Witch Hunter: Into the Outside

by J. Z. Foster

  The wight’s desperate eyes found Richard and focused on him. It roared again, as the child-like monster began to saw once more at the muscle on its leg, no longer concerned with Richard so long as its master had him.

  “But you’ve just arrived?” The witch glided smoothly toward Richard, despite how frail and old he looked. “I relish the opportunity to study someone such as you.” A black, oily hand slapped against the wall; slime-covered tendrils sprouted from his fingertips and raced across the wall to slam the door shut. “Take a seat; you won’t be going anywhere. I have many questions for you, and I had hoped to take it from you in a more pleasant way without wasting even more of my time. I have to assume that your presence here means my servant is dead?”

  Richard jumped at the door slamming shut. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he spoke. “We just want to go home.”

  “No, no you don’t.” There was only bleakness on his face. “You wanted to kill me. You had ample opportunity to go home, but you’ve sought me out and now here I am. Are you some great hunter to wish to face me?” His face twisted into general curiosity. “Are you a paladin trained by the church? A descendent of the Templar? Does a drop of angel’s blood run through your veins? A powerful psionist with abilities yet to be displayed? Or are you simply a foolish bumbler that’s outlived his luck? The latter, I suspect. It was rather foolish for you to come here. Now tell me, fool, of the other names that would hunt me. Give me their names now and I will end you quickly; delay further and I will make you watch as I peel the flesh from this woman’s bones, and when her screams and pain end, yours will begin.”

  Richard’s eyes darted to Beth; he saw her chest rising and falling with short breaths, taking in whatever concoction the air tank was forcing into her lungs. “Let her go, and I’ll tell you whatever you want.” He held the lantern up to clearly show his face. “Please, let her go.”

  “This woman, with whom you’ve shared my name?” The warlock stretched his other arm out and pointed the tips of his fingers at Richard. “I think not. I think your capacity to bargain is long expired. How interesting it is, though, that someone such as yourself could have come so far. You’ve killed my minions, stolen my guardian, burned my name to the ground, and now you think to assault me in my den?” A jagged smile scratched across his face. “And imagine my surprise, my utter astonishment to find out that you are nothing like what I expected, nothing like what I’ve prepared for. What twist of fate has been so merciful and kind to you? Did you bargain your soul with a demon for the likes of me? Or is an immortal out there holding your strings while you play out your neurotic dance? No matter—I’ll strip my answers from your hide until I have no further use for you.” An instant later, black tendrils raced down his arm and over his fingers and stretched sharp tips quickly toward Richard.

  Instinct took hold and Richard hurled the lantern forward. It collided with the witch. The lantern spewed its oil and flame in a hail of broken glass, and a blaze caught instantly against the witch. A dozen shrill voices lit into the air, as if every part of the horror before him screamed. The witch’s body burned and shot back against the wall, slapping against it like wet tar. The hot tar on the wall oozed and swirled with different faces forming in it, some with gnashing teeth and others crying out. Bubbles of yellow puss inflated and popped, sending sickness to splat against the ground. Wet tentacles thrashed out, trying to find something to punish.

  Richard was unable to rip his gaze from the sickening sight. It wasn’t until the small pig-like creature roared in its own pathetically small voice that Richard’s attention broke. It stopped sawing on the wight and dashed at Richard with the blade, its thick jaw loose and wailing. When it closed in, Richard kicked it hard enough that he felt its jaw break beneath his foot. The force of the blow sent the creature sailing through the air. It rolled around aimlessly in a daze, no longer attempting to get up as it huffed in strained gulps of air.

  Richard took one step forward and cried out in pain. He hadn’t even noticed the creature’s blade until he had tried to move; it was lodged deep in his leg. Choking back another scream of pain, Richard reached down and pulled the serrated blade from his wound, a burst of blood coming with it. He let it drop to the stone floor as he limped across to Beth and pulled the mask off. Her eyes fluttered open and rolled around trying to focus on something.

  Even quicker than Ted, she began to refocus. When she spoke, her voice was weak and quivering. “Richard?”

  “Beth, Beth, get up!” He slid his hands beneath her arms and tried to pull her up, but the rope was bound tight. He collapsed to a knee and searched for a loose end, but they were too tightly knotted. He pulled against them, but they cut Beth’s hand, making her groan in pain.

  Oh no! We have to move fast!

  The pounding inside his head grew louder than the witch’s screams and Beth’s groans. He turned around to grab the blade, a simple thing that could be found in any butcher’s shop, from the cold stone floor and brought its edge to the rope, sawing it back and forth, careful not to cut Beth. Though he worked carefully, a voice inside his head screamed at him to go faster.

  Beth’s eyelids continued to flutter rapidly as she struggled awake. “What is that, Richard?” She stared over Richard’s shoulder. He spared a glance back to see the black sludge on the wall forming once again into the shape of a man.

