by Yarnspinner


The Conclusion

The match flared up, giving the dingy shanty an instant of brilliance. The flame's initial brightness died down as the sliver of wood caught fire and Rene held it toward the raised wick of the lamp with a shaking hand. He was still in shock over what he had done to Frank. The horrid vision of Frank sinking beneath the quicksand kept reappearing whenever he closed his eyes—the flailing arms, the severed hand, and the sobbing screams of the young man that had been his friend. The match had burned down to his fingers without igniting the oil-soaked wick. Rene dropped the guttering match to the table and the darkness closed in.

Rene? Why, Rene? Why'd ya do it, Rene? The voice sounded from inside his mind and had the plaintive ring of a lost child.

"Non! Arrêter! Eet was not me!!!"

But it WAS you, Rene!

Rene cried at the darkness, "Non, mon ami! Eet was ze spirit of ze witch!" His quivering hands managed to strike another match and this time succeeded in lighting the lamp. A warm yellow glow filled the room as Rene knelt at the table and wept into his crossed arms on the table.

You kill't me, Rene! You lemme die in da quicksand! You let da swamp have me! I trusted you, Rene! I though' you was ma friend!

The echoes of Frank's voice faded into the screeching of the crickets outside the shanty and Rene's sobs from beside the table. The memories of the stories told to him while still a child added to the terror he had already experienced this grim night. The stories of the old witch that lived in the bayous countless years ago--the witch that had struck a deal with the devil to keep her youth. She had to drink the blood of her victims to keep her side of the bargain and had betrayed and killed a beautiful young woman that had recently arrive--exiled from Acadia. The young woman could still be seen at times wandering the swamps as the elusive will-o-the-wisp. The witch, according to the story, was strangled by the young woman's lover with her own hair and was said to be seen by unlucky swampers. The story went that the witch is still trying to keep her side of the agreement.

Rene had no idea how long he had knelt there beside the table lost in his grief and terror. The only sounds he could hear were those of the crickets and the barely perceptible hiss of the lamp wick delivering oil to the greedy flame within the globe of the lamp. As still as the room seemed to be, the lamp's flame did a slow but deliberate dance within its glass prison, causing shadow demons to dance circles around the desolate man in the middle of the room. The demons danced around the walls of the room as well as the walls of his mind—showing him the terrors and horrors that lurked within the dark recesses of his mind.

Rene, where're you?

Scrape. Scramble.

"Non! You are dead, mon ami!" Rene's words softly echoed off the bare walls of the room.

When had the crickets stopped chirping? Rene had lived in the bayous his whole life and could identify every sound it made. It got quiet sometimes, but NEVER silent—and right then, it was as silent as a tomb.

Scramble. Pause. Scramble. Scrape. Scramble. Pause.

"'Allo? Who ees there?" Rene had no idea what made the sound, but it was on the porch of the small shanty. He ran to the window and looked out, hoping to see what made the strange noises and also hoping to see nothing.

There was nothing that he could see on the porch, but that was partially due to the thick fog that had surrounded the house. The fact that the fog was back and he could not see very far nearly brought the panic back to his mind.

The fog seemed to have a malevolent quality about it that disturbed him deeply. And then, Rene saw the glowing.

I'm a'comin', Rene.

This time it came from down the path down which he had blindly stumbled earlier. Rene's eyes became saucers on his face and a scream escaped his lips as the glow expanded down the path and coalesced on the path into the form of a long-haired woman resolutely walking toward the building. The green radiance seemed to come from her skin as she made her way toward the hovel and drift around her like suitors at a ball. She seemed to not notice anything about her surroundings, as if lost in thought.

Thump. Pause. Scrape. Thump. Thump.

The sound came from at his feet and Rene felt his heart beating in his throat as he screamed and backed away from the window. He stumbled back toward the table and the impotent comfort and security of the still-flickering lamp. He knew in his heart that there was nothing left but to pray.

I'm here, Rene.

Thump. Thump. THUMP! The door crashed inward as if driven inward by the force of a charging crocodile. Rene screamed again and lurched against the table, overturning it. The lamp fell to the floor and burst, spreading flames across the back of the shanty. He was caught between two different deaths. Rene fell to his knees, whispering and whimpering a prayer he had learned as a child at his mother's knee. It was something he'd not done for years, but he hoped beyond hope that his long estrangement from the church would not hinder his prayers now.

Scrape. Scramble. Scramble. Scrape. Scramble.

The flames combined with the intruding glowing fog to illuminate the room before him. Rene saw, to his intense horror, a thin intense line of glowing green extending across the floor toward him from the door. It pointed at him through the fire illumed fog like an accusing finger. Rene felt as if his soul was being ripped from him as he saw the horror at the end of that terrible line. There, crawling toward him and trailing the green gore from its severed wrist, was Frank's hand—scratching and clawing its way toward him like some evil spider spawned in the deepest hell.

It's no' so bad, Rene, bein' dead an' all.The voice chuckled in his head.

Rene knew that death approached and that his soul would be taken and devoured by the witch-phantasm which stood in the door watching her minion crawl toward its prize. He tried to pray, but the words wouldn't form in his mind now. The heat from the flames behind him began to become uncomfortable, but he could not move. The stale smell told him that someone had soiled their clothes. It barely registered with Rene that the clothes were his own. He was held fast by his terror and horror at the death awaiting him and watched as the hand approached.

Don' fight it, Rene. You can't git 'way from me, you know.

It was a pale thing and showed the ravages of crawling the long distance from the quicksand bog where Frank had died. Like a helpless and wounded rabbit watching the approaching wolf, Rene watched the hand pounce on his knee and begin the final climb of its existence. It clawed its way up his shirt until it came to his neck. Rene clawed at the inexorable fingers tightening around his neck as he screamed his last breath from his body.

How's it feel, Rene, bein' kill't by yore "friend"?

The flames had advanced around the walls of the room and the fog in the room had boiled away. His eyes met those of the figure standing in the door and saw the triumph in those dead eyes. He knew he was lost and that she would slowly devour his soul over the eternity of the hereafter. The figure recognized his thought and laughed. Rene heard the now-familiar long keening wail from the banshee.

The fingers squeezed into his neck, crushing with inhuman strength, and Rene felt his life slipping away. He fell forward onto the floor—more dead than alive, and slipping down the wrong side of that ridge. With his last exhalation of breath, he spoke his last…

"Je regret, mon ami. Oh, mon Dieu, I’m sorry." Rene’s eyes stared unseeing at the ruined door as the triumphant wail of the banshee resounded through the bayou and the flames leapt to devour the house and the body of the damned.



Copyright 1998 by Bryant Johnson

Back to the Halloween page.
Back to the Den.