“What is it? Badger shit?”
Jude started wiping his trainer on the weeds, knocking loose a layer of moss and revealing dark brown mud beneath. Lying in the undergrowth was what looked like a dead squirrel. Its midsection was split open and worms thrashed in its guts. The blood had dried, but tiny silver bones were visible. A faint, unpleasant odour drifted from the corpse, enough to turn Jude’s stomach. “It’s a dead squirrel, I think.”
Ashley wrinkled her nose. “That’s comforting. Maybe we should say a few words out of respect. Hey, now that I think of it, if I die before you, I don’t want music at my funeral, okay? I want a beatboxer.” She put a fist against her mouth and started putting out a beat. It was one of her many talents, and every few seconds, she stopped to spit a few lyrics. “Lily Barnes has got an STD. She’ll suck your dad’s dick and do it for free. Ricky Dalca is a Romanian bitch, too scared to follow if you run into a ditch.”
Jude chuckled. “If you get famous, promise me you’ll release that track.”
Ashley pop-and-locked, her body writhing as if it had no bones. Although it sometimes grew annoying, Jude had to marvel at his friend’s dancing skills. He found it difficult just to touch his toes.
Ashley stopped dancing and grinned at him. “After the diss track I’d lay down on Lily Barnes, she would never show her face again. That shithole family of hers will disown her.”
Jude stepped over the dead squirrel and approached the farmhouse. He still couldn’t take his eyes off the old building. It was large, and it beggared belief that such a place could go abandoned and unnoticed for so long. Especially when there were families nearby living in tiny houses and dinky flats. Jude couldn’t imagine living in a place like this, with so much space.
“I want to go inside,” he said.
Ashley shook her head and took several steps back. “No way. You go in there and the roof’ll come down on your head.”
“There isn’t a roof. And I don’t think the building is suddenly going to fall down after so many years. Come on, who knows what we might find. There might be antiques.”
“Antiques? Are you serious? The place doesn’t even have four walls. It’s empty. Abandoned. Dangerous.”
Jude walked towards the farmhouse. “The mage feared no danger, for his faith in the almighty gods would keep him safe.”
“The mage has lost the plot.”
He ignored Ashley’s protests and carried on, knowing she would eventually follow him. They always backed each other up, and it had got them this far in life, so why change a winning formula? One down, two down, they always said. When trouble found them, they faced it together and shared the consequences.
The unpleasant odour Jude had detected around the dead squirrel was worse as he approached the farmhouse. It was a sickly odour, like opening a fridge to week-old chicken. It wasn’t unbearable, but it filled Jude with a mild sense of dread about what he might find inside. More dead squirrels? It was enough to make him turn back.
“Wait up,” said Ashley, and she hurried up behind him just as he approached a gap in the wall where a front door might once have been. “Can we get out of here after this?” she begged him. “This place gives me the creeps. And it stinks.”
“Yeah, okay. Ricky and Lily should have gone by now. We’ll have to climb our way back up the slope somehow, but at least they didn’t follow us.”
Ashley huffed. “Bunch of pussies, the lot of them.”
“Yeah.”
Jude headed up a couple of old brick steps that were still in place. The mortar had cracked, and they formed an uneven V shape rather than a flat surface. All the same, they took his weight as he stepped on them and entered the doorway.
Inside the farmhouse, it was even darker than out in the ditch. The roof trusses cast a grid-shaped shadow over the stony floor, and in several places, the ancient tiles had cracked. Weeds and vines grew through the gaps.
Ashley stepped in behind Jude and grunted. “See? There’s nothing here.”
Jude was disappointed. His overactive imagination had promised forgotten treasures – old trinkets and history made manifest – but all he found was a crumbling brick room with a broken stone floor. The only thing of note was an old brick fireplace with a length of old timber running across its top. At some point, it might have been a living room. Now it was empty.
Jude continued forward.
“What are you doing?” asked Ashley. “This place isn’t safe. We should just leave it be. God, how can you stand the smell?”
