Witches

by Christina Harlin

  The dogs leapt at Razorback, one landing on its back, one narrowly missing the swing of a tusk. The boar could have killed each one of them individually with ease, but ten at once was more than it had the resources or the patience to fight, and in no time it elected instead to charge away, swinging deadly tusks at any dog too near. One dog was flung several yards but it righted itself almost as if it was playing a game and bounded back into the fray, snapping and yowling with its bastard brothers. The entire cacophony disappeared into the wet forest within seconds, but the noise could be heard for minutes afterward.

  Rosemary did not care. She stumbled across the soaking glade, toward the figure of Andrew who was huddled on the ground in a ball with his hands over his head. One of his arms was seriously bloody.

  “Andy,” Rosemary begged him. “Please don’t be dead, baby, please.”

  He wasn’t dead; he gaped at her with huge eyes. Blood and mud matted his hair, his clothes were badly torn, his eyes fierce with some ancient fight-or-flight instinct. “What the hell just happened?”

  “Judge’s dogs chased Razorback away. I sent a call for help and they answered. Your arm is bleeding, Andy, let me see.”

  He stared from her face to his own bloody sleeve. “That thing bit me.”

  She couldn’t imagine the power of those jaws coming down on a human ulna. “Is it broken?”

  “I don’t think so. The dogs distracted him before he could swallow it whole,” said Andrew, and she was glad to hear him make a joke. She didn’t know what to do and searched for her phone, whether it was to call for help or get directions she was not sure, but it was their line to civilization. She no longer had it on her, and the search around the glade nearly exhausted her with frustration. Here, finally, a black square on the wet ground– but no luck, it was only the screen. Her phone had broken open in the fall, the backside and the battery flung away, and she could find neither.

  “You have your phone?” she asked Andrew hopefully.

  He shook his head; they’d left the house quickly, neither understanding what they were walking into.

  “Well, then for the moment, we’re on our own,” she said. Andrew’s eyes looked glassy, and she realized he must be in pain. She could fix that for him, right? One would think, but at the moment she could barely string two coherent thoughts together. She knelt down and gathered Andrew against her, and felt him shaking almost as hard as she was. They might hurt each other, rattling bones together, bleeding on each other, two mud-smeared accident victims hurled onto a mountaintop, shivering in the rain.

  Chapter Eleven

  Othernaturals Season 6, Episode 5

  Eyeteeth Mountain, Missouri; June 2015

  Sally and Judge were the only people in the lobby of Slope’s town hall, Sally sitting in a well-shaded corner of the room on a plastic chair next to an ashtray – an ashtray! And she’d thought federal buildings were no-smoking areas. Judge sprawled nearby on a couch that was popping its stuffing from between the cushions, where he could keep an eye on the street. Paula had given them a copy of every scrap of paper they asked for, absolutely delighted to be sharing dirt on the Baker clan and the end of the notorious Willie Baker’s life. Sheriff Lila promised a return phone call, once she’d made the drive up to Slope. It was the easiest interview Sally had ever been a part of.

  Now she and Judge waited for Kaye, Stefan and Greg to return and pick them up. Their phones had gone silent of messages; they’d heard nothing from any of their friends since they’d been dropped off. Sally had sent inviting group texts, too, like “Guess what we learned,” and then more specifically, “Guess who they think Ardelia’s father is,” and “Guess how many ghost stories this town has?” but nobody had responded.

  “They must have found something pretty interesting themselves,” Judge suggested. He sounded a little disappointed; he too liked coming back to the group with the best stories.

  Vladimir stirred in his crate, and Judge opened the top to pet his cat.

  Sally giggled when the she saw Vladimir’s paws flashing out to bat at Judge, and she exclaimed, “He seems to be doing so much better!” Sally had played kill-the-socks with the cat that morning, then he’d rolled into her lap for ear scratches. Vlad was slower than usual, sleepier, and she’d been very gentle with him because he still had welts from the stings he’d suffered. How bees had managed to sting the cat through all that thick fur, she did not know. Her friends insisted that they had been strange black bees with vicious long stingers, creatures from another dimension, and Sally was uncertain whether they meant that as truth, like, maybe a whatyoucallit, allegory?

