“Did you pack the backpacks?”
After class that night I walked into my dorm with two coffees with extra espresso shots in them. Catching Joshua setting both the packs on the floor. He packed each backpack with everything we need. Despite Joshua not studying he was always prepared for everything.
“I think I got everything we needed,” said Joshua, barely looking up from the backpacks.
“I got us coffee with extra shots to stay up and stay warm. I checked the weather app, and we should be okay for a few hours.” I say, I lowered the coffee down in front of Joshua who took it greedily. “Let’s just hope we find her.”
I had done a little digging about our little town to see if I can find any information about witches or witchcraft and there wasn’t much. The only thing I could find is that old case when I was a kid. The one with the kids has gone missing every seven years. The journalist solved it as of seven years ago to this day. I had a feeling if this old woman was that witch that gave me a gift instead of kidnapping me like she did the others. What did she see in me? What made me special? And why bring her gifts that made me happy as a payment to keep this time ability? So many questions were swirled in my head.
“Well, we’ll see if we can find her,” said Joshua. He took a gulp of hot coffee and nearly choked and his eyes watered from the pain of drinking hot coffee without sipping it slowly.
Trying to find the witch just to ask some questions about this guy. Joshua has nicknamed him as the Time Stalker, (if you ask me that wasn’t my choice to call him that) wasn’t worth the energy spent tramping around in the dark in the woods. But I did agree with him because deep down, I suppose I really wanted the real answers and I know it wasn’t out of pity that I got this gift. If the Time Stalker was out for blood it had to be for something either she or I did.
I know I have been keeping this secret to myself for a long time. Now letting Joshua into my life, my secret felt awkward and yet I was surprised he didn’t laugh in my face like any other normal person would have done. He listened and he wanted to believe me. I think him finding this witch with me proves I’m right or he wants me to be right about what I said. A few hours in the forest should be long enough in the dark. The temperature drops quickly at night, so we only had a few hours before it became too cold to look.
The two of us sat in our dorm room coming up with a strategy and drinking our coffees for the last ten minutes before we started to leave. Our dorm room was almost the smallest in the building. Featureless and small, his side is extremely messy. My side was neat. I barely had anything to cause a mess with, I used to live with less. So, I was fine with what was given to me.
I looked up from my phone from mapping out where we are going to start off our off trail hiking when suddenly the door opened. A woman about our age, one I recognized to be Joshua’s girlfriend. Her long blond hair fell over her shoulder in a braid. Her face covered in makeup to cover up any blemish, and her eyes narrowed on me. But she wasn’t alone, there was another woman with her. She wore a warm coat and gloves, but . . . Emily wore something for the club scene. This other woman had dark brown hair, chocolate eyes which looked at us out of curiosity.
“Hey babe, sorry that we are late.” Emily said as she marched right in like she owned the room. Joshua stood up and they both hugged each other and kissed as if no one was watching which caused me to feel awkward and the other woman too as she stared up at the ceiling as if she found our third roomie interesting. (A spider I named Steve.) I cleared my throat. “Sorry, Nick.” She wasn’t sorry at all.
The other girl smiled awkwardly at us, so I decided to be the polite one. I held my hand out towards her and she took it. Her small hands were soft and she didn’t have fake nails like Emily. There had to be a reason why’d this girl be friends with Emily. “I’m Nick and this is Joshua.” I introduced myself.
“Nice to meet you too. I’m Riley.” She said, shaking my hand. “Emily had told me you guys are doing something for your journal class?”
I ran my hand through my hair nervously as I glared at Joshua who shrugged at me as if saying ‘had to say something’ which sort of frustrated me. This was supposed to be a secret outing.
All four of us could barely stand in the dorm room quietly for another few moments. Almost together, Joshua and I grabbed our backpacks and headed for the door as the girls followed us. We got to the lobby and Joshua walked out in the cool air first. I turned to see what was taking Riley longer, seeing she had set her own backpack aside, I nearly smiled. She came prepared unlike Emily.
She and I walked towards my shitty car parked a little way away from the entrance. We had to trek through slushie snow. “First time going into the woods?” I decided to make small talk as I walked.
