Burn The Witch
by Shawn Montgomery
I am awakened by a flood of light.
Disoriented, I tear the blanket away as my eyes shoot open.
The first person I see is Oscar, stuffed in the doorway and staring at me with his blank cow-eyes. He doesn’t move or speak, just absently chews the whiskers around his mouth.
Then I notice the witch.
She’s an amorphous shadow gliding along the wall before she suddenly materializes above my brother’s bed. Her face is smeared with black and green paint, and uneven braids of black straw drape across her shoulders like oily snakes. A cape, loosely tied around her neck, cracks like thunder as it unfurls around her body.
A musty, earthy smell oozes from her skin and permeates the room.
In one swift movement, she slips her arms underneath my brother and lifts him off the bed.
“I’m sorry, Momma!”he screams. “Don’t hurt me!”
“Don’t hurt me!” she mocks, her lips curling into a ghastly smile.
Slinging him across her shoulder, the witch turns to me. For a terrifying moment, I can’t see her eyes, just the bloody-red slit of her mouth. But when she finally blinks, brown orbits bulge from sockets so sunken they have become the eyes of a living skull.
“Please, let him go,” I whisper. “Leave us alone.”
As the witch’s tongue begins probing the tops of her yellowed, rotten teeth, she mumbles something under her breath before rushing towards the door. Although Devon tries to free himself—writhing and flapping his arms like he’s trying to fly away, it’s no use.
She has him.
Before they leave the room, my brother lifts his head one more time, and our eyes lock. He squeals for help, but I’m just a twelve-year-old kid who’s also deathly afraid of the witch.
So I can only shake my head, yank the comforter up over my face, and stuff my fist into my mouth.
Because if I can’t see the horror, then it’s not really happening…
…Time passes.
The witch and my brother have long gone, but for some reason, Oscar remains in the doorway. Underneath the blanket I can still hear him grinding his jaw, a grating sound like crazed rats clawing their way through the walls. What is he waiting for? I think. Why doesn’t he leave?
I burrow deeper under the blankets and cover my ears, but I can still hear them—Oscar’s grinding jaw, the witch’s shrill laughter, and my brother’s desperate pleas for her to stop.
It’s the sound of crashing thunder and blood spilling across the kitchen floor.
Despite my pounding heart, the warmth of the blankets and eventual silence become soothing, and I gradually slip into unconsciousness.
Suddenly, I’m jolted awake again by the slamming of the bedroom door.
I peel the comforter off my face and see my brother’s shadowy outline. He whimpers softly as he changes his pajamas and crawls into bed. His breaths are labored, uneven.
“Are you okay, Devon?” I whisper.
There’s a long pause, and I begin to wonder if he’s already fallen asleep.
Finally, he says, “Go to sleep, Gabriel… before she hears us. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
But despite feeling exhausted, sleep doesn’t come. So I just lie here, listening to my brother tossing and turning in his bed. Every pained groan he releases feels like a knife gouging my insides.
For whatever reason, the witch usually takes my brother, and he receives the brunt of the punishments. And it seems like every time she takes one of us, she only grows stronger, as if she can feed off our fear and pain, leaving us simultaneously younger and older.
I often wonder what’s going to happen when she finally takes everything from us. Will she dump us in the middle of the woods to fend for ourselves? Or throw us down the old well in the yard?
Or worse… turn us into what she has become—a monster?
Sunlight peeks through the threadbare curtain.
I realize I must have fallen asleep at some point, and for a fleeting moment, forgotten what has happened. I drowsily glance over at Devon’s bed, expecting to see him nestled underneath his blankets.
But it’s empty.
My stomach lurches as I frantically look around the room. The clock on the wall reads 8:36. Devon and I have an agreement that unless we have to use the bathroom, we never leave our bedroom alone.
My heart thuds, and I stumble into the living room, where I discover my brother sitting cross-legged on the floor, a bowl of Frosted Flakes wedged between his scrawny legs. Although the TV blares an old Bugs Bunny cartoon, his eyes are vacant, unblinking.
