Thank you to all my reviewers, you were a lot of help because I was seriously considering letting this story go until summer. So, on with the show!!
~*~
The Jackal
The townspeople walked down the dark misty street of Salem. The owls that hooted were frightening enough, but they walked on, knowing that were about to witness their town's justice.
A family on four was walking down the dirt street with a solemn look on their faces.
They're eyes held their grief.
For the town police had just captured the man that had been terrorizing the town for four horrifying months.
More families joined them as they trudged on, children were carefully hooded. Even the cavern had closed for the night and the prostitutes were standing outside with the as solemn as they can get when they're wearing ugly dresses that showed to much.
They passed the meeting house some people eyeing it with hate, others with resentment.
As they neared the edge of town the people pulled their children closer.
A baby's whimper set the pace of their feet faster.
Somehow the birds seemed to feel the peoples sadness or anger because they stayed quiet and hid in their bare naked trees.
The mist around them had thickened and the man at the front cocked his rifle and several oil lamps were turned on and were hung up on trees.
The leaves fell calmly on they heads and children, they ground below they turned to a rocky path that twisted and turned several times.
The breathing of the adults turned ragged. It was too much.
Finally they saw it.
The giant wooden house. They heard maniacal laughter from there or terrified screams.
Then they stopped.
As did the people.
A shrill howl of pain cut through the mist and a flock of crows rose from their trees in flutter and flew away cawing angrily.
Poor Abigail Miller, they thought.
She had been accused of witchcraft the week before and now the minister was trying to get the truth out of her.
She had screamed that she was innocent, but only the people believed her. They all knew that this minister was far to paranoid and tyrannical to listen to logical explanations.
The people resumed walking.
Some of them looking fearfully around in fear, other were watching the crows fly away with a an expression that only a mouse that has been cornered by four hungry cats might wear.
The house loomed over them as they climbed the rickety wooden steps leading to poorly made wooden doors.
"NOOOOOOOO!!!" Abigail's scream cut through the silence like a sword swishing through the air.
The people hurried up the steps shivering in fear of what they were going to see.
Inside the house was dark, and boring. A wooden fence was placed instead of walls. They had a clear view of the people accused of murders, rape, theft, and witchcraft.
A man with a goatee was laying dead on a small table covered in foot long spikes. They could see his heart which was torn out by one of the spiked that was protruding out of his chest.
Women covered the children's eyes as they passed the rooms.
At then end of the long hallway was a staircase leading up to the second floor.
As they passed they saw Abigail in her pretty maroon dress. She was laying on a long metal table of spikes, her arms and legs were bruised by the rough rusted metal shackles. She was whimpering because a slave was holding a spiked ball in his hands. Minister Giersen was hosting.
"Admit it!! You are a witch you filthy little whore!!" He shouted.
"NO!!! I am Not!! I swear it with the Lord's name!"
"Do not use Him to get your filthy self out! Drop it!"
The slave let go of the spiked ball and let fall onto her pretty face. The ball rolled off leaving a mangled bloody mess. Her arms thrashed but stilled after a few minutes.
The women covered the children's ears even though they had heard everything.
The leading man led them through four hall ways before they paused at a wooden door to witness the execution
The door was white, the people didn't know why, but it opened with a small creaking noise and they filed in, and sat on the provided wooden chairs.
Children in their clothes buried their heads in their mothers hair on their chest. The family of four was exhausted, but the look in their eyes was as fresh as newborn baby. It was a look of anger and grief.
Their daughter and been raped and killed by the man they had come to watch die. Sarah, was her name, a sweet bright, thirteen year old girl with long blonde hair, pretty blue eyes had been taken for over a month. She was the first victim.
They had found her at her family's doorstep, naked, bruised and dead. After that the townspeople decided to look out for anyone they didn't know or looked suspicious.
The second victim was Marie. She was also thirteen, green eyes and brown hair. She had been taken the week after Sarah's funeral. The man did not kill her but, her still violated her. She was sent unconscious on horse back to the town, still in her clothes but they were torn and ripped so most of the cloth had fallen to the ground.