“Yeah, I’ve never been to the woods before.”
That was the end of that conversation. It felt as if she really didn’t want to come nor talk. I got the hint. I had a feeling Emily was forcing her friend to come along. So I wouldn’t be the third wheel to Joshua and Emily like always. As we walked, I saw the security guard bundled up with at least two coats on, with a bored look on his face. He was only ten years my senior, Carter was a good guy and smart, too smart to work as a campus security guard. More than I can say about the other students who attended here.
“Hey man, it’s getting colder out here.” I said, we were almost at my parked car.
“You bet your ass it is, my tits are starting to poke through my shirt,” he laughed at his own joke.
“Have you seen anything weird today?”
“Weird? I had to escort some cosplaying asshole off the property, but one minute he was there and the next he wasn’t. I got it all on security.” which I’m sure he’s going to review later.
“Cosplayer?” Riley repeated as a question. “Like the guy looked like he was going to a convention or something?”
“Yes, like when those anime conventions come through the town. It was nothing.”
I narrowed my eyes on her. She seemed far too interested in this conversation. I couldn’t shake this feeling. It wasn’t a bad feeling, but something was wrong. A misplacement of something. Ever get that feeling that you are forgetting something but after doing a mental check, you do have everything? But you still have that feeling of nagging you missed something? That’s the feeling I was getting.
“Where are all of you heading to?” He asked nonchalantly.
“To the waffle house to study.” I quickly replied before Riley blew it. If Carter found out we were going to the woods, he’d for sure tell the administration about it. And possibly call the Sheriff and that was the last person I wanted to see now.
Carter slowly nodded, “have fun kids.” He turned and continued towards the boy’s dormitory, when he was out of ear shot, I was able to let go a breath and Riley stared at me like I grew two heads.
“Ok. So, mind telling me why you lied? Are we still going into the woods right? I mean if this is for a project and all, Why would you lie about where we are going and what we are doing?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
Riley glared at me suspiciously as if I had a secret. Which I did. But I’m not going to play twenty questions with a girl I just barely met. So we went to my car, I unlocked to doors as Joshua and Emily was sucking face. Their relationship reminds of a bipolar disorder sometimes.
The likelihood of us finding the witch was growing smaller every second we wasted. I want to be optimistic about finding this woman who gave me these powers. But Joshua made it sound so easy, walk into the woods to find that old well and she’d be there like she had been sixteen years ago. I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. A witch with that amount of power isn’t just going to come out of her hiding spot that easily. Something deep in my gut told me, she’s hiding from him too. That this Time Stalker was after her as well. Its only a theory and I can’t disprove it. The hunt is on, and I must watch my back and theirs. More bodies to worry about, more death on my hands. Just thinking about confronting him again made my body shake from fear.
I feel like that journalist on that case could give me more information about this. I keep thinking that those missing kids are linked to the witch somehow. Chances were, we would end up at a dead end by the end of the tonight. Not only that because we brought extra people around, but because there’s something about the witch, the kids, and that case were all linked. One wrong move, one moment of complacency, and all hell could break loose. The time stalker will take advantage as he had done the other night, or worse. Someone might get killed if they’re not paying much attention to the threat at hand. And I could be killed because of it as well.
What am I saying? I’m being partly paranoid about this. A safer bet would be that if I don’t use my powers, the time stalker would just stop coming back for me, right?
I started up the car and backed out of my spot and drove through the parking lot slowly and then out onto the main road. I knew it was a risk, but I think going through my old back yard to enter the forest. It would be the quickest way to find that well and any evidence of that witch’s existence.
“So, what are we really doing?” Riley asked in a whisper as Joshua and Emily were in their own bubble in the back seat.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re doing a project for a class,” I said straightening in my seat as I kept glancing in the rear-view mirror. Not just checking on Joshua but seeing if we were being followed. You can call me being paranoid. “We are researching that old case from seven years ago and that one journalist solved it and found all the kid’s bodies and found some creep in the woods and got him put away for life.”
“Cut the bullshit, I’m not in journalism, but I know when someone is lying. And you are a bad liar.”
