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  Her lips split open and blood burst from them. It splattered my arm. The girl cried out and fell to the ground, clawing her face. The mob went silent. They turned and gaped incredulously at me as the girl howled in pain. I stood there like a fool, soda bottle in hand, challenging them.

  "Let go of my wife, you fuckers!"

  Their filthy faces contemplated me, flaunting fiendish smirks and angry brows.

  Damn, I thought crazily, there's not a soul here in their teens.

  A few kids in the front of the mob started giggling, as if amused by my predicament. Many more quickly followed, each revealing yellowed teeth and vigilant eyes. Even the toddlers, perhaps not old enough to talk, wore grins on their dirty faces. One child, a naked boy around three years old, released his bowels right there in the middle of it all.

  Slowly, they began walking toward me. I could see now that some of them were oddly deformed, limbs and facial features mutilated, some severely.

  From the rear of the pack, I could hear Lisa sobbing. There was a jostle, and for a brief moment I saw her, down on her knees, the hands of many holding her there against her will.

  I stepped back. "Give me back my wife…" I demanded.

  Someone screamed get him!

  Those at the front of the pack ran at me, crude weapons raised. My mind shouted get away! and I followed my tortured instincts and sped away as fast as my legs could take me, resigning myself to the sudden fact that Lisa had been taken prisoner and that her only hope would be for me to protect myself—to keep away from the vicious hands of these insane children so I could save her. I darted across the yard to the street then back up the road from where we came, the sound of my sneakers on the road matching the beat of my heart. My breath escaped me much faster than I could catch it. Through it, I could hear them behind me: little bare feet and high wailing shrieks...plus the sound of my wife screaming my name.

  I ran past the place in the road where I first ran over the boy, past the bar with the pickup and a few more dark homes whose occupants, I was positive, would not be willing to let me in. I glanced sideways at one house and saw two ghostly faces—a man and a woman—peering out from the clouded pane of a window.

  Gaining some ground on the ten or so children still pursuing me, I darted back across the road onto the dirt driveway leading towards the farm.

  I bypassed the house and headed into the crops area, my aching legs taking me farther and farther in, over cabbages, potato plants, stalks of wheat. Once camouflaged in the height of the wheat, I collapsed to my knees, heaving for air, my wife a half-mile away.

  I wondered if I would ever see her again.

  I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. I listened to the night air, but only the songs of crickets loomed. Time passed, and I wondered, where are they? How come they didn't pursue me here?

  For a few minutes I waited in agony, my mind immersed with visions of Lisa pleading for my help. Tears filled my eyes. My mind raced insanely. Jesus…I couldn't come to grips with what I'd done. I'd left my wife to fend for herself against...against them!

  Was it fair for me to blame selfishness or cowardice for my decision, given the dire circumstances? Could I really have jumped in the shark pool to save her? No. I'd be dead. I did what I had to do. It was the only logical choice.

  Yet life without her seemed utterly impossible to face. Did I just sacrifice her—and our unborn child—to save myself?

  Perhaps I still have a chance...

  I dug my way back through the seven foot stalks, all the while attempting to make sense of the shocking scenario in Harper's Bane: the children, seemingly abducted or willingly surrendered from their homes to a so-called 'witch'. The adult townsfolk stricken with grave terror at her very existence, barricading themselves in their homes and fully succumbing to her perverse demands. And here, the children, raised in an unfavorable environment of wicked practice, wholly reduced to carry out this lunatic's dark expectations.

  I pressed on. The wheat surrounded me on all sides, much like the trees on my car upon exiting the interstate. My feet crackled against the dry earth as I tunneled through the tall whispering growths, my hands and arms bleeding from the harsh contact. In the dark, my sense of direction melted away. I could do nothing but walk straight ahead and assume to eventually reach the outskirts of the farm.

  From the growing darkness came a whisper. A child's whisper?

  I stopped. Listened.

  Then, a whimper. No, not that of a child, but a...baby.

  Ever so slowly I forged ahead, pursuing the soft innocent whine. The moon's beams revealed the edge of the wheat field, exposing the presence of another crop area.

