Don't touch that cigarette - My entry for the supernatural writing contest (SWC)

Don't touch that cigarette.

The following is based on a true story...I really wish I could say otherwise, but this actually happened. It's been a few years and honestly, I've done my best to forget this story, but for the sake of contributing to steemit's growing collection of supernatural stories, I'll painfully recollect what happened 10/29/13. I'm an amateur writer, forgive my slop. I'm pulling this all up from memory to the best of my ability - Bear with me.

I can't sleep with any sort of light in my face, waking up to my cat pulling my drapes down with his freakishly huge claws (seriously, no house cat should have claws like this), shining the bright october sunshine in my face after a long night of heavy drinking is the last thing I want to wake up to. I yelled at him for a few minutes, told him to burn in hell as I scrounged through a pile of books and dirty laundry to find my phone. 14 Texts, 3 missed calls. What the hell? I thought, nobody had tried to get ahold of me for days. I fumbled with the phone for a minute and struggled to remember my password, thinking the missed comm was likely all from my ex girlfriend, or someone that I had been with at the halloween party I'd attended the night before. Unlocked the phone, every message was from a good friend of mine..for privacy's sake, we'll call him Brad.

"LOLOLOLOL"

"dude can you seriouly do what you said?"

"helo"

"Baaalennnnnn dude come on im really going out of my mind like i dont know waht to doanymore I cant sleep all i do is fucking try tofade this shit ifyou can seriously do that for me.."

"ill pay u lol"

The messages went on and on, I had no idea what he was talking about. I shut my phone and brushed it off as Brad just being Brad. Brad had lost his girlfriend recently to a heroin overdose, it left him utterly devestated. He spent most of his time looking for drinking buddies (frequently, me), looking for drugs, and sitting at his computer desk staring out the window for what seemed like days at a time without muttering a word to a soul. I forced myself out of bed, fixed my drape half-assedly and made my way down the slippery, ancient-wooden stairs of the new house I'd been forced to live in - I hated it. Waking up in the place was reminiscent of waking up in the amityville house, it was old, drafty, creaky, and everything I hate about aging real estate with over-hyped "Charm!" "Character!" "Just look at the crown moulding!" and so on. I hadn't made it off the last step before my phone started vibrating in my flanel pajama pant pocket. I didn't remember putting on any pajamas the night before, I never wear pajamas. I fished my phone out - Brad calling. I sighed as I flipped it open (still miss that flip phone..) curious to see what he was going on about while I'd been passed out.

"Sup brudda? Why you blowin me up?" I chuckled, nothing in response.

"Dude?...Brad?"

"Yeah...look I know you probably think im nuts waking up to all that shit dude but I seriously need your help, I dont know anyone else that's into that kind of shit"

"What kind of shit?"

"Occulty shit..witchcraft, seances, weird shit..you're always talking about that kind of crap, i dont know anything about it but sometimes you're pretty convincing..I need to talk to Amber dude, i never thought -"

I cut him off.

"Brad..c'mon brother, don't do this to yourself anymore..you GOTTA let it go. She was sick, you guys had 5 good years together, take that and run with it bro, she's smilin' down on you..leave it at that, don't get weird on me..im into some weird shit but i don't fuck with the dead, that's never a good idea"

He raised his voice a little bit, think I pissed him off but someone needed to set him straight..he wasn't having it.

"BULLSHIT. You've bragged about being able to do it before! What, you think im going nuts or something? YOU'RE nuts, YOU'RE the one that's into this shit, YOU'RE the one"

"Brad.."

"Ohhh guys listen, shh, the flames! Listen to the candle flames!"

"Dude seriously, knock it off. What, you want me to bring my quija board over? Your little sister home? Wanna invite her friends over and make a slumber party out of it?, play chrades?"

"YES, bring it over."

