Remington Witch
HC Hammond
Copyright © 2004 by HC Hammond All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Printed in the United States of America
Second Printing, 2011
Firelands Publishing
Author email: firelandsebooks@yahoo.com
“I know why you are the way you are,” a male voice murmured into Page's ear.
It was Jackson. A strange guy, pale and malnourished looking, he had transferred to her high school at the beginning of Junior year. He was a little funny in the head.
Until the summer just before Senior year, she'd never really talked to him. Now it seemed like he was in all of her classes. Not that she minded, despite his weirdness, Page thought he was somewhat attractive. She closed her locker door and looked at him.
"Oh and why is that?" She asked with a look of mock ignorance.
Jackson straightened to his full height and smiled at her. At six feet, six inches, he towered over her own five feet, six inch frame.
"You know why."
Page started walking to the cafeteria and Jackson followed her down the hall like a lost puppy.
"Do I really?" She said nonchalantly.
"Yes."
"I'm afraid I don't remember, could you explain the reason for me again?" Jackson stepped in front of Page, halting her progress.
“Because we're the same."
“Oooh!" She said, "And what makes you so sure we're the same?"
“I just do," He responded.
Page contemplated him for a second, then stepped around him and kept walking. Jackson fell into step next to her and they continued on to the cafeteria together. It was a little game they played. Jackson would try to convince her of who she was and Page would pretend not to believe him. Of course, she would never admit to Jackson that she already knew. He didn’t have to convince her.
Jackson himself thought that he was the incarnate of some ghoulish creature or something. Basically harmless though, she didn’t have to worry about anyone believing his stories.
It all started last spring. Jackson had moved into her neighborhood last year. Into the house right across from her. At the time, he was perfectly normal; he hadn‘t gone completely loopy, yet.
Page didn't like Jackson at the start, sure, he dressed and acted like other guys at school, but there was something about him that crept her out. Page had a feeling at the time that it was some sort of act. Not only that, but Page got weird vibes whenever she happened to make eye contact with him. As a result, she studiously avoided him at school and tried not to go outside at the same time as him.
Page only saw Jackson outside of school occasionally and the glimpses she caught of him at his house gave her nightmares. Bad dreams about dead animals and night terrors really got to her. By the end of Junior year, Page was barely sleeping and a touch neurotic.
"Hey, Jackson," A fellow student said walking up to them. "There's a guy at our table who wants to hear your story about the witch. Come on."
Page sighed. Mike and the other guys on the basketball team often made fun of Jackson these days. No doubt, that's what they were up to now.
"Okay. Can Page come too?" Jackson asked innocently.
"The lead creature herself, sure," Mike said overenthusiastically. Not wanting to cause trouble, Page went with Jackson and Mike to his table.
"Will, this is the guy I was telling you about, Jackson. Here sit down and tell us all about the creatures," Mike said. A few guys at the table snickered. Jackson sat down without seeming to notice.
He thought for a moment and then turned to Page. "Where did it all start at?" He asked. Page smiled at Jackson.
"The library, remember."
"Yeah, the library. One day last spring I went to the library to do some research..."
Jackson flipped through the card catalog quickly in search of the title of an ancient and dusty book. He was in a rarely visited back room of the library searching for information on the town's genealogy. The library's staff hadn’t transferred the information on the town's genealogy books when they started using computers.
The room was musty and the only light came in through several windows lined up in a row on the far wall. Jackson coughed when dust flew up from the card rack.
Where ... where could you be? He thought to himself. Jackson reached the end of the card drawer. He pushed it back in and pulled out the next drawer down.
Ah ha! There you are. Jackson tugged a card out of place. He scanned the card and put it back, closing the drawer.
His footsteps echoed in the tiny room as Jackson walked to a shelf against the far wall. He spent several minutes perusing it. The shelf contained books on the town's topography, minor history and ancestry. There were also a few large notebooks with random old pictures and political pamphlets distributed by mayoral candidates over the years.
Jackson grabbed the town genealogy and decided to pick up one or two of the notebooks as an afterthought.
This is good enough. Jackson sat down at a small table in the room. He flipped open a notebook, looking through it. Jackson was researching a local legend for a school project.
The legend stated that a long time ago, about the same time as the civil war. There was a woman accused of being in league with the Devil. The entire town formed a mob and had her burned at the stake without trial. It was said that as she was burning on the stake, she cursed the seventh generation descendents of the families who killed her. It was also said her eyes turned red and her spirit could fly out of her mouth and into another host, which was how she would do the Devil's bidding through another person.
Jackson was trying to find out what parts of the legend were true and what were not. He was also tracking down the families that were supposed to be at the stake burning and see who still lived in town.
So far, Jackson had been able to find out the details of the legend. The seventh generation of descendents, on the night of the spring equinox, would become wolves and be forced to do the bidding of the witch when she came back to seek her revenge. He also found that the supposed witch had a child and husband, whose descendents still lived in town, right across the street from his house.
Jackson glanced up from the book as the door to the room creaked open.
"Young man. The library is closing soon. I have to ask you to finish up." It was the librarian. Jackson nodded to her and packed up his things, slinging his backpack over his left shoulder. He picked up the Remington genealogy book and carried it with him. Jackson left the back room and walked to the checkout desk.
