"The Witch's Grave" by Eric J. Kiser

[ShortStoryContest]

The following story has been selected as a featured runner-up in our 2015 short story contest (Contest Theme - "The Self-Destructiveness of Vengeance and Hate")

"The Witch's Grave" by Eric J. Kiser

Jan. 3rd, 2015

Old Mesilla, and the immediate area around it, has had a dubious history long before anyone officially settled there. The city of Las Cruces, the second largest city in New Mexico, is located a mere 6 miles from the quaint town of Mesilla and got its name from a brutal 1830 massacre of a wagon train headed west along the trail known as El Camino Real. When the survivors buried their dead they naturally put up the requisite markers and crosses. The settlers who followed over the years used these as landmarks as they made their way west and began referring to the area as "La Placita De Las Cruces" - literally; The place of the Crosses. Eventually, folks began to settle along the trail and over time shortened the name to "Las Cruces".

Since the mid twentieth century Las Cruces has tried its best to become a full fledged modern metropolitan area. But a series of incidents always seemed to dampen the real economic growth a city of this size needed to put itself on the map like Santa Fe or even Tucson. Some of these events were man-made. Others natural in origin. But a few of the old timers spoke in hushed tones that the real reason was a curse placed upon the region back in the 19th century. The city continued to grow, although slowly, until at long last it attracted industry in support of the military installations that were dotted around the high desert area. The city appeared, at least on the surface, to be a viable modern 21st century local. But, when you venture to the western edge of town, you enter historic Old Mesilla, and feel almost as though you have been transported back in time.

Old Mesilla still has the thick walled adobe buildings that keep out both the heat and dust the desert southwest is known for during the summer. And the small sun baked town square still looked much as it did a hundred and fifty years ago. Low earthen buildings framing a small park of brown grass and a few scraggly trees, anchored on one end by the bleached tan brick walls and twin steeple's of the towns oldest church. These days, instead of being occupied by those businesses that catered to subsistence farming and rural life in the early 1800's, the structures housed art galleries, tourist traps and want-to-be trendy restaurants. There was a lot of history here; some known, most kept private. Old Mesilla's only real claim to fame was this was where Billy the Kid was caught, jailed and ultimately allowed to escape before being cut down by Pat Garrett.

It is also the home of the San Albino church and cemetery, a place the locals call the Witch's grave. Behind the church, at the end of a one lane unpaved stretch of road called 'Calle De Lupe' is roughly an acre of hard packed ground that composes the small cemetery. Tumbleweeds skitter across the few ornately marked graves, but your eyes are quickly drawn from the beautiful sculptures that serve as tombstones to a four foot high, four foot square cinder block and concrete encased plot adorned with a two foot high wrought iron cross on which someone crudely marked the numbers "666". This, legend has it, is the witch's home.

It is the only headstone in the entire cemetery that has no name or markings of any kind inscribed on it. There is no written record of who she was or what she did to merit such a fortified grave. Legend also has it that after she was buried her ghost has repeatedly tried to escape from its supposed final resting place. Whoever this was, she has spent decades trying to find a crack in her tomb that will set her free. And depending on who you ask she may have succeeded... more than once.

A handful of families who live near the San Albino cemetery were charged by the church with maintaining the integrity of the concrete edifice. Once they get to know you, they might tell you stories about all the years they’ve spent standing watch and repairing the strange cracks that appear on the slab from time to time. The “Watchers”, as they came to be called do not understand the attraction of this place to the mostly young, and usually intoxicated, late night visitors who come into their neighborhood and they do what they can to discourage anyone from entering the cemetery after sundown.

Local lore, which is plentiful, claims a teenage girl once slept an entire night on the tomb in response to a dare from one of her classmates. She walked away alive, but only after being afflicted with an incurable and severe form of epilepsy. Those who still feel the need to visit the graveyard - even with escaping witch's and mysterious illnesses as a deterrence - continue to report a range of disturbances. Everything from unexplained cold spots on the concrete to hearing the sounds of a woman crying in the far off distance.

No one has been interned in this place for over 60 years and the bushes, weeds and ground cover look as though the place has been left untended for about as long, giving the graveyard an abandoned quality that is completely intentional. The high iron fence along the perimeter is checked regularly to ensure the local teenagers don't sneak inside to do what teenagers do when left alone. The markers and headstones of the Christian souls buried inside have been lovingly maintained by the Watchers for as long as anyone can remember and the larger community beyond has no idea there is even a cemetery on this side of town. Those locals who do try their best to keep the secret history of this plot of land buried as deep as the coffins represented by the markers inside.

