Maleficarum: Hunger of the Witch (4 page)

“What is it?”
Beverly shouted.

“It’s Fuck Buddy Fa
y,” Mike said with no hint of jest.

“Fuck,
” Mike muttered as he raised his gun, but before he could take aim, the box popped open, spilling its contents behind the short aisles. The sound intensified as Mike moved hard to his left into the center of the store, trying to get a clear line of sight. A bobbling head peeked up from behind a rack of flavored condoms. Its plastic form slowly inflated itself into a recognizable human shape. Mike lifted the gun, but the plastic doll ducked back down.

“You motherfucker,
” he said as he ran to the end of the aisle behind which the form was hidden. He jumped around, striking his best action pose, pointing the gun with both hands. His body contracted as he locked eyes with the hideous thing. It was indeed a Fuck Buddy Fay, but never before had the sight of three holes for your pleasure struck a man with such terror. The face was a direct print of the one on the box, but it was haphazardly rendered to fit the doll. Its hair was molded into pigtails, and its mouth was a gaping hole designed for the loneliest of cocks. However, within that hole was an unnatural set of gums that housed thin, glass-like teeth that gnashed at the prospect of human flesh.

Mike didn
’t know much about it, but he was relatively sure that wasn’t part of the factory design. The doll rushed forward with floppy, squeaky, and spastic movements. Its body was almost too light to move with any real effect. It was only about ten feet from Mike, but it looked as if it was going to be a good forty-five seconds before it could reach him. It smacked wildly into the racks and display cases, nearly being thrown off balance each time.

“What the fuck is going on?” Mike exclaimed, firing the gun into the chest of the demonic incarnation of Fuck Buddy Fay. The hunk of lead ripped into the doll and out the other side, sending the plastic doll sailing down the aisle. It let out a hellish wail as it rapidly deflated.

“Is it dead?” Ann questioned.

Mike
said, as he looked at the demonic doll farting out its last puffs of air, “I think so. Someone get something to put this thing in. We’re going to burn it just to be sure,” Mike added. He kept the gun pointed while the fat man snagged a trash can that lay tipped over on the floor next to him and began hustling over to Mike. The fat man sidled up beside Mike and looked at the deflated mess.

“Well,
I don’t really want to touch it,” he grumbled.

“Fuck, I can
’t blame you, man,” Mike said. “What’s your name?”

“Rick.”

“Nice to meet you, Rick. I wish it was under better circumstances, but we've got to deal with what we've got.” Mike paused for a moment before saying. “Y’all bring us the mop. It should be over in the corner,” he said, looking back to the girls and pointing to the mop sitting to their left-hand side. Ann snatched up the mop and ran it over to them. She handed the mop to the pudgy man as he tried to steel himself from whatever might come next. He tried his best to adjust his sweat-stained shirt and then stepped one foot down the aisle. His face was pale and clammy as he inched forward a bit more. Mike came up beside him with the gun clenched in his hand.

“It
’s OK, man. If it moves, I’ll bust a hole right in its noggin,” Mike said. The fat man let out a labored breath as they both crept up onto the twisted pile of plastic. They moved within about four feet from the thing and stopped.

“Hit it with the stick
, dude,” Mike said. Then Rick nervously raised the mop over his head and slammed it down. The wooden mop handle smacked the tip of one of the doll’s limp pigtails with a clack, but before the echo could bounce off the wall, the creature leapt back to life. In a flash, it grabbed the mop handle with its deflated tentacle-like arms, and before the fat man could even let out a gasp of horror, it had slithered its way up the handle like an octopus. It reached his hand with an astonishing quickness, and teeth met flesh.

“Get it off,
” he screamed. The doll stuck tightly to his hand as if it had been shrink-wrapped. The fat man bellowed as he tried to rip the unholy succubus from his hand. Mike grabbed the dangling legs of the doll and ripped as hard as he could. The doll stretched as Mike yanked at it and, sounding like cork being pulled from a wine bottle, the doll popped off. Mike slammed the doll as hard as he could as Rick hurried away from the threat.

