The door exploded outwards and a zombie burst forth. Blood sprayed out from an axe now buried in its skull, and the corpse fell to the ground, lifeless once more. There was barely time to retrieve the axe and grab a gun from the inside of the building, when another one appeared from the side. A quick shot to the head laid it to rest.
Pushing onwards with an ever growing kill count, finally there appeared the real challenge. What had to be the mother of all monsters, it towered above the ruined city. It would take more than bullets or blades to stop this nightmarish creation, but the explosives needed lay in the wreckage right beside it.
With no choice but to draw nearer, something vaguely resembling an arm hurtled forwards. Diving for cover, it passed harmlessly above. Another limb came crashing down, but again it missed. Then there came a meow from somewhere in a different reality, and it caused enough of a distraction for a zombie to grab hold. Unable to shake free quickly enough, the monster struck out again. This time there was no escaping the huge arm smashing down – the screen froze as Haley hit pause with a frustrated sigh. The huge ball of fur meowed again, more urgently this time.
Haley unlocked the door and stood with it wide open, looking back to see if Monster was coming.
“Come on then you dumb cat, are you going out or not?” she asked him, annoyed that he couldn’t have waited just ten more minutes while she completed the level. Now it looked like it was going to be game over, and she’d really wanted to get some practice in on the higher levels before Chris came over. Even though they could play co-operatively, it still got quite competitive, with neither of them wanting to be the one to die first. She’d really wanted to get the practice in beforehand, but there’d been no time through the week.
The large tabby padded over to her, but he froze in the doorway, his eyes wide and his ears clearly locked onto some sound too faint to reach a human.
“There’s nothing out there you daft animal, go on,” she said, nudging him out with her foot. The cat decided to make a run for it, but he kept his body low to the ground, his tail bushed up behind him. Haley shook her head and locked the door.
She glanced at the sink piled full of dirty pans and glasses, and sighed again. She supposed she ought to wash up before Chris arrived. Since he’d started uni they’d had less time together than she would’ve liked, and she wasn’t about to waste any of their time that weekend doing housework. The game would have to wait now.
As she ran the water, random thoughts entered her mind. She was still of an age where her life could take any direction she wanted, if only she could decide what that direction should be. She’d already written off the various subjects she’d studied at college as ‘not right for her’, and other potential careers which did appeal to her required too much in the way of further education than she could be bothered with. She did want to make something of her life though, before it was too late and she ended up being resigned to the role of housewife, or stuck in a dead-end-job. She wanted excitement and adventure, and to see the world. Then again, she could already have all that at a touch of a button, even if it was only a virtual reality. Maybe being a housewife wouldn’t be so bad after all.
“Oh I don’t know!” she said out loud to herself.
Once the washing up was out of the way, she called out to see if Monster was ready to come back in. She could just make him out cowering underneath the car. He decided to brave it, still running with his belly close to the ground, and promptly hid under the sofa. Haley peered out but of course there was nothing there. Then there was a sudden sharp crackle of electricity which made her jump. The bulb directly overhead had blown, and it was enough to blow the fuse, temperamental as it was, casting Haley’s world into darkness and shadow.
She swore and groped her way over to the cupboard where she kept her torch. The dim beam provided just enough light to make out the fuse box and flick the switch, lighting the lounge and the kitchen once more. At which point she realised the door was still open, so she closed and locked it. The bulb she would wait to replace till the morning, when she could see what she was doing.
Chris was due any minute, so she decided to read for a bit while she waited. The book was sci-fi rather than horror, and it wasn’t often any of the stuff she watched or read scared her. Yet for some reason she felt a growing sense of unease.
A creaking from upstairs made her heart beat faster, and when it came again from a different room she felt she should investigate.
The shadows at the top of the stairs seemed hostile now, and it was as if there was a darker patch amongst them. Was it humanoid or was that her imagination? She was almost afraid to turn on the landing light and find there was indeed someone up there, but she had to know. So she flicked the switch to reveal – nothing.
“This is stupid,” she told herself. “There’s no one up there, it’s just the pipes creaking.”
It was a good thing Chris hadn’t turned up yet or he’d have been teasing her about it all weekend. She felt silly enough as it was, without anyone adding to it.
Once she’d settled back down with her book, she began to feel more comfortable again, until Monster hissed from his hiding place under the sofa. He rarely hissed, and the way he was acting was starting to really creep her out. She wished Chris would hurry up. Actually, she should ring him and see if he was nearly here, so she could start on dinner before it got too late. That was it obviously, not the fact she was scared and wanted to hear his voice.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi babe, just wondering if you’re gonna be much longer?” Haley asked. “I thought I’d get dinner cracking if you’re not too far off now, I’m starving!”
“Mmm yes please,” he replied. “Should be with you soonish but give me an hour, just to be on the safe side.”