There is a damp chill in the air tonight throughout the entire Mesilla valley for obvious reasons. Over the last three days the area was hit hard by an early spring monsoonal storm. The whole town was saturated and flash floods swept through the low lying areas across the valley floor. You saw standing water everywhere and it continued streaming down the sloped hillside of San Albino's and out into the streets where it made its way towards the maze of irrigation ditches that patterned the region. Old Mesilla was situated in one of the lowest parts of the valley and the runoff caused much damage as it worked its way towards the banks of the swollen Rio Grande, including undermining the ground beneath the concrete marker of the Witch's grave. As the slab slowly settled into its new position a small hairline crack, almost invisible to the human eye, split the center mass of the marker. At that precise moment, more felt than heard, the ground seemed to exhale as though an extremely heavy burden had been lifted from its shoulders. Most of the small animals in the cemetery felt the change and scurried off to someplace less threatening.



Jan. 3rd, 1881

Lupe married her Farmer when she was only 16 years old. He was a good man. A decent white man who treated her like a lady and not like the half breed Indian the rest of the world saw her as. He was smitten from the first time he laid eyes on her at the general mercantile and it never entered his mind to think of her as anything but a gift.

The Farmer and his brother came to Mesilla after the end of the war looking for a place to start over. The two men fought bravely for the Union, and after Lee surrendered at Appomattox they made their way back home to the farm in Pennsylvania just in time for their Mother’s funeral. The Farmer’s Father died 6 months earlier of pneumonia and due to a lack of labor for the harvest, his crops withered and died in the field, leaving their Mother deeply in debt. Her health went downhill from there. After burying their Mother, they turned the family homestead over to the bank in an attempt to cover their parents losses, but still found themselves almost two hundred dollars short to completely pay back the creditors. The brothers left town before the bank could put the Sheriff on them and headed west.

Six months later they found themselves in southern New Mexico along the Rio Grande river and their luck began to change. They came across twenty head of stray cattle and managed to keep the mangy animals alive long enough to get to the nearest town and turn them over to the local deputy so they could be returned to their rightful owner. The man who owned the cattle was so impressed with the young men's honesty he offered them jobs on his ranch. That was how the Farmer and his brother came to settle down in Mesilla, New Mexico.

The Farmer and his brother worked on the Ranch for several years and became two of the Ranchers most trusted hands. Neither drank too much tequila, or liked to gamble, and could always be counted on to put in a hard days work. This made the two stand out from most of the other shiftless young men drifting about the country after the war. One night in 1872, while leading a cattle drive to Dallas, the Farmer’s brother was killed defending the Ranchers herd from rustlers. The Rancher, as a form of compensation, deeded 20 acres of land a few miles north of Mesilla, near the small town of Las Cruces, to the Farmer and helped set him up growing cotton. The Farmer, not forgetting the lessons learned from his father, paid the Rancher back his entire investment in less than two years.

By 1875 the Farmer managed to build a nice little spread for himself. He grew mostly cotton, but set aside a couple of acres for staple crops to feed his growing assortment of chickens, goats and a few head of cattle. He built a small house with his own hands, dug a well and even managed to plow out a working irrigation system for his fields that fed from the river. Some mornings, as the sun crested the Organ Mountains to the east, he would start his day thinking of his family and wish his father lived to see all he managed to accomplish since fleeing Pennsylvania in the dead of night just ahead of the Sheriff. More than once he considered sending a telegraph back east to make good on those final bills his father left so long ago. But fate had other plans for the Farmer.

He admired Lupe for months before he ever knew her name. He would see her from time to time when he came into town for provisions. She was the oldest child of a Mescalero-Apache father and a Mexican mother. When Lupe was 10 years old she witnessed her father shot down in the town square after being falsely accused of cheating in a game of cards. Charges were never brought against the man who shot him. In fact, the action wasn’t even considered a crime in those days and to her horror the man was eventually elected Sheriff a year later. To feed her children her mother picked up work as a cleaning woman in one of the rich Spaniards homes. Lupe took in cleaning and sewing as a way to help her mother and younger brothers get by, but it was a hard life for a half-breed Apache girl in this new part of the United States.

Winter was coming on and the Farmer was prepping his stables for the coming weather when he realized he needed to replace the canvas cover over the chicken coup. When he asked the owner of the general mercantile where he might get some custom stitch work done, he was pointed in Lupe's direction. He approached the young woman about the work near the end of September 1876. They were married just before Christmas that same year.

The two were happy together and both worked hard day and night to grow their little spread. Two years later they managed to buy five acres of adjoining property from one of their neighbors and this investment reaped immediate rewards as it turned out to be the tipping point between profitability and hard times. They were now considered modestly 'comfortable' and managed to put away a little money at the end of each harvest. To make his wife happy the Farmer built a small cabin next to their house and moved Lupe's mother in. He even sent her two little brothers off to the Indian school back in Iowa so they could get a good education. At this point, life was good. Better than he ever dreamed possible back in the dark days of the war. The couple wanted to start a family so the Farmer could pass on his fathers name as well as this profitable little piece of heaven.

