“That’s her,” Beverly said.
“Yep, that would be me,” Hegel said, glaring at the two girls with her good eye. Mike fixed his sights on her.
“What the fuck is going on here?” he shouted as the intensity of his voice grew.
“A bit of a gathering. Tonight is a very special night, and we still have so much to do,” she said, picking at the ragged hole where her eye used to sit. “I’ll tell you what. If you give me the girls, the two of you can go free.”
“Fuck you,” Mike spat.
“Why are you doing this?” Ann shouted.
“Oh, it’s a long, sordid tale involving lost love and thirty slaves being burnt to the bone, but it’s nothing I feel like getting into. Suffice it to say I sold my soul for someone, and then they tried to have me burnt at the stake. It was in effigy, but still that pissed me off. At any rate, the whole story ends with me sitting on top of this roof getting ready to render the fat of two young girls.”
“That’s fucked-up, man,” Mike blurted, keeping his gun locked on her.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Hegel chortled with a thin-lipped smile. Her cruel eye cast its gaze into the dark pines. On the tree line, shadows gathered. Some were distinctly human, but others were a twisted mockery of all that was holy. Their forms defied nature, and the loathing in their glowing eyes defied the Good in all its forms.
Writhing devils of pride’s creation poured from the darkness, singing, “Ohhh, for love we come. Ooohhh, for experiences we come. We are open to all the worlds, and we follow he that answers prayers.” They chanted in unison. The sounds of their voices were so powerful and numerous that it reverberated in the frightened teens’ guts. Countless numbers of them poured out of the ghastly black woods. The entire forest was like an angry ant mound. A great wind raged from all directions, nearly toppling the trees.
“The Sabbath has begun,” Hegel hissed in a raspy voice.
Chapter 5: It’s All Going to Hell
“We’ve got to go,” Mike stated.
“Where?” Ann gasped.
“The Black Crystal,” Beverly screeched as she sprinted.
“Sounds good,” Ann said, taking off after her.
Mike raised his gun, blasting off a shot at Hegel. The shot burrowed through the roof instead of its intended target. The four of them pushed their bodies harder than a bulimic in the bathroom of an all-you-can-eat buffet as they rushed for safety. The figures from the woods poured into the lonely streetlight. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of them gave chase.
The Black Crystal seemed so far to the terrified runners. A naked woman jumped in their path and bared her teeth like a feral animal. Mike popped off two shots, hitting her in the chest. She fell from a flat-out run onto her face.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Mike muttered as more took her place. He fired wildly into the crowd, as hordes of them ran screaming from behind. Rick stumbled as he tried jumping over the naked woman.
Beverly and Ann reached out, barely righting him before he took a fall again. The Black Crystal, their only hope, lay just yards in front of them. A naked, bearded man snatched Beverly’s arm and sucked her into his flabby chest. In one motion, he bit down on her collarbone with his brown chipped teeth. The bite sunk deep, and Mike could see the old man’s drool leaking down her chest as she screamed. It was like the life was being leached out of her. Mike jammed the gun into the wicked man’s head and pulled the trigger. The wrinkled head ripped back as the hollow point ravaged the inside of his skull. Mike yanked his sister from the leprous old man’s arms and forced her to start running.
Onto the porch they jumped, just as Ann and Rick burst into the store. From his left, Mike saw a hideous beast crawling after them. Its body looked like a skinned corpse, but its arms were a twisted boiling mass of flesh that had two fearsome claws attached. Its legs were that of a cow’s, and it dragged them behind itself as if they were broken. Its head was large and misshapen, but its face was human. Mike fired, hitting the creature in the head as he and his sister swung open the door that was like a cemetery gate. They slammed it behind them and tried to lock it. Beverly screamed as she shoved her shoulder into the door to brace for the inevitable push from a thousand tainted bodies.
“How do you lock this thing?” Mike roared, looking for any help. He saw Nick standing at the counter of the store, wide-eyed, staring at him. He was frozen in the act of handing a customer her change.
