It's Haunted

A marital fight over a microwave.

Maddy Thomas refused to go into her kitchen. “It’s haunted!”

Her husband, Mark, set down his construction tool bag, laughed, and asked, “What’s haunted? I I fixed the dripping faucet and the noisy cabinet door. What is it now? I’m hungry. What’s for dinner?” There was always something needing repair work at their hundred year old house.

“This is different. The microwave starts working on its own when it’s not plugged in. The light comes on doing SOS blinks when I open the door. I tell you it’s haunted. What are we going to do?”

“It can’t be haunted, Maddy. Remember? We’re atheists. We don’t believe in ghosts. There has to be a logical explanation. I’ll go check it out.”

Maddy grabbed her husband by his belt as he started to go into the kitchen. “No way are you leaving me here and I won’t go in there! What about calling in a preacher with some holy water?”

Mark stared down at the buttons popping off his shirt. “You're serious? Are you sure you haven’t been drinking a little too much of that red wine you use while making your beef stew?” His nose sniffed the air hopefully as his stomach growled back at him.

“You don’t believe me? Fine! I’ll take you in there and prove it!” Maddy shuddered, bit her lip, and forced Mark to walk in front of her as he walked inside the room.

“Looks fine to me.” Two frozen dinners lay dripping on the counter next to the microwave. Mark picked up the soggy mess and deposited them into the garbage can. “I forgive you,” he said. “You didn’t have to make such an elaborate excuse for watching your daytime soap opera and forgetting to make us something to eat.”

Maddy looked like she might be beginning to cry. “Watch me!” She slammed the freezer open, dived a hand inside, and fished out a microwaveable frozen pizza. The next moment found the new dinner shoved at Mark’s gut. “You make it.”

“Sure. Easy enough.” He opened the container, checked the instructions and opened the microwave door. The light started its on and off again SOS pattern. “Hmm. When did this start?” Mark asked, setting the pizza aside.

Maddy looked at him while holding the plug in her hand, eyebrow raised in question. “Where’s the power coming from?”

“Must be a short of some kind.” Mark sounded doubtful even to himself. Out of curiosity he shoved the pizza in and closed the door.

Both of them watched as the microwave turned itself on without either of them pressing a button. “See? It’s haunted!” Mandy said, jumping back towards the hallway. “It started right after I cursed at it for being too complicated. All those buttons get me confused. My fingers punched the wrong ones by mistake. I couldn’t reset the defrost to manual so I could cook the tv dinners.”

Mark punched the button to make the microwave stop. It didn’t. When he looked inside, a bite size piece had been taken out of the pizza and spit out. “It’s not done yet,” Mark told the unseen mouth.

The microwave screeched an unearthly howl and began to shake all about. “I am so out of here,” yelled Maddy, disappearing from view. She came back with her family bible handed down from generation to generation.

The microwave stopped misbehaving. It seemed to be waiting for what came next. “Told you!” Mandy screamed excitedly, approaching the kitchen device. Both her arms were extended as she leaned forward. She flipped a few pages and began reading from the text.

Mark looked at her like she was crazy. The sound of the microwave bumping and backing away rose chills up and down his spine. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Stand aside, coward. Now you made me lose my place.” At the back of the bible was inset a small sealed bottle. “It’s not empty. Open it up. Throw the holy water used for healing prayers at the microwave,” she demanded, thrusting the bible at her astonished mate.

Mark caught the thing and stared at the microwave now cowering in a corner, shaking like a leaf. “This isn’t happening,” Mark said to himself, unscrewing the top of the holy water and tossing the bottle inside as he opened the shaking door.

A blast of heat curled the hair on Mark’s hand. Pieces of burnt pizza coated the front of his shirt.

Mandy let out a helpless yelp and pointed a long nailed finger at the little red demon appearing inside.

“Next time you summon me from Hell with a curse like that, don’t forget to let me go when you’re done,” The demon hissed, flying out and weaving between the couple before disappearing from view.

“Is it gone?” Mandy asked in a whisper.

Mark was busy putting the microwave back in place and plugging it in. “In the future, I’d watch how you curse things.” He watched the microwave's inside reveal a fading red sunset glow.

He was still hungry. "I'll make dinner." The two new tv dinners held a faint smell suspiciously like that of fading sulfur and the edges of the containers pulsed with the dying licking flames maybe from hell.

"You're taking me out to eatl"

When they got back, there sat the microwave. "Is that still here? The cursed thing doesn't work. It's gone to hell."

Immediately the device shivered, gave a goodbye nod, and disappeared.

WC 935