For the first time in his life the Farmer looked back on everything he'd gone thru and believed there was some meaning to it all. He felt fortunate to be at this point in his life. Grateful to know that after losing his whole family to plain old bad luck that he did not give in to the anger or bitterness which consumes so many others when things go wrong. Believing that if he had, he would never have gotten to this point. He tried to explain these feelings to his wife, who had lived a much harder existence than he, but wasn’t sure she grasped his full meaning.

The first sign that things were starting to turn bad was in early spring 1880 when the Rancher died in his sleep. The Farmer thought of him as a father figure and his passing hit him much harder than he expected. But the true impact was felt when the contracts the Rancher had with the Government to supply meat and a few other products to the various military forts in the region were re-assigned. The Farmer made his living selling most of his crop to the Rancher and was paid top dollar due to those government contracts. The new contract holder didn't know the Farmer and had other sources who could supply what he needed. This left the Farmer to figure out where he would sell his crops without help from his oldest and truest friend.

The second sign that things were turning bad came in the form of a land survey team he found trespassing on his property in June that same year. That team worked for the Aitcheson-Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad line. The Farmer, like most everyone around these parts, knew the train was coming but figured it would run through Mesilla, not Las Cruces. After all, Mesilla, as the county seat, was the larger of the two communities, a thriving center for trade and a stop on the Butterfield Overland Mail Company stage route. Las Cruces just couldn't compete.

What the Farmer couldn't know was a small group of local merchants, ranchers and businessmen, calling themselves the ‘New Mexico Town Company’, were conspiring to entice the railroad thru Las Cruces by giving the land the Railroad needed for FREE in exchange for exclusive rights to the adjoining land so they could set up businesses that would make them all very wealthy. The group had it on good authority that this was much more preferable than the $10 million dollars the railroad would have to pay the town of Mesilla for the same right-of-way agreement there.

What he also couldn't know was that the survey team determined the best route for a train through Las Cruces ran straight across the 25 acres of the Farmers land.

These local men knew the Farmer would never willingly give over what he had worked so hard to build just when he turned the corner on profitability. They needed another way to get their hands on that particular piece of land. Eminent domain laws were researched, but dismissed as being too lengthy of a process. They considered poisoning the Farmers well or salting his fields. They even debated bringing in a professional gunman. Then, one day the president of the local bank received a telegraph in response to a few discrete inquiries he made into the Farmers background. That’s when they discovered those unpaid debts in Pennsylvania going back to after the war. The members of the New Mexico Town Company knew they found the information they were looking for.

A warrant was issued and the Sheriff sent out to serve it on the Farmer. The situation deteriorated and then quickly got out of hand when questionable allegations were made that the Farmer attempted to resist arrest. The day ended with the Farmer being shot to death in front of his wife and mother-in-law.

An inquest was held and it was determined that the Sheriff acted within his authority. The Farmer’s land was placed into receivership and held in trust by the city of Las Cruces pending a court decision on whether or not his non-white half breed spouse could legally own property under the laws of the time. The judge was quietly paid off for a ruling in favor of the New Mexico Town Company and they took possession of the parcel of land they needed to woo the railroad away from Mesilla.

Lupe, and her aging mother, were summarily evicted from the land by the same Sheriff who shot and killed both her father and her husband. Penniless and destitute, the women were forced to leave Las Cruces and quickly set up temporary lodging along the bank of the Rio Grande outside of Mesilla just as winter was settling in upon the valley. Lupe was a strong woman and did everything she could do to prepare for the coming cold, but no matter how hard she tried, it proved too much for her mother. The older woman died on a bitter cold night just after new years 1881.

That proved too much for Lupe to take. She sat cradling her mothers dead body in her arms and gave voice to a sorrow that came from deep down within her bones. At some point, Lupe began to chant the ancient Apache words her father taught her for when a loved one dies, telling the spirits on the other side a fierce and brave warrior is coming home. Her rage kept her warm through most of the night as she pictured the faces of the townspeople that done her wrong. She sang all of the old words her father taught her and even tried to do the ceremonial dancing he would have done had he been here.

Lesser spirits across the valley felt her pain and sorrow and were drawn to the small woman emanating such raw emotion all alone on that cold dark night. She sang and danced in the ancient ways until the words became gibberish and her bare feet began to bleed -- but she couldn’t stop. The rage and anger inside drove her on and on. She danced faster and faster. Her movements becoming frantic. Her voice broke from dehydration and the words coming from her sounded harsh and malevolent. She was losing herself within herself – teetering on insanity – her mind was rushing waves of sorrow and anger, pain and rage.

Then, from somewhere, a soft voice spoke, “Do you really wish to make them pay?”

“YES!” Lupe cried out, her words echoing off across the hills into the night as she spun round and round in the dark.

