So Saturday night, there I was toiling at Hipster Burger. I was totally slammed, but still booth twelve was vacant the entire night, except for that familiar spectral presence. I won't deny I'm a competitive asshole at times. But now, here we were packed and still the hostess refused to sit booth twelve with customers. Alas the subtle influences of the paranormal world kept my booth empty, night after night. Sure I had other customers, but when you're so focused on the evil in an empty booth, how can you possibly be on top of refills and ordering some drunk asshole's burger medium rare. Goes without saying my tips weren't that great. Who the hell comes to a greasy spoon for exquisite service anyways?
The Devil, that's who. (Or so I thought...) So there I was. On the wall, the smiley cat clock's little paws were inching towards midnight, the witching hour. Patrick continued to remind me to refill the sugar in booth twelve, food getting cold, to restock clean dishes, blah, blah, blah... but all my senses were aimed at the shadow form with his long skeletal fingers stirring that black cup of coffee...
I don't know when I decided to risk it. I'd brought some things with me, but who doesn't carry bits of human bone in their pockets? Enough was enough. This entity, his passive aggressiveness, had pissed me off. The kitty cat clock struck twelve. It was go time! I poured myself a cup of hot water. I nicked my finger so a droplet of blood formed. I pulled a few items from my back pocket; dried bone, a small brown and white feather. Facing booth twelve, I spoke beneath my breath:
Old crone's stew
Poison foul
Rancid marrow
And feathered owl
Crooked finger
Child born of sin
Pull back your hood
Fiend or friend!
With the final syllable, I downed a shot's worth of the bone, blood, feather tea and my physical world tripped out HARD! Patrick's sweaty face spun completely upside down. He was rattling off food orders backwards from his forehead. And then, like a raindrop rippling a swamp, his face simply collapsed in on itself leaving a featureless orb in it's place, like he had a beige egg on his shoulders. Everyone in the diner had featureless heads, yet they all watched me. Then the pain hit. I crumpled. The eggheads all reacted as one group mind and bolted for the door, screaming.
I'd fucked up the spell. Something had gone wrong. Why were they reacting this way? (Logic would suggest because I'm a freak, but again what use does logic hold in my world?) I was vomiting blood at this point, not all of it mine, most of it a distasteful after-effect of stirring up such a nasty, old-world witch's potion.
And then I felt the chill. What had spooked the cattle wasn't my distress: I'd finally gotten the attention of the ghost in booth twelve. It was no longer sitting idle. Now it was standing above me, the dirt crusted linoleum began to freeze as the entity regarded me at it's feet.
The kitty clock mewled like a feral cat, spinning on the wall before launching itself across the room. All the tables jumped and shook. Germ covered silverware rattled likes tambourines. Dishes and glassware cracked and shattered.
I looked up, barely able to open my eyes from the blinding pain. The thing's image shifted between dirty black robes and a midnight blue suit. I felt it crouching towards me. I wanted to cry. I wanted to drag myself behind the service bar. This was the end. The final, fucking bitter end! "Do it!" I thought. "Let's get this shit over with." The thing's breath was close to my face. A putrid combination of rotting meat and stale coffee.
"Finally, you asshole," it bitchily hissed in my ear. "Do you know how long I've been waiting for you to grow the balls to do something? ANYTHING?! God, you're pathetic." I gazed into it's sunken, gaunt face. I felt the brew's charms working. I gasped. Like, seriously gasped!
"Yeah, yeah... Listen take this," the creature pulled forth a worn Metrocard. It pushed the bit of plastic into my hand. "Don't lose it. You'll need it again... someday."
And then the spirit vanished into a cloud of buzzing flies. And immediately the police and fire department stormed into the diner. Right on their heels was my manager, his piggish features sadly returned. He seemed unphased by the enchantment and sfter a weak "I think we're going to have to let you go" speech, Patrick ordered they carry me out on a stretcher. I refused and proudly limped out of the diner to find myself a cab.
Remember when Pandora opened that box and all the evils of the world came flying out? But for all the pain and suffering she'd unleashed, there was still a tiny glimmer of hope at the bottom? For all my vomiting blood and painful headaches and loss of power, I have seen my own glimmer of hope in the darkness. But my personal salvation hides in a despair darker than the bleakest of mankind's trivial worries. And the being in booth twelve has given me the means to begin my journey into the abyss.
The entity in booth twelve, it was me.
