The following is Chapter One from the novel, “Hunting For Witches — Salem’s Burning”
When it comes to horror, some would argue that the most frightening type of horror involves an encounter with the unknown. A shadow creeping in the dark, contact with beings from another world. Fear of the unknown certainly has its place in horror, but it would be a grave error to ignore the fact that some of the most chilling and traumatizing scenarios come attached to a guise that is recognizable or familiar.
Professor Emmanuel wasn’t expecting an encounter with horror that evening. A waxing crescent moon was glowing in the sky above him, and the night was quiet and still.
Emmanuel liked things that way: quiet and still. It was part of the reason he stayed on campus so late to finish his research each evening. His TA’s handled most of the grading for his classes these days, which allowed him more time to indulge in his own personal devices, and that, for him, was perfectly fine. With every passing year, it appeared that his students were growing less attentive, less interested, and less capable when it came to wrestling with the challenges of “critical thinking”—a skill many would prove inadequate in when expected to apply this special talent upon graduation.
That was all fine with Emmanuel as well. He was aware that his occupation was mostly a novelty at this point—something to give him a purposeful role in society and a place to study how the newer generations were getting along. His real job was making sure his students weren't picking up any methods of thinking perceived as dangerous to the established order of things—an order to which he belonged.
Thankfully, there was no need to worry. Powerful, charismatic freethinkers were a rare breed to come across, leaving his life remarkably carefree and predictable for the most part, his nightly routine ending with a brisk walk that required him the same amount of time each and every class night until he arrived at his dependable vehicle—the only car that remained in the vast and empty lot.
On that particular evening, Emmanuel set down his briefcase as he searched for his keys. For an instant, he thought about how he could probably get home a few moments sooner if he started making a habit of crossing to his transportation with keys in hand.
How much time would he save by doing this? Three seconds?
It's no wonder he never cared to put forth the effort.
He would be home soon enough, and that, like everything else in his life, was perfectly fine.
Buzz. Buzz.
Emmanuel’s face formed a curious expression. He wondered who could be texting him at such a late hour. Definitely not the wife. Their relationship was mostly a novelty at this point as well. Even if there was an emergency, he doubted she would feel the need to contact him specifically.
Hmm. This sealed the event as a perplexing mystery that could only be solved by reaching into his pocket. And with a life so effortlessly predictable and void of conflict, it was a unique surprise for him to discover a text from an Unknown Sender reading:
CHECK YOUR EMAIL.
Emmanuel pulled the door closed and hit the locks. His mind was racing, coming up with all the harmless reasons for why he would receive such a text. It appeared he would have to go along with the message’s command to figure out why he was feeling so restless.
He clicked the mail icon on his phone and discovered “ONE NEW EMAIL” sitting in his inbox. The message was from an obscure email address from Czechoslovakia; a collection of random letters and numbers, along with the domain name “cz.”
Could it be? No, perish the thought, he reasoned.
Emmanuel opened the message, which proved to be blank except for an attached MOV file. His heart was racing.
If the message was from Europe, could that mean…?
After a few more moments of hesitation, he tapped the file and watched the screen turn to black as the video began to load. Handheld footage appeared of what seemed to be a dimly lit basement, a man with an uncommonly majestic mustache tied to a chair in the center of the frame.
Emmanuel felt a knot start to form in the pit of his stomach.
The man looked familiar to him, but the room was dark, and his face was so horribly bruised and swollen, it was difficult to make out.
Could it be…? No, that would be…
Beads of sweat were forming on the back of his neck when his thoughts were interrupted by a voice that was chillingly apathetic.
“Name?”
The prisoner winced painfully.
“M-M-Malcolm Pryor…”
“And what do people call you?”
The man stuttered helplessly as the camera—a smartphone, probably—continued to record his mangled features. Clearly, the fellow was scared beyond all comprehension—and for good reason. He had already been beaten senseless, and who knew what unspeakable tortures might still lay in store.
