The cat paced in the dining room, guttural growls and enraged shrieks echoed off walls scoured in claw marks. They could hear the scratch and crunch of wood as it battered the door before resuming its pacing. The cat howled in frustration, followed by a cacophony of broken plates and shattered trinkets as unleashed its anger on the kitchen and dining room.

Madeline and the small creature moved most of the furniture to block the door. Looking at the windows behind her, she realized they were safe only as long as the cat was willing to wait by the door.

Ted sat up. He held his head in his hands, squeezing his eyes and opening them wide.

"Honey, are you okay?" Madeline asked. She dusted some drywall from his shirt. "You've had a lot of head injuries in the past year, when this is all sorted we should probably really go to a hospital."

The small creature ambled to Ted, looking him over, its nose twitching.

"Are you, DB?" Madeline whispered.

The creature nodded. It pointed to Ted.

Ted is my friend. You are my new friend.

"My name is Madeline," Madeline said. "He'll be okay, Ted will be okay. But what do we do?"

Bad cat.

"I know, very bad cat. I didn't even invite it in! Technically. I guess that whole 'invite them in' thing is pretty subjective."

"Shit!" Ted said. He slid away from DB, then grabbed his head in pain. "That thing. I saw that thing in the attic. Madeline, you okay?"
"It saved us," Madeline said. "I think it lived here with you."

"I don't remember it," Ted said.

The creature turned down its eyes.

"I'm sorry," Ted said. "I just don't."

"Great, you hurt DB's feelings," Madeline said.

Ted stood up, bracing himself against the wall. "Okay, what's next?"

Mr. Brown.

"Summon Mr. Brown?" Madeline asked.

Th creature nodded.

"The paper is in the kitchen, how do we get out there?"

I'll help. Distraction. Then you get paper.

"Where do we go?" Ted asked. "Where's Mr. Brown?"
Small house. Through trees. That way.

"He's pointing at the backyard," Madeline said. "There must be a trail or something. Okay, so-"

But the creature had vanished. Before they could ask one another, they heard the cat screech in the dining room. Then another sound, a roar, much deeper, seemed to vibrate the house.

In their heads, they heard DB's voice.

Fuck you, Cat!

The house shook, they heard the sound of splintering wood and crumbling drywall. Then the echo of wails and growling filled the attic space above them.

"They're in the attic," Madeline said.

The sound of more wood splintering, the growls grew distant.

"Shit, they're on the roof. Let's go!" Ted said.

They ran to the door way and pulled down the chairs and drug away the overturned furniture. They finally pushed over the China cabinet and stumbled through the doorway. The dining room table was flat on the ground, the chairs around it broken and scattered. Every trinket and decorative plate in the room shattered, the glass and porcelain pieces popped and cracked under their shoes.

They moved into the kitchen fast and Madeline snatched the paper from the fridge. The sliding glass door remained opened and they ran out. Ted looked back to see the hole in the ceiling his fall made was now much larger, and the clear blue sky was visible through an even greater hole in the roof.

"We should move quickly," Ted said.

They ran off the cement porch and down the sloping back yard. Past the manicured patches of St. Augustine, past the flower beds and statues of children, frozen in play and dressed in pseudo 19th century Dutch clothing, to the tree line. They stopped, staring at the trees with the totems of bone attached to them.

"There!" Madeline said.

A small path was worn between two of the trees, a doorway amid the thick underbrush. They took it.

"Four hours," Madeline said, struggling for breath as they ran. "We've been here maybe four hours."

"Good times," Ted said.

On the roof, DB scrambled in circles, while the cat howled and leapt towards it, crashing onto the roof, rising again angrier. DB hoped they would hurry. The cat grew large with rage, whatever was housed in the animal's body broke free one tendril, one claw, at a time.

The cat finally pounced onto the small demon, pining it down. The face, now a great vertical mouth, opened wide. A tongue protruded, then split into two barbs. Each barb sprouted a small mouth.

"The Key," the mouths cried.

DB opened wide and bite down, severing the cat's dual tongues.

No.

DB escaped the animal's grip and stumbled to the edge of the roof while the cat howled in pain and held clawed hands over its mouth, a viscous green liquid pouring from the severed tongue. DB could no longer see Ted and Madeline.

The trail in the woods wound through the trees, a small thin path of packed dirt and dead leaves. The further down the path, the darker the woods became, the more the limbs intertwined to create a canopy. They stopped before a small white building, which stood out against the mesh of green, brown, and gray around them. The paint was chipped and the building itself seemed to lean.

"Wait, was this fog always here? Is the wilderness setting the damn mood?" Ted asked.

"We need to read the paper," Madeline said.

"Got it," Ted said. "She said its phonetic, right?"

"Yep, we just read."

Ted leaned over Madeline's shoulder, reading the note. "It says we need a tetragrammaton. You know what that is?" Ted asked. "Also, we need salt and the liver stone of a mad dog? For real, Aunt Lil?"

"We'll worry about it later," Madeline said. She held up the paper in front of her.

She started to read, Ted followed. They stumbled over the words, a clashing chorus of consonants and harsh sounds. It felt close to languages they'd heard, but the only word they could make out was the name Mr. Brown.

When they stopped, they looked at the building. Only silence. Only the sounds of distant birds and insects, and the howl of the cat from the house.

Then a snap as part of the house pulled up from the Earth. The door fell open and then dropped on the ground. The building rattled and years of debris in the form of sticks and leaves fell from the roof. Inside, they could see a bench and a silhouette of a seated figure, arms at his side, head down. The head slowly lifted and two eyes opened, small blue dots of lights in the dark. The being stood, the metallic rattle of chains could be heard as he stepped forward.

"Those chains?" Ted asked.

"You know it," Madeline said.

He snapped the chains from the walls and floor. They fell to the floor in a heavy pile. He stepped out into the light.

A hulking mass, he stood still, his shoulders rising and falling with every breath. He clenched his fists. When he exhaled, a cloud of dust issued from his mouth, but his face remained hidden behind a hanging mass of unkempt hair. The eyes went from a blue glow, to a red. He tilted his head at Ted and Madeline.

"You must be Mr. Brown!" Ted said.