The people were horrified and angry when the fifth girl was found. They didn't let the girls out anymore and if they did they had to have a male guardian accompanying them. The kidnapping stopped gradually but after a few weeks they started again but they had been more brutal that before.
It was as if this person wanted payback for not letting have the girls for a few weeks.
It was only after the second kidnapping that the towns men has caught him. He was caught with the unconscious body of Samantha Seymour, the midwife's child. They saved the girl in time for keeping her honor, but the man had been beaten brutally and the brought to the courts, where he was tossed to the cells to wait for his trial. He lost the trial and they banned him from the church, and the minister decided for a death sentence by decapitation of the guillotine.
When the people saw him they were almost reeling.
He was horrible. His age was undistinguishable, his graying blonde hair was dirty and full of fleas, his eyes were a hollow black, and his teeth were brown and he had five of them missing. His nose was a mangle mess, there were cuts and bruises and they could see some muscle because on e of the people tore off a part of his skin on his arm. The wound was infecting and it was looking black.
He was wearing rags. Not clothes, but rags all tiend together to make a pants and a shirt.
The one hugged the children closer to them as he was led to the center of bright room where a the wooden guillotine was waiting to drop its blade and chop his head off.
Marie, Samantha, Susannah and Molly were the girls that survived, and they looked at him with a hatred so deep it would have made the bravest knight turn on his heel and run.
When the man saw them he grinned showing his decaying teeth.
"I had fun with you girls."
The girls cringed and glared at him. His eyes didn't leave his victims especially Samantha, since she was the only girl he didn't have his fun with.
The man was held by two towns men, the people were on chairs, and they were pressed against the walls so they could have views from all angles.
Suddenly, the door flew open and Minister Giersen stalked in along with the notary, the priest and the doctor.
The Minster stood by the side of the guillotine, and the notary pulled a piece of paper and a quill and stood at attention.
"Name."
"James Hardenbrook," the man replied in his raspy voice as the notary wrote it down,
"Age."
"Thirty-one"
The minister snorted but kept on going.
"Father."
"Deceased, John Hardenbrook."
"Mother."
"Alive and well kept, Alison Manson Hardenbrook."
"Residence"
"No residence."
James H. stood there in his rags speaking nicely to the man that was going to pull the string of the blade to make it falls and kill him.
"Wife."
"Lina Hardrenbrok"
Murmurs were heard around the room, but James paid no heed.
"And where is this wife of yours?"
"Dead"
He said it with such carelessness that the townspeople shifted uneasily in their chairs.
"Why did you kill, Sarah, Katherine, Caitlin, and Sylvia?"
"I don't know."
"Why did you so brutally steal the pride from the girls, not even women!"
"I don't know"
The Minster snorted, and nodded to the two men, that were holding him. They immediately pulled him to the guillotine, where he kneeled and placed his head in the hole.
The blade above him sparkle in suck a cheery manner that it seemed impossible to believe that this piece of metal was going to take someone's life away. The position of the guillotine was in such a position that his was facing the girls he had violated.
The priest mutter a few words to the Minster and he nodded.
"Ready?"
James brought his head up to face the girls and grinned.
"I had fun with you," was the last thing he said before the blade dropped and his head was cut off. The wicked grin was frozen on his face.
The girls stared in shock at his head before retiring themselves with faint, 'Pardons'
The townspeople waited and then they were told to leave. The people hurried out and walked back home a weight off their shoulder and their hearts light. The walked the same way, through the foggy, dirt road to the town where they were met by excited people waiting to hear if the man was killed.
"Was he killed, mommy?" a street urchin asked him mother in rags.
"Yes, it has brought peace to this hated town I see. "
They heard nothing more, for a loud cheering roar was heard as they town celebrated. The woman took off in a huff with her child following.
The history of Salem village was clean after that, only a few thieves and a few drunken men. It was only the era of the 1870's when the town suffered again.