“Just let me check one more room, okay? There’s a door here.” And there was. The wooden door was hanging from the opposite wall at an odd angle, still attached to a pair of ancient hinges. Most of the frame had rotted, but there was a room beyond. Jude couldn’t help but walk towards it. Ashley continued complaining, but, as always, she went with him.
Jude put a hand against the edge of the door and felt it move. When he pulled on it, it was stiff, wedged against the stone floor. The understairs cupboard in his house was the same way, so he knew what to do. He placed a hand against the top edge of the door and pushed, tightening up the hinges. Then, when he pulled again, the door moved easier. It dragged across the stone floor and made an unpleasant sound.
Jude hurried into the next room, hoping to find something more interesting than in the last. Like the room preceding it, it was made from brick and tile. It was empty except for one thing.
Jesus Christ.
Chapter Three
Ashley bumped into Jude and made him yelp, but his sudden shock was almost entirely from the sight of the woman kneeling on the floor in front of him. It was so utterly unexpected that his breath caught in his throat and he failed to speak.
Ashley, being made of tougher stuff, was less silent. “What the fuck? What the actual fuck!”
A woman was imprisoned in the centre of the room, chains attached to her hands and ankles. Apart from a thick gold locket hanging around her neck, she was completely naked. Jude immediately hated himself for examining her unwashed body, but he couldn’t help it. She was beautiful beneath all the grime, with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Jude had the sense of her being wounded, but he couldn’t work out where.
Strange markings covered the room. Symbols on the walls and floors.
“We have to help her,” said Ashley, her words clipped and breathless. “We have to help her.”
Jude reached out a hand to the woman. Whoever she was, she was clearly in a bad way. But as soon as he did, she shrieked at him like a wild animal. She thrashed at her chains and tried to bite him. Her eyes bulged.
What the hell?
Ashley and Jude stumbled back through the doorway, crying out in terror.
Chapter Four
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Ashley put her hand on Jude’s arm and yanked him back into the previous room. All the while, the naked woman screamed. Jude was screaming too, totally freaking out. If she didn’t calm him down, he’d go into a complete panic. The problem was, she was fucking freaked out too. In fact, she had to cover her ears to block out the woman’s wild screaming before it sent her mad.
Jude stopped screaming long enough to form a few words. “This is fucked up. This… This is fucked up.”
Ashley knew she would have to take charge, so she grabbed Jude by both arms and shook him. “Listen to me! We can deal with this, okay? Let’s just…” She shook her head. “Shit! I don’t even know what this is. You’re right; it’s fucked up.”
Jude turned and looked back into the other room. “She won’t stop screaming, Ash. What the hell is wrong with her?”
“What the hell do you think is wrong with her? Some sicko had stripped her naked and chained her up in the woods. She’s probably been, I don’t know, abused and that. I need you to calm down and think this through with me. Don’t freak out on me, Jude, please.”
Jude gave her a skittish nod. His breathing was shallow and rapid, but he attempted to get a hold of himself. After a few seconds, he no
dded at her again. “I-I’m okay. We need to help her. Hold on…” He pulled out his phone and dialled. Then he pressed his lips together and moaned.
“What is it?”
“I don’t have any reception. I can’t make a call.”
Ashley tried not to panic. “Okay… that makes sense. We’ll have to carry her out of here and call for help as soon as we can get a signal.”
Jude nodded, white as a sheet.
Ashley stepped back into the other room. The woman glared at her, still screaming. She thrashed against her chains, more like a wild animal than a human being.
Has someone kept her here so long her mind has gone? Is it too late to even help her?
Ashley put her hands up and spoke softly, then realised there was no way she would be heard over the screaming. She had to raise her voice, which made it hard to sound soothing. “We’re not going to hurt you. It’s okay. You’re safe.”
Jude stepped into the room behind her, echoing similar assurances. “We’re going to get you out of here. My name’s Jude. This is my friend, Ashley.”
