Creepy Short Stories

The Devil Game

In order to contact your conversational partner, you'll need to go to a church at midnight. It doesn't matter what kind of church – large or small, old or new, liberal or conservative – just as long as you're sure it will be empty. The last thing you want is for some preacher to walk in on you while you're in the middle of this (for the sake of the preacher's well-being, as much as your own). The process will probably work best if you try it on a new moon, or a full moon, or Friday the 13th, or Halloween... the actual day is less important that the psychological effect it has on you (as long as you don't try it on Christmas Eve or something stupid like that, you should be fine).

The time IS important, though. You don't have to start or end your ritual at exactly 12:00:00am Greenwich Atomic time or anything, but as a general rule of thumb you ought to show up a bit before midnight and have everything set up by no later than ten or fifteen after. Show up a LOT before midnight if you don't know how you're going to get in. Shockingly enough, most Houses of God do tend to lock their doors at night, at least if no one's there to watch over them (and remember, we want EMPTY, got it?)

There are, of course, certain things you need to bring, and certain things you can't bring. For this ritual, you will NEED:
• A full can of salt – you won't need to use all of it, but it's always better to have more than you need than to have less.
• Seven candles, red or white being preferable.
• Something to light the candles with. You would be shocked how often people forget this. Occult ritual or not, they aren't going to magically light themselves!
• A length of red string, rope, yarn, or thread.
• A full-length floor or wall mirror. Ideally, you'll want to find one of these already present in the church (they're a bit unwieldy to be lugging around with you during a break-in). However, if there really aren't any there, you'll have to bring your own.

You might also find it useful to bring some markers, pencils, paper, a flashlight, and any sort of tools that might be necessary to secure your entrance into the church.

You will NOT be permitted to bring in any electronic or timekeeping devices. THIS INCLUDES all cell phones, smartphones, tablets, E-Readers, mp3 players, PDAs, calculators, wristwatches, pocket watches, kitchen timers, hourglasses, etc, etc, etc. (Seriously, it's worse than the SAT.) If you're one of those people that has your smartphone practically wired into your brain, don't worry – you can bring those things with you to the church as long as you leave them OUTSIDE the room in which you will be doing the ritual. If you brought a flashlight (helpful for finding your way around without attracting unwanted attention), leave that outside too.

Also, don't bring in any sort of religious paraphernalia to protect you, especially if it pertains to the Abrahamic religions. (And yes, if those goth-y black cross earrings you're wearing are hanging right-side up, they count.) If you have any kind of holy symbols like that with you, the Devil will simply refuse to show up.

Don't worry, you're not going in totally unprotected. In fact, most of the supplies with you are not for any sort of Devil-summoning ritual, but for your own protection – old superstitions and folk magic remedies to guard oneself from evil. From what I know of it, the effect's mostly based on the power of belief, so there are probably numerous other objects, artifacts, and procedures that would work just as well. If you'd like to risk being left helpless at the mercy of the Devil in order to test that theory, feel free to experiment! However, for anyone without a psychotic death wish, I'd recommend sticking to the ritual as follows:

Once you're sure you have all the right supplies with you, make your way into the church and find someplace to set up. It can be anywhere from the main sanctuary where services are held, to a Sunday school classroom, to a walk-in supply closet – as long as you have a sufficient amount of open floor space and are certain not to be disturbed. Set up your mirror first – this is where the Devil will appear when you summon him. As such, you mustn't complete the summoning until you've laid down certain wards around it.