The front door was open when Lilah arrived. Not much, perhaps just a fraction of an inch, but it lent the scene a disquieting air as she approached. Dave didn't usually forget things like that. Even when the two of them partied so late and so long that they had to lean on each other to keep from collapsing on the lawn in an ungraceful heap, Dave somehow had the presence of mind to get them both inside safe and sound with the security system turned on behind them before he staggered inside and slumped on the couch. It was half the reason she toured with him--sure, he made a good opening act, but Lilah really relied on him more for the nights when the bus broke down or the crowd got rowdy or the management decided to play games with the gate receipts. She didn't like the idea of a situation he couldn't handle.

But she didn't turn back. She'd been playing gigs with Dave Dryden for ten years now, from the days when they schlepped their gear around in the back seat of his beat up Toyota through her meteoric rise to stardom all the way up to the big arena shows they did now, and Lilah took pride in the way she never ditched her old friend for someone younger and hipper and more MTV-friendly. She might have sold out a little--just a little, her wounded pride reminded her, just a tiny bit less death metal and a titch more melodic--but she didn't abandon the people who were there for her at the start. Because they never abandoned her.

(Besides, it never hurt to have an opening act that was so fucking Satanic compared to her that Lilah could actually hear parents' anuses unclench when she took the stage.)

So instead of pulling out her cell phone and calling the cops, Lilah knocked on the door and called out, "Hey, Dave? Dave, it's Lilah. I, uh... I brought the scissors you asked for. Clippers too. Okay if I come in?" She honestly didn't know whether she expected to find him tripping out of his fucking mind on something, or waiting for her with a bunch of her best friends in some kind of bizarre attempt at a surprise party. He'd sure as hell sounded serious over the phone, but Lilah knew from rueful experience that Dave could say just about anything with a straight face and didn't mind playing the long con when it came to springing a prank on someone.

But it wasn't a prank. Or at least, it wasn't a prank Dave was ready to reveal just yet. "Uhhhhh... maybe not," Lilah heard him call out from upstairs. Something sounded odd about his voice--it was a far cry from the usual full-throated growl that carried across a crowded room. The shiver of disquiet in the back of Lilah's head became a river of icy fear. "I, uh, I think things have gotten a little out of hand. I don't think scissors are going to do it anymore. M-maybe you should just gkkh!" He broke off with a strangled yelp. Lilah didn't hesitate.

She launched herself through the open door, then up the steps two at a time. Her Doc Martens pounded a furious rhythm on the hardwood floor as she sprinted down the hall to Dave's bedroom--it occurred to her in a moment of giddy, adrenaline-fueled hilarity that she was literally running with scissors just like all her teachers told her not to back when she was a kid, and Lilah almost caught herself giggling at the absurdity of the thought before she turned the corner and saw something far more unpleasantly ludicrous waiting for her.

At first she thought Dave had somehow gotten tangled up in seaweed. That was obviously, patently impossible in a second-floor bedroom in a house on a hill in the middle of drought-stricken Los Angeles, but it was the only way Lilah could make sense of what she was seeing. Dave hung suspended in the air, his limbs entwined with hundreds of strands of bright green fronds that floated in the air and clung to the walls and floor and ceiling. They blocked the windows, giving the whole room the air of an undersea grotto lit in shadowy emerald. Lilah could barely believe her eyes.

But as she slowly took in the details, it began to make a bizarre kind of sense. Whatever the, the vines or whatever were, they must have been a lot stronger than their delicate appearance suggested. They literally held him up off the ground, knotting together into thick cords that bound his wrists and elbows and knees and ankles and throat--thankfully not tightly enough to strangle him, but enough to make speech almost impossible. They even clung to his head, a thicket of them pressing against his scalp as if they were actually growing out of his... his... oh god. Lilah suddenly recognized that viridian hue.

It was Dave's hair. That was every bit as blatantly impossible as a room full of floating seaweed in the middle of Los Angeles, but Lilah had been there when Dave got his latest dye job. She remembered helping him pick out the color. And it looked exactly like the forest of emerald green that clung to the walls and snaked around the room and sent impatient, questing tendrils in Lilah's direction. She jabbed at them with the scissors she'd momentarily forgotten she held, wiggling her fingers to make what she hoped was a menacing series of snipping noises at them. Suddenly Dave's request for clippers didn't seem quite so bizarre.

"Dave, can... can you talk?" she asked, pulling the clippers from her pocket with her free hand. "Are, are you okay?" It sounded stupid when she said it out loud--Dave's hair had grown something like sixty feet since she saw him just a couple of days ago, and now it was moving around with a life of its own. Of course he wasn't fucking okay. But she had to say something.

"It was the book," he gasped out in reply, his voice a reedy whisper. "I, I was t-turning it into lyrics for a new song, and...." The hair tightened around his throat, and his words sputtered out into choked silence, but he didn't need to say any more. Lilah knew exactly what he meant. She was there for that, too.

Not that she bought any of it at the time. Not figuratively, and not literally either. Lilah's managers had been pushing her away from the seriously Satanic imagery for a while now, over to the more lucrative and radio-friendly themes of partying hard and kicking ass and punching misogynists in the face with brass knuckles. (Okay, so Lilah had added that last bit herself.) She didn't need to pick up any memorabilia from the estate sale of a notorious occultist for her stage show, and Lilah had always been more interested in the devil as a symbol of rebellion against authority than a real, tangible being who lived in the center of the earth and tempted sinners. Even when Dave swore blind that Karlos Gwydion was the real deal.

