Witch: A Horror Novel (The Cursed Manuscripts) by Iain Wright (nonfiction book recommendations TXT) 📕

a whistle escaped her swollen nose. “Rose has dark hair. I mean, she has blonde hair, but there was this moment back at the farmhouse, when the flash on your phone went off, that she changed. The whole room changed, and when I looked at her, her hair was darker. She looked like a totally different person. I think she changed her appearance to trick us. She wanted to look like a desperate woman, but that’s the last thing she is.”

Jude frowned. “My phone didn’t capture anything when I took a picture. How is that possible?”

“Rose can stop herself from being seen. Lily didn’t see her until it was too late, and the police didn’t see her either. I think she’s… you know…?”

Jude shook his head. “What?”

“Well…” She chewed her lip for a moment between words. “She’s not a normal person, is she? She’s, like, a witch or something. Maybe a vampire with the way she was biting Lily. She was eating her.”

Hearing the words out loud was both a relief and a terrifying reality check. Jude had hoped the madness was only inside his head, but it clearly wasn’t. Ashley was trapped in this nightmare too.

He deflated and sat on the bed beside her. Their upper arms pressed against each other, and he enjoyed the feeling of her warm body against his. Whatever happened, they were in it together. They were on the same side.

“I’m sorry I didn’t stick with the plan,” he said. “I know we agreed to stay quiet, but when PC Riaz started questioning me, I just…”

Ashley put a hand on his thigh, which sent a tingle from his knee to his groin. “An hour ago, I wanted to chew you up and spit you out,” she said, “but the truth is you were just being you, and that’s okay. I can’t blame you for wanting to be honest – it’s in your nature – so… we’re cool.”

Jude managed a smile. “One down, two down.”

“One down, two down.”

They sat for a few seconds in silence until Jude spoke again. “I’m worried Rose is going to come back for her locket. She told Ricky it belonged to her. It sounded like a threat.”

Ashley thumbed the locket closed and ran a finger over its dull metal surface. “I’m worried about that too. She was completely naked but still wearing this. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? Huh, I suppose everything about this is odd, right? I just want to hear from PC Riaz and know what happens next.”

“We should have told him about Ricky. I almost did, but then I had flashbacks about him kicking my ass. Maybe after covering for him, he’ll finally leave me alone.”

“If he doesn’t, at least you’ll have something to threaten him with.” She turned and looked at the alarm clock on his nightstand. It was shaped like a crystal ball, with the readout floating in the middle. “Why haven’t we had an update yet? There must be people searching the farmhouse by now. I wonder who it even belongs to.”

Jude nodded thoughtfully. Surely the run-down ruin of a farmhouse didn’t have an owner. It must have belonged to the council or been forgotten about completely. The old building certainly was a mystery, but as much as he enjoyed the idea of an adventure, he decided the real thing wasn’t much fun. He would stick to books and films and playing video games on his laptop.

My laptop.

“Hey, why don’t we look it up? Maybe we can find something on the Net.”

Ashley grimaced. “Not sure I even want to know.”

But Jude was excited. Excited by the possibility of knowing more than they did right now. The most terrifying thing about their ordeal was the complete lack of understanding, but perhaps there was a way to make sense of things.

He reached under his bed and pulled out his chunky old laptop. Placing it on the bed, he opened it up and powered it on. The ancient computer took a good five minutes to wake up. Once it had, it was good to go. He brought up the web browser and search bar.

“What should I type?”

Ashley shrugged. “No idea. Old farmhouses and our town?”

It wasn’t much to go on, but Jude did his best to narrow things down. Eventually, he started searching for anything about farms around where the golf course was. Most of the results were articles about the golf course itself or adverts for restaurants. Then, right near the bottom of the page, there was a snippet that made Jude take notice.

Redsow pig farm to make way for town’s first golf course.

The reason the article was so far down was because it had been written in 1968. When he clicked the link, it wasn’t even an article but a scanned image of the local newspaper’s front page on that date.

Jude nudged Ashley, although she was staring right at the screen alongside him. “This is it!” he said. “Look at the picture.”

Ashley squinted at the screen and studied the image for a moment. There was only a single image on the newspaper’s front page and it was poor quality – the overzealous blacks obliterating the muddy greys and whites. It was clear, however, that they were looking at an image of an old farmhouse. The curious thing was that it was already dilapidated. The roof was still on, but several parts of the brick wall were missing.

Ashley pointed a finger at the screen. “It says here that the pig farm closed down in 1948. Wow, it really is old.”

“So it was abandoned for twenty years, and they just built the golf course around it. They left it there and allowed the woods to grow around it.”

“And it lay forgotten until we went and disturbed it.” She shook her head. “We’re so dumb.”

“Someone else was there before us, Ash. Whoever chained Rose up inside.”

Ashley arched her back and stretched, her large breasts flattening and spreading out. “Does it say anything about who owns it?”

“Let me check.”