Contact Initiated

         Jeffrey leaped back as the plastic box roared to life. A stream of blue light spewed out along his floor, covering the piles of magazines, sunflower seeds and the Geology book Jeffrey had yet to open.
         Jeffrey backed away from the eerie light, pulling the lamp cord from the wall. He retreated up against the far wall of his room, propped up on his Reebok shoes. Jeffrey crushed the glob of gum he’d been chewing into a thin wedge.
         A panel slid open on the face of the contraption. A green light emerged to life, followed by the words: Ouija 2005, on line. The words flashed in the display as if waiting for a response.
         Jeffrey, curiosity slowly overpowering his initial concern, inched toward the layer of light spread across his floor. His Reeboks broke through the green field, and the light flickered at his touch. Suddenly, a pattern of letters appeared inside the light, face up. The letters were spaced evenly in rows that formed a perfect square, with the numbers zero through nine closing the box. Jeffrey thought it looked strangely like a larger version of the calculator he’d just mail-ordered last week.
         The symbols inside the square were translucent and they hovered half a foot over his floor. Jeffrey assumed these would be used to input information to the electronic Ouija board. Then he noticed the green display prompting him with the words: Male, Female, Animal, Other. The first litter of each word was highlighted in the same blue as the letters spread out on his carpet.
         Jeffrey approached the eerie square of symbols, wondering whether he’d purchased the warranty or not. He shrugged off his concern. There was a thirty day return policy on everything he ordered through the mail.
         He thrust his hand toward the letter F, and it pushed through without pause. The only reaction to his touch was a brief flash of light from inside the letter. Jeffrey snapped his hand back as a voice erupted from the box.
         “Contact initiated. Confirm, random female subject.”
         Jeffrey gawked down at the box as names blurred through the green display like cherries on a slot machine, but he couldn’t read them from his vantage point across the room. In his petrified state, Jeffrey didn’t notice the gum roll from his lips. He decided to investigate the green display and waded through the blue light.
         Names flashed up and disappeared before his eyes. They moved so quickly all he could catch was a Lisa, a Tracy and an Amy, but he did notice that they were all women’s names. Jeffrey gave in and began searching the room for the box so he could glance over the directions.
         “Contact completed,” announced the internal speaker of the box. “Stephany Montez, negative thirteen years.”
         Jeffrey frowned. “Negative...?”
         The plastic box remained silent, but the green display flickered, Audible, Touch, or Visual? It seemed eager for an answer. Jeffrey passed a hand through the closest letter, which happened to be A. Again the box made strange noises as internal systems were invoked. The green display fell dark, and the ethereal symbol box along the floor vanished.
         “Contact confirmation,” stated the internal speaker.
         Jeffrey chuckled and decided to leave the directions where they were. He would figure this contraption out on his own. “I wonder what kind of batteries this thing takes?”
         “And you people wonder why we never bother answering you,” answered a female voice. “At least some questions make me laugh.”
         “What?” asked Jeffrey.
         “What exactly. What do you want? Do you have anything significant to ask?”
         Jeffery looked around the room, wondering if someone was playing a joke on him.
         “A question, do you have a question?”
         “Like what kind of question?”
         “All the questions in the world and you want me to come up with one for you. Wouldn’t you like to know where I am? How I got here? Don’t you have the slightest need to know if there is a God or not? Or perhaps... Lucifer?”
         “Lucifer...? Yeah, I guess. Sure. What is heaven like?”
         “I never said where I was...”
         “What do you mean?” wondered Jeffrey.
         The box remained silent.
         “Hello?” he asked.
         The green display said, waiting.
         Jeffrey slammed his Reebok against the box. It toppled over on its side, and the green display lit up once more. It read, Audio off.
         Jeffrey slammed his foot against the ground. “Audio off? I want the audio on. Where did you go?”
