The Witching Hour Book 2: Moon Bane

Alex woke in a panic-stricken state, springing upright from her pillow and gasping for air. The bedroom was pitch black except for the small blinking red light coming from her nightstand.

Running her hands through her damp hair, she took a moment to come down from the adrenaline rush before moving to the edge of the mattress. She reached upward to grab the metal beaded chain and dog tags and untangled them from around her neck.

She then used her other hand to inspect her sheets and quickly confirmed that the pillow and the sheets were damp with sweat.

“Cool,” she whispered, reaching down to the cabinet of her nightstand and opening a small wooden door.

Her hands quickly found the fresh set of towels from within, as this wasn’t her first experience waking up in such a state. Returning upright, she caught the red blinking digital numbers of the alarm clock, blinking the midnight hour on loop, and sighed heavily.

A bolt of lightning shattered across the sky, sending streaks of flashing light grasping through the crevasses of the closed curtains over her bedroom window. Thunder roared out in the distance, following close behind it.

A woman shifted in the bed next to her as she patted down the wet spots on the sheets.

“Is everything all right, babe? Another recall?” asked her wife in a hushed and concerned tone.

Recall, that was their word for it. Alex hated the word nightmare, as only children have nightmares. She also hated the word episode, as it made her feel too much like a mental patient.

So, after years in couples counseling, they both decided on the word recall to address her flashbacks from the war.

Before answering, Alex finished her task and chucked the damp towels toward the dirty clothes hamper near the bed.

“Yeah, Megan. I’m all right, go back to sleep. I’m gonna change my shirt quick and then I’ll be back.”

As Alex stood up and walked around the bed, Megan sat up and felt the residual dampness of the sheets.

“This is more than usual,” she said in the same concerned tone. “We can talk about this. Was it the same recall as the last time? Or a new one?”

Alex returned from the closet with a new cami tank top and walked to the medicine cabinet. The bottle of sertraline was already out and on the bathroom sink, a red heart sticker on the cap. Next to it was an unopened bottle of water.

She grabbed the bottle, took her medicine in a single dry swallow, then returned the bottle to the medicine cabinet and shut the door. The water bottle remained unused.

It was the same most nights, and it had become their routine.

Alex shut off the closet light and started to make her way back to the bed. The rain began to beat against the window, first a light drizzle then quickly picking up to a steady torrential pour.

She sat back in bed and stared at the baseboard in another moment of silence.

A warm hand touched her before, a gentle reminder that she had an ear if needed. Alex wanted to talk about it, but what held her tongue wasn’t the anger or distress from the perpetual painful memories.

It was the fact that it was something terrifyingly new and alarmingly vivid.

“Sorry, I’m not trying to ignore you. Or piss you off, I promise. I just am trying to wrap my head around it, that’s all.”

Megan slid over and sat next to her on the edge of the bed, placing a warm hand within her cold and clammy trembling hand. The shaking, Alex couldn’t stand the shaking.

She looked down at her wife’s soft ivory hand and furrowed her brow with a grimace.

As much as she wanted to pull away, in silent disgust at her fragility, she relaxed her face and instead chose to accept the hand hold with a sigh.

“Tell me what happened.” Megan rested her head on Alex’s shoulder.

“That’s the thing, I don’t know what happened. I don’t know where I was, or if I was even the focal point of the dream.”

Megan lifted her head and gave Alex a subtle perplexed look.

“Dream? That’s a first. So, this was a dream-dream?”

Alex sighed and rubbed her face with her free hand.

“This wasn’t a recall, Megan, I promise. It wasn’t Afghanistan. This one wasn’t even me. It was, I don’t know, a forest somewhere. A town within a forest, I think. It was a place I had never been to before.

“To be honest, the most bizarre thing about it was that it was a completely lucid dream, unlike my recalls. I knew it wasn’t me, but everything felt real. The air on my skin, the earth against my feet and hands, the smells and scents, and the sounds. I can still feel them even now.”

Megan began to show a smile as she listened. “Your feet and your hands? Were you crawling?”

Alex grew silent again, holding back the truth in fear of the response.

“I’m sorry, babe. I didn’t mean to come across like I was poking fun. I just am more so, curious. This is new territory for us. You have never had a dream other than recalls, especially ones that caused you to wake up in a similar agitated state.”