“It was biting me,
” he wailed. Mike looked down at the man’s plump hand to see a half-dollar-sized chunk of flesh had been sucked out.

“
Girls, get over next to the door,” he said as he ran. Both Ann and Beverly rushed to the door, passing Rick as he wheezed. It took a few moments for Mike and the injured man to reach them. When they did, Mike turned around and monitored the general direction where he had thrown the demonic masturbation aid, but the horrendous doll had vanished.

“Anyone see w
here that fucking thing went?” Mike bellowed, but no one said a word.

“Fuck,
” he whispered under his breath as he wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead.

“What do we do now?”
Beverly said as she hid behind her brother’s shoulder, trying to peek out into the store.

“Well, I
’m not going to—” The same sound as before started to creep into their ears. A popping and crackling, but on a much larger scale, rose up within the store. The entire back wall of the store began to shake. The entire back wall filled with blowup dolls. The packages began bursting like popcorn kernels in a fire, and they spilled their contents to the floor.

“Ohhh, fuck me,
” Mike groaned.

“We
’ve got to go,” Ann barked as dolls began to inflate themselves. Ten had nearly formed, and there were at least fifty more to go. The dolls started bobbling their way toward the frightened group as fast as their pliable legs could carry them. The dolls’ eyes were flashing like purple strobe lights as they screeched.

“Yep,
” Mike said, rushing for the door. Ann hit it first and threw open the lock and rushed into whatever terrors the night held for her. The others quickly followed suit. Cool night air enveloped them, giving a welcome relief from the stench that had accumulated within the store. They all rushed into the parking lot to see that the cars had all been brutally torn apart. Bits of Mike’s small red sedan had been thrown haplessly about like a child’s unloved toys.

“My fucking holy hell,
” Mike muttered in disbelief. “My car! My motherfucking car, man,” was all he could repeat.

“What do we do?”
Beverly whispered. Before anyone could say a word, a shrill whistle sprang from the roof. They all turned to see Hegel standing on the peak with an old pitchfork in her hand.

“That’s her,
” Beverly said.

“Yep, that would be me,
” Hegel said, glaring at the two girls with her good eye. Mike fixed his sights on her.

“What the fuck is goi
ng on here?” he shouted as the intensity of his voice grew.

“A bit of a gathering. To
night is a very special night, and we still have so much to do,” she said, picking at the ragged hole where her eye used to sit. “I’ll tell you what. If you give me the girls, the two of you can go free.”

“Fuck you,
” Mike spat.

“Why are you doing this?” Ann shouted.

“Oh, it’s a long, sordid tale involving lost love and thirty slaves being burnt to the bone, but it’s nothing I feel like getting into. Suffice it to say I sold my soul for someone, and then they tried to have me burnt at the stake. It was in effigy, but still that pissed me off. At any rate, the whole story ends with me sitting on top of this roof getting ready to render the fat of two young girls.”

“That’s fucked
-up, man,” Mike blurted, keeping his gun locked on her.

“
Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Hegel chortled with a thin-lipped smile. Her cruel eye cast its gaze into the dark pines. On the tree line, shadows gathered. Some were distinctly human, but others were a twisted mockery of all that was holy. Their forms defied nature, and the loathing in their glowing eyes defied the Good in all its forms.

Writhing devils of pride
’s creation poured from the darkness, singing, “Ohhh, for love we come. Ooohhh, for experiences we come. We are open to all the worlds, and we follow he that answers prayers.” They chanted in unison. The sounds of their voices were so powerful and numerous that it reverberated in the frightened teens’ guts. Countless numbers of them poured out of the ghastly black woods. The entire forest was like an angry ant mound. A great wind raged from all directions, nearly toppling the trees.