The woman finally stopped screaming. Ashley felt the pressure leave the inside of her skull and sighed with relief. The piercing shrieks had actually been causing her pain. Now that she was quiet, the woman stared at them. Her bulging eyes were bright blue, but bloodshot. Beneath the caked dirt and sweat-streaked grime, she was beautiful. Ashley would happily trade her own rapidly growing breasts for the woman’s supple, modestly formed ones. There was barely an ounce of fat on the woman.
When did she last eat?
Why the hell is she here? Who did this to her?
There was a rancid stench in the room, and she wondered if the woman had been going to the toilet, but when she looked around, she saw nothing gross. No shit on the floor or buckets full of piss. In fact, the only thing on the floor was some strange dark brown markings. The largest was a thick triangle in the centre of the room. The woman knelt in its centre. Several smaller shapes covered the surrounding floor, as well as the walls, but they made no sense to Ashley – just random lines and squiggles. Nothing obvious revealed the cause of the smell other than the woman herself, but Jude clearly noticed it too because he held the crook of his arm over his nose and his eyes were watering.
Ashley dared take another step. The woman flinched like a cornered animal. She had stopped thrashing at her chains, and they now lay slack against the stone floor. Ashley looked for a keyhole but couldn’t find one. Then, suddenly horrified, she realised the chains were attached directly to the woman’s flesh. Her hands had been mutilated, the chains running straight through her palms. Likewise, a second chain pierced the backs of her ankles in a continuous loop kept in place by a steel bracket on the stone floor. Ashley put a hand to her mouth as her stomach did a nauseous backflip. “This is bad,” she mumbled.
Jude followed her line of sight, and she gave him a moment to figure it out for himself. He, too, covered his mouth in revulsion.
The woman looked down at her ruined hands, then back up at Ashley. She seemed to stop noticing Jude altogether, and although she didn’t speak, Ashley saw pleading in her bloodshot blue eyes. The woman had clearly been through hell. Ashley had no doubt about the cause.
A man. Only a man would do this.
Ashley knew the world was more dangerous than her parents and teachers let on. Television alone was enough to show that certain men were predators; sick-minded monsters who viewed women as playthings. She realised now that they were standing in the lair of one of those very men.
What if the sicko comes back and finds us?
This is bad. Very bad.
“We have to get out of here,” she said.
Jude looked at her. “What?”
Ashley shook her head, knowing that she was being anything but courageous. She was, however, being rational. “We need to go get help. There’s no way we can free her. We’re not capable of dealing with this. What if the person responsible comes back?”
Slowly, Jude’s eyes widened as he obviously realised what she was saying. They were in terrible danger, and they were only a pair of kids. Let the police handle things.
“You’re right,” said Jude, although he seemed sickened by what they were deciding. He turned to the chained woman and took a step towards her. “Listen,” he said softly, crouching down in front of her. “We’re going to get help. We’ll be back, okay? I promise you, everything will be fine.”
Ashley suddenly felt like an animal in a trap. She wanted to run – her heart was begging her to – but she couldn’t go without Jude. “Come on! We need to go. Right now.”
“One second.” Jude reached out a hand to the woman. “We’ll be right back, okay? Just try to—”
The woman sprang forward, lengthening her chains until they stopped her at the edge of the painted triangle. She snapped her teeth at Jude, trying to bite his face. Jude screamed in fright, recoiled, and lost his balance. His arms went out behind him and he crashed against the wall. A piercing cry escaped his lips.
Ashley rushed to gather her friend to his feet and pulled Jude away from the thrashing woman. He groaned and held his hand against his chest as she pulled him back into the other room.
Ashley’s heart was beating a mile a minute.
The woman started screaming again.
Jude had clearly injured his hand, so Ashley grabbed his wrist and forced him to show her. His palm was bleeding from a nasty gash that ran from the edge of his wrist towards his thumb. Ashley winced as she noticed something sticking out of the wound, and before Jude noticed, she pulled it free. It appeared to be a small piece of plastic, but she couldn’t see a way that there could be any plastic inside a derelict old farmhouse.
