~The Origin Of Halloween : Prelude To A Slaughter4

Prelude (4/4)

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 When I came to my senses the very next day, I found myself inside a plain white room that was illuminated by white lights that hanged from the ceiling, buzzing softly. I was lying on a soft and comfortable bed and various machines were connected with my hands and chest, indicating my vital signs. I didn’t need the nurse that walked inside along with a very pale and worn out Steve to know that I was in the hospital; the moment Steve saw that I was awake, he graced me with the most sincere and relieved smile I had ever seen on a man.

  Apparently, a lot of things had happened to me; for starters, I had been hit rather hard by the car that knocked me down by accident when I threw myself on the road. The poor driver failed to avoid me, even if he tried his best, and was more than simply shocked, believing that all the injuries I had, were caused by the car. He rushed me as fast as he could to the nearest hospital, where they decided it was mandatory to put me in the OR. And they were quite right to do so as well, because my injuries were quite serious: my concussion was so severe that had caused a small hematoma inside my brain which needed immediate medical attention in order not to cause any further damage, my left hand and seven of my ribs were broken completely, I was covered in cuts and bruises and to top it all, I had internal bleeding which would have cost me my life if I wasn’t rushed to the hospital in time. Lucky to be alive, was the first thing the nurse told me, but thankfully, I just needed a few days to regain some of my energy and I would be allowed to return to my house; if the hematoma or internal bleeding returned though, they weren’t going to let me go anywhere. After the daily check up from the doctor, I was left alone with Steve, who had many questions about what happened, something that was only normal and this time, I decided that it was for the best to let him know about what happened.

  He listened to me quietly, never cutting me off and allowing me to tell the story in peace, nodding and urging me to continue whenever was necessary. I told him about the note and the DVD, about my reckless decision to go to the cemetery all alone, as well as the things I found inside the Eaton mausoleum and the names written on the Montaige grave. This time, I chose to tell him that someone I couldn’t see attacked me from the shadows and that I barely escaped by shooting him whenever it was possible and in the end throwing myself on the road; I chose to refer to the thing that chased me as a ‘he’ rather than a ‘she’, since I didn’t want Steve to go after a possible monster. He had a family and kids to raise; he didn’t need to go after some creature that could hurt him irreparably and take him away from his family. So I chose to mislead him on that point alone. As I finished my story, it was Steve’s turn to tell me what had happened from the moment they found me and onwards. Apparently, Chief Denver was notified about the attack and therefore threw me out of the investigation, along with Steve, since the case was named far too dangerous and he had requested the help of the F.B.I.; they would be here in a couple of days to collect all the information we found and take the case. In addition, the cemetery was closed to the public as well and it was being investigated, inch by inch, to find who was responsible for the attack and the damages, yet they had found nothing up until now. Chief Denver was beyond himself with rage that one of his agents was hurt and from now on and until he decided that the coast was once again clear and safe, a trained agent would be outside both mine and Steve’s doors to make sure that everything was okay. There was a written order to return to our homes immediately and come back to the Headquarters only after the holidays.

 I was completely infuriated with all those news, but Steve managed to reason with me and say that it was only normal for Chief to act this way; even Steve himself was scared that I might not make it when he was notified by the hospital and rushed here as soon as possible. I was lucky enough to escape, but maybe next time luck wouldn’t be at my side. Still, we both decided that it was a matter of personal pride to try and find out to who these names belonged, even if we were to hand off the case; and that was what I chose to do the moment I would return home.

 So, four days later, I was discharged from the hospital and finally allowed to go home. An agent was right by my side from the moment I stepped my foot out of the hospital, obviously the one that was in charge of keeping an eye on me and to make sure I was properly escorted to my own house with safety and frankly, I didn’t fight things this time; even if my injuries had begun to heal, I was too tired and beaten up still to walk around freely and more importantly, without pain. Steve volunteered to drive us all to my house, where he made sure to walk me up to my threshold under miss Cook’s curious and frightened gaze, before saying goodnight and urging me to call him tomorrow so he would know that I was alright.

 I waved at him as the door of the elevator closed and he left.

I sighed and almost immediately, let out a pained groan, grabbing my ribs in a desperate try to ease the pain a little bit. Pressing my lips together in dismay and trying to push the pain away from my mind, I opened my bag and fished out the keys to my apartment, quickly shoving them inside the keyhole and unlocking the door, passing inside my own house.

