The Last Guardian

Chapter_12: Burn the Witch!!

"A false tongue will never make a guilty person"

- a victim of the Salem Witch Trials

Lisa woke up next morning at the old Church gasping for air. She was feeling incredibly thirsty and looked around for water. There was a bottle of water in the table and she started drinking. Suddenly Billy walked in-

"Feeling better?", he asked.

"Where am I?", asked Lisa.

"You're safe ...this is a Church...", he replied.

"Oh! Thank God...Wait... you're Billy right? I saw you the other day...", she said.

"Yes ma'am...but let's talk about your situation now...", said Billy.

"Ah...I don't know what to say...Wait where's my car? I crashed it somewhere...", said Lisa.

"Oh it's all right...just a few scratches...", he replied.

"God ...I must be going crazy...", she remarked.

"How long have you had that rash on your feet?", he asked.

Lisa looked at her ankle, the rash - the black rash was still there but it has stopped itching.

"I don't know but it has been itching like hell...and now it seems to have stopped...Why do you ask?", she said.

"You know that's not a medical condition you're having...", he said.

"Then what is it?", she asked.

"It's supernatural- something we call Ghost Sickness!", he replied.

"What? You mean a ghost did this?", she asked.

"It means you're haunted and marked by a ghost...", he replied.

Lisa was surprised, how did this old man know about the hauntings. Is there any truth to what he was saying.

There was a loud bang at the door and Johnathan came in. He saw Lisa sitting on a old sofa talking to Billy.

"What the! What is she doing here?", he said as he approached Billy.

"You? Why are you here?", asked Lisa.

"So you guys know each other...", said Raven as she came in after Johnathan.

"Yeah...wait...what's up with her?", asked Johnathan.

"This pretty lady got the ghost sickness...", said Billy.

"The what?", asked Johnathan.

"Its is a type of haunting...the ghost marks you and drives you insane until you are at it's mercy...Your body develops rashes like those...", said Billy pointing at her ankle.

"Marked you say? But why me?", asked Lisa.

"Hah..the ghost must like you...Or maybe it was related to you...", replied Billy.

"Aunt Lucinda...", she said.

"Seems you know something...", said Billy.

"Yeah ...I think my great aunt is haunting me...", replied Lisa.

"There you are..now we know who...all we need to find out is why...", said Billy.

"But how do you know about this stuff? And why did my itching stop?", she asked.

"I know a lot of things... I've seen a lot... You are temporarily out of its curse because you are in hallowed grounds hence no ghostly rashes... the ghost can't hurt you here..." replied Billy.

Lisa drew a sigh of relief. Johnathan sat down on a chair beside her and asked.

“So what’s this ghostly business anyway?”

“Well only little Miss Sunshine can explain…” remarked Raven sarcastically.

“I don’t know how but it all started on a case. There was this cab driver that suddenly went mad. He drove like crazy and tried to kill people on the road but he got into an accident when his cab hit a truck on the freeway…” Lisa explained everything about Navin’s case to them. She explained how she thought she saw an apparition on the accident site.

Then she told them about the peculiar haunting she experienced- how she began to see the ghost everywhere. Billy and the other two listened attentively.

After she had finished telling them the story, Billy stood up and went looking for something. A couple of minutes later, he returned with a small and old glass bottle.

“What’s in it? asked Johnathan.

Billy said nothing and unscrewed the cork from the bottle. He then approached Lisa who was sitting comfortably on the old couch with her shoes off-

“Miss, if you could show me your ankle-“  said Billy with the bottle in his hand.

Lisa showed him her right ankle- it was bruised and still had the black rashes. Billy kneeled down and looked at it and slowly poured the contents of the bottle on her ankle-Lisa looked on curiously. Johnatan stood up to take a closer look- nothing happened for a moment and Billy stood up and stared-

“Hmh! This was supposed to work- Oh! There it is…” he said suddenly noticing something.

Some sort of strange steam started to emanate from the rashes and the liquid that fell upon her ankle began to sizzle like an omelet on a frying pan. Lisa was terrified-

“What’s this? What’s happening to my leg!” she cried out.

“Just relax…I just poured holy water on the rash- and it only reacts against evil omen- apparently that black rash is the mark- the mark of the ghost..” he said as the steam began to disappear.

