by N. M. Howell
“Cool,” I heard Mayor Scott whisper from behind me. He was obviously impressed at the show. I was, too, but more so at the magic than at the spectacle, knowing full well that this was no stage trick.
Rachel and Tanya both gasped loudly as the man’s head spun sideways with impossible speed, his black eyes staring at each of us in turn. His body turned to face us as well, but slowly and controlled.
The body glided forward and came to stand before us. The man nodded his head at the mayor, and I absentmindedly lifted my camera to snap a quick photo without taking my eyes off the creature in front of me. I would have to remember to go back to the previous room and take a photo there, as well. Seems I was too distracted to do my job.
The man’s power pushed against me, and I resisted the urge to step back. He turned his head toward me slowly and held my gaze with otherworldly stillness. I swallowed, staring up into the endless black pits that were his eyes, trying my best not to shake.
I had never been this close to a vampire before.
Without pulling his gaze from mine, he motioned his arm to the next room, and the group immediately sped off through the doorway, eager to put distance between themselves and the vampire man.
Once the room emptied, the vampire shut his eyes and bowed his head to me. I blinked as if just released from a trance. I backed away and turned to join the group in the next room. I shook my arms out as I walked, trying to rid myself of the prickly magic that lingered on my skin.
The energy in the next room wasn’t much different. However, looking around at everyone else in the room, I could tell that I wasn’t the only one who sensed it.
Mayor Scott was standing in front of the group, the hairs on his arms standing on end.
I walked up beside him and saw what everyone was staring at. A large black-haired wolf was pacing around the room in front of the group. After a witch and a vampire, I wasn’t too sure why a wolf would be such big deal, but hey - everyone’s got their weaknesses.
I glanced sidelong at Mayor Scott, who emitted a low growl from deep within his throat. I raised my eyebrow, curious as to why this was affecting him so much.
I crouched down to look closer at the pacing wolf, who snapped his head in my direction and looked at me with his piercing yellow eyes. I stared back eagerly. There was something going on behind those eyes - those weren’t simply the eyes of an animal. I smiled to myself, I’d never met an actual werewolf before.
The Wolf made his way to the middle of the room, and everyone stepped backward, backs pressed against the walls of the room. As if on cue, the wolf began to grow, disgusting popping and snapping sounds came from within it as its form changed from beast to man. The hair on its body receded, and its four legs transformed into human limbs as it slowly stood up straight, and turned to look at us. Pain filled his eyes momentarily, before getting quickly back into character and snarling menacingly at the group. Roger reached for my hand and squeezed it, more for his benefit than mine, I’m sure.
The wolfman then grinned a toothy grin and walked past each of us, sniffing, trying to intimidate us. It worked.
He then turned and walked out of the room, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
The tension in the room eased, but I noticed Mayor Scott was still on edge. I nudged him with my elbow, looking up at him with raised eyebrows. He smiled half-heartedly at me and shrugged. I had no idea how people could come up with a theatrical explanation for that one, which is why I supposed everyone seemed so intimidated by the show.
We all took a moment to collect ourselves, Rachel letting out a nervous giggle once we all seemed to calm down a bit. I smiled at the group, lifted my camera and made them all pose for a picture. “Smile,” I said. No one smiled. Great journalism, I thought to myself sarcastically.
I led the way down the hallway towards the next room, careful to avoid the maze of cobwebs and slimy ribbon attached to the walls and ceiling. We approached the end of the hall and were met by a wall of opaque smoke blocking our view into the next room.
I glanced back. “You guys ready?” Everyone nodded, albeit reluctantly. I grinned. People would be talking about this for years, and I was already formulating an article at the back of my mind about the successes of the haunted house.
I stepped forward through the smoke and was knocked sideways by something large and heavy that came swinging down in front of the doorway like a pendulum. It was heavy enough to knock me off my feet and into the side wall, where I banged my shoulder painfully.
“Ow, shoot,” I said, rubbing my shoulder as Mayor Scott helped me to my feet. Obviously, the event organizers hadn’t timed that one very well.
I stepped back to analyze the hanging object in front of us.
It was a woman, I noted, pale as the moon and hanging by her neck from a rope. She had a piece of red tape covering her mouth and was barefoot.
We all stood and watched, waiting for the show to continue. We waited, and nothing happened. I reached forward to see if it were just a prop we had to walk through, but the solidity of the body told me it was real. I inspected the hanging figure, dressed in a torn dress with bloodied hair concealing her face.
Rachel’s nervous giggles picked up again behind me, but a nudge from Tanya silenced her.
Something didn’t seem right. I wasn’t picking up any tingle of magic emanating from the woman. Instinctively, I extended my magical senses to her, feeling around for some sort of inkling of what she was. I had never learned how to do this specifically; I think it’s just a sense that all witches are born with. It allows us to recognize other magical beings without having to get too close. I tried again to feel for something, anything.
Nothing. My senses picked up nothing. This woman was human, but any force of life that once filled her soul had been torn away. There was an emptiness that I could feel from within her. I stared, realization slowly dawning on me.