“Fuck!” Mike yelled, throwing the weight of his shoulder into the door. Heavy thuds and the clacking of hooves could be heard rushing onto the porch. Ann and the fat man got behind Mike and Beverly. Like the members of a phalanx, they drove their shoulders in as the blitz of noise rushed right to the door and suddenly halted. Not a sound could be heard outside, except the now ever-present wind.
Nick finally blurted out. “What the hell is going on?”
“Get the fuck over here and lock the fucking door,” Mike shouted.
“What are you doing?” Nick said with a dumbfounded look on his face.
“I swear to fuck, Nick, come and lock the fucking door, man, or we’re all going to die, man!” Mike screamed, desperation radiating from his words. Nick jumped the counter and rushed to the door. He stuck his key into the latch, and the group heard the relieving click of the lock.
“There are all sorts of fucking monsters or…aliens…or…demons or…crazies out there, and they’re all trying to kill us,” Mike said, running to the large stained-glass window in the front of the store. He slightly parted the purple curtain and peered out the multi-colored window to see nothing. Not a living or undead soul was in sight. Even the bodies of the people he had shot were gone. All he could see was the lonely streetlight, his destroyed car, and the abandoned porno store. Waves of fog rolled around the tree line, but other than that, everything looked normal. Nick walked up to the stained-glass window and looked out.
“Mike, you’re starting to freak me out. What’s going on?” Nick placed a hand on Mike’s shoulder.
Mike’s face had a puzzled look. “You didn’t hear any of that?”
“What?”
“All the screaming and gun shots and howling,” Beverly chimed in.
“I didn’t hear anything out there until you guys came in,” Nick answered.
“We’ve got to lock this place down with whatever we've got, man. There are fucking hordes of the motherfuckers out there, and they’re trying to fucking eat us or fuck us or both, dude,” Mike replied, rushing from the window. He grabbed hold of a large bookshelf that sat to the far left side of the store. He scooted the bookshelf across the room, knocking off all manner of glass statues to the floor. Most crashed and broke on the thin gray carpet that lined the establishment’s floor.
“Hey, what the hell are you doing?” Nick yelled.
“Fucker, there are all kinds of things out there, and Chuck’s fucking dead. Some other poor fuck had his throat slit, and they’re going to do the same damn thing to us if we don’t board this fucking place up!” Mike screamed with all his might. His face changed to the color of a ripe tomato as he finished his rant.
Nick pulled out his cell phone. “Well, let’s call the cops.”
“No! That’s how they got Chuck,” Ann warned as she ran to help Mike in his efforts.
“What do you mean?”
“They’re witches, like real, magic, flying-on-a-broomstick kinds of witches. They cursed him or something, and he went crazy and tried to kill us,” Beverly added.
“OK, guys. This is nuts. I have to be back in time to make dinner for my husband in half an hour,” a female voice said. Mike turned to notice a tall, pretty blonde woman standing next to a large display case of ash and hickory wands. She was slim, athletic, and dressed in black yoga pants and tank top.
“You guys almost had me, but you pushed it too far with the spell stuff.” Ironically, she said this while holding a book of love and sexual magic. She started to tromp toward the door, looking confident that she would so
on be in the parking lot heading home, and she would have been, if it hadn’t been for the slight thump on the window. Then another thump sounded, followed by a deeper grinding noise that began to echo off the walls. The blonde froze in place.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Witches,” Beverly whispered. The sound of a dozen footsteps stomped across the roof in unison and stopped above the blonde. She looked up. She stared for a moment, her eyes locked on the scraping sound that hung above her head. It was almost as if a dog was lightly pawing at the shingles. The blonde woman, as quietly as she could, stepped to her left, and a look of relief came over her. She would have kept that expression, too, if the sound hadn’t followed her. Dread and confusion were slapped all over her face as she rushed about fifteen feet down the aisles. She was out of sight now. She was lost in the small maze of mismatched bookshelves that inhabited almost everything except the middle of the store. She stopped moving, and as soon as she did, the flood of footsteps followed her, resting once more above her.