 Let me tell you this: one of the greatest feelings in life is returning home after what seemed like an eternity. The ones who believe that our home is our private sanctuary away from the scary world are completely right; nothing can soothe you more when you are alone and tired, than returning to your usual surroundings. Even if my apartment had been closed for too long and the air around me was as cold as the stormy night outside, it was somehow relaxing to find myself inside my house. Hell, even if the whole house was a mess, it still was far better than the hospital. Closing the door behind me, I threw my bag on the armchair closer to me, before walking to the stand and carefully starting to take my coat off, trying not to hurt my broken ribs. The moment I was done, I rushed to the thermostat and turning it on, I decided that it was for the best to clean up a little bit; if I was going to relax and do nothing the next days, it was best to have the house clean at least. So, using my good hand, I started going around the living room, picking my things up and placing them in their correct spots.

 I won’t lie to you, being injured and cleaning up with the addition of a broken hand is no easy task, yet after a while I was so drawn into my thoughts that I was barely registering my surroundings. The agent was right outside the building’s entrance and to my complete surprise, his presence somehow reassured me that nothing was about to get me; even miss Cook made no comments about him, yet something told me that Chief had probably payed a visit to the poor lady. It’s okay; maybe it was a good thing to take some vacations from work and surely not have to walk up and down the place to find some clues. All that I had to do once I was done with the house was to look up the names in the police database. If Steve was correct, then the said men would have committed other crimes as well within the span of the murders and now; I would find out who they were and everything would be alright in my conscience when I hand in the case to the F.B.I.

 With these thoughts in mind, once I was done with cleaning, I turned the computer on and reaching for my bag, I took out my phone, the DVD and the small note I had found inside my car. Steve was sweet enough to pick these things up for me and return them, advising me though, that I should hand them over to the agents, since they were precious pieces of information. I had rolled my eyes with total irony when he told me that, but looking at the pictures I had taken that fateful night, I could see all the accumulated information that were pretty important. Still, I found myself avoiding to even look at the pictures, except the ones that had the names captured; all of the places were stirring up memories that I would rather forget once and for all, since in the mere thought of that night, I was able to feel the eyes of the monster looking at me, even if I was all alone and in the seventh floor of the hospital. It was evident that what I had been through was making me paranoid, so in a desperate urge to make myself forget, I was violently pushing the memories away from my already polluted by the fear mind.

  The computer welcomed me with the usual starting sound and the moment I was able to, I logged in to the police database, accessing the criminal files. I typed in the names and hit the search button, before I leaned back in my chair and watched, as various faces flashed in front of the computer screen. It was only a matter of time to find them; not matter how far away they might have gone, no matter in which country they were, we would find them sooner or later. The mere thought that they are still running free was getting on my nerves more than the monster that was after me. At least it was obvious that it was a horrific creature, yet for the five guys to be roaming around free and completely concealing the horrendous things that they have done, it was indeed maddening. Opening the bottle of pills that I had taken from the doctor, I pop some in my mouth and down them without water. I would be more than simply glad to hand over the case with the names of the culprits written inside; it would help me sleep better from now on.

 The sad thing was though, that the computer didn’t do me the favor. After almost half an hour of searching, it came up with more names than I could count, with people from both Canada and the United States. This was no good. Opening the search tool, I decided to narrow things down considerably. Writing assault, home invasion, illegal gun possession  and member of the Snakes, I hit the search button once again, watching as the search was eliminating more and more people in fast rates.

 My attention was then drawn unexpectedly by a flash outside my window and turning, I saw the inky night sky being illuminated every now and then by the flashing white light of lightning, which were soon followed by the deafening sound of thunder, making the lights above my head flicker a little bit and the glass of the windows creak. Another storm was raging upon us and by the rain that was coming down -in an almost horizontal line to the ground- I immediately knew that it was by far the worst one of this winter up until now. The shadows of the trees from the street danced against the building opposite from me, giving the whole place a nightmarish hue and making me feel glad that I was inside the safety of my own house; I wouldn’t even dare to think what I would do if I was outside in the torrential rain.

 When I averted my eyes to the computer screen, my heart skipped a beat.

 There, right in front of me on the screen, two pictures of two men were waiting, accompanied by two names. The first one was a blond man with brown eyes that appeared to be in his late twenties; his name was Steven Marks, age 29 and he was a former member of Snakes and the next one, a man in his early thirties, with brown hair and blue eyes, was none other than Paul James, eldest son of Lorens James, leader of the Snakes and former member himself. Both men had been arrested a few months before for assaulting two women on the street, but their bail was payed and they were now waiting for their trial from the comfort of their own houses. In the sight of the two men, my eyes opened wide with wonder and excitement. Could this be my lead? Could those ones be the ones I was looking for? Pulling the keyboard closer to me, I started typing away frantically, trying to see if the men were in Toronto around the time that the murders happened. My heart was pounding loudly inside my chest with each button I pressed and it almost stopped when a certain picture popped up right in front of me, coming from a street camera somewhere around Toronto.