"Would it be possible for me to check this out?" He asked the librarian.
The woman glanced at him with an offended look on her face. She slowly put down a book she'd been reading in-between people.
"That is a reference book,” She shrilled, “I'm sorry, but you cannot leave the library with it."
"Oh. I'll just put it back, the-"
"The library is closing now. Give me the book and I'll take care of it," She said, holding out her hand.
"Okay." Jackson slowly handed her the book. Jeez. Act like I'm going to steal the book.
He turned to leave and jumped when he almost ran into Page, the girl who lived across the street from him. She looked just as surprised as he felt.
"Um, Excuse me," She barely whispered. Page handed a book she was holding to the librarian at the checkout. The woman took it and began to type something into her computer. Page glanced at Jackson nervously, furrowing her brows. "You still researching that legend for school?"
Jackson took a step away from her and nodded. "Yeah."
"I suppose you’re trying to find out if my ancestor will possess me and seek her revenge on the town this year at the Festival of the Spring Equinox?" She asked quietly.
"Yeah."
Page furrowed her brow, chewing on her lower lip. She took her book from the librarian and walked off in a hurry. Jackson stared after her.
"Young man? Is there something else I can help you with? Young Man?" The librarian asked him.
Jackson turned to the librarian. He shook his head and left.
"Dad, he really creeps me out." Page said, as she turned away from the television.
Maxwell Remington grumbled at his daughter. He speared some chicken on his fork and put it in his mouth, chewing slowly. He usually ate dinner late, because he didn't get home from work until nightfall.
"Don't worry about him, honey. It's just a book report. Everybody knows that the curse of the Remington Witch is just superstition," Page's mother said.
"I guess, but he's still creepy."
"If I were you, I'd be spending some time on my own report. If your grades don’t improve your going to be grounded during the festival" Maxwell muttered in between gulps of chicken. Page didn’t respond to him. Her father had been, to put it mildly, grumpy lately.
"All right," Page got up from the couch. “I’m getting ready for bed. Goodnight," She said and started upstairs to her room. Behind her Page heard a muffled goodnight from her mother.
In her room, Page pulled some nightclothes out of her dresser and went to the bathroom down the hall. She changed clothes, brushed her teeth and washed her face. Page went back to her room and got in bed. She turned out the light on her bedside table after looking around the room, it seemed very silent.
After carefully watching the shadows in her room for scary things, Page's eyes grew heavy and she fell into a restless sleep.
Hours later, Page sat up straight in bed. Sweat glistening on her neck and dotted across her face. Cool air circulated through the room via the air conditioning vents. The only sounds came from her. Panting heavily, she rapidly took air in and out of her lungs. Page pressed her hand to her chest in attempt to soothe herself. It was another dream. A bad one. Page's head swam in the wake of sharp anxiety. She nervously eyed the dark room. It was too still and too quiet.
"Who's there?" Pages voice rasped. She could swear someone was in the room with her. Some dark presence watching her, but Page couldn't see any movement.
"Who's there?" She asked again more loudly. The presence in the room stayed stubbornly quiet. Page reached over to turn on the lamp, there was no miraculous blanket of light flitting across the room. It wouldn't turn on. Page slide to the back of her bed, pressing herself against the wall. She curled her legs up underneath her body and pulled the blanket over her. She willed her pupils to dilate widely, so she could see better in the darkness.
"Please, whoever's there? Just go away," She whimpered. Across the room, something began to form in the darkness, a soft red glow. Page's harsh breaths grew more and more haggard in response. The form moved towards her. Its glow increased to a violent, bloody red.
Page whimpered and tried to melt into the wall, as the thing came closer and closer. It got to her bedside and stood hovering over her. A vague semblance of a woman's face appeared within the red shadow. It stared at her and it felt familiar. She forced herself to move closer to it, the face smiled. The motherly visage calming to Page. She smiled back at it.
The mouth of the face opened, revealing sharpened teeth. Page pulled back. It started laughing soundlessly. Page scrambled off the bed and ran to her door. She turned the knob and pulled, but the door wouldn’t open. She pounded on the door, crying for her parents. The form stopped laughing and became still again, watching Page as she tried to escape. Page dropped to the floor in front of her door.
"Please...go away!" She begged the form. It continued to stare at her.
"Go away!" Page cried.
The form smiled and rushed at her and Page screamed.
Jackson leaned over the drinking fountain and turned the metal knob. He took a sip of the artificially cooled water arcing out of the fountain. His thirst quenched, Jackson continued on to class.
It was in-between periods and other students were rushing back and forth in the hallway. Trying to get to their lockers for one of a dozen books and then to class, which happens to be on the other side of the school. Jackson walked nonchalantly in the ordered chaos. He didn't really mind if he was late to class. Getting a detention for being late was better than getting a brain hemorrhage trying to keep up with the pressures of school. He walked through the doorway of his English class as the bell rang.
The teacher, Mr. Knight, gave Jackson a look as he strolled to his seat. It almost screamed, "If you come in just one second after the bell. I'm writing you up."