A large flare of lightning lit the sky outside, illuminating the bedroom in an almost blinding cascade of white. A wall-shuddering boom of thunder erupted immediately afterward, and the sensation rippled shockwave through Alex. She felt the pitfall sensation in her stomach.

Her hands began to quiver once more. The rain picked up into a heavy deluge, pounding against the window’s glass in a barrage of heavy taps. Alex focused on her breathing and brought her heart rate back to baseline.

She quickly noticed her iron grip on Megan’s slender fingers and relinquished her hold. The small patch of white strands fell from the top of her black raven head of hair and covered her right eye as she leaned forward and exhaled sharply.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“You never have to apologize. Now, please tell me what this is all about.”

Megan smiled softly, keeping her hand intertwined in hers.

Alex began to bounce her knee as she reached into her memory. Each tap of her bare heel against the hardwood floor peeled away the layers of the bedroom until she was back into her dream state.

“It started in a church. A cathedral. The interior was almost pitch black except the light of burning candles.

“I could smell them burning, the heat of the individual wicks. It was overwhelmingly pungent. I was surrounded by several individuals, shrouded in hoods or possibly cloaks.

“I could smell them too. The scent of the perfume they wore, the type of toothpaste they used, even the food stains embedded in the fibers of their clothes. They were chanting over me while my body lay motionless on some form of stone altar, chanting something about Mazzel or Mazzo?

“That I can’t remember, because I was soon hit with a pain like I had never experienced in my life. It felt like every strand of tissue was being pulled apart on a molecular level and then put back together.”

Her eyes started to water as she continued recanting. “After that, I blacked out. When I woke, I was outside.

“I felt larger, in height and weight. All my senses were heightened. I could feel things moving, like birds flying, by how they shifted the very air molecules.

“The hyperacuity was piercing my skull like gnawing or burrowing beetles. I quickly adjusted, although the light from the streetlamps was almost blinding. Once I got a grip of senses, a new sensation washed over me.

“And this was the part that was the most disturbing.”

Megan reached over with her right arm and caressed her shoulder. Alex took a moment and wiped the damp pools from under her eyes.

Taking another deep breath, she continued. “I felt this urge, this primal urge to track and hunt something. To kill and to eat its flesh.

“My nose began to sniff the air, and I caught a nearby scent. Like an Olympian athlete, I vaulted off and transitioned into a steady rapid stride.

“Soon I found myself running on all fours. The feral and wild animalistic force pushing me onward into the night. As I left the reach of the blinding lights, I found that I could see in the darkness.

“Onward I ran, until I found my prey. It was at a gas station near some bridge. Some lady was pumping her gas, and before she could even see me, I sprung into the air.

“She was dead before we hit the ground. I then started to, like, eat her. Or some shit, I don’t know. That’s when I woke up.”

Alex returned, layer by layer, to her own bedroom. The tapping of her knee had stilled. She could feel the warmth of Megan’s hand on her palm, though she had entirely relinquished her grip on Megan’s hand.

As Alex told the last of her tale, she felt her heart rate pick up again as she reflected on the hunt. A welling sensation of fear and angst rose from within her.

Megan sat in silence, then kissed her on the cheek and nestled her head upon her shoulder.

“I know that was scary and intense. We can talk to Dr. Wilson later. Maybe it’s related to the sertraline, you know? You shouldn’t feel ashamed or scared, Alex. It’s going to be okay.”

Alex rose from the edge of the bed and slowly walked toward the window. Peeling back the drapes, she gazed outside at the raging storm above.

The rising sun had penetrated the horizon but remained buried beyond a thick wall of tenebrous storm clouds. Alex fixated her gaze on the waves of torrential rain bashing into the rapidly moving Allegany River to the west of their house.

Megan began to speak, although Alex cut her off this time while keeping her eyes fixed on the storm outside.

“That’s the thing, Megan. I’m not ashamed or scared. I woke up in a panic-induced sweat, not because I was gripped in fear. I forced myself out of that dream because I found myself enjoying it.”

As she confessed her truth, Alex immediately was overcome with guilt. She turned from the window and met eyes with her spouse, who stared at her with bewilderment plastered across her face.