“He’s not lying,” Joshua defended me. I felt a little relived as we got closer and closer to my old childhood house. Sometimes too much conversation was more awkward than not any.
I can feel Riley’s suspicion like a thick blanket in the car, this girl was going to be a pain. I was unsure if I should tell her the truth, although it wasn’t a complete lie about why we are here. I am heavily interested in the old case and that witch. I always had been.
We finally made it, I had parked a block away from my childhood house. I don’t want my old man knowing I was here. That wasn’t going to be good for me or them. We got out of the car and instantly Emily was complaining about how cold it was, and her toes were freezing, and she didn’t have a jacket. All Joshua can provide was a coat for her, but ultimately Emily decided to stay in my car realizing she couldn’t go hiking in her platform shoes after all. So, it was just the three of us, Riley, Joshua and I headed for into the woods. With our flashlights on, the light shone a beam into the darkness. Being in the woods at night was different from the daylight hours. Here anything can jump out at you, but during the daylight hours you could at least see.
“So where are we going exactly?” Riley asked as she shone her light at the trees, the trees seemed more ominous then they really were.
“To the old well where they sealed it off a month ago.”
“Isn’t that where all the children’s bodies were discovered? I mean that was where all the killings were happening right? Why there?”
“You sure ask a lot of questions. What do you major in at school?” Joshua asked to distract her from asking too many questions about our motives.
“Audio engineer, I want to own my own radio station.” She mumbled.
“Do you work at any of the radio stations in town? I hear they pay good, my uncle twice removed owns one of them. I can hook you up.” Joshua said steering the conversation away from me.
“No, thanks.” And that was the end of that conversation, and Joshua gave me that look ‘what now?’ with his eyes. I know he was just trying to protect me.
Even if Joshua wasn’t here, I would have either stayed quiet or steered the conversation on her or something else. But to be honest, I wasn’t that social unlike Joshua. Funny, how I want to be a journalist and I have the worst social skills.
It felt as if we had been walking for hours, the cold wind was causing me to shiver. In fact all three of us were shivering. Something felt off, we still couldn’t find the well, It should have been around here somewhere. So naturally I stopped and took my phone out, but it was completely dead. No power, I know I had charged my phone before we left. “Shit. My phone’s dead, check your phones.” I had a bad feeling.
Riley and Joshua checked theirs too, and just as I thought, all our phones were dead. There was no way to call for help, or even look on the maps to find where we are. Or that well. Luckily I came prepared, I set my backpack down and pulled out an actual physical map of our town and the woods. Joshua shone his light at me, and I squinted at the light beam. “You have an actual map?” He asked.
“Well, I had a hunch.”
Joshua gave me that ‘uh huh’ expression on his face. I used my own flashlight to shine on the map to figure out where our location in the woods. The well should have been here, but it wasn’t. Was it possible that the well was entirely removed? Could the city have done that? As I was pondering this, I heard movement, something large slithering across the snow. Then suddenly Joshua was yanked right out of the air with him screaming and he’d dropped his flashlight and he was gone in 0.3 seconds.
“Holy fuck!” I said as I stood up and shone my light around us, still surrounded by trees.
“What just took Joshua?” Riley asked with a nervous tone to her voice.
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
Suddenly Riley screamed as she was flipped on her back and she was being dragged through the snow. I tried to reach her but whatever was pulling her was fast. To my surprise Riley pulled out a hunting knife and hacked towards her feet slicing into something. I shone the light and saw thick vines were wrapped around her ankles. I had dropped the flashlight to help her and slid my arms under her armpits and pulled. It felt like I was playing tug-a-war with a human.
She screamed in pain, but she kept hacking at the thick vines. Eventually she was able to hack through them enough until we heard a pitch squealing sound, the vines were screaming in pain. She was immediately let go and I pulled her back to my backpack. We were both breathing heavily, she glanced up at me and gave me worried smile. Now everything went quiet at this moment, only our breathing could be heard. In a heartbeat all the vines lurched out at us in unison. I had no choice, I used my ability and froze time. Right before one of the vines could impale Riley.
“Oh shit!” Riley screamed and stared cross-eyed at the vine that was inches away from the bridge of her nose.
