Alex Writes One

I've decided to follow along with my friend Megan's newest project, Megan Writes 365. Basically, she's following the prompts in a book for roughly the next year, as time/school/life allows. You can view her introduction on her blog.

Because I've got some time on my hands and am a bit behind, I'm gonna follow the first prompt today. The title links to the "rules" so you can see what the challenge is.

-Enjoy.

Prompt One:

Sometimes, I feel just like a gerbil, running around and around on his wheel.

It all started when I decided to follow the telephone number on the ad asking "Would you like to meet a real-life Exorcist??!" The line below listed a telephone number (not 555, believe it or not) and specified: "Not for the faint of heart." I think it was at this time I was hooked.

I called the number about a week later. The voice on the other end on the line asked if I knew what I was getting into, and if I was ready. When I said I could take it, I was given directions to a parking garage near the middle of town, and a time and date to meet this so-called exorcist.

The following Monday (the given time), I took my friend Nate with me in case things got sketchy. The garage was full of cars and there was plenty of foot-traffic outside to (hopefully) deter any homicidal tendencies of both the human and supernatural persuasions. Ten minutes after we arrived, a beat-up black car pulled into an empty space and flashed its lights.

Nate and I walked over to the car, where we were greeted by a tall man in a brightly-colored trenchcoat. There were enough peace signs and flowers stitched into the coat's fabric to induce flashbacks to anyone alive in the 60s. The man shook our hands with firm grips, and introduced himself as "Kembar, the Paranormal Exterminator Extraordinaire." With a flourish, he opened the trunk of his car, and Nate and I stared in disbelief.

At the bottom of the trunk was a large, black bowl, polished enough to distort and reflect our facial expressions as we peered deep into the trunk. "Kembar" produced a large flask from within his psychedelic trench coat and filled the bowl to the brim with what looked and smelled like vodka.

Before we could ask, he explained, "The alcohol attracts the spirits, draws them into the deepness of the Void of the bowl. Silence!" Nate and I jumped, and our gazes locked on the surface of the vodka, turned smoke-black from the bowl's depth. Some thing was inside the bowl, lazily moving and stirring the dark liquid.

"And there is spirit!" Kembar announced. His strong hands darted out of the folds of his coat and clutches the bowl. With a groan, he hefted the bowl up and around Nate and I as we yelled as the bowl was chucked onto the pavement. The bowl shattered, and the vodka splashed in a wave. For a brief moment, there was a small, black mass on the pavement, violently twisting and sputtering before it vanished with a splash.

Before Nate or I could recover from what we saw, Kembar slapped our backs and jumped into the car. He rolled down the window and as he backed out to leave shouted, "Now the spirit is your problem, boys! Think of it as a keepsake!" And he was gone in a flash.

Thoroughly shaken and officially weirded out, Nate and I drove back home. It wasn't a day later until things started happening. Little things at first, like a book falling off the shelf or the toilet lid suddenly slamming closed, but the events quickly escalated into phantom voices and things gliding, floating, and smashing around the house.

Ever since then, Nate and I have been looking for the psychotic, drug-driven, Hippie-exorcist extraordinaire, so we could kick his ass for pawning his haunting onto us!