Acquaintance

It was in the rather large city of Summertown, in the cheapest hotel, in the oldest, smallest and cheapest room. At the table sat a writer - Dave Geneks, who had long since abandoned his occupation and now just fills grief with alcohol. The typewriter has long been covered with cobwebs, and the writer himself has aged in appearance: wrinkles and thick stubble due to a long drinking bout, gray hair due to the horror experienced three years ago; although in fact he is only 30. After drinking a couple more glasses of whiskey, Dave folded his hands on the table, laid his head on them and tried to sleep, but the nightmares did not allow. And suddenly he heard a rather familiar female voice:

- Well, well, just look at him. It seemed that until recently you were a good writer, but now you are just ruining your liver. And for what? To forget or die?

“Go away,” Dave muttered in his sleep. Nobody called you.

“No, you know. I saved up my strength for three years to finally appear here. And now, here I am, I came for your soul, but there was no answer. - Hey! Rota rise, to whom I say!

Dave raised his head, but because of the drink it was hard to see everything. But, patting his face a little and shaking his head, he came to his senses a little and saw a young woman in front of him. She appeared out of nowhere, because the door to the room was locked, and she looked very familiar. The visitor was dressed in red leather pants, a short red tank top with a bare midriff, and red high-heeled boots, fiery red hair that barely reached her shoulders, and a face that was eerily familiar. He recognized her as his dead wife.

— Lucy? He didn't believe his eyes. “Although, a drunkard can imagine anything. You've died.

That's right, she died. Why, because of you, you fucking moron! And now I'm not just a fool-Lucia, I'm Lucia.

And then Lucia's face changed - it became a horned skull with fire in its eye sockets and a snake instead of a tongue.

- God! - the writer almost fell off his chair from horror, and when he blinked, she again looked like a person.

“Ha ha, I don’t understand you people. Where did you see him? Yes, I was a demon once. And because of you, I'm now a ghost demon. Get hurt, right? Fucking freak, I would have destroyed it if I could! - then suddenly she appeared right in front of the table, and with a sharp movement of her hand she threw a bottle with a glass on the floor, they fell near the table and broke. “That's what happens when you mix up just a couple of words in an exorcism spell.

- What else did you expect? You blinded me then, and I had to improvise.

Dave bent down to pick up the fallen dishes, but when he reached out with his hand, there were no fragments of a bottle and a glass on the floor. Bewildered, he sat down at the table again, and the glass and bottle stood on the table, whole and untouched, and the ghost, as before, stood in the middle of the room.

- How did you do that? the writer asked the ghost of his wife in surprise. You broke the glass, and it's back on the table.

“I don’t know what you are already imagining there!” Especially after two years in a mental hospital! - Lucia became furious, and loudly clattering her heels in anger, she approached the table. "I'm a ghost, motherfucker!" I can’t even punch you in the face, - she tried to hit him in the jaw, but her fist went right through, and Dave only escaped with a fright, - and you can’t even imagine how much I want this! But I can do this...

Out of nowhere, Lucia had a knife in her hand, and out of anger she pierced her ex-husband's hand with it, nailing it to the table. Dave was very frightened, but he didn't feel any pain. And when he moved the brush, he realized that the knife was ghostly, and passed through his hand without causing harm. With amazement, he began to examine the untouched hand, and when he heard the continuation of Lucia's phrase "Or so ...", everything changed dramatically. Purulent abscesses began to appear on his hands, in agony the writer began to notice how these ulcers burst, and blood flows out of them, mixed with bile. Hair began to fall out, the skin was torn off from a weak touch, the pain was unbearable. The stench of rotten meat and sulfur hung in the air, when the skin peeled off the hands, it became clear how the tar-soaked meat fell off the bones.

Dave heard Lucia's evil laugh, and when he looked at her, she was standing in her demonic form, and the room turned into Hell. Everything around was shrouded in red, the walls were cracked, and blood oozed from the cracks, which flooded the faces crawling out of the walls. Hooks hung from the ceiling on chains, on which bloodied and torn parts of the body were suspended. Zombies were crawling along the boiling resin spilled on the floor, in which all the skin and most of the meat had already melted. They crawled towards Dave with a piercing groan, and he jumped on the table in horror, knocking over a glass and a bottle, which fell and shattered just as it seemed to him before. And in the middle of this nightmare, Lucia, looking like a terrible horned demon with hooves, a sharp tail and torn wings, stood and laughed viciously, and then said in a terrible bestial voice:

“Oh, scribbler, if it weren’t for you, I would now be sunbathing and reveling in the agony of the dead, eating their souls in my homeland. But instead, they came up with torture for me, - and after these words, everything became the same again: an ordinary room, Lucia in human form, there was not a single wound on the body of the writer, only shards of glass remained the same on the floor. “And I was sent here to take your soul. Hmm, the worst torture my superiors could not come up with. Not only is the local reaper on vacation, and the neighboring ones are busy with their areas, but I still can’t kill. I saved up my strength for three years to become visible and be able to talk to you, but in order to eat your soul, I need another week of recharging. — Dave could not find a place for himself because of fear and anxiety, and when he heard that he could live another week, he sighed with relief and got down from the table. And in the hands of the ghost appeared a crystal ball in which fire burned, and she continued to speak, examining it. - Yes, dear hubby, this is good news for you, you will have time to say goodbye to everyone in your life. But when this light goes out, your soul will forever go to Hell!

Dave decided not to waste any time and started calling all his relatives to say goodbye before his death. But after what happened to Lucy, all the acquaintances forever renounced the unfortunate exorcist and forgot him. On the third day, in despair, he drank himself and continued to do so until the penultimate day of his life. All this time, Lucia was with him, mocking and making fun of him. Dave couldn't get enough sleep in his last days of life, because Lucia constantly showed him nightmare visions of him dying in various ways, and then boiling in a cauldron in Hell, or roasting on a spit in Inferno, or even hanging, riddled with hooks, or wandering down the street like a ghost, begging for help.