Chapter 4:
Charlotte woke up to a cacophony of high pitched alarms blaring outside alongside the sound of Victoria shouting. For Charlotte it felt as if she had been dragged out of sleep, with her head and in particular behind her eyes flaring up in pain at the same time as a horrible and suffocating feeling rise in her throat.
She could just about tell that Victoria was shouting at her, but had no idea what she was saying. A mixture of her brain not being able to focus yet and Victoria's words blurring together with the noise outside. The one thing that managed to properly catch Charlotte's attention was a bright orange glow that pierced through her closed eyes.
It took a few moments for Charlotte to process that there was light in her eyes and, without thinking, reacted by pulling the bed covers over her head. This was a success at blocking out the light, but the fabric did very little about the noise. Charlotte kept her eyes closed and tried to ignore the sounds around her, wanting to fall back asleep, but Victoria's continued and frantic sounding shouts held Charlotte's attention enough to stop her sleeping.
"Charlotte, I need you!" Victoria's voice was coming unexpectedly from the other side of the room. Charlotte only barely caught the words that Victoria was shouting, but even through the headache the tone of sheer panic from Victoria snapped Charlotte to attention.
Charlotte took a deep breath and, with her eyes squinted, pushed her head back above the covers and looked towards where she had heard Victoria. Standing alongside the windows, partly silhouetted by the shifting orange light coming through the curtains, was Victoria. Even in the dark Charlotte could tell that that Victoria was no longer in her pyjamas and instead was in what she quickly recognised that she had magically transformed.
Victoria's hair had been neatly pulled into two buns on each side of her head, fastened in place by black ribbons. Tight around her neckline was a black, lace made, collar which fed into a large ribbon that fell all the way down to Victoria's chest. Pinning the middle of the ribbon into a large bow was a glimmering blue gemstone, encased in a thin gold setting.
She wore a primarily dark blue dress, with additional reflective silver threads embroidered into twirling patterns across the blue. The neckline plunged down just below her collarbone, making it so that the fabric of the ribbon avoided touching the dress. The dress connected up at the edge of her shoulders through the use of a thick ruffle of material above the sleeves that ran down to her wrists.
Around her waist was a well tied padded corset, of a slightly lighter blue material, that the skirt of the dress was fed into the bottom of. The skirt of the dress fell down to Victoria's knees and was made from multiple stacked layers of thin, see through, blue and silver fabric on top of a thicker blue inner piece. The hem of the skirt was heavily embroidered with the reflective silver thread, in varying patterns that resembled crashing waves, enough to almost cover the blue material under it.
Under the skirt Victoria wore semi opaque black tights, which in conjunction with the skirt were surrounded by a slight haze of reflected silver light. Below that were her cross laced boots which reached up to just below her knees. The boots were made from a blue leather and were tied up with alternating silver and light blue laces. At the back of the ankles of both boots was a decorative blue flower, made from many layers of thin fabric.
Although still unusual, by itself Victoria being in her magical outfit didn't add to Charlotte's immediate confusion or worry. They had both, at points, transformed in order to easier deal with some less than urgent problems. However Charlotte's eyes were drawn to the spear that Victoria was loosely holding by her side. Their weapons weren't inherently part of their transformation and they only summoned them when absolutely needed.
Seeing the spear, and knowing what it might mean, gave Charlotte more than enough motivation to try and ignore the pain in her head. She threw as much of the covers off of her as she could, twisted her body to swing her legs off the edge of the bed, and pulled her head and neck forwards in an attempt to sit up straight.
The speed at which she sat up made Charlotte dizzy as well as causing her stomach to turn and force stinging bile up her throat. Doing everything she could to not throw up was a challenge that Charlotte only just managed to beat, as she pushed herself up from the bed before the feeling had subsided. Getting to her feet was almost as much of a challenge, as she failed to balance herself in time and she stumbled forwards, arms outstretched.
Luckily for Charlotte, Victoria had seen that she was struggling to get up and rushed to the side of the bed in time to catch Charlotte with her free arm. Victoria wasn't satisfied with just holding Charlotte up and instead wrapped her arm around her waist and used that as leverage to pull Charlotte over towards the wall next to the window. This let Charlotte lean up against the wall and use her own arms to steady herself properly.
