ASKING QUESTIONS OF THE YES YES BOARD continued...
By Sheila M. Curtin

         Tish had fallen asleep and began to dream as soon as her eyes closed. The dream she was having was a real doozy. It had begun nicely enough, Ty was walking toward her, about half a block away, with that lopsided grin brightening his face and she couldn't believe she could see him again, talk to him and hold him again, but what she really wanted was to ask him how did he get here since he was dead. He was Ty but something about him was altogether wrong, the closer he came the more she could see it, could feel it, no, he wasn't Ty at all, he was something wicked, something very evil. The Deceiver. He began to speak in a strange tongue as his features morphed into something completely adverse to humankind, something her very soul recognized and feared, a malevolence impossible to describe in any form of human language, written or spoken. She turned away in an effort to avoid him but he was right at her side, spitting vile obscenities into her face. Two bottomless blackened pits scarred where the eyes should have been, and the breath that escaped its maw was fetid, as disgusting and foul as the words that it spewed. She knew it would kill her. Terrified, she realized she had to fight it, yes, it would kill her when she fought but it would kill her anyway, she had nothing to lose. She squeezed her eyes shut and began to recite the Our Father but it only ranted all the more loudly, the more aggressively, cursing the Holy Ones and places in a foul tirade of obscenities. She woke from her terror sweating and panting, gasping for breath as if she'd run a marathon. She was still nervous and trembling as she ran the shower and dressed for work. That had been one hell of a nightmare. And it had been one nightmare of an evening.**
     Nina was still being a pain in the ass as we reached Morris Avenue, and I was thanking the Heavens above that her house was now only two blocks away. She was bitching about everything, looking for a fight. It was always I wish a mutha would with Nina, never oh no you didn't. I opted to part company at the corner and let her walk the rest of the way by herself. For my part I needed a few moments of peace and quiet, a reprieve from her incessant yammering and complaining. I extended a have a good one Nina along with the perfunctory check you tomorrow and left her standing there, still fussing. If her mood had been bad before it grew even uglier as I walked off, but I'd about had her up to my eyebrows, and if I never had to walk home with her again it would be too soon.**
     Nina hurled some obscenity in my general direction but turned around and started towards her building. Halfway down the block she noticed Granger's gate open, she said a silent prayer that none of his dogs had gotten loose. That Granger was one hot mess indeed, he'd been fined by Animal Control at least a half dozen times already for letting his dogs off his property. Along with several rottweilers and chows he had two or three pit bulls, and these had been trained to fight. His property was strangely quiet as she passed by, not even a growl from one of his dogs, not a good sign at all. She spotted one of them about a block away lifting its leg to the stump of a tree on the opposite side of the street. Her stomach flipped as she saw it was one of the pit bulls, she tried not to attract its attention and made an about face in the direction she'd just come from. She'd almost reached the corner when she saw the dog had somehow gotten ahead of her and was standing between her and the intersection beyond. Nina shook her head in disbelief, the dog had gotten up in front of her without her seeing it, it was a good block behind her when she'd turned around to make her about-face. The dog picked up its head once more and growled, then ran toward her at top speed with its teeth bared. Nina took off running, searching for an escape, a building with a door that might be unlocked, a fence too high for this animal to get over, anything, anything that would put some sort of barrier between her and the jaws of this crazy dog. There was no one in sight to help, no one to hear her cries, no cars  venturing up the avenue that could offer any possible escape or aid. She pushed herself harder, tried to run faster, but the dog ran faster than she thought possible. As she turned the corner she heard the animal panting right behind her, heard it growl as its jaws snapped shut on the cuff of her pants.
     She was caught. She began to scream in abject terror, begging for someone to come to her assistance. One of the panhandlers she'd passed earlier turned the corner and walked toward her. Nina was long past the point of panic now, she was hysterical, pleading and crying for help, unable to free her pant cuff from the dog's jaws. She was terrified thinking of what the dog would do once it caught her leg in its powerful jaws. She felt her flesh tear as the mongrel's teeth closed down on her ankle. The indigent walked towards her, reached down and pulled her pant cuff free. It had been caught on the jagged remains of a broken street pole.
