Witch Hunter: Into the Outside

by J. Z. Foster

  “This is ridiculous!” Ted blurted. “We barely survived that, Beth! I even had this freaking thing try to eat me!” He thumbed to the wight. The wight immediately sneered in offense.

  “But a nibble! You moan like a cow for only a nibble! Among a brood, we regularly take bites of each other. It is a sign of bonding!” the wight shouted.

  “Oh, is that so? Then we must be really good buddies for you to try and take a bite out of me! Oh yeah, we’re like the damn odd couple, right?”

  The wight skewed its eyes suspiciously. “What is this ‘odd couple’ you speak of?”

  “Beth.” Richard squeezed her hand. “Let’s... let’s be smart about this, okay? Let’s leave now and come back later. We’ll restock, we’ll get help. We’ll hunt the witch.”

  “Such prattling,” the wight scoffed.

  “What the hell is prattling?” Ted shot an angry look at the wight.

  “You talk as if you have the jaws of rabbits. Nattering? Inevitable failure,” the wight responded. “The warlock knows that his name and domain have been disturbed. He’s felt such. He’s weakened until he can locate another suitable location and perform the proper ritual to transcribe his name again. The warlock will have fled this location, abandoning all that he has to regain his safety. There is no tomorrow in this war.”

  “Then it has to be tonight.” Beth’s voice was resolute. Richard knew there wasn’t a way to change her mind.

  “Tonight?” Ted shouted. “Who gives a flying shit if there’s a warlock running around out there, Beth! We didn’t even know they existed until tonight! What harm could they do?”

  “Such occurrences are formidable to detect. He draws his essence from the life of the town around him, causing torment, sorrow, suicide, terror.” The wight spoke nonchalantly. “It empowers him and gives him life. From time to time, further sacrifice is needed from the blood of—”

  “Shut up! Just shut up!” Ted yelled over him. “You don’t get a say! You eat people, probably people he gave you! No one is going to listen to you!”

  “He’s helping, Ted! No one says you have to go. We’ll drop you off in town. You go right on your way. But for me, it’s now or never.” She turned away from them to look back at the road.

  “I’m going,” Richard said.

  Ted ignored him, “You’re acting like a lunatic, Beth. You’re not equipped to fight a damn witch! Hell, your only real qualification for reporting is your bra size.”

  “Dammit, Ted! Get out!” Beth yelled back.

  “Watch your damn mouth!” Richard finally shot at Ted. He was filled with anger, and his outburst brought everyone to silence. “I’m tired of you!” Richard turned around and pointed a finger at Ted. “You’re the type always telling everyone what they can and can’t do, you’re always talking trash to everyone! Always telling us we’re fat, stupid, or weak just because you hit the gym and have more girls' phone numbers than just your mom’s, that you’re somehow better than us! I’m the only one that has any kind of training. And you know what? If it weren’t for me, you’d be dead! In fact, you almost were dead and it was only because you didn’t listen to me!”

  Ted shook his head. “So, what then? We form a war party to hunt a warlock that knows we’re coming to help people who don’t know we’re helping them, all the while taping it for people who won’t believe it when they see it anyway?”

  Richard tapped his finger against his chin, considering. “Yeah, yeah, I think that’s what we’re going to do.”

  “Fine, fine.” Ted gestured toward Richard. “I’ll come along. Can’t sit out if he’s going.”

  Beth shook her head. “No one is asking you to, Ted.”

  “Who’s going to hold the camera? This thing back here?” Ted tipped his head toward the wight. “I don’t think the creature with the strangely extensive vocabulary will know how to run a camera if it doesn’t even know the etiquette about not eating people.”

  “No. I do not attend myself to such modern magicks,” the wight responded.

  “Exactly. He doesn’t play with magical camera gear. I’m in. In until it becomes suicidal—then I’m out,” Ted promised. “But I’m going to need that extra magazine from the dash.”

  Richard hesitated, letting a second tick by before popping open the glove compartment and finding the clip there. He handed the extra bullets back to Ted. He decided this time he would feel more secure with Ted’s insistence on the pistol; they might just need it.

