Demons and Witches

Marcus was lost in the mist behind her and Evelynn could faintly hear, over the silent roar of the wind in her ears, muted shrieks and screams. She imagined the worst, picturing Marcus being slowly torn apart by the inhuman creatures, and the thought stabbed her deep in the guts, almost driving her to the ground as her eyes blurred with hot, unwanted tears.

Oh god, Marcus. No! Evelynn cried out in her head as she finally rounded the final soft turn of the path and spotted the bright street entrance they had entered only minutes ago. As she blinked at her stinging tears, Evelynn became painfully aware of how heavy and deadened her limbs felt, running as she was on buttered movie theater popcorn, liquid sugar, and a terrifying flood of adrenaline. Evelynn had been a shining star on her high school's track team at one time, but she still couldn't manage to pull away from her pursuer.

This was like her worst nightmares, running through a spooky, misty, moonlit forest, unable to outrun the monsters behind her no matter how hard she tried. This was no dream however, and she could tell by the shooting pain in her feet, the cool mist condensing and collecting on her face, and the heart stopping terror surging through her veins that would have woken her up screaming long ago.

As she glimpsed the salvation of the street, Evelynn cried out in horror as a ghostly apparition, a tall cloaked figure seemingly twice her height, materialized out of the fog directly in front of her. Time slowed to a crawl and passed in a heartbeat as her tired feet faltered, stuttering on the pavement, unsure of what direction to take. A thick coppery smell of rotting blood wafted towards Evelynn and she screamed as she glimpsed a gleaming, polished white skull grinning at her through empty black sockets underneath the hood.

The ethereal, shadowy form slowly opened its arms, preparing to receive her.

Long, dangerous talons, glittering with scarlet droplets, slowly unfolded towards Evelynn and she only just managed not to choke in terror as she was forced to make a quick decision. Try to juke past the monster blocking her exit, turn around and somehow manage to evade the strange pack of creatures somewhere behind her, or take her chances dodging into the tree line and make her way out from there.

Not much of a choice when you considered it.

Evelynn quickly banked to the left and yelped as she felt the creature pursuing her blast past where she had been standing a moment ago. Evidently, her pursuer was terrible at turns. Evelynn's feet quickly left the pavement, and the delicate pale skin of her arms only avoided being torn to shreds by the thorny, barbed branches of the trees that seemed to grasp and pull at her like fingers, due to the coat she wore. Evelynn hardly noticed as strands of her hair were painfully plucked away as she covered her face with her arms, trying to protect herself even as her slim legs were bloodied and scratched as she bounded and stumbled into the darkness. Strange, muffled noises and the crashing sounds of pursuit sounded from somewhere close behind her.

The illuminating light of the full moon was blocked by the dense cluster of trees and she ran, nearly blind, into the pitch darkness of the forest. A horrible wet choking laughter vibrated in her ears in spite of the fog. The sound of a pleased hunter playing with it's food.

Evelynn ran for her life.

****

Chapter 4

Lost was a gentle way of putting it.

Evelynn had absolutely no clue where she was standing or how to get back to the path she had just been running along.

The panting redhead had darted into the treeline with the intention of circling around the horrible spectral figure that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and cut off her exit, intending to circle around him to the lighted road beyond. Unfortunately in her hasty panic, Evelynn had somehow managed to get turned around. She knew this to be a fact because she was standing at the bank of a wide, fast flowing river.

Evelynn hadn't even known that there was a river around here.

Cursing profusely under her breath, fighting her tears, and pacing back and forth, Evelynn's chest heaved as she spent a moment bent over with her hands on her knees, fighting for air. She was trying to decide in which direction to run when the decision was made for her with a crashing sound in the brush behind her. Like a spooked rabbit, Evelynn instantly tensed and fled with a second-hand burst of energy, rocketing downstream. Her foot slipped on a loose round stone, or at least what she first thought was a loose stone, and she tumbled inelegantly into the wet, freezing mud of the riverbank. A dead, rotten hand burst up from under the ground and wrapped around her ankle.