  The whimpering grew louder. I could hear more than one infant now, three or four and perhaps more now as I located the edge of the wheat. I parted the stalks, looked out, and beheld a dreadful sight.

  Four human babies lay fidgeting in the muddy earth. They were six feet apart, squared off within barbwire corrals. Each was ensconced in a translucent casing, their tiny appendages writhing and sliding beneath the milky surface, seemingly trying to break free. One had already managed to partially release itself, its tiny head wriggling about like a salted slug, shaking off strings of film. It opened its eyes.

  They were fully black, fringed with white.

  She makes the children there...

  Coerced by terror, I staggered sideways, the sharp barb from another corral tearing into my leg. I spun, dazed, saw dozens of the small square yields, each containing a squirming ovum that held its very own baby. Some of the fetuses looked fully developed, others seemed no further matured beyond the early embryonic stage. Each possessed a thick green umbilical cord that emerged from the navel and slithered beyond the perimeter of the corral, where it branched off into smaller arteries and disappeared into the ground.

  Like roots...

  I heard a woman scream.

  Lisa.

  I tried to run but a sudden pressure had my ankle. When I looked down I saw a grotesque thing, a newborn baby, now free from its placenta. One of its little bloody hands was grasping my pant leg. Its oil-black eyes shot a horrible glance at me. It hissed like an angry cat and I could see four baby teeth in its dirty mouth. I shook my leg, kicked it away. It let out a pig-like squeal, a sentiment echoed by some of its near-born siblings. I darted away against the outskirts of the wheat, towards the direction of Lisa's scream.

  Towards the house.

  My feet trampled crops as I ran. I could hear airy laughs riding the distant night air.

  The children. The witch's children.

  Barlidas. The witch. Lives on the farm you passed. She makes the children there.

  I reached the rear of the house. A cold wind blew across my face, all thoughts of friendly southern warmth long diminished. The children were laughing inside. A cowbell tolled against the eave above the door as if signaling the start of a wicked act.

  Lisa screamed again, loud and piercing as if she suffered great pain. There was desperation in her voice, pure terror.

  "Lisa! Hold on for God's sake. I'm coming!"

  At the sound of my voice, silence reigned. Lisa's screams were gone. The insane giggles, gone. I held my breath and walked to the house, then opened the back door and went inside.

  I found myself in a small kitchen. There was an age-old oven and stove, long stripped and rusted. Heaps of rotting vegetables covered the floor. In the center of the room sat a large black vat, filled with a thick brown liquid. It smelled awful.

  I stepped forward, sneakers squashing the vegetables. I whispered, "Lisa?"

  And then from beyond the kitchen walls she answered, her voice light and gay like tinkling bells. My heart froze into ice.

  "Brad, is that you? I'm in here..."

  I followed her voice, suddenly mesmerized. I exited the kitchen and entered into a large room. The children were all here, perhaps fifty or sixty of them. They circled the perimeter of the room, joined together by the arms or legs. A number of torches
burned at the center of the room. In the flickering light I could see their injuries, twisted marrings on their limbs, torsos, and faces.

  These children weren't born with these scars. They suffered them in accidents...as if they'd been… run over.

  A small group of children congregated at the center of the room, by the torches. "Lisa?" I whispered. "Are you here?"

  The grouping in the center of the room dispersed and I saw a woman there.

  She was drifting a foot above the ground.

  "Hello Brad" she uttered softly, in Lisa's voice.

  My god, she was beautiful, fully naked, her body untouched and unblemished, dark hair floating all around her as if caught in the embrace of tranquil waters. I took a step forward, desiring her at that moment with her alabaster skin and chestnut hair floating down upon the smooth curve of her shoulders. She was an exotic siren in a tale of mythological lore. A true beauty.

  And I wanted her.

