GRIM Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

A M Y

HAWKINGTON, LOUISIANA

SEPTEMBER 9, 1865

9:37 P.M.

            I still had my father’s rifle on my bedroom wall.

            He used it all throughout the war; even during Gettysburg. A gunsmith friend of his engraved his name in the wood, just a few weeks before he died. It still fired like a charm, and it was still loaded, with an unused Minie Ball in the chamber.

I wished he was still there, but not just because I missed him, but because I needed him.

            KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK. The front door shook with each pound.

            It’s almost ten o’ clock. Who could be knocking at this hour?

            I slid out of bed and flipped my long, ginger hair out of my eyes. SHE would not answer the door. She never did, because she was doing something far too terrible to talk about.

            “Can I help you?” I inquired, swinging the door open and breathing in a gust of cold night air. Before me stood two people my age, a male and a female. She was shorter than he, with darkly-tanned skin and thick makeup smeared on her face, most noticeably the eyeliner that coated the skin around her shadowy brown irises. Her lipstick looked like she stuck her mouth into a jar of blood and decided it matched. He, however, was more well-groomed, and more attractive, not to mention, with soft blond hair and vivid blue eyes, his face cleanly shaved.

            “Hello, Amy,” greeted the girl coldly, her wide, fang-like teeth spreading as she grinned. “Happy to see us?”

            “It’s bittersweet,” I muttered. I was a bit comforted by their presence, but they were wasting their time. They would have gotten out alive if they had turned back there and then. “You might want to leave. She’s touchy tonight.”

            “We didn’t come this far to take orders from you,” he groaned, shoving past me, almost knocking me to the floor. I steadied the ornate flower vase that I hit with my elbow. .

            “Where is she?” she hissed, almost snarled. They gazed around the dark foyer and up the long staircase. He pulled a long revolver from his belt and cocked it.

            My hands trembled as I stumbled back over to the door. And then I saw the army that they had brought with them: probably no less then a hundred people, all with various dangerous objects that any average witch-hunting mob might have. Torches, pitchforks, guns. The front men, the tallest and burliest, had wild razorback boars tied to thick chains at their disposal. The animals snorted and pawed at the dirt.

            Oddly enough, it did not frighten me. Because these mobs of witch hunters came every other week. Each time, they would venture through the woodlands of Louisiana, hunting, watching, waiting. Not for me, but for HER.

            Then again, maybe it was a good thing that my father was dead.

            We lived in the bayous of Louisiana just outside the town of Hawkington, perhaps the most superstitious place one could ever visit. But that night, they had reason to be there, because this was no superstition.

            “She must be upstairs,” murmured the man, named Ray. He was the town butcher, but that was not the only reason he liked to use knives.

            “You go first.” Her nickname was Whisper. She was Ray’s girlfriend and what I believe to be a madhouse escapee.

            Ray began to slowly creep up the stairs. Whisper unsheathed a slender dagger from within her torn blue frock. It was covered in blood, probably from when she cut herself in her sleep.

            I grabbed a candelabra from the sidebar next to the door and used the matches on the wooden surface to light the nine candles. The room was illuminated. I was fearful of what was going to happen next, and I needed something to see with and defend myself with. Because earlier, SHE was whispering things softly in her room, which you could hear around the house, but now she was silent.

            Whisper turned and saw the candelabra, rushing back down the steps and grabbing it from me. She pointed the dagger at my chest.

            “Not a sound,” she hissed, deranged. I nodded and gulped, closing my eyes so that I would not have to watch. At this point, I was trembling, despite the fact that this happened all the time. I hated it, I hated her, I hated them.

            Then the candles went out, all on their own. All that was left of the flames were wisps of smoke.

            “What was that?” whispered Ray, turning and coming slowly back down the steps. “Is she here?”

            I opened my eyes. They both turned to me and glared. “Where is she?” snapped Whisper. “Does she know we’re here?”

            I trembled and nod. “I am very, truly sorry for what is about to happen to you.”

            I dropped to the floor and covered my ears to avoid the screaming. I watched, curled up in a ball on the cracked wooden floorboards, as Whisper’s knife slowly began to fight against her control, on its own. She stared in surprise at it as it turned quickly towards her.

The last thing I saw was the glint of the moonlight on the blade before it killed Whisper. I could only pray that God would not let HER harm me.

            “COME OUT, YOU DEVIL!” shouted Ray, terrified and shaking. I could see his knees knocking together as he held his gun aloft nervously. He fired it into the ceiling once, making me jump. The moonlight illuminated the floor as a thin rope, most likely from within the cellar, came snaking along like a serpent past my feet. I trembled and did not move. SHE was going to kill him, too.

            A tear streamed down my cheek. Why did I have to endure this terror?

            Ray saw the rope and fired five shots, one after the other, at it, eventually losing all of his ammunition. I just looked up at him, my eyes full of tears, as he realized in shock what was about to happen.

            “I’m sorry,” I whispered, my lip shaking. The rope, like a living cobra, shot towards Ray and coiled quickly around his neck, constricting him and killing him. He dropped to the floor, dead, right next to what was left of Whisper.

            Then I saw her: she stood just in the shadows of the living room, next to the foyer, wearing a simple black nightgown as a contrast to my white one.

            “Hello, Amy,” she greeted devilishly, her voice like a hiss and her eyes like those of a reptile. “Sleep well?”

            “WHY DID YOU KILL THEM?” I screamed. I ran towards her and shoved her, sending her toppling backwards. I hated her. I hated her and was cursed to be her sister.

            My sister, the witch.

            “I had to,” she stated coldly, rising to her feet, unscathed. “It was his orders.”

            “Whose?”

            “My superior’s.”

            “What superior?”

            She did not answer. Instead, she strode past me and coiled her long fingers around the brass doorknob. Her nails were painted black and her hair was long and loose, the color of chocolate.

            “What are you going to do about the some hundred people outside?” I inquired, trying to keep from bawling with fear. She grinned.

            “I called for backup.”

            I rushed over to the door and she swung it open, revealing the mob, still in the exact same place that it was before. They glared with fiery anger at her and I.

            “Would you like to watch?” she asked. I shook my head.

            The mob saw my sister as she stepped out onto the porch and readied their weapons, the sounds of cocking guns and snorting boars echoing through the dark forest.

            “Hello, all,” she greeted eerily, projecting her voice to the back of the mob, “Welcome to the house. Cup of tea?”

            The last thing I saw was the sight of HER army making their presence known; the trees erupted in flames around the mob, and then an army of mounted men in white robes and hoods rode out of the trees, winning the battle for her. I slammed the door shut and sank to my knees, crying and listening to the screams.

c. Taylor Ward 2013. All rights reserved.