I had never touched anyone whiled I paused time. I suppose it makes sense that if I touch someone, I’m able to bring them here with me. I let out a breath of relief. Slowly she moved out of the vines reach, my hands shook as I snatched up the flashlight on the ground and shone it’s beam and we were surrounded. until my light caught him leaning against one of the trees. My Time Stalker, again, his fedora was slid forward, and I couldn’t see his eyes but only that taunting smile he bore.
“Are you looking for her too?”
“We think the same you and I . . . how interesting.”
My instinct naturally reacted when he moved faster then my eye could track him and I felt this force of strength and was thrown across the clearing into a tree, one of the frozen vines scrapped across my outer thigh. Riley screamed, I pushed myself off up, and picked up the flashlight from the ground and shone the area around again with that limited light. I couldn’t see them. But I did see the hunting knife laying in the snow, covered in plant ooze. I picked it up, even though my fingers were numb, I managed to hold it in my hand, I knew I needed a weapon. I took a deep breath.
“Nick watch out!” I heard Riley scream.
I was shoved towards one of the frozen vines, I was able to dodge it right before I was could have been impaled into it. He was not too far from me, I slashed at him. He did something that surprised even me, time was unfrozen and the vines lashed out and one of them impaled right through left upper thigh. I screamed in pain and fell to the ground. I used the hunting knife to hack at the vine to cut me loose. But he was no longer a man in a black suit and red tie and matching fedora. He was now a solid form of a shadow, he reached out for me. I panicked, my life was in danger, so I shoved the hunting knife into his lower stomach. I sunk the blade down to the hilt. He didn’t scream. He staggered back until one of the vines impaled him through the shoulder.
I groaned in pain and pushed myself back on my feet. And grabbed the flashlight and shone it around, panicking that if Riley died because of me, I’d feel guilty. When I found was her leaning up against the tree but still frozen in time. I wondered if she was stuck because neither of us touched her and was caught in time. Reaching out with my trembling hand I touched her, and she gasped for air, gulping it greedily and her eyes searched wildly until they found mine.
She wrapped her arms around me, “are you okay? I don’t know what happened, it felt like I was stuck and—”
I ran my hand up and down her back, “I know, I’m sorry. We need to go now, before he untangles himself from those vines.”
So, we ran, I felt guilty for leaving Joshua but there was no time to look for him. I hoped that Joshua will get out alive. As we ran, or rather I hobbled and she had to help me, we were able to walk right out into a clearing. For the first time since we’ve been out here, I felt hope. There was a cabin not too far, weird that one was here, there was no cabin on the map as far as I remembered. But I was surely not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Riley threw open the door and we ran inside and we slammed the door shut. But when we turned around to see what we could use to help our situation.
My jaw dropped. So did hers.
We were back in my dorm room. quiet, the darkness had blanketed the sky outside, we looked at each other. It had to be a trick. Slowly I opened the door and no longer was the woodland there, but rather the hallway we had walked down an hour prior.
“What the hell is going on?!” Riley screamed at me.
“I don’t know!” I screamed back.
We both went silent as we saw something moving under my covers, a lump that kept bouncing back and forth. Riley got behind me as I walked towards my bed, reaching out with my trembling and freezing fingers. I snatched my blanket up to find a weasel in my bed. Instead of hissing at me or attacking me, it stood there on its hind legs watching me. That’s when I noticed it had a collar on, a tiny one. With a scrap of paper tucked between the collar and its fur.
“Be careful.” She whispered.
I gave a droll look. Slowly I reached out and yanked the scrap of paper out from under its collar, I rolled it open, and it said, Alexis Stevens. And before Riley could peer over my shoulder the paper ignited with blue flames on its own and I dropped it to the floor and stomped it out. and now there is a burnt mark on the hardwood floor and the weasel sniffed the air and sneezed.
To say the least I had an interesting night. I got more information than I was hoping for. I got a name, and I had a feeling the witch helped us out. I don’t know why the Time Stalker was after her to. And why he didn’t hurt Riley but would kill Joshua the night before. I feel like I have more questions than answers. And now I have a pet a weasel.