Few seconds later, the steam completely disappeared- Lisa looked at her feet and cried out in horror-

“What on earth is that?  Oh my god…Oh god…” she said pointing towards her ankle.

Everyone looked curiously at her ankle- there it was, clear as day- the mark- a dark impression of a human hand going all around her ankle. Lisa tried to remove it with her hands-

“Get off... get it off!! “ she cried desperately trying to rub the handprint off of her.

“Stop…don’t touch it…” cried Billy trying to prevent her from touching the spot.

But it was too late- Lisa suddenly went into shock and her eyes rolled over and she fell back in to the couch- shivering terribly.  Billy rushed to help her- Raven tried to hold her down on the couch while Johnathan froze.

“Quick boy...get your amulet…” he cried.

Johnathan rushed out to get his amulet from his car- he had placed it earlier in the glove compartment. Billy and Raven tried to hold Lisa down –

Lisa went into a strange dream- a blurry vision of an old town- probably from hundred years before she was born- she saw old houses and trees and a river beside the mountain-everything came to her in bits and pieces- like fragmented parts of an old portrait. She then saw herself walking towards the houses- it seemed like an old village but she couldn’t see any villagers. Suddenly she heard a lot of shouting and screaming from somewhere nearby. She turned and saw a lot of people with sticks and stones in their hands standing around someone, yelling and shouting. She tried to listen- but she couldn’t make out what they were saying- she tried to focus really hard and then she heard it- the people were screaming-

“Burn the witch! Burn the witch! ... She’s the spawn of the devil… a demon from hell…burn her…burn her!!

She walked towards the crowd and tried to take a look at who they were yelling at- there was a woman- she was tied against an old tree- she was half awake and breathing heavily- she was wearing a pink dress and her hair was falling from her face-

“I curse you… I curse you… curse you…curse…you…” the woman kept on muttering.

Suddenly Lisa felt the heat of an immense fire burning nearby- she looked around- the people were gone and only the woman remained but there was a great fire burning around her- it was starting to burn the woman’s clothes- Lisa ran towards the woman in order to rescue her- she tried to untie the ropes- but she couldn’t- she grabbed the woman and tried to wake her up- but there was no response. Suddenly the woman rose her head towards Lisa and looked at her straight in the eye- Lisa saw her bloody face and froze in fear- her face was covered with blood and all she could see was her  dark eyes staring at her- the woman opened her mouth and screamed at Lisa’s face- it was a deafening scream! Lisa couldn’t take it anymore- she covered her ears… a strange green light appeared…

“Wake up…hey.. wake up!!”Johnathan cried vigorously shaking her arms.

Lisa opened her eyes and found herself lying on the couch while Johnathan and Billy were trying to wake her up. She gasped for air and sat upright on the couch. She looked at her hand- she was holding something – she looked at it curiously- it was some strange green piece of stone tied on a black string-

“Let me have it back-“said Johnathan taking the amulet back from Lisa’s hand.

“What happened to me?” asked Lisa.

“You saw something- tell us-“said Billy.

Lisa asked for a glass of water and sat on the couch trying to relax for a while. A few minutes later she explained the entire incident to Billy.

Raven raised her eyebrows as she listened to Lisa explaining about her dream.

Johnathan listened attentively to her story with his fingers on his lips. He mindlessly kept staring at her feet-

“She has exceptionally beautiful feet…” he thought. Then he felt embarrassed for having such thoughts and went outside to take his mind off of her.

“Can you help me? Please help me – I can’t take this anymore-“, said Lisa burying her face in her hands.

Billy and Raven exchanged looks-

“Don’t worry, we will help you…” said Billy.

Lisa looked on hopefully towards Billy. She was glad that she took a leave from her work, she really needed to figure out what was going on with her.

Outside the Church Johnathan stood looking around. He saw Lisa’s car parked in the corner with a few dents and scratches. The old fence had a huge broken gap where Lisa crashed her car. A recurring feeling kept on disturbing him- like a stomach bug- he felt that something was not quite right with Billy- but he couldn’t figure out what. But he thought of the police lady- Lisa- somehow he felt that her problems were bigger than his.