Lee Moan

It took him almost ten minutes to choke the life out of the old crone. It would have been quicker if she hadn’t put up such a superhuman struggle; but then, he’d expected that of her. Witches don’t die without a fight.

When he placed his thumbs over her windpipe she immediately began to lash out, kicking at his shins until they were bruised black and bleeding, scratching at his neck and face with her long, scarlet fingernails, leaving a set of four deep gouges in each cheek, her legacy of hate tattooed indelibly on his skin. She’d have taken his eyes if he hadn’t bitten off both her thumbs in the fight.

Micawber, her cat, appeared at one point during the struggle, and for a moment Henry thought it would come to her aid. But it only hissed at him and vanished from sight.

In the end she was left with just her voice, but he knew from past experience that this was her most powerful weapon. She let out a stream of black curses, promising him vengeance from beyond the grave. But as her eyes rolled up into her head, and her face turned that awful deathly white, he felt oddly calm. There was nothing she could threaten him with that would be worse than the lifetime of wretchedness she had already subjected him to. She had kept him under her malign spell for forty years and now it was going to be over. As she breathed her last, his eyes filled with tears - tears of physical and mental relief. Then she went still.

He checked her pulse.

The witch was dead.

In the silence of the dusty old kitchen, he stared down at her body, the legs splayed, her hands (bleeding profusely from the bloody stumps of her thumbs) stretched into claws, her face white and contorted into a silent grimace. But he couldn’t relax, couldn’t quite convince himself that the nightmare was over.

It was her eyes. They were open, staring straight up at him, a demonic light still flickering in them. He crouched down and tried to close the lids, but they kept springing back open. She was still speaking to him through those hate-filled eyes. He still felt her hold over him. Hanging his head in resignation, he realised he would have to perform one last act to ensure that she was truly dead.

The head would have to come off.

Wiping absently at the blood which coursed down his cheeks and onto his shirt, he went out to the shed to fetch a shovel.

#

Henry had spent the last two weeks building a false wall in the basement of the house, ready for this day. He’d left a portion in the middle unfinished, a vertical gap wide enough to slip her body inside. He wrapped her corpse in cellophane, and when he dropped it behind the wall, it made a rubbery squeaking sound as it hit the cement floor. He did the same with the head. But before he placed it behind the wall, he looked through the cellophane and studied the eyes. Yes, he told himself, the fire’s gone out now. She couldn’t harm him. The spell was broken, the curse lifted.

“Goodbye you witch,” he said, removing the wedding ring from his finger. He tore a small hole in the cellophane where her mouth was and pushed the gold band between her crooked yellow teeth. “Happy anniversary,” he whispered, and rolled the head through the gap in the wall.

 Then he set about mixing the cement and, for the first time in years, he began to whistle a happy tune.

#

He snapped awake in the early hours, disturbed by the pressure on his chest. There was no light in the room, but it took him only a moment to realise that the black shape weighing down upon him was the cat. Her cat. Micawber, that filthy bag of shit!

Then the pain came, and he realised in a rush of terror exactly what the cat was doing to him. Jolts of pain in his neck, the sound of tearing meat, and the cat’s hot, fetid breath.

He’s tearing my throat open! He’s trying to kill me!

He tried to bat it away, but his arms failed to respond. His body was a dead weight.

Oh dear God, how deep has it gone already?

The cat stopped, raising its head to look down into Henry’s eyes. Thick rivulets of blood ran from its mouth, gleaming like wet tar in the gloom. Its eyes glimmered with an uncanny light.

And echoing through the chambers of his mind, the old woman’s voice: You didn’t think you’d get rid of me that easy, did you, darling?

The cat licked its lips and resumed its feast.

Together forever, isn’t that right, dear husband? Just you and me for eternity . . .