"What's going on?" Charlotte only just managed to be loud enough to be heard. As she spoke she was watching Victoria's face which held a serious and alert expression. Even though her arm was still around Charlotte, Victoria never looked down towards her, instead she went straight back to peeking her head through the edge of the window.
Victoria continued to watch out the window and without any change in expression as she responded. "I don't know. I just woke up a few minutes ago because of a load of crashing sounds and car alarms outside." It was only now when Victoria said about it that Charlotte realised that the noise from outside was in fact coming from an uncountable number of high pitched alarms blending together from different directions.
"Something big is also on fire, but I can't tell where it is." Victoria's continued at speed in a panicked tone, as if trying to pass on as much information as possible in the shortest amount of time before something else happened. Charlotte almost didn't believe what Victoria was describing, even if the orange glow and cacophony of alarms supported her words.
Instinctually Charlotte's hand reached for her necklace and pulled the attached gemstone out from under her pyjamas. It was faintly giving off a blue glow with a multitude of small stars swirling around inside, however it wasn't giving off any indication that it sensed a nearby Witch. At the same time as doing this she copied Victoria and moved her face close to the window to get a good view outside.
"My Gem isn't picking up any Witch?" Charlotte's initial reaction was that of confusion that quickly turned back to worry. She had a familiarity with bad situations being caused by Witches, which they could then control and solve through their powers. But if there was no Witch then there was no safety of familiarity or the slight amount of control they could have.
The view out the window was similar to one Charlotte would have expected out of a movie. All of the cars parked along both sides of the road were flashing their lights in time with their individual alarm horns. Whilst slightly further down the road a stationary car, with its full headlights on, seemed to have crashed into the side of a parked car. And as Victoria had said, the sky was filled with an ominous orange light, bright enough to illuminate into their room, that was coming from far in the distance down the road to the left.
"Neither is mine." Victoria let go of Charlotte to reach for her own gemstone at her neck. "If neither of ours are picking up a Witch, then it can't be one." Victoria's hand moved from her gemstone down to her waist, searching for something. "Do you have your phone, mine is over in my room?"
Out of muscle memory, Charlotte did similar to Victoria and reached down for her trouser pockets. But it took her searching both of her empty pockets before remembering where she had left the phone. "I left it on the table downstairs, sorry. We should go get yours first if its in your room." Charlotte wanted to rush down for her own phone, but was already too scared of what might happen if they split up.
Victoria nodded in response and twisted around towards the door, making sure to keep her spear clear of Charlotte. After only a moment of hesitation to see what Victoria was doing, Charlotte turned herself around and started moving forward.
Neither of them got far from the window before they were interrupted by the sound of glass shattering. Charlotte flinched in shock followed by her legs giving way beneath her, causing her to fall forward onto her hands and knees. Victoria flinched in a similar way, but managed to avoid falling, instead ducked down and covered her head with her free hand, whilst her spear moved over Charlotte.
Charlotte stayed still on the ground for a moment, both frozen with the shock and worried about any glass shards near her hands and feet. "Outside. Not ours." Victoria spoke quietly and with a serious tone, lacking the panic that had previously been there. She then kneeled down proper and offered her hand down to Charlotte, which Charlotte accepted.
As they were both getting to their feet again, the sounds of more glass shattering managed to surpass the noise of alarms, although this time from much further down the road. Charlotte flinched again, but this time managed to stop herself from reacting more than just ducking her head down. Next to her, Victoria's arms jerked abruptly, as if her arms had wanted to swing her spear towards the source of the noise.
They rushed back to the window, Victoria pressing herself up against the wall to the right of the window and Charlotte trying to stay hidden by crouching down under the window next to Victoria. Charlotte waited for Victoria to look out the window as her cue to peek her head up. At the same time the clear sound of shattering glass made Charlotte flinch again, although this time she started hearing faint banging sounds that joined the constant alarms.
Charlotte frantically scanned her eyes at the houses across the road and then down the road, hoping that nothing more had changed or that everything had gone back to normal. Instead her attention was almost instantly drawn to the front of the house directly across from them.
At first Charlotte saw a trail of glass shards, leading from the footpath to the front of the house, reflecting the light of the street lamps. She slowly followed the trail of glass with her eyes until she saw that both the large downstairs window and the glass panes of the porch door had been shattered open.