From the nightstand, Alex’s phone began to loudly vibrate and ring. The light of the touch screen filled the room along with the reverberations of a pop song ringtone.

As the incoming call continued, the two exchanged a long hard look in silence before Alex broke away her gaze to get her phone. She picked up the cell phone and pulled the charging cord from the bottom.

The contact across the screen read, Boss-Man. Sliding her thumb across the answer icon, she put the phone to her head and said hello.

“Hey, Alex. I’m sorry if I caught you too early. How are you?” The voice on the other end sounded cordial but pressed for time, which was the norm when she received this kind of early morning phone call.

“Hey, Jack. I’m doing fine. How are you?”

“I’m splendid. How is the weather in Pittsburgh?”

Alex peeled back the drape again and peered outside while she answered her boss’s question. “Pretty shitty, to be honest. Dreary and rainy.”

Jack said thank you to someone in a muffled tone before returning to the call. “Fantastic, glad it’s nice there. Getting cold here in Philly, that’s for sure. Hey, so something has come up and lucky you, it’s in your neck of the woods.”

Alex rolled her eyes and sighed. Turning from the window, she proceeded to her kitchen to start a pot of coffee. “Yup, lucky me. So, what’s the sitch, Jack?”

He took a bite of something and washed it down with a drink, the sound of which made her pull the phone from her ear until he had finished.

“We got a call from a local M.D. upstate from you. They reported multiple cases of violent animal attacks on some locals that have led to some concerning symptomology. The office told them we would start the process, but they were adamant that we send a field agent over immediately. Started throwing around the ‘R’ word.”

Alex put the phone on speaker as she filled the machine with water and put the grounds in the basket before starting the drip.

As her superior finished his last statement, he returned to pounding his breakfast down in his loud audible fashion.

“So, they were implying rabies?” she said with a furrowed brow and cocked eyebrow. “Jack, there hasn’t been a zoonotic spread of rabies in Pennsylvania in over…”

Jack cut her off after sipping more of what she knew to be coffee. “Listen, Alex, I know the statistics on the big bad ‘R,’ okay.”

“Jack, you can say rabies. It’s not like that bad guy from that kid wizard movie, all right. We are adults here.”

Alex hated being interrupted, a habit she picked up in the service after making sergeant. But she had learned to transition from being blunt and confrontational to a gentler touch when her blood pressure peaked during the workday.

She poured the coffee into a mug and proceeded to the fridge to grab her creamer.

Jack laughed from the other end.

“Hey, my kids love those movies. Sorry, you’re right. I’ve gotten so used to having to watch my language at home that it’s leaking into my work life. Anyway, listen, I will text you the address and point of contact as soon as I get to my car.

“Write it down as soon as you get it. I know where you are going and trust me, you won’t have service. You own a map, right? Do millennials even know how to use a map? You know how to survive without your phone, right?”

Alex took a sip of coffee and set the mug on the counter while rolling her eyes.

“The pot calling the kettle black, I see.”

The man chewed his food in a silent bout of confusion before loudly swallowing.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You were born in 1982, Jack.”

She made her way from the kitchen and back to her bedroom. Entering her closet, she opened the dresser drawer and began to assemble an outfit before finishing her statement.

“So that means, surprise, you are also a millennial.”

He began to rebut, but she cut him off with a joyful-sounding goodbye and then pushed the red icon button on her phone to end the call.

She placed her phone on the bathroom sink and turned toward the bed. She did a double-take as she caught the smirk on Megan’s face as she sat upright in bed and covered up with the blanket.

“You are so lucky that you did your residency with Jack. If anyone else was your boss, they would fire your ass in a heartbeat.”

Alex smiled and raised an eyebrow as she responded.

“Don’t be hating. You are just jealous because doctors are more chill than nurses.”

She then turned to go start the shower with a smirk.

“Hey! That’s a low blow, sister.”

As she finished getting ready, Alex checked to see if Jack had sent the location yet. As she pressed the home screen button, a giant single text bubble glowed back at her from the screen.

‘Damonburg, PA in Nephast County

Take I-76, then North onto highway 157,

It’s right off 3001. You won’t miss it.

Better pack an overnight bag.

Point of Contact is a Dr. Regina Washington

At Nephast Asylum

Be safe, and good luck.

Keep me posted when you can.’