Costly Obsession: Animalize

by Sasha Pruett

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  How be it when he, the spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth; and he will shew you things to come.

  John 16:13

  The doorbell’s chime rattled the stillness and the already frayed nerves of the Kinsington home, fracturing the heavy silence that had settled ever since Wendy’s second call to Mrs. Lamb. She had prayed to hear that they’d found Michael tucked away in some nearly forgotten corner of their home, but all she got was an increasingly hysterical Marion. Since then neither her nor Aaron had spoken more than two words, and both were relieved to see Susanne Marshall and Gary Carpell standing on their front stoop, hat in hand. Of course a werewolf wouldn’t ring the bell, but the imagination does have a way of running wild and their nerves were stressed to the breaking point.

  Werewolf... just the thought of the word was unimaginable, let alone saying it out loud. It drew images from movies, books, and ghost stories from ages old, and by the looks on the faces before them their thoughts held the same heaviness coupled with a strong desire to be inside the safety of four brick walls. The greetings were short, but polite, no one wanting to be the first to sound like a superstitious nut.

  “Gary, Susanne, so glad you could make it. Please, please come in.” Aaron stood aside and ushered them both inside.

  “Susie, Gary, hi. Can I get you anything? Coffee, tea, soda, towel? There I go sounding like a flight attendant.” She was so nervous she didn’t know where to start; or stop.

  “Hello Aaron, Wendy. Susanne wanted to come too. I tried to talk her out of it, but you see how well that worked out. Never was able to tell a Marshall anything.” The words slipped out before he realized it. Things had been happening so fast he’d nearly forgotten that only hours ago he himself had handled the remains of Frank in his hands.

  “Oh, Susanne, I’m so sorry, I didn’t even give my condolences when I called. Frank was such a wonderful man and the best sheriff this town has ever had. If you need you can put the boys to bed in our guest room. I realize it’s nearly midnight and they must be exhausted.”

  “It’s alright Wendy and thank you, but Jonathan came back with me and he’s at home watching over the boys. I just came because I wanted to give you this.” In her hand was the leather bound journal of her grandmother, worn and tattered from the years it had lived.

  “It’s my grandmother’s diary. I just found it this evening, most of it’s written in another language and I was hoping that you might be able to translate some of it for me.”

  Wendy glided across the foyer, her eyes fixed on the book in Susanne’s hands. Her fingers gently caressed the leather bound treasure, feeling every bump and scratch before taking possession of another piece of the past. Mesmerized, Wendy walked out of the room, barely mumbling an invitation to follow her.

  “I’m sorry, but when Wendy sees anything dealing with history, especially the written word, like a book or parchment, she completely zones out, just like our son and the television. I believe she was inviting you into the living room to have a seat.” His joke did little to lighten the mood making him feel more like an idiot for trying than anything else. Sheepishly Aaron gestured in the direction Wendy had disappeared, following the sullen group. Wendy was oblivious to the three onlookers sitting nervously on the edge of their seats, no one wanting to be the first to speak about what they had come for even avoiding each other’s gaze.

  To him time was too short and too important to waste and Aaron wasn’t about to sit in silence any longer. He stood, taking determined strides to the fireplace, putting himself center stage; gathering the attention of their visitors, but not his wife; her concentration he could not break. With almost every eye upon him he cleared his throat and jumped.

  “While on a routine dirty dish hunt in our son’s room Wendy came upon an unusual book that she’s been studying for the past couple of days, actually she hasn’t been able to keep her nose out of it as you can see.” As if on cue, Wendy popped up from her newest discovery. “Huh?” bringing a soft, halfhearted, chuckle from the group. “I’ll let her tell you the details of what she’s uncovered. Wendy... earth to Wendy... you hoo?”

  She was sitting in her favorite wing back chair next to the fireplace, having dedicated the couch to Saul’s journal, still holding the gypsy’s words in her lap where she had retreated, almost drooling over the new knowledge in her hands. Finally, on his third attempt, her husband’s words slipped through, grabbing her attention.

  “Yes dear?”

  “I was just telling Gary and Susanne about the book that you found in Jeremy’s room. You know more about it than I do, would you enlighten us?”

  “Oh, yeah... uh, where do I begin? Let’s see... well, as Aaron said I was scavenging around in Jeremy’s room for dirty dishes,” she had heard more than they thought, “he has this innate ability to use every dish in the house and just leave them in his room. Under the bed, on his desk, on the floor, on the dresser, even in his closet, can you believe it? How do you get dirty dishes in the closet.” she paused sheepishly, “I’m avoiding the subject aren’t I? Sorry, I guess I’m just a little bit nervous.” She took a deep breath and began again.

  “Anyway, I found this extremely interesting book on his desk; it seems it was the personal journal of some crazed madman named...”

  “Saul?” The Kinsingtons froze.

  “How did you know that?”

  “It’s in that book on your lap.”

  Wendy’s heart skipped as she fingered through the tattering pages, but now was not the time, “Tell me about it.”

  Susanne was now in the spotlight, “as I said, that’s my grandmother’s diary. It turns out she was the only survivor of a gypsy caravan.”

  “The one! The one that escaped!”

  “What?”

  “The book, it’s in the book, it’s a combination spell book and journal.”

  “That must be the one my grandmother hid.”

  “Hid? Really? But why?”

