Under the hum of the mall lights, the bones shone with an empty whiteness.
The skeleton had been consumed by the earth, the thick roots of the tree had grown through the bones and curled around them like snakes, fusing the corpse with the tree in an eternal embrace.
Some bones, fractured by the pressure of the roots, poked out from the black earth like broken teeth.
"It is her!" The voice of the girl in the lead, Deena, cracked from the adrenaline, "It is Sarah Fier!"
With quick hands stained with mud, she took out a bundle wrapped in an old shirt from her backpack. She placed it on the floor with a reverence. She unfolded the cloth layer by layer, revealing the object for which they had risked everything that night.
It was more bone.
Specifically, the fossilized remains of a human hand, with a grayish surface eaten away by centuries of waiting.
"We just have to give it back to her," she said looking at her friends with an intensity, "If we reunite the hand with the body... the curse ends. All of this ends tonight."
Sam, the blonde girl, and Josh, the boy, nodded seriously.
It was for this that they had broken into the mall, clinging to the only legend that offered a way out for the cursed town of Shadyside.
The story that had tormented their town for generations: Sarah Fier, the witch executed in 1666. The legend said that, before dying, she had cut off her hand in a blood pact with the devil, cursing the land forever.
Her executioners had buried the body in one place and the hand in another, ensuring that she would never find peace.
As long as the body was incomplete, the witch would continue claiming blood, possessing the inhabitants of Shadyside and turning them into unstoppable murderers generation after generation.
But if they managed to unite the bone with the skeleton, if they managed to close the circle... Sarah Fier's wrath would be appeased.
And with her, the subjects surrounding them, would fall like puppets whose strings have been cut.
Deena held the bone with both hands, which would not stop shaking, and with utmost delicacy descended toward the mass of roots and broken ribs to look for the exact gap where the wrist should have been.
There she fitted the grayish bone into the black earth finally reuniting it with the rest of the skeleton after three hundred years of separation, and fixing her gaze on the empty sockets of the skull whispered with desperation:
"Take it, Sarah. We have returned what is yours. Now... please, end this, leave us in peace. Leave Shadyside in peace."
She let go of the bone.
The group held their breath, waiting for something.
A thunder, an earthquake, a scream... any divine sign.
But nothing happened.
The hand bone simply rested inert. The electric hum of the mall lamps kept sounding, monotonous and indifferent.
The silence stretched, becoming heavy.
"Is it over?" asked Josh with a thread of a voice that seemed to be lost in the immensity of the place, charged with a terrifying uncertainty.
Sam ran her hand over her face to wipe off the sweat and raised her gaze toward the perimeter of the tree.
"It has to be..." she murmured with her gaze frantically seeking confirmation. "Look at them. They are not moving."
She was right.
The circle of murderers was still there... everyone remained static.
The tension that kept the kids standing broke suddenly, giving way to an intense wave of relief.
"We did it!" Josh lunged at Sam in a desperate hug, looking for human contact to confirm they were still alive, "Fuck, we really did it!"
Deena let herself fall sitting down, exhaling all the air she had been holding in her lungs and a weak smile was drawn on her face.
"It is over..." she whispered to herself, closing her eyes for a second, "It is finally over."
…
On the second-floor railing, Jennifer's shoulders relaxed observing the stillness below.
"It seems they made it..."
"You think?" said Lief without looking away from the subjects who were standing in silence, "Nothing ends that easy."
He was right.
Below, the kids' euphoria broke before they could even savor it.
Crack
A sharp sound resonated in the silence. It sounded like wood splitting... or like a vertebra breaking.
Josh's smile froze. Deena and Sam stood petrified, turning their heads slowly toward the source of the noise.
Skull Mask, who had been motionless like a statue, raised his head.
His empty and black sockets fixed directly on Deena.
It was the trigger.
Ruby Lane widened her smile while sliding the edge of the straight razor against her own cheek with a sickly caress.
The Milkman adjusted his cap, Billy Barker swung the bat resting it on his shoulder, and The Camp Nightwing Killer focused his gaze toward the hole, fixing on the skeleton and the hand they had just joined.
Letting out a growl that seemed to rise from his stomach, he tensed the muscles of his back and lifted the fire axe from the ground, a glint of the blade that captured the absolute panic in Deena's eyes.
"No...!" Deena's scream was a shriek of pure incredulity that tore the air. "No! Why? We returned her hand! It should have ended!"
They had been wrong. They had been catastrophically wrong!
Uniting the body had not broken the curse.
It had not pacified the witch.
The only thing they had achieved upon completing the ritual was not putting out the fire, but... pouring gasoline on it!
"Run!"
Josh's scream resonated while he pulled Sam's arm with desperation. They tried to back away, look for a gap in the darkness, but the circle had already closed.
There was no exit.
All the killers kept getting closer little by little.
The feeling of death suffocated them.
"It seems that everything has just begun..." Lief observed with interest.
Jennifer's expression had become severe. The malice that emanated from those subjects was now more potent than before.
"Do we intervene?"
Lief, however, shook his head.
"Wait a little more. The puppeteer is about to come out."
As soon as he finished speaking.
The cracking of a branch broke the silence.
Behind the trunk of the great tree, a shadow separated from the darkness.
It was the Sheriff.
He did not have his gun drawn, but his posture was relaxed, with hands in pockets, observing the scene with an unnatural calm.
"Sheriff Goode..." blurted out Sam, relieved. "Thank God... you have to help us."
But Nick did not look at Sam. His eyes were fixed on Deena and on the skeletal hand that lay on the earth.
"It is over, Deena," said Nick. His voice had no urgency, nor fear. He sounded bored. "Leave the bone. You have already caused enough trouble for one night."
The killers, who moments before were moving toward them, stopped dead, like obedient dogs.
!
Deena stepped back, feeling a chill in her stomach. The legend said that the monsters chased blood... but they were not attacking Nick.
They were with him.
"They aren't attacking us..." whispered Josh, with a trembling voice. "Why aren't they attacking him?"
Nick sighed, like a teacher disappointed with slow students. He crouched down, ignoring the dirt, and picked up the bone of Sarah Fier's hand before Deena could react.
"Because it was never about the witch, was it?" He looked at the bone with contempt and then looked up at Deena. His mask of the friendly cop melted away, revealing an absolute coldness. "History is written by the winners, Deena. And my family has been winning for three hundred years."
He clenched the bone in his fist.
"Sarah Fier didn't make any deal," he confessed with a half smile, cruel and devoid of emotion. "We did."
________
Time: If you're craving more (and I know you are!), I have just what you need. On my Patreon, you'll find exclusive chapters. Join our community and be the first to discover what happens next!
👉 [patreon.com/Athome790]
Your support fuels me. Thank you for the support! 💖