Stalking the Judges’ Descendants by Roy Dorman

“Are you going to the big party?” asked Jake Corwin.

“And what big party would that be?” answered “new girl,” Jessica Bishop.

Jessica hadn’t had a single conversation with any of her schoolmates in the three days since she’d transferred to Loon Lake High School.

Kids were standoffish because they thought her odd, and were also a little afraid of her.  Jessica did nothing to disabuse them of those feelings.

She gave Jake points for bravery.  Then, sensing ulterior motives for the invite, took a few away for foolishness.

“Jerry Sewell’s having a party at his folks’ cabin.  Everybody’s going.”

“Everybody?” said Jessica, raising an eyebrow.  “Even the plain, unpopular kids?”

Jake blushed.  “Well, maybe not everybody,” he said.

“I suppose I could put in an appearance,” said Jessica.  “Halloween’s always had a special place in my heart.  Pick me up at eight.  Come alone.”

#

It was Jerry Sewell who had pressured Jake into inviting Jessica.  Jake knew there was more than just Jerry’s ego that prevented him from asking her himself.  No other girl in Loon Lake would reject an invitation from Jerry Sewell, but Jessica was …, not like other girls.  She might have.

“She’s strange,” he’d told Jake.  “You get her here for me and I’ll take it from there.  I have to see if she may be one of them.”

As he’d done since the first grade, Jake did Jerry’s bidding.  He’d do anything for Jerry.  Anything.

And family lore had prepared them both for this eventuality.

#

“You live with your grandparents?” asked Jake.  “They seemed a little, I don’t know, withdrawn.”

“There not my real grandparents,” said Jessica.  “I just borrowed them from some little town in Pennsylvania on the way here.  They’re both retired school teachers who now think they’re writers.  I needed some adults to get enrolled at Loon Lake.  I may put them back when I’m done with them.  Or not.”

The older couple had been sitting at the kitchen table in what appeared to be an abandoned farmhouse, just staring off into space.

Jake picked Jessica up for the dance.  Any other teenager would have been totally perplexed by Jessica’s description of her grandparents.  But Jake Corwin, the descendant of one of the judges who’d presided over the Salem Witch Trials, recognized Jessica’s cryptic response for what it was — she’d thrown down the gauntlet.  She’d all but told him she was “one of them.”

A descendant of Bridget Bishop, one of the witches hanged in Salem in 1692, her mission in life was to seek revenge for those men and women murdered during those troubled times.

That she would reveal herself to Jake showed him how powerful she must be.

#

“She came right out and practically admitted it,” Jake told Jerry.  “She’s one of them.  Hunting our families.  Hunting us.”

They watched as Jessica walked through the crowd of kids at the party.  She sometimes stopped and said a few words to a small group before moving on.  The kids she spoke to always had a look of puzzlement on their faces after she left them.

The beer was flowing and the party was getting louder.  When Jessica was passing a group of ne’er-do-wells, one of them mumbled, “Witch,” and shoved her.

Jessica leveled a stare at him and his face froze in fear.  A dark spot formed on the crotch of his jeans and he whimpered in pain.

Jessica left it at that and moved on.

Having finished making the rounds, she came up to Jake and Jerry.

“I think I’m done here,” she said to Jake, ignoring Jerry.  “Take me home.”

As Jessica turned and walked toward Jake’s car, Jerry whispered to Jake, “Kill her.”

Jessica heard him and smiled to herself.

#

“Going a little fast, aren’t you?” asked Jessica.  “Is it because you want to get me home so you can get back to the party?  Or is it something else?”

They were driving on a dark county highway with a lot of twists and turns.  Jake knew a spot about a mile down the road where a two-hundred-foot drop-off plunged to the boulder-filled Mill Stream Creek.

Ignoring Jessica, he pushed the accelerator to the floor.  His bond with Jerry was strong and he’d give his life for him.  As he’d done in other lives before this one.

Jessica now started chanting and Jake howled in pain.  As they neared the drop-off, he held the wheel steady and spoke through gritted teeth.

“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

The car left the shoulder of the road at eighty miles an hour and crashed through small trees and brush on its way to the creek bed.

#

Jessica gathered up her “grandparents” to return them to their former lives.  They had only been gone for a couple of weeks and would remember nothing.

But without knowing why, both decided to write horror fiction in the time remaining to them in their retirement.

Jessica had wanted to kill both Jake and Jerry on this trip, but decided Jerry and their respective families would have to wait until another time.  Or another life.

Witnesses at the party would be sure to tell authorities she and Jake had left together.  It would be difficult to explain how she came through the crash unharmed.  She and the grandparents were hundreds of miles from Loon Lake before dawn.

The business of revenge, the hunter and the hunted, would continue.  The descendants of those ignorant, bigoted judges would not be allowed to live normal, peaceful lives.  As many of those lives as possible would be cut short, but only after some fretful years of looking over their shoulders, waiting for the ax to fall.

—

Roy Dorman is retired from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Benefits Office and has been a voracious reader for over 65 years.  At the prompting of an old high school friend, himself a retired English teacher, Roy is now a voracious writer.  He has had flash fiction and poetry published recently in Black Petals, Yellow Mama, Theme of Absence, Dark Dossier, Near To the Knuckle, Bewildering Stories, Shotgun Honey, and a number of other online and print journals.