     Her heart was beating way too fast in her chest, out of rhythm, and her voice failed as she tried to warn him to watch out for the dog. He looked at her warily, as if she was a few cards short of a full deck. What dog, he asked, and Nina couldn't believe he was pretending that he hadn't seen it. That mongrel pit had chased her nearly two full blocks and damn near chewed the cuff off her pants and here this drunken fool was standing in her face insisting that he hadn't seen the dog. She didn't know where it had gone to, and the not knowing was much worse than seeing the dog itself. He insisted there had been no dog around, and then pointed to the jagged piece of street pole protruding about five-inches from the ground, with a bloodied fragment of blue denim still attached. Your pants got caught on this, miss, he explained, bending down and removing the piece of denim. Nina was totally confused and now her head was throbbing. It was a dog that had chased her. Of that she was sure.
     She remained rooted to where she stood, unable to move in any direction whatsoever. Tears began to fall from her eyes, heavy and fast and the man offered to help her home. His offer to walk her to her building did little to reassure her of getting there safely, but a quick comparison between him and the dog found him the lesser of two evils.
     The indigent was courteous enough, he kept his conversation general and non-intrusive, and before Nina realized she was responding to his comments with anecdotes of her own. Funny how she just couldn't remember his name, he'd told her at least six or seven times since they'd started walking, and at this point she was beginning to feel somewhat embarrassed by her obviously limited mental capacity. Before long she was standing in front of her building and she stuck her hand in her jacket pocket looking for a few bills she could offer the guy for helping her home but he'd already gone. She called out hey mister and looked up and down the street but the man was nowhere to be seen. His abrupt disappearance only added to the strangeness of the evening, she put the money back in her pocket and went on upstairs.
     Her ankle was starting to throb, and there was some dried blood around what remained of her pant cuff. She slid the pants off and sat down on the side of her bed to examine her sore ankle, imprints of teeth marks were clearly visible  on the swollen flesh, and where the skin was torn closely resembled a bite. **
     Dee had been experiencing a sort of uneasiness since we'd left, as if she was being watched by some unseen intruder, and she kept catching something moving just out of the corner of her eye. Whenever she turned to see what was there she found nothing. She was sure it was just fatigue, a combination of the late hour and the beer and smokes had left her feeling a little stupid. She picked up the oui ja board to return it to its place in the back of the closet and then she heard it, scratching noises coming from somewhere inside the kitchen. Friggin mice again she thought out loud, put the oui ja board back down on the coffee table and went into the kitchen. She checked behind the garbage pail and appliances to see if the poison she'd put down had been touched. It hadn't. She could still hear the scratching noises, louder now, but now they seemed to be coming from elsewhere inside the apartment. They seemed to be coming from the living room. She went back inside to check, but no, they weren't coming from there either. The noises were everywhere and nowhere, she followed them into one room only to hear them in another. After another few minutes of searching Dee had had enough, she decided to wait till the morning and call the exterminator to get rid of the nuisance. She took a quick shower and headed toward the bedroom. It was now close to three-fifteen in the morning, and she had to be up at seven. Less than four hours left to sleep.**
     She was just beginning to doze off when she felt the mattress shift as if somebody had sat down on the side of the bed. It took a moment or so for the fear factor to kick in, the realization that no one else should be inside the apartment with her. She bolted into an upright position, expecting an intruder had come in through the window as she slept and she readied herself for a worst-case scenario. She prayed whoever it was would just rob her and leave, and forced herself to look over to see who was there. The room was empty, without a trace of any intruder save the impression left on the quilt where they'd sat down. Dee began to shake uncontrollably, she reached for her cell phone and dialed 9-1-1.