It was a warm sunny day and as usual the Seymour's were arguing with the milk man, and the women bustled around they dresses getting a bit of dust at the hems. In a small corner, a man, his age could not be distinguished, was sitting there looking frantically around and he had dirty, greasy, matted black hair, shifty black eyes, and his skin wasn't white… but it was a grayish color. His eyes were black and they were wild looking and sometimes had a evil light shining in them. Women wrinkled their noses at him if they saw him and he would stare like a dumb person.
Nothing was going on in the town in those fair weeks. Only a few markets went out of business and several lost sheep were found. The only odd thing was that animals were disappearing. They were usually found a only a few days later, gored and sometimes stuffed. Their bodies were all torn up and they eyes were gouged out.
No one was suspected until the man with the gray skin was selling chicken liver and bird's feet. He held them up as if he was offering something to the people and he would drool and mumble odd words to them . Kind women sometimes threw bread at him and he grab it and he would devour it.
He was closely watched after that. A man often stood in the corner of the street watching his every move and only take his eyes of him when he was eating food.
This bothered the gray skinned man. He because more jumpy and frantic. He started twitching and talking nonsense. More or less the people ignored him or if they saw him they would run away and complain because of the smell. He wasn't able to use the bathroom so he just let it rip.
"Mommy, what is wrong with him?" A black haired little boy asked his mother who was watching him.
"I don't know, now go to Daddy."
The little boy ran and the man kept his eyes on him as if trying to memorize his every feature.
"Du… Du hast…" he murmured and drooled. (you… you hate…)
More people walked by and gave him disgusted looks.
The man laughed a high pitched, maniacal laughed and screamed, "DU HAST MICH!!"
He jumped up and the people walking by jumped away startled. The man, Gray (I couldn't think of a better name), pushed through the women, his vision blurred, his saliva trickling down his chin, his clothes torn and his nails looking so terribly sharp cut into a few women's dresses. The women squealed and ran away.
He ran in circles screaming a three word sentence: Du hast mich. (You hate me)
His eyes rolling back into his hear as he fell to the ground and small children poked him with sticks as he lay jerking and twitching. It was horrible sight, some women turned away or simply walked by not looking or caring. The street urchins poked his opened his mouth and wrinkled their little noses when they saw his gums were rotting and had teeth missing.
They ripped his clothed while he twitched uncontrollably that dust from the ground rose and fell in waves. People watched curiously while that happened. Sounds bubbled up the man's throat and they turned into giggles, high pitched, crazy giggles.
And he laughed more, the food he had scrunched earlier came back up and stained the dust below him and a raw stench filled the air.
People turned their noses in the air, in disgust and walked away, only to have more people watch the man lose his mind. Yet they didn't know what had happened to him.
A few urchins walked away to have fun in the garbage but Four remained. They didn't see the mans nails or how sharp they were, and they didn't get a chance to.
The arms started thrashing and his nails pierced their eyes, blinding them for life. he thrashed, thrusting his nails in and out, killing three of the children, one was just blinded, ran away, and it was a smart choice.
People ran away from the horrid scene of the an moaning and the dead children with the mangled faces.
Police came by and picked up the man and carried him to the townhouse. No one spoke for the man was making to much noise. He was screaming, kicking, drooling, with such an intensity, they thought that he house would shatter to pieces from his very presence.
Women hurries away to their husbands, eyes wide with curiosity. The man was still screaming. The men that were carrying his, had faces of disgust and well as remorse.
Why in Hell's name were they carrying this man?
They could have let the street urchins get him and let the gods feed off of him.
As they entered the town house, they were sent out again, for he was declared 'Possessed .' The man again rented a carriage and put the screaming man down, disgusted.
Now they regretted even touching the man, for he had befouled himself. His bladder had gone and now the acid stench of urine hung in the air. The seats were wooden and now the wood was stained and the driver grumbled about the city being poor.
End of Part One
