in the world to recognize it for what it was, the only one that believed she could properly address it, and thus she was the only one qualified to set it right. She could not simply leave it up to fate. She could not leave this to become someone else’s problem somewhere later in time. Failing to act upon this would darken her soul, now and in the future, just as much as it would if she, herself, was directly responsible for whatever evils might befall others here.
The downstairs area was bland and empty, just yellow and peeling wallpaper over old plastered walls with bare wood floors and a couple of crappy old furniture pieces, too nasty and rickety-looking for anyone to even dare trying to sit upon. Nothing was obviously creepy, at least not to the others, but it was all too vividly familiar to Zoey. She knew these walls, these floors. She remembered the musty, dusty, antique smell of this place. The first floor was bad enough, but creeping up the stairs to the second story, the memories flooded back readily and strongly. Zoey had to shut her eyes and regain her composure as she reached the top of the stairs, catching the first glimpse of what Chad had so excitedly called everyone upstairs to see. She could do this. And she would do this. She had to do this.
“Check it out!” Chad said, pointing down to the floor. “How’s that for Halloween creepiness?”
Zoey reluctantly walked into the empty old bedroom, the weight of the backpack over her shoulders, her black canvas bag on her left shoulder, and the kerosene lamp in her right hand. The room was fairly dark, illuminated only by the ambient light that filtered in around the edges of the plywood panel that had been nailed over the broken window and the light of Chad’s tiny but bright LED flashlight. He had aimed his flashlight directly at the subject of interest upon the floor: a faint but distinct chalk outline of where a body had once lain upon the floor. In the middle of that outline, and trailing somewhat away from it by a couple of feet in two different lines, were the very dark brown stains of what could only have been blood that had soaked into the wood long, long ago.
“Oh my God!” Gina cried. “Is that for real?”
“That’s where one of the hippies died, right?” Chad asked Zoey.
She stood there for a few moments before replying softly with a nod, “Yeah. That, ah … that was one of them.”
“And this is where the other one took a swan-dive out the window,” he said, indicating the plywood-covered window with the beam of his flashlight.
He began looking around the rest of the room with his light as Mike and Gina set the cooler down with a thump. Mike dug out a flashlight of his own, also examining the walls and floor of the empty bedroom.
“Dude!” he exclaimed. “There’s bloodstains all over the place here! Check it out! There … over there … some more here…”
“Oh, God,” Gina groaned with initial dismay. And then, suddenly sounding excited instead of repulsed, she turned to Zoey and asked, “We’re doing your thing up here, right?”
“That’s the plan,” she responded with another subtle nod, her eyes transfixed upon the smudged and faded outline.
“We're doing her thing? What thing?” Mike asked.
“The ceremony,” she replied. “Zoey’s a witch, y’know.”
“Not exactly.”
Gina put her hands on her hips and tilted her head as she smiled to her friend. “Whad’ya mean? You know all that stuff about casting spells and whatnot, right?”
Zoey moved toward the center of the bedroom and set the kerosene lamp down upon the floor before moving toward a corner and shrugging the canvas bag and backpack from her shoulders. The leather jacket she wore was warm, but it didn’t help much to keep those straps from digging into her thin shoulders.
“I’ve done a lot of research into Wicca and the occult,” she explained, “and there’s some of it I do honestly believe is legit. And, yeah, I do a few things here and there that you might call spells or ceremonies or whatever. But I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a witch. I haven’t fully committed myself to the religion. I haven’t gone through a self-initiation rite.”
“So, then … umm … what exactly is this all about?” Mike pressed, holding his hands apart.
“Zoey wants to do a thing to get rid of all the bad vibes in this place,” Gina explained brightly, also shrugging out of her backpack. “She’s got some kinda ceremony or spell or something she wants to do to, like, banish all the bad juju from here. What’d you call it? A concentration?”
“Consecration.”
“Constipation?”
“Consecration,” Zoey said again a bit more firmly, frowning at Mike.
“But … if you don’t really believe in it,” Chad said, “then how is it supposed to work?”
Zoey twisted her lips slightly and narrowed her eyes. “What makes you think I don’t believe?”