  “Then it’s settled.” Richard turned to look up at the full moon in the sky and let his voice drop low. “Such a lovely night for a witching.” He let a few moments pass before he turned back to Ted. “Can we try that again but you get it on film this time?”

  Chapter 9

  Strings of mucus shot from Minges’s mouth as he coughed; Richard had to cover his face and turn his head as the snot and spittle hit the table.

  “Sorry ’bout that, son.” Minges slurped down a paper cup of water. “Getting steamy in here, eh? Aww dammit, supposed to be cooling down here. It’s autumn ain’t it?” He stretched his collar.

  “You don’t look good at all. I think you need some medicine or something, like seriously.” Minges’s health concerned Richard; the air wasn’t particularly hot. He looked as if he had eaten something bad, drank too much, or had the plague.

  “Don’t rightly believe in them medicines, son. That’s how they get you. You ever know someone that went to the doctors and didn’t have to go back in again in a few years or what-not?” He smirked, assured that he had made his point. “Me, naw, I don’t go to them. My pappy and grand-pappy never went to no doctor, and they lived well into their sixties.”

  “Oh yeah, that makes sense.” Richard tried hard to be polite. “Well anyway, that’s what we did. We all decided we weren’t going to give up, just going to keep pushing on. Go kick the big guy while he’s down. Make the world a little safer for everyone.” He felt a warm sense of pride with that.

  Minges coughed. “Yeah, that was the plan, but instead you ended up just smashing the reporter’s head in, right?”

  Richard’s smile slowly left his face. “I’m still just...” He couldn’t find the words to finish.

  “Why not just go home then, son? You said it yourself, you folk didn’t even believe in all that until the house. What do you owe the world that you’d go and tango with something you don’t understand? Makes no rightful sense.”

  “Ted didn’t want to go, that was very clear, but I think he just didn’t like the idea of being left behind, feeling like he was the weakest. And me? Well, this was something I could do that no one else could do. I mean, how many other people have that much importance placed on them? This could be the most important thing I do in my entire life. And, well, Beth wanted a story, and she was getting one. Maybe that’s just her blood, right? Maybe finding the truth is just what she’s about.”

  “Was about.” Minges reiterated.

  “Yeah…”

  Minges nodded slowly. “So how does an amateur witch hunt begin? You gather yourself a posse with some ropes and pitchforks then set out to beat a lil ass? Or is this the part where you and that blood orgy come in?”

  “Blood orgy?” Richard’s eyes went wide. “Whoever said there was a blood orgy?”

  “Son, I’ve heard enough of these stories to know that there’s always a blood orgy. Weirdoes are always working toward a blood orgy.” He laughed and slapped his leg. “Trust me. I’ve seen my fair share of the weirdoes that hit up them blood orgies, and you fit the bill, son. No fooling me.”

  Richard shook the thought from his head. “No, no, no! I just called my sensei and told him about what had happened.”

  “Your sensei.” Minges snapped back into attention. “What’d you say that old boy’s name is?”

  “He’s intense. We just call him The Kord.”

  “Cord? Like what you plug in a vacuum with?”

  “No, The Kord. Kord, with a K. He’s a... he’s a god in one of the RP
G games we play. The name The Kord though, not my friend. No, my friend isn’t actually a god or anything.” Richard laughed shyly under his breath.

  “And you guys worship Kord?”

  “No, no! He’s not the real god, it’s just for a game!”

  “Mmhmm.” Minges looked skeptical. He said nothing else, only stared at Richard.

  When the silence became too much to bear, Richard finally murmured. “Uh?” “So, got a phone number where I could contact this Kord?”

  Richard nodded. “Got it logged in my phone, but it got fried. I guess the police have it? I also had it jotted down on a note in my book, but I don’t know where that is. Oh, and it’s not under ‘Kord,’ but ‘The Kord.’”

  “You don’t know the damn number? Kids these days. Hell, I used to have just scores of ladies’ numbers burned in my mind, down to the last digit! Now you’re all ‘I don’t have my phone,’ ” he mocked.

