The Demon’s Dance Floor
ISSUE #175
I’ll meet you at the wrought iron gate—get there as close to sundown as you can because it only opens once a year. Wait for the moon to crest the roof, then dip down through the hedges to the yard. Creep past the Persian lilies and onto the back porch—go through the hole in the screen door, remember, or it won’t count and you’ll just be in Ms. Crawford’s peeling old house. Through the hole, and you’ll see the red light beneath the kitchen sink. Open the cabinet and crawl in. Down the stairs, thirteen flights, then take the knife to your left palm and open the hatch. You’ve made it to the dance floor.
Go—I’ll be right behind you.
In all 7½ years of Earwyrms, Halloween has yet to descend upon a Friday… until this year, baby! Oh, we’d gotten close to completing the bloody ritual in past years, but all it took was one meddling leapfrog from 2019’s Thursday to that Saturday in 2020 to completely waste a decade.