  Richard didn’t answer her as he went back to working harder on the rope. A missed stroke slit his thumb open. “Ah frig!” By instinct, he stuck the thumb in his mouth, and his gaze darted to the witch once more.

  There were four writhing faces amongst the sludge, but they slid together into one and began its curse: “A thousand deaths!” The voice was bitter, old, and pained. “You will die a thousand deaths for what you have done to me.”

  The head stretched from the wall and poured onto the floor, beginning to take shape.

  “Richard, stop, go!” Beth pleaded with dull words. “Leave me, go! Get out of here!”

  “No,” he grunted. But the blade was not cutting fast enough; the warlock would soon be on him.

  “I will rip every bit of pain I can from you and from her. I will relish every whimper and every tortured cry.” The black sludge now started to turn into a thing of flesh; even the wire restrung itself through his eyes and the diseased pink flesh knitted anew. “You will know the mistake you have made to think you could kill me. You will beg for the release of death every moment henceforth until I grant it to you, and then I will raise you again to suffer until I have had my fill. And only when your screams become too sickening for my ears to endure will I let you end.”

  There was no hope of survival, no possibility of winning. No magic knife. No powerful artifacts. No satchel with components or book with answers. He could stay and die with Beth, or run to save himself. Richard was born a loser, and he would die as one—he had no doubt of that now.

  He gripped the rough handle of the serrated blade as he turned to face the witch, this thing that preyed on men. Nothing in his life had prepared him for this. Nothing about Richard told him he could stay and fight. He had no courage, nor strength of will to overcome. All that remained was a man, a weak man. And in that moment, Richard was content to die that way, but not without one final act.

  “Like an orange, I will peel you. Like glass, I will break you,” the witch still threatened.

  The fire was there again, burning hot in his chest and filling his bones. It wasn’t anger or fear, but strength to stand and die on his feet, to die with Beth rather than to leave her in the dark. The fire spun up his spine and into his eyes.

  I won’t die cowering.

  With that final thought of defiance, Richard stepped forward and the butcher’s knife came up, even as another curse and promise of pain formed on the witch’s lips. The pointed edge came down into the soft sludge of the witch’s head. Richard felt it dig deep and strike with such force that the blade only stopped when the handle met the witch’s bone.

  The warlo
ck’s eyes rolled up to the top of his head as he tried to stare at the blade. Where the flesh had only just taken shape, small black veins slithered out from the wound, like snakes that continued to grow. The warlock said nothing as it started to melt away. Like wax against a candle flame, his face began to drip. Sagging globs of flesh melted from the blade as if it breathed fire. He didn’t look pained or scared, only shocked at first. He didn’t die quickly, but took several long, confused minutes in his throes of death.

  In truth, Richard didn’t know why either, why a simple blade like that could kill the witch. Was it carved from enchanted wood? Was it forged in demon blood or cooled in widow’s tears? He didn’t know, and he didn’t care. As the witch melted into a thick black tar, nothing more for the night to fear, Richard thanked God for whatever mercy he had been given. Then he went back to work on Beth’s bindings.

  Epilogue

  Beth sat at her computer, staring at the blinking cursor on her screen. That night had been the most traumatic experience of her life, and writing about it was one of the hardest things she’d ever done.

  It wasn’t the rope burns on her wrists—she’d bandaged those—or the cuts and bruises on her body, or the fact that her notes and the video were lost; she remembered everything very clearly. But nothing felt right. Every word she typed was wrong, every sentence broken.

  She’d already finished and deleted the entire article several times over, each time starting from a new beginning, telling a new angle on the story, but each time falling flat.

  A Thing of Darkness, one title read. A Night of Fear was another. My Night in Bridgedale was a more humble choice. Finally, there was The Plague Witch. She hated that too.

  None of it worked. She couldn’t explain it, but none of it seemed right, none of it told the real story. No matter how much she tried, her fingers wouldn’t tell the story.

  Why? Why did it all feel like a lie?

  Why did it feel like she turned her back on the truth? Was it that she didn’t expect anyone to believe her? No, that couldn’t be it. She knew most wouldn’t believe her, that they’d think she was insane, or just a liar. But she had to tell it anyway. It was still truth, no matter who believed it.

  So why can’t I do it?

  She remembered when she was gripped in horror, afraid of what was to come, as she sat strapped to that chair, watching Richard turn to fight the witch.

  To save me.

  Her eyes were blurred, but she saw that mass of liquid rot cursing Richard as it clung to the wall. She saw that cheap blade in Richard’s hand and, as he stepped closer, she knew what he was going to do. She knew he wouldn’t leave her.

  He was going to die there with her, but some part of her was glad for it. Glad that she wouldn’t die alone. She was embarrassed at that thought still. She knew better, though, and screamed at him to run, but he didn’t seem to even notice. He intended to die there with her.

  Richard was going to die. The same man had trouble looking me in the eyes earlier, but he killed it.