  “I have his email. It’s The Kord six nine six nine at—”

  “Eh,” Minges waved him off. “I don’t do none of that computer crap. We like to keep it basic around here.”

  Richard shrugged. “That’s all I’ve got.”

  “Mmhmm.” He trailed off into silence for another few long seconds. “So you called your buddy. Then what?”

  Ring Ring.

  The telephone continued unanswered. Richard turned in the booth and smiled at the camera; Ted was just a short distance away, filming everything, which, at the moment, was nothing at all.

  Richard took a breath; the phone booth smelled like cheese. He hadn’t been in an actual phone booth in years, but he was happy to have found one of the only working ones in the state, though he was also careful not to touch anything. He moved his feet around from the discomfort; the bottom of his shoes peeled from the sticky floor with each step.

  Oh man, this phone booth is so dirty. I’m pretty sure someone peed in here.

  They were parked at a gas station, and the lights were still on, despite how late it was. An old, tired-looking attendant flipped lazily through a magazine, paying them little attention as they went about their business.

  The night had grown so cold that Richard had to keep his jacket zipped all the way up, and it was starting to drizzle again. The moon was at its apex, and seemed to be shining an abnormal amount of light down on them.

  “Still ringing,” Richard said with a shy smirk to the camera.

  “Procure more of the rings of onion!” The wight cried from the driver’s side window in the van, its body stretched from the back and its green, beady eyes piercing the darkness. “My hunger grows more desperate with each moment’s passing!”

  Beth held up a finger and shushed him.

  Richard sighed. Finally, the phone clicked over and a tired voice came on. “Yeah?” It was The Kord.

  Richard gave a bright smile and thumbs up to the camera. “Kord? The Kord? Is that you?”

  The voice on the other side yawned. “Who is this and why are you calling me so damn late, or is it early? I have to work at The Comic Bin in the morning.”

  “It’s me, Richard. Kord—The Kord, it’s real. All of it, it’s real.” Richard saw the lenses on Ted’s camera shift and move as it followed him. He gave the camera a thumbs-up.

  “What’s real, Richard? Wait, the casting rumors are true?” His voice grew desperate. “Are they really casting Mark Wahlberg as The Weasel?”

  “No, no, nothing that bad. Witches, I mean. Warlocks. Man, they’re all real.” Richard’s voice grew in excitement; he had to keep himself from spewing all the words out at once. “We’re hunting one right now. We went to—”

  The Kord cut him off. “Richard, I know it’s real. I’ve been training you for years.”

  “What?” Richard’s voice fell flat.

  “Are you joking? We’re a cabal of witch hunters. Our hunting ground covers the tri-state area.”

  “It’s... I thought we were joking?” Richard couldn’t hide his confusion. He slid his hand over the receiver before looking up to speak to the camera. “He says he knew that already. He says that he was training me for it.”

  Beth and Ted exchanged an awkward glance.

  “Richard,” The Kord yelled back. “Richard, what have you been doing when we sent you out on missions?”

  “I don’t know? I was just looking around, playing along! I thought we were all just really into roleplaying.”

  “Oh my God, Richard. You always came back and told us of your struggles with demons and ghosts! Shit, wait. Is that your real name? Richard?”

  Richard stopped to consider if he was joking. “Uh… Doesn’t Harry use his real name too?”

  “You think his real name is Harry Deezenutz?”

  “I thought it was Polish!”

  “So when you told everyone your name was Richard Fitcher and we all laughed at how terrible that was, you were actually telling us your real name?”

  “I thought you guys were just being dicks!”

  The Kord groaned. “Richard, we made you take a ceremony, we told you it was real, over and over again. We made you study it and told you to prepare for what you might come across. You told us you’ve done it before. You’ve been practicing Latin for years!”

  “I thought it was very serious role-play! Like LARP or something. Why do we always play Dungeons and Dragons at the end?”

  “Because we like Dungeons and Dragons. What the hell else is a group of witch-hunting nerds going to do?” The Kord sighed and took a breath. “Okay Richard, okay. What are you hunting right now?”

