Eureka Springs

Eureka Springs
Written by: Kody Manley

David McAllister drove through the hills outside of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. He had been trying to get in touch with his sister Gemma for days, but he unable to reach her. He decided after a few days he would drive down to find her. Memphis was hours away, but he knew in his gut he needed to check on her. He drove all day and arrived in town at sunset. He found a bar and grill and decided to stop in for dinner before checking into a room.
A lovely woman sat at the table beside him and smiled at him. “How are you?”
“I’m fine I guess. I’m in town trying to find my sister.” David replied, taking a sip of his Coke.
“Well that shouldn’t be too hard. This is a small town in spite of the tourism. How rude of me, my name is Jane.”
“David McAllister. This is her.” David said, showing her a picture of Gemma on his phone.
“I haven’t seen her, why was she in town for?” Jane asked.
“She is studying archaeology, and she came down here with her advisor to check on an old Sioux cave. She’s wanted to be an archeologist since she watched Raiders when we were kids.”
“Really, well there is one cave I know of, but last time I checked it had been sealed off over a century ago. They said it was too dangerous to be open to the public, especially since it was on tribal land. I could show you tomorrow if you’d like.” Jane offered.
“That would be great! Here is my number,” David beamed, scribbling his number on a napkin. The waiter gave him his bill and he stood to leave. “Call me anytime you’re ready. I’ll be staying at the Crescent Hill Hotel.”
He waved goodbye and drove to the hotel. He went to the front desk and was checked in, glad to be on the ground floor. He decides to not unpack, but lays everything he would need for the next day on the dresser. He hears a knock on the door. He walks to the door expecting to find Jane or maybe a concierge checking on the room. He opens it and finds nobody is there. He finds a very old, antique syringe stuck into the door. Unnerved, he takes it out of the door and closes it, locking it. He calls down to the front desk to ask about it, and they tell him Dr. Baker must have stopped by for a house call. Clueless, he hangs up, and lies in bed. He sees literature on his night stand offering ghost tours of the famously haunted Crescent Hill Hotel. He thinks it’s a gimmick, and turns off the light. He ponders about the next day and hopes to find his sister.
In the middle of the night he is awoken by an odd sound, chains dragging on the hallway floor. Again, nobody is outside of the door, but he catches a glimpse of a man turning the hallway corner in shackles, and pursues him. As he rounds the corner, the man had vanished. He assumes he is dreaming and returns to his room. As he enters the doorway, an old woman screams for help in his face and rushes through him. Her eyes were missing and blood streaked down her cheeks. She is extremely thin like she had been consumed from the inside. He turns around and she is gone. Unsure of what to do, he rationalized he was sleepwalking and returned to bed, relocking the door behind him.
The next day, David and Jane set out through the hills in search of the cave. He had met her near the springs, which was five miles from the cave. The autumn leaves painted the hillside various colors. They made it almost a half of a mile and David couldn’t help but ask her about the hotel begins asking if she had heard of Dr. Baker, or any weird occurrences at the hotel.
“What do you know about the Crescent Hotel and someone named Dr. Baker? I had the weirdest thing happen last night,” David began, taking the syringe out of his bag and showing her. “This was stuck in my door last night.”
“Well that’s spooky,” Jane replied, wide-eyed. “Dr. Baker used to own the Crescent. Except after years of scamming people out of their money with a supposed cure. He was a millionaire business man with no medical training, and some people think he ran cruel experiments to ease his serial killer tendencies, others think he was just greedy. He died in Florida in 1958 after he served a stint in prison, but many think his spirit returned to the Crescent to finish were he left off.”
“What do you think?” David asked.
“I think he was just greedy and exploited people. The hotel was probably just trying to give you your money’s worth,” Jane mused. “Do you know how this town came to be?”
“Nope. Not a clue.”
“Well, they used to say the springs her had mystical healing powers. A Sioux chief brought his daughter who was suffering from an eye disease. She was losing her eyesight and the water cured her. He told others, but it attracted the white man. So eventually the town was built. Then Baker bought the Crescent when he was ran out of his home state. It had fallen on hard times.” Jane explained.
“What happened to the Chief and his daughter?” David wondered.
“I don’t know.”
