CHAPTER 6
The only light in the room came from her laptop, in the darkness Velma heard Ravencroft roll over and begin to vomit into the small trashcan beside his bed. She pulled up the website to the Oakhaven Gazette and began to scroll back through the weeks issues.
"Looks like everything started last Friday night," she muttered.
Local Man Dies in Inferno.
"Joe St. James burned alive," she read. The next page caused her to cover her mouth in shock. "Teen girl savaged in parking lot; Hayden Marsh brutally mutilated by what looks to be a flock of birds."
Thankfully the pictures were censored, but; clicking on them Velma felt her stomach flip at the girl's lacerated face and missing eye. She clicked back and moved onto the next.
Basketball Star part of Satanic Ritual.
Star Quarterback Dismembered in Desecrated Church.
"Jesus wept," she slammed the laptop shut and began to shake and the tears began to fall. "What are we getting into?"
xxxxXXXXxxxx
She looks at herself in the mirror, but; all Lena sees is the medallion around her neck. She slowly rolls her thumb across the cat head and smiles for a second, before she frowns. All that keeps her together is hanging around her neck. Fear hits her in the stomach like a knife, what if the clasp breaks and it falls off, or she- or Fred accidentally pulls it off while they are asleep. That thought has kept her from sleeping a full night.
"He thinks I'm free of the curse," she says softly, though to herself or to someone else Lena doesn't know. "Oh Fred."
He loves her, she knows that, they all know that. Why. That question has eluded her for the longest time. He shouldn't after what happened on- No! she won't think about that. It's over and done.
"You love him, he loves you," she says, placing the tip of her finger against the mirror and finally seeing herself. She's tired and rundown, though Fred doesn't notice, he thinks she's a ray of sunshine 24/7. "That Ravencroft feller's hidin' somethin'"
Something about him made the medallion vibrate, sending a chill up her spine. She scowls, then sighs tiredly. They'd deal with that in the morning. Now came the hardest part. Turning the bathroom light off, Lena padded silently across the carpeted floor to where Fred lay snoring on top of the covers.
"You big lug," she chuckles. Sliding under the covers she placed her chin onto his shoulder and pecks his cheek. "I love you, you saved me."
She rolled back over to her side of the bed and carefully tucked the medallion under her nightgown.
Her dreams were filled with screams of people being savaged and rolled by gators and a scarred pirate laughing.
And a massive yellow moon hanging low in the night sky over the bayou.
xxxxXXXXxxxx
Ravencroft wasn't sure where he was anymore. He stood before an old and dilapidated house deep in the darkness of the woods, overhead clouds swirled and hid the stars and the moon from sight as a chill wind shrieked all around him.
"Benjamin," a voice called softly from the darkness of the house. Inside the doorway he could barely make out the shape of a figure standing there, seemingly to beckon him. "Come to me, I have missed you."
"Ivana?" he whispered, taking a tentative step forward. His heart began to beat in his chest as he came closer and closer. The figure retreated deeper into darkness when he came to the steps leading up to the porch. "Ivana, come back!"
He climbed the steps slowly, his movements felt light, like he was only watching everything around him move while he stayed still.
The shadows of the house began to slip over him, to wrap him in a cloak of cold darkness that threatened to suffocate him. Stepping through the door, the room was almost completely black. A thin line of light across from him was the only thing he could see.
"Ivana, are you there?" he whispered, barely able to raise his voice. A deep feeling of dread began to surround him as the muffled sounds of screaming began to grow louder the closer he came to the light.
Just as he was about to reach it the light exploded out in a flash so bright that Ravencroft was forced to cover his eyes. When the light faded, he felt a sick revulsion take hold of him.
He stood in the middle of a abattoir of horror. All around him were things he couldn't imagine in his darkest moments. A man was screaming as dogs made of fire savaged him relentlessly. A teenager was crucified to the wall, his scream muffled by his own cock shoved into his mouth. a boy ripped completely apart was screaming for his mother while a girl was completely covered by birds made of darkness.
The worst was another girl that had been mutilated. Her eyes were gone and blood was pouring from her mouth like a sieve. In her cupped hands she held up a small, destroyed thing that Ravencroft couldn't make out.
And just like that everything around him was gone. Ravencroft was alone in the room, the things he had seen had vanished like they had never been there before.
"Benjamin, come to me," she called. Ravencroft turned around to see a hallway leading off and a figure quickly vanish around the corner. "Come to me."
"Ivana!" he called; he began to follow after her. "Wait! Come back!"
When he turned the corner, Ravencroft felt his stomach drop. Ivana stood there in her burial gown. The yellow dress had turned black from dirt and grave mold. What remained of her golden hair was streaked with mud and almost completely fallen out. The flesh of her face, turned green and grey had begun to rot and slip from her bones. Her eyes were gone, a centipede crawled out of one of her eye sockets and disappeared inside the other.
"Darling," she croaked, her voice raw and full of dirt. "I missed you, kiss me, let us never be apart again."
He took a step back as she took a step forward. Ravencroft retreated back from the ghoulish mockery of Ivana with every move it made.
"Get away from me!" he cried, tears pricking at the corner of his eyes. "You're not my wife! You're not!"
With that, the thing gave an unearthly shriek and charged. Ravencroft turned and ran. Behind him he could hear the clicking of bones hitting the hardwood, with each passing second.
"Run Benny run run run!" a voice cackled.
"Run run as fast as you can!" another added gleefully. Somewhere he heard the roar of a massive dog.
"Gonna getcha gonna getcha!" a third sang.
Behind him he heard the creature shriek and felt its hot rancid breath almost on the back of his neck.
When the sound of running feet behind him suddenly stopped he realized too late that the abomination had leaped. He barely had a second to turn his head as the rotting corpse slammed into him, taking Ravencroft to the floor. When the thin, cold boney fingers slipped around his neck he turned his head to see the rotting face coming down towards his own. Two twin balls of red fire burned within the dark sockets.
He woke up screaming.
READ AND REVIEW