  Judge went on playing gently with his cat, but as the battle of fingers and paws was waged, he said, “You want to hear something weird, Sally Friend? You can’t tell the others, though. This is a secret.”

  He was quite serious. It was odd, coming from Judge. He waited for Sally to solemnly nod her agreement, then said, “It was my fault. I abandoned him. I left him playing outside while I went off to explore the basement at the Perkins Institute. Next thing I know, two minions from the Beside are murdering my cat just to be assholes. I didn’t deserve a miracle but I guess Vladimir did, because he’s such a good cat.”

  Astonished, Sally practically spluttered, “Judge, no! It wasn’t your fault. Vladimir likes to play outside and it was this big walled-in yard, wasn’t it? Not a highway or the wilderness. You had no reason to think anything would bother him.”

  “Well, I can tell myself that all day long and still don’t believe it. I was a bad friend.”

  Sally might have protested again, except that Judge didn’t look like he was in the mood for it. How strange to see doubt on the face of this ordinarily fearless young man. She went through a mental list of smart things people might have said to her when she was troubled, seeking the one that had always felt the best to hear. Here it was – maybe something Rosemary had told her. “Well, you can tell me all about it. Anytime you want to.”

  “I know,” said Judge, a deeply gratifying confidence in those words that hadn’t been in his others. “But really don’t tell the others okay? I don’t need an intervention from everyone on the team.” He seemed suddenly uncomfortable with the baring of emotions and shifted the conversation before Sally could continue it. “Jesus, why isn’t anybody answering us?”

  This was a legit question, another matter of worry for Sally. She said, “I hope nothing has gone wrong. The storm is so weird. I think there’s an intelligence behind it.”

  “Yeah, I’ve never seen weather like this. Nonstop storm for – what’s it been, three days straight? Must be like living in a place with a monsoon season.”

  “But I do like being near windows without worrying so much.”

  “You keep your butt away from windows, Giselle. Your mother would kill me if she thought I let you go gallivanting around doors and windows.”

  He was a good actor and convincing when he said things like this, because he enjoyed irritating her. She didn’t believe him, yet she didn’t quite disbelieve him either. “Please don’t tell me you talk to my mother.”

  Judge said, “Whenever I can. Your mom’s a dish.”

  Hmmph, a dish? This was probably because of the way Mom always hugged Judge when they met, squeezing him against her busty chest. He was just the right height to make the embrace nearly R-Rated and Sally’s mom seemed oblivious to the raciness, even when Sally’s own dad would say, “Jennifer, let the young man go before you smother him.”

  Judge smiled to himself, surely remembering such well-cushioned affection. He was about to add something, probably something dirty, but he was interrupted by noises behind them. They both looked to see Sheriff Lila bustling out of her office door, harried and confused. Her belt radio crackled, stuttering with static and voices.

  She hurried through the lobby, noticing their stares of surprise. “Speak of the devil, I just got a call from Eyeteeth Mountain Rocking Chairs – it sounds like a riot has broken out there.”

/>   “But our friends are there!” Sally exclaimed, standing. “What’s happening?”

  “You know a feller named Steven Mac-Candles?” asked the sheriff. Neither of them bothered to correct the name; they nodded fast. “You want to ride up there with me? We gotta go now. They don’t have anyone there to help. Paula’s putting in a call for a paramedic team but they have to come from clear over in Barryhill so it’ll be half an hour at least. Either of you know any first aid?”

  Sally slammed on her hat and followed the sheriff. The sheriff’s parking spot was fairly close to the front door, and the three of them hustled across the lawn to climb into the golden sedan, Judge up front with Vladimir’s crate under his feet, Sally taking the middle of the back seat behind the safety cage, thrilled about that unexpected perk in the middle of this scary moment. She yanked the camera from her bag and fumbled with it, her gloves making it slip a bit, until she had a good shot of Judge and the sheriff in the front seat, the view restricted by black chain-link.

  The sheriff drove fast through town, unhindered by traffic. It seemed like most of the townspeople were gathered around the flooding creek anyway.

