Maleficarum: Hunger of the Witch (11 page)

“Let me think about it.”

“I don’t have a lot of time,” Nick said as he thrust his sword into an oncoming witch. The witch crashed to the floor with a thud.

“No
, but I have all the time in the world,” the demon said. Nick swung and swung at the deluge of evil that flowed through the store.

“Do not let us die!” Nick scream
ed. He cleaved desperately through flesh and bone in his single-minded trek toward Beverly, knowing he could never make it.

*
* *

The werewolf
-like witch was standing over Ann, ready to rip into her flesh. From the ground, Ann swung her sword, striking its shin, and stopping halfway through the bone. The creature’s leg gave way, and it crashed to the ground. Ann sprang to her good foot and aimed the point of her sword at the screaming beast. She rained down one decisive blow after another. Its blood and chunks of flesh clung to her face as she screamed with the pain and fury of all mankind. Like Beverly, Ann also backed into a corner to help stop the possibility of being attacked from every direction.

“Come on
, girl!” a warlock shouted, his muscles rippling as he made his naked strides. Among the destruction, he strode toward her, holding a massive ax. One look at this monstrous warlock let you know he was old and had killed many. His face was as scarred as a chopping block, and his eyes cast themselves on her soul as kindly as a rusted razor on skin. Ann rose up, putting her weight on her injured foot, and she could feel bones shifting and popping like the studs of an old house.

“
Seven hundred years have I lived, and many battles have I fought. Heads have I taken, and souls have I destroyed,” he said, coming within a few feet of her. He clenched the handle of his massive ax with both of his gnarled hands. “I have toppled nations. I have—”

Before he could finish his thought
, Ann flicked her sword at his claw-like hand, and a finger rolled off the ax handle onto the floor.

“Ow
! Fuck,” he said, looking down at his now-mangled hand, but before he could lift his eyes back to Ann, she cracked her blade on the top of his forehead twice. He toppled backward as the skin on his face split open like a pair of skinny jeans on a fat girl’s ass. Ann rushed to his side and reared back her sword.

“Ohhh, shit
, no,” the warlock pleaded as Ann swung her sword like a golf club, smacking the evildoer in the head several times. After she was sure he was dead
,
she ripped the
ax from his hands and rushed into the hordes of witches like a human meat grinder. Kill them, kill them, kill them was all she screamed in her head. All but herself, the ax, and the sound it made when it cleaved through flesh were gone. She came at them like an overwhelming heat. Flashes of screaming faces, broken weapons, and severed limbs came into her existence, but for the most part there was only blood.

T
eeth were busted free from gums, arms hacked, and heads cleaved. She had killed nearly a dozen before they overwhelmed her. There were so many of them, and for each hand she chopped off, a dozen more shot in and snatched at her. They pulled at her hair, ripped her clothing, and punched her face. With a hateful scream, her legs gave way, and she crashed to the floor with the rioting witches stomping on her. She looked between the tangle of marching feet to see Mike being slammed to the ground. She couldn’t see Beverly, but Nick was trapped behind the counter with a dozen horrific forms surrounding him. One witch flung a book, striking him in the head, and he fell to the ground.

The finality of the situation was punctuated by the man
iacal cackling of the Eater of Wings. It was over, she thought, as a bare foot landed on her head with all its might. The world blinked, and she could no longer feel the trampling horde. She was dead. No, not dead. Pain still raged across her body. Warm fluid splashed her from all directions, and with all the power she had left, she raised her battered eyelids. What she saw was a grisly display. The demon was not cackling at their loss, but at the deaths he was about to cause.

Dozens of witches had been slashed to pieces. Most were missing arms, legs
, and heads. Their bellies had been split open, spilling their rotten intestines to the floor. The attack had come so fast that it was just starting to dawn on most of the witches that they were dying. Some crashed to the ground like stones chunked into a pond while others stumbled, still trying to hold on to what little life was left. Many had been pinned to the wall with random objects from the room. Their bodies were skinned and gutted as if they were wild game. Cries of pain and panic rose from outside as rivers of blood rolled from the roof as if it was raining.

Squeals and screams shot out to
the heavens as souls were being sent to hell. Soon the store went completely black as if a blanket had been draped over it. It was the deepest darkness that any of them would ever witness, and in the dark, the store’s structure began to creak and shift as if a massive weight had been placed on top of it. In the darkness, the demon still cackled with glee. Like statues, the survivors lay still with no sound escaping their lips.