  “A warlock, here in Bridgedale.”

  “Mmhmm, mmhmm. I guess Deezenutz put you on that?” The Kord listened carefully. “Have you come into contact with the witch yet?”

  “No, not yet…”

  The Kord cut him off. “Richard, listen to me very carefully. You should know all this already, but I’m going to tell you anyway and I’m going to speak slowly so that I make sure you understand. If you’ve been using your real name, you’re in serious danger. Names have power. They can touch you by knowing your name, and I don’t mean that in the physical sense, though they can certainly do that too. No, I mean in the spiritual sense, they can reach out and touch you. They can enter your mind and wreak havoc with your brain. You’re not strong enough to resist. You need to leave the area immediately. Like, now. If you haven’t confronted him yet, then you probably still have a chance.”

  “Uh, it’s not that simple.” Richard laughed under his breath and smiled to the camera again.

  “Why not? What did you do?”

  “We found a wight that was guarding for the warlock.”

  “You found a freaking wight?” The Kord screamed into the phone. “How in the hell did you kill it?”

  “See? That’s the funny thing. We didn’t actually kill it. We more or less got past him, though.”

  “More or less?”

  “It’s uh, it’s pretty cool actually. Basically, we freed it and it’s traveling with us now. It’s eating chips in our van right now.” Richard spoke quickly then. “I know what you’re going to say, I know what you’re going to say, but hear me out. He’s not really so bad when he’s not eating people. And I’ve kinda bound him into my service.”

  “Not, eating... It’s traveling with you, and you bound it to your service? Holy shit, Richard! I’m impressed, that’s not easy.” The Kord cut out for a few seconds. “Wait. What was it guarding?”

  The rain broke in the sky, pouring buckets. “Aww, dammit…” Ted cursed as he moved to get under an overhang.

  Richard licked his lips and then spoke. “The warlock’s name. Erlend Boberg.”

  Something shifted then in The Kord’s mood, Richard could tell. He could sense it. “Richard, I can feel that name. You’re onto something ancient, something old. Can you feel it? When you read the name, when you said it, can you feel how powerful it is?”

  It was true. He felt it. He felt the power climb up his neck. Instinct, the world, maybe
God... something told him what a wicked name it was. Something told him he should fear it. Richard shifted his weight and looked at Beth and Ted.

  How can I explain this to them? How can they understand the itch on my neck or the whispers in my ear? The things that tell me what to do? My instincts…

  He had known from the moment he saw the name that they were onto something powerful, something old and evil. He couldn’t explain how—he was sure that no words existed that could fully describe it—but he had a sixth sense that told him of the power, of what he would soon face. “Yeah, yeah I feel it too.”

  “Did you destroy the placement of his name? Like we’ve trained you?”

  “Yeah, but not on purpose. It burned down with the house. It was on stone, but that should have been enough to burn the name off.”

  “Listen to me Richard, listen carefully. That name, I don’t know whose it is, or what they can do, but I can feel it. He’s a cancer on the world, and he’s killing that city, and he’s probably done it many times before. He’s draining them. And I don’t even mean that in a figurative sense. I’m sure, if we looked at medical records, that they are going to have an abnormal number of diseased deaths, suicides, and deformed births. Richard, we have to take care of it.” The Kord was speaking slowly and carefully. “But don’t say that name again. Don’t you dare say it until you’re ready to hurt it. It might be listening. It’s not human anymore; something that powerful, that old, can’t be described as human, as a mortal, anymore.”

  “Okay, okay. What should I do then? We’re committed to going after the warlock…”

  “You and that news crew? Do they know what they’re getting into? You know what, it doesn’t matter. You need all the help you can get until we get there, but they’re your responsibility, Richard.” There was silence on the other end as The Kord let that sink in. “If it’s really as powerful as I think it is, we need to hit it quickly. I’m going to go wake up Harry, Katrina, and Severin. We’re going to come down there and kick some ass. But every second counts, Richard. We’re going to need you to gather research.”