Sins of Witches

Page 3

But can anyone understand how thin the veneer of happiness is? How it crumbles to dust when evil is near. Dark, menacing laughter and a stench rolled out of the night. The dance shifted into a flurry of aggravation as chaos and noise took over. Their song turned to screams as the men surged from the shadows shrieking the howls of a predator, victorious in the claiming of their prey. In an instant, all the joy was ripped from Jake as cries filled the night with pain and terror. The eyes of the men, who were not men, but animals, blazed with savage self-righteousness as they carried out their mission. Large, meaty fists connected with delicate bones, shattering them. Throbbing jolts of pain spread through Jake. A hand wrapped in a chain. A stick. Rocks. They tried to defend themselves but the men overwhelmed them in both number and strength. Blood flowed and howls filled the night with raw, wet agony. Shouts of accusation; witches, blasphemers, whores, rivaled their screams as the men beat the women with fanatic abandon.

One woman looked up into the face of one of the attackers; just before his stick came down to split her face open. His eyes, strange as they were; one green, one blue, burned with an ethereal light that glowed over her body. He grinned with perverse pleasure. The stick fell and her body spasmed, then blackness but only for a moment, as the essence of the women continued to flow through Jake, showing him the massacre. The ground beneath one's face was warm from the fire and her blood. Another knelt on hands and knees, something pummeling her back. Blackness again. Another woman unconscious. Blur. Another barely alive. Things became quiet. Jake could hear the heavy breathing of the men as they admired their work; the fallen battered bodies of the women. His view was a haze of distortion. The sisters lay broken and defeated, none able to get up or escape.

Suddenly, the night was alive with the thick stench of smoke. Pain, like nothing Jake had ever felt before crawled over him. The women that could still move twisted and squirmed, wailing against the sharp, searing agony of the flames. The men stood guard around them, beating them back to the ground if they attempted to escape. They tried to draw a breath, but it was filled with fiery agony. Skin bubbled and blistered as the flames ate in greedy, crackling glee.

Before complete blackness obliterated everything, a voice was heard by the last dying woman. It spoke in deep, flat tones filled with hatred:

'Burn in hell, witches.'

Then blackness.

Jake awoke to a boot in his mid-section. He sat up with a gasp, his eyes wide with terror and confusion. His body was like ice and his breath plumed in front of his face in large, white clouds. He looked up into the faces of the men standing in a circle him and his heart gave a painful lurch in his chest. One leaned down, grinning a smile filled with black holes and dirty teeth.

"Rise and shine, fag-boy," he tittered with malicious glee. "Better get your pansy asses up out of here before Zeke decides to rough you up a bit. He don't much care for you queers."

Confused, Jake looked around for Shane. He was behind him, struggling to sit up, naked, and staring at the men with the same fogged bewilderment Jake felt. He looked down and understood the reason he was so cold and why the men had made that assumption. He was also naked. One of the men jabbed the tip of his rifle into Jake's side. He flinched and jumped to his feet.

The circle of men broke, stepping backwards away from his stumbling movements. He wasn't sure why he was unclothed, but he remembered the horrifying experience of the women. His clothes were strewn about the tiny graveyard that Jake suddenly realized he stood in. There were only a few graves; the stones weathered to a murky ash color, chipped, and leaning at odd angles. As he began to grab his clothing, the words chiseled into them jumped out at him:

Names.
'Sandra. Liselle. Charity. Samantha. Rebecca. Elisabeth.'

And all bore the same inscription.
'Witches. Destroyed for sins against God'

Jake stole a glance at the biggest man. The one they'd called Zeke. He frowned, his mind touching on a familiarity that he couldn't quite grasp. Suddenly, a shot was fired. Jake's heart froze, then he bolted toward the forest, his clothes clutched in his fists. He turned to see if Shane was following, or if he'd been the target for the shot, and found Zeke running behind him.

The man's grin was cold. Evil. With a squeak of terror, Jake pushed his body harder, sprinting into the forest. Long, sharp branches raked his face and body, digging bloody trenches in his skin. He was on fire with the pain, but he ignored it. He could hear the crunch of Zeke's boots running behind him. Close. He could feel the man's hot breath on his back. The man was toying with him. And he was going to kill him. Jake realized, just before he stumbled, just before the ground came up to meet his face, just before Zeke descended on him with maniacal rage, what the familiarity had been when he'd looked at the big man's face. It was his eyes. One was green, the other was blue.