Glancing nervously toward the kitchen, I ask Devon if he’s okay.
He doesn’t reply and continues chewing the cereal. I sit beside him and touch his shoulders. His muscles tense, but he remains silent.
“Devon,” I whisper. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay, Gabriel,” he mutters, peering at me from the corner of his eye. “I’m just tired.”
I sigh, feeling somewhat relieved. One of my biggest fears is that he’ll finally break and retreat someplace in his mind where nobody can reach him.
“Is anybody home?”
Devon nods. “She’s right behind you.”
I turn around and flinch, stifling a scream.
Our mother is slouched in a chair set against the wall. She’s motionless; her eyes are fixed on something else, something far away. Her mouth, slightly agape, holds a bead of drool on the corner of her lip. The cloak and straw wig are gathered in a heap, pooling around her dirty, bare feet like a mud puddle.
I stare at her for several seconds, waiting for her to say something, but when she doesn’t speak, I get increasingly nervous.
“This show is boring,” I announce, my voice cracking. “Let’s go outside and play.”
Devon sets the cereal bowl on the floor and stands up.
As we walk past our mother, she doesn’t stir. If I couldn’t see her chest rapidly rising underneath her filthy t-shirt, I’d think she was dead.
As soon as we step outside, Devon stretches, then winces in pain. In the sunlight, I can see a cluster of bruises lining his arms and legs. I almost ask if he’s okay but decide against it. I already know how he’s feeling, I don’t need to ask.
We’ve been in our fort for several minutes before anybody says anything. Devon’s staring at the ground, poking a stick around in the dirt, while I try stacking a pile of wooden pallets that we use for the fort’s walls and roof.
Finally, he shifts his hips and pulls out a book of matches from his pocket.
“What do you have those for?”
He shrugs. “Got ‘em at the convenience store. I snatched ‘em off the counter when the guy wasn’t looking.”
“If Mom catches you with those, she’ll be super pissed.”
“Don’t worry, she won’t. I’ve been hiding them for a while now.”
My brother slowly turns the matchbook in his hands, lost in thought.
“So,” I say. “What are you going to do with them?”
He looks up and stares hard at me.
I shiver and cross my arms, unease eeling through my guts.
His eyes are already telling me what his mouth is about to say.
In a soft but sure voice, my brother says, “Gabriel, we have to kill the witch.”
I gasp. “Kill her? How? What are you talking about?”
“I dunno,” Devon says, shrugging again. “I haven’t figured that part out yet. But she’s gonna destroy us if we don’t do anything.”
I’m at a loss for words, so for several minutes, I watch him turn the matchbook over and over in his hands, his dark eyebrows furrowing with deep concentration. Is he serious about killing the witch? We’re just kids. What can we really do to her?
Also, I grimly remind myself, she isn’t just a witch… she’s our mother!
Did my brother actually suggest we murder our own mother?
Eager to break this sudden tension, I finally blurt, “Sometimes I wish I had super powers.”
Devon slips the matches back in his pocket and forces a thin smile. “Superpowers? What do you mean?”
“Well,” I stammer, “ I mean, you are super smart and always come up with great ideas, like finding the perfect place to build the fort and stuff. And you aren’t afraid of anything. But what am I? I’m just your lame big brother. I wish I could fly or something.”
“How can you say that? You have the greatest power of them all!”
“I do? What are you talking about?”
“For one, you’re the one who’s smarter than all of us. And you’re a really good writer, with all of your stories that you write in your notebooks. Gabriel, someday the world will know all about the witch because of what you’ve written.”
Heat rushes to my cheeks. “Do you mean that?”
“Of course I do.” He reaches out and grips my hand, something he hasn’t done before. “Whatever happens to me… to us… I want you to know that I love you more than anything in the world.”
“Geez, man,” I mumble, feeling a stone lodge itself in my throat. “Don’t get all weird on me.”
