“There are caves all over the place out here,” Marty said. “Whoever dug out this cellar must have stumbled into one.”
Somewhere, water dripped, plopping steadily to the muddy floor. The flashlight did little to push back the darkness of the cellar, but it helped a little. If the batteries suddenly died, we wouldn’t have been able to see our hands in front of our faces.
“Alex?”
The flashlight’s glow swept across the pasty, frightened face of my little brother. He was huddled in a corner, his wrists tied together, his arms over his head. The rope was looped through a rusty metal ring driven into one of the support beams. His clothes—jeans and his hooded shirt—were ruined, covered in glistening mud. Dirt covered his face, and his tears had cut paths down his cheeks, revealing clean skin.
“Charlie!” he cried.
I rushed to his side. The damp earth tugged at my shoes, trying to drag me down and drown me in the mud. I looked at my feet. Dozens of fat, wriggling earthworms squirmed in the mud.
Earthworms enriched the soil. Made things grow.
What was Mrs. Brewster growing here in the shadows?
I untied Alex’s wrists, and his arms flopped to the floor like dead weights.
“I’m sorry I followed you, Charlie!” Tears and snot from a runny nose dripped down my little brother’s face. “I’m real sorry! I shouldn’t have snuck out of the house to follow you!”
So, Alex had been sneaking out of the house to follow us. It added up. The strange noises in the night. The dirt on the floor. Alex being so tired the day before. We hadn’t been seeing a goblin at all. We had seen my little brother wearing the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up. He must have been following us when Mrs. Brewster caught and kidnapped him.
“I thought you said he was too scared to come with us,” Marty said. “Guess he wasn’t as much of a scaredy-cat as you thought, huh?”
This was all my fault. If I hadn’t excluded my little brother, he wouldn’t have sneaked out on his own to follow us... and he wouldn’t have gotten himself captured by a witch!
Suddenly, Alex stopped crying, and he fell dead silent.
“Alex! Are you all right?”
His trembling eyes stared toward the opposite corner.
I followed his gaze.
Marty crept toward a figure squatting in the far corner. Another of Mrs. Brewster’s victims? I followed him with the light. The glow spilled over my cousin’s shoulders and illuminated a form leaning against the wall. Marty recoiled.
A corpse was propped against the wall like an unused doll. The skeletal face leered at us. Worms crawled over the body, oozing around old bones. The same type of twine that had been used to tie Alex’s hands was looped around and around the body, secured the legs in place, and was even stitched through the dried-out meat of the neck to hold the skull in place. Except for the right arm, the corpse was complete.
Maddie Someday.
I forced my eyes away from the witch’s body.
I grabbed Alex’s cheeks and turned his head so he looked me in the eyes.
“It’s all right,” I said. “It’s just a dead body.”
That wasn’t entirely true, but I needed to get my brother on his feet and moving.
Looking back at me, he said, “No, Charlie. It’s not dead. It... it talks.”
I swallowed back a wave of fear. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”
I helped him to his feet.
“Marty,” I said, “let’s go.”
Marty nodded, backing away slowly from the dead body, unable to take his eyes from it. He backed right into the steps, tripped, and almost fell over.
“Careful!” I said.
Marty rushed up the steps, two at a time. When he reached the top, he looked back down and waited for us to join him. We had a harder time of it. Alex’s arms and legs were numb and near useless. I pretty much dragged him step by step to the surface. I kept telling myself not to look back, not to look back. As we emerged, Alex managed to stand on his own, as if just being a little farther away from the thing in the cellar strengthened his muscles.
“Think you can walk?” I asked.
He nodded.
Marty didn’t need convincing. He sprinted for the tree line. Alex stumbled a little at first, and I stayed by his side, lugging him along like we were in a three-legged race. We were only half way across the clearing when my cousin jumped head first into the weeds and bushes.
Lisa stood out in the open at the forest’s edge. She stuck her fingers in her mouth and let out a long whistle.
Too loud!
Someone would hear!
She pointed across the clearing with a shaky finger.
Looking over my shoulder, I breathed, “Oh no.”
The fetch crashed out of the tree line. Froth covered its snout, stringy drool like spilling from its fangs. The hair along its back bristled. It lowered its head and growled.