She kept looking up until she saw two dark shapes in each of the broken windows. Both were moving around and Charlotte got a horrid feeling all through her. Charlotte quickly stood up and grabbed for Victoria's hand, getting ready to pull her along if needed. Even if it wasn't related to a Witch they could and should try and help.
"Wait." Victoria managed to catch gently Charlotte's arm, but that did less to stop Charlotte than the fear that had returned to Victoria's voice. She wasn't looking at Charlotte at all and her eyes locked on something outside, which she pointed towards with after letting go of Charlotte's arm.
Charlotte stood frozen, not wanting to know what Victoria was looking at. She kept her gaze firmly on Victoria's face, waiting for any sign of reassurance or softening. Only when it was clear that no such thing was happening did Charlotte slowly turn her head back to the window.
Charlotte's eyes went back to where they had previously been watching. The figure in the porch door was moving more vigorously and with intent, as if it was trying to walk through the door even though it was closed. Their head and upper body was hanging out the broken window, getting caught on the wooden panel in the centre of the door and presumably with glass spikes pressing up into their stomach.
The second figure was no longer in the main downstairs window. Instead it was now outside of the window, flopped face down on the drive way with its feet caught in the window itself, looking as if the glass had punctured the flesh. Yet the figure was shaking back and forth and using its arms to try and pull itself further forward, as if unaware that their legs were pinned in place.
The sight made Charlotte dizzy and numb across her body, but she had little choice but to move her attention to what Victoria was still pointing at. Charlotte had to look down, towards their side of the street, to see what Victoria was seeing, something she could now do now that she was standing up. She could see at least 3 distinctly person like silhouettes slowly moving in their direction.
One was coming from the left and was pressing its body against the gate of their small front garden. Their head was tilted far to the side, as if their neck couldn't hold up the weight, and their arms were both limp at its sides. Yet it was still moving backwards and forwards with considerable force, smacking its lower body against the locked gate, causing the upper half to lurch uncontrollably.
A little further away to their right were the other two figures, their features more visible from the street light they were passing by. They were both slowly moving forward along the pavement but it was clear that they were trying to push their selves towards Charlotte and Victoria, their twisted and pressing up against the garden walls, trapping and scraping their left arms along.
Even in the partial light, it was easy to tell that they were wearing matching sets of loose fitting nightwear, that would in no way protect them from the cold of the night. The lead figure had a light pink set and the one behind in a pale blue. Yet the light colours of the nightwear were getting drowned out by dark stains that were spreading in all directions from different spots.
They were walking forwards slowly, in a stiff and twitchy manner, with a space of time between each leg swinging forward. Each swing of the leg caused their body to lurch and twist along with the movement of the leg, giving the impression that the legs were simply pulling the rest of the body along.
Charlotte could have been convinced that they were drunkenly wandering around and breaking things, if it were not for their eyes. Unlike the figure at the garden gate, both of them had their heads upright and turned towards the window that Charlotte and Victoria stood behind. Small amounts of light reflected off their eyes as they stared unblinking directly at Charlotte.
Even if the sight horrified her, Charlotte felt completely unable to look away. Her mind was screaming at her body to move away from the window, screaming at her to do something more than just stand there. But as the figures kept approaching, their heads turning bit by bit to keep the window directly in their view, the best that Charlotte could manage was grabbing hold of her necklace again.
The gemstone served as little relief or distraction though. It had stayed perfectly still and gave off no sound whatsoever. It simply remained in her hand, giving off the same blue glow that it always had. At this point though, there was no chance that this was some kind of mistake or fault with her gemstone, whatever was happening had nothing to do with a Witch.
She was locked in place, even as the figure at the gate finally managed to leverage its body over the gate, flopping face first onto the gravel path. Watching the next two reach the gate and begin the same mindless back and forth attempts to get through the gate failed to get her moving. The sight of the two figures across the road dragging themselves across the floor towards their house, leaving a trail of dark stains on the ground where they had moved, was unable to shift the numbing sickness that had spread across Charlotte.
Charlotte had no idea how long she had stood there, staring at the eyes that were locked onto her, but her paralysis was eventually broken by the sound of splintering and crashing wood. Even before the crashing had fully stopped, she spun her head towards the back of the house, in the direction the sound had come from.
