Maleficarum: Hunger of the Witch (10 page)

Despite their wounds
, the dwindling group relocked the door in the storeroom and piled so much in front of it, there was no way anything short of a bulldozer could get in.

Then the survivors patched themselves up as best as they could. Nick sat on top of an overturned bookshelf
, looking at his arm. It had begun to swell and looked as if it would continue to grow until it burst at the seams. He had pulled a bag of ice out of the mini fridge and had it pressed on his wrist. The cold clashed with the heat of the air, and his body didn’t know what to make of the situation. Chills clawed up his spine as sweat poured from his brow. Electric shots of pain pulsed through his arm at uneven intervals, each time contracting his muscles, like a python trying to crush its prey. Not only had his wrist been shattered, but his ring finger was now rotting in the dead witch’s stomach. He had smothered it in the same concoction that he had used on Beverly. He began to wonder if it had a meaning when he lifted his eyes to see Ann resting her head on Beverly's lap while Beverly clenched Ann's hand in a death grip.

Mike hunched at
Ann's feet. “This is going to hurt,” he said as he gently placed his hand on her injured foot.

Ann gritted her teeth as Mike began to undo the laces on her shoe. Mike lifted her foot
, carefully pulling the shoe off, and as he did, Ann’s face twisted in pain, but she never made a sound. The blood-soaked sock was gently pulled back, revealing the ragged hole. It belched blood from both sides as Mike examined it.

“Well, i
t got bone. It’s going to have to be cleaned better than we can do it here, or it will get infected, but you’ll be fine for now,” he commented, peering into the hole and out the other side. “Do we have any alcohol or anything?”

“No,
” Nick answered, lightly touching his broken nose. He could hardly draw a breath without sucking down a mouthful of blood.

“Lean forward and pinch your nose. Also
, don’t blow any of it out. Your face will swell up,” Mike advised. “Try not to swallow any of that blood, either. It’ll make you sick.”

Nick labored to breath
e as the taste of salt and aluminum dripped down the back of his throat. “Mouthwash…It’s alcohol-based, and I have some in my day bag,” Nick added as he leaned forward, pinching his nostrils.

“That should work,
” Mike said, setting down Ann’s foot as if it was an explosive that would go off if it was knocked too hard. Mike shot up and looked at Nick.

“Stock
room,” Nick offered. Mike walked into the stock room, clutching his injured hand. When the door finally shut, Ann looked up at Beverly.

“So, did you two bang in the bathroom?”
Ann asked.

“What?”
Beverly blurted out.

“Whe
n you went into the bathroom together.”

“No
. Besides, we were only in there for like a minute.”

“So
?”

“No, nothing happened
,” Nick insisted.

“What’s it to you if we did?”
Beverly said.

“I don’t know
; nothing, I suppose. Y'all just seemed strange when you came out.”

“Whatever
. If you weren’t shot, I’d hit you,” Beverly said.

Ann forced a smile onto her face, but pain and terror ate at it like maggots on a corps
e. Her normally bright eyes seemed dim and hopeless. “We’re going to die, aren’t we? We just can’t fight them all.”

“No
, we can’t,” Nick said as he clenched the hilt of his sword. “We could pull a Samson and just bring the house down on them when they come in.”

“
No, I’m going out like a Viking,” Ann said.

Beverly
petted Ann’s head. “How’s that?”

“
’Cause I’m not going to stop hacking until my arms are ripped off, and if they bite me, I’ll force more of myself down their throats until they choke to death. No suicide. We’re already dead, and we’re going to have to fight like it,” Ann said, groaning as she sat up. Mike came back into the room with the mouthwash tucked under his arm.

“No need for that
. It won’t do me any good,” Ann said as she grabbed her shoe and forced her swollen foot back in.

Ann
duct-taped the hell out of her foot, trying to make a cast as best as she could. The boys did the same to their hands. They were all hurt. They had all been brutalized, and now fear was tearing apart their hearts like it never had before. If that was only one witch, then there was no way they could fight all the rest.

The point was driven home when they all move
d Kim’s body to the cleaning room. Ann was the only one who seemed to have any determination left in her. She had gone the way of the samurai, and all that was left was a good death.

Ann glared at Hegel’s mangled body, and a smile crept over her lips.
“I’m happy, and no matter what happens after this, I’ll still be that way 'cause I got you,” she said, peering down at the lifeless corpse.

*
* *

In the darkness of the room
, Nick could feel the diabolical form of the Eater of Wings. It was the same feeling that he had felt when the demon had fixed his gaze on him, and since there was nothing in the world that had ever made him feel as weak or as small, he knew the monster was still watching.

Cloaked in darkness
, the demon just stood. Nick grabbed the terrible book that the owner of the store had bought. He flipped through it, leaving pink smears of blood on the old brown pages, and when he had found the illustrations of the Eater of Wings, he stopped. He scrolled down the page until he came to the line:

He loves to punish sin more than he loves God, and he himself is neither just nor equitable. Cast from heaven and rejected by
G
od and his fellow angels, even the other demons curse him.

“You’re still here, aren’t you?” Nick whispered.

“Yes,
” a voice said. The timbre of the voice sounded like a thousand knives being sharpened at once, but no else in the room seemed to be able to hear it. They all still worked, diligently reinforcing their makeshift fortress.

“Why?”

