Devil May Ring

By: Rob Myers

Lady dropped her luggage with three loud thuds. She knew she shouldn't have left him on his own for an entire week, yet the mess was more than even she had anticipated. For starters, the entire place had a musty, stagnant smell to it.

"'I'll take it easy,' he said," Lady mocked in a sing-song voice. "'Maybe rent some videos,' he said."

The worst of the chaos was centered in the lounge area, which she saw was littered with broken glass, from the … from what had been the new TV she had just bought for their office! In the center of its screen was a hole exactly the size and shape of one of her partner's motorcycle boots.

"Dante!" she called, furious.

She spotted him – limply sprawled on the couch, his back to the room, motionless, dead to the world.

Her angry march was cut short when her foot made a splash. Looking down, she saw she'd stepped in an actual puddle of water. In fact, the rug in the lounge area was soaked. At least now she knew the source of the smell. And were those muddy footprints all around the busted television?

Stepping gingerly across the squishing, crunching carpet, she reached out for Dante's shoulder. What was going on, she wondered? She rolled him over onto his back.

What she saw made her gasp and yank her hand back to cover her mouth. Dante's face was contorted into an impossibly wide, slack-jawed gape, clear liquid ran from his open mouth, his eyes were rolled back showing only the whites, his skin even paler than usual …

"eeeehhhYahhhh…" Dante finished his yawn, smacked his lips, and brought up his hand to wipe the drool from his chin. He blinked at Lady.

"Hey."

"Hey," she said, not thrilled, gesturing at the disaster area he called an office, "What …"

She caught sight of the new trophy hanging from the support girder behind the TV. It looked like the shriveled body of a white-robed girl, no older than 12 by her size, bound viciously tight with yards and yards of black tape and riddled with bullet holes. The back of the skull had been blown off, while the corpse's remaining long black hair hung in dull sheets over the face.

And if all that wasn't odd enough, a white VHS cassette was jammed firmly between her distended jaws.

"What the hell happened here, Dante?" demanded Lady.

He pulled himself halfway to a sitting position and looked around, scratching his chest. He shrugged.

"TV trouble."

Before Lady could respond, he flopped back down and pulled his crimson coat over his face.

"Sweet dreams," he mumbled.

No offense meant to Sadako/Samara fans, really! Don't come crawling out of my TV!

© 2007 Rob Myers