“Slowly.” I held Alex by the arm and took a cautious step, then another. “Slowly.”
The fetch started barking, its lips pulled away from its yellowish teeth.
“We’re going to have to run, Alex.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“We don’t have a choice.”
I looked back again.
The dog charged.
“RUN!”
Kicking up clouds of dirt from beneath its feet, the dog bared down on Alex. My little brother ran with all his might, his weak legs and arms pumping, but the dog closed in on him.
Marty waved his arms frantically. “Over here!”
Whenever I started to outdistance Alex, I jerked to a stop and waited for him to catch up.
“Come on, Alex! Faster! Don’t look back!”
The dog barked ferociously as it bared down on my brother. Alex had a head start, but the dog closed in on him. Any minute now it would be nipping at his heels, ready to tear his legs off.
Alex veered across the yard and headed my way. His face was flushed, and sweat ran into his eyes. He puffed for air, but he didn’t stop running. The dog snapped at his heels, trying to bring him down. But Alex was gaining ground, his fear fueling his strength, pushing him to run faster than he’d ever gone before.
He’s going to make it, I thought.
But his shoestrings did him in.
The muddy-slathered shoestrings flapped at his feet, untied as always. His foot descended on one of the whipping strings, pulling it tight. Alex lost his footing and tripped. He took a header onto the ground, tumbling head over foot. One of his shoes flew across the yard.
“Ooph!” he grunted.
He knocked himself out cold.
I stumbled to a stop and ran back for him. Before I got there, the dog snatched Alex’s foot, its yellowed fangs punching through the shoe. The shoestrings dangled out the sides of its mouth. It started to drag him back to the cellar.
The beast’s human-like eyes glowed with fiendish delight.
“Let him go!” I cried. I stomped my feet, trying to scare the cur away.
The dog released Alex long enough to bark and snarl and bare its teeth at me. Instinctively, I jumped back. I grabbed Alex’s hands. The fetch and I played a game of human tug-of-war, but the dog was much stronger than I thought it would be. It whipped its head from side to side, yanking at my brother’s leg.
Alex came to, screaming like a maniac.
I pulled for all I was worth. The muddy shoestring started to slide from the fetch’s lips. The fetch tore Alex’s shoe from his foot. For a dreadful second, I thought it had ripped his entire foot off! But my brother’s foot was intact... for now. The fetch flung the shoe around and let it sail off. I took the opportunity to quickly hoist Alex to his feet.
The fetch snapped at Alex’s leg, clamping its teeth around his ankle.
“Owww!” Alex cried.
A rock sailed out of the bushes and struck the dog in the side. Lisa was firing away with her trusty slingshot. The dog didn’t release Alex though. It tightened its grip. If I kept trying to yank him free, the beast’s teeth would dig deeper into his flesh. I had no choice but to let my brother go. I released his hand, and Alex stumbled to the ground again. The dog dragged him along.
I got between the fetch and the cellar, gave it a kick in the side. I didn’t like being mean to dogs, but something told me the fetch wasn’t a natural animal at all. The fetch didn’t even yelp. Try as I might, I couldn’t get the dog to let Alex go.
“Look out!” Lisa cried.
I wheeled around—just as a crooked cane swept in the direction of my head. I ducked out of the way. Otherwise, the walking stick would have thumped me right between the eyes. As it was, it clipped my shoulder.
Mrs. Brewster stood over me like a fearsome scarecrow, lips pulled away from her snaggly teeth.
She raised the cane above her head and brought it down. I dodged to the side, turned, and bolted for the trees.
“Get out of there!” Lisa yelled. “Run for it!”
Mrs. Brewster pegged me between the shoulder blades with her cane. The blow knocked the wind out of me, and I crumpled to the ground. She drew the cane back to smack me in the head with it.
Lisa pointed the slingshot at the witch. She fired. The projectile seemed to spin in the air in slow motion. It wasn’t a rock, I realized, but the half-empty bottle of Scent-Be-Gone. The bottle spun end over end before striking the witch right between the eyes, shattering and spilling skunk urine all over her face.
“Reaaghh!” She dropped the cane and clawed at her face. Blood oozed down the valley between her eyes and over her nose.
I jumped to my feet, laughing in triumph as I scooped Mrs. Brewster’s cane off the ground.
Hit me, will you? I thought.
