The Witch of Halloween House Read online

  The Witch of Halloween House

  Jeff DeGordick

  Contents

  Foreword

  1. Blaze

  2. Night Flight

  3. Gingerbread

  4. The Carving in the Tree

  5. A Hundred Smiling Pumpkins

  6. Jail Talk

  7. Inferno

  8. A Tasty Gift

  9. Black Out

  10. Clues in the Dark

  11. Menagerie

  12. Sit-Down

  13. Back-Alley Spat

  14. Road Trip

  15. Special Delivery

  16. In Transit

  17. The Tunnels

  18. Jail Talk Redux

  19. Pumpkin Patch

  20. Rounded Up

  21. Into the Witch's Snare

  22. Brawl

  23. Crossing the Gauntlet

  24. Sentinel

  25. Descent

  26. Witch's Brew

  27. The Spell Shattered

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2017 by Jeff DeGordick

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover images copyright © Shutterstock

  Created with Vellum

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  ALSO BY JEFF DEGORDICK:

  The Haunting of Bloodmoon House

  Blaze

  By the time the police chief arrived on the scene, word of the child's disappearance spread like wildfire through the town, creating a panic.

  Chief Robert Miller pulled the cruiser to a stop in the parking lot at the edge of the woods and opened the door. Stepping out into the crisp October air, he squinted his eyes at the wind, peering through the night. He already saw his deputy up ahead standing at the edge of the woods next to Lorraine Basham.

  Don gave him a concerned glance. "It doesn't look good, Boss," he said. His words were barely audible as Mrs. Basham started up on Robert as he approached.

  She threw herself into his arms, bleating against him like a miserable and dying goat. "My son!" she cried. "My son!"

  Robert held her at arm's length and regarded her carefully. "What happened, Mrs. Basham?" His voice was calm and smooth as stone; it was something he had built up in the face of pressure after years on the job.

  "My David!" Mrs. Basham wailed. "He's gone!" She waved her arms around them, and Robert followed her gestures, trying to put the pieces together where her words couldn't. "I-I-I went to the store to get some butter," she said, pointing at the small mart by the parking lot. "I just went in to get some butter, and when I came out he was gone!" She spun around in a circle, gazing out at the woods, as if searching its perimeter for the thirtieth time would make him reappear.

  Robert planted his hands firmly on her shoulders and looked her square in the eye. "Was there anyone else around? Did you see anyone?"

  She shook her head in tears.

  "Boss, there's something else you gotta see," his deputy said. There was an uneasiness in his eyes that revealed bad news. Robert knew that one, too.

  He followed Don to the start of the woods as Mrs. Basham clung to them like a shadow, tightly kneading her hands together. When he stopped suddenly and turned, Robert looked down and saw exactly what he meant to show him.

  There was a small shoe that looked to be the right size for a young boy, and sitting next to it, a few feet away, was a half-eaten gingerbread man. Robert bent down.

  "Mrs. Basham said he got the cookie from home," Don commented. His eyes flicked over to the shoe, telling Robert that that was the pertinent piece of evidence.

  Robert glanced over at it and pulled a plastic glove out, sliding it over his hand. He carefully picked up the shoe and turned it over, shining a flashlight on it. Around one side of the shoe that he hadn't seen so far, as well as the sole, a thin layer of sticky red blood coated it.

  "Ah jeez," Robert said, immediately feeling the rest of his words hike up in his throat. He wished he hadn't said it; he always kept himself composed in front of relatives of victims, but this was a sight that he never got used to.

  The first specks of rain came from the cloudy night sky overhead and fell on his arm. Robert glanced up at it, then he looked over at his deputy. "Bag this up quickly. Then get the rest of the guys here, pronto. I want this area scoured before the rain comes in."

  Don nodded. "You got it, Boss." He set off.

  "I'll get a search party," Robert added, and Don nodded again. He stood up and faced Mrs. Basham, who was still just as beside herself as when he arrived. Consoling people was the other part of the job that he never got used to.

  As the night went on, the rain broke out fully and came down hard. The search teams were organized and sweeping the woods with flashlights and police dogs. Any other complements that the local townspeople could help out with was more than welcomed. It was a small town, and everybody knew each other. The best perk of that was that everybody helped each other, too, and had a strong community mindset. But no matter how much they searched the woods, tearing it inside and out from one end to the other, they just couldn't find the boy, and their hearts collectively sank.

  But there was one outlier to their community. A single house sat atop a hill deep in those woods. There were no roads going to it, and nobody ever went close, save for the old woman who lived there.

  She rarely was spotted in public, mostly living as a recluse. She never interacted with anyone, and her mysterious nature caused rumors to spread over the years. Most of the kids thought she was an honest to goodness witch; the adults were merely wary of her.

  But now that little David had been missing and became a public concern, eyes and attention quickly turned to the lonely house on the hill and the frail and secretive woman who occupied it.