"AGHHHH!" Evelynn shrieked without a second thought as she nearly peed herself. She kicked frantically at the rotten, stinking, bony claw holding her in place and almost vomited when she one of the fingers broke off with a dull wet snap. Evelynn chopped and kicked away with the heel of her free foot, her emerald eyes wide as saucers, as the hand painfully tightened around her ankle until she cried out in pain. The ground Evelynn lay in was the consistency of thick mud, and her legs were freezing as the muddy paste stuck to her underside. The grip of the hand froze her skin where it touched. The skeletal hand felt like a solid block of ice around her ankle and her foot started going numb almost immediately.

A second skeletal hand broke through the earth as her wildly kicking foot glanced off the hand and hit the ground for a split second, and suddenly her feet were both pinned. Evelynn moaned and looked around frantically for a rock or a log to beat at the hands with, but none were within reach. The hooded monster that had driven her off the path emerged from the fog of the treeline, slowly gliding towards her, accompanied by a small retinue of glowing eyed mannequins that had piled on to Marcus and tirelessly chased her along the path.

Evelynn's face went white as her mind went blank with terror at the sight. The blood drained from her lightly freckled face as her efforts to escape redoubled, but no matter how much she kicked and squirmed and fought, all she managed was a wet crack from one of the hands holding her in position as she fractured something. Evelynn, who hated the sound of knuckles cracking, winced at the terrible sound and tried to shy away from the approaching group.

"Please let me go" Evelynn begged, shivering. Her desperate attempts to escape slowing as helpless tears rolled over her cheeks, making up for lost time.

The grinning, gleaming skeletal face only looked down at her as it snapped its fingers, and two more hands burst from the ground on either side of her, grabbing at her wrists and pinning them to the earth. Evelynn screamed once more, in horror and pain, as she quickly lost all feeling in her extremities. The sound was muffled and swallowed in the night as more unearthly mannequins, some with cracked features, missing limbs, and dripping black wounds, formed a circle around her. The monster, finally standing over her prone body, made a sharp gesture and Evelynn suddenly found herself spread eagled, her ankles and wrists drawn apart and pulled away from her body.

"Ow! Sto- Stop this, please! No, no, no!" Evelynn cried, struggling against the numbing, freezing burn of the hands clutching her, unable to find any leverage or purchase. The featureless dark creatures surrounding her watched her lithe figure and made strange clucking noises as their eyes briefly flicked to a fuzzy orange color before changing back and Evelynn realized they were laughing. Now that they were all together and so close, Evelynn couldn't help but notice that they were virtually identical, like a manufactured line of obsidian dolls.

Their hands were twitching, and they looked to all the world like a pack of vultures circling a carcass, wanting nothing more than fall upon Evelynn and tear her apart the way they had Marcus, but they held back for some reason.

One and all they turned their eyes towards the robed monster standing over Evelynn and she realized that it held power over them. Staring into the empty abyss where its eyes should be, Evelynn's last, slim hope of mercy died as she realized such a horrible monster couldn't understand such a simple, human concept.

The monster smiled at her. It was always smiling, and pleased satisfaction radiated outwards from it. The monster stood over her and carelessly shrugged off its dark cloak. Slivers of moonlight, that shone through the trees of the riverbank, revealed a rotting, once impressive body with white gleaming bone visible through skin that crawled with maggots, and it was a testament to how numb Evelynn was at that point that she simply did not react to this latest of horrors. She was stuck in disbelieving shock.

Slowly, the grinning monster carelessly dropped into the mud, and with the delicate care and attention of a surgeon, it easily shredded the thin fabric of Evelynn's dress apart, revealing the deathly pale skin of her trembling legs. It wasn't until the grinning, rotting corpse snapped a muddied silver band, along with the finger, from one of the rotting skeletal hands holding Evelynn in place and delicately placed the frozen piece of metal onto the same finger of her left hand that Evelynn truly understood what was happening.

This was to be their wedding night.

"NO!" Evelynn screamed, the sound ringing clear and true in the foggy darkness of the night as she fought and struggled with every last scrap of strength she possessed, careless of the pain the icy hands pulling her into the mud caused as they squeezed and tightened in response. Another sharp gesture from the monster and the sound of Evelynn's voice was abruptly cut off and silenced. Try as she might, no noise escaped her lips and it was then, only then, that Evelynn realized that she was about to die.