“I saw you steal the money, and now you must be punished. It is the right thing to do,” the voice said.

“What about all the witches
?”

“I have decided that many sinners shall pass at my coming tonight.”

“Are you going to kill all of us?”

“All shall feel my wrath.”

Nick’s heart sank as the demon spoke its hateful words. “Why?”

“Because it is just and good, and you know nothing of either.”

“I know that it’s wrong to punish someone when the person lived well for most of his or her life,” Nick said.

“If a man lives well for his whole life and then commits murder
, the way he lived before has no bearing on his guilt or the punishment to be meted out. He is guilty and should be punished. Even your earthly laws see the truth in this,” the demon spoke.

“I took twenty buck
s from a cash register. Don’t you think death is a bit much?”

“No, a
ll that is wrong with the world comes from the same place. You overestimate your own value. In stealing, you said your right to pleasure was more important than that of the man who gave you a job, and so you took what was his. It is the same sin as murder. A murderer steals another life because he believes that personal happiness is more important than the life of another. All sins are the same. All are overestimating your own value, so they all deserve the same punishment.”

“You’re dispensing justice without me
rcy, demon. That’s unjust in and of itself,” Nick said.

“I am an angel,
” the demon replied.

“You
were
an angel,” Nick said, running his fingers down the brittle pages of the book. “This night is all your doing, isn’t it? Every bit of it?”

“No
, the witches would have come without me and so would have the other demons. I’m just making sure that all get what is theirs.”

“What about the other demons
? Will they not lift a finger to try to stop you from slaughtering their followers?”

“They know my power, so not a word will escape their lips.”

“Stop this,” Nick begged.

“They’re
coming,” the demon said.

The store
began to quake as hundreds of naked witches’ bodies crashed into it. Ann grabbed the hilt of her sword and hopped on one leg to one of the windows. Dozens of hands burst through their makeshift barricades.

“God help us,
” she screamed as she lopped off one arm after the other.

Mike grabbed Hegel’s pitc
hfork and began plunging it into any body part of a witch he could find. The roof shook with the sound of fiends trying to claw their way in. Beverly swung and slashed like a knight as she removed appendages from the bodies of the damned. Blood spewed in from every hole in the vanishing structure. A bookcase was thrust into the air by the witches’ unholy powers, and it crashed not a foot from Beverly as she wildly swung her sword.

Spears and blades of all kind
s were being pushed through the wall, and even a shot or two from a gun ripped through the store. Witches never play fair. The building offered no more protection than happy thoughts, and its walls might as well have been made of wrapping paper.

The trapped were keeping the ones at the windows at bay as best they could, but the roof and walls were another matter. Bits of
Sheetrock and insulation began to fall from the ceiling. It would not be long until the witches had dug a hole large enough to fit through.

Nick could see
Beverly doubled over in pain as she crashed to her knees. At first it was vomit that spewed from her mouth, but it was quickly replaced by blood and the wiggling chunks of something. The retching was so violent it shocked her body, not even letting tears form in her eyes. Fat yellow worms began to slide out of her mouth. She momentarily sat up, looking stunned at the feeling and the sight. Nick could see Ann rush in from the side. She snatched Beverly away from the ungodly wiggling mess, and with all her might, she threw her shoulder into one of the bookshelves, felling it like a massive cedar onto the worms. The dark powers were beginning to fill the room, and there was nothing they could do about it.

Nick still stood in the center of t
he room, his eyes locked on the Eater of Wings who had materialized. He stood with outstretched wings that brushed the top of the high ceiling as he silently stared death into Nick’s eyes.

“Help us
,” Nick pleaded.

“I should eat your eyes for all of your transgressions.”

A beastly, hair-covered forearm burst through the roof, taking with it massive chunks of wood. Soon the witches would have dinner as well as their revenge for their wounded pride. Another bookshelf was flung into the air, crashing into the ceiling like a battering ram, and the force of the blow tore a massive hole in the already weakened wood. The children of the night poured through the hole. As witches rushed in, Mike turned, and seeing the breech, stabbed at them. Three of them fell, but so many had burst in that the tide was unstoppable.

“What if we make a deal,
” Nick tried to scream to the demon over the riotous sound of the attacking witches.

“I do n
ot collect souls. I destroy them,” his monstrous voice boomed.

“I would
never give my soul, but I would give my life,” Nick said, staring at the creature.

A beastly witch rushed Ann
, grabbing her by what little hair she had left, and the witch slashed at Ann with her powerful claws. The strike ran down her back, slicing like a razor till it hit her belt. Ann swung around, lodging her blade into the shoulder of the raging witch. She barely flinched as she slammed Ann to the ground, knocking the breath from her lungs.

Mike charged in
to the room, swinging and stabbing with the pitchfork at everything that moved. Beverly backed into a corner so she could not be attacked from at least one angle. There she swung at the naked witches, killing many.

“What do you mean?”
the demon said.

“I will never sin
as long as I live, but you have to save my friends and me,” Nick screeched as the witches closed in on him.

“Never again?”

“Never,” screamed Nick.

“Do you know what it is you
’re asking, boy?” the demon growled. Nick looked over to see Beverly struggling to stand. Every muscle in her body strained with each swing of her sword, and each was so lumbering that it could be her last. The witches had surrounded her. It was only a matter of time before she fell.

“Yes,” s
aid Nick.