“Then ask me how.” The voice in her head that was not in her head instructed... teased... demanded.

The word began to form on her lips with only the tiniest hint of the sound of her voice escaping her throat, sounding more like a breath than actual speech, “H...”

The ancient one flooded inside her taking possession of every molecule. It began to inventory her cells and claim them as its own, placing its mark upon each and every one. The essential part of her consciousness was torn into a billion shreds; then re-structured, forced into a new persona, an old acquaintance, a co-joined personality. As the last remaining spark of her old self was consumed, Lupe’s movements stopped mid-dance.

The young woman stood, frozen in time and space, for an impossibly long time. A lifelike carving of flesh and blood. No breath exhaled. No sign of a heartbeat. No movement of her body at all. Until, moments before the rising sun crested the mountains to the east, her eyes snapped open vacant and black. Solid black. A black so depthless it could only come from the soul. Then, oh, so slowly, a smile spread across her face.

And she became vengeance.



Jan. 3rd, 2015

"Heavy" Navarro was just finishing his nightly rounds of this mostly forgotten part of town. He, and so many of the other Watchers, lived a short distance away from the cemetery. All of the families that made up the group learned over the years that living too close to the graveyard created its own set of problems. Very young children saw spirits that others couldn't. Older kids became afflicted with terrible nightmares that over time caused them to become moody and withdrawn. Young adults experienced a range of problems including paranoia, depression, anxiety and a few even became suicidal. Most of the Watchers abandon their original family homesteads years ago and relocated to land given to them by the church farther away in order to avoid these ailments. For the most part it worked. Occasionally, someone was born with an extreme psychic sensitivity to the site that no amount of distance could block. Heavy was like this. His maternal grandmother had spotted the talent in him when he was very young. She also believed this sensitivity was the reason he ate so much.

Heavy lived up to his name. He weighed just over 400 pounds, but didn't look or move like he weighed that much mostly due to his 6' 6" frame. Heavy's small group of friends and family teased him about changing his nickname to "Humongous" because that’s really what he was. He was a giant of a man. When you factored in the long black ponytail and the dark glasses he wore almost everywhere he was pretty intimidating. His facial features; prominent high cheekbones and hatchet shaped nose along with with his reddish-copper skin color announced his native American ancestry to the world. But Heavy was a gentle giant. When he moved you could see care and deliberation in every gesture. These were the movements of someone who is aware of their size and strength and the fact they might hurt someone without ever realizing what happened. Everyone in the area knew and loved Heavy and he was like a landmark among the Mexican-American community of Old Mesilla. Which made him stand out just about as much as his abilities.

He finished walking the perimeter of the fence and double-checked the padlocks on both gates before being satisfied that no one went inside during the storm. He stood there for a second debating whether or not to go in and check the concrete block for cracks, but decided against it. It looked really muddy in there. And Heavy thought it would be better to wait a day for the ground to dry a little than to go in there tonight and risk slipping, falling and possibly hurting himself. He turned and started walking back towards his truck. As he went, he could hear his grandmothers voice in the back of his mind scolding him for not being thorough. Heavy missed the old woman. She raised him from a baby because his mother ran off after she gave birth and over the years only returned about a dozen times. Nana became his surrogate mother, teacher, best friend and mentor regarding his abilities. She was the heart and soul of the group of Watchers and been their leader for as long as anyone could remember. She had been loved by the local community and almost a thousand people attended her funeral when she passed away of congestive heart failure 8 months ago. Heavy was still adjusting to life without her. He realized how lonely and isolated he felt lately and promised himself he would do something to change that.

He approached his old pick-up truck, an aging green Chevy step-side with a permanent 'lean' to the drivers side that was so pronounced it looked like it was turning a corner just sitting there. He parked across from the main gate and just as he slid his key in the door lock caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned slowly to see what it was thinking that there was no one out this evening. Not just here. He hadn't seen a single person outside on his drive over. Which he thought was odd - but not too surprising considering it still looked and felt like rain. So, when he saw Lolo Chavez walking his big old chocolate Labrador "Jake", it finally started to feel like things were getting back to normal.

"Que paso, Lolo? Everything good with you?" Heavy called to the kid being pulled down the sidewalk by a dog as big as he was.

"Oh yeah, everythin's great." Lolo struggled to put on the brakes so he could stop and talk with Heavy, but Jake was having none of it, "Jake an' I been stuck inside since the rain started. Been driving Momma crazy. She tol' us to go blow some stink off 'cuz the rain stopped. Din't tell me to put on a coat or nothin'. Just wanted me an' Jake outside for awhile, I guess." By the time he got all that out Jake had pulled him past Heavy and was halfway down the block with Lolo holding on to the leash for dear life.