  Susanne began the tale of her grandmother’s origin and her encounter with the evil that she had learned of only moments earlier. “It’s all in her journal.”

  “I’ve got to read this book. So what happened, Saul’s entries just ceased?”

  “More like de-ceased,” the story continued ‘til she had purged her knowledge of the past. Wendy was itching to dive into the new manuscript, but her husband felt only sick and uneasy.

  “I had no idea there was such sorted history here in Epson. It sounds more like some sci-fi, soap opera you’d run up on at two in the morning than reality that’s for sure.” His wife snickered at his view of their tiny town’s sinister past.

  “Actually Aaron, there are twisted stories like this in almost every corner of the world. The older the town is the more tales you tend to find and most of them have some basis in fact, though they’re usually considered to be folklore or urban legends. In fact two very famous, classic, horror novels were based on real people. Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein was reported to be inspired by Johann Konrad Dippel von Frankenstein; a brilliant man, probably a genius. Unfortunately there’s that thin line between genius and insanity and this guy definitely crossed it a time or two after becoming obsessed with alchemy and a little thing called The Elixir of Life. He began experimenting with animal parts trying to find the secret of eternal life and was even reported to have done a little grave robbing in his time before dying of a stroke in 1734; though some like to speculate that he died of poison, possibly from his own elixir.

  Then there’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which was most likely based on the infamous Prince Vlad Die Tepes aka, Vlad the Impaler, son of Dracul. Who, though he’s considered a hero to his fellow countrymen for beating back the Turks from Romania, was nothing more than a bloodthirsty killer. He would torture anyone for his personal entertainment usually by impalement, which he worked very hard to perfect to prevent his victims from dying too soon. It is widely reported that he would order the impalement
of thousands of men, women, and children at once then sit amongst the bodies enjoying dinner, eating bread that had been dipped in the blood of his victims to savor the moment. Records show that by the time he was killed in December of 1476 at the age of 45 he had murdered approximately one hundred thousand souls. His body was found decapitated in a bog nearby after another bloody battle with the Turks, his head was never found.

  I guess it goes to show you that evil comes in all forms, and many times the reality is even more horrifying and twisted than the fantasy. Often coming eerily closer to the fictional story than many would admit.”

  Gary had waited as patiently as possible while Susanne filled in the blanks and Wendy played professor, but time was slipping away. “Not meaning to interrupt this very morbid, all be it interesting, history lesson, but there’s a missing boy at stake here and I need to find him.”

  Wendy’s amusement subsided, she was ashamed of herself. Putting her natural curiosity back in check she got back on track. “I’m sorry, but that’s what we’re trying to warn you about Gary, my son and his friends; including Michael, found that spell book, this spell book,” she held out the manuscript for him to see, “this is Saul’s grimoire Gary and they all read from it. I called the parents of the other boys that were with him and they’re all accounted for except Michael and Jeremy’s upstairs in bed.”

  “What are you getting at? You think Michael’s responsible, that he brought back this…creature from over a hundred years ago?”

  Wendy looked to her husband and sighed, “I; we, think that he is the creature, Gary.”

  “And you think these other boys, his friends, cursed him?”

  “Yes; and Jeremy too.” She couldn’t believe it, she was actually ashamed for her son, though common sense told her that it wasn’t entirely his fault, it was only an accident.

  Gary on the other hand was forced to take a step back. He hadn’t considered the idea that the thing he was tracking was no more than a mere child and he still wasn’t certain he bought into all this werewolf stuff yet either. Theories and questions tracked through his mind until all that was left was the unbelievable story he had just heard. He was reluctant to admit it, but what Susanne and Wendy had said seemed to strike a chord of truth and somehow made sense beyond all reason. His job was no longer just to find a missing boy and bring a vicious murderer to justice, but to track down and stop the once mythical beast know as a werewolf.

  “Okay, okay, I give. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but how do I stop this thing without killing the boy and what do his parents know about this?”

  “As far as they know, their son has snuck out and is missing; they know nothing about the book or anything else. Same thing with the rest of the parents that I spoke to, so far no one knows a thing for once in this town. As for reversing the process... I don’t know. There might be something in Saul’s journal that I’ve either missed or haven’t had a chance to translate yet. There may even be something in Susanne’s grandmother’s journal that could give me a clue, but as of right now I just don’t know.”

  “Would my grandmother’s spell book help?”

  You could hear a pin drop, “You’re grandmother had a spell book?” Wendy was literally on the edge of her seat with excitement.

  “Well, it wasn’t really my grandmother’s; it actually belonged to her grandmother who was a fully trained, practicing gypsy. It was the only thing that she had kept from her past... for sentimental reasons. She had hoped to destroy it one day, but it, like so many other things, was packed away and eventually forgotten. You’re welcome to it if you think it might help.”

  Wendy was on her feet, “Are you kidding? Yes, yes, of course! Where is it? It could be the missing link, the key to everything!”

  “It’s in a box in my attic, in all the excitement I forgot all about it. I could call Jonathan and have him bring it over.”

  “That would be wonderful, and have him bring the kids too. They can stay in the spare room where you can keep an eye on them. You must be near frantic with them at home knowing what’s out there, regardless of Jonathan watching them. I know I would be.”

  “Thank you Wendy that would help.” She was on her cell in an instant, “Jonathan, it’s me, I need you to do something for me...”