She turned her head to the side, unable to look upon the monster's features any longer, and buried her nails into the numb meat of her right palm hard enough to break skin and draw blood.

I'd like to wake up now thought Evelynn, numbly, as she watched the blood in her palm drip and mix into the mud.

The flesh of the creature's grey cold skin made contact with hers as its decayed hand wrapped around her throat, and for a moment Evelynn thought it was simply going to strangle her to death or snap her neck. Her skin crawled and shuddered at the touch and she tried to squirm away, but could not. Evelynn was almost violently ill, feeling the cold touch of rotting death on her healthy, vibrant young body when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye.

Marcus!

Evelynn turned towards him, watching his distinct figure move silently outside the circle surrounding her, and she tried as best she could to ignore the hand clutching her throat as an ember of hope flared to life inside of her shivering, freezing body. Evelynn cried out to Marcus in silence, trying in vain to reach towards him with her numb, bleeding hand. From what little she could make out, Marcus looked bloodied and battered, his shirt ripped and torn in places, but fine otherwise. His expression was grim and when he saw her reaching for him, he put a finger to his lips, indicating for her to be silent as she tried in vain to scream.

Help me! she cried, again and again, unable to help herself as hot tears rolled down the sides of her face.

Evelynn's head was forced back into the mud as the creature painfully gripped her jaw between its massive thumb and index finger, forcing her to gaze into the hollow place its eyes used to be and... something strange happened. An abrupt sense of vertigo narrowed her vision, as Evelynn toppled into a black, empty abyss.

****

Chapter 5

A series of crackling pops, like dry branches being stepped on, startled Evelynn awake in her bed. Clutching at her sweat soaked sheets, Evelynn immediately scrabbled backwards, putting her back against the wall. Her heart pounded in her chest as her eyes darted wildly around the room. Brilliant sunlight streamed in through the large window overlooking her bed. Already the nightmare was fading from memory, and Evelynn would have cried in terror, but she was too busy laughing with joy as she hugged her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth. Birds chirped and sang merrily outside.

It had all been a dream! She was safe in her bed!

The door to her room opened suddenly, and Evelynn almost jolted off the bed in shock as a half-naked man entered. Instinctively pulling her sheets up around her body, she saw Marcus, freshly scrubbed and clad only in a towel, drying his black tousled hair with another smaller cloth.

"Morning" Marcus said, with a brilliant smile as he casually jumped onto the bed beside her.

Mouth open, simultaneously drinking in the sight of Marcus' incredibly muscular body while wondering what the hell he was doing in her bedroom, Evelynn quickly glanced under the blankets covering her body and saw that she was completely naked.

Well, that was new. There was a lot of that going around this morning.

"Uhh, hi?" Evelynn replied hesitantly as she raked her brain trying to remember exactly what had happened last night. Had she been drinking? She had a terrible memory when she drank. The scar on her neck was a testament to that. Evelynn distinctly remembered celebrating her birthday with Marcus, going to the movies with him, walking through the forest path and then... this. She could still vaguely recall the events of the incredible nightmare that continued to fade with every passing moment, but not what had happened after she had gotten home.

Considering the circumstances, it seemed like an important detail.

As Marcus scootched towards her on the bed, Evelynn caught the faintest whiff of decay and her nose wrinkled in response. Her room darkened for a moment, the chirping birds outside growing silent, before Marcus casually lowered his perfect mouth to hers, kissing her deeply, passionately, and she found herself sliding down onto the bed in response. It didn't matter that she couldn't remember how she had gotten back to her bedroom last night. The horrible nightmare didn't matter. All that mattered was the feel of Marcus' mouth on hers, here and now.

His hand traced over her side, and feeling a cool breeze run over her body from outside, Evelynn shivered in response. Marcus squeezed her ass, pulling her towards him, and she could feel his rigid hardness as the towel around his waist began to fall away. Evelynn arched against Marcus, her hips rolling as confusion gave way to lust and the sheet covering her body drooped, falling away, revealing her breasts and the tips of her pale red nipples. Marcus surged against Evelynn insistently, and his mouth lowered over her areola, teasing her stiffening nipple with his tongue. She shuddered at the sensation, closing her eyes for a moment as she was struck by the strange urge to violently push and kick Marcus away from her.

