Jack
My knees dig into the soft ground as I lay wildflowers on my wife’s grave. The headstone is worn with age and her name is faded. My children’s gravestones sit next to hers with a few Lilly of the Valley flowers sprouting up around their base in the shade. They were so small when they were taken from me. Nathaniel was only a year, and Mary was almost four.
It feels cool here in the shade of the graveyard as I pay my respects like I do every day. It’s unfathomable to me how much time has passed since they left this mortal plane.
“She looks just like you, Jane,” I whisper as if she can hear me. “But she’s different. She’s making me feel things that I haven’t felt since you and I were together.”
Nothing but the wind answers me, as usual, but talking to her like this is my way of keeping her memory alive.
As I sit, I see a group of witches come out from the forest with bushels of herbs and flowers in some baskets. They’re talking quietly amongst themselves, unaware that I’m sitting here. As they move closer, I pick up a few words that catch my attention.
“… the curse. Just one more day, it’ll be ready.”
What in the hell are they talking about?
I try standing up, but my knees give me away cracking as soon as I move.
The witches all look at me in unison and stop whatever it was they were talking about.
“Hey there, Jack,” one of them says. She has black hair and is wearing black and white striped tights under a black fitted dress. I wave but watch closely as they lift the entrance to the tunnels up, disappearing into their twisted web below.
Something about what they said doesn’t sit right with me and I decide to follow.
The tunnels were constructed after Talon took over Nightmare Acres, making it easy to get from one end of the property to the next. I don’t go down here often, mainly because the witches have claimed it for themselves. It always smells like a potion is brewing down here and ever since I drank that tonic, I’ve been wary of interacting with witches since. Maybe that’s not fair of me to write off all witches though based on just one horrifically life-altering interaction.
Besides, I made sure that witch paid for her involvement in my family’s demise and my monstrous transformation.
The tunnels split off into several possible paths. Looking down at the ground, I try to determine which set of prints looks the freshest and follow that, hoping I’ve made the right choice.
As I walk, thoughts of Lydia invade my psyche. After my fight with the werewolf, I needed time to regain my strength. When I transform into my monster self and exert that much power, I’m useless for at least a few hours. When I finally got my strength back, I found Lydia and her friends still asleep in their cabin. I watched her through the window, admiring her as she slept.
A soft hiss grabs my attention, and I rear back realizing I almost stepped on a snake.
“Jesus!” I mutter, watching as it slithers past me. It feels like a bad omen, but I press on.
I pass several empty rooms, or what could pass for rooms down here. Maybe more like storage since there are so many odds and ends stacked around like a hoarder’s paradise. What do they need all this stuff for? It couldn’t all be for spells. Some of the things don’t even make sense like there’s a basketball shoved into the open drawer of a dresser. And on top of that are lace doilies in all different sizes and colors.
Weird.
Then I hear talking coming up from ahead and I creep as soundlessly as I’m capable of. Stealth is not my strong suit, but I’m trying anyway. There’s something going on that isn’t sitting right with me. Especially since the fire and the werewolves showing up. There’s an odd feeling in my gut that’s begging for me to find out what it is.
The voices are getting louder as is the smell. It smells like smoke and burnt flesh. Maybe it’s just left over from the fire that occurred down here not that long ago, I tell myself.
What I stumble into though, I couldn’t have prepared myself for. I peek around the corner and wish I would have stayed topside.
There are two legs sticking out of a bubbling cauldron. Legs that are covered in black and white stockings. It’s surrounded by a hoard of women tossing in ingredients as one of them stirs. The legs are eaten up by the bubbling mixture, melted down into nothing.
“What the fuck?” I say, trying to back up but there’s a woman blocking my path. No, not a woman. A witch.
“Where do you think you’re going?” She asks.
I don’t have time to react before she blows a pile of green dust in my face.
My legs give way underneath me and I fall hard. I’m not able to move anything. Not even my eyelids. I’m paralyzed and completely at their mercy.
I’m fucking screwed.
“Not so tough now, are you, Jack?”