  Then I heard Lisa scream. It broke my trance, and perhaps the spell of her. The floating woman grinned, and when she did I felt all my wants and desires ebb into fear—into a horror more icy than that of a crypt, more pale and hushed than the bones hidden within its ancient walls. She raised her withered hands and cackled, her eyes now black and morose like those of her children, the exposed teeth horribly gnarled, rows and rows of blackened stumps grinding out the wickedest of sounds. Clusters of warts mottled her face, the smooth whiteness of her skin long lost to the blackest of rashes.

  Behind her Lisa appeared, fettered by the arms of a half dozen boys. She'd been stripped of her clothing, her skin aghast-white as if coated in snow. She screamed again and I reached for her. A number of children ran forward and seized me. They wrestled me to the floor, crawled all over me and held me down. I could do nothing but watch as the evil woman laughed like a child and waved her wicked hands in the air.

  She held them out toward Lisa.

  The witch's hands—claws—clasped Lisa's breasts. Her crusted fingers caressed them, squeezed them. They trailed down across my wife's heaving torso, leaving dark streaks of filth behind.

  The witch opened her mouth impossibly wide, her bottom jaw seemingly dislocating like a snake about to swallow its prey. Something bright and silvery dribbled from her bottom lip. It pooled onto Lisa's stomach and trickled down to her vagina. A strange-smelling puff of black smoke rose up from between my wife's legs.

  The floating hag fell to the ground, her laughs replaced by hisses, her face twisted into a mask of pain and toil.

  At some point Lisa had passed out, her head turned to one side. Two of the children went to her and grabbed her by the feet and spread her legs open. The witch started an odd monotonal chant.

  Rivulets of blood started trickling out from between Lisa's legs. Her vagina sputtered, and then from within her tremoring canal emerged a twisting knot of gore the size of a walnut. The witch crawled to her, still chanting.

  As if alive, the throbbing knot slithered from Lisa into the evil woman's waiting hands.

  The witch placed the bloody hunk against her crumpled breast, where it settled at the nipple.

  Dear God.

  This was our unborn fetus. But no longer ours.

  Now it was a child of Barlidas.

  Barlidas...

  Moments later the witch plucked the squirming embryo from her breast. One of the children, a brown-haired girl of maybe ten, came to retrieve it. The girl carefully cupped it in her hands, turned trance-like, and stepped away. A dozen or more of her siblings joined her as she left the room. They passed through the kitchen and went out the back door, into the rural night.

  I knew what would happen next. The children. They would gather together in the farm and collectively plant my child in the soils of the witch garden, where it would complete its term and come into this world as one of them.

  Barlidas...

  Something about her name...

  "Brad?" I turned. Lisa had come around, eyes blinking, seeking my assistance. She looked down at her naked body, at the blood between her legs. Then she screamed my name, but I couldn't help her, for it was at that terrifying moment I figured out the true meaning of the witch's name.

  Barlidas. It was an anagram of our names, Brad and Lisa.

  I passed out.

  I heard a sound. Voices? I woke Lisa and she accompanied me to the window. We both peered outside. Perhaps the children had come with food from the crops?

  A car was parked in front of our house—the house the children had given us.

  A man stepped from the car, looking about. Then a woman.

  She was pregnant. Of course.

  "Hello?" the man called. "We need help."

  It's been a familiar story over the years. In the back seat of their car lay one of the witch's children, badly injured from an 'accident'.

  It might even be my child.

  The witch's name came into my mind, Neseku, and in a few short seconds I knew the names of these doomed people who were silently summoned from the interstate by the witch of Harper's Bane.

  Neseku. An anagram for Ken and Sue.

  I stuck my head out the window. And warned them.

  "They'll...never...let...you...leave..."

  But I knew it would do them no good.

  Contents

  She was wheeled in at 4:00 P.M. Reilly looked at me, displaying that smug grin of his, the one that clearly said, "Michael, we've got ourselves another one."

  I'd just taken a bite of the chicken parm hero that Vito the delivery boy brought in about five minutes ago. He was the only kid working down at Dom's Trattoria brave enough to step foot into my workplace. I was grateful for that, as I was on call at all hours and had to be here if one of these came in.

  A Doe, this one a Jane.

  I swallowed the food in my mouth and stood to greet Reilly. "Looks like I've got my work cut out for me today," I said, pun intended.

