"Maybe she's not home," Tina said, after several rings of the doorbell.
"She's got to be here," Paul said. "Where else ..." He paused.
"What is it?"
"Do you smell smoke?" he asked.
Tina sniffed the air. "Yeah. Where's that coming from?"
Paul followed the smell of smoke ... to the front door of the house. "It's coming from the house," he said with alarm.
"You mean there's a fire in there?"
"Stand back. I've never done anything like this before and I'm not sure it'll work." Paul took a few steps back and then rammed into the door. He didn't succeed with the first attempt, but he did feel the door shift its position. This was amazing. He had never been this strong before. Until now, he didn't really see a use for it. He rammed the door a second time and this time, it swung open. Smoke poured out of the house. And when Paul and Tina walked in, they saw fire in all the rooms.
"Nadine?!" they shouted in unison. "Nadine, are you in here?" Fortunately, her parents were out of town that week, as they were part of a "Bible Retreat". With this fire ravaging their house, they could have been victims.
They were about to lose hope when suddenly, they heard coughing. They followed the sound to the hallway leading to the bedrooms. It was Nadine! She was sitting on the floor up against the wall. Oddly, she was dressed in a long black tattered dress.
Paul and Tina grabbed their friend and pulled her out of her burning home. Once outside, she breathed the fresh air and fell into a coughing fit.
"Like, what happened?" Tina asked, ignoring for the moment that she was sounding more and more like a ditz.
"How did the fire get started?" Paul asked.
"I started it," Nadine said.
"You? Why?" Paul asked.
"That place is evil. I was reading my Bible this morning, when suddenly I became dizzy. Then I kept reading, except I wasn't reading my Bible. I was reading a witchcraft book. Everything in my room had changed!" She started coughing again. When she got it under control, the continued. "Everywhere, there were evil books and evil symbols. I had to burn it. I had to burn everything." She looked down at herself and her face twisted. She pulled at her necklace, ripping it off of herself. Dangling at the bottom of it was a pentagram. She threw it away from herself with disgust.
"At least you're, like, okay," Tina said, beginning to chew on her gum again.
For the first time, Nadine actually looked at her friends, who had apparently changed like her. But whereas she had turned into some sort of witch, Paul had turned into a jock and Tina had turned into a ... a slut. She felt so sorry for them.
Behind them, Nadine's house collapsed in on itself and kept on burning. They waited to hear sirens of approaching police cars or fire trucks, but there was nothing.
