The Talon Family
The Kiss of the Witch Doctor
February
Draft_2
By: Chase L. Currie
“A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case, he is justly accountable to them for the injury.”
-John Stuart Mill ‘On Liberty’
“There are no heroes...in life, the monsters win.”
― George R.R. Martin
― George R.R. Martin
New Orleans
Time: 2316
Six Months Earlier
“Maggie,” Chelsea mumble to her best friend as they pushed through the darkness of old New Orleans, where the house where haunt by ghosts of a past never forgotten. They were heading for the one house no one dares to enter on the corner of a nameless street, but everyone called it Devil’s Lane. It was a bad place with bad medicine as the old timers said, but Maggie didn’t care tonight. Tonight, all she wanted was blood paid for blood, revenge in the quickest fashion.
The was a story they both heard during the hurricane that the water nor rain would touch the evil house. Everything ran around it and no one, even outsiders didn’t not dear go near it. It was as if the house radiance pure fear to everything. Even the trees didn’t grow right near the black house, and the animals steer far from the old wood of the building. Wood said to be soaked in blood.
The story went back many years ago during slavery; there were an old medicine man and his family who lives in the house. He was part black and part Native American. No one knew what tribe or country he held from, but they knew it was a bad place. The blacks said he came over on the boat from a place called “Miti Nyeusi” or Black Trees where the king of death lived. While the Native Americans said he came from the ghost people, a tribe never seen but travel the land for the god of death and the dead. The tribe would come behind after a battle to eat the souls of the dead or, as they tale said, eat the bodies of the dead. Some called them the tribe of Vulture People, picking and living off the dead.
And to the white people, the old medicine man was nothing but a fairy tale until a few children went missing. Days later the children bodies were found cut open with all their organs remove and their faces locked in a state of terror. The old newspapers then even said some of the children had body limbs missing where it looked as if something had taken a bite out of them.
Maggie didn’t know if any of that was true, but she did know the white people went to the old man’s house, rape his family, and killed everyone living there. A week after the attack every single person who carried out the attack laid dead by bad luck or by sickness.
The house quickly gains a story of being cruse making no one wanting to go into it again. Some people to this day still say they can hear the cries of the woman being raped and see touches roaming the house like a ghost.
It was a good story Maggie thought, great for superstition but superstition was the very foundation of the city, and most of it wasn’t real.
“Maggie,” Chelsea said pulling on her arm stopping her dead in her track. “This is crazy.”
Maggie turns to face her dark friend with oddly bright blue eyes. She moved in close to her hissing, “They killed my brother.”
“I know,” Chelsea said looking down at her feet, the funeral was only a day ago. It was the hardest funeral they had ever been too. Jason was only six when the bullet ripped through his body. He wasn’t supposed to be outside or on that side of town, but Maggie wanted to meet her boyfriend and had to babysit. She could do both at the same time.
Matt like Jason anyways. They got along quite well, and in fact, he begged her to bring him along. He brought Jason a new coat and football for his birthday. It was over a month ago, but Maggie and Matt didn’t start hooking up until a few weeks before the shooting, but he wanted to get the boy something anyways. He was good with the kid, something Maggie loved about him because he didn’t have a father growing up. So, he went out of his way to be a father to any kid who crossed his path. He loved Jason. He was there at the funeral crying harder than anyone.
The bullets were meant for Matt. He wasn’t in a gang that was his older brother ‘Blood Doctor’ or his real name Tommy, and an enemy of the gang was trying to send a very hard message. A message in blood by putting Matt in the ground. They missed and got Jason, a little boy who had nothing to do with anything.
“But ---” Chelsea started to say, but Maggie stopped her.
“But, nothing,” she growled heading back down the street, “you can come, or don’t I don’t care. We are going to be late.”
Chelsea stood there for a moment watching her friend almost running down the sidewalk to the Devil’s house. She sighed and ran after her; she wasn’t going to let her do this alone at all.
While all the old timers on the street believe the house was haunt and stayed away from it, the new bloods used it as a meeting for their gangs. It was a great place to have parties and bury a few people alive in the walls. Maggie crawled hole in the fence followed by Chelsea. They made it to the door when it opens with a large man staring them up and down.
“You are late,” he said.
“I know, Sweet,” Maggie said walking past him. ‘Sweet Bear’ or Jim was the sweetest boy in the whole gang. He would watch over everyone, mostly the girls not letting anything happen to them at parties. He was the sweetest person she knew unless he made him mad and then he could kill someone, more than likely has killed a few people already.
Sweet show them downstairs in the basement where a few other men where standing around a guy tied up to a chair. The poor kid beaten up looked like he was fast asleep in the chair unaware he was about to meet his end.
“About damn time,” Zack said walking up to Maggie.
“Sorry,” she hissed at him.
Chelsea fell behind Sweet trying not to see what was about to happen.
“Is that him?” Maggie asked.
“Yup, the man that is going to tell us everything,” Zack with a devilish grin.
“Wake him up,” Maggie said with a harsh growl.
One of them behind the young black boy ran something under nose shooting him awake. He looked around the room as if he had woken up from some nightmare and then study each face in the room. He glanced at the walls, the ceiling above him, and then to the dirt floor below him.
“Welcome to the Devil’s house,” Maggie said with a grin.
“No, no, no,” the boy started to cry, “this place has bad voodoo.”
“It sure does,” Maggie said sporting a knife from her black hoodie.
The boy gulp and then said, “The Devil lives here.”
“You think Doctor Voudon is coming for our little souls?” Someone asked in the room making everyone else laughed.
“Maybe, I’ll ask the Devil to find all your friends,” Maggie said growing closer to him, “and eat their eyes out.”
“You don’t want to do that,” the boy said more afraid of the basement then the knife in his face.
Maggie grin. “Oh, Mister Voudon, come play tonight,” she starts to sing. “Mister Voudon, come make all the dead gay tonight. We kiss Hellfire with this blood, tonight, Mister Voudon.” She cut a little of her finger letting a drop of blood soak into the dead earth beneath her feet.
“Why?” The boy said suddenly becoming fearful of the knife. “Are you doing this?”
“You don’t know who I am?” Maggie asked.
“No.”
“I’m the sister of the boy who was killed by the people in your car,” She told him.
“And what do you want?” He asked.
“Their hearts,” she said placing the knife on his face.
“What will you give me for them?” The boy asked as everyone looked around at each other.
Maggie stepped back a little not sure how to answer the question.
“Well, child?” The boy asked in a much deeper voice than before. “You want the blood of your foes but what do I get in return?”
“What is going on?” Someone asked. “Are you playing with us, man?”
Maggie watched as the boy’s eyes fade to pitch black and stared deep into her soul. She felt someone or something walk in the halls of her mind. The thing was unwelcomed between her ears, and yet, she could make him go away.
The boy lifted his head up stretching out his neck and smiling from ear to ear. “The price is paid then.” Screams echoed from the basement as Chelsea ran for her life, tears pouring down her face at the sights she saw in that place, things she could never forget, and couldn’t find the words to say. The Devil walked among her friends and now, walks in the streets of his old home.
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