Witch Water

The termination of the manic velocity left him staring at still more of the absolute blackness of this realm, but after the passage of some time, that blackness seemed to take on a glistening, like something wet, and then?

It began to move.

It throbbed. It expanded and contracted, and each cycle of this movement brought a sound, an even thump…thump…thump…, and only then did Fanshawe’s vision begin to back-track, ever so slowly, until he could make out details of the blackness, but before those details converged he already knew what they would reveal:

A heart.

A coal-black, chasm-black heart, beating within the confines of a chest cavity winged by ribs yanked open via devilish retractors over which flaps of flesh hung.

Like a camera, then, his vision pulled back more, to reveal his own head atop the naked corpse lying on a slab of infernal stone. Yes, Fanshawe saw himself lying there in the subterranean cranny, his chest cranked apart, and when a shadow crossed the charnel slab—somehow a shadow where no light existed to cast it—Fanshawe sensed an emanation of not only approval but of love.

An incogitable finger lowered, to touch the black beating mass in Fanshawe’s chest. The face of the cadaveresque thing which symbolized Fanshawe…smiled.

“Back now,” said a voice that existed not as sound but as darkness. “Ye final verge of thy rigor thee hast crossed.”

“It’s him!” a voice blared.

“Well, I’ll be!” exclaimed another. “You were right!”

The voices caused Fanshawe to churn amid the overwhelming blackness he lay buried in. Like a victim trapped in a tar pit, he floundered, terrified. Eventually he surfaced—not his body, his mind.

“Yeah, I was right but I goddamn wish I wasn’t!” a third voice cracked. Even in his consternation, Fanshawe knew it was Mr. Baxter’s voice. “And it looks like we caught him red-handed!”

Fanshawe felt a physical heave, then found himself disarrayed face-first on the ground; the looking-glass tumbled out of his hand. He blinked his way out of the stupor, realizing that someone had shoved him hard from behind, severing the occult tether that had moments ago plunged him into a raging black netherworld. When he leaned up, exhausted and still terrified, he saw Baxter standing over him. Beside him were two other elderly men, one slim, stoop-shouldered, with an overly large jaw who wore an out-of-date suit; the other beer-bellied, in a shoddy Yankees T-shirt. In the moonlight, the three men looked down at him like inquisitors.

Fanshawe was about to speak but—

FWAP!

—Baxter reeled back and kicked him in the stomach.

“There’s a good one in the breadbasket!” exclaimed the suited man with a high, piping voice.

Fanshawe clenched, losing his breath. His eyes bugged. What the hell is going on? He feebly rolled back, then shambled to his feet.

Baxter and his cohorts surrounded him.

“What the fuck!” Fanshawe yelled at Baxter. “I want an explanation!”

Baxter picked up the looking-glass. “Well, Mr. Fanshawe, you’re the dag-blasted last person I’d ever expect to catch stealing—”

Pain throbbed at Fanshawe’s stomach, while anger forced his thoughts through the sheer bewilderment. “What are you talking about! What, you just kicked me in the stomach because of that damn glass?”

Baxter remained with his arms crossed, while the other two elderly men stood like gray-haired henchmen. “Wasn’t till just today I noticed the glass missing, then I could’a kicked myself for not checking the tapes from the security camera every day.”

Fanshawe instantly made the deduction. He saw me take the glass, but… He was still enraged. “All right, I admit, I took the damn glass! It wasn’t my intention to steal it, I was just borrowing it!”

The Yankees Shirt let out a sarcastic chuckle. “Yeah, borrowin’ it for a little window-peepin’. You beat off when you do that, bub?”

Fanshawe felt his face redden. “It’s not what you think, for God’s sake! I just needed it to…,” but then his vocal wrath dissolved. What could he say? “Shit, if the looking-glass is worth that much to you, I’ll buy the damn thing! Name your price!”

“What Mr. Fanshawe here’s gotta understand,” Baxter said, “is not all of us put so much stock in money. Money’s not worth much compared to things like character and honesty. Those are the things that make a man, Fanshawe. Not how fat his goddamn wallet is.”

“I don’t believe this!” Fanshawe replied, his mind twirling. “You don’t kick a guy in the stomach because he borrowed a piss-ant looking-glass!”

The Suited Man and the Yankees Shirt grinned. Then Baxter said, “And it ain’t really even the glass that’s got our dander up. It’s what you been doin’ with it.”

Fanshawe glared back at him.

“We don’t got room for perverts in our nice little town, Fanshawe,” Baxter continued. “It’s so fuckin’ disheartening, you know? Seems like the whole world these days is full of perverts, weirdos, sickos, and creeps. But the worst of the bunch are guys like you, hiding behind success and respectability. No one knows.” Baxter’s eyes leveled. “But I knew, and I wish to hell I’d figured it out sooner. First, Sadie Simpkins tells me she’s seen you loiterin’ around up here at night —”

“Who?” Fanshawe bellowed.

“Aw, you seen Sadie. Wonderful gal. With the poodle?”

Fanshawe ground his teeth. That BITCH!

“But when she told me that, I thought nothin’ of it. ‘So what,’ I think. ‘Mr. Fanshawe just has a fancy for late-night strolls.’ A couple of the gals at the convention told me the same thing, as a matter of fact, and now that I think of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was their window you’ve been peeping in, good- looking as they are.”

Harvard and Yale, Fanshawe realized grimly.

“No,” Baxter went on, “like I said, I didn’t think nothin’ of it—of course not! Mr. Fanshawe’s a billionaire! Billionaire’s don’t get up to no good! Billionaires ain’t deviants. Ah, but then I notice the glass missing, checked the security tape, and, presto! There it is—the truth starin’ me right in the chops! I would never have thought it in a coon’s age.” Baxter grimaced. “Mr. Billionaire is a fuckin’ peeping tom! ”

“A perv,” added the Suit.

“A sick piece’a shit,” added Yankees Shirt.

“Bet he was lookin’ for little girls.”

“Or little boys!”

“No!” Fanshawe’s blood was boiling. But what could he do?

Then all three men took a foreboding step closer.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Fanshawe challenged. “You’re threatening me? Don’t you know I could sue you for assault and battery, and imprisonment? Shit, my lawyers could sue you right out of business.”

The men chuckled, and each took another step closer.

This is ridiculous! “Listen, Mr. Baxter. I know I’m not exactly a kid anymore, but— no offense—you guys are old men. I could take all three of you.”

“Think so?” Baxter asked coyly. “Was a famous saying my daddy used to tell me: ‘Be a man large or small in size, Colonel Colt will equalize…’”

Then the Suit and Yankees Shirt pulled pistols.

Fanshawe froze. “All right!” he yelled. “What more do you want?! I took the glass and, yeah! I looked in