“Okay, see you soon then.”
“Thanks flower,” he answered, knowing she hated that term.
“Dickhead!” she said, and hung up. To her the term flower implied something delicate and fragile, and that wasn’t the type of woman she wanted to be. She fancied herself a strong heroine, not some timid little female who hid behind her male counterparts. Though she had to admit, there were times when she felt vulnerable by herself. The sound of his voice and, even better, the thought that he would soon be with her, had been a greater comfort than she would ever admit, and the uneasiness she’d been feeling was momentarily forgotten.
***
Chris really did seem to be taking his time now. It had only been twenty minutes since she’d spoken to him, but it felt much longer. The eerie feeling of another presence in the house was back, and Monster still hadn’t ventured out from his hiding place under the sofa.
Haley became convinced she was no longer home alone. Whatever was in the house with her was lurking upstairs, and she began to feel whatever this presence was, it was malevolent. It took all her courage to head up and check the bedrooms, and it really didn’t help when the fuse went again just as she reached the doorway to her own room, for no apparent reason this time.
She’d already placed the torch back in the cupboard after it had blown the first time, and with all the curtains closed the house was pitch black. There was no way her eyes could penetrate this darkness, and if there truly was an intruder she’d only find out from physical contact. The thought wasn’t comforting.
In that moment the house ceased to be a home. It no longer held that sense of being warm and cosy and, above all else, safe. Now there was a sense of emptiness, and the rooms felt too big, as if she was trapped in a large, abandoned building with few places to hide.
The pain was so sudden, she wasn’t sure what was happening at first. Then the blood began to trickle down her cheek from a deep cut, and with a scream she fled back down the stairs, feeling her way along as quickly as she could. She barely made it to the bottom when another wound opened up on her thigh, but this time there was no shock to mask the pain and she felt the full force of it.
With a surgeon’s precision, something had sliced through her jeans and the top layer of her skin, exposing the sensitive second layer. The nerves sparked with the air as they were laid bare, the stinging pain immediate and intense. Haley screamed with it and fell to the floor, the agony so powerful she couldn’t bear to stand, even though the wound was only skin deep. She lay there shaking and sobbing, wondering why this was happening to her, and who her attacker was.
Inexplicably, the lights came back on. The young woman managed to crawl back into the lounge, and her attacker followed. Whatever it was, she knew it wasn’t human, though its shape was humanoid. At first it just appeared as a black shape in the room, as if it was made of darkness itself, but then it was as if that darkness dissolved away, leaving the room much dimmer as a result. Now she could see it clearly she was too shocked to scream. The bat like wings, the pointed ears and bestial face, and the horns on its head, there was only one thing it could be.
The demon answered her unspoken question as if he could read her thoughts. “I’m here to collect payment.”
Haley’s mind flashed back to the party where they’d watched a YouTube video of one of the best gamers in the world, and she’d jokingly said “I’d give anything to play like that, even if it meant dealing with the Devil.”
That night happened to be Halloween, the one night where demons were said to have free rein on the earth.
“But I didn’t mean it!” she managed through the pain. After the joke she’d noticed her gaming skills were improving, but it had been gradual enough that she’d thought nothing of it, assuming it was a result of all the hours she’d spent in front of the various consoles she owned. “And besides, that was only a year ago!”
“No promise was made as to when I would collect,” he answered, slicing another wound in her arm with his claws. He wanted some fun before claiming her soul.
There came the sound of a key in the lock, signalling Chris’ arrival. Haley wanted to scream a warning to him so he wouldn’t have to see her die, but it was as if the demon had somehow rendered her mute, though whether it was temporary or permanent remained to be seen.
“Haley?” he called out. “I’m here. Ready to kill some zombies?”
He entered the lounge, wondering why she hadn’t replied to him, and froze when he saw his girlfriend at the demon’s mercy.
The demon grinned and a sword appeared in his hand, as if he’d fashioned it from the very shadows that continued to linger around the room. It appeared to be metallic but it was black, and it didn’t catch the dim light like an ordinary blade. Haley wanted to go down fighting but she felt paralysed with fear. Or maybe that was the demon’s doing too. She closed her eyes, awaiting the end, while Chris screamed enough for them both. He ran towards the demon, determined to save her.
The blade sliced through its target just as easily as it sliced through the air, flesh and bone offering no resistance to it. Blood pooled on the floor as a severed head fell from the spine that once connected it. Chris’ heroic attempt was for nothing. His wide eyes stared with shock as his head came to a stop by the demon’s clawed foot, his body collapsing behind him.
Haley opened her eyes and stared into the now dead eyes of her true love.
“It was supposed to be MY soul!” she screamed at the demon, her voice working again.
“The agreement was a soul. Our debt is settled,” he answered. Then he disappeared in a burst of dark flame, leaving her alone with her pain and her grief.