They walked a few more miles and found the cave, and nothing had been touched since the disappearance. A large slab had been pushed to the side and the mouth of the cave looked dark and foreboding. They entered slowly and a flashlight and journal was lying on the floor. There are primitive writings on the cave wall, and as David read the journal, he saw that the Indians tell a story of a young woman who is a powerful witch named Sophia. She abducted the Sioux Chief's daughter in revenge for the him telling the world about the spring, which she enchanted with ancient magic to keep herself young and healthy. She drained the girl’s blood and took her soul giving her immortality, but in doing so drains the springs supernatural power. When the chief finds the witch, he attempted to kill her, which fails. She was unable to be killed by mortal means. They use a powerful spell to capture her and a Sioux shaman binds her to a boulder in the cave and seals it with magic, to suffer in the dark for eternity. The professor explained he broke the curse after years of research with the blood of a descendent, of who he was unclear. He takes pictures of the walls, and the journal goes with him. They look deeper in the cave and find the bolder, with broken shackles.
“This is all creepy as hell.” David told Jane. She agreed with an enthusiastic nod. David puts the journal and flashlight in his bag.
“I know this didn’t give you any clues to her whereabouts, but it’s a start isn’t it?” Jane asked.
“Yeah…” David replied, resisting discouragement. “Let’s go.”
Later in town, David returned to the bar, and with no leads he has a few drinks. He thanked Jane and she told him she would call him if she heard anything. The bartender refilled his drink.
“Rough day, huh?” He asked. His nametag read Vince, but he had very apparent Native American features.
“Witches, caves, and general paranormal nonsense. Yeah, it’s been a doozy.” David chuckles.
“Well, witches have lived in Eureka Springs before. Not all mystics are evil, but the last powerful witch we had was taken care of. You some kind of journalist?” Vince asked, wiping the bar.
“No. I’m actually a contractor. I’m trying to find my sister. She was visiting with her advisor, Professor Derwin Hawkins. She is an archeology major. They were investigating a local cave.” David told him, showing him the picture of his sister, then scrolling through to the cave pictures.
“Oh my god.” Vince said, wide-eyed.
“You know something.” David realized.
“Of course I do. I’ve heard the legend of Sophia LeFleur my whole life. She was a French immigrant, and dangerous dark witch. My tribe imprisoned her. If your sister was in that cave, I’m afraid for her life.” Vince said in a hushed tone.
“You’re…serious?” David asked.
“Yes. When the Chief locked her away, the magic he used to seal the cave could only be undone by someone she shared blood with. The Chief didn’t know she had a daughter she abandoned in France. He thought that if she didn’t have a bloodline, she’d never get out. We found out about her daughter when a woman came looking for Sophia years later. She didn’t know about the cave and left before she could be found. We’ve looked for her descendants ever since, but we’ve never been able to capture them.”
“Look, I don’t care about witches or curses. I just want to find my sister.” David said with a scowl.
“Well…meet me here when I get off at eleven. I’ll take you to the tribal elders. Maybe they can help.” Vince suggested. David nodded, left his bill money and went for a walk downtown and took in the historic sight as he killed time.
They met in the parking lot and decided to take David’s car. Vince’s beat up truck had seen better days. Vince told him the directions, but David put it in his GPS. They were at the elders within a half hour.
They were in the backyard around a bonfire. They explain to him that if the witch is out, then her descendent had found her and they had more power together than she does alone. David explains about his sister's class disappearing, and he said the witch surely had them, and if that was the case then they were as good as dead, or worse. One of the tribal members was a cop and tracked her cell phone. David asks what the witch wants. They tell him the only thing she wants is revenge, because not only was the witch angry with the Chief for exposing the springs power, but also because she was his mistress. She needed the blood of someone cured by the spring to drain its power, and it was perfect to spite the Chief to sacrifice his daughter. The cop comes back and tell him her phone is downtown.
David runs back to the car along with Vince, they made it downtown, and all the students are lined up on top of the old trolley station. David screams at his sister, but she just stands there. He starts to climb up, but before he could, they all scream out in pain as their flesh starts melting away from their bones. As their skin hits the roof it catches on fire, and they’re lost in the blaze as David screams in helplessness. Vince pulls him back, but David passes out.
He wakes up in the early morning in his hotel room, and his sister is sitting at the end of the bed. She tells him to not grieve over her, and to not let anyone else die at the witch's hands. She tells him to find the professor. He has all the answers. He asks her how, and she tells him to go to the basin. There is a knock on the door, and Jane is there. He looks back and his sister is gone. Jane tells him that she heard from Vince about his sister. David tells her he has to go, and he runs out of the room. He gets to his car and pulls a gun out of the glove box. He drives to the basin.
