by Alec Dunn
The witch was demanding, “Flesh to eat, soul so sweet, everything’s to come, by and by, by and by, when you have said and done. No power beyond the second sight, dearie? What a prickly bush you be in.”
Another slow drawn in gurgling breath and a drawn out groan, “We stand in a pentagram. Mather. we be trapped! There be two more and not of clay who wait by close at hand, I fear we’ll sup no more. Ah mather, I’m so hungry, I want to eat.” The destroyed form of Priest Peter strained out towards the boy like a demonic glove puppet. It hissed its words and spittle and liquid flew from its mouth, “Tristan, we shall meet again in the Land of Shadows and what seems sweet to you now will then taste like purest gall.
Release us.
Let me go!
FEED ME!”
The figures that appeared on either side of the floating witch were silent. The exact moment they appeared was unclear. It was as though they formed from the darkness of night itself. On one side was a young man with glinting eyes, unkempt hair and muscular frame. On the other a beautiful young woman dressed in a swaying black coat whose skin seemed to glow with impossible perfection.
The young woman’s sweet voice was casual and mocking, “Your own son? Really?” She made a contemptuous, “Uuuuh, that’s just disgusting.”
The boy was not casual, “Let’s do this peedo bitch, quickly.”
“Er, that should be ‘witch’, Max,” the girl corrected him, “You and your potty mouth.”
The boy on the bench stood up. His grey eyes bored into the deformed monstrosity in front of him. “Now’s the point you realise you’ll soon be a dead witch and start to beg.”
Priest Peter saw their past and future. It saw what they were and a gargling call wailed up excitedly, “Let’s eat him, mather. Let’s sup on his soul. Feed me, feed me.” From the old woman an animal noise emitted from the throat of the witch, drawn out and desperate. The rotting, yellowed teeth gnashed in the air as the head swung from one to the other.
“Tristan,” the old woman’s voice whined. “I can help you. You are infected with the sight. It will burn you, Tristan. It will burn you from the inside. There is an offering within you. It will kill you.” The old woman’s voice was desperate, pleading.
She was ignoring the interruptions by Peter, “Nay, mather, eat him, let’s eat him now, a last sweet morsel before we as to go.”
The old woman’s head of the witch carried on, “Tristan, listen to me, please. I can stop it. I can save you. The dark one gifted me powers.” The noise of the woman’s guttural throat clearing and pleading continued after the words had stopped and the baleful eyes rolled about in her head. “I can help you, dearie!”
The boy by the bench stared coldly through her. He sounded as though he had just had an idea, “You know, you can help me actually. You see, I’ve seen you. For the past five nights I’ve seen you in my dreams, you twisted old freak. I’ve seen you kill them. I felt you killing them. That little girl with the bow in her hair three nights ago, she was alive while you pulled the guts out of her stomach. I could feel it. I felt it all. So, yeah, you can help me. And what would really help me right now is watching you die. Die, slowly and painfully.” He spoke with confidence and the creature before him gazed into the limited possibilities of its future and knew its end was near.
Rage and hatred and desperation filled her, “You believe you hold power because you have the second sight. You have no power. You are nothing and I will taste one last soul before your monsters can stop me.” Impossibly fast, in that blurring fast forward movement, the witch shot through the air towards the bench. The jaws of the old woman stretched out before her and the jagged teeth snapped towards his face while from her chest the smaller mouth of Peter snapped open and closed like a mucus covered fledgling.
From either side the scruffy boy and the beautiful girl moved swiftly in. They moved quickly and they were matching her unnatural speed. They were almost upon her until the witch’s hand flicked out and, metres away, a swing flew sideways and clattered into the face of the boy wrapping around him. He twisted and thrust it away from him, but the chains snaked like fingers around his throat and arm and pulled tight. Her other arm jerked out and dead leaves and litter rose in a cloud. Like a swarm of angry, giant gnats, they flew at the beautiful girl’s face. She swatted at them, but they gathered around her head, around her face until it was no longer visible. She was being blinded and suffocated by the filth and the debris.