  Interview style, Sally questioned, “Sheriff Lila, what did Stefan tell you?”

  As Sheriff Lila wheeled them around one corner then another, she barked over her shoulder, “He said everybody at the factory had gone crazy, that’s what. They were fighting with chair parts and beating the crap out of each other. I wouldn’t have believed him except I could hear the wailing and screaming myself.”

  Now that they approached the concrete bridge leading out of town, they could see the swollen creek with its townspeople all around. It seemed someone had simply declared this a holiday; there were even more people fishing now than there had been a couple hours before. The sheriff stopped the car and shouted out her window before it was completely rolled down. “Listen up, folks. We’ve got some injuries up at the Eyeteeth Mountain Rocking Chair. Anybody who knows first aid get yourselves up there! Where is – Dr. Patterson, you’d best come with me right now!”

  A woman of about seventy years appeared stunned for a moment, then handed off her bucket of fish to a friend, saying something to him that Sally could not hear. Then she rushed to the car and climbed in beside Sally. She barely got the door closed before the sheriff tore off again, her tires squealing on the road.

  “How do you do,” said the woman called Dr. Patterson, who wore faded jeans and muddy sneakers and did not really look like a doctor until she pulled a pair of glasses from her t-shirt pocket and slipped them on. She nodded first to Sally, then to Judge. “Laverla Patterson. As Lila said, I’m a doctor – retired, though.” She eyeballed Sally. “How do you do? That’s a mighty big hat you have there.”

  They were already on the rising slope of Eyeteeth Mountain and the road had gone from paved to gravel, or, in the case of this weather, mud. Almost immediately, the sheriff could hardly control the car. At the slightest turn they would skid, the car fishtailing. Sheriff Lila cursed at the conditions which forced her to slow down so dramatically.

  “I haven’t seen you two around town before,” said Dr. Patterson into the tension.

  Sally told her, “We’re here filming a sort of, uh, show about the Eyeteeth Bakers. Our friends are at the Eyeteeth Mountain Rocking Chair factory too.”

  “Your friends had better not be responsible for this,” muttered the Sheriff.

  Sally resented the remark but dared not say anything about it, because it might be true. It would not be the first time that a volatile situation had finally erupted when the Othernaturals crew came to visit.

  One more turn around a treacherous embankment, the car threatening to go right into a great oak tree in the ditch – but Sheriff Lila righted them and they were sliding into a parking lot before a long wooden warehouse sporting a the painted business sign: Eyeteeth Mountain Rocking Chairs. Their rented Mercedes sat looking inadequate next to Elton Baker’s monster truck. Otherwise, in the narrow field of mud, seven wet, filthy, bleeding people were scattered on the gravel. Their wrists were bound behind their backs and they struggled, howling, to free themselves.

  Sheriff Lila slammed on the brakes and they wheeled to a stop within a safe-enough distance, splashing mud over the nearest slumped bodies.

  “What in the hell!” Sheriff Lila exclaimed, as she threw the car into parking gear and leaped out. Judge, Sally and Dr. Patterson followed fast. Sally panned the camera around even as she stared in confusion. The bound people were men and women both, of indeterminate age in their muddy, bedraggled states. Someone had been using zip-ties on them. They lay on the ground, struggling, weeping, some of them bleeding from their noses or lips, some had injuries on their arms, terrible scrapes and cuts, or visible red lumps on their heads. It looked like the aftermath of a particularly violent bar fight.

  At the far end of the lot Sally saw Kaye Whittington, the only person out here who wasn’t tied up, leaning over a man and shouting at him. “Sir! I need you to be still while I fix this! Yes, I know it hurts, but it’ll be better in just a minute!” He wailed in agony when she touched him again.

  “Stop it! You’re hurting him!” cried Sheriff Lila, rushing at Kaye.