     The officers who responded from the nearby precinct were somewhat less than understanding after searching Dee's apartment, and their remarks about being on "nightmare patrol" left her cheeks burning. She still felt as if she was being watched, still felt those unseen eyes upon her as she wandered through the apartment. Four thirty a.m. and it didn't make sense to try to sleep, she'd only be all the more exhausted if she had to get up again at seven. She decided she'd make a pot of coffee, and sit up and watch the sun come up. Sipping the hot coffee relaxed her just enough to try to make sense of the evening's events, she grabbed the cord to the traverse rod and pulled open the drapes, expecting to see her reflection in the darkened glass. There were two red eyes just outside the window staring in at her. The cup of coffee slipped from her hands and she fell to the floor in a dead faint.
     I was glad to finally be rid of Nina, my head throbbed from the combination of her idiotic conversation and the forties of Old English we'd consumed earlier. The night had gotten much colder, I tried warming my hands by jamming them deeper inside my jacket pocket. Lucky for me Tony's Famous, the grocery next to the train station was still open, I stopped inside to pick up some Tylenol PM's and a Snapple Cherry to help me get rid of the headache and sleep. Carlos was behind the counter, and I'd thought it odd, considering the man had supposedly been dead these past two years. Whoever had put that tale out had been way off the mark. Back from the grave, huh Carlos I jousted, waiting to hear why he let such a lie get out about his physical state of being, but he just grinned that shitty grin that I hated so much and agreed oh yes, here I am Reese, come back just for you. Oh well, some things hadn't changed, we were off to a good start. I countered, well, sorry you had to put yourself out on account of me and put my Snapple down on the counter. I waited for his come-back and pulled out the dollar-fifty from my change purse just as Omar came out from the back of the store with his usual hi Reesie what can I do you for spiel. I told him no bother, Carlos over here got me, and attempted to place the money in Carlos' hand. He didn't budge. Omar stood at the edge of the counter for a moment, looking me up and down like I had three heads popping out of my shoulder blades, and made some comment about how I really needed to stop whatever it was I was doing, it was starting to mess my mind up worse than it was already. He went behind the counter and passed right through Carlos like he was thin air. I looked from one to the other, not really believing what I'd just seen. Carlos just stood there grinning at me. I dropped the money on the counter and took off.**
     My phone was ringing off the hook when I reached my apartment, Nina was on the other end, and she'd conferenced in Dee and Tish. We had all had some weird experience to report, and Dee was crying how she wished she'd never brought out that oui ja board. One thing we all agreed on, something other-worldly had been released from the board when we played with it, and it was in our best interest to find out what it was and send it back to wherever it had come from. But such things are easier said than done.**
     These things tend to get worse was the advice the santera proffered, and I could see she was plying for an additional fifty bucks to help us close whatever portal we'd opened with our late night interest in the oui ja board. She explained that what we'd released wouldn't return to the nether world so easily, and if I hadn't seen what I'd seen with my own two eyes I would have told her to kiss my ass and get off. But what she said made perfect sense, I hadn't had a restful night since we'd picked up the planchette that past Tuesday night at Dee's. I handed her the additional cash and said a silent prayer that the mojo she was mumbling would work. People who were into that sort of thing said she was one of the best. I had my doubts. I walked into Tony's Famous looking to see if Carlos was still standing behind the counter. Omar was standing there, refusing to sell me any beer or EZ-Wider, insisting I get my head together. I thought perhaps it was, no sign of Carlos at all. The rest of the crew reported an end to their troubles also. Perhaps it was finally over.
     I left Tony's Famous elated, glad to be free of the curse of the ouija board and promising the Heaven's above never to venture into the occult again. I couldn't wait to get home, take a hot shower and hit the sack. I could hear the DJ from WBLS blaring inside my apartment, I hoped the neighbors wouldn't complain that I'd left the radio playing so loudly, though I was sure I'd turned it off before I'd left that morning. I turned the key in the lock and went on inside. The place was freezing cold. Carlos was sitting on the couch waiting for me.

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