  Their search parties turned up nothing, and the townsfolk quickly demanded that Robert search the house. He was reluctant at first, wanting to leave things like that well enough alone if he could, but he got a warrant and went up the next night—two nights before Halloween—and served it on her.

  He rapped on the door loudly.

  "Think she'll answer?" Don asked.

  Robert made a sound as if to laughingly dismiss such an absurd idea. He knocked again.

  They could both hear her shuffling inside, and even the woman's footsteps weren't normal; they had a strange, uneven rhythm that seemed more like an animal dragging its claws across the floor.

  "Ma'am, we have a search warrant!" Robert announced. He banged on the door with his fist. When he didn't get an answer, he turned to Don and rolled his eyes, grabbing the doorknob.

  Don tensed up, his hand gliding across his hip to his gun.

  Robert jiggled the handle, but it wouldn't open.

  More shuffling inside.

  The darkness bore down on them from all around. It wasn't raining, but it was ice cold. The chill imparted a strong uneasiness that both of them felt, though Robert did a better j
ob of hiding it. They were apprehensive enough standing before such a strange looking house; it was modest in size, but peculiar in appearance. Everything about its construction just looked off, like someone took the blueprints to a normal home and skewed it every fourth step. The roof was lopsided, some of the shingles drooped over the edge, the framing of the door and windows were slanted.

  "Ma'am, were coming in!" Robert said in a booming voice. He took a step back then kicked in the door. The flimsy wood didn't stand a chance against the force and it slammed into the wall inside, emitting a loud crack throughout the interior.

  Robert stepped in first and then Don. The inside of the house was just as peculiar as the outside, and it seemed to be the abode of a hoarder. Seemingly ancient pieces of furniture peeked out from underneath a mountain of garbage and junk. Strange trinkets littered the tiny room they were in, either hanging off crooked nails in the wall, sitting on crooked shelves, or strewn across the rest of the junk.

  A strong odor overwhelmed them, more pungent than anything they'd ever smelled. It was something akin to rotten onions or cabbage, but there was an exotic accent to it as well.

  A dingy light bulb loosely hanging from the ceiling cast the room in a sickly yellow glow. Robert glanced up at it and saw a moth flutter, gently battering itself against the glass. A cold draft blew through a doorway in front of them, and Don went on ahead, glancing over his shoulder at his chief. He apprehensively took another step for the darkness beyond. His heart rate quickened.

  The bizarre footsteps started up again from the blackness, rushing for him. He took a step back, and his hand tightened around his pistol.

  Wails echoed, loud and unintelligible, and the woman stormed into the room.

  Robert and Don backed up, both of their bodies tensing up, but not acting on their fright.

  The old woman was hunched over terribly at the waist with a large hump for a back. Tattered black rags hung over her deformed body like a dusty, spider-infested tablecloth in a haunted house. An odd black hat hung off the back of her head. Whatever shape it had originally been was indiscernible, because it had apparently been flattened and warped over the years. The only parts of her skin that were visible were her hands and her face. Her skin was old and tanned, filled with bumps and strange abrasions. Stringy white hair came out from under the hat and fell over top of the robes, damply clinging to the sides of her face. Her nose was long and crooked, and her eyes were sunk deep into her skull, yet they were wide and bulging. The whites of them seemed to have turned yellow, and Robert couldn't tell if she had a medical condition, or if it was just the effect of the old light bulb.

  The woman raised her hands in the air, but with her poor posture, they didn't go any higher than her shoulders. She took a few shuffling steps toward Robert, her tiny chin falling open as her toothless mouth hurled a series of objections that were somewhere between incomprehensible mutters and an exotic tongue.

  Robert took another step back, easing his hand off his gun. He held a hand up to her. "Ma'am. Ma'am!" he said forcefully, trying to cut through her cries. "We have a warrant to search your house!" He pulled it out and showed it to her. Her bulging eyes glanced at it for only a moment before she swiped it away and it fell to the floor. Don kept a keen eye on her as Robert calmly picked it up. "Ma'am, a young boy went missing in the woods near your house last night," he explained. "We need to search the premises to make sure he's not here."

  The old woman's nattering didn't skip a beat.

  "Ma'am, have you seen anyone in the woods around your house?" Don tried. But the woman didn't even look at him, much less understand him.

  The two men gave a defeated look to each other, shrugging and pushing forward.

  Robert shouldered his way past the unhelpful woman as he turned on a flashlight and moved deeper into the small home. He relied on Don to watch his back, knowing that the deputy would be overwhelmingly paranoid anyway at the odd situation.

  They swept through the house, finding a set of stairs that went down to an even smaller basement. Everything was grimy and littered, and the basement was no exception. Robert's feet sank down into spongy floorboards when he got to the bottom of the stairs, and he thought how strange it was to have a wooden floor in a basement. The entire house was off in nearly every conceivable way, like the woman had hammered it together herself with mismatched scraps.