Glancing across the room, Jackson noticed Page’s somewhat hunched posture. She looked angry, almost enraged, but tightly controlling it. Jackson looked at the chalkboard when she turned in his direction. The assignment for the day was a worksheet on a section of poetry in the book. Jackson hadn’t brought his English book with him.
Oh, damn! I didn't stop by my locker and get the book today. He thought sarcastically. Jackson almost never brought his book to class.
He leaned over and took a hardback novel out of his backpack. Jackson opened it and started reading. He was relatively sure the teacher wouldn't notice him long enough to tell him to work on the class assignment. Jackson spent the next twenty minutes enwrapped in a fast-paced murder mystery.
"Jackson Quentin." He looked up as he heard his name being called. Mr. Knight held out yesterday's quiz, freshly graded. Jackson got up to get it. He pulled the paper out of the teacher's hand and looked at it as he went back to his seat. A solid "B" as usual.
"Page Remington." Jackson watched Page stand up and walk leisurely to the teacher. She took her paper and looked at it. Page made a shocked face and turned to speak to Mr. Knight. It looked like she was arguing with him about her grade, but her argument seemed to be futile. Mr. Knight had his hands up in a gesture of refusal. Jackson almost smiled at her frustration.
Then, something happened. Page's eyes began to glow a soft red.
Jackson's own eyes widened in disbelief. He stared as her eyes practically beamed with red light. Mr. Knight seemed in a trance. Jackson watched as Mr. Knight took Page's paper back from her and wrote something on it. He gave it back to Page, who now seemed placated and went to her seat. Mr. Knight continued handing out quizzes.
Jackson looked about the room to see if anyone else just saw what he did. Students bent over their work and others in the back corner gossiped in soft tones, but no one else was sitting up and looking around the room in a confused manner.
Okay. Jackson spent a minute or so, glancing back and forth from Page to Mr. Knight, before deciding to wait until after class to figure out what happened. He opened his novel and tried to concentrate on it. He was still on the same page when the bell rang thirty-five minutes later. Jackson grabbed his backpack. He slung it over his arms and rushed to catch up with Page as she left the classroom ahead of him.
"Page," He said as he reached her in the hallway. Page stopped and turned to him.
"What?"
"Uhh ... " Jackson was at a loss for words. How exactly does one say to a person that you saw them entrance someone?
"I was wondering what grade you got on the quiz?" He asked.
"Why?"
"Well … Um, I saw you arguing with Mr. Knight-"
"What did you see?" She stepped towards him. Page's menacing face was a far cry from the shy girl he bumped into yesterday.
"Um ... I-"
Page's eyes started to glow. Jackson stumbled back from her. He stared at the ground to keep from seeing the light in her eyes.
"Hey, Page. Are you coming or what?" One of Page's friends yelled at her from down the hall. Page glanced behind her and then back to Jackson.
"You saw nothing." Her eyes returned to normal and she walked off. Jackson stood in the hall in a daze.
"Where did I see that passage at?" Jackson said to himself. He was back in the periodical's room at the library, searching rapidly through a dusty volume on the town's history. It was an account of the night a mob burned the Remington Witch.
Some holier-than-thou participant in the tragic event had written a detailed and lurid description for supposed posterity. Eventually, the story made its way into book-form.
"Here it is," Jackson said. He stopped flipping pages and focused on a particular passage.
“...and when the people came to take the witch. Her eyes became red as blood and lit the night. The spirit of the witch left her body, which then became limp, and possessed the body of John Bonman. He became enraged and attacked several members of the group.”
David Carmichel, the town's priest, was with the mob. He was originally against the burning and in favor of performing an exorcism on the witch.
Carmichel's mind was changed when the Remington Witch supposedly cast him down with a disfiguring disease. He doused John with the blessed holy water and the spirit was forced to leave him. It returned to the body of the witch and the priest poured the water on her and trapped the spirit in its host
body. The group then continued on to the center of town, dragging the woman as she kicked and spit on her captors. Arriving there, they tied the witch to a stake and burned her alive, using one of the traditional methods of killing a witch used by the earlier pilgrims. It was while she burned on the stake, that she uttered the curse on the townspeople's descendents. At the end, the witch's eyes glowed red before the spirit left her body in death.
"Possession of another person," Jackson leaned back in the chair as he mumbled to himself. "That could be what I saw, or else some kind of mind control."
Jackson closed the book. "So the witch has come back to carry out her curse. She must be going to do it at the festival. I have to stop her."
Wait a minute. Why do I have to stop her? Jackson thought. Because you are the only one who knows. Besides who is going to believe you?
"Oh, yeah" He said. Jackson closed the book and got up from the chair. He grabbed his stuff and quickly left the room.
Okay. It's Thursday and the festival is on Saturday. That means I have two days to get holy water and figure out what I'm going to do, and find out how to get a hold of the witch's ashes. Jackson frowned and talked to himself as he left the library, catching the librarian’s scowling eye.
On his way home, Jackson worked out a plan to get the holy water. He decided that he was going to have to sneak into the town’s Catholic church. It was the only source of holy water he could think of, without having to ask a minister for help. Breaking curfew was a necessary evil that he didn't like the thought of, but there was no way a minister or priest would just give him the water so he could fight an ancient witch.
He skirted the streetlights in the parking lot. The dark night helping to envelop him as he ran towards the side entrance of the church.