"That was the garden fence." No longer frozen in place, Charlotte instead started to shake all over, causing her voice to be all over the place and only just able to get the words out in one. It felt as if her body was trying to pull itself in many different directions all at once, but she was completely unable to make any decision. In the end she only managed to move a small amount towards the doorway to the landing.
Victoria had kept staring silently out the window, but her head had flown around at the same time as Charlotte's had. Charlotte had only caught a quick glimpse of the alarm that had spread across Victoria's face, a far cry from what it had been before hand. It was however only a quick view as Victoria rushed forward, past Charlotte, straight to the bedroom door which she pulled at the handle hard to swing it forward and shut. Once the door was shut she frantically reached for the dead bolt at the top of the door and yanked it down.
Victoria turned and leaned her back and head against the door and after a deep breath looked towards Charlotte. "Now would be a good time to gear up." Without waiting for a response she wrenched her self forward off the door and spun around so that her spear point was aimed at the middle of the door.
Charlotte barely managed to pay attention to what Victoria was saying, her mind focused on the fear of whatever was moving towards them and the ever increasing number of possibilities that were now racing through her thoughts. The only thing she managed to do was to steady the hand that was gripping tightly to the gemstone on her necklace.
Yet another loud thudding noise came from downstairs, causing Charlotte to jump in shock, her hand flinching violently enough that she felt the chain of her necklace dig painfully into the back of her neck. Before Charlotte had the chance to try and compose herself, the sound of glass being smashed came from the same direction as the thudding had been.
Charlotte let out a short scream of fear as well as taking steps back away from both the window and the doorway. Whilst in front of her, Victoria was completely tensed up with her spear point barely moving from where it had been aimed. And without looking behind her she shouted, "I need you Charlotte!".
The urgency in Victoria's voice managed to snap Charlotte to attention. And even if she was still barely able to keep most of her body from shaking, she grasped her necklace with both of her hands and willed for the power inside to come forward.
Her already limited vision was blocked out by a bright white light that felt as if it was engulfing her from all sides. The sounds of car alarms outside were replaced by an even louder static sound that had no discernible origin. This was lastly followed up by a wave of freezing cold stinging pain that spread out from her neckline all the way across her body. Starting with her skin, leaving it numb to anything else, before the pain dug deeper into her body. As if it was tearing every part of her body apart and replacing it with a numb but fresh counterpart.
She could tell when the transformation had finished both the sounds and darkness of the world returning. The numbness and stinging pain was the next to fade, although the cold feeling across her skin remained. It wasn't hard for her to mostly ignore the cold, it being something she had become used to whenever she transformed.
The largest change from the transformation though was that Charlotte was no longer wearing her pink pyjamas, but instead was covered in an almost complete set of armour. From her neck down, she was now covered in dark blue coloured chain-mail, running all the way down to both her hands and her feet. The metal rings were each extremely small, barely space for anything solid to pass through, and each dimly reflected the orange glow coming from outside.
Under the chain-mail Charlotte knew that she was wearing some kind of padded fabric shirt and trousers, in the same dark blue colour of the chain-mail, although she had never seen it other than through the rings of the mail.
Across her chest and on top of the mail was a breastplate, made from four shaped plates, of what Charlotte assumed was steel, held together with leather straps. Two pieces served as protection for her chest area to just above her stomach, with the other two protecting her upper back and neck area. This was coloured same as the chain-mail, but included etchings of swirling patterns that were mirrored across each side of the metal.
The front of her legs were similarly covered in a secondary layer of metal plating, held in place by more leather straps. These plates ran all the way down the front of her legs until they reached the black leather boots which covered her feet and up just past her ankles. The boots were fastened with a mixture of lacing and leather belts to ensure it was as tight as possible.
Her hands had been covered by a light fabric gloves, then the chain-mail and then another tightly fitting leather glove over the top of the armour. These gloves were made from the same black leather as her boots and were also fastened in place by straps around her wrist.
Charlotte's hair had also undergone change, no longer the somewhat confused mess it had been when she woke up. The knots and tangling had vanished and it had been placed up in an intricate waterfall braid across both sides of her head that connected up at the back where her hair fell down in a ponytail, being held in place by multiple dark blue ribbons.
With the armour came her weapons. Her hands no longer gripping gripping tight to her necklace at her neck, instead both her hands were now down and in front of her. On her left arm was a purple coloured kite shield, rimmed with sharpened and dimly shining rocks, held onto her arm with black leather straps. In her right she gripped a short sword, the blade made from a dark grey metal and the hilt and pommel made from the same dimly shining stone as on shield.