Holding the walking stick in both hands, I raised it over my head and brought it down—hard—over my knee.
“Yowch!” I cried.
The cane didn’t break, but it felt like my leg did. I dropped the stick and clutched my knee. I limped in a circle, trying to walk off the pain.
“Sic him!” the old woman ordered the dog.
I heard the rapid footsteps of the fetch as it chased after me, growling.
As much as I wanted to help my brother, I’d be no good to him dead. I turned and hightailed it away from the dog.
“Run, Alex!” I yelled.
Hopefully, Alex could get away while Mrs. Brewster was blinded and the fetch pursued me.
Don’t look back! I thought to myself. My blood thundered at my temples. Whatever you do, don’t look back!
I kept moving forward, but staggered a little as I glanced back. The dog was less than a foot away from me and closing in fast. I saw malice in its glowing, almost human eyes—malice and glee. It wanted to catch me, wanted to rip me to shreds!
Like a bullet, Lisa’s lucky stone zipped out of the shadows. It struck the fetch hard right between its eyes. The dog yelped. It stumbled forward and crashed to the ground, tumbling head over feet in the dirt.
Throwing my hands in front of my face, I crashed through the brush, the limbs slapping me.
Alex?
Where’s Alex?
I looked back at the house. Mrs. Brewster had Alex. The old woman leaned over, pinching Alex’s ear between her cruel nails.
“Ow ow ow!” Alex said.
“Get back here!” the old woman cried. “Get back here right now or I’ll skin him alive!” She held one of her clawed hands out in front of Alex’s face. I believed she was ready to use those curling fingernails of hers to peel my little brother like a grape. She had me between a rock and a hard place.
I stepped out of the shadows.
Alex whined and cried, tears rolling down his cheeks.
“Come here, child,” the old woman said.
I shook my head. “Let him go first.”
She pinched his ear a little harder. “Owww!” Alex cried.
I took a step closer.
She looked into the woods. “Where are the others?” she said.
“I’m all alone,” I lied. I raised my voice so Marty and Lisa could hear. If they could get away, they could bring back help... if the witch didn’t kill me and Alex both on the spot.
Mrs. Brewster gave Alex’s ear a hard twist. His legs started to buckle. Tears leapt from his eyes.
“Okay! Okay!” I cried. “Just don’t hurt him.”
I looked into the trees.
“Come on out, Lisa.”
She stepped out of the brush, slingshot at the ready and pointed directly at the old woman.
“Drop it!” the woman cackled. Her fingernails flashed in front of Alex’s reddened face.
Reluctantly, Lisa tossed the slingshot to the ground.
“Where’s the other one?” she asked. “Where’s Marty Widows?”
She knew his name! That couldn’t be good!
“He’s not here,” I bluffed.
“Don’t lie to me, child. I saw him with you just two days ago.”
Stay where you are, Marty, I thought. She hasn’t seen you. She doesn’t know for sure you’re here.
“I’m not lying. He didn’t come out with us tonight. He—” I thought for a split second. “—He got beat up by one of the Crewes boys.”
The old woman made a
tsk-tsk-tsk
sound in her throat and smiled. “That’s what nosy little boys get when they stick their noses where they don’t belong.”
She believed me!
“Come closer, child,” Mrs. Brewster said. “You’re going to pay dearly for what you’ve done!”
For what we had done? At first, I thought she meant freeing Alex from the cellar.
Then I noticed the fetch.
The dog lay still on the ground.
I think we had killed it!
STILL PINCHING MY LITTLE BROTHER’S EAR between her spindly fingers, Mrs. Brewster hobbled over to the unmoving form of the fetch. She nudged it with her toe. No doubt about it, the dog was dead. Just a few feet away from its body was the stone—Lisa’s lucky stone—that had killed it. I wondered how the old woman would react to the death of her beloved pet.
“You children have caused me a great deal of trouble,” she said. With one quick tug, she could rip Alex’s ear right off. “Do you have any idea how long it takes to raise and train a fetch?”
She didn’t really care about the dog as a pet, I realized. She wasn’t sad about its death at all. She was only angry that we’d killed it. Maybe the only thing left in her heart was rage.
Her witching eyes flashed.
“Lucky for you,” she continued, “the fetch’s work was already done.”