>>> So, here we are again, Halloween! The axe murdering witch hath returneth… so um, reader discretion is advised. ty, DD<<<<
by David C. Daoust
It was a life he had become accustomed too. The darkness, the shadows, and what lurked there in. His life had been interrupted long ago, rousted up out of the mundane world, dropped into the insanity he had now lived with for several years.
It started with simply being in the wrong place, at the wrong time. The sound of that axe dragging along the ground behind that man, if it could be called a man, the sound, the experience, haunted him still.
The maniac had slaughtered so many, though upon the discovery of him lurking in the shadow, it paused.
That loud high pitched voice, it spoke in tongues as it approached.
He found himself backed into a corner. The blood had left his face, eyes wide, he clutched at the wall behind, so tight that his fingernails bled. It was a madman. A madman with a bloodied axe, body’s strewn in his wake, and a twisted feminine voice that screeched out threateningly in tongues he’d never heard.
Had it had its fill of blood, of massacre? He thought his end stood before him for sure, but that voice, that voice seemed pleased… wickedly so.
The curse befell him, then, that night. And every week thereafter- he found himself hunted by something new. Like some twisted television show made real. No matter where he went or what he did, he would find himself within a new nightmare. All evil, all madness, how he survived those first few weeks- was by sheer luck and a quick mind. Ghost, ghouls, vampire… things yet unnamed… Creature after creature, he was forced to find ways to ward them off, to fight, to kill, or simply, just to make it through the night.
In truth, he did not know the nature of the curse until months later, and in truth he thought he’d never know why that screaming witch would choose to curse him, rather than hack him to bits like all the rest.
He studied. He learned much, enough to know the curse could only be broken in one way, by killing that witch, which cast it. A task he was not prepared for, for so long. His life bent to simply surviving, he traveled from local to local. He cut himself a niche inside the underworld, moved to places he knew the monsters that lurked there, were within his ability to handle… This insured his survival.
That was before… before things changed.
The name of the demonic fiend, whispered among the night, nicknamed Snappers by those that tracked such things, though the tale behind the name was lost to him, it was well known for its prowess, not only with that axe, but in the hurling of hexes and demonic spells. Axe and spell made it formidable- put it on top. It was this madman that cursed him, driven to madness by the demonic witch that possessed its body.
Things changed, he began to hunt it. He knew, if he could get within range of the thing, his curse would insure they met again.
This is how he found himself within this dark structure, low in the deepest bowels of a cellar, as the madman stirred from his hidden bunk. The putrid smell of death hung on the air. He heard it grab up its weapon of choice…
When he heard that axe, dragging slowly behind, the chill was there again, dancing over his skin, the pit in his stomach, hollow. He doubted himself, his plan. Why had he come here? It was too late now. The chase had begun. He raced up the stair, forced to pass by, too close, to the madman.
The cackle that followed was unnerving. Its stone, dark eyed, face showed no emotion. Though the mouth moved, the sound of that voice still seemed disembodied, “I know that smell…” The voice screeched from the bottom of the stair.
He waited a tick, to insure that it would follow.
“I know my own magic as well… My curse….” It said.
It followed slowly, steadily. The footfalls rang out as the axe thumped on each stair as it took it.
He rushed down the hall, the building had many floors, one main stairwell. The goal? -was the roof, preferably before nightfall.
“My little bunny, I can’t believe you still survive…” the voice almost praised but for the bone chilling tone, “Been so long since I found one so strong.”
It was not until that thin muscular madman with the axe reached the top step, that the man prepared himself to run.
“I knew you’d make such a good little bunny,” it stated, though made no move, the voice continued on, “But this, now, I worry I wasted my curse… to put yourself back within our path… surely you’d know by now that curse would bring you back to me.”
He turned and jetted up the stairwell.
He gasped aloud as it suddenly lifted the axe in both hands, and broke into a full tilt run. The sudden burst of energy, after such a slow zombie like ramble, was startling. His legs suddenly felt weak, and he thought he may just pitch backwards, and die then and there, but something else took over, survival instincts maybe. He was in flight- The madman nipping at his heals. He was forced to listen as it continued to taunt.
