.
‘Everything I’ve
done?’
‘Yes.’
‘Everything I’ve
said...will say?’
‘Yes, including
that!’
‘What will happen?’
‘And that! Oh I do
apologise...the truth is I don’t know, I’m just here to play my
part, to watch out for “the other side” if you know what I mean.’
‘God?’
‘Could be. Could be
Angels, could be any “being of a higher frequency.” That’s how
we have to refer to them now, political correctness and all that. I
still call them robe lifters though, if I’m honest.’ He gave a
wry smile and winked.
‘What now then? What
will-’ Kenneth dropped to his knees, a trembling convulsion shaking
his body as his mind cottoned on to some stimulus that his conscious
mind refused to recognise.
‘Don’t worry, its
almost time.’
A white feather
fluttered down from the ceiling and landed on Kenneth’s head. The
demon jumped down to the floor furiously waving his claws.
‘No no no! Bugger
off!’ He snatched the feather and shoved it inside his mouth,
chewing thoughtfully as he gazed upwards. ‘They don’t learn!’
Kenneth’s vision
began to blur, his head pounded like an anvil being smashed with a
lump hammer. He cried out as the pain shot down his spine, causing
him to fall flat out at the demons feet, consciousness and life
drifting away with every passing moment.
‘That’s a good
lad.’ The demon patted the back of his head tenderly.
Another white feather
floated past the demon’s head, and another, then another. Within
seconds the room was stuffed full of the slow drifting pillow
stuffers. The demon opened his mouth to yell but inadvertently sucked
in a great swathe of them, choking and tickling his fangs. He coughed
and spluttered, his red cheeks now tinged with blue. The ground began
to rumble, the cutlery in the drawers rat-a-tatting along with the
bass beat.
‘Master!’ he
shouted, ‘It’s not my fault!’
A wrenching force
rippled the carpet tiled floor, a gaping tear slowly widening to the
size of a small car. A flame lanced up from the hole, incinerating
the snow of feathers in seconds, their blackened skeletal remains
turning to dust as they hit the ground. The demon coughed out the
last few that were lodged in his throat and sat down heavily, the
rumbling beginning to subside.
A black figure slowly
rose from the hole, levitating on a cloud of dark boiling ether. It
spoke, it’s voice was whispered and slick like the lichen on a damp
grave.
‘Drumax return! There
was a problem with the ritual.’
Drumax nodded
nervously.
‘My fault?’
‘No.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘A miscalculation by
the overseer. All enforcers are being recalled to the circles for a
full debrief.’
‘I thought the other
side-,’
‘No! Part of the
working was off by a fraction. There is now a chicken factory in Kiev
with a few thousand bald chickens.’
Drumax let his mouth
fall open, it was either that or smile, and he didn’t dare do that
with the Reclaimer in front of him. He looked down at Kenneth, the
body was beginning to stiffen. He shrugged, no point feeling sorry
for him, occupational hazard, being a sacrifice and all.
He slowly got to his
feet and joined the Reclaimer on his black cloud. As they sank slowly
from view, the rumbling returned, slowly pinching the hole in the
floor back together again. Just as it almost met in the middle, their
conversation began again.
‘Fancy making a
mistake like that!’ Drumax said. There was a slight pause before
the other replied.
‘The devil is always
in the detail.’
The sound of Drumax’s
laugh was cut short by a loud slapping noise and a small whimper. The
floor met with a thump, the ash covered kitchen and body looking like
a picture in some ghoulish catalogue for zombie home improvements.
The window was slightly open to the outside world, but all the
neighbours would detect was the slight aroma of some strange barbecue
lingering in the frazzled air. It was Summer, after all.
