Beneath The Crescent Moon {TMT #3}

Chapter 4

It was easy getting Erik's body out but painfully hard discreetly dragging the shopkeeper's body all the way from her store to my home.

That was the only setback though. About people catching me in the act? I wasn't phased at all. That was apparently the main reason why I'd chosen this night in the first place.

With the time so close to midnight, everyone's windows and doors would've been shut tight, sealing their interiors from the beast that was surely preparing to come out of the shadows, since the full moon just passed.

It was a tradition in this town -  coincidentally after I'd arrived here - and the residents constantly blamed me for attracting the beast with my witchery.

That was a load of crap of course, but who would take my word for it aside Ellie?

Huffing out an exhausted breath, I dumped the shopkeeper's body on top of Erik's before pulling my coat tighter around me.

Despite the amount of energy I'd exerted just doing such a simple task, the chilly weather made it impossible for me to even release a sweat. That was how terribly cold it was, but that wasn't what was plaguing my mind at that moment.

The freaking bodies.

I had no idea whether I should just bury them at the back of my house, burn them and throw away their remains, or send them into the woods and bury them there.

I immediately crossed out the second option, although I didn't care if the town's people conjured up a bucket full of scenarios that might have led me to be setting fire to whatever so late in the night if they so much as peeked out their windows or smelled the smoke drifting across the atmosphere.

The third option seemed the best, but I didn't want to risk getting attacked in the woods. Even staying out at this time of the night was dangerous enough.

So I chose the first option. I certainly didn't like the idea of a couple of dead bodies rotting in my backyard nor did I think I had the energy to dig up a six feet hole in the ground, but it was worth the effort.

Though thinking about it, I should care and not give them any more reason to suspect me of evil doings or witchery in the village, but at this point in time, I didn't give a rat's bottom of what they'd think. I was already in too much trouble to shy away from a task so little compared to what I'd completed mere hours ago.

So with a sense of determination, I managed to drag both their bodies to the back of my house, gradually growing conscious of the way the atmosphere had begun to change.

I hadn't felt it at first, but now - after I'd completed my task and stood still for a moment - the dying sounds of nocturnal nature were so painfully evident that I'd have to be deaf to miss that.

Suddenly wary and fully aware of my surroundings, I moved slowly and backwards towards the shed that stood abandoned here in my backyard to look for a shovel, all the while eyeing the dark forest which seemed to grow thicker with each movement.

Then, before I could make contact with the shed's door, I caught a pair of red eyes illuminating from the blackness surrounding the woods.

Promptly, the hairs on my neck stood up.

Those pair of eyes were so dangerously intense that I lost myself in them, forgetting for a split second that I was supposed to be retrieving a shovel - to which, by the way, I quickly ditched in my mind for a shotgun I knew was in there.

The low growl reverberating from the animal, however, snapped me from my momentary hesitation.

The intensity of its gaze didn't fade, so it wasn't necessarily that which made me spin around and shove the shed's door out of my way. It was actually due to the fact that the beast had used my moment's pause to swiftly advance towards me.