This is my third story I've shared with my little sister for her ongoing project of chronicling all possible  ghostly and paranormal encounters that have taken place in and around Benton. I'm flattered my stories are included. According to an old family legend, the gift of clairvoyance is supposed to run in the Bell family. My late mother Lisa Avery Bell was supposed to have the gift. I suppose she passed that gift onto me and my sister. Anyway putting that aside let's get down to business shall we? You want to be scared, and I have just the tell for you.

I was fourteen when my father was killed in a tragic accident at the cement plant he was working at. Shortly after that my mom kicked me out of the house for reasons I'm not going to go into here. But, as luck would have had it, my dad's dad. My grandfather and grandmother decided to take me in. I was fourteen and a half when I came to live in Benton. I was bitter, swollen, wrecked with feelings of insecurity and apprehension about my future. And above all I was mad, mad at the world, mad at God and mad at my mom. 

My grandmother, God bless her soul, understood this and did her best to step into the role of make-shift mother. I owe her a debt that can never be repaid as she came beside me and walked me through those teenage years. Including a period of time that became enthralled with Gothic culture. I mean for a good two or three years most if not all of my casual clothing came from Hot Topic. And I mean all, including the dress I wore to Sunday Services down at the local Episcopal Church. To this day, I'm amazed that old Father John Martin tolerated it. I mean St. Mary's at the time  was a very orthodox parish. With many of the leading members of the church very averse to change or innovation and many of them held to very traditional and outdated values. 

Anyway, when I was going through my Gothic period, I started to play around with a old Ouija Board I found in one of the charity shops in town. I found the board one day tucked into a dusty, cobweb coated corner of the shop. The tattered cardboard box had a good three or four inches of dust caked on it. A yellow, peeling sticker taped to the corner showed the price was two dollars. And that was a bargain for me. 

Now I'd been warned growing up not to play with such things. After all every Christian denomination I can name warned against them, saying playing with such things is a gateway to demonic possession. Heck it's the only thing most agree on. That and rock and roll will damn you to the fires of hell, grandfather and grandmother often rolled their eyes at such comments. Anyway I loved drama and have always loved the theater.  While my peers were into Twilight, I was consuming such classics as Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and A Midsummer's Night's Dream. Those plays written by William Shakespeare, bound in paper and sold at five dollars a piece gave wings to my fantasies, voices to my thoughts and allowed me to escape for a moment the teenage angst that plagued me.   

I feel I must mention all of this because in my mind, I saw myself acting out a play. One that I was director and sole cast member of. You see, dear readers, the local Southern Baptist Church you see had taken it upon themselves at the time to lay around town a number of comic tracks by the most famous or infamous I should say of cartoonists. His name was Jack Chick and he was most well known for the publication of cartoon tracks that promoted a really unhinged version of Christianity. 

I mean at the time I looked the part. I saw myself playing the main villainess in such a track. With my jet black dress, black hair with streaks of white in the bangs. Black Lipstick, dark eyeliner, black nail polish, fishnet stocking, black fingerless gloves. And black boots. And of course a black leather choker with spikes on it. I scared most of the normal kids at school and that was just fine. And so I bought it, as a goof you know. 

Something to scare the baptist at school with. And maybe, some part of me, an inner voice wanted me to use the board to reach across the void. Yes, I wanted to reach across the void and contact daddy once more. I wanted to tell him that I loved him and that I missed him. And yes, I wanted to tell him what a bitch mom had turned out to be. Anyway I brought the board, paid two dollars, plus fourteen cents Mississippi sales tax and went home with my new toy. Once I reached home, I dashed to my room and hid the board under my bed. 

Later that night, around midnight when I was sure grandmother and grandfather had fallen fast asleep, I pulled out the board from its hiding spot under my bed. I then placed the board on the floor and lit three purple candles. Once the candles were lit. I placed the planchette down upon the board and in a soft, clear voice said the first thing that came to mind.

“Ouija” I cried out. “I want to contact my daddy.” And with that I placed my index finger on the planchette and much to my amazement it started to move. And soon shot to the 'Hello' written at  the top.  My heart started to pound and I believe it jumped into my throat. 

“Daddy?” I asked, taking a deep breath and once again the planchette started to move, this time it shot to the 'No' written at the bottom of the board. I frowned a little. “Then who am I talking to?” I asked again. And soon the name  'Zozo' was spelled out. I was puzzled by this.