Heavy's whole body began to jiggle as he laughed at this poor kid trying to walk his dog. Heavy stopped laughing suddenly as an idea took form in his mind; That’s it. He was going to start looking for a dog of his own. Nana never let him have one. But now that she was gone, and he was lonely, why not? A dog could be just what he needed. Not any dog though. Heavy was going to need to think about just what kind he liked most first. Heavy smiled as he climbed into his old truck and cranked it over.

He made a U turn in front of San Albino's and flashed his headlights and waved when he drove past Lolo and Jake as he headed for home. When Heavy shifted into second gear his truck backfired. It was doing this more and more lately and he thought he would need to give it a tune-up soon. Had Heavy checked his rear view mirror as he made the turn that would take him out past the church and then on towards home he might have seen the jack rabbit, scared by the sound of the backfire, bolt out of its hiding place and run right past Lolo and Jake, but he was caught up with the idea of getting a dog.

Jake took one look at the rabbit and nature took over. He barked once, and then with every bit of strength he could muster, lunged forward against the leash. Lolo, who wasn't really paying attention, was yanked off his feet and found himself falling face first towards the sidewalk. He let go so he could use his hands to break his fall and as he did so Jake felt the tension on the line loosen and took off like a rocket. Both the hunted and the hunter headed straight towards the front gate of San Albino's. By the time Lolo recovered from his fall both had slipped through the bars of the gate and were out of sight heading deeper inside the cemetery.

Lolo let out a low Spanish curse and checked his hands and knees to see if he was bleeding. When he was fairly sure he wasn't going to require an organ transplant he got up and half limped, half jogged over to the gate calling out his dogs name. He could hear Jake barking, but not in response to Lolo's calls. Jake was having way too much fun chasing the rabbit around the walled in cemetery.

The rabbit did its best to initiate an evasive pattern that would keep it out of the jowls of the barking set of teeth chasing it. It zigged and zagged across the cemetery grounds but was starting to get tired. The rabbit realized, as much as they do, that it was time to 'go high' or 'go low' and find a spot to catch its breath. Since it hadn't seen any welcoming holes in the mud, it decided to go high. Just as Jake was about to make his move and swipe the rabbit sideways with his paw, the rabbit launched itself at a small concrete headstone directly in front of the chase. From there, it pin-balled two more times, each jump giving it a little more distance and a little more height from the jaws of death behind it.

Jake, on the other hand, suffered from Goofy Dog Syndrome. When the rabbit took its first jump, Jake tracked its movement with precision eyes, but continued to run full speed, and was no longer looking where he was headed. He actually sensed the collision with the round topped grave marker a split second before he hit it. He tried to downshift and change directions, but it was too late. He recovered well, just not gracefully, and did a 180 degree turn before realizing the rabbit already jumped once more before he was able to get any kind of traction in the slippery mess. It took him a second before he spotted his dinner catching its breath on top of a large square concrete block.

Jake, seeing his chance, went into full on 'special forces' mode. He crouched low onto his haunches and sniffed at the air. His tail went into stealth mode as it stutter-swished back and forth just above grass level so as not to make a sound. Jake crept forward in super slow motion to not attract any attention. When he got close enough the muscles in his hindquarters coiled and quivered as he gathered his strength for the final lunge.

Lolo heard the commotion and squeezed his thin body through the bars of the gate. He was working his way through the headstones calling out, trying to get Jake to respond. As he did, the rabbit turned its head and spotted Lolo approaching. At that exact moment, Jake made his move. The rabbit never heard him coming. Jake landed with his front paws on the rabbit pinning it to the concrete block and brought the full force of his jaws down on its head in a clamping move that tore open wounds along its shoulders and neck. Blood flowed from the small animal and smeared across the dogs snout. It also splashed onto the concrete marker underneath them. Lolo had never seen his dog attack before and was startled by the pure ferocity. He yelled the dogs name with enough force and authority to break the spell and get Jake’s attention. The dog released the rabbit from its mouth and immediately jumped down and came to his master.

The dying rabbit, lying on top of the witch's grave marker, began to mewl loudly in a horrendous death cry. Lolo ran over to the grave and tried to pick the animal up to see what could be done to save it but it only took a second for the boy to recognize the truth. Lolo was a smart kid. He intuitively understood the most compassionate thing he could do was to put the rabbit out of its misery. His family lived on the outskirts of town where they raised chickens and a variety of other small animals to sell or to eat. His mother had taught him how, and he had rung the necks of chickens several times for her to cook. Lolo took the dying rabbit into his hands and performed the familiar move now.

As his hands felt the delicate bones snap under his grip, electricity started to crackle the air around him. Lolo's mouth suddenly tasted like he was sucking on a penny and the smell of rotten eggs seemed to overwhelm. As he felt the hairs on his arms beginning to stand on end he thought he heard the sound of an old woman saying, “Ahhhh!”. Even as he heard and felt these things all around him the world began to get brighter and brighter, until a blinding flash engulfed Lolo in a massive bolt of lightning.



