Daily Prompt – A to Z

This is a story made from 26 sentences, each sentence begins with a letter of the alphabet from A to Z.

A to Z

Alice meets Zaebos

Alice woke with a start, unable to move. Before her sat a creature she had never seen before, it was the stuff of nightmares.

“Can you see me?” it rasped with a voice that sounded like nails on stone.

Don’t look at it, thought Alice and she closed her eyes, trying to block out the creature’s breathing and the stink of its breath. Evelyn had warned her this would happen.

“Forget it,” she had said yesterday. “Getting caught up in a summoning is the last thing you need to do. Honestly, if you go ahead with this, you are on your own.”

In retrospect Alice thought that Evelyn might have been right, but when do sisters listen to each other?

“Just give me what I want and I will go…” it crooned, making Alice’s skin crawl.

Knowing, that was the problem, she had no idea what she had bargained for and what the price was. Last night she set the summoning circle and called forth a beast, just to see if they truly existed.

“Me and you have a bargain,” it said, shifting it’s weight on top of her.

“No, you never came,” Alice gasped, clawing at her sheets.

“Of course not, you had to step out of the circle.” Putting its face close to hers it  settled a slimy rough tongue on her face and licked her skin. “Quite tasty,” it said with a laugh.

Rarely had Alice ever lost consciousness, but the feel of it and the smell of brimstone sent her over the edge and she slipped into darkness.

Slowly Alice came round; she felt drugged and her body was sluggish. The weight was gone but the room was lit with a bright white light, that Alice realised was a torch, a small one being shone into her eyes. Unable to keep her eyes open she forced them closed, tearing the lids from the probing fingers that were trying to keep them open.

“Val, she’s coming round,” a voice said.

“What… who are you?”

“X-rays have been done and it looks bad…” the voice trailed off.

“You,” the voice rasped in her head. “Zaebos wants you and I’m hungry.”

Glossary

Zaebos is a demon who is part man and part crocodile.