The Rot of Annie Dawson Part 4

The eyes of witch boiling in hellfire.

*Warning graphic language*

Stone help Jeremiah pull the dead bodies into the house while Josh sat across the room, keeping the shotgun trained on Annie. They tied her to a chair with some rope Jeremiah found in the car. The bullet hole in her leg was still leaking a hefty amount of blood, and she seems to be drifting and out of consciousness. Jeremiah poured gasoline around the house, making sure he drowns some books in her room in the stuff.

               “Can’t let a witch’s spellbooks stay hold,” He told Stone. “Never know what is in them.”

               He tossed the can on the bodies nodding for Josh to come along. They stood in the doorway of the house, staring at the young women. She lifted her head, smiling at Josh, with a wink and blowing him a kiss, she passed before they set the house to a flame.

               Stone wanted to go home. He even moved to walk around from the inhospitable heat, but Josh stopped him. “We have to make sure she is dead.” So, Stone joined his father’s side watching sweat run down the man’s face and Jeremiah studying him too. Something seems wrong in the dancing laughter of the Devil’s only friend bring one of his w****s back to the pits.

               Soon screams started to fill the night air blocking out the star. Stone turned back to the fire, looking into the doorway, seeing to his horror Annie wailing as the fire raced to chew her up to the bones. She fought to get free of the ropes, and soon, the ropes did give away, but it was too late. The fire ate her whole. She fell the burning floor, trying to make it to the door. All she could do was roll around in the endless heat surrounding her.

               Then she stopped screaming and stared right at Stone. Her eyes started to boil in her skull, but she smiled wide at the sight of his fear.

               He threw up as the roof came crashing in on Annie. He crumbled to the ground losing everything in his stomach, knowing from this moment on until he died, he would never forget Annie’s burning face.

               “Get up,” Josh ordered, grabbing him under his arm and lifting Stone back to his feet. They stood for an hour, watching everything fall in on itself before heading back to the car. They all climbed in without saying a word and went home. They got home about the same time the sun rose on a new day. Stone had left his house a boy, came back home a man, and a bit harder to the way the world was now.

               He got out of the car, hearing Jeremiah asked Josh,” Are you okay?”

               Josh hadn’t looked all too well the whole ride back home, but Stone didn’t care. He had to get out of his clothes, never wearing them again, they had the smell of smoke on them. He raced into the house, pass his sisters right to his room. He undressed, trying to be free from the odor hanging onto his nose.

               He dropped to his bed, watching his window fill up with light when a knock came to the door.

               “Go away,” Stone said.

               “Open up,” his mother ordered.

               He sighed, getting up from his bed. He opens the door to see his mother worry gaze studying his eyes. “Yes, mother?”

               “I know you can’t talk about what happened,” she said, and Stone hadn’t given it much thought about what to say on this matter. But his mother had been right; he had no idea how to utter the words of anything they did over the night. She couldn’t understand, and talking about it would do nothing. Nothing but make him relived those burning eyes staring into his soul.

               He felt sick to his stomach.

               “But I want to know you did the right thing,” she said weakly, smiling at him.

               Stone didn’t say much. He had never been a big talker. He nodded in agreement.

               “Now, get some rest,” she said, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek.

               “Yes, ma’am.”

               Sleep didn’t seem like the best thing at the moment, but somehow and somewhere in the long trail of the day, it found him. He drifted off to sleep only to step into a hellish world of his nightmares.

               Someone screamed in his mind, he could smell the smoke, feel the heat of the fire, and he jumped from his bed. He raced for the door opening to find it led to his father’s room. There in his father’s bed was Annie, nude in all her glory of demotion riding atop of his father. She ran her hands over her naked body with sweat pouring from them both. Her hair was darkened from the sweat as if they had been sitting under the summer sun all day.

               Her moans started to fill his mind.

               “You want me?” She asked Stone looking over at him. She licked her lips at him. “You want to f**k me as your father did? I can see you do, boy. Come take me.”

               In a blink of an eye, she was standing in front of him in a dark room. She was still naked, smiling up at him while touching him. “You want me, big boy,” she said, slowly getting on her knees to put him into her mouth.

               “No,” he roared, jumping back, falling into his bed, tossing himself awake in the dusk of the day. He got himself off the floor, sitting on the bed to calm his mind. He feared and prayed those dreams wouldn’t be with him for all his life. When he stopped the racing in his chest, he got dress planning to get some water, maybe some dinner. His mother must have left him alone to sleep. He couldn’t smell any food being cooked and wondered what had happened to dinner.

               He started to open the door to his room when Danika, his youngest sister, came flying into the room. She threw herself over the bed, dropping to hide behind it. Stone followed the little girl with dark hair wearing a yellow summer dress, but something was wrong with the dress. Her eyes were big, with tears boiling over the edges. She sat there, shaking like a leaf on a dead tree in winter.

               The yellow was offset by red, blood red.