They were both stopped, struggling.
The witch shrieked in triumph. She was going to reach the boy at the bench; they couldn’t stop her in time.
The woman’s snapping, protruding jaws were almost upon him. Snap! They closed on the air before him and the witch savoured the idea of his death. If it was to be the last soul that she would reap then she would enjoy it. Snap! Her teeth crashed together feet from him, anticipating the crunch of his face within her jaws. She was anticipating the drawing out of his soul, its flavour and its strength.
She was within distance to taste him now and awful noises followed quickly, the snap of her jaws closing together, the crunch of splintering bone.
The iron bar had swung in a blur and was stopped now, held warily in front of him, resting in his hand.
The witch stood motionless. Her bottom jaw hung useless, broken, disconnected from the rest of her face by the brutal impact of the metal bar. Blood spilled out from the animal face. She took a step forward and tried to speak, to threaten the boy with the second sight; she tried to feel the power she had enjoyed for a thousand years, the power of life and death, the power to frighten and reduce. She tried to call on the dark one.
Her mouth couldn’t form the words. Her jaw didn’t work.
Priest Peter’s oozing wet mouth snapped, pathetic and feeble, too far away to reach the boy. He stopped and looked through the boy, “Look for us in the Lands of Shadow, Tristan, for I will feed on your flesh.”
And then the other two were upon her. The monsters, she had seen what they were too late: beasts, feeders, pure instinctive killers. The witch surrendered to the brief agony, the death of her corporeal form.
As her hunched body was reduced to a bloody mass, she heard the boy’s words, Tristan’s words, “No power beyond second sight? Not sure I need anything beyond that.”
About the Author
Born in North Wales sometime during the 1970s, Alec Dunn spent his early years attending a state comprehensive and living in a happy family home along with his father, mother, brother and shaky legged, vomiting, travel-sick dog.
Attending Salford University with the financial support of a government grant and parents, Alec achieved an honours degree and a questionable balance between the knowledge he gained and the brain cells he lost.
Returning to North Wales to follow his dream of working in a variety of low paid menial jobs, he rejected any possibility of a career in favour of temporary and agency work, including working as a hotel porter, sanding car bumpers, hand stacking cheese slices and completing questionnaires on the mean streets of Mold. He once walked some miles home after being bussed to a chicken factory, smelling it (fowl) and refusing to work. Things reached an all time low when he was offered a permanent contract by a well known insurance company after temping in their office, filing. Having failed to reject enough claims and managing to give away a free fridge to a nice old lady he chatted to for half an hour, the insurance company closed the office.
Alec moved to Nottingham to live above a butcher’s shop in Dickensian squalor. He failed to shoot any rats with an air pistol and found temporary work for a tobacco company. After realising that he needed to make amends for his support of evil corporations, he successfully completed a PGCE in 2000, before beginning work in Mansfield and Warsop, trying to teach the English language.
It was around this time he met his wife, also a teacher, and they married in 2005, having their first child in 2006. They moved to the beautiful country of New Zealand shortly after and greatly enjoyed li
ving in the wonderful city of Wanganui (it’s not pronounced like that) in the North Island. They enjoyed it so much that their second child was born a little time later.
Returning to the UK in 2009 to allow their children to experience their rightful national heritage of twenty three hour a day cloud cover and miserable pale face, they settled briefly in the Peak District. Alec particularly enjoyed visiting the National Stone Centre on a regular basis. Still living in too pleasant an area of the world, they moved away from the Peak District to continue a career in teaching, using the opportunity of moving house to squeeze in having a third child.
Currently, Alec is juggling the time demands of a full time teaching job, three children and writing. At the moment he is not on facebook, or twitter and does not blog, but he would be very happy to hear from readers with any comments.
Mailto: [email protected]