Sanguine Malediction - The crossbow and the silver bullet

Chapter 14

When we got to my parent's street, I had an overwhelming urge to break down in tears, collapse on the floor, and just rock myself back and forth in comfort. But I had to be strong, for everyone. My mum's body was still in the house, still lifeless and deeply wounded. The walls were still stained with blood and damaged with deep claw marks. I closed my eyes for a moment as their house came into view, preparing myself to see my mother's body all over again. My preparation was interrupted when fingers creeped into mine by my side and tightened their grip on my hand. I opened my eyes and looked to my side to see Leo giving me an apologetic smile. Josephine smacked a hand onto my shoulder and when I looked at her, she offered me the same smile. This all felt like one big nightmare, one that I would never be able to wake up from.

As we approached the front door I realised that it was shut, but I didn't remember shutting the door because we had left in such a hurry through the back door. Why would Van Helsing shut my front door? I pulled the handle down and closed my eyes for a moment again as I pushed the front door open. As I stepped inside the hallway, still with my eyes shut, the scent of my mother's blood smothered the place, but it wasn't as strong as it was before.

I opened my eyes and fled straight upstairs to my old bedroom. I couldn't bear to see her, see my mum's dead body. As I walked across the landing and pushed open the door to my old room, bloody tears trickled down my cheeks and fell onto the grey carpet beneath me. Nostalgia hit me like a ton of bricks as I stepped inside the bedroom and took in my surroundings that were stuck in time from when I moved out. The bedroom had light purple walls, with a baby-blue fluffy lightshade around the main light, and movie posters on the wall. My single metal frame bed that had baby blue bedding patterned with purple daisies on the corners, with matching pillowcases. Opposite the bed was the one, large, pane window with the TV on the TV stand at the foot of the bed. By the side of the TV was framed photos with friends from school and family, on the other side was my blue and yellow lava lamp. In the corner was my black painted wooden wardrobe. I appeared in front of it after taking everything in and opened the doors, pulling out a recycling bag filled with clothes that no longer fit me that had been stuffed on a top shelf. I appeared by the bedroom door and took one last look at my timeless bedroom before I hurried back downstairs.

Leo and Josephine were standing in front of the open front door outside and staring into the hallway with frowns. They looked at me as I reached the bottom step and Leo took the bag from my hand.

"If you don't mind me asking, was your mum killed in the living room? This scene is horrible, I'm so sorry you had to see this and lose your mum." Josephine said.

Her question confused me. I just saw her and Leo staring in the hallway where my mum's body was. Why is she asking me where she was killed if she can see her body? Unless...

I leaped off the bottom step and although I didn't want to, turned my head to look on the hallway floor where my mother's body was left. I gasped and felt my knees weaken, my heart was hurting again. Her body wasn't there. My mum was gone. But she was definitely dead, she didn't get up and walk away herself. Someone really stole my mum's body. Took her from me not just in life, but in death too. Was killing her not enough? They had to take her body from me too? I felt a fire blazing in my heart, my body tensing with anger, my jaw so tight I was afraid of breaking it myself. That's why the scent of blood wasn't as strong this time, because the source of the blood wasn't even here anymore. Did the werewolves take her? Did Van Helsing? Why? What do they get out of taking her dead body and doing god knows what with it? I stammered outside the front door clutching my hand to my heart. I could feel Leo and Josephine's hands on my body, but my body soon felt numb. This house no longer felt like home, it felt cold and unwelcoming. I wouldn't get to give my mother a burial, I wouldn't get to kiss her cold forehead for the last time because they had taken that from me, whoever it was. I dropped my head into my hands as my aching body fell to the ground. I felt paralysed. I couldn't find the will to speak or move. My dad would be just as devasted as I was and I didn't know how to tell him this. It seemed like someone was always being taken away from me and it was destroying me from the inside out. My hands were covered in blood from my tears, soaked as though I had just murdered someone with my bare hands.