To save you all from the debacle of reading what turned out to be an almost two hour long conversation, explaining the details of the seriousness of the ritual I was now planning to him, that it was NOT a joke, that my board was NOT made by Hasbro, and that there could be some serious reprocussions..he persisted that I not come to his apartment, but that he come to my creepy new house. Great, I thought. I'm no wimp, but I know better than to hold a seance in my own house, especially contacting the spirit of a recently dead, young junkie that by no means wanted to die. Amber was a beautiful girl with a big heart, enslaved by a disease that has now claimed many from my generation..but she wasn't without her mean streak. Amber, like me, had alot of strange interests, one being the belief that she would never be allowed into heaven, and that she was to wicked for hell. We would laugh about this from time to time..I was never one to believe in that sort of theory, even with my slew of strange beliefs.

That isn't the case anymore.

Brad showed up at my back door at 11:00 P.M. sharp...I wasn't sure how he had gotten to the back door or why he hadn't come to the front. The yard was completely fenced off, and the back door from the outside looked as if it hadn't been used in a century. Did he hop the fence, intrigued by my delapitated, old back door? Weird, I wrote it off. I fumbled with the door for a minute..we had only been in the house for a few days, moving from an apartment complex two towns over. I was used to the big buildings, traffic and modern housing - I by no means wanted to hold a seance in the amityville house with my buddy that was now rapidly losing his marbles.

I should have known better.

I showed Brad around the house, he took careful note of the aformentioned crown moulding, creaky wooden floors, and the eerie cold draft that consistently blew through the house..at times, in the dark, stepping on a creaky floor board as a sudden cold burst of air hits the back of your neck? Hair raising in of itself. I led Brad up to what was quickly becoming my Study..or office area, where I would sit and monitor cryptocurrency prices and write angry political rants by the dozen for hours on end, pausing only to strum a few chords on my Father's acoustic guitar (R.I.P old yeller, i'm not sure what happened to it), to grab a beer, or to gaze out my own window for hours on end...I hadn't been in the best shape myself, sometimes, I even felt like Brad. I pulled out the quija board I'd picked up on a road trip to Salem M.A that I'd taken a few years prior. The store I bought it from no longer exists, and was run out of what seemed to be the front room of an old woman's house.

"WITCHCRAFT, OCCULT, NEW AGE CURIOS&ARTIFACTS", The sign that previously stood outside the house read.

For $50, the board was the only souviner I'd brought back with me from the trip, it came with a pretty neat story on how the woman had used it to contact her husband who had drowned 11 years prior in a boating accident..she didn't seem hesitant to get rid of it. Odd...right?
I had Brad carve a few runic inscriptions on several candles I had placed around the room - all of different colors. White, light yellow, and dark blue being the majority, a single black candle stood unlit in a circle drawn near the top-center of the board. I inscribed a pentacle onto the candle with a sewing needle I had used for candle inscription before, Brad took a seat beside me and set a pack of Marlboro Lights down between us. It had been a few days since I'd had a smoke, and I was a bit nervous to be quite honest...I didn't have any of my own as I was trying to quit, I shakingly (why was I already shaking?) reached for the pack, picking it up and flipping it open - One cigarette, placed upside down. Brad seemed to be entranced by the black candle at this point, studying the quija board with his fingertips and whispering to himself..I couldn't hear what he was saying. His dark brown eyes seemed to take on a shade of black as his pupils widened in the dim candlelit room, he was starting to freak me out a little..and we hadn't even started. I pulled the cigarette from the pack, Brad instantaneously snapped out of his trance and grabbed my wrist with a squeeze unlike anything I'd ever felt in my entire life. I gasped, startled.

"DON'T...TOUCH...THAT...CIGARETTE....EVER!!!!!!!"

Brad's shout echoed throughout the empty, hauntingly cold house. We were alone at the time, my mother being out of town on a business trip with her new fiance, at this point, I was glad for that.
I pulled my wrist from Brad's grasp and just..stared at him in awe, my mouth gaping open slightly I'm sure, I put the cig back in the pack and set it down on the floor next to the board.

"That..was her last lucky cigarette...that was the only thing I took when I found her..please, don't touch that bro"

I was a little creeped out by the fact that he had taken his dead girlfriend's last cigarette, but who was I to judge? I smiled, patted him on the shoulder, told him it was alright and that I wouldn't, and began the ritual. I started off by saying the lords prayer several times, followed by the hail mary, I splashed holy water on myself and Brad - Brad laughed. I followed up with a prayer spoken in old norse, and placed my fingers on the planchet, Brad placed a single finger next to my diamond shaped hand formation. I took a deep breath, I spoke her first and last name aloud three times in a very stern, demanding voice. Brad's eyes darted around the room in anticipation, as if he expected something to happen, nothing happened, regardless..