“What or who is Zozo?” I asked and once more the planchette started to move, this time it spelled out the word 'Demon' at this I  felt my blood run cold. But I decided to roll with it. After all, this was kind of cool, I mean believe it or not it's every Gothic girl's dream to summon a demon using an Ouija board. Sarcasm aside I did feel the palm of my hand starting to sweat a little as I took a deep breath. Part of me wanted this to be real, you know, like part of me felt I could use this new found knowledge to take revenge on my mom.

“Will you serve me Zozo?” I asked as I felt my fingers start to tremble. Once more the planchette started to move around the board this time it zoomed toward 'No' again and hovered over it for a good thirty seconds before spelling out the word 'I' followed by 'Will' that was followed by a 'Haunt' and finally 'You'. I was at a loss for words as I sounded out the letters that formed that simple sentence. Putting them all together was this thing saying it was going to haunt me. 

The board started to shake a little. And soon the planchette moved over the letters that spelled out the following words. The first turned my blood to icy water. 'I' then came 'Will' that was followed by 'Kill' and the last word really drove the message home 'You'. 

I was freaked out beyond belief let me tell you. I shoved that board back into its tattered box and tossed the box back under my bed. I was trembling, and starting to sweat. I remember slowly getting up from the floor of my bedroom and carefully creeping down the hallway to the kitchen. The whole feeling of the house seemed to change. It felt like something or somebody was watching me. I eased into the kitchen and fixed myself a cool glass of chocolate milk and then slowly eased into bed. But sleep would not come to me, nor did it come to me for several nights after that. Each time I felt like I was about to fall asleep, I felt something touching the spine of my back. Once the heavy cotton covers of my bed went flying off and the pillow my head was resting on was pulled right out from underneath me.

I knew it had to be Zozo, but I was frightened. Frightened of the demon and frightened of what my grandmother and grandfather would say if I'd told them I'd been playing around with a Ouija Board. I mean hell I've already been kicked out of one household, I figured once they learned I'd been playing around with an Ouija board they would have booted me right into a foster home. This was untrue of course, but as they say hindsight can be a bitch. I guess that was Zozo too, playing off my fears. 

Soon those sleepless nights started to become something more, I started to become plagued by shadows that would dart around the room. At Mass, I'll get head splitting headaches every time I peered up at the bronze crucifix that stood upon the altar. At communion the sight of the host would feel me with dread, anger and fear. Taking it felt like swallowing a burning hot ember of coal. The consecrated wine burned my tongue like acid. After a while I stopped attending Mass. Saying I was sick, I would hide away in bed, my covers pulled over my head. Trembling from top to bottom. When my grandmother came to collect me for Mass, I would say I was sick or something. And she'll let me spend the rest of the day in bed. 

For weeks this kept up. Each time something odd would happen, I would pull out the Ouija board and try to contact dad for help. Instead Zozo or one of his friends would come through and despite my pleading they all wanted the same thing, one said they wanted my soul the other said they wanted me dead. Another said it wanted to drag me into Hell.

Finally, I was fed up with the board. I steeled myself to burn the thing, instead of burning it, I tossed it into the creek that runs by my house, the creek is deep, and it's more or less like a small river. It's deep enough that catfish, bass and other fish can live in it. Anyway late one night, I slipped out the back door dressed in only my nightdress, barefooted as the day I was born and without giving it a second thought I threw that board as hard as I could into the water. The moment I heard it splash into the murky water was the moment I felt I could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

That feeling of relief though was short lived, sure the board might have been gone. I was still on Zozo's hit list it seemed. The attacks became more frequent and more brutal. Up till now, Zozo and his friends seemed happy just to menace me, stalk me, frighten me. But now they seemed to reach out and touch me. I'll give you an example, every time I climb the staircase at school, I could feel a hand reaching out to push me. Every time I'll be walking near an edge, I would feel like something was trying to shove me off the railing. Every time I showered, I felt somebody or something was peering out at me. And every time I tried to sleep I would feel what felt like thousands of fingers starting to thread themselves around my neck. I would wake up coughing, hacking, wheezing and struggling to breath. 

In response to this, I started to skip my classes that were held on the upper floor of the school. I stopped showering, I drank a ton of coffee to keep me up. But those few times I fell asleep, visions of hell filled my dreams. Vivid images of hell. Kind of reminded me of those Renaissance paintings of hell you see from time to time. The ones with people bleeding out, getting roasted alive, getting boiled in cauldrons of oil, getting their flesh ripped off by demons one inch at a time. Things like that, things that plague the mind and haunt you for the rest of the day. Those kinds of dreams.

