A Duo Of Demons

A Duo Of Demons

         “Shhh . . . I hear him. He’s coming!” The little snot-nosed demon whispered. “We’ve waited so long, Anal. Just think, a real live human!”
         “Yes, yes, Poot, a human child," he murmured. "We must be quiet and quick, now. Get ready to set the trap.”
         Matt came bursting through his bedroom door, slammed it shut, and then threw his backpack in the corner. He wanted to cry, but was too stubborn to let the tears show. His mother had just brought him home early from school. “It’s not fair!” he yelled at the door. His face was smudged with dirt and the middle knuckle on his right hand was missing a chunk of flesh and slightly bleeding. He clutched it with his other hand, squeezing it and trying to make the stinging go away. “I’m always the one who gets in trouble. I didn’t start the dumb ol’ fight! It wasn’t my fault!”
         From the other side of the door, his mother yelled back, “I’ve had it with you, mister. You’ll stay in your room until I say you can come out. And that means you can just forget about trick-or-treating!”
         Matt let out a huge sigh, then fell upon his unmade bed, the mattress springs creaking loudly. This startled the two demons, and fearing detection, they bolted into the darkest shadows.
         “He’ll squish us! He’ll squish us!” Poot screamed.
         “Shhhh . . . he’ll hear you, nitwit. Now hurry, set the trap.”
         Poot set the trap, but in the process accidentally dropped the large red marble they were to use for bait. It noisily rolled across the hardwood floor. Poot, bent low to the ground, chased it, but just as he had almost gathered the marble up, his foot kicked it rolling again and the chase started anew. As he ran by, Anal slapped him so hard on the back of his head that slime shot out of Poot’s nose and his face smashed and skidded across the
floorboards.
         “Ow! Whatcha do that for?”
         “Be quiet, ya nincompoop! Can’t you do anything right?”
         “I’m sorry, Anal,” he whispered, grabbing for the marble as it rolled around the dust bunnies.
         “I’m sorry, Anal,” Anal said, mimicking Poot’s whiny voice. “You’re always sorry! The Master will roast us if we mess this up. You know that Halloween is the only night of the year we can steal a live one.”
         “Hey, what are you little guys doing under here?” asked Matt, hanging upside down from the bed and looking intently at the little devils.
         “Ahhhh!” screamed Poot, as he ran around in circles trying to find someplace to hide.
         Anal grabbed Poot’s long pointy tail and stopped him in his tracks. “Who . . . us?” he asked, innocently. “Uh, nothing really. We’re just waiting around for you to come home, that’s all.”
         “Yeah, yeah, that’s right,” agreed Poot, wiping his nose and quickly picking up the red marble. He proudly held it out for Anal to see. “We’re just waiting around for you to come home.”
         “Wow! That’s a cool marble. Can I see it?” asked Matt.
         “Sure . . . sure you can,” said Anal as he took it from Poot. “We brought it, especially for you. It’s from the Master. He wants you to have it.”
         “The Master? Who’s that?”
         “He’s, uh . . . he’s our boss. And he made this just for you,” said Anal holding up the marble and spinning it on his fingertip like a pro basketball player. The marble began to glow a bright blood-red.
         “Let me have it!” said Matt, slipping to the floor and crawling halfway under the bed on his belly. Then he took a closer look at his uninvited guests. “You know,” he said, “you guys look a lot like little demons or something. You know, like in the cartoons! Where’d you come from anyway?”
         “That’s a good question,” said Anal, smiling devilishly.
         “Yeah,” said Poot, laughing like a lunatic. “That’s a good question.” Both the demons laughed as if sharing some dark secret.
         “So,” Anal said seriously, as he scratched at his butt, “you want the marble, or not?”
         “Yeah, sure,” the eight-year-old insisted. “Give it to me!”
         Anal sneered, showing jagged, pointy teeth. “Come and get it.”
         Poot giggled like a deranged soul. “Yeah, you want it? Come and get it.”