         Finally the box said, Contact ceased. Then it changed to, Ouija 2005, on line. The floor was covered with the blue light, letters and numbers again. Jeffrey peered down at the speaker grill of the box, which was dented from where he’d kicked it.
         “This damn thing’s broken,” Jeffrey hissed as he stormed toward the directions. His Reeboks kicked through the hologram of letters, oblivious to the assorted letters and numbers flashing at the touch of his shoes.
         Jeffrey pushed the packaging to the floor and snatched up a white packet. He flipped through the pages, glancing at various warnings and liability notices printed throughout.
         Behind him the green display on the plastic box flashed the word, Other.
         Jeffrey found something worth reading and paused on it. His hand gripped the page as his eyes scanned the text. He sighed and violently turned the page and accidentally tore the page from the staple. Jeffrey tossed it to the floor.
         The green panel flashed again, Contact initiated.
         Jeffrey flung the pamphlet over his shoulder and rummaged through the packaging box that the contraption had been sent in. A hundred Styrofoam peanuts spilled out on the floor and buried his Reeboks.
         The green panel said, Contact complete.
         Jeffrey slid his hand into the cardboard box and withdrew a slip of white paper. He turned it over and read, “Do not use without a thorough study of the literature provided. Use at your own risk, we will not be held accountable for misuse or negligence. Children should be supervised by an adult.”
         The green display flashed, then read, Unknown person, Negative twelve hundred and twenty-seven years. Then the word, Visual.
         A frigid sweat took hold of Jeffrey’s frame. He dropped the slip into the packaging box and turned around. The hair stood up on the back of his neck and his heart began to beat rapidly. His eyes surveyed the room, which now seemed darker than before.
         The green display blinked, letters scrambled, light flashed and died away, and followed by the word, Malfunction. Finally the Ouija Board settled on the words, Contact Confirmation.
         Jeffrey squinted his eyes into the dark room. The darkness hung around him like a black curtain. He staggered through the blackness toward his desk and light. Jeffrey leaned forward to turn the light on, but lost his balance, leaned forward, his arms win milling, and crashed to the dirt. His light and desk were replaced with a moist, dirt floor.
         Jeffrey pushed himself up and groped through the darkness. He climbed to his feet and lurched about as his eyes slowly adjusted to the dark. Jeffrey realized he wasn’t in his room any longer, and in fact, he didn’t think he was in his house anymore. He caught brief glimpses of faint body outlines slithering around him. Eyes flashed high above him, glaring and scowling with angular grimaces which he took for snarls. Claws swung beside sinewy torsos. Wide feet stomped the ground where his television should be.
         Jeffrey spun around to flee, planning on running as fast as his Reeboks could take him. Then he noticed a rustle under his left foot as if he’d stepped on a leaf. He reached down and pulled up a sheet of paper with a jagged corner. A length of gum stretched from the sheet to the bottom of his shoe, which had held the paper to his foot.
         Jeffrey pulled the page close to read it. The top of the page read, Directions: Page Four. His eyes sped through the text, searching. His heart was beating as fast as his eyes searched the words.
         He could hear the heavy steps of approaching bodies.
         Then Jeffrey found something in the directions worth his last remaining seconds. He read, “Ouija visit, type B, reversal. Warning, do not attempt this type of visitation without thorough knowledge and experience with contacting the dead. This is a new method. Instead of the dead visiting the user, the user visits the dead.”
         Jeffrey moved further down the page and read, “use the audio function to return from a reversal contact. Repeat the words, Stop contact.”
         Jeffrey, without a thought, screamed, “Stop contact.”
         The plastic box, back in his room, whistled and hummed as if gurgling water. The speaker grill sat silently, shorted out and unable to function.
         “Oh no.”
         A moist hand suddenly gripped his arm. A chill burst through his veins at the touch. Jeffrey glanced to the bottom of the page. The last sentence read, “To stop contact without the use of the audio function, simply...” The page ended there with the words, continued on page five.