Jan. 3rd, 1881

The .... thing... Lupe became stood along the bank of the river and looked slowly around. Everything was different. For millennia it existed on the lower plane sharing time and space with everything at once. Looking at the world thru physical eyes was limiting, but it held a depth and texture that added to the interaction. Casting its gaze inward the thing could feel the remnants of both the “old-self” and the “she-self”, aware it was neither, and both, as well as something completely different. A “Now-Self”

The thing began to take in its surroundings and limitations. Accessing the knowledge of the she-self, the thing was able to tell the difference between tree and bush, dirt and rock, air and water. Then, it took a bearing and was able to determine its location to the nearby towns, ranches and even name the river it stood next too. Connecting with the source of its old-self it opened its inner eye and was able to look across long distances with accuracy and clarity. It conjured small Magick with its old consciousness to ensure it still held power. Next, it opened itself to the physical nature of its new being and felt the breeze on its skin, the pang of hunger, the coldness of an evening chill, the ache of loss, and thousands of other sensations for the first time.

The thing then sharpened its focus inward, listening and feeling its way on a sub-atomic investigation of the Now-self. The common thread weaving thru every facet was the fundamental purpose of the thing; Vengeance. Every aspect of the things existence - every urge, impulse and motivation was driven by the all consuming desire to wreak havoc and achieve revenge. It thickened the blood that coursed through its veins, altered the course of synapse that fired inside the brain and left its residue to stain the code of its DNA. It would not be denied and could not be rejected. It simply was.

The thing adjusted its physical self and took a couple of tentative steps, gaining strength and confidence with each one. Muscles flexed one by one until it understood the mechanics of the form it inhabited. The thing made its way over to the dying embers of a fire started by the woman earlier that night, or a thousand years ago, it couldn't be sure. Using its source magick, the embers of the fire were kindled and flames roared to life. The thing sat down next to the fire’s warmth and focused in on itself to begin learning the ways of limited beings. It accessed the old-self’s spectrum and then the she-self's knowledge and started to absorb the essence of both. Now-Self was completing the process of its own awakening. In a very real sense giving birth to itself.

The thing now understood how and why it happened to come to exist. It skimmed the life experiences of the woman and found more than enough fuel to burn hotter than the sun. The injustices she endured were unforgivable; loss, discrimination, greed, oppression, not to mention all the day-to-day slights these humans inflict on each other. They all fed the purpose inside the thing and stoked its desire to action. It began to list the humans it intended to seek out and make pay for their crimes. It didn’t take long. There were only a handful of humans the thing was interested in, none of which held any special magick.

First would be the Judge who took away her husbands land because he was corrupt. Then, the members of the New Mexico Town Company - they set these events in motion with their greed. And finally the Sheriff.

The thing would take its time with that one. The woman hated that human most of all because he took both of the men from her life – Her father, then her husband. As the thing looked around the camp, its gaze landed upon the body of the old woman the she-self called mother. The thing realized the Sheriff was at least partially responsible for this humans death as well. After all, he was the one to kick them off of the husbands land, wasn’t he? Yes. That one would get special attention indeed.

This was going to be fun, but not very challenging. The thing would track down these humans and extract vengeance for the woman who called it here. Then it would be free to move on and find other humans for the things personal entertainment. Based upon its observations of the species, and the thing had been watching them for as long as they’ve been around, that would be the easy part. Humans were a cruel and remorseless animal. Which meant most of the herd would have at least one other human they would want to hurt. The thing realized it could take thousands of years to deliver vengeance to this tribe. To show its pleasure, the thing fired an electrical impulse from its brain down the seventh cranial nerve through the cerebral cortex, when necessary, it sliced the impulse five ways – one for each primary branch of muscles – and routed them to their destination where they enervated the facial muscles to form a smile. The thing was amused.

The thing opened its inner eye and tapped into the spectrum to locate the humans on its list. It took only a second for it to locate everyone of them and place its mark on their shadow so it would know where they were at all times. The thing took one last look around the camp for anything that it might find useful and saw nothing worth taking. It turned towards the northeast and began walking towards Las Cruces. When it was maybe 50 yards from the campsite the thing waved a hand as if it were shooing away a fly. The camp and everything in it – including the dead woman – burst into a giant fireball that rose over a hundred feet into the sky leaving not a trace of the woman or her belongings behind.

The thing kept walking - not that it had too. It could be anywhere and everywhere in less than a second if it chose too, but the thing decided to take this opportunity to get to know the physical form it now possessed a little better. Now-self would use this time to come up with potentially cruel and exciting ways to make each human pay for the specific crimes each committed against the woman.

