“Run, Ambrose!”
His mom’s hand was a vise around his wrist as she dragged him along.
The water of the shallow stream behind the family home was cool and quick around their ankles.
His head felt wrong.
The sounds of her voice and the snarls behind them were muffled as if he had cotton in his ears. Shadows pushed in from the corners of his vision despite the sun’s golden rays shining down on them through the mid-morning remnants of the mountain rainforest mist.
He didn’t notice until after they had crossed the stream and reached the tree line.
It was all wrong.
He had been a boy when it had happened.
When the two of them had fled from the dying in their home.
They were rich.
A family entrenched in the political machinery in the northern province.
That meant a lot of land, a huge house and a bunch of armed bodyguards.
“It happened at night,” he murmured.
“Hush, mahal,” his mother hissed, “those… those… things will hear us.”
“They will, but it won’t matter.”
He remembered.
Most of the gremlins were back in the house, killing everyone else he knew. His dad, brothers and sisters, the maids, bodyguards, everyone and—
“You too, Mommy.” He choked the words out. “It didn’t happen like this.
“What are you talking about, Ambrose? Hush, now, mahal. Mommy won’t let them hurt you.”
He hugged her then. Around the waist. A small boy once again and not a grown man that towered over her petite form.
Ambrose.
He had always hated that name.
It was weird.
All his classmates had always made fun of it.
What had his mom said about why she gave him that name?
Oh, right.
As the youngest his dad hadn’t cared, so his mom had free rein.
Thus, she named him after some old American writer or poet or something.
Hating it, he had never cared to pay attention or look into it.
Some old guy in ancient times that disappeared in Mexico or something.
There was some kind of revolution.
His mom loved stories of revolution.
She had always told him and his siblings about José Rizal, the Katipunan and the Philippine struggle for freedom from Spain.
And now?
Now he wished that he had listened more, that he could sit in her lap in their fancy library and its musty books.
“Mommy—”
She vanished.
A man’s arms, lean and muscled closed around nothing.
The gremlin leapt snarling out of the undergrowth.
He cleaved its head from its neck with his Igorot axe.
A rough hand clamped down on his head.
Claws spilled red over his vision.
“Ah— fuck this!”
An alpha gremlin hoisted him up and before he could do anything it whipped him deeper into the forest.
The crack of his body on a tree was oddly painless.
Actually, he couldn’t feel a single thing.
All he could do was blink the blood away as the gold-eyed alpha gremlin stalked closer to finish the job.
“Chipmunk! Chipmunk!”
Hands shook him by the shoulders.
Small and soft ones.
Familiar.
Pleasant.
He hugged his much younger wife, keeping his eyes closed just in case he was still in the nightmare.
Her warm breath in his ear felt real, so he dared look.
“Yeah, I’m awake.”
He didn’t get crusty eyes in his dreams and the morning taste in his mouth.
She kissed him and tried to slip in some tongue, but he kept his lips sealed.
Despite what she had always said, he wasn’t comfortable inflicting her with his morning breath.
He gently pushed her off and went to brush his teeth.
Which, he had always thought was a waste since he was going to have to brush them again after breakfast.
Naturally, that had changed with cohabitation.
Couldn’t get a proper kiss otherwise.
“Eww,” Mari gagged from the doorway. “What happened to the rule?”
“Rule?” he regarded their daughter.
“Close the doors if you guys are going to be gross!”
“Don’t take that tone with your parents, Maribela.” His wife wagged her finger, although the sparkle in her blue eyes betrayed her true thoughts.
“Sorry, honey, I forgot. My bad. I’ll try to do better next time,” he said solemnly.
“Ugh… whatever. I set the table.” Mari stomped away.
He narrowed his eyes.
“It’s like she flipped a switch overnight.”
“She’s not a tween anymore.” His wife gave him a quick peck on his cheek, which drove the nightmare further into the recesses of his mind. “She’s officially a teenager. She is now too cool for everything and anything we do and might do.”
“She just turned 13 last month… I’m old.”
“50’s, but you look 30,” his wife grinned, “so, I have no complaints.”
“Speaking of…”
“Of?”
“I have concerns about our costume plans for tonight.”
