After Jenny McLean’s phone rang at 8:15 a.m. on a recent Tuesday morning while she was in the shower, she noticed her aunt Annie did not leave a message. Like anyone with anxiety living in the year 2024, she feared the worst.
“I knew immediately that my uncle must’ve died,” she said, wringing her hands. “She didn’t leave a message! She always leaves a message! And when I called her back, she didn’t pick up!”
McLean, who lives 200 miles from her aunt, mentally got to work planning her funeral outfit. She figured that if her uncle hadn’t died, her father must have fallen, or maybe her grandmother had had a heart attack. Twenty minutes later, however, when Annie did reach her, it turned out that all of McLean’s fears were unfounded. Her family was perfectly healthy. At least … for now.
“So there is this portal,” her aunt began, and McLean could hear over the phone what sounded like explosions and squelching in the background. “It seems to have opened over our backyard? It’s kind of green and brown with these weird white flames. And, well, there are things coming out of it …”
McLean said nothing. She was frozen in place. Even in her wildest, anxiety-ridden nightmares, there had never been an interdimensional hell portal ripping open in the suburbs of Long Island.
“Yeah, so your uncle is out there talking to them …”
“Talking to who?” McLean managed.
“I think … I think they’re eels. Or maybe some kind of squid? They’re turquoise.”
“And they TALK?”
“Yeah, I don’t know if their voices are coming from within our heads or if we’re really hearing them. They’re definitely upset though. They told your uncle to bring them … all of the earth’s joy.”
“All of —”
But before McLean could finish her question, her aunt began to scream much more loudly and piercingly than McLean had ever heard before. There were sounds like monster trucks crushing enormous pop rocks, and the word “destroyers” entered her head — or maybe she really heard it — in a voice that for some reason made her shiver, shake and projectile vomit penciled-in Scantron sheets from her high school math tests.
There is currently a media blackout surrounding McLean’s aunt’s town, and a nationwide call has been issued for any remaining joy, anywhere, to be brought to the demons as soon as possible.