Once again, Harley, we are so sorry about this mixup. Dementors really pushed to go paperless, so all of Seven Rings of Hell had to do the Microsoft rollover over the summer but somehow all of the Teutonic demons never got the memo and now…” Nysroh trailed off shrugging his leathery wings trying to express the indescribable. The recently deceased can be so mercurial, he thought. Wrapped in a celestial shawl over her Muppet Show tee and joggers, the lost soul yawned.
“Right, right, and all the records are in the cloud and I’m in Hell until it gets straightened out. Got it. The name’s Charlie by the way, not Harley. It’s short for Charlotte, and I’m kind of exhausted from the whole trolley running me over thing. Where am I bunking, Batty?”
“Yes, Carly right this way.” Nervously the second order demon waved a talon and ushered Charlotte through his newly opened swirling portal. One more screwup and his immediate supervisor Chax relocate him to Gary, Indiana. Nysroh shivered. They stood in front of a run down gingerbread Victorian monstrosity in pink and lilac with towers and turrets and windows of various sizes. Charlotte thought it looked like a princess party cake built by an octopus. Charlotte loved it.
“Remember it’s only temporary. All the best IT guys are in Hell. They’ve assured me we will be—“
“Wait how many people live here? Is this some kind of twisty Twilight Zone? Is this some kind of trick and axe murderers jump out of closets all night,” Charlotte demanded.
“Noooo, unless you want people to jump out of closets. We have a directory of murderers and I know the axe murderers have a pretty active golf frisbee club. They’re creepy but excellent hand eye coordination. No one can visit this house without an invitation maybe throw at trivia—hey hey hold on!” the demon exclaimed. He flapped after his lost soul.
At the sound of no drop in guests, Charlotte sprinted for the dilapidated wraparound porch and pushed open the massive front doors. She scrambled from room to room. There were bric a bric, knickknacks, and geegaws as far as the eye could see. Every room had one sofa too many, or a confusion of coffee tables. Charlotte explored the cozy clutter.
“It’s so clean. How many rooms?”
“Hell houses are self cleaning, duh. Room number varies based on the hell house’s whims but usually these houses set—“ the demon stopped when Charlotte screamed.
“It’s a library!” Floor to ceiling shelves of books lined the walls. With thick wool rugs, rolling ladders, and velvet settees, the entire room smelt of old paper and self satisfied comfort. Charlotte swayed.
Nysroh sagged. “I’m afraid so, Haley. Please don’t be too upset. The STBT, that’s the soul to be tortured, who was slated for this hell housr was a social influencer. She convinced a bunch of people to eat Tide pods then died eating chicken cooked in NyQuil. Irony, huh. Anyways so this house embodies all of her worst fears manifested no Wi-Fi, no cellular data, just books and gardening and kitten Tuesdays and unlimited carbs and somewhere around here is a movie projector, behind that stack of phonographs I think—“
Charlotte clapped her hand over the demon’s mouth, “no need to apologize. Don’t worry about me, Nysroh. I can bear Hell for a week or so. Run along now. And remember the name is Kalee, with two ees.”
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