Unfortunately, the Thing underestimated its enemy.



Jan. 3rd, 2015

Heavy stepped out of his truck at the Circle K store on Avenida de Mesilla the same moment the headache hit. Before he could grab hold of the truck's door to brace himself, he was down. Sometimes when these... episodes... came on him they were strong enough to take him to his knees. This one knocked him out cold. That never happened before. To Danny, the clerk inside the store, he looked like a building being taken down by controlled demolition as he crumbled right there in the parking lot. Danny, who knew Heavy only as a regular customer, grabbed his cell phone and ran outside to see if he was OK or maybe in need of an ambulance. Heavy was only unconscious for a second or two. When he woke up he blinked his eyes a few times to clear his head and the pain began to taper off. But it was instantly replaced by a single all consuming compulsion that flashed across his brain like a neon sign; He had to get back over to San Albino's. Now! Something was very wrong.

As his eyes slowly focused, he became aware that Danny was standing over him and talking. He missed most of what was said but reached up in what he knew would be understood as the universal gesture of 'Help Me Get Up'. Danny, who weighed all of 110 pounds soaking wet, mentally shrugged his shoulders, gripped Heavy's hand and started to pull with everything he had. Once Heavy was back on his feet, Danny asked, "Are you OK? You went down hard. Should I call some one for you?"

"No, I'm fine. Don't call 911, please. I have to go someplace and I don't have time to answer a bunch of questions." Heavy shook his head to try and clear out the last bit of his vision, then added, "Do me a favor, will you? It's important. Call Father Miguel over at the church. Tell him what happened. Tell him what you saw. Then tell him that 'Heavy wants you to 'make the call', got that? Its important that you say the words; 'Make the call', ok?. Tell him to call everyone. Will you do that for me?" Heavy was climbing back into his truck but paused long enough to get Danny to confirm he would. Once he had that covered, he cranked over the old pick-up, dropped it into reverse, and hit the gas. He had no time to lose.

Danny turned and went back inside the store thinking, "What was that all about?" but dialed 411 to get the number for the church from information. As he was about to go behind the counter, he heard the familiar 'beep, Beep, BEEP' sound of a cell phone without service. "Oh, crap!" he said. and realized his pre-paid cell phone was out of time. He stuck his phone in his pocket and started to go to the office in the back to use the store's land-line to call the church when a couple of customers walked in the door. The call would have to wait. He was supposed to be out front whenever there was customers to watch for shoplifters. Because of this simple rule it was another 15 minutes before he could lock the doors and go out back to use the phone.

The old Chevy step-side braked hard. But even before it stopped rolling, Heavy was out the door and heading towards the wrought iron gate. He undid the the big steel padlock then stopped before going inside. While he was in a hurry, he remembered Nana and decided to take a few seconds and calm down before he went in to investigate. He didn't know what he would find in there, but he was sure he was going to find something. His talent had never been wrong before. As he was catching his breath he noticed the wind was picking up. It started blowing leaves and small pieces of trash in circles all around him. Then he noticed a smell; something familiar, but un-nameable. He pushed on the gate and it opened with a screech of metal hinges that seemed too loud to be natural after a hard rain. He told himself that he was prepared for whatever he would come across. And while this would be the first time anything happened during his lifetime, Nana taught him the lessons learned from her experience with the witch. After tonight, he would have stories of his own to tell some day, if he survived.

Heavy knew every square inch of this graveyard, especially the route to the witch's grave, and he headed straight to that spot now. It was extremely dark inside the walled-in cemetery and it took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust. Even then, he didn't quite believe what he was seeing. He took a couple of steps closer wishing he had remembered to grab the flashlight from under the passenger seat in his truck. As the night became clearer, so did the evidence laid out before him.

The concrete encasement over the Witch's grave was split in two as if a giant fist came straight down from the sky and punched it into the ground. The two opposite ends were sticking up out of the mud, and the center, where it broke, was forced downward into the earth. He could see something stuck to it fluttering in the wind so he reached into his pocket for his lighter to check it out. In the flickering dimness of the Bic’s flame, he saw what looked like pieces of fur and a lot of blood. “What the hell?!?” he asked himself. And just as quickly he came up with the answer; someone had performed a blood sacrifice over the Witch's grave! Who in the world would do something so stupid? Right then he heard a noise behind him. He turned fast, expecting to see anything except what he saw; Jake. Lolo's dog.

Jake was hiding a couple of rows over and appeared to be slathered in mud along one side of his body and what looked to be blood on his face. For a split second Heavy thought the dog had rabies or something, but that thought went away when he remembered seeing how happy he was to be outside earlier... with his master. “Hey Jake, c'mere boy.” Heavy called to the dog. Jake looked scared out of his mind but slowly took a couple of steps closer and then stopped. Heavy called to him again. The dog just whined and would not come any closer. He realized it was the grave the dog was afraid of so he went over to Jake, who seemed grateful.