I screamed, a blood-curdling scream that I didn’t know I had in me, tumbling backward desperately into the people behind me.
That wasn’t a prop from the haunted house. It was a dead body.
6
Mayor Scott’s fingers dug painfully into my shoulder as he tried to steady me.
Roger was kneeling down behind me with his face in his hands, and Tanya was on the floor with Rachel who was in hysterics.
“Get them out of here,” I said coolly, eyes fixated on the hanging corpse in front of me.
“I’ve got it,” Roger said, who stood up and led the two girls out through the way we came in through.
The lights came on, and the room lost most of its spookiness. The werewolf man came running into the room and stared at the corpse in disbelief.
“She’s not ours,” he said quickly.
I sensed Mayor Scott bristle at the man’s arrival, his body stiffening uncomfortably.
I glanced at him curiously, but he avoided my gaze.
“Lock the door,” I said to him. “Make sure no one else comes in.”
He nodded and ran out to take care of it.
I stepped closer to the hanging female body in front of me to get a better look. The girl was wearing a torn dress, and her hair was sticky with blood. Her head lolled to the side from the rope around her neck, and she had dark purple circles under her eyes. Her feet were bare, and her toes glittered with shimmery pink polish.
“I’ll call the sheriff,” Mayor Scott said and walked into another room to make his phone call.
I was alone with the corpse. I closed my eyes and extended my senses out towards the body again. I tried to concentrate and felt my power move through her. At first, I felt nothing, but after a moment’s concentration, I began to sense a small inkling of something.
It wasn’t magic, but it was the faintest hint of a life force. She was definitely dead, but I didn’t think she had been this way for that long
I heard voices growing louder from the next room, and was impressed by the sheriff’s timeliness.
I frowned when Ryan and hi
s friends came walking into the room.
“How the hell did you guys get in here?” I demanded, crossing my arms.
“Rumor has it your boyfriend got spooked by a body and ran away with the girls,” the tall, dark-haired guy said with a smirk.
I glared at him. “How the hell did you guys get in here? The door is locked.”
“The cellar,” Ryan’s good-looking blond friend, Jordan, told me. “Easy.”
I have no idea how they knew to come in through the cellar. I didn’t even know there was a cellar. I continued to glare.
“Is… is that a real body?” Ryan asked, his face ashen.
“Cool,” the dark-haired guy said.
“No, not cool. This woman is dead,” I snapped, moving to put myself between him and the hanging corpse. “Now. Get. Out.”
Ryan took a step back and mumbled to his friends that they should leave.
Jordan stepped forward and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Let’s go, man.” He seemed awfully calm given the fact that they all just walked into a room with a hanging corpse.
Mayor Scott walked back into the room, and said flatly, “Out.”
The three guys turned and left without a word. God, that man had power.
He called back to them as they left. “Don’t go far.”
He turned to me with an angry look on this face. “Who were they?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Ryan Bramley and his friends from Boston, apparently.” I tried to sound disinterested, not wanting him to think I had anything to do with them coming in here.
“Why are they here?” he asked.
I shrugged again. “Apparently to see the festival.”
“No, I mean…” he was cut off when more voices sounded from the front room, and I hoped, this time, it was the sheriff. I recognized the rough, lazy voice as it got louder - definitely the sheriff.
Sheriff Reese and two of his officers came into the room and fell silent as they set eyes upon the corpse.
“Jesus,” one of the officers whispered.
It was a pretty shocking sight.
The sheriff shook his head. “This isn’t right. Things like this don’t happen here in Brimstone Bay.”
Not that you would think, anyway, I thought to myself. If anything Mrs. Brody’s guests had said was true, this is exactly the kind of thing that would happen here.
“Cut her down,” Sheriff Reese instructed.
“Wait,” I said quickly, stepping forward towards the corpse. “Shouldn’t we at least inspect the scene, first?”
The Sheriff ignored me, and I immediately lifted my camera to snap as many photos as I could. At least this way we have a documented record of the scene to inspect later.
The two officers carefully cut the body down and laid her on the floor. I bent down to get a closer look at her face. Jesus, this wasn’t a woman, it was a kid. This girl couldn’t have been more than fifteen.
“Who could do something like this?” I whispered as the blood drained from my face. I felt dizzy.
Mayor Scott put his hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go outside to get fresh air, and let the boys work.”
I nodded, thankful for the excuse to get out of this place.
We walked out the way we had come through the house, and the sun nearly blinded me as we made our way outside.
I noticed Bailey, Jane, and Rory standing back from the crowd, and I went to join them. Mayor Scott busied himself with speaking with the town’s folk, encouraging anyone without any information to go home.
Mrs. Pots was standing with the girls, her arms wrapped tight around a pale-faced Roger.
“Is it true?” she asked me immediately. “A murder, here? In Brimstone Bay?”
I nodded and turned my attention to my housemates.
All three of them looked at me expectantly. I sighed, unsure how much I should divulge at this point in time. “A girl has been murdered. We don’t know any more than that.”
Rory gasped, and put her hand over her mouth. “Is it anyone we know?” she asked weakly.