Is it a shard of bone?
Jude gasped. “It hurts.”
Ashley threw the piece of bone to the ground before he saw it and tried to set his mind at ease. “It’s nothing, just a cut. You must’ve landed on something sharp.”
“I want to go.”
“Me too. Let’s get out of here. Whatever’s happened to that woman, she needs more help than we can give. We have to call the police.”
Jude put his wounded hand by his side and shuddered. He looked like he might throw up. “So… So we’re going to leave her here for now? Alone?”
“What else can we do? Sooner we leave, sooner she gets rescued. Come on!”
The two of them fled the farmhouse.
It was strange, but the clearing around the farmhouse seemed different. The trees and bushes felt closer. There was less moss and undergrowth on the ground; and a lot more mud.
Ashley panicked when she failed to spot a way out, but got a hold of herself once she located the gap in the bushes where they’d entered. She pointed it out and Jude nodded. They wasted no time hurrying away from the farmhouse.
The woman’s screams escaped the open roof behind them.
In the short time they’d been inside the abandoned building, it had grown darker. While it was not yet night, dusk had arrived and things had grown colourless. The green leaves were dark. Tree trunks appeared grey.
Ashley’s mind was spinning. She was in a horror movie, running through the woods after making a grim discovery. Once again, she feared whatever sicko could chain a woman up and leave her.
Jude stopped at the gap in the bushes and pulled aside the branches. She’d never seen him so pale, but he was keeping his shit together. It must have taken great effort because panic was one of his default modes. A few years ago, Jude had been trapped in a lift with Ashley and had gone to pieces. By the time someone had got the lift working again, forty minutes later, he had been sobbing in her arms. It was embarrassing, but that was Jude. Her best friend was ‘sensitive’.
The two of them fled the clearing and headed back towards Devil’s Ditch. She still didn’t know how they were going to climb back up the steep slope, but for now she was glad to be running. She exerted herself so much that she barely noticed the pain of the brambles, thorns, and bra
nches whipping at her. Her only focus was on pumping her arms and legs. Jude was one step behind her, mumbling under his breath as he ran. It sounded like he was trying to comfort himself. Maybe he was doing his adventurer thing.
The warrior princess and her trusted mage escaped the sorcerer’s pit, leaving behind a tortured slave.
Nope, it doesn’t make anything less scary.
That poor woman.
Who is she?
They made it out of a swath of thick bushes and reached the bottom of the slope. Seeing it again now sunk Ashley into an even deeper pit of despair. It looked twice as high as before and even steeper. How on earth had they avoided breaking an arm falling down it?
“How do we get out of this ditch?” she asked. “It’s too high.”
Jude skidded to a halt, kicking up a patch of moss. He scanned the ground. “There has to be a way. Let me think. Let me think. Just let me—”
He was panicking.
“I’m here with you, Jude. You’re okay. We just need to get up this slope.”
Jude almost stared right through her, but he found his focus and nodded, letting her know he was calm. He searched the immediate area, grabbing sticks and tossing them aside, picking up stones and examining them. Ashley didn’t see how any of it was helpful, but there was no point denying that Jude was smarter than her. If there was a solution, he was most likely to find it. So she waited.
After a few minutes, Jude made an excited sound. He grabbed a thick branch buried in a bush and pulled it free. It had fallen from a nearby tree. He hunted a moment more and found a second thick branch of a similar length. He handed it to Ashley.
She shrugged. “What do I do with this?”
“Let me show you.” He took his branch over to the bottom of the slope and held it in both hands. Then, as if he were catching trout in a river, he speared the branch into the mud. The ground was firm, but the branch was sharp enough to plant itself. Jude used it to steady himself and clambered up the steep incline. Once he was in line with the branch, he dug in the toes of his trainers and yanked it free. He repeated the process two more times, planting the branch higher and higher. He looked back at Ashley and grinned. “It’s easy.”
Witch: A Horror Novel (The Cursed Manuscripts) Page 3