“Those shorts aren’t any shorter than the ones you wear for the pool. They’ll show off your legs.”
He did have well-defined quads, even his hamstrings were good.
One didn’t skip leg day when one needed to actually do athletic things, like run, jump and fight monsters.
“It was more the mesh shirt that I’m worried about.”
Sexy priest.
His wife’s idea.
To poke the bear that were her very Catholic parents.
The mesh wasn’t part of the original plan.
It had been part of his Village People costume from a long time ago that he had done as a group with Aims, Hardhat and a few others. For morale purposes, of course.
“I’m thinking the sleeveless priest shirt-vest thing is probably good enough.”
“Nope. If my mother is going to be this way then I’m rubbing it in.”
Her parents had never liked him.
Mainly because of the age difference.
Being non-religious despite growing up Catholic hadn’t helped.
And using the decapitated heads of monsters for his class was another black mark.
Outright hostility in the early years had given way to passive aggressiveness from his mother in-law after Mari had been born.
“At least your dad’s trying.”
“Inviting you to golf and tennis is fine and nice, but he needs to call my mother out on her bullshit instead of just staying quiet.”
Ambrose didn’t hold it against his father in-law.
Doing that was just asking for the man’s home peace to go away.
Wars shouldn’t be fought within the family.
“You’re wearing the mesh. Sexy nun,” his wife pointed at her ample chest, “sexy priest,” she poked his hard stomach.
“Okay, okay, fine… but is it really the best idea to dress Calrai up as a devil?”
His wife did a little dance that made his stomach flutter.
“He’s going to be sooo cute!”
Oh well.
Their son was almost 4.
He wouldn’t care.
The only thing the boy would have eyes on were the candy and his grandmother’s baking.
That was the reason that he tolerated the poor treatment he got.
His mother in-law loved her grand kids unconditionally.
He had called in a favor to Cal to be certain of that fact.
----------------------------------------
“The first,” the witch of portents intoned.
An elbow nudged him in the ribs.
“Ambrose.”
He stared into her glowing eyes, so like the predators he headhunted.
“But, I got a 2.”
“And, yet, you are the first.” She gestured toward the hallway.
Intellectually, he knew that it was a regular house hallway. Short and slightly narrow based on the small, starter home layout.
It lead to 2, maybe 3 bedrooms and a bathroom.
However, it looked and felt like a void or an abyss. Much like several he had the misfortune of leaping, walking or running into during his long career as a ranger and doing Quests for Cal.
He glanced at Hardhat.
“I don’t know. It’s just weird that I drew the 2, but I’m going number 1.”
“Oh no! Don’t drag me into this,” Hardhat said. “2 seems fitting since your face looks like you’re about to go 2 in your sexy short shorts.”
“They aren’t that short. My swimming shorts are shorter.”
“Yeah, we can tell by the lack of tan lines,” Aims said.
“Quit stalling, pussy, I can almost see your vag hanging out,” Mouthy said.
“I’m reporting you for sensitivity training.” He pushed off the table and stood. The chair clattered back, crashing to the floor. He regarded the witch’s eyes as they glowed, unblinking into his. Almost seemed like the color gold. “That was entirely accidental. I’m rattled. Bad dreams. My apology.”
“Honestly given, graciously accepted.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
She didn’t even blink.
“Good luck, Creepy!” Spiritwalker slapped him on his firm, short shorts-clad behind. “Don’t trade your soul or your next born for anything.”
“I’m reporting you for sexual harassment training.”
He took a breath and strode into the abyss just like he had always done.
Swirling night surrounded him.
Girlish giggles tugged his wrists and prodded his back.
He opened a door.
Or it was already open and he simple stepped through.
“Hi!”
The witch seated at the small, round table was a girl.
Dark robes.
Dark, pointed hat that cast a deep shadow over her face like her teacher outside.
The vibes were definitely less creepy and intimidating.
That wasn’t to say the room was normal.
Nope.
Not normal at all.
The swampy jungle wasn’t just decor.
He could almost feel the ripples a water snake made as it slithered through the ankle deep water.
And the smells…
Reminded him of his family’s expansive land back in the Philippines.