  Robert wore gloves as he dug through some of the junk, much to the continued protests of the woman. But after a while she settled down, eventually even falling silent and letting the two police officers carry out their search warrant. But as much as they dug and sifted through dirty piles, they came up with nothing. Furthermore, despite how funny the woman and her house were, neither officer even had the intuition that the boy was here.

  Regretfully, they apologized for disturbing the woman and left the house. When they stepped back out into the dark and cold woods, a voice carried through the trees.

  "Is he there?"

  Robert turned his head and saw Jim Falwell, a regular at the local bar. "What are you doing here, Jim?" Robert asked.

  "Well?" Jim asked, ignoring him. "Is he there?" Tears welled up in his eyes. "What did she do to him?"

  Robert's gaze fell on the hammer Jim clutched in his hand and was subtly hiding behind his leg. His eyes turned up to the man's face, silently telling him what he thought about doing something so stupid.

  Jim's stare fell.

  "Get out of here," Robert warned. "I don't want to see you back up here, you understand?" He rubbed a hand across his mustache and felt the stubble growing in on his chin. He knew he would have to make a statement to the townspeople soon to calm them down. The last thing he wanted was a witch hunt on his hands.

  But a statement late that night did no good. The townspeople were upset and angry. Their search parties turned up nothing, they still had no answers about what happened to little David Basham, and they feared the worst. The rumors circulated more viciously and tempers and paranoia flared, despite Robert's efforts to quell them.

  On Halloween night, a large mob of the townspeople marched up to the old woman's house in the woods, surrounding it and demanding justice. A respectful but now tenuous relationship between the townspeople and their chief of police kept them from outright barging in and killing the woman. Members of the crowd cycled in and out throughout the evening. Gary Dunburger, a retired woodworker, didn't have a torch to bring, so he brought a jack-o'-lantern he'd carved instead. The idea caught on, and soon all who came to the house marched up the wooded hill with their lit pumpkins. They placed them all around the house, a surrounding army of leering and demented orange faces staring at the woman.

  The people sometimes shouted things, sometimes picked up small rocks and chucked them at the dilapidated exterior. Robert sent a few of his men to warn the crowd away, but they wouldn't listen, and he didn't want to strain their relationship to the breaking point.

  Robert sat at his desk in the station just before 9pm. He leaned forward on his elbows and rubbed his fingers into his temples, trying to get the strain out of them.

  His kids were at home while he was stuck at the station. He'd charged his teenage daughter with taking her little brother out to go trick-or-treating, and an errant thought ran through his mind, wondering how he would react if it were his own son that had been taken.

  Just as he shook off the chill that coursed through his body like an icy wave, Don rounded the corner and just about slid into his office.

  "Bob, we found him!" he said.

  Robert lifted his head off his hands. "What?"

  "We found David!" Don said. "He turned up!"

  "Where?"

  "He came back home! He said a coyote attacked him and he ran away into the woods and got lost... almost ended up in the next county over. But he found his way back! Lorraine just called."

  The relief that washed over Robert only lasted for a second before the squawk of the radio sitting on his desk shattered it into pieces.

/>   He picked it up. "Say again?"

  "The mob set the old woman's house on fire!" one of his men shouted over the other end.

  "No..." Robert muttered. His hand felt like ice and it slowly sank onto the desk as the radio tumbled out of it.

  The blaze lit up the dark sky like a giant bonfire. Hot orange flames licked dangerously close to the nearby trees, and if they didn't find a way to put it out, the whole forest might have been at risk.

  But all Robert could do was stand there helplessly and watch as the fire raged, consuming the entire ground floor of the demented house.

  A terrible scream erupted from inside. It intensified both in volume and in anguish. Eventually, the screams were snuffed out as the flames engulfed everything.

  The fire department had been called, but with no roads leading up to the house, there was nothing they could do. They called the state and told them that they'd keep them updated, but they knew by the time they got a chopper over to dump chemicals on the blaze, it would already have burned out.

  Most of the mob that surrounded the house had dispersed, but a small group remained. Robert looked each one of them in the eye, and he could see the fear and regret in each one of them.

  Damn you, he thought. Damn you.

  A spittle of rain fell on them, and before long, the clouds bunched up and dumped a strong rainfall on the area. The fire still raged for many hours into the night, and it wasn't until a couple hours before dawn that the last embers were extinguished.

  The firefighters came up the hill on foot, as did the paramedics. As the firefighters came out of the blackened shell of the house, they yelled to the medics that there was a body inside. They went in with a narrow backboard and emerged a few minutes later with the charred body of the old woman strapped to it. She was so short and uneven that she only took up half of it, tipped over to one side. Her charred face pointed at Robert as the medics walked by with her. Then she unexpectedly writhed and moaned, causing one of the paramedics to falter and have to get his footing. They stopped in front of Robert and he stared down at the woman with wide, terrified eyes.