When he arrives he finds the professor with the witch. She is dressed in a tight fitting but dirty and tattered dress from the Victorian era. She looked almost like a skeleton from her years of confinement. He pulls the gun out and shoots the witch between the eyes and pistol whips the professor. David asks him what he’s doing with the witch, and when he refuses to answer he punches him. The professor tells him that the witch is his great-great-great-grandmother. David asks why he killed his sister, but before he gets his answer an unseen force throws him against a nearby tree, and then vines grow up and tie him there. The witch stands up and the bullet works itself out of her forehead. The witch begins tightening the vines with her power. Before she can kill him, she hears footsteps in the shadows. Vince steps out of the shadows with the rest of the tribe. They’re chanting an ancient incantation. Jane followed behind. The witch vanishes, but the professor remains. Before they leave he tells David that he picked her because she was a potential threat to his career after she refused his advances. The rest were just there to do the heavy lifting. David asks what they’re going to do with him. They tell him they can track her with him. He didn’t bother asking how, he didn’t care. He returned to his car and drove back to the Crescent.
He lied in bed, exhausted and angry. He was about to drift off to sleep when he heard the rattle of the chain again. Even though he’d seen his sister gruesomely murdered in front of his eyes, and shot her murderer between the eyes, it was still unnerving. He almost ignored it, but his morbid curiosity got the better of him. He opened the door, and a man in a lavender tie and white suit shackled his hands. It was Baker. David fought against the chain, but Baker pulled the chain and spikes inside the manacles pulled his skin and blood rushed ou, t of his wrists.
“You’d better come along now, before you bleed out.” Baker tells him. Baker blind folds him, and as he almost loses consciousness he is lied down on what felt like a table, and he feels his body strapped down. He feels a sting in his arm, and slowly he feels more alive. Dr. Baker takes off the blind fold. David looks around and sees he is in some kind of laboratory. It’s completely white. There are antique machines and chemistry equipment. Along the opposite wall there is a giant tank of water. Along the adjacent wall there were jars with various organs and body parts. There was a vat with a whole human. It was the old lady from the hall way. Beside her in a different container was a newborn baby, a baby that hadn’t come to term, and twin toddlers in another.
“I usually don’t take the hotel guests, but you were a special request, and don’t worry, the specimens you see in the jars died of natural causes. I was experimenting with the enchanted spring water, but dead is truly dead. This used to be my hospital, you know.”
The witch appeared from above his head with a disgusting smile, as she slammed her hands down above his shoulders. Her eyes were sunken into her skull, he thin hair clung to her skull. Her cheek bones were high and her Victorian dress stunk like death and decay.
“You don’t have to do this!” David pleads.
“He cannot hear you, child. I control his spirit like a marionette. Do they still have those? I do love a good puppet show. I choose who walks on this side of the spirit world and who doesn’t” Sophia cackled.
She licked his forehead down to his mouth, and David bit her tongue off, her blackened blood filling his mouth, and spits in on the floor. As it hits the floor it turns into a thousand spiders, and they all crawl back up into her bloody mouth and reform her tongue. Baker puts an IV in his arm, which is hooked into a machine.
“What the hell are you doing?” David demanded.
The witch smiles, and goes to the doctor’s side. David stifled a scream. Baker puts an IV in her arm and turns on the machine. His blood starts draining into the machine, and the tank of water begins to bubble. It slowly gives the witch his blood, and she begins to look rejuvenated. David can feel his body weakening. The witch no longer appears like a skeleton, but actually a beautiful woman. She pulls out the IV and blood splatters across the floor. Baker takes out David’s as the witch appears with a knife. She stabs him through the cheek, and twists the knife. David screams as she twists the knife and she pulls it out and licks the blood off of it. Baker inserts a mouthpiece, forcing David’s mouth open. The witch quickly pulls his tongue and cuts it off. Dr. Baker took a hot piece of metal and cauterizes the wound as David screams and chokes on blood. The witch then takes a hammer and nails his hands to the table. David sobs in p0ain. Dr. Baker put his tongue in a bowl on the table by David’s head. The witch tells him not to go anywhere, they still have unfinished business. David notices she has a slight French accent in his delirium. Sophia walks away as he hears a door creak open and close.
