Sydne Aguilar

Group B
4/19/18
Short story intro: Death Row

The silence of the frat house’s attic was almost deafening after the loud thumping of the bass
that had been playing since early afternoon. Brian hadn’t even known the house had an attic.
Although, if he was being honest with himself, most things did tend to slip past him.

It was bid night, and he was supposed to be celebrating. Had been celebrating. He was a bit
surprised that he had gotten picked up by the frat at all, but who was he to question the
judgement of his new inner circle of bros?

Brian had been drunk, beer sloshing around the cup he held tightly as he stumbled around the
house on a quest for more alcohol. His new brothers had been high-fiving and slapping him on
the back whenever he walked past them, and unknown hot girls had been pressing up against
him all night. One had even stolen his hat, which. Not cool, but whatever.

He’d been about to go and find his best bro Casey to be his double at beer pong, when he’d
turned the corner and run smack into Tyler’s massive, intimidating chest. Tyler, the president of
the frat, who for some reason seemed to hate Brian’s guts.

Brian didn’t know what Tyler’s problem with him was. He wasn’t afraid of him, no matter what
anyone (Casey) said, but it would be nice to know that everyone in frat actually wanted him
around.

The unfortunate colliding incident had resulted in Brian’s warm cup of beer flying all over
Tyler’s shirt. Tyler had immediately put him in a headlock that felt far more threatening than
just bros messing around, giving him a shake that rattled Brian’s teeth around his head and
caused his vision to blur.

Well. Blurrier than it already was from the alcohol, anyway.

“Watch it, little bro,” Tyler had growled, tightening his arm the more Brian had tried to twist
away.

Eventually Tyler had gotten bored and pushed him away, baring his teeth at Brian in what he
could only call a grimace, eyes hard and unfriendly as he swiped at his wet shirt with his hand.

Brian had slinked around the empty hallways of the house for a while after, trying to give Tyler
time to cool off, when he noticed that the laundry room he had wandered into (and was
definitely not hiding in) had a hatch in the ceiling. When he’d pulled on the cord, a ladder had
folded out. Perfect.
Or so he’d thought. An hour had passed and now Brian was sitting gloomily on the dusty floor
of the attic, getting soberer by the minute because he’d forgotten to bring any alcohol. He
would come down eventually, he told himself. He was just…taking his time about it.

His phone vibrated in his pocket.

Casey: Wher you? need partner beer pong!!

Brian: Cant. In attic

Casey: We have one of those???

Brian: Laundry room. Bring booze

Twenty minutes passed with no response from Casey. Brian was just eyeing the pile of trash
bags in the corner, thinking maybe he could make a pillow out of one of them, when Casey’s
blonde head popped up from the ladder below.

Brian didn’t scream, but it was a close thing.

“Talking to the ghosts up here, bro?”

Brian squinted blearily at him.

Casey looked around. “I didn’t even know we had one of these.”

Brian rolled his eyes. “You said that already.”

“Hiding from Tyler? I heard him downstairs telling Matty what a dumbass you are.” Great.

“Sucks, man,” Casey continued, punching Brian in the shoulder as he climbed past him.

No sympathy anywhere.

“Cheer up. I stole some of Tyler’s shitty IPA out of the fridge for you.”

Brian perked up and held out his fist. “Bro.”

He cracked open one of the cans and took a long swig, watching Casey drunkenly blunder
around the attic and set off little dust clouds with each step. The attic was mostly filled with the
shit the frat had accumulated over the years. Nothing too exciting had been discovered by Brian
in his early explorations.

“Brian! Come check this out.”

Brian groaned as he got to his feet, knees creaking. Casey had apparently become entranced by
the giant pile of old books that had been dumped in the corner.

He whistled. “Don’t hurt yourself trying to read those, man.”

Casey didn’t even blink. “Is this English, or am I just really drunk?”

Brian looked down at the page that Casey had flipped to, trying to make sense of the letters
that seemed to be swimming across his vision.

“Ignis spiritus chao, meum et vocavi te,” Casey sounded out slowly. “I think it’s, like,
Portuguese.”

Brian’s eyes were getting heavy. He sat down and slowly slid sideways until his head was
pillowed on the floor. He was so tired.

“Life up, bro,” he heard Casey say from far away. He raised his head and felt something slide
underneath. He opened his eyes. It was a deflated soccer ball.

“What are you going to use?” it came out all garbled, but hopefully Casey would understand.
There was no response, and when he slitted his eyes open to check, Casey was passed out next
to him, head propped up by a trash bag filled with…something.

Brian shivered. Did it feel colder in here than it was a minute ago? Using up the last of his
effort, he grabbed an empty trash bag and pulled it over his legs as a blanket.

Good enough.

***

Brian woke up the next morning to weak sunlight filtering through the attic windows, a
pounding headache, and Casey’s white face two inches from his.