“The Sabbath has begun,
” Hegel hissed in a raspy voice.

“We
’ve got to go,” Mike stated.

“Where
?” Ann gasped.

“The Black Crystal
,” Beverly screeched as she sprinted.

“Sounds good,
” Ann said, taking off after her.

Mike raised his gun
, blasting off a shot at Hegel. The shot burrowed through the roof instead of its intended target. The four of them pushed their bodies harder than a bulimic in the bathroom of an all-you-can-eat buffet as they rushed for safety. The figures from the woods poured into the lonely streetlight. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of them gave chase.

The Black Crystal seemed so far to the terrified runners. A naked woman jumped in their path and bared her teeth like a feral animal. Mike popped off two shots
, hitting her in the chest. She fell from a flat-out run onto her face.

“Fuck
, fuck, fuck,” Mike muttered as more took her place. He fired wildly into the crowd, as hordes of them ran screaming from behind. Rick stumbled as he tried jumping over the naked woman.

Beverly and Ann reached out
, barely righting him before he took a fall again. The Black Crystal, their only hope, lay just yards in front of them. A naked, bearded man snatched Beverly’s arm and sucked her into his flabby chest. In one motion, he bit down on her collarbone with his brown chipped teeth. The bite sunk deep, and Mike could see the old man’s drool leaking down her chest as she screamed. It was like the life was being leached out of her. Mike jammed the gun into the wicked man’s head and pulled the trigger. The wrinkled head ripped back as the hollow point ravaged the inside of his skull. Mike yanked his sister from the leprous old man’s arms and forced her to start running.

Onto the porch they jumped
, just as Ann and Rick burst into the store. From his left, Mike saw a hideous beast crawling after them. Its body looked like a skinned corpse, but its arms were a twisted boiling mass of flesh that had two fearsome claws attached. Its legs were that of a cow’s, and it dragged them behind itself as if they were broken. Its head was large and misshapen, but its face was human. Mike fired, hitting the creature in the head as he and his sister swung open the door that was like a cemetery gate. They slammed it behind them and tried to lock it. Beverly screamed as she shoved her shoulder into the door to brace for the inevitable push from a thousand tainted bodies.

“How do you lock this thing?” Mike
roared, looking for any help. He saw Nick standing at the counter of the store, wide-eyed, staring at him. He was frozen in the act of handing a customer her change.

“Fuck!
” Mike yelled, throwing the weight of his shoulder into the door. Heavy thuds and the clacking of hooves could be heard rushing onto the porch. Ann and the fat man got behind Mike and Beverly. Like the members of a phalanx, they drove their shoulders in as the blitz of noise rushed right to the door and suddenly halted. Not a sound could be heard outside, except the now ever-present wind.

Nick finally blurted out.
“What the hell is going on?”

“Get the fuck over here and lock the fucking do
or,” Mike shouted.

“What are you doing?” Nick said with a dumbfounded look on his face.

“I swear to fuck, Nick, come and lock the fucking door, man, or we’re all going to die, man!” Mike screamed, desperation radiating from his words. Nick jumped the counter and rushed to the door. He stuck his key into the latch, and the group heard the relieving click of the lock.

“There are all sorts of fucking monsters or
…aliens…or…demons or…crazies out there, and they’re all trying to kill us,” Mike said, running to the large stained-glass window in the front of the store. He slightly parted the purple curtain and peered out the multi-colored window to see nothing. Not a living or undead soul was in sight. Even the bodies of the people he had shot were gone. All he could see was the lonely streetlight, his destroyed car, and the abandoned porno store. Waves of fog rolled around the tree line, but other than that, everything looked normal. Nick walked up to the stained-glass window and looked out.

“Mike
, you’re starting to freak me out. What’s going on?” Nick placed a hand on Mike’s shoulder.

Mike’s face had a puzzled look. “You
didn’t hear any of that?”

“What?”

“All the screaming and gun shots and howling,” Beverly chimed in.