David lies there in complete agony and Dr. Baker sits beside him in a chair. He explains he never wanted to do that, but he is bound to the witch in return for his immortality. He had never died, but has continued his work trying to find a cure all. He returns David’s tongue to his mouth and pours a liquid on it and on his cheek. He felt his tongue mend itself and his cheek close up, the only pain left was in his hands. Dr. Baker removed the nails, but as he poured the liquid over his last wound the witch busts through the door. She tells him she knew she couldn’t trust him over two-hundred-years ago, and she no longer require his services. She takes out a lock of his hair and it bursts into flames in his hand.
Before David’s eyes Baker became dust and bones, and then nothing.
David grabbed the knife she had before and stabs her in the neck and runs out the door. He had no clue where he was going. He turned corner after corner and realized he was in a labyrinth. Dr. Baker didn’t want to be found.
David turned two more corners and hit a wall. He turned around and went back and turned five more. He was starting to panic. He turned around and noticed the walls began to bleed. The bleeding got gradually faster, and since the labyrinth was a tunnel, he would drown in blood. He ran back kicking blood as he went. It was about knee deep and he felt something grab his foot as he ran. He fell down and went under. He sloshed back up, spitting the blood out so he could breathe. Blood clogged his nose, and ran out of his ears. He gagged and took another breath before something grabbed his other ankle and drug him back. He thought it was the end, but suddenly he was let go. He felt a force grab his arm and pull him up. He gasped for air and threw up blood. He wiped his eyes and saw his sister. She told him to come with her. The blood was up to his waist at this point and he had to swim to around three more corners. She stopped in the middle of the last wall and pushed on it. A door open and the blood poured through it and began to drain like a broken dam. They went through it and came to some stairs. David climbed them and heard the echoes of the Sophia’s infuriated screams. He opened a door and it opened up into the property far behind the hotel. It was the dead of night and it was cold. His blood soaked clothes stuck to him and the blood began to flake in his nostrils and off of his skin. He shivered. He could feel the blood dripping off his clothes and squishing in his shoes. He walked towards the hotel. His sister told him he wouldn’t be safe there for long. Sophia would find her way out within hours.
David walked to the hotel. He was tired and nauseous. He asked his sister what she knew. She told him about the professor kissing her, and he offered the trip as an apology, and offered it for a potential essay in a national magazine. It was all a ruse, he wanted her dead and he needed the others to help move the door. The natives hadn’t known about her daughter and the door couldn’t be opened by anyone who didn’t have her blood in their veins. Nobody could get her out but him. She continued to tell him that he knocked drugged their water so after they got the door moved they passed out. He forgot it when he and the witch moved their bodies. Even after over a century of starvation and suffering she was still strong. Dr. Baker had transfused David’s blood with the remaining spelled spring water to adapt with Sophia’s body to revive her to full strength. But as far as how to kill her, she had no idea.
They finally reached the hotel, and David snuck through the halls to reach his room. He took a quick shower and grabbed his belongings. He pulled his suitcase through the hallway towards the door. He had been grateful he hadn’t been upstairs. He had left his key in the room, forgoing checkout.
He made it to the door and out to his car. Jane was walking up to the door and noticed David at his car. She had been looking for him after she found his door cracked and he wasn’t there. He played it off like he had been hungry and must’ve not latched it. She told him she knows someone who he might want to meet. He noticed a car pull up and Jane waved. An elderly lady got out of the car. She had on a pantsuit and wore a tight wrap on her head that made her look quite glamorous, and she wore a pendent with a large gemstone. She held out her hand and David shook it. She introduced herself as Bethel Rosemont, psychic and folk witch extrodinaire.
She tells David that she felt the witch’s dark presence is back, something she hadn’t felt before but had been told by her grandmother. She had been Sophia’s handmaiden and took her grimiore when the witch was banished. She became immortal when she drained the springs magic, causing the tear into the spirit world, balancing out her eternal life with the energy coming from it. Removing her power would kill her, but could only be done with someone from her bloodline. They could be linked by blood and when her mortal counterpart died, so would she. To link them they’d need to have some blood from both of them, and when they mix it at sundown and say the incantation, and as the sun and moon switch places it would seal up the spirit world and all the spirits with it, and the witch would die.