  “I am not hurting him,” came Kaye’s heated retort. “I am healing him, and he’s displeased because five minutes ago he was trying to bash his own forehead in.” She finished her work on the unhappy man and then stood, tall and regal despite her disheveled clothes and wet hair. “Sally, Judge, thank god. And are you the sheriff? Here’s the situation. Elton Baker just went running off into the forest, raving about his grandmother and we assume he’s trying to get to her house. Inside that building are about six more people we’re trying to get under control. The whole Eyeteeth Factory work force just went insane and all started trying to beat themselves and each other to death, and they’re fighting over who gets to use the sharpest woodworking tools. Greg and Stefan are doing what they can but they could surely use help. Now. No seriously, I mean now, don’t stand there staring for God’s sake!”

  Her authoritative tone, which Sally imagined was used often in a hospital setting to direct nurses and staff to the best positions in emergencies, had a similar effect now, the Sheriff electing to believe the need of the situation if not exactly the cause. She made for the factory doors with Judge behind her.

  “Who are you?” Kaye asked Dr. Patterson.

  “Dr. Patterson. Retired, but, yes – a doctor.”

  “Good. Good. My God, am I glad you’re here. I’m Kaye Whittington. I’ve been a nurse for almost thirty years. Doctor, here’s the situation. I have done what I could to triage and stop the worst bleeders - they were using power tools on themselves before we killed the power. Nobody has anything life-threatening out here and I’ve got the worst of the bleeding under control. However, I’m not certain about what they’re going to bring out to us. The more time the workers have in there, the more damage they can do to themselves. And we’re dumping them out here in the mud, believe it or not, so we can keep them away from each other. They’re tied up, Doctor, because if we don’t restrain them, they try to claw at themselves or grab for weapons. So far nobody’s been able to drown himself in the mud, but I’m keeping an eye on them.”

  Dr. Patterson nodded. “But what’s caused it?”

  “I have no idea.” Kaye made her way to the next struggling suicidal worker, this one a woman with a broken nose and a terrible scratch beneath her eye. “No, wait. I have some idea. A magic spell.”

  For just a moment Dr. Patterson hesitated, then her gaze flicked up toward the slope that led, eventually, to the top of the mountain where Cloda Baker lived. Thoughts tripped across her face and then she said, “All right then. Sally, there’s probably a medical kit in Sheriff Lila’s car. Could you grab it please?” Then she joined Kaye to begin tending to the writhing victims on the ground.

  Sally raced for the sheriff’s car, dodging the bodies on the ground, and trying not to look into their suffer
ing faces too closely. What she saw there scared her, their awful certainty that they wanted to kill each other, or die trying, or just simply die.

  *****

  Rosemary feared that the gigantic boar might come back. She worried that the dogs might return, scenting the blood, and decide that she and Andrew were easier prey. But most of all she worried that Andrew grew more pale and distant by the moment, replying to her many questions in faint monosyllables. He held his bleeding arm close to his chest and sat with his head drooping, despite her efforts to keep him awake and upright. She was trying to remove his jacket so she could wrap his arm and staunch the blood with their solitary stroke of luck - a silk scarf that she’d happened to have stuffed in an inside jacket pocket. This was no easy task, as he was nearly twice her size and steadily increasing in dead weight.

  “Stop,” he finally argued when she pulled at him. “It really hurts.”

  Even his protest was weak. He was drifting away from her. This had to be shock. She couldn’t carry him and she couldn’t summon the authorities because her phone was cracked apart and the battery flown gods knew where. What was she to do, leave him here while she went for help? And then the dogs might come back, or Razorback? Or Andy might die. Could he die from this?

  She was angry with him for being hurt and scaring her. It was a childish emotion. Better to be angry at herself, for getting them into this preposterous situation. She loved him too brightly and fiercely for this nonsense. They were free of the pins-and-nails spells of Ardelia’s domain and there was nothing stopping her from using her telepathy except Andrew’s dislike of it. But he was going into messy bloody shock in the middle of a drenched mountain forest. Therefore, telepathy was fair game.

  She reached into his mind with hers and found his consciousness, pulled at it fairly hard, goading and coaxing. “Wake up, Andrew. Come on back to reality with Romy. I’m taking your pain away, see, just like a pill from my magic bag of drugs. Doesn’t your arm feel so much nicer now? Isn’t your headache getting all better?”