The armour and weapons felt almost weightless to Charlotte and as if they were normal extensions of her body. Yet even that sense of familiarity and safety, that Charlotte had come to expect from the transformation, couldn't stop her from shaking from the anxiety and fear that had been building up inside of her.
But the fear was no longer enough keep Charlotte frozen in place. Charlotte started taking steps forward at the same time as slowly raising her shield arm into position. She passed by Victoria, who's attention remained solely on the door, and only stopped when she was close enough to reach for the door handle with her right hand.
Charlotte pulled her sword close to her side and level with the middle of her shield, tip pointed towards the door. This left her sword sitting level with Victoria's spear, just to the right side of it, leaving them both only the room to stab forward. Yet, whilst Victoria's spear was completely steady, Charlotte was struggling to keep her sword arm from trembling up and down.
It didn't take long before Charlotte started hearing sounds coming through the door, just loud enough to be heard over the alarms outside. Charlotte was able to make out what sounded like feet landing heavily on the wooden floors of the downstairs room. As she listened in the sounds were moving closer and closer with some speed, becoming more clear with each step until the sounds suddenly went quiet.
At first Charlotte hoped that it meant whatever was making the noise was now gone, that they were safe and could begin to relax again. A hope that she knew was irrational and way too optimistic. This only lasted for a few seconds before a loud and rhythmic thudding sound began to echo up from downstairs alongside the familiar sound of the stairs creaking, although there was no sound of footsteps from what Charlotte assumed was simply because the stairs were carpeted.
Since Charlotte had started living here, the stairs had always made sounds and they were distinct enough to Charlotte that she could tell roughly which step was making the sound. Whatever was on the stairs now was still near the bottom, but it was making slow and consistent progress forward. This at least made it clear to Charlotte that it was coming directly for them.
"Victoria, please tell me you have a plan?" Charlotte managed to force her voice out, even if she failed at keeping it steady. She already knew what Victoria's answer was likely to be, but Charlotte needed the reassurance as well as the wish for some way to avoid fighting.
Victoria was silent for some time, which only managed to make Charlotte more nervous as the creaking noises kept moving nearer. But eventually responded in a quiet and unsure voice, as if still thinking through whatever she was about to say. "Maybe." She followed this by lowering her spear, rushing forwards and leaning up against the door.
Charlotte was perplexed as to why she wanted to move closer to the door, but Victoria's similarly confused expression made it seem as if she didn't know either. "When we hear it get close, I open the door and we both try to rush it." Charlotte noticed there was a distinct lack of confidence, that normally accompanied her plans, in her voice.
Yet, even if Victoria had doubts, she let go of her spear with her left hand, which then shot up to the deadbolt and pulled it out of its locked position. From there she pushed her right shoulder hard against the door and gripped the handle tight with her free hand. She took a deep breath then turned to Charlotte, "Ready?"
Charlotte just about managed to force her body into nodding in response to Victoria. But she hadn't even remotely had the time to process the many different things that might happen before a loud bang on the other side of the door pulled all of Charlotte's attention. Another loud bang on the door confirmed that something was trying to get through.
"Now!" Victoria shouted as she yanked on the door handle and jumped backwards, just managing to avoid the swing of the door.
The moment that Victoria stopped holding the door a dark shape burst through the doorway and launched itself at Charlotte. She had only a split second to recognise that the figure was that of an adult who was taller than herself, but any thought of who it might be was interrupted when it crashed against her shield, sending a jolt of pain through her arm and shoulder.
Charlotte wasn't prepared for the strength of the force pushing against her shield, causing her to have to take a step backwards and rearrange her footing. However, it seemed the figure had no intention of letting up and continued to push their body hard against the shield, almost falling forward when Charlotte shifted backwards.
And even before Charlotte had properly steadied herself, her attacker reached past her shield, with its right arm, and tried grabbing towards her face. It was only by luck that Charlotte was able to pull her head back fast enough to be out of reach, leaving the figure's fingers swiping against the front of her armour.
Charlotte screamed out in panic, her mind completely blank of everything other than the hand reaching for her. But her body still moved out of instinct and practised habit as she rammed her right arm forward and around the middle of her shield. Her sword hit its mark and stabbed deep into the lower chest of the figure, meeting very little resistance that might slow it down.