He squeezes my hand. “I’m not, Gabriel. I realize that I never told you that, and I think it’s super important that you know now. Before it’s too late.”
“Too late? What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” he mutters. “But remember, okay? Don’t stop writing. That’s your superpower.”
As we approach the trailer, I notice the front door is ajar and swinging languidly in the afternoon breeze. We can hear Oscar banging around in the kitchen. Devon and I exchange nervous glances before shuffling inside.
The potent stench of chemicals assaults my nostrils and eyes, and my face tingles with a familiar burning sensation. Covering his face with the crook of his arm, Devon steps around me and rushes toward the hallway. Oscar stands at the cluttered kitchen counter, his back turned to us.
“Is that you, boys?” he croaks.
“Yeah,” I say, fighting the urge to cough. “Where’s Mom?”
My brother slows down so he can hear the answer.
Oscar turns and stands in the kitchen doorway, blocking the light. “She went out to run some errands. Why?”
“Just wondering,” I reply as casually as I can, before following Devon into our bedroom.
Once I close our door, my brother perches at the edge of his bed, facing the doorway. Narrowing his eyes, he stares at the door and begins gnawing on his fingernails.
He appears particularly distracted, weighed down to his bed like a bird with a broken wing. Even though he’s younger by two years, Devon is more sensitive, not to mention wiser than me, especially when it comes to understanding the witch.
But that also means he carries most of the burden.
I would never tell him this, but I don’t know how much more he can endure, and that scares me more than anything.
Because without my brother, I am nothing.
Later, Devon and I are sitting on the living room floor, plastic bowls of mac and cheese balanced on our laps. Watching a mini-marathon of Family Guy and stuffing my face with the warm, cheesy goo, I begin to wonder if this is going to be the day that our mother doesn’t return home.
When she’s in one of her “moods,” she often threatens to steal Oscar’s truck and leave us. Sometimes I secretly wish she’d follow through and disappear. Some nights, I even wish she’ll drive too fast and crash into a tree, or get pulled over by the cops, and they’ll come to the trailer and find all of her potions and poisons.
But that never happens. She always comes back.
Suddenly, I drop my spoon and peer at the window. “I think I hear the truck.”
There’s the crunching of gravel outside, followed by the harsh squeak of the truck’s door slamming shut, then a series of quick and heavy footfalls stomping onto the porch.
And then I smell her—a rank and swampy funk that sweeps into the room like smoke.
But it isn’t the witch who rushes into the trailer.
It’s our mother, Emily Greenwood.
As soon as she storms inside, she stumbles around the living room like she’s chasing something invisible before finally settling her gaze onto us. Her eyes have gone back into their sockets like little animals peering from a pair of caves. Doughy, scabbed flesh hangs from her haggard face, and her skull seems to be trying to wear right through the skin.
“Why is the door open?” she barks. “Where’s Oscar?”
Oscar emerges from the kitchen, grinning sheepishly. “Welcome back, Emily. How did everything go?”
Flinging her arms over her head, she stomps back across the room and slams the door shut. “I asked who left the door open!”
Oscar begins to nervously pick at the scabs on his cheeks. “I was preparing a big batch this morning and needed some ventilation.”
“We don’t need somebody to wander on the property and begin snooping around,” she hisses. “It’s sloppy and dangerous.”
“I’m sorry, Emily,” Oscar says softly. “You’re right. I just didn’t want the house to fill up with fumes. I’ll get the fans out next time.”
Sometimes, Oscar says the right things to our mother and instantly quells the bubbling cauldron inside of her.
Gritting her teeth, she turns and charges back across the room.
Greasy strands of her hair dangle in front of our faces, demanding our attention. When I look up, I can see a blue vein pulsing above my mother’s brow, and dark moons hanging underneath her eyes. Sharp bones protrude from her shoulders and chest in strange angles. Her jaw grinds incessantly, as if she’s trying to chew on a piece of leather. Her hands tremble.