“I guess I knew, your strength, I could smell it on you. In you…” the disembodied voice was unaffected by the physical assertion of the madman, though the lust for blood could be heard in its voice “I’ll enjoy it, all the more, when it’s bleeding out…” The axe lashed out. He felt it whizz past his neck as he propelled himself onto the landing. He stumbled, back to the wall.
The overhead swing of the axe came down. He threw his whole body into the madman, dodging the attack, slammed its spine into the bend of the railing. He tripped up the next set of stair. His heart was pounding, but of fear, not exhaustion. Months of running from a full spectrum of monstrosities had prepared him for such actions as this. He steeled himself and continued his climb.
“Come bunny, time for you to rest…” the screeching voice came again, much louder.
Floor after floor they charged up the stair, until at last he found that final door, still propped open from before, he slid through the rough gravel of the roof top. He gripped the door, watched as the madman came closer still. He kicked the makeshift door-stopper from its place, and triggered a curse of his own.
This was it, he’d made it. He was sweating profusely. The fear still gripped him, but as the madman tried to push recklessly through the door, it suddenly slammed shut. The sparking ember glow that erupted around the door, warded it shut, sealed it tight… The madman blocked. The cackle returned before it asked, “What is this? A curse of your own? Good … every spell brings that strength to ROT!”
The first fall of the axe accentuated the word ‘rot’ as the madman began chopping at the wooden walls around the sealed door. The demonic madman’s fury, the rate of the chopping, made him doubt himself once again. The sun was going down… the ward was there to buy him time… he needed nightfall. The madman’s eye could be seen peering through what damage it had managed, that voice cackled, “How long did you think this could hold me, Bunny?”
“Or did you think I’d dull my axe on this splintered door…?”
“So disappointing… you seemed so strong… I’d have killed you myself had I known,” the furious work of the madman accentuated the demonic voice, “Modern man, so hard to judge. However did you survive this long?”
“Wit.” the man answered simply, unsure where the gumption to answer came from.
The creature cackled more as it continued its furious attack upon the door.
“Wit he says,” it spoke between chops. “Wit he claims…” it chopped again. “Yet look here.” Chop. “Who has the axe?”Chop. “And who has nothing at all?” Chop. “Nothing but a choice…” It momentarily stopped to ask, “A long drop mayhap?” It began chopping again with a snicker. “Or the bite…” chop “of the bit…” chop “of this axe!”
Chop.
“I’ve been through more than you could know…” His voice quivered in fear, he stood at the edge of the rooftop. The drop, indeed, was a long one. “I fought, I killed… I warded… the witches’ spells, your spells, were useful on most…”
“My spells?” The witch interrupted as it kicked through the weakened wreckage, “I doubt you’d survive the cost… or the favor.”
The pair stood yards apart, the madman at the door, the scared man at the ledge.
“I think you failed to realize my intelligence,” The demon witch preened, as the madman’s vacant gaze stared through him, “had your soul not been so clean, so pure, so strong… I’d no need of that curse to rot you. Let something else risk it…Now you’ve crossed over! I can sense it- The rot. I can take you now. I’d won.”
“No,” he said simply, “You don’t understand…”
The madman approached slowly, the demon witch cackling still as it brandished that axe.
“One of last months monsters…” he began, though he suddenly, and inexplicably, lurched in pain, the sun had gone down, night had fallen… The clouds parted in the sky, to reveal the glowing orb in the night sky. “My spells… did… not… work…” As he spoke, he collapsed, his body began to distort, to transform. His bones broke and reformed as his blood boiled. Still, he spoke through the pain. He needed it to know, needed it to realize, “Spells… don’t work… on… werewolves.”
Things had changed, that night when he stood toe to toe with such a mystical beast. He survived the assault, though not unscathed. He’d been inflicted with a new curse. This was his first full moon.
The transformation was complete. The man was gone, what stood in the moonlight was a howling furious beast. The demonic voice fell silent at long last. The madman charged fearlessly, his eyes glazed over with madness as it buried his axe in the matted furry chest of the feral beast. The wolfman did not falter, simply ripped the weapon free and tossed it into the night air. It clanged in the distance as the sound of rending flesh could be heard. The werewolves fangs ripped into the madman’s neck, and then tore the demon possessed man, limb from limb.
***
Happy Halloween!
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