What Lies Beyond

I needed to calm down. So I walked over my bedside table and pulled out my IPod, went to the Pandora app and put on the, “A Day to Remember” radio station that I listened to pretty frequently. The song, “Have Faith in Me” had come on, my favorite I put my IPod on the dock and it boomed from the speakers.

I turned around and put my hands on my face, clearly showing my frustration with the situation at hand.

“Sean, stop freaking out, damn,” Darren said harshly.

“How the hell are you calm right now? I’m not showing half of how I’m feeling right now. This is really scaring the shit out of me,” I said, my voice still shaking. “I know what I saw. I’m not lying, something or someone is here.”

“I think we have decided that it isn’t somebody. If this ‘thing’ is how you are describing it is, and how it was here one second and gone the next, I would say it was a ghost, maybe even a demonic ghost,” Michelle said confidently, trying to hide the fear on her voice. “Red, the color is like blood, and black could mean death. I would say that’s pretty demonic to me.”

I started pacing again, thinking, and pondering. ‘What should we do?’ I thought over and over. “What if it’s nothing?” I muttered. Michelle and Desiree looked at me with strange expressions on their faces. They looked at me with disbelief.

“So you made this big deal about this thing, and now you’re going to tell us that it might not even be real? That it might just be your imagination? Bullshit. Then explain to me what the fuck all that shit was when you fainted? Or when you saw whatever it was behind Darren? What happened, Sean?” Michelle said, furiously, without pausing or breathing.

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I wasn’t even sure if what I saw was real or whether it was fake. “I don’t know what to tell you two. I’m not sure if it was real or maybe it was just me hallucinating. I just-I just don’t know.” I was sincere in my answer, and honest.

Desiree came to me and grabbed me hard, and hugged me. I already felt more comfortable and calm just from her holding me. “I know you don’t know what’s going on right now, none of us do. We’re here. Together.” She pulled back, but still had her hands grabbing my shoulders. “We can do anything, as long as we are together.” She grabbed me again and hugged me, but this time it was a shorter hug.

“Thank you; you’re the best friend ever. You made me feel way better than I did. I’m not freaking out as much anymore,” I said grinning.

"Do you have a Ouija board, Sean?" Michelle questioned.

"I don't think so, but...wait...yes I do. It's in the attic. You really think those kinds of things actually work, Michelle?" I wondered.

"I don't know, maybe. It's worth a shot right?"

"Yeah, so who wants to go with me?" I asked, looking around at everyone. I noticed Darren was being unusually quiet right now. I looked over at him and saw that his head was faced down "What about you, Darren?" I said.

He looked up from wherever it was he was looking and looked to me. “What about me?” he said, completely oblivious to everything that we were talking about.

“Alright, you’re coming with me to go and get the Ouija board out of the attic,” I said simply.

“Oh, am I?” he retorted.

“Yes, stop being a little douche bag and come with me,” I said as I turned and walked out of the room towards my parents room, which was where the hatch to the attic was. All the lights were out in my house, except the one in my room. I turned on the living room light and continued to walk towards my parents’ room.

Then I heard footsteps behind me. I was paranoid already, my heart seemed as though it was pounding out of my chest. I slowly turned my head and jumped when I saw Darren’s face coming out of the darkness. I inhaled deeply, trying to slow my heartbeat.

“Fuck man. You scared the shit out of me,” I said.

He laughed. ‘Fuck you’ I thought, but held back.

We reached at the room and opened the white door. It creaked. My heart skipped a beat. My head went around the door and my eyes darted around the room and saw the string that connected to the hatch on the ceiling. I walked over to it, grabbed it and pulled a little too hard. It made a loud crash noise as the ladder came crashing down, along with all the dust. I covered my mouth and coughed.

“I need a flashlight,” I said, my eyes scanning the room for one. I stopped at my father’s dresser where on top of it was multiple things, bills, a pile of clothes, a bunch of other crap, and finally a flashlight. “Hand me that will you?” I pointed to the flashlight.

Darren walked over to the flashlight and grabbed it and tossed it to me. I caught it carefully. I pressed the button on the side and a bright light came on from one of the ends. I got a better grip on the light and climbed up the ladder. When I got to the top of the ladder, I hopped up on the floor of the attic. We had quite a small attic; it was more of a crawlspace. I put the flashlight in between by teeth and got on my hands and knees and began crawling around.

I looked all around the confined area. Nothing. I began moving around stuff. Every time that I moved something more dust would come up in to my nose and would cause me to sneeze and cough. I looked for the boards games that I knew were there. After pushing around buckets and buckets of decorations and family stuff, I found the board games. Chutes and Ladders, Life, the original Monopoly, and finally at the bottom was the Ouija board. I pushed the three games off the bottom box. I blew the dust off the board to reveal the word, “Ouija” in bright red letters with a black outline.

I turned and began crawling back out; when I thought I should play a joke on Darren and pretend something is happening to me.

“Are you all good up there?” Darren yelled up to me.

I grunted and started to the opening to hand him the board. My face appeared from inside the dark. I reached my arm with the board out to him. He took it and backed up waiting for me to come down. I looked to the side and yelled. It was a genuine yell too. This wasn’t part of the prank I was going to play. Looking right directly at me was the same thing I saw behind Darren a bit ago. Its dark eyes stared into mine. I started to go down the ladder, headfirst. The thing had grabbed onto my ankle and I hit my head on one of the steps, mainly hitting my eye. Its face was coming out of the darkness. Darren noticed how I wasn’t going all the way down the ladder. He looked up to see the ‘thing’. Letting out the most girly scream ever he grabbed my hand and pulled me out from under the grip of the ‘thing’.

Whatever it was finally let its grip on me go and it pushed my legs foreward. I began to fall again. I wasn't falling on the ladder, I was falling through the air. I grabbed a hold of my neck just in case I fell on that spot. CRACK! I hit my leg on the closet door, hard. It had to be sprained, at least. But it could have been broken. I put my hands on the floor and pushed myself up. I put some of my body weight on the foot I hit and winced instantly from the pain. Hopping towards the ladder I lifted it up and shoved it back into the attic.

Darren seemed to be in shock right now. It was as if he was paralyzed and couldn't move. If anyone should have been paralyzed it should have been me. I quickly jumped up and shut the hatch door. I grabbed Darren's wrist and we ran out as fast as we could.