Sho-sho Mamu, Inc
Chapter 5

Copyright© 2017 by aubie56

As far as everybody was concerned, that ended the Sho-Sho Mamu danger and things went back to normal in Blue Point, SD. Tourist business died off as other things came up to attract the public’s interest. The drop in tourist business was noted by the town officials because of the drop in taxes, and the drop was noted by every business that depended on tourism. Therefore, an incident that took place over the winter was very important to the town.

Indians had been famous, or is that infamous, for years because of their love of gambling. Therefore, there was nothing unusual in the poker club that met once a week in the basement of Bright Eagle Johnson’s home. This particular night was a bit unusual because of the guest who was there. Besides the five Sioux who were the regular members of the club, there was a Cheyenne guest, Billy Smokem who was a big promoter of Indian activities related to tourists.

During a lull in the game while more beer and sandwiches were being procured, Billy Smoken asked, “Hey, Jake Blue Fox, what are the plans to turn the Sho-Sho Manu site into a tourist attraction? Surely, you guys are not going to let the Whites keep their money when you have such an obvious drawing card.”

Jake answered, “Dammit, Billy, nobody around thought of that! That’s a great idea, but we don’t have anybody to do the proper organizing and promotion. I sure wish we had somebody like you to run the operation.”

Bright Eagle returned in time to hear the tale end of Jake’s answer, and he wanted to be filled in on what he had missed. Jake gave him a synopsis and asked what Bright Eagle thought of the idea. “Hell, I think that it is a great idea, and my bank is ready to back the operation to the hilt if Billy will agree to run it for us.”

Thus, the Sho-Sho Mamu Exposition was born between rounds of poker. Actually, the poker buddies became so interested in the tourist trap idea that the poker game shut down early to give time for some preliminary planning on it. The upshot was that a corporation had been formed with the officers limited to the members of the poker club plus Billy Smokem.

The first order of business was to acquire the rights to the original site of the summoning of Sho-Sho Mamu. That turned out to be easy because everybody in Blue Point, SD, could see the advantage to the return of tourist money. That month or so of affluence they had all experienced the previous year made them forget the tragedy associated with it and gave all of the push the idea needed to get started immediately. Mason Running Bear would have turned over in his grave if he had one at this development.

Anyway, it took until mid-summer to get everything ready, including the hiring of two shamans to take part in the actual show. Sam Turtle Back was something of a showman himself, and he relished the opportunity to be the leader in the show. However, he figured that the summoning of Sho-Sho Mamu was kind of tame except for the sacrifice of the child at the end of the performance. Well, Sam had no intention of sacrificing a human child, but he thought that he had found a loop hole in the ceremony that would let him substitute a young animal for the child. After some discussion, they settled on a calf from the local slaughter house.

Ever the perfectionist, Billy Smokem called for a dress rehearsal the night before the opening performance. He invited a bunch of local Sioux dignitaries and their families to the dress rehearsal to play the part of the audience. Everybody showed up in a festive mood, but the show was taking place so late at night that the children were mostly left home.

There were a couple of points about the show that were overlooked or ignored. For one thing, the portal had never actually been sealed after the demise of the first Sho-Sho Mamu, so not much of a ceremony was necessary to reopen it. Furthermore, Sam Turtle Back had added enough to the ceremony to attract more than just Sho-Sho Mamus, as he was about to find out.

The show started with a condensed presentation of the video that Ed had shown the politicians when he pitched Sho-Sho Mamu, Inc. as the original prime contractor. That was enough to set the spine-tingling mood that Billy Smokem was looking for, and the video was quickly followed by Sam Turtle Back’s performance. He went through the motions of the ceremony while his acting partner chanted some meaningless phrases that not even the attending Sioux could understand.

To everybody’s surprise, a red-yellow glow appeared inside the Sioux version of the pentagram that Sam had drawn in the dirt. Sam never completely finished his performance because demons suddenly began to appear on the pentagram. The flood of demons never seemed to stop! Sam had done better than he had realized! He had summoned five Sho-Sho Mamus; at least 12 demons that resembled vampire bats, but had an 8-foot wingspan and a 3½-foot body length; and an undetermined number of ghost-like vaporous bodies of indeterminate size.

The late arrivals pushed the early ones out of the encircling pentagram to screams of intense pain. The scuffling of the demons pushed out of the circle erased the effect of the markings on the ground, and all of the demons were freed to escape the confining pentagram.

At first, the demons were as surprised as the humans as they faced each other, but the demons recovered first. The humans had no defense against the demons and, to a person, were rendered to mince meat, at least, those parts that were not eaten. The only witnesses were a couple of technicians back at the TV studio where the show was being recorded for editing into a promo film for the show. One of the technicians immediately called 911 while the other technician made certain that everything possible was recorded. This was not necessarily for showing to the general public, but for use by later investigators as they studied what had happened.

Once the more than 30 demons had killed and eaten all of the humans they could find, a few returned through the portal, but most of them scattered into the woods and disappeared from the camera coverage. As it happened, one of the technicians at the studio was a firm believer in Murphy’s Law (what can go wrong will go wrong) and still carried his shotgun with him. The other technician, a woman, spent the night with him at the studio where they got to know each other very well.

The next morning at the summoning site, a bevy of investigators showed up along with a company of National Guard troops to keep away the curious and the souvenir hunters. The 911 people who had shown up in answer to the original call did not stay around after they saw that there was no one to rescue. They prudently left the scene just in case a late-arriving demon happened to show up. At least one of the early responders did have the gumption to call the radio and TV stations to report that more demons were on the loose.

Every person who heard a radio or TV broadcast that day was warned of the outbreak of demons, so there were no excuses for the few fools who thought that the whole thing was just a hoax to promote the new tourist attraction. Most people dug out their shotguns and prepared for a siege. Everybody was shaken up by this situation, and woe unto a person who walked into a house unannounced!

The investigators at the summoning site went through the debris, both human and inanimate to see what could be learned. There was nothing new as compared to the attacks the previous year except for the greater degree of death. Everybody stayed well away from the still open portal, but nothing new in the way of demons showed up while the investigation went on.

Out of desperation, Sho-Sho Mamu, Inc. was called and a new contract was quickly negotiated. The team was contacted, and they gathered again in Blue Point to see what they could do to recover from the damage, but that was two days after the initial investigation.

Meanwhile, Ed ordered that the portal be completely enclosed in a steel cage. He specifically ordered that no galvanized wire be used in the structure for fear that the zinc coating would counteract the effect that he was looking for in the bare iron. The locals grudgingly agreed to construct the cage as Ed specified, but he was in a hurry to inspect the work to make sure that his orders had been followed to the letter.

 
There is more of this chapter...
The source of this story is Storiesonline

To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account (Why register?)

Get No-Registration Temporary Access*

* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.

Close
 

WARNING! ADULT CONTENT...

Storiesonline is for adult entertainment only. By accessing this site you declare that you are of legal age and that you agree with our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.