“Run, bitch!” Mike shouted as he dropped the table he was toting. As soon as his words registered, she took off in a blind panic. The footsteps followed thunderously overhead. They were always in lockstep with the woman, chasing her like a swarm of bees. Mike whipped out his gun and pointed it at the bulk of the footsteps. He pulled the trigger, wildly missing his target. The slide slammed back, locking. He was empty. He hadn't reloaded his gun when he came into the store. He was a good marksman, but he didn't know the gun and had never shot under this kind of pressure.
“Fuck, man,” he shouted, slinging spit out of his mouth. He pulled the clip from the gun and reached into his pocket, snatching out a box of shells as the young woman still ran screaming. Her screams were so violent there was no way her vocal cords wouldn't tear if she kept it up for long. Mike accidentally dropped his magazine. The blood rushed to his brain, causing his fingers to lose their precision. Frantically, he snatched the magazine off the floor and tried desperately to jam a bullet in. No part of his body seemed to work. The flow of time slowed around him as he feverishly tried to push the bullet in.
“Ohhh, God,” Beverly screamed.
The bullet finally snapped into the magazine, and Mike raised the gun as the blonde ran past him and into the maze of bookshelves. The footsteps rushed over Mike’s head as he fired. The bullet ripped into the roof with a loud crack, and from outside came a hellish scream of pain that sounded like the roar of a bear. Like a faucet, black and red blood sloshed through the hole and onto the floor. The footsteps stopped in place at the sound of the scream, and Mike loaded another shell into the magazine. Thrusting the gun back up, he fired another shot. Again a horrendous scream arose, followed by the sound of a heavy body flopping on the roof. Blood streamed through, turning the gray carpet a sickening shade of purple.
Nick shouted as he rushed over to Mike. “Stop.”
Mike was still trying to jam another shell into the chamber. “Why?”
“You said they were devil-worshipping witches, right?”
“Yeh, either that or aliens,” Mike said as he pointed the gun back up to the roof, ready to take his next shot.
“How many did you say are out there?”
“Fuck, I don’t know, man, a lot.” Mike looked confused.
“If there’s that many of them out there, they could tear down this place in no time. So why haven’t they?”
“Well, it sounds like they’re about to,” Mike said, stepping back from the ever-growing pool of blood in the center of the floor.
“I don’t think they can come in. Not if they’re witches. This place has wrought iron bars on its doors. In European folklore, a witch can’t enter a house that is guarded by cold iron. I think they’re trying to do something different.” The thunderous footsteps fled to the back of the building, and soon they were leaping off the roof. Mike ran to a window and nervously peered out into the darkness, looking for any sign of their attackers.
“I think they’re trying to defile the place, and their corrupt blood is one way they’re trying to do it. This place has all manner of purifying objects and elements in it. Salt, garlic, Saint John’s Wort, silver, iron, and witch balls are everywhere. They should have a hard time casting spells on us without corrupting us and this place first,” Nick said.
“Are you telling me not to fight back?”
“Hell, no, just be smart about it,” Nick said as he ran among the winding bookshelves looking for something. Mike rushed back to the center of the room and picked up bullets that he had dropped. The blood still dripped from the ceiling, making a sickening splash as it hit the carpet.
“We still need to barricade this place,” Beverly said, placing a hand on Nick’s shoulder.
“Yep, let’s get on it,” Mike said. The two of them rushed to find a way to seal off every entrance as fast as they could.
“What’s your name?” Ann asked, sitting down next to the quaking blonde girl.
“It’s Kim,” she stammered, her lips quivering.
“Kim, we’ve got to help them board up this place,” Ann said as she pushed Kim’s shoulder-length blonde hair out of her eyes.
“OK,” she whispered. The four of them worked as fast as they could. Ann and the blonde woman were pulling nails and screws from any piece of furniture they could find, and Mike and the fat man were hammering the boards to the windows. They worked silently. The only words spoken were the ones needed to give directions in the effort or to clarify exactly what needed to be done. Panic was like another person in the room as they toiled.