  It was startling for them both when that knife killed it. That knife sunk deep into its brain and struck the plague witch dead—that simple knife.

  But it wasn’t the knife, was it?

  Only when its eyes sunk into its head and that low deathly moan finally escaped its mouth did she finally start to hope that they might live. And only when its elongated finger-like tendrils, stretching from its puddled mass, stopped flopping against the ground like fish out of water did she believe they would live. They had survived the impossible: Richard had struck dead an ancient evil, and he did it without artifacts or enchantments. Without holy blades or blessed necklaces.

  Richard did it.

  When he got her out of those ropes she wanted to go, run with him as quickly as she could, but he refused. He didn’t leave with her until after he had found the key and set the wight loose. He told her he had made a promise to that creature, and that he wouldn’t leave it behind. He wouldn’t leave any of them behind.

  I would have left it.

  Even after he had freed the wight, Richard wanted to go through the rest of the witch’s den. To make sure there were no other hapless victims waiting. He had told Beth to stay with the wight outside, but she insisted on going with him. Together, the three of them uncovered the rest of the rooms, except one that Richard insisted stay closed. She didn’t know why, but she did hear something moaning behind it.

  They found his artifacts, his book and his blade. They also found tomes collected by the witch. One, a diary detailing bits of his history and his family legacy, along with shelves of other tomes that held a myriad of information. She had looked only long enough to see that some of the early entries dated back hundreds of years to the old world, to Europe. She was still too shaken to look further, and was content to give them to Richard.

  It hadn’t surprised her that Ted had left. She knew he was only barely holding it together that whole time, and she didn’t begrudge him for leaving. What sane person wouldn’t have? They were living through a horror story—who wouldn’t turn back? But she knew who wouldn’t.

  Richard wouldn’t. He didn’t.

  Richard had stayed with her until The Kord and his friends showed up at the gas station. With no van, they were forced to stay in that evil place. But the sun was rising, illuminating the darkness, and there was no reason to fear that place anymore.

  Beth didn’t know how The Kord knew to come to that station; she could only assume they used some type of magic like she’d seen so much of that night. The Kord also didn’t fail to meet her expectations, a thin tall man who would look at home at a sci-fi convention, and his friends were just the same. But they were all as amazed as she had been that Richard had killed the blight witch. No one seemed to know how he had been able to do the warlock in, how that knife could have worked.

  She hadn’t either, not until days later. It wasn’t until after they parted ways, until after he told her he wasn’t finished. He had told her, in the same casual and unpretentious way that he always had, that he was going to find the daeva that had tricked them. That he wasn’t going to let it run loose in our world. That the new books showed him even more, that he was going to learn more, and he was going to go deeper into The Outside if that’s what it took.

  Richard wasn’t finished.

  But when he was gone, and as she was typing up her notes, the pieces came together. She burst into laughter at how easily they were tricked. She laughed at how the daeva hadn’t lied but led them to believe what they had expected, that only something special, something pure, could kill the witch.

  Wasn’t it so obvious now? Could a blade be pure? A blade made to kill and hunt evil? No, a blade can’t. But Richard was pure. More than any blessed blade or sanctified metal. The daeva had told them that the witch couldn’t stand against something uncorrupted and pure. “You take that blade and you can plunge it into the bastard’s head. He’ll die as good as anything would,” the daeva had said.

  Any blade would have worked in Richard’s hands, but that one was just the closest. Even after all that, he still didn’t suspect that it was he who had that power.

  The Kord had helped her and Richard fill in the gaps, like the creature that was inside Richard’s mind. It had been trying to corrupt him, lie to him. And with his unconscious mind, he refused it. He pushed it out and was able to break free.

  Uncorrupted. Pure.

  She couldn’t find any better words to describe Richard. He was more than the coward he thought he was, or the fumbling nervous man he appeared to be. Richard was proof that we could all become something greater. When faced with the impossible, Richard stood. Richard was the hope of man, and proof that our destinies are unwritten. Richard was proof that our fates are our own.

  It was then that Beth knew what was wrong about the article. She erased the article’s title, The Plague Witch, and changed it.

  The Witch Hunter: Into The Outside

  She hadn’t been there to report on th
e death of a monster, no matter how cruel and inhumane. She was there to witness something greater than it—the birth of a hunter, a man of hope.

  She was there for the Witch Hunter.

  About the Author

  J.Z. Foster is an Urban Fantasy / Horror writer originally from Ohio. He spent several years in South Korea where he met and married his wife and together they opened an English school.

  Now a first time father, he’s moving back to the states—and his hometown roots.

  He received the writing bug from his mother, NYTimes best selling author, Lori Foster.

  You can follow his writing progress on his Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/JZFosterAuthor/

  If you enjoyed this book and you’d like to know what else is happening in Richard’s world, write him directly—and he may just write you back! You can reach him at Boogeymancomes4u@gmail.com

  www.jzfoster.com