We sat quietly.
The house phone started ringing and we all jumped up, terrified. We let it ring through.
We stared at the phone from the other side of the room.
It started ringing again. I crept across the floor and slowly answered it. I clicked the speaker phone button and a shaky voice came through.

"We don't want to hurt you.. please. Help us, hes making us do this. We can help but you have to help us too, he's -" the phone line cut out.

I slammed the phone down and ran upstairs. I sifted through the book shelf for my ouija board. It was always in a new spot, along with my spell book, due to the fact that mom didn't like the ouija board and my spell book was private.

I flipped through books, it wasn't there. I lifted the mattress and found my spell book but no ouija board. I checked under the tables, behind the tables, on top of the shelves and nothing, it was nowhere to be seen.

I turned to walk away and head back downstairs when there it was. Sitting outside the door, waiting as if it had a mind of its own and knew I was looking for it. It was as if it had been perfectly positioned for me. I grabbed a notebook.

I paused and let out a deep sigh.
I grabbed the ouija board and crept down the stairs when I heard whispers coming from inside the wall. They were so quiet and jumbled that it sounded like wind but I could barely make out the words "you're so close" and "we're waiting."

I went downstairs and sat the ouija board in the salt circle.
"Never would I have ever thought," Carmen started. "That I would EVER be sitting in a salt circle on the ground like I was protecting myself from a sea bear."
I grinned, "This is just the typical Friday night for Ava and I."
"Doing what, exactly?" Carmen asked.
"Ya know. Saving people. Hunting things. The family business." I joked but neither of them seemed to understand my joke so I sighed and put my fingers on the planchette. Ava did the same.

We waited for Carmen to follow but she just sat there.

"Carmen, we know we brought you into something that you made very clear you didn't want a part in," Ava started. "But if you back out now, who knows what's gonna happen."
"We barely have an idea of what we're dealing with," I added. "All we have is a ripped page from a Bible and some creepy ass dreams."
She sighed, "You guys better buy me McDonald's when this is over."

She put her fingers on the planchette.
Ava and I looked at eachother. We move the planchette, slowly around the board, once, twice, and then we felt the room get colder. Not just two or three degrees colder, I saw my breath.
We circled the planchette the final time and I glanced at Ava who had begun asking the first question.
"Is anyone here with us?"
Nothing happened. We sat for maybe 4 minutes and then I joined in.
"We know there's someone here, would you like to talk to us?"
Nothing happened.
"Are you the one who stole the Bible from us?"
We started to think it wasn't going to speak through the board so we let out a sigh.
"Should we say-" Ava started before being cut off by the planchette shooting to the word "No."
Carmen's face turned pale and she closed her eyes. "We shouldn't be doing this, you guys."
"Are there more than one of you?" I asked.
The planchette slowly moved to the word yes.
"Have you been talking to us through our dreams?"
The planchette started to head towards no, paused and went to the letter "H." Then to "I" and then to "M."
"Who is "him?" I asked.
The planchette moved to "n" then to "o."
Ava jotted it down in the notebook and we waited for a few more minutes. The ouija board started to move again. This time to the letter "c." Then "H" then "O" and then "I," "C," and "E."

"No choice." Ava read out loud.
"Are we in danger?" I asked. Which was clearly an obvious question but I decided to ask anyway for clarification.
The ouija board shot to "yes."
It started to spell out another word. "C." "A." "R." "M." I glanced at Carmen who's face was in pure terror. She jumped up from her spot and ran out of the salt circle.
Ava looked horrified and we all three paused, realizing she had taken her fingers off the board. The planchette shot out from under mine and Ava's fingers and with the blink of an eye, every light bulb in the entire downstairs, exploded. Left in pitch black, nobody said a word. Then we heard it..