The figure let out a horrendous and high pitched screech as the sword moved through its chest. A strangely warped and inhuman screech, as if their voice box and throat had been torn apart and air was being pressured through it to make a sound.
Still screaming, in part trying to drown out the sound of the inhuman screech, Charlotte pushed hard against the figure with both her sword and shield. Using her sword as a form of leverage, she managed to fight back against the figure's unchanged strength and shove it back a step.
To her side Victoria only waited a short moment before thrusting her spear past Charlotte's right arm and towards the right shoulder of the figure. Much like Charlotte's sword, the spear cleanly pierced through without resistance, causing the rest of the arm to fall limp. Although Charlotte saw Victoria stumble forward slightly, as if not expecting there to be so little resistance.
With the additional strength and leverage that Victoria provided, Charlotte kept pushing forward step by step until she had trapped the figure between her shield and the wall. Yet even with the two severe wounds, the figure kept pushing with the same force against Charlotte's shield.
Only now, when the figure was trying to flail its arms by vigorously shaking its shoulders, did Charlotte see that their left arm and shoulder was filled with splinters and shards of glass. A dark mixture of red and brown looking blood had already covered their left side and was continuing to leak out of the wounds.
Charlotte pushed hard again on her shield, trying to make sure that the figure couldn't move out from the joint effort of her shield, sword and Victoria's spear, before she stopped screaming. The figure on the other hand kept screeching at the same painful volume and pitch that it had started with, whilst still pushing against Charlotte with the same ferocity.
"Charlotte, is that Henry?!" Victoria shouted, sounding horrified at what she saw.
Hoping that the shield would hold against the figure's thrashing, Charlotte shifted her body back slightly so that she could get a proper look at what she was currently trapping against the wall.
As she had initially thought, it was a man that was both older and also larger than Charlotte in most ways. They wore thin white coloured nightwear, although large sections of it were now torn apart and stained in blood that continued to spread across their body. A closer look at their left arm showed layers of wooden splinters and sizeable shards of glass that had embedded themselves from the hands all the way up to the shoulder.
It was when Charlotte looked at the man's face that she had to fight the urge to look away and throw up. The hair and face looked identical to their next door neighbour, Henry, a middle aged man that they had spoken with on occasion. However his eyes were glazed over with a thick layer of a yellow oozing substance that was slowly seeping out from behind his eyes. She was unable to even see the pupils of his eyes through the ooze.
Charlotte tried looking away from his eyes only to have her attention drawn to his mouth, where the horrendous screeching was still coming from. The dark inside of his mouth was filled with a mixture of the yellow ooze and thick blobs of blood, both seemingly being pushed up from the throat. Some of that ooze and blood had made its way out and onto his face and front of his body.
She then looked back down to her sword. The sight of the sword embedded deep into the chest of someone she knew caused a wave of numbness to rocket through her body, almost leading her to lose her grip on both her weapons. Once again, Charlotte began to shake viciously as she fought with her instinct to let go of her weapons and run.
Charlotte could feel tears forming in her eyes and her breathing quickened as she stared at her own sword. She had never used it against another person, only ever against Witches and their magical familiars. All of which had fake bodies created and sustained by magic that would vanish or collapse inert once attacked. Yet he was still screeching at a painful volume at the same time as pushing against Charlotte with the same amount of force, as if his strength wasn't even remotely waning.
Whilst she couldn't believe that it was in fact Henry, she knew that whatever was in front of her had nothing to do with a Witch. She looked back at his face for a moment, although instantly she could feel bile and vomit starting to bubble up in her throat. Charlotte flicked her head away from the sight and towards Victoria, who had already averted her eyes towards the floor.
"What do we do?" Charlotte was barely able to get the words out and she didn't know if her voice was loud enough to be heard over everything else.
Charlotte saw Victoria's mouth moving in response, but couldn't hear any of the words. As she spoke though, she relaxed her arms down to her sides, releasing the pressure her spear had been putting on Henry's shoulder.
"Victoria?!" Charlotte didn't know what she was doing, but Henry instantly took advantage and thrashed his now free arm towards Charlotte once again and, without Victoria's strength against him, he pushed with strength enough that Charlotte didn't know if she could hold him in place.