 I leaned closer.

And there they were.

Marks and James were caught by a security camera of a nearby supermarket, walking towards a black pick-up truck, accompanied by three other men that followed close behind. The five men appeared to be talking to each other, with James holding the keys to the truck, which unsurprisingly was a Ford; their faces were captured pretty clearly by the camera, so without a moment’s hesitation, I scanned them and started searching, the same moment I grabbed a notepad from my drawer and wrote down the names. A notification sound went off and three more pictures popped up, matching with the three men that were seen in the picture. As I read them, hand writing down the names immediately, my breath was caught inside my chest. Right in front of me were Billie Rock, age 26, caught for stealing a supermarket five years ago and the brothers Carl and Eric Green, age 22 and 20, who were charged with some petty crimes a few years ago as well. But it wasn’t so strange for those men to be together right? Well, it wouldn’t be if the date on the lower right corner didn’t show that it was the 31 of October 2014 and the fact that Paul James was leading a small gang of criminals; it was clear that since he was Loren’s son, he did have a motive to go after the family and the fact that he was in the city a few hours before the murders, was something more than simply a coincidence. Right at that moment, my brain clicked and I smiled widely to myself. I had finally found the killers, I was sure about it. I would bet my very own life that they were responsible for killing the Montaige family.

 Oh, Steve will be amazed once he hears this!

 With the smile still spread across my face, I barely noticed the extremely loud thunder that echoed. The windows creaked and the lights went off above my head, plunging the whole apartment into darkness, except from the light that was coming from the computer. Looking up, I sighed and grabbed the DVD, knowing that the power would come back eventually and it was only natural for a power outage to happen when the storms hit Toronto. So, placing the DVD on the computer, I waited patiently while resting my chin on my good hand, waiting for the small window to pop up and after a few seconds, it really did. A luxuriously green garden appeared on the screen, seemingly all too familiar with the swing that hanged from the huge weeping willow, the only addition to it being the table that was placed right in the middle of the grass, decorated for a children’s party. If a middle-aged, blonde woman didn’t walk in front of the camera, carrying a pink birthday cake, I would have never have guessed that it was a video from the Montaige family.

 ‘Mama, do you think we have enough candles for the cake?’ an off-camera voice addressed the lady.

 ‘Of course we do Anastacia. Are you okay with handling the camera?’  the lady asked.

 If Anastacia ever answered that question, I would never find out. As the smiling woman asked that very last question, a sharp move drew my attention from the corner of my eye, making my head turn to look out the window, only for my heart to drop and my brain to freeze; terror washed over me, making both of my hands fly to grab the chair, preparing me to run as my gaze was nailed right outside my very own balcony, failing to register anything other than what I was seeing…

  My lungs struggled to scream, but my voice was nowhere to be found and I was left completely frozen to stare at it….

 No, it wasn’t an ‘it’, it was a she…

  If the Almighty God had enabled demons to walk the same grounds as us humans, then I was completely sure that they would look exactly like the woman that stood right outside my balcony. Well, to be precise, she wasn’t standing there; she was actually sitting on her heels on the steel banister of my balcony with one of her hands grabbing the steel for balance and the other one stretched to the side and holding on to a very old and menacing looking sledgehammer. The whole posture was reminding me of a panther that had finally locked eyes with its victim and it was preparing to strike mercilessly. Her skin was so ghastly white, that reminded me nothing of the natural color humans have, resembling a demon or ghost more; she was wearing an orange witch costume that was shredded and worn out to the extreme and a sea of curly red hair framed her nightmarish characteristics, with both the hair and the clothes waving on the raging wind.

   Still, all these were nothing, nothing at all when the time to look upon her face came; as I looked at her straight in the eye, all I did was scream my lungs out to the point where my brain started getting dizzy and fall back, knocking the chair over and falling on the ground, screaming loudly once again, as I landed on my broken ribs.

 Why?

Because this was the face of a true demon.