Then it happened. One day while I was hanging out some laundry on the clothesline, I noticed something in the tall grass that edges near the creek. It looked like a piece of wood. So, me being me, I had to go down to the creek and take a closer look. And there I saw it, washed up on the muddy banks of Wilson Creek was my old friend's Ouija board. Did I freak out? A little. But I remember walking down to the banks and picking it up. Once I held it in my hands an idea popped into my head.

I was going to burn the thing. I mean what else could I do besides toss the bastard into a roaring bonfire. And I knew just the place to toss the bastard too. You see some five miles out of town their this old gravel pit.  A bunch of older kids went down their on weekend's to smoke, drink, have sex and do drugs. And in the center of this pit there was this big ring, it was the trash ring, at the end of their two days of drinking, shooting up, shooting off and generally acting like humans with no morals they would gather all the trash and burn it. 

Did the police know about this? Heck yes they did and guess what, like all good southern boys they turned a blind eye to it. Anyway, the morals of a small town aside, the pit was the perfect place to burn this board. And so without thinking and driving by seventeen cups of coffee I tossed the board into the wire basket of my bike and started to bike toward the pit.

I remember that ride, what started out as a normal, sunny summer day quickly became a nightmarish ride. Looking back the signs were all around me, first a bank of clouds moved in and blocked out the sun, then the wind started to blow, at first it was a gentle breeze, then it grew stronger, it kept getting stronger as the minutes ticked on by. Soon it reached gale force, the trees that lined the road started to bend and the power lines above me started to loop.

The wind threatened to push me off the road and into a nearby dish. There was something demonic about the wind, it seemed to howl around me, it smacked me dead in the face with the force of a slap. It took all my strength to fight through it and keep my bike on the road. Then the rain started.  The rain came down in sheets, it pounded me, and blinded me.  

Moments after the rain started, I heard thunder, the thunder seemed to echo across the land, it boomed in my ears and caused me to jump. Blinded by rain, stung by wind and scared by thunder, I prayed for God to send one of his angels out to save me. I yelled the Rosary into the howling wind that seemed to deafen me. The more I fought those the harder the storm seemed to be. Till at last I saw through the rain the headlamps of an oncoming truck. I froze and braced myself. 

At that moment something took control of the bike and steered me away. At the very last moment, the truck came flying past me, its loud horn blaring in protest. I was shaken, but alive, soaked to the bone, but alive, dazed, but alive. I knew then as long as I had the strength in my body to fight I had to fight. And so I pushed on. 

I kept pushing through the storm. I don't know how I made it, but I made it, the pounding rain, at last it seemed the torrent had ceased and I was soaked to the bone. My one hundred ten willow frame had gained fifteen or so pounds from the soaking clothes I wore. But at last I'd made it to the old abandoned gravel pit. I parked my bike by a tree and started to climb up the steep road that led to the entrance. The rain had turned the ground into mud, rust colored mud, the color of blood. 

I think at that point I started running a fever, I started sneezing and coughing and violet hallucinations started to torment me. Each step I took seemed to take all my strength. But at last I made it to the top of the road and somehow I managed to slip past the old iron gate.
Once I put the gate past me, I just had a few hundred more yards to travel down hill till I reached the bottom of the pit. The pit's kind of like a bowl, with one narrow, often deep rutted road leading down into the bottom. Once you reach the bottom everything kind of flatten out. And since it was Monday evening the bottom was still littered with trash from the past two days, empty beer bottles and whiskey bottles lay piled up. A discarded bikini tops and bottoms, empty wrappers, all manners of trash lay scattered about.

And somehow by a stroke of good luck, a cord of dry firewood, a dry booklet of matches, a box of salt and some old newspaper.. Stumbling, I tossed the board onto one of the iron baskets that dotted the place, one that was mostly empty, I then tossed in dozens of sheets of newspaper, poured on the salt. I read somewhere online that salt is supposed to harm ghosts or demons, and tossed in a few sticks of firewood. And then taking a deep breath I tossed in a match and slowly I watched a fire take hold.

A giggling sense of madness overtook me then. I started to rush around the area, collecting all the trash, and laughing like a mad woman I tossed the trash into the roaring bonfire.  The orange and red flames seemed to leap into the sky and in them I saw faces, faces that cursed me, that swore to get their revenge. I just laughed and kept on tossing the trash into the fire.. 

As the board burned I laughed and hooted, then I started to yell. Victory at last had been mine it seemed. After I burned the board, my life slowly started to return to normal, I started attending Mass again with grandfather and grandmother. Mom even called me and apologized and asked me to come live with her again. I refused, the bond had been broken, I don't think I could ever fully trust her again. She was hurt but she understood. And bit by bit my life started to get pieced back together.

And that is my story. I hope you guys enjoyed it.