Dear reader, this is a story about a night that changed my life for ever. I never believed in superstition. It was all nonsense to me. I actually had a black cat who was my favourite pet. People said that they were bad luck and others said that they were good luck. Others said they were witch’s cats. I never believed any of their superstitions. Until that fateful night on January the 13th, 1995.
I was fifteen at the time. You don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to, but I swear on my life, this really happened.
It was a dark and stormy night. Isn’t that a classic start? Well anyway, it was. Jack Svenson, Susan Trytsman, Tiger Rakes and Shilah Smith were all at my house. I had invited them to come and do some homework with me, because they were my friends. But then the storm had set in and it grew dark and began to hail heavily. We all agreed it was too dangerous for them to walk home, so they decided to stay until the storm had died down. After doing basically no homework, we started to get bored. My parents were at a meeting at the school, the aerial was knocked out and the rain messed up the radio signal. So, we were basically stuck with board games. While halfway through a game of Pictionary, Susan suggested we try this ‘ghost game’ she had learnt about from her cousin. Shilah and I were sceptical but the boys thought it would be cool and eventually, majority ruled. Susan began explaining the game to us. The first warning signs not to play the game were so obvious, but I was oblivious to the message, the message being the lights flickering off. I wanted to scream but resisted, because it would have hurt my pride. I was the tough girl at school, playing soccer and cricket with the boys, taking the dare of licking a cockroach and a good spitter. After such things, you tend to develop restrain on things like screaming. Anyway, Tiger and I fumbled around in the dark until I found some matches and he the candles.
We lit five candles, one each. Susan insisted that we light a sixth, for the centre, to create effect. So we did. Then we sat in a circle on the floor and she explained. The game was to get a glass and place it on a piece of white paper that was to be situated on a hard surface, like the Pictionary board we used. One of us had to hold a pen on the paper and try write anything very slowly. The spirit was supposed to take control of the person’s hand and force him/her to write its name. Then we were all to stand up and hold hands in the circle and chant that name. Then we were to ask a question, ‘yes’ meaning the glass moves forward once, ‘no’ meaning it moves forward twice. It was basically too get in touch with a spirit. I thought it was all hogwash, but still, I had to play. So I got a piece of paper and placed it on the board, which was in the middle of our circle. We put a candle close to the board and each of us had our candles close by us as we sat. I joined the circle and Shilah placed the glass in the center of the page. On the right-hand corner was a pen.
We all stared at each other, our faces lit by the eerie candle light. Despite it being in the middle of summer, I remember shivering. “All right, who’s going to write the name?” Susan had asked. No one spoke. The boys glanced nervously at each other and I gave them a testing stare. Eventually I spoke. “I will.” I sighed and took the pen and lay on my stomach.
There was a heart-stopping silence as I put the pen on the paper. I waited for a couple of seconds.
In my mind, I was scolding myself for believing such nonsense and knew it was a waste of time. I was about to express my thoughts when my hand went icy, icy cold. Fear gripped my throat and my hand began to move, ever so slowly. The writing was messy and untidy, but after a while the mess became a ‘B” then an “L” and eventually, after tremendous self- restraint, I wrote out the words ‘Black Cat’. Then the grip faded and I dropped the pen.
The others remained silent. Tiger and Shilah had a look of utter shock and fright on their faces, Susan looked confused and Jack didn’t look like he believed any of it. Susan motioned with her hands that we get up and stand in a circle this time. After a little pause, we did. “OK guys, chant these words. ‘Glassy glassy are you male?’” she explained, then eyed us questionably and we nodded. I nodded last, terrified out of my wits, and was prepared to run to the school through all the hail, even alone. I should have.
“On the nod of three,” Susan whispered. She nodded once, then twice, then a third time.
.
We broke the silence and began a low humming chant. We asked it three times, whether it was male. Then Susan mouthed the word ‘stop’ and immediately we obeyed. There was another awful, tense silence. The sound outside became a distant, almost silent hum and the world seemed to hold its breath. Then the glass edged forward. Once.
I let out a gasp and Shilah shrieked. “No!” she cried.
“Shhh!” Susan scolded. Jack twitched nervously and Tiger just froze.
“Oh God...,” I trailed off.
“All right, now chant: Glassy glassy are you friendly?” Susan ordered.
Shilah shook her head violently, whimpering.
“Shilah please, it is just a game,” Susan pleaded.
“This is beyond a game,” Tiger hissed.
Susan glared at him.
She nodded and we began.
“Glassy glassy are you friendly?” we asked. 'What a pathetic question!' I thought, but inside I was terrified.
The glass edged forward.
Jack let out a sigh of relief and I smiled weakly. It was a relieving thought.
“Oh, thank the heavens that it’s...,” I began but stopped.
My heart skipped a beat and everyone else saw the same thing.
The glass edged forward again. The answer was ‘no’.
Shilah screamed and pulled loose from the circle and ran blindly up the staircase to my bedroom.
“No more! No more!” she screamed hysterically.
“Shilah! Shilah!” Jack yelled. But it was no use.
“It’s just a stupid game. It’s just an illusion,” he breathed. The pen began to roll.
It rolled to Tiger’s foot and stopped.
“OK, let's ask it if it wants Tiger to write. Repeat: Glassy glassy, do you want us to write? Ok?” she questioned.
I have come this far. There is no point going back, I thought.
I should have run, I should have left right then and there, but I was fifteen, young and stupid.
She nodded three times and we chanted three times, the procedure always the same.
The glass moved forward. We waited for it to make its decision. It moved no more. Tiger gulped and lay down and held the pen and put it to the paper. “Here goes,” he sighed. He almost ran away right then, but decided against it.
The pen started to move in his paler right hand and began the messy writing. First we could make out a “D” then an “I”. Then there was a pause and he scratched it down.
It looked like an “F” but then transformed into an “E”.
DIE.
Before anyone could react to the horrifying message, there was a blood-curling scream from upstairs.
“Shilah?” I peeped, shuddering.
Tiger rose up in shock and Susan remained dead still.
Jack broke into an unsteady sprint. I followed and a couple of seconds later, Jack and I were in my dark room.
The curtains were fluttering and my window was wide open. The hail had stopped and the moon had peeked through the ebony clouds. It bathed the room in an eerie silver light which luminated a figure on the bed. “Shilah?” I whispered. Jack and I walked over to the silent figure. She was lying on her back, staring wide eyed at the ceiling. Or so it looked like it. She was silent. “Shilah?” Jack said, surprisingly in a strong tone, yet one that bared fear.
I leant closer and spotted something odd by her neck. I squinted my eyes then made a horrifying discovery. Shilah was dead, and the thing by her neck was a note spelling the words “Black Cat.”
I can’t remember much after that, due to the fact that I had fainted. All I know was that the doctors proclaimed that she had died of a weak heart, a rather rare but definite condition.
The fact that it had happened on the thirteenth, the name next to her was Black Cat and the fact I had walked under a ladder the day before had all contributed to by now firm belief in Superstitions of all kinds, yet I steer clear form any spiritual activity. Shilah was my friend, but seeing the way she had died had haunted me forever. But that was five years ago, well, almost. After that, the following year Jack died in a car crash, the next year Susan died of cancer, the next year Tiger was shot dead in a bank robbery. It all happened one year after the next. That makes you wonder and I had been for the past few weeks when I first noticed the pattern.
Am I next?
Written by Sapphire (when she was 14)
Like it? Wanna give some tips? Email me at sapphire15@starplace.com