Jackson gasped, leaning against the brick of the church when he got there. He'd run most of the way to the church from his house. Jackson only had a few hours of night left and he wanted to get home before his parents discovered that he had snuck out. He put his hand against the door and pushed slowly. It came open easily. Earlier that day Jackson had scouted the church and wedged a stick between the door and the door jam, so that it wouldn't close all the way.
He poked his head inside the building and peered about the darkened interior. A bright red exit sign glowed softly above his head, emitting a soft electrical buzzing. That was the only sound in the place. Jackson hesitantly stepped inside. He slid as quietly as he could through the short hallway and into the main congregating room.
It was large and open with one lone light at the alter. He ran to the font of holy water near the front entrance, half afraid some soul would jump out of the darkness of the empty pews and drag him to the underworld for committing sacrilege. Jackson took a large water bottle out of his trench coat pocket and dunked it in the small pool of liquid. In front of him, Christ stared down from his cross with questioning eyes.
"Err, sorry ... " Jackson whispered to the figure. He put the full bottle back into his pocket. Jackson looked around the room before rushing back the way he came, eager to be away from the scene of his crime.
Jackson dozed through his first three classes the next day. Only waking when one of his friends jabbed him with a pencil to ask why he was so out of it. In Mr. Knight's class, Page seemed almost normal and he nearly convinced himself that his mind had been playing games on him yesterday. Until he happened to catch her staring at him with those horrifying red eyes during a test. It sent chill up his spine and he resolved to maintain his present course of action.
After school, he went down to the town's historical museum. Jackson wandered around the old building until he came to the section on the Remington Witch.
"Just what I was looking for," He said. In the very center of the display stood a small urn, supposedly filled with what was left of the Remington Witch after they burned her.
Now to break the law … again. He thought, grimacing slightly. Jackson looked around the rest of the area filled with things about the Remington Witch, making sure know one else was around. When he was sure that he was alone, Jackson snuck into a janitor's closet to the side of the room. He checked the face of his digital watch in the darkness. It was four-thirty, the museum closed at five and the curator, an absent-minded man who rarely stuck his nose out of his office, would leave about an hour after that. Jackson set his watch and settled into a crouching position behind some brooms and a mop, preparing to cool his heels for an hour and a half. He had stayed up so late the night before that Jackson soon grew tired and was asleep within minutes in the dark closet.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Jackson jumped at the sound. He floundered about in the dark for several seconds until he realized where he was and turned off the alarm on his watch. He made his way to the door and cracked it open, poking his head outside.
It was still daylight though the lights in the building were all off. He walked out into the open, peering about. Everything was silent, the building completely empty. Jackson took a deep breath and went up to the display with the witch's urn. He unhooked the velvet ropes surrounding the urn and carefully picked it up.
I should probably take a peek, just to make sure. He thought, lifting two latches that held on the heavy lid of the urn.
Inside it, sat a pile of inconspicuous dust. All that remained of an evil witch. Except for her spirit. Jack figured to himself. He put the lid back down, putting the whole thing inside his backpack. He put the backpack on and replaced the velvet rope. Jackson started towards the entrance only to realize that it would be locked.
"Shit!" He cursed. How could I have forgotten about the locks? He halted, panicking. He would be caught when the curator came in the morning he'd find him dozing on the floor with the Remington Witch's Urn. The cops would arrest him and he'd be stuck in Juvenile Detention while the spirit of the witch took over the stupid town.
Jackson remembered the fire escape, with a smile he turned and headed back down the hallway he had hidden in. At the end of it stood his salvation, the exit door. He leaned against it, getting ready to run. Once he opened the door the alarm would go off and he'd only have a few minutes to get the heck away from the place. Jackson hit the latch running as a ruckus of sound erupted.
Carnival music floated over the evening breeze carrying the townspeople’s laughter with it. Jackson mingled in the crowd, his shoulders hunched under the weight of the Urn in his backpack. He was dead tired; sleep eluded him the previous night. He kept thinking the police would come and arrest him or worse, Page might decide to come after him.
Not Page … the witch. He corrected himself. Jackson continued through the crowd, giving a pair of Policemen wide berth. People crowded him from all sides giving him the strange sensation being trapped with no way out. Jackson sat on a concrete divider after almost an hour of searching for Page. Maybe she wasn't going to use the festival to take over as he had thought. Finally, across the crowd, he saw her. Page stood alone, glaring at him. Her bright red eyes glowing brightly enough to see over the distance, freezing him to the very core.
She turned and walked away, leaving Jackson to stare after her. He shook himself out of his stupor and chased after her.
Page weaved through the crowd, staying just enough ahead of Jackson stay keep him out of breath. Several times, he thought he had lost her only to see her cross his path again. It was as if she did it on purpose. She led him to a small ally a couple hundred yards from the farthest reaches of the festival. It was dark inside, a separate world from the gaiety of the celebration outside.
"I know what you've been doing," The creature inside Page said.
Jackson blood ran fear slithered its way through his suddenly cold veins. He attempted to swallow a couple of times to clear his now dry throat, but it did no good. He slid the backpack off his shoulders and slowly unzipped it with shaking hands.