As powerful and swift as the witch is, the woman standing over us is a dried out insect, worn and frail.
“Is your room clean?”
Devon looks up, his cheeks stuffed with macaroni.
“Yep,” I answer for the both of us. “We cleaned it earlier.”
Pursing her cracked lips, our mother fixes her burning gaze on us for a moment longer before it dissolves. “Clean your dishes when you’re done and then go to your room. We’re going to be busy tonight.”
“Okay, Mommy,” I reply in a forced, sweet voice.
My brother remains silent, still chewing the mush while measuring her every movement.
Suddenly, she cocks her head as if she’s just heard something outside, then quietly turns and recedes into the kitchen like she’s being swept out to sea.
A few days later, I’m out in the yard, looking down into the well. Chemical smells waft up from the darkness, oddly revolting and tantalizing. How long has this thing been here? I wonder. Did the people who lived here before us actually use it?
The stones along the well’s base are cold and mossy. Large chunks have broken off, leaving jagged shards that poke into my legs. A rusted pump balances precariously along the crumbling rim, threatening to tumble down at any moment.
My brother and I sometimes throw stones down there to gauge how far they’ll drop before we hear the splash. Sometimes, they don’t make any sound, and Devon once suggested there could be a wormhole hidden somewhere at the bottom.
I’m thinking about that when something heavy drops on my shoulder.
“Ouch!” I shout, lurching forward.
“What are you doing out here?” a deep voice slurs.
A jolt of pain shoots down my arm, but I manage to force a nonchalant shrug.
Oscar stands over me, nervously chewing on his gray stubble. As he leans down closer, I catch a whiff of old sweat and unwashed flesh.
“I asked what you’re doing out here! Where’s your brother?”
I numbly shake my head and glance over at the trailer. Why is he taking so long? Did something happen?
“I’m waiting for Devon. He went inside to use the bathroom.”
Oscar frowns. “You ain’t messing around with the well, are ya? Because it’s not stable. Somebody could fall in.”
“We were just looking for stuff for our fort, and I was just wondering how deep it is. Do you know?”
Oscar spits out a stream of thick, brown liquid that splatters inches from my sneaker. “Well,” he says, “it’s deep enough that if you fell in, you’d be in a world of trouble.”
“Really?” I ask. “How do you know?”
“Because I do, that’s how!” he barks, hawking out another glop.
“I mean, have you ever gone down there?”
Oscar shakes his head. “No, I haven’t… but your daddy has.”
It takes several seconds for me to register what he has just said.
Finally, I gasp, “Our daddy? What do you mean? What happened to him?”
“Oh shit,” Oscar mumbles and grabs my arm. “Come with me.”
Although his hands twitch, he has a firm grip on my wrist so I can’t run away. As we approach the edge of the property, he stops suddenly, then crouches down at eye-level.
“I really don’t know why I’m telling you this, but I’m only gonna say it once. And you can’t tell anybody… not even your brother. You understand?”
I nod, too shocked to say anything.
“I’ll deny I told you anything, especially if your mother finds out.”
“I won’t tell anybody, I promise.”
Oscar glances nervously over my shoulder. “Well, shit,” he mumbles again.
The only thing our mother has ever told us about our father was that he was a famous Bigfoot hunter and traveled around the world in search of the elusive creature. Sometime after my brother was born, and I was around two or three years old, he was allegedly attacked and killed by a Sasquatch in some forest in Oregon.
Even though the story seemed farfetched, it’s the only one we know, and over time, my brother and I have accepted it. Truthfully, we want to believe our father died doing something cool and adventurous, instead of overdosing on drugs or going to prison.
Or worse—deciding to leave us out here with Oscar and the witch.
“Okay,” Oscar begins, “I worked with your daddy a long time ago at the metal fabrication plant. That’s how I met your mother. Anyway, I got into some trouble, and Emily and your daddy were nice enough to take me in until things blew over.”