 Her eyes were in the shade of the most extremely vivid orange I had ever seen in my entire life; like two flames that were alive and burned endlessly, they shone brightly among the sea of black that had consumed the sclera, an abyssal black that could drown countless souls inside its black waters. It was evident even now, that her face must have been beautiful at one point, but right now two scars were cascading each of her eyes, starting from her lower eyebrows and reaching all the way down to her jaw, with the flesh still hanging open on the edges of her skin, like someone had shredded her skin in half. But all these things weren’t enough to make me scream and pray for death to take me right then, right now, as I tried to back away from her as quickly as possible. No, all these paled in comparison to one single characteristic of hers; her mouth. The moment she saw me squirming in terror on the cold floor, her characteristics were lightened up and her mouth formed a smile…only that it wasn’t your normal one. Her lips retreated…. and retreated….and retreated….. and the skin that surrounded them started opening up. I watched in utter terror, as her mouth was opening up from side to side, with the flesh being torn apart and hanging from the edges, literally reaching until her ears before her jaw dropped and I screamed one for single time. Why? Because even if her head was stretched forward in order for the monster to keep me in sight and study me, when her jaw dropped, it reached all the way down to the base of her neck.  Pointy black teeth appeared on the upper side and on the lower one and what I registered as red saliva dripped down to the floor from her wide open mouth that was more of a hellish grimace than a smile.

 She tilted her face to the side….

And that was the moment my brain decided to restart.

Rolling over to my stomach, my eyes searched frantically for one single thing that was located right beside the door, hanging from the stand; my gun. Clenching my teeth with all the power I had, I tried to look past the pain and reach that goddamn gun, since I knew that this was the only thing that could keep me alive; I just couldn’t believe how the hell did she manage to find a way and appear on my balcony, but I knew that this wasn’t the time for questions, but time to act fast. I pulled my knees against the floor, using both hands, wounded or not, to help my body rise from the ground, allowing my penetrating scream to reverberate like a gunshot inside the small apartment, as my conscience reacted to the pain that shot up from literally every wound I had; I felt my head and broken hand throbbing in pain, while the pain produced from my ribs was denying me the gift of breathing freely, making me a bit light-headed. Not a single thing mattered though, when I did manage to stand up straight only to hear a loud bang that was immediately followed by the sound of glass shattering against the floor into billion pieces and the malicious growl of the demon that eventually managed to crash its way inside.

  I screamed the same moment she did, catapulting my body forward, hands outstretched and gaze fixed on the gun and she lunged against me, trying to catch me.

 Only that this time, I was faster.

 My hands managed to reach out for the gun and immediately tighten around it, the very same moment that my body turned and the gun pointed straight at the demonic girl, which was lunging at me with her mouth still wide open and her movements as sharp as a beast’s; I fired straight at her, the bullets finding their way to her shoulder and left hand, but she didn’t even seem to be fazed this time. Before I even knew it, she leaned down and avoiding the bullet that was aiming straight for her head, she appeared right in front of me in a mere second, grabbing my hands with both of her own and proceeding to twist her body, using it as a lever for my own. The world around me became nothing but a blur, as I felt my back passing an inch by the armchair on my left and finally crashing on the glass coffee table that I had in the living room. The metal bars and the broken grass pieced my skin as if it was butter, making me scream loudly and an ocean of tears blur my vision. Among my screams, I failed to see the sledgehammer coming down harshly to meet with my right leg. I only felt the aftermath.

 My back formed a perfect arc and the bloodcurdling scream never emerged from my open mouth, as the bone that shattered under the heavy weapon, had become nothing more than a pile of dust. Oxygen was denied to me right at that second, my lungs failing to remember how humans breathed and I was left there, on the cold floor, convulsing in absolute pain that disabled me from both moving and thinking. It was right then, that the sledgehammer connected with my other leg and I screamed so loudly, that I literally felt my throat being ripped apart, until a wave of blood came out of my mouth with what was left of me trying to coughing it out. Tears flowed in abundance from my eyes and my brain was the one pounding right now, the pressure and blood rushing to it making it reach a step away from having a stroke. Yet, when she laughed, when the monster laughed with all her might, a sickening sound that was able to make you go mad or even scream until your soul came out of your chest, I was able to hear it clearly.

 I felt a pressure on my chest and the monster sat on me, bringing her face inches away from my own and her horrendous smile disappeared completely, leaving no trace behind on her lips. She grabbed my hair violently, pulling them so my ear came right next to her mouth as she chuckled and whispered to me.

 ‘You failed me Catherine. Now, you will suffer the consequences. There is no mercy left for your soul.’

 Her voice was something more than a simple whisper, reaching my ears and sounding full, alluring, with a trace of demonic hue in it.

 She smiled yet again ‘Allow me to tell you a story about a few witches that claimed an innocent soul.’