"I brought you here to tell you it will not work. I haven't waited for hundreds of years to accomplish my goal only to have a boy stop me."
Jackson pulled out the water bottle and unscrewed the top. He stepped back instinctively as Page moved towards him. She saw his nervousness and began to laugh. Her eyes glowing brighter in the night.
"How do you intend to stop me when you can't even make yourself stand still? I know, I'll make it easier for you." As she spoke, the light in her eyes dimmed and went out. A hazy form appeared in front of Page's face.
Jackson realized it was the spirit of the witch. The witch's face in the red cloud smiled at him. It hovered a few seconds, doing nothing. It rushed at him, Jack let a scream as the form rammed into his body.
Suddenly he felt very crowded, as if he were sharing his body with something else. It dawned on him that he was, the witch was inside his body. Pain hit him; he struggled against the pressure of the spirit. He quickly found himself winning the internal battle. The creature seemed itself to be in pain, it writhed in agony as he fought with it. Jackson gave one final mental push and was by himself. He came to, flat on his back in the ally. After a moment's confusion, he scrambled to get up and found he still clutched the water bottle, though there was only half of the holy water left. The rest of it had spilled on him as he fell.
He shook with relief; the holy water must have pushed the witch out of his body. He looked around nervously but didn't see her. Page was passed out on the concrete opposite him. Jackson went to her, checking to see if she was still alive. He noted the beating of her heart, and tried to wake her but could not.
"Stay away from my body!" A voice yelled. Jackson glanced up at the sound and saw the red fog of the witch coming at them. He quickly spread some of the holy water over Page, preventing the creature entrance. It roared, rushing past them.
"You and I both know there's only one place left for you to go!" He said, pointing to where his backpack had fallen, the urn had come out of it and knocked over spilling some of its contents on the ground. The red haze roared again, rushing back and forth into the alleyway. Jackson started to fear it might have some other plan in mind as it halted right in front of him.
"This isn't over," The visage inside the haze said. It roared once more, rushing into the ashes by the urn.
Jackson’s breath raged heavily into the silence that followed. His blood pounded in his ears when he stood. He staggered over to the Urn and collapsed to his knees in front of it.
Setting the Urn upright, he swept up the ashes with his hands and put them back inside. All the while fearing the spirit of the witch might pop out and get him. He didn't let out a sigh of relief until the latches were closed back over the lid of the Urn. Jackson jumped as a light flashed in his eyes.
"Hey, what’s going on back here?" A police officer wielding the flashlight asked.
Jackson closed his eyes, resting his head on the cool metal table. He was at the police station. The officer who had found him and Page brought him there after discovering that Jackson had the missing Urn from the museum. What followed was an hour and a half of questioning. Jackson refused to talk; the police would never believe his story. He barely believed it himself. So here, he was stuck in an empty room until the cops came back from their coffee break to play another round of twenty questions.
"I wonder how Page is doing," He muttered to no one in particular.
They took Page away from the alley in an ambulance, her having not regained consciousness yet.
"I'm fine," Came a voice from by the door. Jackson looked up.
"Page!"
She smiled leisurely and came over to have a seat opposite him. Jackson just stared flabbergasted.
"Hi. You’re looking tired," She stated nonchalantly.
"How? What? You're okay?" He said.
"I'm back to the way I was. If that's what you mean," Page responded.
"How did you get in here?"
"I walked in," Page leaned back in her seat, plucking at an invisible hair on her shoulder, "by the way; the police are going to let you go. I told them you and I were trying to stop the person who really stole the Urn. Unfortunately, I was knocked out and he got away," She sighed, pretending to be visibly dismayed.
"And they believed you?" Jackson asked.
Page lazed languidly, like a cat with a large dose of catnip in its system.
"Yes."
Jackson was started to feel hopeful, everything would go back to normal. The witch was taken care off and he wouldn't be sent to jail after all.
"Why did they believe you?" He asked tentatively.
"Because, I found it convenient for them to do so!" Page was grinning now, a look of pure pleasure on her face.
A slight tremor of fear slid through Jackson. There was something wrong with this situation. The police wouldn’t believe the word of a teenage girl who had been unconscious when they found her. He stood up, moving slowly towards the door.
"Uh, I guess I can go then," He said.
"Not quite," Red light bloomed from Page's eyes, “I told you this wasn't over."
Jackson screamed and ran for the door, but he was too slow....
"Wait a minute," Will interrupted.
Jackson was jerked out of his story. He gazed around at the jocks with a confused grimace.
Page was glaring at Will despite herself. The others at the table had smirks on their faces. She wanted to wipe them off.
"What?" Jackson asked.
Will leaned forward with the air of a person having caught someone in the act of lying. "Page can't be possessed anymore. You dowsed her with that stuff, the holy water."
"Well, maybe he forgot to shoot her with a silver bullet," Mike, the guy who had invited Page and Jackson over, said. The rest of the jocks broke out into laughter, slapping each other on the back.
"Oh no, no. You see silver bullets are for Werewolves. Page is possessed with the spirit of a witch, but I did get it wrong. You see ... " Jack broke off, looking to Page for permission.
She gave the jocks one last glare before smiling at Jackson. "It's okay, go on."
Jackson nodded, and turned back to Will, who was now laughing as hard as the others were.