He pauses for a moment and scratches his face until he leaves red streaks across his cheeks. “For a while,” he continues, “life was okay, and we all got along pretty good. But one day, when you was just a baby, your daddy had too much drink, smoked too much, and began tweaking real bad. We tried to get him into the trailer, but he was too out of it. He wasn’t thinking straight.”
“Oh my god… what happened?”
Suddenly, Oscar reaches up and slaps the side of his face. “I can’t believe I’m telling you all of this,” he says, shaking his head. “If she finds out, she’ll kill me.”
“Who? The witch?”
He doesn’t respond, and for a moment, I think he isn’t going to finish his story. But finally, he sighs, and in a barely audible voice, says, “Your daddy fell into the well.”
I gasp as if all the air has left my lungs. “Fell into the well? How did that happen? Did the witch push him?”
Oscar peers uneasily across the yard, then takes another deep breath. “I don’t know what happened exactly. Your mother was with him. She said he tripped on something and fell over the wall.”
“You mean nobody got him out! Is he still down there?”
“I don’t know… I don’t remember everything.” He grumbles and straightens himself so he towers over me again. “Forget I told you anything. If she finds out, she’ll kill me.”
Slap!
Almost simultaneously, we both flinch and jerk around.
Devon stands on a cinderblock outside the trailer’s door, frowning disapprovingly.
I raise my hand and wave. Shielding his eyes from the sun’s glare, he doesn’t reply. Oscar wipes his hands along his jeans and tromps back across the yard
“Remember,” he calls over his shoulder, “not a word to anybody.”
After Oscar disappears inside, I hurry over to the well and stare into the blackness. Devon joins me but doesn’t ask what Oscar and I were talking about.
It’s like he already knows.
Is our father still down there? I wonder frantically. Is he a pile of bones floating in that filthy water?
My guts roil at the thought, but I can’t see anything past a few feet. It’s dark like the abyss at the bottom of my stomach. Dark like the bloodstains on our bedsheets. Dark like rotted teeth. A darkness like I have never seen before.
The following day, it happens.
The sun has begun to sneak behind the treetops when my brother and I decide to head home. As we approach the trailer, I notice that Oscar’s truck is gone, and the front door’s opened. Does that mean our mother isn’t home either?
We don’t have to go inside, I want to tell my brother. Let’s just run away… right now… where nobody will hurt us again.
But, of course, I can’t say anything.
Instead, I follow him inside.
As soon as we step into the living room, I feel uneasy. The air is heavy and stale, and I’m struck by an odd sensation that we’ve been transported into somebody else’s home. I stand helplessly frozen as my brother continues shuffling to the hallway.
Suddenly, I hear a soft thump in the bathroom, then catch a flutter of movement in the doorway. I open my mouth to warn Devon, but a barely audible squeak comes out instead.
In this horrible moment, the hallway seems to stretch itself into an impossibly long tunnel as the walls collapse around my brother’s slight shadow.
Finally, the overwhelming sense of dread pushes me forward. Even though it feels like my feet are submerged in concrete, I still manage to trudge across the room.
“Devon,” I scream finally. “Watch out!”
Just as my brother passes the bathroom, a dark blur lunges out of the doorway and grabs him.
This time, the witch isn’t cackling. She growls like a crazed animal. Her huge and vacant eyes stare right through me as she snatches up my brother.
“Help!” he screams. “Gabriel, help me!”
As I run to him, I see something dark and small fall out of his pocket and land beside his feet—the pack of matches!
“The kitchen!” my brother shrieks.
Dragging my brother inside of the bathroom, the witch releases an unearthly howl that sends an ice-cold chill through my veins. Before she’s able to kick the matchbook away, I scoop it up and continue running down the hallway.
As soon as I rush into the kitchen, I stumble around in circles, unsure of what I am even looking for. Every inch of counter and table space is cluttered with pots, scales, and tendrils of plastic tubing.
