Page 69 of Unbinding the Demon
“Throw her into the forest, I guess.” He shrugged, seeming unaffected by the horrific event. His eyes were focused on our surroundings, searching for something. He walked over to the body, grabbed a leg, and then began dragging her off. “Follow me.”
I stared with wide eyes as her mutilated head limply rolled around, still attached only by a small amount of muscle and skin, leaving a bloody trail across the gravelly road. “Don’t you think we should report this?”
“No, now hurry up and stay by my side!” he yelled with urgency, already disappearing into the woods.
Jeez, he sure is fast for someone moving a dead body.
I chased after him, with Belzar staying right next to me. As we entered the shadowy treeline, Ashton was once again surveying the area. Brittle, frost-kissed leaves and twigs crunched and rustled around us as we walked deeper into the forest. The light from the car disappeared, making our only light source the half-moon, which peeked out from behind the wispy clouds every now and then. I clung to his arm, afraid and struggling to see.
“Do we need to keep going? Isn’t this far enough?” My eyes were adjusting to the dark, allowing me to somewhat see our surroundings.
Ashton halted and carelessly plopped the woman’s lifeless leg onto the leafy ground. He grabbed my waist and pulled me against him protectively. “Shhh, don’t make a sound... Just listen...” he whispered.
Fear and anxiety coursed through my veins while I stood there, listening with wide, shifty eyes. My cheek pressed into the rough material of his black denim jacket as his arms instinctively wrapped tighter around me in a coil of safety and warmth. Strands of his hair blew in the cold wind, twirling around us as I continued to listen. I only heard the sounds of his beating heart, the rustling of the trees, and distant owls.
“Do you hear that?” he whispered, his gaze fixed above my head, peering deeper into the dark woods.
“I don’t hear anything abnormal, but I also don’t know what I’m supposed to be listening for.” I looked up at him in confusion.
Belzar growled, his gaze fixed on the darkness, which made my hairs stand straight up. Ashton gave him a nod, and Belzar ventured deeper into the forest, careful not to make a sound, as if he were stalking some poor prey animal. His black furry body quickly disappeared within the dark shadows of the trees. “Follow me, but don’t make a single sound,” Ashton commanded firmly as he grabbed my hand and led me in the same direction that Belzar went. I wanted to protest, but I was way too spooked to say anything, and Ashton was acting like he was on an important mission.
Oh yeah, great fucking idea! Let’s just walk deeper into the fucking forest where there might be more of those fucking zombie people!
He stealthily glided through the darkness like a swift, agile predator prowling through the night, while I stumbled and bumbled along behind him. The layer of frost on all the fallen logs and stones made the ground extra slippery, causing my feet to slip as I tried to keep up with his pace. I likely would have fallen flat on my face several times if he hadn’t been holding my hand to steady me.
This is ridiculous! Where the hell could we possibly be going!? We’re literally in the middle of the fucking forest at night!
Ashton slowed the pace as a distant flickering light came into view. My eyes widened in shock while we crept towards it. A strange foreboding feeling washed over me, as a low, eerie chant came through the trees. The sound was so strange and unnatural that the only way I could describe it was it simply didn’t belong in this world.
Belzar emerged from the trees and seemed to lead Ashton and me over to a suitable spot to spy on whatever was going on. The three of us silently crouched behind an old rotting log that was covered in dying moss and little fan fungi. Other than a few thin trees, we had a pretty good view of what was happening, but we were still far enough away to stay hidden. I placed my hand on the crumbling damp wood and warily peeked over to see what exactly was going down. And let me just say, I couldn’t believe my fucking eyes.
What the actual fucking fuck!?
Flaming torches surrounded a slightly raised clearing made from the natural mountain stone. About thirty or so people stood chanting in a circle, all wearing the same white cloaks as the woman whom Ashton had just killed. The dim lighting and hoods obscured their faces, but I could still tell that each person held a solemn countenance. At the heart of their circle was a large stone altar. They had tied a clearly distraught, shirtless man to it like an imprisoned starfish. Tears streamed down his face and glistened in the firelight as he desperately begged for his life.
Next to the altar stood a tall, slender, hooded figure, whom I can only assume was the leader of this bizarre ceremony. The cloaked man hovered over the crying man, with a twisted smile peeking out from beneath the shroud of his hood. The chanting stopped, and he pulled out an old, simple-looking black book from his cloak. I felt Ashton tense up behind me; then he leaned forward for a better view. The man read a strange incantation from its yellowed pages, his voice booming through the trees. It sounded sickening and otherworldly. I couldn’t, for the life of me, even begin to guess what language it was, but it filled my spirit with an unsettling sense of dread. He placed his slender hand on the bare chest of the terrified, tied-down man, as if he were praying over him.
Ashton began whispering to Belzar in another strange-sounding language, as they shifted their gazes between one another and the scene before us. It was weird, almost like he was having a bizarre one-sided conversation with his dog...or should I say, wolf.I didn’t pay too much attention to them, though, because I was too busy watching the crackpot cult doing, well, whatever the fuck they were doing.
Ashton grabbed my upper arm with a light grip and whispered in my ear in a barely audible voice,“I’ll be right back. Stay with Belzar no matter what happens.”
I frantically shook my head and tried to gesture for him to stay, like a panicked mime. But his large hand gripped the log anyway, as he readied himself to jump over it and make his presence known to the cult like a fucking madman. Luckily, he froze and crept back down. I drifted my gaze back over to the cult to see what had made him change his mind.
The cloaked figure now held a long, shiny, black dagger in front of his face like a samurai, while the others were all pulling out their own black daggers from their sleeves. They pointed the daggers in unison at the center man and chanted the eerie words after him. The dagger glittered with an iridescent sheen in the firelight as the man lifted it high above his head, heightening the fear of the man strapped to the table. I panicked as the reality of what I was about to witness slapped me across the face. Ashton’s warm hand clamped down over my mouth to prevent me from screaming as we watched anxiously.
Oh no! No, no, no!
The cloaked man grinned as he plunged his knife into the bound man’s chest, piercing and slicing it open. The tears forming in my eyes blurred the sight of him writhing in agony, but I couldn’t shut out his harrowing screams. It was the sound of someone being killed violently. I blinked my tears away to see blood gushing out from the victim’s mouth as his screaming came to a gurgled stop. His body then stilled with just a few lingering twitches.
The cloaked man stuck his slender, slithering hand into the bloody opening in the victim’s chest and dug around for a minute. The terrible squishy noises it created seemed to go on forever until he finally used the dagger to cut something inside. He then removed the man’s heart. Thin, glistening rivulets of blood dripped down the length of his twiggy arm as he raised the heart high above his head and began chanting again.
The body on the altar began to convulse. Disbelief and horror washed over me as what I can only describe as tentacles made of wispy black smoke arose from the corpse. They swirled like a sentient mist around the cloaked man’s arms before being absorbed by the heart in his hand. Both the heart and the blood dripping down the man’s arm turned black and putrid-looking.
What the actual fuck is this sci-fi, dark magic, wizard shit that I’m witnessing!?
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, the cloaked man brought the glistening, black, oozy heart up to his grinning mouth and bit into it. I felt beyond sick as the thick, blackened blood squirted out from around his disgusting, yellowed teeth. It dripped down his chin and arms, staining his ivory cloak. Ribbons of black mist swirled around him as he continued to feast on the tainted organ like a starving animal, all the while the others still chanted around him.
What the fuck!? What the fuck!? WHAT THE FUCK!?