"You see, I forgot about the properties of water. Holy water is still water, whether it's been blessed or not, and water evaporates," Jackson said meaningfully.
"Yeah," Will said regaining his composure enough to listen.
"Well, even though I dowsed her in the holy water to protect Page, once it evaporated the witch's spirit was able to possess her again. That's how the spirit escaped when the townspeople burned her body. The fire evaporated the water."
Mike was laughing so hard now that he was falling out of his chair. He clutched at his sides, gasping for breath.
"Heh, heh, um ... Why didn't the spirit continue with her curse, heh, Jackson?" Will asked, trying to control his laughter.
"Because ... Jackson did interrupt my plans, even if he didn't stop me. I have to wait until the next Spring Equinox," Page responded to Will before Jackson could. She stood up planting her hands flat on the table. His eyes glazed over, Jackson grinned up at Page. She stared down each of the jocks, one by one until they stopped laughing. Mike stood up towering over her small frame.
"You can leave now, we've had a good laugh and you don't want this to get ugly do you?" He said, giving her his meanest look.
"Yes I do," She responded. Page leaned forward, her eyes flashing.
Mike backed away, knocking over his chair. The others stood, all talking at once while Page laughed at them. Her eyes were glowing bright red.
Sample Book Preview:
FLESHEATERS AND BLOODSUCKERS
ANONYMOUS
HC Hammond
Chapter 1
Harold spent a lot of time thinking about blood. Its alluring warmth and coppery flavor were manna, a precious resource, hard to procure, but so, so worth the effort. He spent many hours of his life considering the substance. What drew him to it. How he could get at it. How he could avoid it. Why he deserved the torment of that downright, blood-red, dirty, sloppy substance. Mostly at this moment, as he sat in one of many titanium white holding cells in the Columbus police metropolitan complex, he spent time ruminating on how his need for it kept getting him into trouble, more of it lately than usual.
As far as the myth of vampires went, Harold could admit he didn't really measure up. He wasn't mysterious or menacing or really all that sexy. Just about the only things that got him laid were the reputation associated with vampires and the hypnotic ability it afforded him. Even that stopped now that Maria was in the picture.
And now for the first time in nearly eighty years, he'd been caught trying to get a good meal, by the coppers. Harold could practically smell a future filled with burning flesh.
They threw him in the slammer for charges of attempted murder, it was really only attempting to get a good meal on his thin frame. Harold doubted the judge, a normie, would see it that way. Even in this modern, enlightened age, those infected with Human Abeoviridae still didn’t get the same fair shake as everyone else. He nibbled on his fingertips as he thought, nipping on each one in turn and sucking on the flesh just enough to draw a drop of blood before moving on to the next.
Vamps didn't do well in prisons. The guards kept to a diurnal schedule. First day in yard and Harold would turn into so much barbeque. Maria would miss him and weep salty tears over his urn ensconced ashes at a state paid funeral, but he'd still be ubër dead. Dust to dust and ashes to ashes.
Shit, shit, shit. Harold jumped from the bench to pace the room, counting the footsteps heel to toe, one, two, three, four. His shit seriously hit the fan this time, five, six. No way, he'd be able to go back to his life and no way to survive going to jail, seven, eight, nine. Harold might actually have to skip town and start fresh, ten, eleven, twelve, something he'd avoided this some eighty years, thirteen, fourteen. He didn't want to leave, fifteen steps to cross the room, no bigger than his bedroom. The vampire turned ninety degrees and started walking. This city was his home, his first home, one of the last connections to, well, before, two, three, four.
He made it a point to be extra careful where he fed, five, when he fed, rotating through random, six, seven, eight, neighborhoods of the city on a regular basis, nine, steering clear of other infected's territory. Only nine steps before his red flyers bumped the wall, practically claustrophobic in here.
The cops just got lucky, although having tasers to take him down didn't hurt either. His chest still stung from the prongs. If he could actually fly, Harold received enough juice to make it to Los Angeles and back.
Everywhere this past year, Harold encountered police cruisers. It took more effort to sneak around at night. He'd been avoiding “eating out” and taking from the blood bank at work, increasing the risk of getting caught fang deep in a pint.
The booking officer's heavy footsteps, mingled with two others stopped Harold's fretting. They were coming to take him before a judge, a good time to escape, just have the officers walk him out the front door with a few soft words. He could get away, but he'd have to keep running. They knew his name now, had his prints and mug shots. They knew he was infected.
A fevered thought screamed, jump them, as the cell door swung open and one cop asked him to step forward. Harold slumped towards them, a fugitive vamp with very few options. The booking officer guided him down the hall, one hand on his upper arm, the other gripping a cattle prod. Two distinctly ogrish officers brought up the rear. The police station nearly silent with inactivity. Other than him, they were having a slow night. Just his darn well luck, he supposed.
A couple of other cops eyed him from the booking station and a small, Asian woman sat alone on a bench by the entrance. Harold had a very hard time looking away from her. Slowly, her red lips turned upwards in a closed mouth smile. Her eyes were wide and icy, bright green. Despite his predicament, he was glad to head in the opposite direction. Sure were a lot of crazies around here.