Not at all unpleasant.
Nostalgic really.
Ah, nature!
It might be time to schedule a trip back to the homeland.
His youngest had never been.
Maybe in a few more years when his son would be old enough to actually remember the vacation.
“Hi… do I just stand here? Or in front of the table?”
“You can sit in any chair.”
The little witch’s chirpy voice didn’t fit the shadow beneath her hat from which he could only see a predator’s shining eyes and a wide smile that was way too white.
The witches must’ve had excellent dental service in their slice of the Fae realm.
“I don’t see any ch— oh, there it is.”
Several faded into existence as he stepped closer.
He was tempted to pull some perception enhancing abilities from one of the many shrunken monster heads in his bag of holding just so that he could get off the back foot he’d been on since the moment he stepped into the house.
“Don’t mind if I do.” He picked a random chair hoping it didn’t cement the impending doom that he was apparently under. “Hey, so are you and your teacher communicating? Wearing a wire and an earpiece? Or something appropriately witchy, like, a bat’s ear and a canary’s beak?”
“No. I can’t get any help or I’ll fail my Quest and, more importantly, not learn anything.”
“At least you aren’t rhyming everything. I did a Quest once with a rhyming witch. That was stressful, not the monsters we had to kill, but trying to rhyme everything back.”
“I know. It’s so hard to talk in rhymes and stuff.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Why’d you even try?”
“Tried to be courteous.”
“And?”
“I was jealous. I wanted to be a rapper when I was a kid,” he muttered.
“One is never too old or young to take on challenges! So says a witch!”
“So, what’s your challenge for this whole thing?” He waved vaguely at the misty swamp. “Really well done by the way. I can hear all kinds of animals and I can’t tell that they aren’t really here. In fact, I hear two distinct species of frog.”
“Thank you! My teacher helped, but it’s mostly me!” the little witch reached over to stir the small cauldron on the table that he had just noticed.
“Er… I’m not going to have to drink that, am I?”
He couldn’t see beneath the dark bubbling liquid, but experience taught him that witch cauldrons were kept separate from cooking pots for a reason.
Granted the contents of both ended up in a person’s stomach.
It was just that when it came to the former, one didn’t eat or drink from unless they didn’t have any other choice.
Which, he realized to his dismay, perfectly described his current situation.
“Aww, shit.”
“Oh, I didn’t put any in this, yet. The guts have to be clean or the future telling gets muddy.” She giggled.
“Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha…”
“But first, are you reading to gaze through the mists of today to see into the unknown tomorrow?” she intoned.
“I guess I don’t have a choice.”
“Oh, no. You can leave at any time. It’s just that it could lead to dire fortunes. Not just for you, but for a lot of people.”
He heard what sounded like her swallowing a lump in her throat.
“That’s what my teacher said. She’s been shielding us from her portents, mostly. This will be first time that I’m getting sorta a full view, but not really, cause it’s always sorta unclear and hazy.”
“Right, I know a little something of the oracular arts. A lot of subjective symbolism and interpretation. Would be too nice and easy to just get shown what to do and what not to do to avoid a sudden, inevitable doom.” He sighed.
That trip to the Philippines got bumped up his list.
“Your teacher did the tarot thing? What are you going to do? Am I going to see my future in there?” He nodded toward the cauldron. “The future gazed through the swirling stew technique?”
The little witch giggled.
“Not exactly. The ritual I’m going to do is called haruspicy.”
“Spicy— Japanese?”
He was almost certain that he had gotten that wrong.
Sure enough the little witch pulled out a chicken from… somewhere.
The thing clucked placidly as she placed it on the table and stroked its feathered head.
“Oh, I see.”
“Please look away if you’re squeamish.” She pulled a butcher’s cleaver from… somewhere.
“I’m more sketched out by that,” he gestured at the cauldron. “Not looking forward to drinking. At all.”
“You are a true taker of heads!”
It was as if she hadn’t heard his thinly-veiled objection to the bubbling stew-thing.
Instead, she grinned her pearly whites wider than it seemed possible for her child face.
Granted he couldn’t see anything beyond eyes and teeth beneath that abyssal shadow cast by her pointy hat.