“Hey, boy. Where's Lolo? Huh? Where's your walking buddy?” Jake, as if he understood the question, let out a low moan and lay down at Heavy's feet. When he did, Heavy became sure that something really bad must have happened to the boy. He crouched down and spoke to the animal again, “I sure wish you could tell me where Lolo was, boy.”

“I'm right here.” the voice behind him answered. Jake began snarling and barking at whoever it was. Heavy's fear was instant and felt like an ice cold hand grabbing the base of his spine. He slowly stood and turned to see who was talking to him. "Easy boy." Heavy said to the dog, and ran his hand over the crown of its head softly to get the dog to be quiet.

The 'thing' looked like Lolo but the boys eyes were completely black. It was casually leaning against one of the chunks of the former witch's grave looking right at him, then it spoke again, “And whom might you be?” the witch asked using Lolo's voice. Before Heavy could respond, it continued, “Oh. Yes, I see. You are a descendant of that old woman who locked me up in this pitiful place last time, aren't you." It sniffed the air in Heavy's direction, "Yes. I can smell her stink on you.”

“Let the boy go.” Heavy replied, deciding to ignore the bait. “The others are on their way. You will be put back. You will not be allowed to roam like before.”

“Oh, yes I will. I am free now. And I am just borrowing this child’s 'meat-suit' for a second or two. It is taking far too much energy just to keep it together. You see, it was destroyed when he woke me. And I will be long gone by the time anyone shows up to help you." The witch smiled. "I just wanted to let you know that you cannot stop me this time. It wasn’t like the pure luck that captured me or the simple spell that woke me last time. This was a blood sacrifice... that set me free. All of you together do not have enough magic to bind me to the earth again. At long last, I am back to get my revenge. This town will wither and die because of what it did to me. Of that you have my word." The witch stood up straight and took a step towards Heavy, "But first, I intend to have a little fun.” the Witch inside Lolo raised its left arm into the sky and in a powerfully swift motion, clenched its hand into a fist. When it did, an explosion was heard in the distance. “That was your precious church. It is going to burn to the ground while you are all gathering here.” The boy formerly known as Lolo took a menacing step towards Heavy, but stopped. He cocked his head towards the gate like he was hearing something far off then turned its attention back, “We will finish this another time. Your friends are beginning to arrive. You know, Many of them question whether or not I actually exist. Most think I'm just an old superstition; a story passed down for generations. No more real than your Santa Claus. You will be surprised how many will not be willing to help find me this time. So, I'm sure you understand why I can't have them seeing me, right? I'm not going to give them reason to believe tonight. But rest assured, we will meet again.”

Lolo's body began to glow, seemingly from the inside, until it was too bright to look at. Heavy shielded his eyes, but the instant he did the light winked out and the Witch was gone. The only thing left was young Lolo's badly burned, and barely recognizable, body. Heavy couldn't hear anything but the witch's warning as he walked over and knelt down besides the body of Lolo Chavez. Jake was sticking pretty close to Heavy and mainly hid behind the large man for protection. But now he licked the face of the body that used to belong to his master, then he laid down next to him. Heavy patted the Lab a couple of times and said to the dog, "I'm gonna miss him too, Jake. He was a good kid and didn't deserve this." Jake wagged his tale as if to confirm the thought.

After only a few minutes, Heavy realized people were gathering behind him. He figured he heard enough voices that a good number of the Watcher's must be here by now. He stood up and turned to face them, and was surprised to only see five or so of the 30+ people who would have gathered for his Nana if she made the call for the Watchers to assemble. He put on his poker face before speaking.

“She's back. And she's pissed.” he said to the small group of people. “And this time its not going to be easy to put her back where she belongs. I'll explain later, right now we need to get to the church, fast.” Heavy bent down and gently picked up the dead boy in his arms and began walking towards the gate with Jake by his side. People began moving quickly out towards the street and to their cars. Heavy heard a fire truck wail off in the distance and said a little prayer that it got to the church in time to save it, or at least Father Miguel, who Heavy assumed was still there working the phones when the explosion happened.

He reached his truck and gently placed Lolo in the bed, then took off his enormous coat and covered the boy's body. He turned, opened the drivers door and was startled by a blur that turned out to be Jake jumping inside the cab. The dog went over to the passenger side, circled once, sniffed the seat and laid down. “I see how its going to be.” Heavy said to the dog as he climbed inside the cab and cranked over the engine. Jake just looked back at him and yawned. Heavy reached over and stroked the old boy behind his ears as he headed to the Church.

If tonight turned out to be as bad as the last time the witch sought her vengeance then it was going to be a very long night in the city of Las Cruces....

[Melanie_Page]

It's very clever. Congratulations!