Blessings of the Curse

chapter 15

Flying beside Draven, Secore's head was a jumbled mess of rage, regret, hope and sorrow. He took a long look at the man flying beside him again, seeing his old adversary now in an all different light. After witnessing the shapeshifting demon, Kadok, his already mixed up world just took a turn for the worse. Yet that piece of the puzzle finally made the others fit and the bigger picture was coming into focus, slowly.

If what the creature said is true, and from what he saw with his own eyes, then Draven really didn't kill his father, and his mother was also not lying. That was what his whole basis of hatred was on. He knew his mother was not a liar, so obviously that meant Draven was. Now he found out he wasn't. But why did Kadok do all those things? Secore vowed he would wring the answers from that son-of-a-bitch's neck.

His world felt like it had a big gaping hole in it now. All this time... he hated the wrong man. He wanted to apologize, it was the right thing to do, but he was still too blasted stubborn and proud. The words of regret he could not find in his vocabulary. He just never doubted his mother's words, and even though Kadok claimed responsibility, he couldn't bring himself to tell a long time enemy that he was sorry.

Instead he focused on their trek, for two hours they flew in silence to their destination.

With the fight of their lives coming up, they needed to recuperate, plan, and also to make new weapons. It was a long way to Virginia, to the haunted house which sat on a hill in a tiny town named Greendale. It was so small that it didn't even receive a spot on the maps. Their journey came to an end just as the sun was coming up over the trees and the house was coming into view.

It was set off by itself. Except for the few trees around the house several acres of open land lay all around it, the once often used dirt road now had grass growing in patches all up and

down it. No one drove back this far. It was an island within an island. The closest neighbor was a mile to the west, but it wasn't seen because of the trees that grew near it. Everything in the surrounding area was unkempt or dead. The fields of wheat and hay were being choked out by the weeds which no one had even tried to keep under control. The land was forgotten, as was the house, and as far as everyone in town was concerned it could stay that way.

Draven landed on the roof and looked around to see if anyone might have been taking an early morning stroll and had noticed them, while Secore went to the broken down, rotting, termite- infested porch. It was a large, two story Victorian style house with four bedrooms and a cellar that was almost double the size of the first floor. It was a shambles to look at. It once, a long time ago, stood proudly, Secore remembered it in its prime, now with its rotted siding and layers of cobwebs and dirt covering it, it was a mockery of what it once represented. None, save them, had been here for the last 54 years. The last time they were here was almost six months ago. They do a lot of traveling and couldn't find a full-time housekeeper for the place.

The door creaked and protested loudly as Secore pushed it open and whispered to himself sarcastically, "Home, sweet home."

Legends and horror stories abounded about this place, keeping it a vacant eyesore. They knew the dark truth which was more terrifying then any of the stories that were concocted.

A little over a hundred years ago an old man lived here, an army veteran of the Civil War. He fought on the side of the North, against his own father and brother, for what he believed was the right thing to do. His family did not survive the war. He moved back here, taking up residency in his dead family's house. In seclusion, he succumbed to the war voices in his head and was driven insane with guilt and memories that haunted him. Secore knew exactly how that felt.