"Where?" I said, eyes widening.
"At the window! Coming in!" Trix yelled. He pointed, arm shaking wildly with fear.
"I can't see anything," Salt frowned.
"I can! It's a ghost!"
"Then it can't kill us," I laughed.
"The chainsaw is definitely real."
"Crap!"
"Trix, we're going to have to trust you," Salt said. "You have to direct us as to where to move so that we don't die."
"Um, okay," Trix said nervously. "Pepper, duck."
I did as he said and threw myself to the floor. Something whacked into my stomach and I rolled left, joining Cat under the bed.
"What was that?" I wheezed, glaring up at Trix.
"I told you to duck," he said. "Not throw yourself onto the floor. You just got a boot in your stomach. Salt, dodge to your left, now."
Salt slid sideways, hitting the bed and flipping over. His tail snagged the duvet and it fell on top of him. He yelled and lashed out, looking like a giant, cream-coloured fabric monster.
"You two are stupid," Trix hissed, lying on top of the bed and staring at me angrily. "He'll cut you in half! Talking of that, roll back under the bed."
I rolled my eyes before sliding sideways and hiding. There was a revving noise and a blade sliced through the mattress, feathers flying everywhere.
"Trix?" Salt shouted, his voice muffled. "Are you still alive?"
"Yes. Salt, to the floor, now!" was the reply.
Salt skidded across the wooden floor in all his duvet glory, tangled worse than before but with even more protection.
"Where is he now?" I asked Trix.
"The corner of the room, heading towards you. He can't see properly because of his mask."
"Mask?"
"Didn't I describe him?" Trix sounded surprised.
"No, you did not," Salt said through gritted teeth. "Hopefully you were concentrating on keeping us alive."
"Oh. Sorry," Trix said sadly.
"You can describe him, Trix," I said, staring at the bottom of my bed, trying not to sneeze.
"Really?"
"Get on with it!" Salt snapped.
"Well, he's tall. He has blood all over his clothes, more prominent on his dungarees. Yeah, thick, rubbery dungarees is what he's wearing. More of a fashion mistake than that silver shirt. He also has white gloves and, er, nothing on beneath the dungarees. He has thick boots with spikes by the toes. A chainsaw, not an axe, sorry, I got carried away." He smiled sheepishly.
"A mask, like I said. Rounded with small holes for the eyes and three where his mouth should be. No hair, as far as I can see. He smells like rotting meat."
"We can smell that," I grimaced.
"Okay, um, the mask is dirty white with what looks like either blood or faeces on."
"Ew!" Salt said. "Hopefully neither!"
"Um... what else?" Trix thought for several seconds. "Oh yeah, he's looking directly at you, Pepper."
I swore and sneezed, hitting my head on the iron bedframe. Eyes watering and head ringing I wriggled across the ground, almost reaching the other bed when I realised something.
"My leg's caught," I said in a whisper.
"What on?" Salt asked. "I still can't see. This duvet is beginning to suffocate me, too."
"I can't look back," I replied, beginning to panic.
"Why not?"
"I... I just can't... I've been putting off the claustrophobia of these beds for so long but now... I'm trapped. My leg is trapped. Oh hell. Oh freaking hell. What if it's that madman? He has a chainsaw, right? What if I lose my leg? What if I die from blood loss? What if he just keeps on cutting until I'm a load of pieces on the floor?" I was crying out of fear and desperation. "And it's a ghost! I can't even fight him properly! I can't wriggle away using superspeed! I'm trapped! I'm going to die!" I howled the last bit, shaking all over.
"I would try and help, but I don't think he'll be deterred," Trix apologised. "Madmen are like that. Determined."
"Trix, you are not helping!"
"I never said I was going to."
"Trix, you get my brother out of this damn mess or I'll send all the demons of hell after you!" Salt screamed. The usual calmness that surrounded him had been replaced by a fury unlike that I'd ever seen or sensed before, pure hatred beginning to burn the sheet covering Salt's head.
"I thought you were in purgatory?" Trix teased. Salt growled and the sheet went up in flames. When the smoke and burning brightness had cleared Salt had drastically changed.
His skin was darker than before, taking on a reddish hue. His hair was still white but it crackled with white fire, the same colour bursting from his hands every two seconds. His nails were long and black, more like talons. The curled horns had straightened out and had gone darker, rougher. His tail was sharpened and dripped with blood, the substance vanishing the second it hit the floor.
The white suit he'd worn before had also changed. Instead he had a black jacket, ripped at the edges with no sleeves. He had no shirt on beneath but his skin was an even darker shade of red. Somehow he'd also gained a lot of muscles and white scars.
Salt raised his head and snarled at Trix. His teeth were sharp, glowing fangs and his eyes had no pupils, just pure amber in colour.
He stood up and I was relieved to see that he hadn't grown any taller. That would have been truly frightening but a 5'7" Satan wasn't as scary.
When he stood I also noticed that his trousers were altered. Held up by a thick belt with regularly positioned places for various weapons on it that wasn't the only interesting thing. They were shorter, rolled up and made only of thin cotton.
"Better hope you don't get a boner in them," Trix said, pushing the limits of Salt's already stretched kindness.
Salt growled and held out his left hand. A large, forked staff materialised in his palm and he gripped it, angling it at Trix's head.
"Do not irritate me right now," Salt warned. "It is not a good day to be a bad guy."
"I'm not a bad guy," Trix protested. "He is." He pointed to what I could only assume was the mad axe murderer that was just behind me.
"Well then he's about to die," Salt hissed, spinning the staff around and hurling it at the ghostly man.
Black blood spread from where the prongs struck impact and soon the madman was visible. He was exactly as Trix described, down to the blood splatters and mysterious dark stains on his face.
"He'll burn in hell," Salt said as the man vanished. "He's died twice. Obviously escaped through some kind of portal and then went on a murder spree. Hopefully he was only attracted to where I was so we were the first he attacked."
"Then can I go and kill the people he was going to murder?" Trix asked hopefully. Salt glared at him, raising his eyebrows.
"Do you want me to burn you alive?" he snapped. Trix raised his hands, shuffling backwards on my bed. He still hadn't moved since telling me to roll back under the bed.
"You're definitely in hell then," I said flatly, darting from underneath the bed and leaning against the wall, rubbing some life back into my dead legs, one at a time. I also couldn't stop sneezing.
"Damn, it's dusty in here," I said between sneezes. "And also frightening. Can we leave?"
"Where are we going to go? Death Valley?" Trix scoffed. "It'd be accurate with me seeing ghosts and Satan over there suddenly transforming."
"I can be normal, y'know," Salt scowled. There was a flash of white fire and when it cleared he was the same as before, white hair, white skin and normal red eyes.
"So what the hell was that?" I asked him.
"My power. I can do all of that, become a fully fledged fighting thing."
"So you have a demon?"
"No," Salt corrected, grinning, "I am a demon."