Huntress Ch. 04

When the woman's hand pulled back from Caleb's forehead, the fingers, that had been perfect before, were twisting into horrific angles, some bent backwards to the wrist, others dangling limply, only held on by the skin. Caleb held back a scream as she and the tortured woman observed the hand.

The pale haired beauty merely glanced at it, and set it back to her side, as Caleb's knees gave out and she stumbled to the ground, scrounging to get away.

"Who are you!" she yelled it this time, panic her motivation.

"I swear I am not as they say." The girl giggled, looked away, then glanced back. "I don't want to die. I swear on the Lord, I am not as they say."

Once again the sound of broken bones echoed throughout the kitchen. The misshapen woman looked down at her changing body then farther down at Caleb.

"I don't want to die." She said it again, this time as almost a scream.

A beautiful smile decorated her lips still. Caleb watched in horror as her full chest began to cave in under the green gown's bodice. Her full breasts seemed to melt away, giving way to bones that jutted from her skin like jagged rocks.

She had to be dreaming. Had to be. Nothing like this happened in real life. Caleb wanted to slap herself. Wanted to scream at herself to look away and wake up, but no sound came from her lips. She was paralyzed with fear. When she beckoned her legs to move. They responded by quivering and going numb.

"Please." The silence that settled after her plea was swift and almost painful, and Caleb felt it settle in on her chest, suffocating her. The sound of her own heartbeat in her ears died away instantly. The sound of the woman's broken and malformed bones no longer filled the air. Her cries for life stopped instantly as well, but she still stood there.

The smiling maiden suddenly gave another giggle as she glanced behind her then back at Caleb. "I don't want to die," she whispered, and as quickly as the last word left her mouth, her neck twisted around completely till her head faced hallway, then went limp falling back on her caved in chest. The once shining bright blue eyes that had been watching Caleb so vigilantly were no longer there. Instead, the eyes had clouded over white. Her lush blonde hair abruptly turned gray, and pieces fell from the scalp in horrifying clumps. Her lightly sun-kissed skin turned pallid and.

Slowly, the woman's once perfect moth that had smiled and giggled began to open, revealing and empty black chasm that only got bigger with each passing second, until it had stretched itself to an unnatural length and width.

'Help me.' The dead women's voice was as loud as it had been when she had been beautiful. 'I don't want to die. '

Her mouth did not move, and her unseeing eyes stayed fixated on the frightened girl.

"No," Caleb whispered. Trying to look away. Something forced her eyes to meet the dead woman's and she felt her stomach almost empty itself of its non-existent contents.

'I promise that I am not as you say I am,' Caleb heard in her head once more before a

wave of nausea and dizziness hit her hard, engulfing her.

++

Caleb felt her body being shaken and her name being called in a scream. Her neck jerked back and forth repeatedly. Her cheek burned from what she could only assume were slaps.

Someone was trying to wake her up.

"Caleb, I need you to wake the fuck up right now!"

Her sister.

Brie.

She was scared.

How long had she been trying to wake her? Caleb forced her eyes to open, forming thin slits, and saw her sister's silhouette along with two others. Her overhead light was on and placed on the highest setting.

"I'm awake," she groaned. Her throat burned as much her check. Her voice sounded nothing like how she would normally have recognized it. Beyond her eyelids, her sister sighed. She heard Carmen whisper 'thank God' in Spanish.

"Caleb, sit up look at me." Her sister commanded.

Tiredly, she pulled her body up and rubbed her eyes. "What time is it?" she asked.

There was a shuffling, as well as the flipping open and close of a cell phone. "It's one thirty-five. Cale," Brie stopped to take a shuttering breath. "You stopped breathing for a couple seconds, Caleb. Are you okay? Look at me." Her sister brushed hair off her forehead and kept her fingers on there for a second, checking for a temperature.

The pads of her hands were so cold.

Caleb rubbed her eyes for one minute more, before opening them to look down at her blanket. The room was brighter than she had prepared herself for. The light stabbed her corneas.

"Why is it so bright in here?" She glanced up at her sister and saw clouded eyes staring back at her. Fingers that had been ice cold pulled away from her forehead. They were tangled and twisted. Her sister opened her mouth to speak and stretched wide, like an ungodly yawn.

Caleb could not stop the piercing scream from escaping her lips.