“S-some people… Some people call me…the Seventh Scholar.”
Emmanuel’s jaw dropped at the revelation.
He knew this man! He really knew him!
As for the unseen videographer, the identity of that horrifying monster was still not exactly clear.
“The Seventh Scholar...” The unseen cameraman was obviously already aware of this information. “You must know many things to have earned that name.”
The prisoner squeezed his eyes shut, trembling and sniveling. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…” His pleas were cut short as a black leather–gloved hand reached into frame, stroking the man’s face with sadistic condescension.
“Shh-shh-shh… Let's try this again. You were about to tell me something. Something extraordinary. Tell me… Where is the item I’m looking for?”
Emmanuel watched the distressed captive resume his pitiful sniveling. He could sense the man’s predicament, knowing he shouldn’t answer, but the fear of what might happen should he refuse was too painful to imagine.
After a few moments, the man let out a desperate breath and forced a string of words through his cracked and bloody lips.
“It’s… It’s in… Little…Salem…”
Silence. Emmanuel leaned forward, waiting with bated breath.
All the color had left his face at this point. Not because of any empathy he might have felt for the victim, but because of the dread of having guessed the identity of the man’s cold interrogator.
Confirmation came moments later as the unseen cameraman turned the camera on himself, revealing an abnormally pale young man who appeared to be his late twenties or early thirties. Dark fiery eyes, a shock of grungy platinum hair, his face partly shadowed by a black hoodie worn under a shabby black military overcoat.
Emmanuel felt a cold chill, his worst fear coming to fruition.
This was his son.
His son, McAllister. His flesh and blood.
But there was something different about him. McAllister had never looked so dementedly ghoulish and gaunt. The chalky, pale skin, the intense, razor-sharp features, and his eyes—his eyes were different as well. They seemed to have been stripped of anything close to resembling what could still pass for human and were filled with an irreparable strain of unbridled madness and cruelty.
Most disconcerting of all was how he appeared utterly at home in this transformation as he flashed a madcap smile for the camera.
"Hear that, Daddy-O?" McAllister grinned. "Europe was a blast, but it appears you'll no longer have to wait for the next family reunion to see me. The new and improved me…”
Emmanuel watched in horror as McAllister turned the camera back to the face of his captive and reached for the man’s throat.
At the touch of his fingers, the face of the man began to change. The collection of blood vessels in the man’s neck began to flame bright red, starting a chain reaction spreading throughout his face and the rest of his body. Within seconds, every drop of blood pumping through his system turned black as coal. The prisoner’s life force was being drained, leaving a dark cobweb of blackened capillaries in its place—a feature that was all the more striking as all the color disappeared from the man’s skin, leaving him a rotten and colorless husk as his terrifying executioner maintained a tight grip on him.
Emmanuel sat paralyzed as a spine-chilling cacophony of distorted screams rang throughout the vehicle, mutely watching as this man—the man with the distinctive mustache; a man he had known quite well at one point—sat dying before his very eyes. Murdered in a way too horrible and too unusual to put to reason. And he was watching it all play out on the smartphone cradled in his cold, clammy hands that for the bloody life of him would not stop shaking and could not release the object even if he had wished to do so.
* * *
Far away from Boston, a hooded figure stood across the street from the historic hotel where Tyler and Ashton had just arrived. A figure with a waifish, feminine form. Bright eyes, long dark hair, and innocent looks.
Ada’s black-nailed, manicured hand pet the purring black kitten cradled in her arms as her gaze traveled up to Ashton’s window.
She smiled impishly.
Nearly five years had passed since Ada swore her revenge on Little Salem, and she’d been preparing for her return to the familiar setting. He may not have known it, but Ashton had been selected to play a small yet important role in her schemes. So far everything was going according to plan—and not in a manner suggesting this was the result of chance or good fortune, but in the precise and exacting way that she and her cunning stepbrother had arranged.
Her stepbrother, McAllister.