“I didn
’t hear anything out there until you guys came in,” Nick answered.

“We
’ve got to lock this place down with whatever we've got, man. There are fucking hordes of the motherfuckers out there, and they’re trying to fucking eat us or fuck us or both, dude,” Mike replied, rushing from the window. He grabbed hold of a large bookshelf that sat to the far left side of the store. He scooted the bookshelf across the room, knocking off all manner of glass statues to the floor. Most crashed and broke on the thin gray carpet that lined the establishment’s floor.

“Hey, what the hell are
you doing?” Nick yelled.

“Fucker
, there are all kinds of things out there, and Chuck’s fucking dead. Some other poor fuck had his throat slit, and they’re going to do the same damn thing to us if we don’t board this fucking place up!” Mike screamed with all his might. His face changed to the color of a ripe tomato as he finished his rant.

Nick pull
ed out his cell phone. “Well, let’s call the cops.”

“No! That’s how they got Chuck,
” Ann warned as she ran to help Mike in his efforts.

“What do you mean?”

“They’re witches, like real, magic, flying-on-a-broomstick kinds of witches. They cursed him or something, and he went crazy and tried to kill us,” Beverly added.

“O
K, guys. This is nuts. I have to be back in time to make dinner for my husband in half an hour,” a female voice said. Mike turned to notice a tall, pretty blonde woman standing next to a large display case of ash and hickory wands. She was slim, athletic, and dressed in black yoga pants and tank top.

“You guys almost had me, but you pushed it too far wit
h the spell stuff.” Ironically, she said this while holding a book of love and sexual magic. She started to tromp toward the door, looking confident that she would soon be in the parking lot heading home, and she would have been, if it hadn’t been for the slight thump on the window. Then another thump sounded, followed by a deeper grinding noise that began to echo off the walls. The blonde froze in place.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Witches,” Beverly whispered. The sound of a dozen footsteps stomped across the roof in unison and stopped above the blonde. She looked up. She stared for a moment, her eyes locked on the scraping sound that hung above her head. It was almost as if a dog was lightly pawing at the shingles. The blonde woman, as quietly as she could, stepped to her left, and a look of relief came over her. She would have kept that expression, too, if the sound hadn’t followed her. Dread and confusion were slapped all over her face as she rushed about fifteen feet down the aisles. She was out of sight now. She was lost in the small maze of mismatched bookshelves that inhabited almost everything except the middle of the store. She stopped moving, and as soon as she did, the flood of footsteps followed her, resting once more above her.

“Run
, bitch!” Mike shouted as he dropped the table he was toting. As soon as his words registered, she took off in a blind panic. The footsteps followed thunderously overhead. They were always in lockstep with the woman, chasing her like a swarm of bees. Mike whipped out his gun and pointed it at the bulk of the footsteps. He pulled the trigger, wildly missing his target. The slide slammed back, locking. He was empty. He hadn't reloaded his gun when he came into the store. He was a good marksman, but he didn't know the gun and had never shot under this kind of pressure.

“Fuck
, man,” he shouted, slinging spit out of his mouth. He pulled the clip from the gun and reached into his pocket, snatching out a box of shells as the young woman still ran screaming. Her screams were so violent there was no way her vocal cords wouldn't tear if she kept it up for long. Mike accidentally dropped his magazine. The blood rushed to his brain, causing his fingers to lose their precision. Frantically, he snatched the magazine off the floor and tried desperately to jam a bullet in. No part of his body seemed to work. The flow of time slowed around him as he feverishly tried to push the bullet in.

“Ohhh
, God,” Beverly screamed.

