I slowly opened the carved mahogany box then dropped it with a gasp as the severed hand, shriveled and grey, came tumbling out.

The forest suddenly grew darker and the trees' branches seemed to lurch towards the children.

The floor shuddered and opened and up popped a small man with a wicked grin and a pointed beard in a cloud of smoke and a whiff of sulphur.

Lana swung the bat at the head of the creature that had once been her lover and connected with a sound like someone thumping a watermelon to determine its ripeness, but much, much louder.

A strange woman with dark holes where her eyes should have been stood in the doorway of the bedroom calling him by name.

She watched in horror as the black thing, slick with blood, wormed its way out of her husband's ear.

"We heard the whispering voices as we approached the old house calling us closer...closer," she told me, her wild eyes staring straight ahead from a face drained of color but for the dark smears of dried blood streaking her cheeks.