“I hope you don’t find fault with my technique. I’ve been practicing!”
Thus, she parted the chicken’s head from its neck with a swift thwack!
“No, no. Not at all. That was well done,” he smiled encouragingly. “That chicken didn’t suffer at all.”
Its body flapped a bit and its feet kicked, but she had firmly pinned it against the table.
She flipped the head onto her cleaver and into the cauldron.
He could only slump his shoulders at that.
“I will begin the ritual.”
She switched the cleaver for a smaller knife.
Swift and sure cuts opened the chicken up.
She pulled, poked and prodded until its insides were on the outside.
Guts and organs.
He saw the liver, which she seemed to pay special attention to as she placed it in the center of the gross arrangement.
“Don’t worry, I’m not grossed out at all. I shrink monster heads. It smells as bad as you’d think it should.”
The little witch ignored him.
She was now muttering under her breath and swaying like a cobra under the influence of a snake charmer’s flute movements.
Her gore-covered fingers twitched, dancing independently of each other.
“Where there’s a whip— the crack will show the way—”
The girl witch sounded more like her true age than she had the entire time. Except, her voice had gone flat, monotone, like software from ancient pre-spires days trying and failing to mimic an actual person.
So, he supposed that he was wrong.
Less little girl and more little witch hidden in her midnight robes and creepy hat shadow.
Only her fingers and hands moved as she arranged the grisly mess on the table into a picture.
Picking, pulling and twisting, she quickly built what appeared to him to be a scene. And oh so helpfully oriented for his perspective rather than hers.
Entrails and organs, some he could identify took shape into figures and shapes.
Frankly, he couldn’t make out more than what he had already.
A question was on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it.
These things didn’t tend to like interruptions.
“Down the obsidian depths— gold shines—”
She started ripping bits out of the chicken’s liver to turn into stick figures.
“Six descend for— no— eight— ten—”
She hastily added 4 liver stick figures to the original 6.”
“One above—”
She shaped the last figure noticeably larger than the previous.
“None— no— one— two—”
He almost saw the ghastly picture move.
A bit of twisted entrail as a whip in the largest’s hand lashing out to ensnare one of the smaller one’s around the neck.
The fireflies in the swamp suddenly flashed brighter, bathing the entire thing in gold for a split-second.
“No paths— one path, one destination—”
Silence reined for what felt like a long time.
The real and imagined swamp left him to the hammer in his chest.
He didn’t realize it but the little witch’s shining eyes had fixed into his, like two needles stabbing straight into his soul. Or perhaps, in this case, his fate.
“Yeah, listen, I’m guessing you don’t even remember… all that.” He pointed at the disemboweled chicken. “But— and don’t take offense— it was all very unclear.”
“Oh?”
She shrugged after a moment.
“The task is done. What is to come… is to come.”
She pulled out a wand, waved it over the chicken and plucked the feathers with a spell.
Another series of swishes and waves floated the entire thing into the bubbling pot.
Naturally, the innards followed suit.
He didn’t know if his heart could sink any lower.
At least, she used a spell to squeeze the shit out of the chicken’s guts first.
“Do I really have to eat all of that?”
“Just a bowl. It’s tasty! I promise!” The little witch smiled. “Also, if you don’t then the consequences could be dire. Er… more dire than the reading we just did.”
“Yeah, if you had heard what you just foretold.” He snorted. “I’ll take my chances.” He stood to leave.
She cleared her throat.
“Ah! But you can’t leave. That would be a violation of the rite. You have to partake of hospitality freely given and in return you have to provide something as a guest.”
That didn’t sound so freely given to him, but whatever.
“Okay. How many universal points?”
“Payment may be other things.”
“Sure. What do you want?”
“In honor of the special day I wish you tell me a scary story. Not just any, but one that you personally experienced.”
He nodded and resigned himself back into the chair.
“So you can gather more power for your craft.”
She grinned.
“You know some of our ways!”
“Give me a few minutes. I have to think about this.”
He got a shit fortune and he was going to have to eat worse chicken stew. He’d almost rather be at his in-laws being judged for his sexy priest costume.
Perhaps, karma was at play for his blasphemy.