“Death has come to you
all,” the booming voice of the Eater of Wings shouted through the blackness. “Do not think that I have forgiven your sins, boy. You have made a deal. I save your friends, and you never commit another sin. I know that you cannot hold up your side, and when you break this deal, I personally will torture your friends for the remainder of their natural lives. I will use all of my powers to extend their lives just so I can torture them longer, and when I finally kill them, it shall be the worst death that any mortal has ever felt. This is your punishment for your sins, my boy, and when you finally fail, it will be you that has slain your own friends by your own weakness.”

“Why
?” she heard Nick’s voice say through the blackness.

“Because I hav
e plans for you,” the Eater of Wings said with a hiss. “Great and wonderful plans.”

The voice of the demon seemed to come
from no specific direction within the darkness, but as it faded back into the immaterial world, the lights began to flicker. When the demon was gone, the lights clicked back on with a blinding flash, revealing that all the slain witches were gone, but all the signs of their struggle were still there. The room had no inch that was not covered in bodily fluids.

The
survivors all froze in place, their hearts sinking with the final words of the demon. All of their lives were tied to Nick now and his ability to resist what God himself said that man could not.

Minutes passed before Mike made a move
. He stood up among the slick pools of blood and walked over to Ann with an outstretched hand. Ann grasped it, and with a labored breath, he pulled her up. Her legs wobbled with each step, and Mike had to bear most of her weight as they inched across the room. When everyone was standing, Mike eased to the door with Ann still draped on his shoulder like a wet towel. Nick found the
The Book of Eddiss
lying on the floor, covered in blood, and picked it up. He clutched it tightly to his chest as he fell in line with Mike and Ann at the door.

Slowly and silently
Beverly followed, still gripping her weapon. Mike turned the blood-drenched lock and opened the door. On the other side was the sun. It could have been only forty-five minutes or so past midnight, but the sun had risen brightly into the sky. It hung just over their heads as if it was exactly noon. From the top of the doorjamb leaked blood and bits of gore, and each of them was freshly coated as they stepped over the threshold and onto the bile-covered porch.

Ever
y inch of the Black Crystal was covered in the flayed skins of the witches. The skins had been perfectly removed from the witches’ bodies and pinned to the building. From the roof to the foundation, the skins dripped blood and melting fat that was now baking in the hot sun.

The demon had done as it
had promised. Even the blowup dolls had been impaled on sticks and melted with fire. Their arms and legs were flapping in the wind as they burned.

The
four had survived the ordeal, but no one knew how long it would last. The battered group looked at the skinned bodies of the witches that the demon had piled on the now-smoldering bonfire. The entire property had been tainted that night, and it would be forever tainted from that time on. Too many had died there for it to remain in a moral state of nature. Instead, it was, and forever would be, a foul place filled with the hatred of the damned witches. The four survivors walked down the road with their weapons still clenched in their fists. They were almost a half mile from the place before Beverly finally spoke, saying, “What do we do now?”

“I
'm going to check myself into a crazy home 'cause I know this messed me up something awful,” Ann said without a hint of jest as she used her sword like a walking stick while still clinging to Mike. After that, no one spoke until they saw the first car winding down the road. It didn’t stop and neither did the next three, but eventually they were able to flag one down.

As they rode silently to the police station or the hospital
—they didn’t know which—Nick made a decision to never speak again, and in this way he would cut off some of the less thoughtful sins he could commit. He would hold his tongue as long as he could, but he knew he would eventually break. Until then, he was left to wonder exactly what it was that the demon had in mind. He still had the book buried in his chest. That horrific book seemed to pulse within his arms as if it had a heartbeat. Maybe somewhere within its pages was something that could save him and his friends, but he couldn’t let the cops get at it. Surly they would try to confiscate it as evidence. His mind set itself to finding a way to hide the hellish tome.

The End

Acknowledgments and Thanks

I thank my loving family
and friends for everything they have given me. I would also like to thank God for putting up with all my shit. Thank you all.
You may not know it, but you all have gone a long way in helping me destroy art in all forms. Ahhh, just kidding. But thanks for the support. Love you, Mom and Dad.