I shook my head. “No one I recognize.”
“The officers will want to speak with you,” I said to Roger. His face grew even paler if that was even possible. “Don’t worry, we did nothing wrong. Just answer their questions truthfully, and you’ll be allowed to go home.”
The sheriff and his two officers were coming out of the house, and Mrs. Pots led Roger back toward the crowd.
I noticed flashing lights approach us from behind the house, and saw a hearse park at the end of the back lane.
Jane looked at me, concern spread across her face. “This isn’t good, River. This is not going to help the town’s perception of the paranormal. Any trust we may have maintained from the very few in this town will have vanished after something like this.”
I nodded. “I know. But until we have more information, there’s nothing much we can do about it.”
Sheriff Reese walked up to me, and the girls turned to leave. “I’ll see you guys later,” I said to them as they walked away. Rory glanced back at me, a worried look in her eye.
“It’s okay, everything will be all right,” I lied.
I turned to the sheriff expectantly.
“My boys are going to stay here to interrogate the crowd. I’d like you to join me at the morgue.”
I nodded and followed him to his car. I imagine word of my double major in criminology had spread. Otherwise, I wasn’t sure why he would trust me with something like this.
As we passed Mayor Scott, he said to the sheriff, “I’ll stay behind and help with the interrogations.” He turned to me and added, “River, I’d like to have a meeting in my office first thing tomorrow morning before anything gets put in the paper, okay?” I nodded. We would have to be careful about how we handled this, I understood.
I was amazed that most of the crowd had dissipated. For a town so obsessed with gossip, it was a testament to Mayor Scott’s abilities that he managed to convince them to go home. I knew for a fact, though, that half the town was on the phone with each other, discussing the day’s events.
Sheriff Reese and I rode to the morgue in silence, and I played the scene over and over in my head. A dead body in a haunted house. What is the expression people always say? The press will have a field day? Well, good thing I was the only press in this town.
I was thankful that the sheriff allowed me to join him in this. We had grown to be good friends since I moved to Brimstone Bay – although he still insists on me calling him Sheriff. We would often have coffee together at the café below the paper’s office, and I would help him solve his crimes. Well, by crimes I mean the occasionally vandalized street sign or missing antique. Years of journalism school has trained me to be inquisitive, and I’ve developed very keen problem-solving skills. More often than not, though, I would just help him with his crossword puzzles.
Sheriff Reese pulled the car up to the front door of the morgue, and a man I didn’t recognize was waiting for us outside.
“Sir, you’re going to want to see this,” the man said, and turned to lead us into the building. We followed him through a series of small rooms and hallways, and I thought that this would also make a stellar venue for a haunted house.
We arrived at a small room at the back of the morgue, and the man locked the door behind us. The corpse was lying on the table top and was covered in a thin white sheet that was pulled down just enough to reveal her face.
The girl looked so innocent, and I felt mildly sick to my stomach looking at her.
“We estimate she’s around thirteen years old. Identity unconfirmed.” The sheriff nodded and made his way around the table to inspect the body.
I realized I had left my backpack with my notepad and pen with Roger, so I resigned to just taking a ton of photos for later reference. It was not going to be fun reliving this again when it came time to write my story.
“I wanted to wait until you had arrived,” the mortician said and proceeded to remove t
he red tape from the girl’s mouth. I gasped at what he revealed.
The girl’s mouth had been sewn shut with what appeared to be fishing line. I covered my mouth and willed myself not to be sick.
“Cut it off,” the sheriff instructed. The mortician reached for a small pair of scissors, and slowly cut the line from the girl’s lips. Once removed, he carefully opened her mouth to inspect inside, which looked to be quite a difficult task.
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” he remarked. The sheriff nodded, and I snapped a photo.
“That’s not the worst of it, though, sir,” the mortician continued.
We both looked up at him expectantly, and he moved to the other side of the corpse and lifted the body, flipping her face down.
He lowered the sheet to reveal the girl’s mangled back. I was frozen in place and found myself unable to even grasp what I was looking at.
“What in the bloody hell is that?” Sheriff Reese asked, bending over the girl’s body.
“I’m not sure, sir,” the other man replied. “Looks like some sort of symbol.”
I regained my composure, what little bit I had left, and stepped closer to the body.
The skin on the corpse’s back had been carved into some sort of strange, bloody symbol. I swallowed hard, tension building in the pit of my stomach. The symbol was of three circles, each within the other, and a cross cut through. I thought I recognized the symbol from somewhere, but I couldn’t place it. I knew I had never come across anything here in town, given the fact that our library is extremely limited and poorly stocked.
I had an idea. I whipped out my phone and snapped a photo of the gruesome symbol with the shitty camera on the back of my phone, and immediately texted it to Riley. Do u recognize this? Pls look up @ library for me. I quickly turned my phone off and slid it back into my back pocket. “Just for reference,” I said to the sheriff, who didn’t look impressed.
“Do you recognize this symbol?” he asked me.
I shook my head. “Never seen it before.”
He sighed, and sat down in a chair pushed up against the back of the room. He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and exhaled a deep breath.