Her confusion continued as Victoria pulled her spear out completely and she took a step backwards away from Charlotte. She then raised her head and looked towards the sickening view, Charlotte could just about see that Victoria had also started crying. In the next instant Victoria raised her spear again and dashed forward, her spear aimed towards Henry's head.
The spear impacted with a horrid sounding crack and, after an initial moment where it looked like it might stop, it continued to pierce through until the tip of the spear cracked cleanly through the other side. A small mixture of blood, bone and flesh squirted out the exit wound, with some of it clinging to the tip of Victoria's spear. At the same time the screeching, from the still open mouth, came to a stop and the flailing resistance against Charlotte was replaced by only the weight of the now lifeless body.
Charlotte recoiled backwards in shock at what Victoria had just done as well as the horror of the bleeding and mutilated body that was now pressing against her. Without turning around, she rushed backwards, desperately wanting to get away from the body. But for the first few steps it was stuck on her shield, the sharp edges that rimmed the shield had hooked themselves into the man's flesh.
Her body convulsed and reacted without thought at the sight of the body following her. This led to her throwing her arms forwards, as far away from her as she could, and releasing all the tension in her hands. This worked with her sword, leaving it embedded in his chest, but her shield remained held in place by the straps connecting around her arm. It took a couple seconds of frantic shaking for the shield to unhook itself from the body and for Charlotte to be able to properly move away.
Charlotte looked away and towards Victoria, at the same time as starting to choke from vomit burning in her throat. Victoria on the other hand stood frozen like a statue, staring with wide eyes at her spear, a terrified expression across her entire face. Charlotte followed Victoria's line of sight up the spear where it was still pierced through Henry's skull, holding the rest of his body up.
"Victoria?" Charlotte managed to shout through her own choking.
Charlotte watched as Victoria stood there for some time, unblinking and unmoving, before her mouth started to move. "Remove the head or destroy the brain." Her voice was completely devoid of emotion. She spoke slowly with gaps between each word, almost as if she herself didn't even know what she was saying.
The moment she finished speaking her body exploded with violent movement as she stepped backwards and forcefully yanked on her spear. The spear dragged Henry's body to the side slightly before the tip of the spear was pulled back through the skull and out from the entry wound. At both entry and exit wounds thick red and grey ooze erupted out and covered the floor around him, alongside a coating of blood being left on Victoria's spear head.
Henry's body flopped to the side with a heavy thud, causing more blood to spray out from his wounds. The body bounced slightly before coming to a rest when he rolled flat on his back, leaving Charlotte's sword facing upwards. But Charlotte's attention was drawn to Victoria who was stood, still staring at the body, with her spear dripping with blood.
"Victoria?" Charlotte tried again, hoping to get a proper response from her. Instead, she rushed forwards when she saw Victoria's legs giving way, at the same time as she dropped her spear to the ground. Charlotte managed to put her arms around Victoria before she hit the ground, but Victoria's skin felt frozen to the touch with goosebumps all across her skin.
"I didn't want to." Victoria whispered with the same emotionless tone as before, although Charlotte had no idea who Victoria was directing the words to.
Charlotte couldn't think of anything to say, in part because she had barely processed what had just happened and in part because she didn't know if Victoria was even paying her any attention. So instead held Victoria tightly, keeping both of them upright and on their feet, whilst Victoria started repeating the same words over and over.
Charlotte had tried blocking out the noises that had been coming from outside, but they had continued to get louder and closer. Now with loud thudding coming from multiple directions below them and screeches being audible in the distance. So far the noises had kept some distance, but any hope of respite that Charlotte may have had disappeared when she heard glass shattering downstairs.
"Victoria we have to move!" Charlotte shouted the instant she realised the shattering had been the glass of the front door. She had no idea if leaving this room was a safe idea, but she had no intention of being trapped here with the dead body, that had continued to stain the floor with blood.
"I'm sorry." Victoria whispered, again Charlotte couldn't tell if it was aimed at her or not. But she seemed to regain some control over her body again, as she quickly reached down for her spear and, with some leaning on Charlotte, she pulled herself up straight. At the same time, Charlotte leaned down with Victoria and reached out for her own sword. And without looking, once she found her hand around the handle, retrieved it with a quick pull.
Victoria pointedly tilted her head and eyes up towards the doorway before speaking louder, but still without emotion, "Lets go." She then stepped forward, taking a large step over the still body, and leaned up against the wall next to the door.