* * *
Nick tried to use the computer to send some kind of message, but all it pulled was hard core pornography, and trying to send a text didn’t fare much better. Beverly never knew there were so many ways to make dicks in text art, but you learn something new every day.
“To hell with this,” Beverly grumbled as she stormed into the bathroom, leaving the others to their work. The lights popped on like a road flare sending out its blinding rays. When her eyes fully adjusted, she was hunched in front of the mirror looking at a face she didn’t believe was hers. Thick black bags sagged under her eyes, making her look like a boxer that had taken the wrong fight.
“God, I wanted to look older, but not like the before and after shots of a crackhead,” she muttered as she twisted the creaking handle on the faucet. Clean, clear water flowed into the dingy sink, and she turned the other handle to warm it up before use. Her body could not sustain another shock to the system, even if it was just frigid water.
Next, she carefully peeled off her blood-soaked hoodie. Its crimson color had masked exactly how much she was bleeding. Both her stab wound and her bite were still oozing. They should have closed by now, but she had not exactly been taking it easy on them. The sight of the wounds churned her stomach, as if her insides had been thrown into a cement mixer. She splashed the wounds with water as best she could before the sight of them started to overwhelm her.
“Shit,” she muttered as she pushed her back against the cool tile that lined the walls and slid into a sitting position. She knew it was probably not a good idea to be sitting on the floor of a bathroom that Nick maintained, but she needed to be close to the ground. Resting her head in her hands, she repeated to herself, “Just breathe.” Beverly had no clue how long she had sat there before she heard a light knock at the door.
“How are you doing?” Nick said from the other side.
“I’ve been better.”
“Can I come in?”
“Yeh,” she said, still cradling her head in her hands.
The door eased open, and Nick peeked inside. Beverly never looked up as he came into the room. He stood above her, looking like a helpless child before he gathered the nerve to slide in beside her, gently resting his arm on her bare shoulders. His skin was almost as soft as hers. Normally she would have thought this was sexy, but they were in a survival situation. Beverly longed for a more masculine grip—one that was rough and ca
llused from years of hard labor, one that could crush with sheer power, and one that could scoop her up and carry her away from all this—like her father’s. The old fat construction worker would have handed her his beer, walked outside, and knocked half a dozen of those things out before they took him down. It was a feat she knew Nick could never accomplish with his spindly arms and weak chin.
She raised her head like a rabbit checking to see if the fox had gone, and as she did, she caught sight of hazel eyes. It was like looking into compassion itself. Instantly she could feel that he would give up far more than his life for her. She still didn’t think he could fight, but at least she knew he would try. She raised her good hand and placed it on his cheek.
“I always liked you, you know that?” she said timidly, still keeping her eyes locked on his.
“Yes.”
“I’ve been coming in here for three months now. How come you never tried to kiss me?”
“You’re eighteen. I’m twenty-three.”
“So?”
“I didn’t want to take advantage of you,” Nick admitted, hiding his face like a puppy that had been caught chewing on his master’s slippers. Beverly gently pulled his face back to hers, and before he could react, she leaned in and planted a firm kiss on his soft lips. She pulled him in closer, increasing the pressure, as the pressure in her body seemed to release. In that moment, there was only the two of them, and as they parted, Beverly gave a full-lipped smile. When her eyes opened, she could see Nick doing the same.
“That’s one of the things I like about you. You don’t take advantage of people,” she said, still grinning.
As she finished her words, it came. The tiles on the wall fractured into spider-like patterns. Each crack ripped across grout and dingy tiles. Dozens of them splintered off, forming new cracks that raced to do the same. Chunks fell to the ground like disintegrated glaciers into the sea, and as they hit and shattered, all that was left of them was their hollow ring. Nick clung tightly to Beverly as the walls crumbled around them. In the center of the wall across from them, the breaking tiles formed one sentence: Sinners will be.
Maleficarum: Hunger of the Witch Page 4
