Rituali di Sangue – Friday, 1987

    It was long ago in a time of misremembered darkness and we were reading poorly translated thirteenth century Italian blood rituals by candlelight while heavy metal bikini girls writhed in the late night movie on the TV. It was 1987 and I was fifteen.

    “Baptized as we were into these bodies of flesh and death...” We intoned the words – some of which we’d had to pencil ourselves to fill in lacunae in the translation with our best adolescent guess. None of us actually spoke any Italian, but I’d had a semester of French and Micah knew a little Spanish. We thought we could fake it. A flash of hellfire lightning outside the window briefly illuminated the room and we all jumped. I shrieked. Yeah, like a girl, and then laughed.

    “Don’t break the circle, dude!” Dave shouted as Micah flinched. We’d drawn the protective circle on the floor using Morton’s salt filched from Micah’s mom’s kitchen. I burst into another fit of laughter.

    “It’s not working, is it?” I asked. We’d been holding hands around the circle, but now my hands were damp and sweaty. I wiped them on my jean jacket.

    “Don’t break the circle,” Dave insisted again.

    “Come on, man. We’ve been trying to read this book for an hour. It ain’t happening.” I’d found the book, Rituali di Sangue Per L'apparizione Demoniaca, in the special collections section of the college library – a university library card was one of the perks of taking AP classes in high school – so it was my fault we were spending that Friday night with obscure occult performances. I’d convinced the guys to try one of the rituals, but it obviously wasn’t working. Dave, who needed little persuading, wanted to continue.

    “Keep reading.”

    “Micah?” I asked. “What do you think?”

    Micah, who said very little stood up from the floor where we were sitting and turned on the lights and blew out the candles. I laughed again.

    “Fine!” Dave huffed. He went over to the stereo cabinet and pulled out a vinyl album by This Corpse Alive – some black metal band from Australia, I think. He settled the needle at the first track and turned up the volume. Thick guitars and drums filled the room.

    Step by step he staggers to the skull!
    Step by step he staggers to the skull!

    “Help me clean up this salt,” Dave said. “or my mom’s not gonna’ let us hang out up here anymore.” The room was an unused half attic above the apartment where Dave’s family lived. The first floor was their family’s business – his parents were both CPAs.

    I turned the music up a little louder and the three of us started to clean up the candles and salt. “Don’t put away the wine,” Dave said. We’d sneaked a bottle of wine out of his dad’s basement.

    Follow him down, down to the tomb
    drink of his blood, his flesh consume!

    With the ceremonial accouterments swept up, extinguished, and put away we sat down on the couch together. Dave poured us each a bit of wine into plastic cups decorated with Smurfs and Carebears. “What’s on the TV?” Dave asked as he sat and sipped from his cup. Micah pointed the remote at the screen and turned up the volume. Some hapless blonde was running barefoot and braless through the woods, screaming.

    “Same ol’ shit,” Micah muttered. But it didn’t matter. We often spent Friday nights watching the late night horror shows. And we loved it. All those gruesome films with gallons and gallons of bright red blood and screaming beauty queens with bright red lips. We especially loved the badly dubbed European ones.

    Another flash of lighting and an immediate bang of thunder rocked the upstairs room and the electricity went out. “Holy hell,” Dave gasped. “That was close. Sounded like it was right on top of us.”

    We sipped our wine as we waited in the dark for the power to come back on.

    “Should we get the candles back out?” I asked after a minute. Micah, never so loquacious, nodded and got the candles and the lighter back out from the cabinet where he’d put them Soon the room was aglow again with the soft flickering light of the candles.

    “How long do you think…” I started to say but Micah hushed me with a finger to his lips. We could hear something approaching even over the howling, screaming wind and rain outside. The room suddenly felt heavy and close. Smaller than ever before. Something groaned in the darkness.

    Suddenly the door flung open. We all screamed and grabbed each other.

    “What the hell’s going on up here?” Dave’s mom said “Good grief, boys. It’s just a storm. And where did you get that wine?!