“Brian. Get the fuck up,” Casey whispered, his beer breath causing Brian’s stomach to roll
unpleasantly.

Brian turned onto his other side.

“Brian. There’s something in the corner, and I need you to tell me if you see it too.”

“Christ, fine. Fine!” He opened one eye and finally looked towards where Casey was frantically
jerking his head.
He quickly shut his eye. Opened both of them. Rubbed at them with his fingers and squinted,
eyes watering. That was definitely a man sitting on the pile of sheets in the corner. Except he
had…horns. And a tail. And was flickering in and out of focus like a bad connection on the
Playstation.

What the fuck.

Brian jumped a foot in the air when Casey started to babble again. “What do we do? It doesn’t
look very friendly.”

Brian rubbed his temples. “First of all, it’s obviously not real, dumbass. We’re just really
hungover or something. Must’ve been whatever was in Tyler’s crap beer.”

“Who’s Tyler?” the thing suddenly said, looking intrigued. “And you’re not dreaming. I’m as real
as you two.”

Casey yelped and skittered backwards on his ass, feet flailing.

“What do you want, ghost?” Brian asked. He could play at this until their brains decided to
unscramble, he decided.

“Demon, not ghost. And how should I know? You summoned me,” it said haughtily. It was still
sitting on the pile of sheets. Now that Brian could see better, its face more resembled a rubber
mask of a man than any actual human. Its body was short and stubby and wearing a black robe,
with hoofs instead of feet peeking out the bottom. Its pupils were sideways.

Brian narrowed his eyes. “Um, we definitely didn’t. How would we know how to do that?”

“Your friend read my summoning spell out of that spell book over there. ‘Ignis spiritus chao,
meum et vocavi te’, ring any bells?”

“How was I supposed to know what that meant? I don’t speak Portuguese.”

“It was in Latin—”

“Don’t be offended, ghost. Casey barely even knows how to speak English—”

“Hey!” and “I’m a demon,” both rang out simultaneously.

Casey suddenly grabbed Brian’s shoulder and herded to him to the far corner of the room.

“What are we going to do? I can’t believe we accidently summoned a demon,” Casey moaned,
looking almost tearful. “Do you think they’ll kick us out?”
“No, because we’re going to get rid of him before anyone finds out,” hissed Brian, struggling
not to just strangle Casey himself. Casey had been the one to read that fucking spell out loud.
Casey was the world’s biggest idiot, a fact Brian forgot most of the time because he did good
bro things like keep Brian company in the attic and let him use the soccer ball pillow.

But on the other hand, Brian had told Casey to come find him in the attic in the first place.
Casey had brought him booze. He was a good bro. The best. It wasn’t his fault that they were
having an insane double hallucination.

“Maybe if we ignore him, he’ll leave,” Brian whispered. He chanced a glance over at the demon.

It waved at them.

“I’m looking up demon banishment on Wikipedia right now!” Casey yelled back, brandishing his
phone.

The demon’s horns seemed to flicker a little. “Come on, boys. Don’t you have someone you’d
like to set a little chaos on? An unreasonable teacher? Some girl who broke your heart?”

Brian’s head immediately conjured up an image of Tyler, shoving Brian into his sweaty armpit
the previous night. He shook his head. Sure, he hated Tyler, but he didn’t want him to end up
headless in a ditch somewhere. Not really, anyway.

Casey, meanwhile, had his head titled to one side like he was thinking deeply. He looked
conflicted.

“Our frat president, Tyler. He’s an asshole to Brian,” Casey suddenly said, traitorously.

“Casey. What are you doing,” hissed Brian, knuckling him in the ribs. Casey didn’t even blink.

The demon smiled triumphantly. “I won’t kill him, or anything. Just have some fun, scare him a
bit. Move his clothes around, hide his keys, etc. It’s been so long since I’ve felt useful. Let me
have this, just for a few days.”

Casey turned back to Brian. “That seems reasonable.”

What was with this attitude reversal? Casey was the worst kind of bro, no matter how many
soccer ball pillows he sacrificed for Brian in the future.

The demon stuck out its hand, baring its teeth in the scariest smile Brian had ever seen. “So we
have a deal?”

“Just a few days?” Casey said, holding his hand just out of reach. Brian rubbed his temples.
“I promise.”

“Cool. Just don’t possess Tyler or anything, alright? And only mess with him. We like everyone
else.”

The demon was almost vibrating with glee, the sharpness of its body still fading in and out but
now also starting to glow. Brian felt ill.

“Have fun out there, man,” said Casey, grinning and presenting his fist to the demon.

The demon did one of its terrifying grins again, reaching out and putting both of its hands on
top of their heads. It felt like a hot brand, and Brian swore for a second that the demon’s horns
glowed red.

With a pop, it vanished.

“I can’t believe we haunted the frat house, bro.” Casey said, yawning. “Tyler’s gonna flip. You’re
welcome, by the way.”

Brian gritted his teeth.