“You just said you’re not a bona fide witch because you haven’t offically committed yourself to it.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So,” Mike chimed in, “if you don’t believe in that hocus-pocus stuff enough to call it your chosen religion, then why bother with this whole thing?”
Zoey closed her eyes for a moment with a sigh and turned her back to them as she knelt beside her bag, digging around inside of it. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“I do,” Chad offered.
Zoey glanced over her shoulder at him, saying, “If you do understand, then you wouldn’t question my motives.”
“I don’t think he’s questioning your sincerity, Zoey,” Gina said. “I just think … well, honestly, we’re probably all a little confused as to whether or not this is going to work. I mean, what do you expect to accomplish here?”
“I need to cleanse this area. I need to redirect the negative energies that are lost and lingering here, change them, and return them to the earth,” she said, taking out a box of tea candles, a canister of salt, and a gallon jug of spring water. Zoey looked up to Chad. “A better question would be, what do the rest of you hope to accomplish by being here with me?”
“I’m just here to support you,” Chad said with an affectionate smile.
“Me too!” Gina replied. “And because I wanted to try a little bit of ghost hunting, while we’re at it.”
“Ghost hunting?” Zoey asked. “Seriously, Gina?”
“Yeah, why not?” she asked, quickly digging through her own beige canvas bag with flower designs upon it. “I brought a video camera, a still camera, a digital audio recorder, an EMF meter, a Geiger counter…”
“Jeez, woman! Letting your inner geek shine tonight, are we?” Mike laughed.
“Oh, you know you love it,” she countered with a smile, giving him a quick kiss on the lips. “So, why are you here, mister?”
“Me? Hey, you’re the one that talked me into coming along!” he said. “I was lured here under the pretense of us getting drunk and freaky on Halloween night in a spooky place.”
“Nice,” Chad said with obvious disdain. “Very subtle.”
“Hey, I’m just being honest.”
“While you’re being honest,” Zoey said, pulling out a large kukri-style machete in a black canvas sheath, “how about you make an honest effort to go around the perimeter of this house and clear a path through all those weeds and stuff?”
Mike’s shoulders slumped. “Seriously? Why am I getting stuck with all the grunt work?”
“Because you complain the most,” she responded with a smile. “If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll serve you a nice cold beer when you’re done.”
Mike walked over and she unsheathed the long, wicked-looking machete, handing it to him grip-first. He accepted it with a mischievous grin.
“Say,” he said in a more hushed voice, “I heard that some witches like to do their ceremonies naked. Is that true?”
“Some witches, but not all.”
“So, ah … you gonna be getting naked tonight?”
She smirked at him. “Maybe. What if I said all of us need to be naked for the spell to work?”
“Hey,
all of us getting naked works for me.”
“Oh? Even Chad?”
“Well … maybe not so much him.”
“Oh, c'mon, Mike! It’s just nudity. What’s wrong with that?”
“I’m just not into dudes,” he said. “Seeing you and Gina, though … that’d be nice.”
“Why? Nudity isn’t necessarily sexual.” Zoey narrowed her eyes at him. “Wait. Did Gina promise you that something was going to happen between all of us tonight?”
He shrugged, still smiling. “Not in so many words, but hey … after a few drinks, people start getting comfortable, inhibitions start going away, and … y’know … things can happen.”
“Uh-huh … right,” she said, rolling her eyes before turning away from him. “Hey, Gina? You mind if I turn your boyfriend into a toad?”
“Sure, go for it!”
“You can do that?” Mike asked in a hushed voice, raising an eyebrow.
Zoey took out one of the final items from her bag and held it up so he could see it: a large and very sharp knife with a faux bone handle and a brass hilt. There was nothing particularly special about the knife's construction or appearance, as it was just a cheap hunting knife she had bought at a sporting goods store. Like most of her magickal items, its usefulness was not determined by its looks or its origin but rather by her intent and how she used it.
“Honestly, I’m not sure,” she said, watching his eyes fixate upon the big knife, “but I do know that I can make you into a eunuch if you don’t behave yourself.”
“Oh.” Mike backed away with a nervous grin. “I think I’ll get to