The Game of Nails

The summer I turned eleven, I spent every sticky afternoon with my two best friends, Maggie and Joe, in the unfinished attic of Joe’s grandmother’s house. The attic was a treasury of old things: a trunk of moth-eaten dresses, a stack of cracked 78 records, and a wall of dusty mason jars filled with nails of every size. We were obsessed with the idea that the objects held secrets, that if we just looked hard enough or said the right words, the house would yield its stories. Maggie was the one with the wildest imagination, always inventing games to make the ordinary feel magical. Joe was the skeptic, but he played along because it was better than being bored.

One day, Maggie found a battered Ouija board planchette among the detritus, and we decided to have a real séance. We set up the board on a rickety card table, lit a candle, and sat in the flickering gloom. We didn’t believe in spirits, not really, but the ritual made our hearts pound. We placed our fingers on the planchette and asked if anyone was there. The planchette twitched, but we all thought one of us was pushing it. We went on like that for an hour, asking silly questions, getting nonsensical answers, until the candle guttered and Joe said, ‘This is stupid. Nothing’s going to happen.’ He laughed and started to stand up, but Maggie grabbed his arm. ‘Wait, let’s do the Nail Game. You know, the one where you call on the devil?’ I didn’t know the Nail Game, but the name made my skin prickle. Joe didn’t know it either. Maggie grinned and explained: you take a handful of nails from the jars, arrange them in a circle, and say a rhyme that’s supposed to summon the devil to prove his existence. It sounded like something we’d make up ourselves, but Maggie said she learned it from her cousin who swore it worked.

We should have walked away right then, but the challenge was too tempting. We gathered a handful of rusty nails, arranged them in a lopsided circle on the dusty floor, and stood in the center. Maggie taught us the rhyme: ‘Old Scratch, if you’re real, come undo this wheel. Show us your face, or leave not a trace.’ We chanted it three times, our voices growing more confident, almost playful. The third time, we shouted the last line. And then, nothing. The candle didn’t even flicker. Joe snorted, ‘Told you. Dumb.’ We laughed and started to step out of the circle. That’s when I felt a sharp sting on my bare ankle, as if a nail had bitten me. I looked down, but there was no wound. The nails, however, had shifted. They were now arranged in a perfect spiral pointing to the attic’s one window. I pointed it out, and we all went silent. Then the floorboards creaked, a heavy, deliberate sound that didn’t match our weight. We scrambled to the stairs, but the door at the bottom was locked. We pounded on it, calling for Joe’s grandmother, but the house was suddenly silent, as if muffled in cotton. Behind us, the nails began to rattle in their circle, dancing like they were alive.

We ran back to the attic window, but it was painted shut. The candle that we thought had burned out was now lit, casting long shadows. Then we heard a voice, low and amused, coming from the corner where the jars were: ‘A wheel, you say? But wheels need a hub.’ We turned to see a man standing there, tall and thin, with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He was dressed in a black suit, and his skin was like old paper. We knew instantly he wasn’t human. He took a step toward us, and the nails on the floor rose into the air, hovering around him like a halo of iron. ‘You called, so I came,’ he said. ‘Now let’s play a game. I’ll give you a head start. If you can reach the front door before I count to ten, I’ll let you live. If not, you’ll join my collection.’ He started counting, lazily and low. We bolted for the stairs, but the stairs had become a downward spiral that seemed to loop back to the attic. We ran until our lungs burned, but each turn brought us back to the man, who hadn’t moved, his count still going. ‘Seven… eight…’

I realized then that the only way out was through the circle of nails we had made. We had to break it. I shouted to the others, ‘The nails! Kick them!’ We rushed to the circle, but the nails flew up and swirled around us, cutting our skin with tiny pinpricks. We cried out, but we kept kicking, scattering the rusty pieces across the floor. The man stopped counting. He tilted his head, and his smile vanished. ‘You broke the wheel,’ he said coldly. ‘That’s not allowed.’ He raised his hand, and the nails began to plummet toward us like a storm of needles. Maggie screamed, but Joe grabbed a heavy coal shovel from the wall and swung it in a wide arc, batting the nails away. They clattered against the walls, and for a moment, the man flickered, like a faulty projection. We took our chance and ran for the stairs, which were normal again, and flew down them. The front door was unlocked. We burst outside into the blinding light of a summer afternoon, gasping for breath. We kept running until we reached the main road, not stopping until we were miles away.

We didn’t talk about what happened for days. But we all had the same marks: tiny red dots on our arms and legs, like pinpricks that never healed. Joe’s grandmother later said the attic had been sealed for years because of ‘a bad turn of events.’ She found the nails scattered, but she didn’t ask. We never saw the man again, but sometimes, late at night, I hear a low counting in my head, starting from one. And I know someday, he’ll finish counting to ten. And this time, the circle won’t be so easy to break.