The scratching on the door roused
Mary Saint from her fitful slumber. She
didn’t have a dog, and most other animals in the area wouldn’t be scratching at
the door. What could this be? She pulled on her scratchy bathrobe and
opened the front door. Nothing. As she went to close the door it hit
something that halted its movement.
Looking down, an action that had not crossed her mind previously, she
saw a figure laying on her front stoop. The
clothing, while ripped and terribly dirty looked surprisingly like what Levi
had been wearing earlier that day.
“Levi? Levi, is that you?” she asked, bending down
to help him up. What looked into her
eyes was something that was no longer even remotely human. The face was badly weathered, the skin
sagging off of it like melted candle wax.
It was covered in dirt and grime and lacked any muscle tension so every
orifice gaped open as if the face itself was falling off of the skull. Hair had begun to fall out as well so all
that was left was just patches, as dirty as the rest of the creature.
Mary fell backwards, hitting her
head sharply against the kitchen table. She
let out a scream, more from sheer terror than any pain. Obadiah, brandishing a lamp, sans shade came
rushing out of their shared bedroom, the cord trailing on the floor behind
him.
“Mary?”
“It’s, it’s Levi. He’s a monster.”
Obadiah approached the creature on
the floor, readying the lamp in order to defend himself if necessary. The look that he received, that of something
that was utterly defeated and even longed for the release of death, gave him
pause and prompted him to actually lower the impromptu weapon.
“What happened to him?” asked
Obadiah, releasing his grip on the brass light fixture. The bulb burst as it hit the hardwood, pieces
scattering across the kitchen. Obadiah
knelt next to his son, taking the creature’s head in his hands, looking for any
semblance of the little boy that he knew and loved, that he had carried on his
back through the forest and helped rake leaves into piles so that they could
jump into them and start the process all over again. Obadiah needed something, anything to cling to. What he saw was the face of pain, of death,
of decay. He laid the head down on the
floor and stood up, facing Mary. “What
is this? This is not my son.”
“Obadiah, this is witchcraft,
this is some kind of curse. This is
Celia’s doing.” The realization hit Mary
Saint like a brick. Of course. Celia hated the two kids being together, but
Mary didn’t realize that she would stoop so low as to do this, to basically
resort to murder. “Put Levi in the dog
crate out back, that will keep him from wandering away. I am going to go have a little talk with
Celia Durant.”
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