"I think I heard something! Did you hear that?!"

"No, the house always sounds like that brother, focus"

I again spoke her full name aloud three times, I demanded she make contact with us...guess I shouldn't have been so rude. Every single hair on my entire body stood up as I heard the exact sound of someone coming up the spiral staircase, towards my living quarters of the house (I had the entire upper level to myself). My heart fell to my feet, the planchette moved slightly.

"H....H"

"Double H? H double hockey sticks? Dude, did you do that? Don't fuck with me?"

"I didn't do anything"

The footsteps got closer, and I could hardly believe what I was hearing or feeling, I took my hand off of the planchette, totally freaked out, and stood to investigate the footsteps coming from just outside the door to the study..
I heard a lighter strike behind me.
I turned around and looked at Brad, who was now taking a deep, satisfying drag on Amber's last lucky cigarette. Something instantly unsettled me, my heart was ready to jump from my chest, Brad gave me an eerie smile...then began crying hysterically. He puffed as fast as he could and looked like a smoking mad man in the shadowy glimmer of the dancing candlelights that surrounded him, smoke danced in front of his face and seemed to simmer rather than rise, he started to sing the same line over and over again, in the eeriest, almost girlish tone that I've ever heard emitted from a man's mouth to this day.

"Come awayyyyy...comeee awayyy with meee...comeee awayyy...come awayyy with meee.."

He looked down at the floor, at the board, then his eyes met mine.

"Would you go away if she asked you to?" he giggled.

This was too much, the room was freezing cold, the footsteps outside the door had stopped right in front of it..as if someone was waiting for me to open it, Brad had gone mad, I had to end it. I began blowing out the candles one by one and flipped the light on, Brad stamped the cigarette out on my quija board and leaped to his feet.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?! STOP! SHE'S HERE! SHE'S HERE!"

I grabbed both of his arms, gave him a little shake and promptly told him to knock it off, I told him that this was dangerous and that we needed to stop immediately. He headbutted me with the force of a mack truck, my head cocked back and I lost my grip on him. He began clearing everything off of my computer desk with his forearm, kicking things as he stormed out of my room, shouting incoherant babble to himself all the way down the stairs. I was quite honestly? horrified. I sat down on the floor for a minute and stared at the last burning white candle, sort of in amazement...sort of just, too scared to move. I was convinced I had invited something into my new, already potentially haunted house..and in the coming days, I was sure of it. Electronics started to malfunction regularly - that was the biggest thing. I couldn't watch a full T.V show or write a full article without the device I was using suddenly dying, freezing for no reason, etc. The back door that Brad had insisted on using earlier that night, in the following days, was frequently found slightly ajar when we would wake up in the morning..I was yelled at several times by my mother.

"Don't use that door, that stoop out there is dangerous".

I never used that door.

I had several nightmares about Amber in the coming nights, and frequently felt as if I were being watched..once, I shit you not steemit, I swear I could even hear her whisper "Comeeee awayyyy" as I woke up in a state of sleep paralysis early one morning. I cursed the day not that I decided to help Brad, but that I bought the quija board itself..oh, and as for Brad?

Brad went home that night and attempted suicide by hanging, he was largely unsucsessful (Brad is a big man, his support beam was a shower bar, he only ended up with a sore bottom and a bruised ego), after which he packed up his things and left town. I've talked to Brad on only four occasions since that night, and he never has much to say...and as of 7 months ago, his facebook and twitter pages have gone inactive, his phone disconnected long before that.

So steemit, that's my story - I apologize for any flaws and misspellings but, I haven't had much motivation to write again until recently, and I wrote this in somewhat of a hurry...I really just wanted to get it out there for the contest, but in all seriousness?

Don't mess with quija boards in your own house, and when a friend shouts "DON'T TOUCH THAT CIGARETTE!" at you, seriously, just ask him to leave and come back another time...politely.

Thanks for reading,
-Balen