Page 2 of Wandering Witch

Boss: They are asking for you.

Boss: What is going on?

Boss: Sarah, get your ass down here and explain yourself or you’re fired.

And that was the last message to make any sense. The rest of the texts from him were more of the same. A combination of pleas to stay away and demands to show up and deal with the police.

But as I finally really took the time to take in everything going on around me, it became clear what I had to do.

Farren

The darkness that had haunted me all my life had caught up with me yet again. The absolute horror of that sunk into me as I turned around and pushed my way upstream.

I scrambled my way around and through the crowd of people, unafraid to use my elbows to shove people out of my way. I knew I had to get back to the motel room I rented, grab my always-packed bug-out bag, and take off for someplace new, someplace safe.

It took me several precious minutes to fight my way out of the crowd before I could dash down a side street that led to a shortcut back to the motel.

Once I was safely back in the small, rundown room that I rented, I dashed to the small backpack tucked under the table in the corner. After I pulled it out, I did a quick check of its contents to make sure that nothing was missing before I bolted out the door.

I had no time to plan out my next steps, not that I ever really did that anyway. The larger concern I had was to just flee the town I was in as fast as possible so the darkness that stalked me wouldn't continue to harm innocents.

This darkness had haunted my family line for generations, chasing us from place to place, all across the county. We have been hunted for so long now that by the time I was born, the reason had been long forgotten, and lost to time. Now, every last member of my family had been devoured by the shade. Either because they could no longer keep ahead of their doom, or in the case of a couple, they completely refused to believe. The punishment for that crime was the desolation of the towns and areas they had inhabited at the time of demise.

The greater fallout, and my family's unfortunate, yet blessedly unknown, mark on the history of the country was a bountiful handful of locations with all human life wholly wiped off the map without a trace. The best known of these was the lost settlement colony of Roanoke.

That ancestor had joined not long after the formation of the colony. The story went that they thought they were finally safe. That they were sick of running from what they had come to believe was little more than a boogeyman. Back then, we were plentiful. We had thought if there were enough of us, the shade would spread itself too thin and we would have a chance to populate enough that our bloodline would be able to figure out how to break our curse.

No such luck. The distance didn't make a lick of difference in the end. And by the time my Roanoke ancestor realized that the thing hunting her blood was a real threat, it was too late for the colony. The darkness had come in the dead of night and swallowed every living soul whole, leaving nary a trace of their deaths.

We barely survived that disaster. If not for the rebellious spirit of her middle daughter, a girl who heard the whispers of the wind warning her of her mother's ignorance. She stole herself away mere hours before doom descended. It was by her wisdom that most of us had learned that movement was life.

We could settle in locations for short periods, the further the distance we traveled before stopping, the longer we could live unharassed. So it became common practice for the women of my family to stay somewhere until the shade caught up to us before moving, at minimum, halfway across the country.

Which brought me right back to my current situation. I had lived in this small town for a couple of months and in the very back of my mind, I think I knew that my time here was running out. Not that it made this day any better.

Then again, today was also the worst onset of the darkness since the lost colony. So maybe I had no real reason to compare it to previous experiences. Either way, I knew I had no time to sit and contemplate things that made no difference towards my immediate future.

So I hitched my bag onto my shoulder and made my way out of town, unhappily following wherever the wind guided me.

Farren

One Week Later.

I sighed heavily as I looked down at my cooling mug of coffee. I found myself at yet another truck stop, this time hundreds of miles from where I last took any form of lingering rest.

Ever since I had fled the darkness at the last town I called my temporary home, I rested only when I absolutely had to. Sleeping only when my body couldn't move another step, ducking into gas stations, truck stops, and fast food restaurants to satiate my remaining needs.

Now I found myself in a medium-sized city, just waiting until I could wake up enough to stumble my way to the bus depot without looking like the walking dead.

On the wall behind the counter where I sat hung a small television playing the news, both local and countrywide. Normally, I would ignore something like that, what with all the negativity that usually took up air time. However, when I glanced up, I saw the current story was about the town I had just fled.

The warehouse where I worked was no longer standing, though the missing toll was incredibly low. Only about half of the staff that would have been on site around the time of the attack had gone without a trace. So at least, while I may have lost my home, I was able to save a few lives. I guess, in the end, that was the most crucial part.

I sighed as I took a swig of the now room-temperature beverage before me as I watched the news change topics. Back to more standard topics, the upcoming election, featuring the business mogul making another run at the presidency.

A great yawn escaped my lips as my vision grew fuzzy in my effort to stay awake and upright at the diner counter. I swear that though the screen blurred some words came in bright and clear, words that didn't seem to make a lick of sense to my exhausted brain. Spell. Hallow. New York. Gather. Coven. Family.

That last word shot alertness through my brain as I bolted upright and rubbed my eyes to clear away the fog of sleep.

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