They walked down the hall to the courtroom; at least what Harold thought was court. When guard opened the door, it turned out to be nothing more than an interrogation room. Within sat two men, one squat and large and one tall and thin. Suits with their dark grey Tweeds and Gentrys, sunglasses and skinnies.
These two certainly weren't cops, and he doubted they were public defenders. That only left one option, they were with the government.
He wasn't sure what this meant for him, but he doubted it good.
On the table lay a manila folder. He assumed it was his file or at least about him. The tall one, gestured for Harold to sit in the wooden chair opposite. Neither of them bothered asking the guard to take off Harold's handcuffs. Rather than put up a fuss he sat down with his hands in his lap. They stared at each other, to the point where it began to get awkward.
If this was some tactic designed to break him and get a confession, they were going be here a very, very long time if they wanted to hear his life story. Of course, he was already a dead man so what were several more crimes on top of the one for which they already snagged him. At least he'd have someone to listen, someone who might give a damn for some small reason about where he came from and why he did it. The tall one introduced himself as Agent Bergstrom and the man next to him as his partner, Agent Potts
“Mr. Blank, I wonder if you know why you're here?” Agent Bergstrom asked, startling Harold with his soft voice.
“I figured,” said Harold, looking down at his swollen, bitten fingers, “you brought me in because of…” It was harder than he thought it would be to admit his status. Decades of living with it only increased the shame. “Well, my being a vampire.” There he'd said it. They could do what they liked, but it didn't change the facts.
“Oh, that little problem,” said Agent Bergstrom with a smile in his voice. “We’ll take care of it for you.”
Harold looked up from the fingers he had been analyzing to try and decide if he could draw anymore blood, to gape.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He asked.
“It means, Mr. Blank, you don't have to worry about jail, as long as you help us.”
Harold eyed the two men. He'd been expecting an interrogation and now they were dangling the promise of freedom. It might be a game, some trick.
The man continued, “We've watched for someone like you some time now. You just happen to fit the bill. So, we're arranging to have the charges dismissed in exchange for your cooperation.”
“My cooperation,” Harold might have laughed at the word, but he didn’t quite have the balls. “What can I possibly do for you?”
Agent Potts shifted in his chair, scraping the metal legs across the floor. Harold grabbed one of his ears with his cuffed hands, grimacing at the lack of protection for his other ear.
“Tut, tut,” said Bergstom, “Our new vampire friend's ears are quite sensitive you know.”
“Huh, how sensitive are they?” Agent Potts asked. He leered at Harold.
Harold kept silent, rubbing his ears to sooth away the sudden bout of tinnitus flaring up in response to that horrible noise. He wished he could think of something suitably caustic to say, but couldn't come up with anything more than “fuck off” and the man already seemed more interested than Harold preferred.
Harold tensed when the taller man reached forward. Maybe he could put up enough of a struggle to make the pile of ashes representing his dead corpse look suspicious to the cops. No, they would probably sweep him up and pour him in the trash. End of story. Oh, Danny boy.
“We're not here to frighten you, Mr. Blank.”
It turned out the taller man needed the folded manila envelope from the table. He opened it, pulling out the contents and tossing them in front of Harold without preamble. Harold spread them out with his hand. Surveillance photos of people and creatures he didn't know. Some normie in a sweater vest dominated the images. Harold picked up a creepy poindexter vibe. Most of those undeads, he couldn't even identify them by type, but it’s always easy to recognize the physical symptoms, were gaunt weak-looking creatures. It was a misleading term. These people weren’t dead. He wasn’t dead. Each was either born with an affliction from the Human Abeoviridae family or they contracted it later in life, but they didn’t die. Only the lucky ones died.
One skeletal male with skin stretched across his bones and another Harold could only describe as a giant mottled black and grey slug wearing some sort of collar stood out. For several moments he pondered the images, trying to determine their veracity.
Harold sighed, pushing back from the desk. “I don't know these people.”
This was going to be a very short interrogation. At nearly 107 years, Harold had yet to make a long-term acquaintance with any other vampires, let alone these different people. He'd no clue this many types of infecteds lived in the area and he worked in a hospital, tested for them on a regular basis. The men may not realize it, but they'd just quietly blown his mind.
“We didn't expect you too,” Agent Bergstrom said, “These are all members of a self-help program called FEBS Anonymous.”
“FEBS?”
“Flesheaters and Bloodsuckers.”
“Cute,” Harold muttered.
“We didn't come up with the name,” the tall man said, expressing his first sign of displeasure in this bizarre meeting. He leaned forward to jab a finger at a photo of the poindexter. “He did, Donald Smythe. Created the program to help the infected cure their illnesses and be normal again.”
This time Harold did laugh, “Is that even possible?”
“Certain members of the group seem to think so.” Bergstrom turned his attention to arranging the photos on the table according to some internal filing system. “Thing is Harold. We can’t find the graduates of his program to confirm it. The government wants to know more about this program. We would like you to join it and report to us on regular basis. In exchange, we’ll have any charges against you dropped and your true nature will remain your own private business.”
“Hmmm…play spy for the feds. I’m going to have to say no on that.”
Agent Potts grunted at Harold from his chair. Agent Bergstrom's hands stilled in their work.