         Matt crawled further under the bed, then hesitated. “You two are up to something. You’re trying to trick me.”
         Anal took the marble and cradled it in his pudgy fat arms, stroking it like a pet. “It’s so beautiful, isn’t it? Don’t you want to hold it?”
         Matt made a quick grab for the marble, but the fat demon was too quick and jumped further under the bed. Then the two imps danced and giggled as they threw the marble to one another in a game of keep-away.
         “Give it to me, you little brats!”
         The demons laughed all the harder. “You can’t catch me,” teased Poot, his skinny body twisting and spinning like a grotesque dancer as he tossed the bait back to Anal.
         The marble gleamed even brighter, lighting up the dark corners beneath the bed with an unwholesome red glow. Matt furrowed his brow and became even more aggravated. Crawling out from under the bed, he glanced around his messy room for something long. He saw his baseball bat in the corner and quickly snatched it up. “I’ll show you a game,” he said with an angry gleam in his eyes. He shoved the bat under the bed and then swung it back and forth.
         “Hey, watch it!” yelled Anal.
         “Aieeee,” screamed Poot.
         Matt felt the bat strike something fleshy and heard the marble fall and roll across the floor. He quickly dropped the bat and jumped to his belly again, searching for the rolling marble. There it was. But it was just out of his reach. The demons were gone. He couldn’t see them anywhere, so he forced his body further under the bed, not thinking about anything but the bright red ball. He stretched as far as he could then finally seized it in his right hand. “Gotcha!” he said triumphantly.
         Clutching the marble tightly, Matt watched his hand turn bright red like when you shine a flashlight behind your fingers. The eerie glow continued up his arm and toward his chest. Soon his whole body was radiating with a supernatural light.
         Then the strangest thing happened . . . he began to shrink. “What the . . . ?” He shrank and shrank until he was no more than the size of the two demons. A net suddenly fell from above and covered Matt’s body. Anal and Poot, who had been clinging to the bottom of the bed, suddenly dropped down around Matt pulling on the rope that was attached to the net. Matt was roughly forced into a curled-up position as the net was yanked tighter.
         “Ha-hah! We got you now,” Poot sang out while doing a little dance.
         “I’ll take one human child to go, please,” chuckled Anal.
         “We just happen to have one ready,” snickered Poot. “Do you prefer paper or plastic?”
         “Just put it in a doggy bag. I’m in a hurry.”
         “All right, you guys, very funny. Now let me go!” yelled Matt angrily. He tried to stand but fell over heavily. “Let me go!”
         “Yeah, right,” said Poot.
         “You’re coming with us, tough guy,” teased Anal. “The Master wants you all to himself.”
         “What? You better let me go, right now!”
         “Uh, let me think about it.” He crossed his arms and tapped a little finger on his cheek. “Umm . . . . No!” He howled with laughter. “Open the door Poot, we’re outta here.”
         “Mom!” Matt screamed. “Mom! Help me! Help!”
         Poot magically pulled a marble from the air. Then setting it down, he gave it a quick spin. This marble was black and moved around in a tight circle, then sunk out of sight through the floor. The outline of a small doorway appeared, and then fully took shape. Poot opened it.
         A rank, foul odor stole the air beneath the bed as the doorway was thrown open. Matt could see a long spiral staircase twisting down into hot clouds of smoke and fumes.
         “Let’s go home, Poot. Master is waiting for his dessert.”
         When Matt heard that he desperately tried to grip the smooth wood floor and hang on, but Anal jerked him roughly toward the stairs.
         “Mom! Help! Mommy!”
         “Some tough guy, heh, Poot? Calling for his mommy.” Anal laughed as he entered the doorway, roughly dragging Matt behind.
         “Mom!”
         Poot followed them down dancing like a crazy person, then slammed the door shut closing out all Matt's screams.
         Later, his worried mom would just barely make out some small fingernail scratches beneath Matt's bed, but other than that, no one ever saw him again.