“Take your time. This needs to cook properly.” The little witch stirred the cauldron with waves of her wand.
Dark steam rose.
To his eyes they resembled screaming souls being vacuumed up into a fate worse than oblivion.
“Otherwise you’ll have tummy problems later… and also for the next week.”
----------------------------------------
“You want a scary story? Yeah, I can tell you a lot. More than I can count and even more that I can’t remember right now. Sure, I got to therapy to help deal with everything I’ve seen and done since the monsters murdered everyone I cared about when I was a kid. Fu— fudge, I was probably around your age. Maybe younger. I can’t really tell with the shadow hat thing you’ve got going on.” Ambrose cracked his neck.
It felt like he was stepping into a fight.
“But, I’m thinking scary isn’t really what you’re looking to harvest. Not really. Terror, maybe? Or something more like trauma? The kind that never truly leaves you. How close am I?”
The little witch didn’t move, didn’t blink those predator eyes shining from beneath her shadowy void.
“Okay. If it’s what you want then I’ll give it you. I just better not get any angry messages from Wytchraven.”
The sudden lump in his throat forced him to swallow.
His mouth had gone dry.
What he was about to tell her wasn’t something he had told anyone else before.
Not any number of therapists or friends. Not even his wife.
At least not in its full, unedited version.
Shit was fucked.
…
Ambrose ran, desperately trying to keep from tripping over roots and slipping on the wet foliage as his mother’s death grip threatened to pull his skinny arm from its socket.
He heard them before he smelled them.
It was like when his father’s workers slaughtered one of the many animals they had on the farm. Cows, pigs and chickens mostly.
Blood had a certain smell.
Sickening really.
This?
This was worse.
At least the rest was a natural part of existence.
Humans ate animals to survive.
Normal.
Humans weren’t supposed to be food.
Least of all for monsters that he had been assured many times didn’t exist.
The small gremlin that had appeared as if from the shadows in his bedroom would’ve torn him to pieces if not for Bala.
The loyal mongrel tended to sleep next to Ambrose’s bed, which meant that the gremlin never got to him.
Bala had intercepted the monster and the two tore into each other until neither lived.
The rest was a blur of screams, gunshots and his mother, white night gown turned pink and red, half dragging, half carrying him out of their house, past the stream and into the rainforest.
He couldn’t remember how far they had made it before the monsters caught up to them.
Didn’t want to remember.
They slipped and stumbled through the dark.
Snarls and snapping teeth on their heels.
“I have to hide you,” his mother muttered more to herself than him.
He let out a cry as something banged into his bare shin.
Skin ripped, left behind as the death grip on his wrist didn’t relent.
He scrambled over an old tree’s roots, leaving bits of himself in the rough wood.
The snarls drew closer.
He kept his eyes on his mother.
Her white gown was the only thing visible in the blackness.
“This— this will—”
His mother shoved him into a cramped hollow near the base of the tree.
Deeper and deeper she pushed him into the twisted roots.
Almost like a cage.
“I love you, my baby Ambrose.” His mother kissed him hard on the head before shoving him that last bit. “Now, close your eyes and put your fingers in your ears. Stay there. Someone will come get you in the morning. Someone has—”
He didn’t listen to his mother’s last words.
So he saw her jam herself painfully into the roots above him.
He heard the tearing of her flesh in the teeth and claws of the monster.
Watched her big eyes widen, her mouth shut, teeth and jaw clenching.
He watched her until the light vanished and she left him truly alone.
…
“No one came.” His voice sounded like a stranger’s. “Not that night. Not in the morning. The gremlins…” he let out a bitter laugh. “So easy to kill once you have a few levels in you— they couldn’t get through the roots. Couldn’t get into my hiding place.” He traced the scar on his forehead. “Best they could do was reach in a bit. My mom’s body got in their way. They tore her apart eventually. Her head fell into my lap a bit before sunrise. They were gone by then. The rest… I’m done telling you. Is that enough?” He spat venom like a cobra.
“Yes. I’m really sorry the monster did that to your mom and family.”
To her credit he believed the little witch.
“Fine, whatever. Is that shit ready?” He gestured toward the cauldron. “I want this done yesterday.”