Honestly, she half suspected it was one of Dave's long-con pranks until just a few moments ago. He had enough Satanic souvenirs lying around to be able to stage a fake estate sale, and he had to know that Lilah wouldn't be able to tell the raven skull he picked up last month from the one that 'Karlos Gwydion' had in his collection. The 'Tome of Shadows' looked like a pretty good prop, good enough to double for the Necronomicon in a Hollywood movie, but she brushed off Dave's claims that his house had started to feel weird and claustrophobic ever since he bought it. She figured he'd get to the point of whatever his gag was sooner or later... only it turned out the joke was on him after all.

And it was up to Lilah to take care of her old friend one more time. She wasn't about to leave him and go get someone--if his hair had grown this long, this fast, who knew what would happen in the time it took her to go find someone who would believe her? If that was even possible. Five minutes ago, she'd have giggled herself sick at the idea of a Satanic hairdo. She could only imagine what the police would say. "O-okay," she murmured reassuringly, raising the scissors and coming closer. "Just stay calm, don't worry. I'm, I'm just going to cut you down and--"

A small forest of hair reared up like a nest of angry snakes, waving back and forth menacingly at her. Lilah recoiled. "In, um, in a minute. Or two. Just once we talk, you know? Clear the air a little and, um, um, calm things down a bit?" Shit, it could fucking hear her? Lilah thought it was just... just hair. Satanic hair, sure. Evil hair, yes. But intelligent hair that could eavesdrop on their conversations? Lilah's clippers felt like a woefully inadequate tool for the job. "What, um, what do you want?" she asked, shortly before realizing that no matter how smart Dave's hair might be, it didn't have a mouth.

Then it began to move again, and Lilah caught herself expecting it to spell out various shapes in the air like some kind of Vermicious Knid. But instead it only fluttered and danced, whipping from side to side and darting in and out of her field of vision until she didn't know which way to look. She tried to take a step backwards, her resolve to help her friend faltering momentarily if not fading, but her feet got tangled up in hair and she let the scissors fall from her hand as she grabbed the doorframe in a desperate attempt to stop herself from falling.

Adrenaline pumped through Lilah's veins, amping up her senses until her eyes flicked at every twitch and flutter of the constantly moving hair. She knew the frantic energy would exact its own exhausting price, but she didn't care--she would gladly pay it if it meant she could struggle free of the constricting, entangling hair. She kicked her ankles desperately, but it only relaxed its grip just long enough for her to wear herself out before tightening itself around her legs again.

Soon, Lilah had a full cocoon of hair wrapping around her from the waist down, wriggling her skirt and panties down until they dropped to the floor at her feet. She squealed involuntarily in embarrassment--sure, it wasn't the first time she'd taken her clothes off in front of Dave, but usually it was just him. Or at least him and someone she picked for a threesome. Having his hair suddenly decide to strip her naked felt somehow creepy and lecherous in a way she couldn't quite describe. She thrashed and writhed, attempting to pull free, but she couldn't get the leverage.

Within moments, Lilah was fully nude, a forest of bright green hair darting around her with dizzying rapidity as she tried to anticipate its next move. Everywhere she looked, though, she seemed to be looking in the wrong direction, and soon her eyes began to tire from her constant attempts at vigilance. She found herself blinking more and more, shaking her head from side to side in an effort to free her mind from the groggy cobwebbed sensation that slowly overcame her thoughts. And all the while, silken strands teased her nipples and insinuated themselves deep into her cunt until she shuddered with involuntary pleasure.

"Slaves," Dave rasped out. Lilah furrowed her brow in confusion--she'd forgotten her own question of a few moments ago, lost it in the wearying struggle and the desperate efforts to free herself that left her limbs leaden with exhaustion and her eyes instinctively following the motion of the hair all around her. "It wants slaves, Lilah. It wants servants to spread its message, preach its dark gospel to a world of followers. This isn't like the old days, when you had to trick people into reading from a book and surrendering their souls. All it needs is a single viral video for the kids to sing along to and it can snare millions."

Lilah wanted to refute him, to argue that even if she was famous enough to sell out an arena tour there was no way her fans would be gullible enough to chant along to a demon-summoning ritual that would swallow their souls one headbanging head of long, luxurious hair at a time... but she could feel her mind collapsing into a groggy stupor, the floating hair now moving in a smooth and sinuous rhythm that she couldn't stop her eyes from instinctively following until she couldn't think of anything but the constant motion. Even the pleasure that coursed through her body, making her cunt leak and drip down her thighs in a soaking mess, only existed as a dim background radiation to the fog in her brain. "I, nnnh, nnnuhhh," she mumbled, her speech slurred and drowsy on her lips. She didn't even know what she was going to say.

"There's no use fighting it, Lilah," Dave husked out. Lilah wondered loosely if his eyes had the same glazed, lifeless stare hers did, but she didn't have the energy to look at him. Not when the hair kept enticing her to watch its ceaseless motion, lulling her further and further into drowsy exhaustion until her eyelids fluttered and sank, lower and lower until they were mere slits. "You're going to be a slave to the powers of darkness. J-just like me." Lilah began to blink. She lost track of herself before she finished.

When she finally opened her eyes, a minute or an hour or an eternity later, there was a book open in front of her. Dave's hair lovingly stroked her cheeks and neck, her breasts and belly, her slick pussy, enticing her into a soft and compliant state of pure bliss. "It's time to read something, pretty girl," she heard Dave's voice purr out, and she sighed in vacant ecstasy as her mouth opened and she began to speak the words on the ancient vellum pages.

THE END