“This isn't optional Mr. Blank.”
The hell it wasn’t. Harold's neck was the most important thing in his life and he sure as heck fire wasn't about to risk it in spy games, despite the way these two set him on edge. If this really was it, if he really had to … he could slip away faster than anyone in the dead of night. He just needed an opening.
“Why don't you just ask this Donald character to let you know where these people are? He probably keeps in touch with his graduates.”
Bergstrom removed his sunglasses. Harold did a double take. The man's eyes were solid black voids, all iris. The agent revealed his teeth. “You think only normies can be agents? You should take us up on this,” He leaned forward to whisper, “It's not so bad on this side of the table.”
“What are you?” Harold asked, glancing at the man's partner and wondering whether he too harbored a secret under his dark sunglasses.
“I'm an agent with the government,” Bergstrom said. “We're having a little trouble with Donald. He doesn't want to reveal the locations of former group members. Claims it interferes with their right to privacy.”
The man put his glasses back on and his completely non-descript but slightly odd look returned. “We can't make him disappear right now. Donald's starting to get quite a bit of attention for his program. He's going on the talk show circuit soon with the ‘Get Normal’ routine.”
The agent gestured again with pale, bone-thin fingers towards the photos. “During the course of our standard surveillance of the FEBS self-help group we've noticed several discrepancies.”
“Was it the giant slug or the zombies?” Harold muttered. He used the side of his hand to push away a surprisingly up close photograph of a zombie in make-up, lots and lots of pancake on very little flesh, unappetizing. How on earth did they manage to get this close up for surveillance like that? Surely, members of this group would have noticed the smell of normies in the area. Course, these guys weren't exactly like other people.
“Neither. We're talking about disappearances,” The agent said. He rearranged some of the photos before Harold. They were all close ups of infecteds he didn't recognize, hadn't met before. “These are all recent graduates of the FEBS program. Naturally, we'd like to check up on everyone involved with or who spent time around the group to ensure they aren't returning to a life of bloodshed after graduation.”
“Naturally,” Harold echoed, his eyes still trying to discern discrepancies in the photos which might mark them faked.
“Since these members graduated, we've been unable to find them. They no longer inhabit old haunts, left no forwarding address, haven't been using their old social security numbers or tried to contact family members. They've just disappeared.”
Harold looked over the faces, some attractive, some passing for live, others obviously undead. He tried to remember whether he'd seen any of them skirting the darkness where he usually ate. Or God forbid, seen them rolled into the morgue down the hall where he worked. None rang a bell.
It's possible these people didn't want to be found again. He tried to think how he would feel about his past if he woke up one morning and suddenly wasn't a vampire anymore. He might keep that part of himself a secret, especially after all he'd done, the people he'd killed. For a regular guy it's just murder, what he did, not trying to survive. That was a sobering thought.
He would work his hardest to erase his past, his deeds and anything else he could think of connected to the vampirism. He wouldn't want to be found by anyone from his past either.
Could these people have cloaked themselves so well in new identities that the efforts of government agents didn’t oust them? He didn't know how far these guys had gone to find these graduates, but he didn't think they'd be particularly concerned about things like privacy laws.
“Believe me,” Bergstrom said, “I’d do this any other way I could, but we can't. You're working for us, whether you like it or not.”
Harold sneered. “I'm not some government flunkie. Who the hell do you think was chasing me down all these years? Now even.” Harold stood up, cuffed hands before him. “Arrest me, charge me, kill me if you like, but I'm not going to spy on anyone.” He swallowed, surprised by his own stupid bravado.
The agents remained sitting, hands slightly folded in front of them, faces expressionless as the Blues Brothers.
“You done?” The shorter one asked him.
“Fuck you.”
The two men grinned from ear-to-ear. They knew as well as he did that he had nothing to back up his attitude. Harold let out a frustrated sigh, plopping back into his chair.
Why on earth didn't he just steal some blood from the bank tonight instead of going for fresh? It's a vampire dies young, who tries to sit in the sun, he thought bleakly.
“We know you’re fucked,” Potts paused, “so we'll make this short.”
“Watch the members, especially those who look to graduate soon. Get close to Donald. Maybe we won't drag your sorry carcass to some eternally sunny place on charges of attempted murder by bloodletting,” the agent held up a hand to stop Harold's spitting tirade.
“Damn you,” Harold muttered.
“We get that a lot,” Agent Bergstrom said, “You'll work with us then?”
“What else can I do?”
“Nothing.” The man smiled at Harold.
Harold shifted in his chair and listened while the agents explained it all to him. He'd go into FEBS as part of a diversion program for those like himself entering the court system. Go before the judge, say you're sorry and feel so, so guilty. Beg for mercy and take the program when offered. Harold nodded when they looked at him. He'd go along if he had too and say what they wanted, if only to get back on the streets.
Except, should he find out he'd never tell them where those people went to after graduation. They had a right to keep their privacy if it worked and more so if it didn’t. Harold’s own precious fantasy house of cards nearly fell tonight. He could be caught drinking blood at any moment and lose his life, metaphorically and literally. He saw no reason to voluntarily offer up information about other people so they could be slaughtered too. On the good side, Harold still had the privacy of his own mind and he knew how to keep a secret.