Victoria moved her head around the edge of the doorway to get a better look, but didn't make any attempt to move further. Charlotte knew that Victoria was waiting for her, they had long since agreed that Charlotte and her shield were best suited to enter through doorways first. She quickly obliged, not wanting to stay any longer, and with a small jump over the body she stepped out through the door, shield raised and sword held readied at her side.
Charlotte took a few steps out onto the landing before stopping and looking around. All the lights were off, but the reflected orange glow from outside managed to light things up just enough to be able to see. Everything looked as it had done when Charlotte had came up not that many hours ago other than a patchy trail of dark stains that led all the way around to the top of the stairs.
She stood scanning the area, half expecting something to burst out from one of the doorways and rush towards them. But, much to Charlotte's relief, nothing came rushing out towards them and there was no indication that anything was even in the rooms. So she half ran, half jumped across the landing until she was in front of her bedroom door.
The door had been left partly open so, even though Charlotte wanted to go in, she pulled it closed with a slight click. Charlotte held tight onto the handle for a moment, worried that she wouldn't get to go inside her own room again. But the thudding and cracking glass sound, that had continued from downstairs, were quickly able to make her let go of the door.
She turned around and faced towards Victoria's door on the opposite side of the landing. Only a small distance from where she was, but it'd mean going past the top of the staircase and in line of sight of the front door. Charlotte hesitated for a moment, wondering if they were putting themselves in any extra danger if they were seen by whatever was at the front door, but she took the risk and rushed forwards anyway.
As she ran she kept her eyes forward until she stopped just to the side of Victoria's door. Even in a situation like this, Charlotte didn't feel comfortable barging her way into Victoria's room. Instead, whilst Victoria was making her way over, she took the moment to look down the staircase.
Charlotte traced the dark patches of blood that made trail down step of the stairway, with the patches near the bottom already starting to dry up, before the trail sharply turned from the stairs towards the front room. This at least confirmed that Henry, or at least whatever part of him that was left, had smashed his way in through the garden, a direction Charlotte hoped that wouldn't be easy for anything else to get to.
But her main concern was the scene playing out at the front door. The door itself had managed to remain intact, but the small round glass window in the top half had been broken through. In the place of the window were the silhouettes of multiple arms reaching through and flailing their arms around in vicious attempt to grab anything that got too close. Behind the arms, Charlotte could make out the silhouettes of at least two heads attached to bodies that were pressed hard against the door.
Yet even with hands probing through the broken window, a heavy and rhythmic thudding sound was coming from the other side of the door. At each of these thuds, the door shifted slightly before bouncing back into place. Charlotte's eyes darted to the top and bottom of the door, they'd forgotten to push either of the dead bolts into place, leaving only the smaller lock as the only thing stopping the door from opening.
The fear and worry Charlotte already felt only creeped up in severity each time she saw the door move and every time it seemed the hands were getting close to the lock. The only relief was when Victoria had opened the door behind her and moved into the room, giving Charlotte the excuse to turn away and follow in behind Victoria.
Victoria's room was almost identical to Charlotte's, the only difference being the decorations being a much lighter cream tone and Victoria's furniture being arranged in a mirror opposite to her own room. Although there was a lot more notepads and folders filled with paper spread out across both the floor and desks, in what to Charlotte seemed an almost random fashion.
Initially Charlotte was concerned at how Victoria rushed straight for her desk without checking if the room was safe, but that concern quickly faded when nothing jumped out at them. She did however grab the door and slam it shut behind it, going straight for the deadbolts.
Charlotte placed her head forward and leaned hard against the door and forced herself to slow her breathing. She then turned around, switching to her back leaning up against the door and looked to Victoria, who was sat down and in the process of switching her PC on as well as leaning across the desk for her phone.
"Victoria, what's happening?" Only one possibility came to mind for Charlotte. But it was one she didn't want to say out loud, as if saying it would make it more real and validate the insanity of it.
Victoria didn't respond and instead was transfixed by whatever she was scrolling through on her phone. Charlotte watched as, with each scroll down, more and more life drained out of Victoria's already horrified expression. The scrolling became more and more frantic, the tapping on the screen becoming more and more frequent until Victoria threw her phone forward onto the desk with shaking hands.
"She wished for zombies."