  "You want the details?" he grinned.

  "Do I have a choice?" I smiled, trying to mask the discomfort that always crept up on me prior to starting a job.

  "Jane Doe," he said, shuffling through a variety of police forms, "About twenty years of age...discovered by two surfers this morning behind a sand dune about a hundred yards from the shore, just east of the lighthouse." I nodded, familiar with the location; he didn't look up from his notes to acknowledge my affirmative. "Fully clothed...," he continued, "...no signs of struggle. Cause of death...unknown." He gazed up at me with that last word, as if confirming his purpose for being in my office.

  "Possible murder?"

  "That's your mystery to solve."

  I took the forms from him, pushing my glasses to the bridge of my nose.

  "I'll be at the station for the remainder of the afternoon. Give me a ring when you have some answers, okay?"

  I nodded. He turned to leave then redirected himself toward me. "Oh, and Michael?" I looked up, his face suddenly dampened with perspiration. "The contents. Find out what's in there."

  "Of course," I answered.

  Reilly tossed a half-hearted smile my way and exited the office.

  Immediately I went to work. I went to the closet and removed my standard uniform: light blue smock and latex gloves. As I donned myself, I reflected back to the last Jane Doe brought in by Reilly, just ten days ago. Apparently she'd been strangled. I'd opened her up, examining the contents of her stomach—normal coronary procedure. I found waffle-sliced spicy fries, still partially undigested, and I knew at once that she must have eaten at Zoe's Diner on Indian Well Avenue, a frequent stop of mine on my way home from the office. Without delay I informed Reilly and he immediately moved to question the employees there. A waitress had remembered serving the girl and a male companion there two days earlier.

  An hour later, her boyfriend was brought in for questioning, and was later charged with murder. Once again I'd been successful in aiding the police with the capture of a criminal. My work does have its rewards.

  I wheeled the
body to the center of my 'office', as I like to call it. It's a square room, twenty by twenty feet. I keep it spotless at all times, eliminating every drop of blood, every smudge of fluid, every germ that may taint the walls or floor following a job. Next to me, to my right, is my assistant: a toweled table offering any instrument I may require at any given time.

  Before starting the job, I went back to my desk and placed a Kitaro CD into the stereo, pressed play. Call it weird, but I like a little background music accompanying the audio procedural recording—it adds a bit of ambience, I suppose. I slid a blank cassette tape into the recorder, which has a ceiling microphone wired to it, and pressed the 'record' button. I said, "Testing, testing, one, two, three," watching the stereo needles bouncing up and down in their little plastic windows.

  Afterwards, I raised up the overhead neons, which illuminated the examining table like a ballpark at night. The shrouded body, now alight, appeared ethereal, the crisp lights and smooth music breathing mysterious life into it, blanketing the cold death with a soft halo of warmth.

  Slowly, I paced to it, strangely mesmerized, endeavoring to see through the white shroud. I stood over it, unmoving, suddenly hesitant to begin my work. For reasons I could not explain or understand, I was afraid.

  I drew in a deep breath, held it, then blew it out, trying to rid my stomach of the butterflies. With the tips of my fingers I gripped the edges of the shroud. Ever so gently, I peeled it away.

  My breath immediately escaped me. She was beautiful, her hair golden, still aflow, unstained by any trace of death, silken as if recently shampooed. Her alabaster skin was smooth and supple, unscathed from head to toe, expelling a mild aroma of perfume. It seemed a shame to have to cut her open. She lay so quiet, so...peaceful. I wanted nothing more than to place the cover back over her face and quietly find a suitable resting spot for her to spend eternity.

  Shaking off the unprofessional thoughts, I went to work. I picked up a scalpel from my assistant, the one I call the 'starter'. This instrument will slice away the epidermis. I started right below the breast bone, running it vertically across her belly, slicing her open like a...well, like a sausage. I know, it's disgusting, a common joke amongst most folks when it comes to coroners, but I can't help but think of food while on a job. It's an effective distraction from the actuality of what I'm really doing.