The bullet
finally snapped into the magazine, and Mike raised the gun as the blonde ran past him and into the maze of bookshelves. The footsteps rushed over Mike’s head as he fired. The bullet ripped into the roof with a loud crack, and from outside came a hellish scream of pain that sounded like the roar of a bear. Like a faucet, black and red blood sloshed through the hole and onto the floor. The footsteps stopped in place at the sound of the scream, and Mike loaded another shell into the magazine. Thrusting the gun back up, he fired another shot. Again a horrendous scream arose, followed by the sound of a heavy body flopping on the roof. Blood streamed through, turning the gray carpet a sickening shade of purple.

Nick shouted as he rushed over to Mike. “Stop.”

Mike was still trying to jam another shell into the chamber. “Why?”

“You said they were devil
-worshipping witches, right?”

“Yeh, e
ither that or aliens,” Mike said as he pointed the gun back up to the roof, ready to take his next shot.

“How many did you say are out there?”

“Fuck, I don’t know, man, a lot.” Mike looked confused.

“If there’s that many of them out there
, they could tear down this place in no time. So why haven’t they?”

“Well, i
t sounds like they’re about to,” Mike said, stepping back from the ever-growing pool of blood in the center of the floor.

“I don
’t think they can come in. Not if they’re witches. This place has wrought iron bars on its doors. In European folklore, a witch can’t enter a house that is guarded by cold iron. I think they’re trying to do something different.” The thunderous footsteps fled to the back of the building, and soon they were leaping off the roof. Mike ran to a window and nervously peered out into the darkness, looking for any sign of their attackers.

“I think
they’re trying to defile the place, and their corrupt blood is one way they’re trying to do it. This place has all manner of purifying objects and elements in it. Salt, garlic, Saint John’s Wort, silver, iron, and witch balls are everywhere. They should have a hard time casting spells on us without corrupting us and this place first,” Nick said.

“Are you telling me not to fight back?”

“Hell, no, just be smart about it,” Nick said as he ran among the winding bookshelves looking for something. Mike rushed back to the center of the room and picked up bullets that he had dropped. The blood still dripped from the ceiling, making a sickening splash as it hit the carpet.

“We still
need to barricade this place,” Beverly said, placing a hand on Nick’s shoulder.

“Yep, let’s get on it,
” Mike said. The two of them rushed to find a way to seal off every entrance as fast as they could.

“What’s your name?” Ann asked
, sitting down next to the quaking blonde girl.

“It
’s Kim,” she stammered, her lips quivering.

“Kim
, we’ve got to help them board up this place,” Ann said as she pushed Kim’s shoulder-length blonde hair out of her eyes.

“O
K,” she whispered. The four of them worked as fast as they could. Ann and the blonde woman were pulling nails and screws from any piece of furniture they could find, and Mike and the fat man were hammering the boards to the windows. They worked silently. The only words spoken were the ones needed to give directions in the effort or to clarify exactly what needed to be done. Panic was like another person in the room as they toiled.

*
* *

Nick
tried to use the computer to send some kind of message, but all it pulled was hard core pornography, and trying to send a text didn’t fare much better. Beverly never knew there were so many ways to make dicks in text art, but you learn something new every day.

“To hell
with this,” Beverly grumbled as she stormed into the bathroom, leaving the others to their work. The lights popped on like a road flare sending out its blinding rays. When her eyes fully adjusted, she was hunched in front of the mirror looking at a face she didn’t believe was hers. Thick black bags sagged under her eyes, making her look like a boxer that had taken the wrong fight.

“God, I wanted to look older, but not like the before
and after shots of a crackhead,” she muttered as she twisted the creaking handle on the faucet. Clean, clear water flowed into the dingy sink, and she turned the other handle to warm it up before use. Her body could not sustain another shock to the system, even if it was just frigid water.

Next
, she carefully peeled off her blood-soaked hoodie. Its crimson color had masked exactly how much she was bleeding. Both her stab wound and her bite were still oozing. They should have closed by now, but she had not exactly been taking it easy on them. The sight of the wounds churned her stomach, as if her insides had been thrown into a cement mixer. She splashed the wounds with water as best she could before the sight of them started to overwhelm her.