Finally, I notice a large plastic tub, half-filled with murky liquid. I have no idea of what’s inside the thing, but without thinking, I first strike a match, then use it to light the rest of the pack.
With the matchbook aflame, I take several steps back and toss it into the mystery vat.
As I turn and run back into the hallway, an incredible force slams into me.
Fwoomp!
In an instant, the air seems to be sucked right out of the trailer as the floor shakes violently under my feet.
Before I have a chance to do anything else, a wave of furnace hot air sweeps over my body, lifting me off the floor and hurling me back several feet.
The bathroom door shoots open, and the witch runs out shrieking.
As she hurries into the kitchen, I stand up and hobble into the bathroom. My brother is curled up on the floor, covering his head. “Devon, get up!” I scream, yanking his arm. “We have to get out of here!”
We make it to the living room when another blast of heat strikes us from behind.
This time, the entire trailer quakes.
For what seems like hours, I stumble around the room, blind to everything but a pulsing white flash. Devon shouts something in my ear, but all I can hear is a high-pitched ringing that fills my skull.
The trailer quickly fills with thick, black smoke, and I keep a firm grip on Devon’s hand, practically pulling him across the room with increasing desperation.
Finally, we find the door.
Acting on pure instinct, I kick it open, and we both leap outside.
As soon as our feet hit the ground, we sprint across the yard and crouch behind a stack of tires and wooden pallets. Tears trickling down our faces, we begin choking air.
Suddenly, another explosion rocks the trailer, and the living room window explodes. I cling to my brother, tighter than I’ve ever held him, and cover his eyes. Shards of glass and debris rain down on us. Devon screams, but his voice is distant, muffled.
Smoke billows from the gaping dark window as columns of flame shoot from the trailer’s roof. A surge of intense heat sweeps over us, and I cry out, thinking we have actually caught on fire.
Finally, Devon tugs on my arm and points behind us, towards the forest. Right as we stand, our mother bursts through the door. Most of her body is engulfed in flames, and her mouth forms into a hideous black hole before releasing a series of unearthly shrieks.
Although she’s still dressed like the witch, she isn’t anymore.
Her eyes are no longer made from pools of night. They are our mother’s eyes now—terrified and desperate.
Within seconds, her face bubbles and stretches like melting wax, and the straw hair shoots sparks around her head. Devon and I stand still, frozen with shock, and watch as our mother burns.
Howling in pain, she staggers blindly around the yard, attempting to extinguish the flames. I don’t know if she can actually see where she’s heading, but before she can stop herself, she slams hard into the well.
As soon as she hits the wall, her legs buckle, and she lurches forward. Although she throws out her arms, all of the sweat and blood coating her hands make it impossible to grip the stones.
In one violent and sudden motion, our mother falls, headfirst, into the hole.
The last thing we see is her cape, encased with fire, sweeping across the mossy lip of the well before disappearing from sight.
Devon and I turn and flee into the forest. Fueled by adrenaline and shock, we don’t stop, even to catch our breath. We keep running, despite our burning lungs. The forest seems to stretch for miles, and before long, everything begins to look the same.
At one point, I begin panicking that the witch has somehow cursed the woods and created an elaborate labyrinth, and we’re going to be trapped forever.
But finally, Devon points to an aperture of light within a copse of birch trees. Past those trees, we know, is the highway.
We run harder, sweat dripping down our faces, our feet pattering maniacally across the forest floor. We run harder as our hearts throb in our chests.
But when we’re only ten or so feet from the edge of the forest, I think I hear the rumbling of distant thunder. And then the sky darkens, and the sudden cracking of the cape unfurling deafens everything else.
Almost simultaneously, Devon and I fall to the ground. A sudden wave of heat sweeps across our bodies, paralyzing us with fear.
Before we can do anything else, a low, gargling cackle burns through our skulls, and we’re both lifted high into the air.
The last thing I see is the witch’s smoldering, melted face before the sunlight is shrouded, and we’re lost, together, in permanent night.