Her head hurt all of a sudden, and she noticed a collection of dark, featureless dolls that she had never seen before arranged around her room, facing towards her bed. One of them lay broken in a pile on the floor beside her, and for a fleeting moment Evelynn thought she saw blood in the palm of her hands.

"What's wrong?" asked Marcus, smiling as he lay beside her, idly tracing over her breast with the tips of his nails. The feeling was...distracting, to say the least and Evelynn checked her forehead with her hand, feeling the throbbing fading a little. She was starting to feel cold all of a sudden, and feverish.

"I don't know... I feel strange" she said, shivering.

"I know what'll make you feel better" murmured Marcus as he slipped out of his towel and pulled away her blankets. Evelynn tried to clutch at them, but they were easily wrenched out of her grasp and thrown carelessly to the floor as she shivered, genuinely freezing. Marcus maneuvered between her legs and his bobbing erection was large, surprisingly large, actually, and Evelynn found herself repulsed at the sight of it.

"M-Maybe right now's not such a g-good time" she said, struggling to get the words out.

"Right now's the only time" said Marcus, still grinning, not even bothering to look at her as his finger moved between her legs. Evelynn felt sick, not aroused, but unable to move away. She sank into the bed, feeling heavy, as if all her energy had simply and abruptly left her body, and she looked up towards the darkened ceiling.

Shining sunlight had, at some point, become glowing moonlight and the window overlooking her bed had noticeably shrunk to a fraction of its regular size. A bloodied, battered Marcus with blazing red eyes struggled in the window as it tried to close around him, and he reached down for her hand, straining for every inch, with a wild desperation in his eyes.

Evelynn arched an eyebrow at the strange sight before her head began to throb and pound painfully once more. She tried to raise her hand, to shoo away the grubby, demonic looking Marcus, but discovered her hand was suddenly very heavy. Too heavy to lift, in fact. Tears of pain gathered in Evelynn's green eyes, her red hair fanning out over her pillow as her shivering, pale, voluptuous body prepared for penetration by the grinning Marcus wiggling between her legs, his bony hips bruising and hurting her as he jostled into position. Evelynn locked eyes with the glowing red eyes of the Marcus silently screaming above her and felt a weight abruptly lift as his hand strained downwards for hers.

Evelynn's bloodied hand rose to his, and as they touched, she found her vision filled with a painful white light, as if she were staring directly into the sun, and an awful roaring sound filled her ears as Evelynn found herself rising from the bed and being pulled out the window, as a part of her simultaneously sank back into the mattress below as the Marcus between her legs, sunken eyes closed and head thrown back in pleasure, thrust his hips sharply.

For a moment, Evelynn was back in the freezing mud of the foggy, moonlit forest, and she found herself experiencing one of the strangest moments of her entire life, which was saying something considering the events of the past few hours, as she passed through the immaterial legs of one of the dark, featureless creatures standing sentinel behind her head and was pulled away from what appeared to be an identical clone of herself that was screaming in silent horror. Evelynn would have cried out from the pain of Marcus' burning touch on her forearms had her eyes not rolled into the back of her head, sending her tumbling into the darkness of unconsciousness.

Marcus grimaced and winced as he perceived every scratch and wound on Evelynn's tired, freezing body as he quickly pulled her away from the nightmare sight. The monster thrusting away between the shell's legs. Turning his eyes away from the wretched sight, Marcus struggled to remain silent and make good their escape. For all intents and purposes, the clone was a real living, breathing copy of Evelynn, the same woman he carried in his arms. Marcus had used the same trick not long ago, to fool the dark men into thinking they had managed to kill him.

Drawing upon so much power in such a short time cost Marcus dearly, but he paid the price gladly.

His glowing red eyes pulsed in the night as he glared wicked murder for a moment at the Reaper that had almost killed them. It was still playing with its latest toy, prolonging the horrible experience for as long as possible. The stupid, dangerous creature hadn't even noticed the switch as it's meal was stolen away, as focused as it was on its own hedonistic pleasure. Marcus averted his eyes and gritted his teeth in frustration, afraid that the intensity of his burning gaze might draw it's attention.