David tells her that he had to tell the tribe, and thank her and Jane. Bethel looks at him oddly as he turns to go away. He gets in his car and drives over to the Elder’s house. The mass of cars is still there. He enters the backyard and stops short. Everyone is scattered in pieces, and Vince was tied to the tree, where he burned to death. David sees the professor, but he had been hung upside down with his throat slit. He turns around and sees “I will see you soon, darling” written in intestines on the wall of the house. He runs to his car, and vomits on the windshield.
He raced back through the country side, trying to keep it together and failing. Gemma appeared in the passenger seat and puts a hand on his arm. She tells him to calm down. She tells him Baker said don’t give up, everything is in place.
It was now noon and the sun would set at seven. Driving had set him back and he was exhausted and in spite of what he had witnessed, starving. He parked downtown and walked across the street to a Mexican restaurant. Once he had a meal and a stiff drink, he thought about what Baker had meant. Was it a threat? A warning? He didn’t know. But he only had a few hours left. Bethel walked in a sat down in front of him. She tells him she had to hide the grimoire in a magically sealed vault where only she could get in, as an insurance policy. She tells him she did some digging and that she made a weapon that could kill the witch. Her grandmother had stolen locks of hair from her and various belongings of her to craft a weapon against her. She hands him a box and tells him to open it. There was a bracelet to block her magic from harming him, and a small hand scythe that had various symbols etched into the blade. Bethel tells him this weapon can harm her but not kill her. The symbols represented the elements, and the blade would balance the magic out like nature intended. She gets up and David hugs her goodbye, she offers to let him rest at her house since he would need to rest before he confronted her again.
He follows her to a beautiful Victorian-styled home. Her house has pictures dating back centuries and full of antiques. She shows him to a guest bedroom and closes the door. He dreams of being back in Baker’s laboratory and Baker is stabbing his arm repeatedly with the IV and the witch appears and plucks his eyes out. He wakes with a start and notices it’s almost five. He knew she would find him at the basin. He thanks Bethel and leaves.
He waited in the same spot where he shot her in the head. He wasn’t surprised when he saw her approach from behind a tree. She was smiling like she had already killed him. She stopped a few yards away from him and raised a hand and muttered a foreign word. She looked startled when nothing happened and he rushed her, pulling the scythe from behind his back and slicing her across the stomach. Blood poured out, but she laughed.
“You think that will kill me? I’m immortal, you fool.” She screamed. She waved her arm and a tree cracked and snapped. She flung it towards David. He dove to the ground and dodged it. It flew over him the roots exposed like jagged teeth.
“Maybe. But I can make you suffer.” David replied, hooking her through the cheek and pulled it back through, giving her half of a Glasgow smile.
She grabbed his arm, and as he pulled back, the bracelet broke. David felt it break, and she pushed him back with a burst of power. She realized what had happened and turned and pulled him to her. The sun was setting and he only had minutes. She grabbed him by the arm and throat. She squeezed tight. He could only focus on the blood running out of her. His blood.
He knew what he had to do.
He dove into her and grabbed her in his arms. She fell back and a thick jagged root pierced through both of their hearts, mixing on the ground. Blood boiled as it mixed on the ground. His sister appeared and pulled him off of her. The root dripped with his lifeblood.
She put him on the ground, and he felt the life leave his body. The ground cracked and dark figures pulled her down into the ground, and as the moon dominated the sky, David took his last breath and the ground swallowed their bodies.
David’s spirit stood there and watched as his body was consumed by the earth. Jane and his sister approached. Jane took her hand and she smiled.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Jane was killed by Professor Hawkins. He sacrificed her trying to cast a curse on you when you got to town, but he was an amateur. Her body is in the river,” Gemma told him. “We were involved and he found out, so naturally he killed her in front of me.”
“That doesn’t matter now.” Jane said.
David looked up and saw the crack to the spirit world inside. He could see the spirits strolling hand in hand through rolling hills, a large technicolor moon in it’s sky. Lightning spread through the sky from the crack and it slowly began to close. Wind blew and Jane flew up into it. Gemma grabbed David’s hand.
“What’s happening?” David screamed. Even though the wind blew around him, he remained. Gemma flew up into the crack with thousands of spirits, and it finally sealed shut. Leaving David completely alone. Almost.
Bethel walked up to him with a smile, “Sorry. I have other plans for you.”
“What?” David asked.
“I needed her out of the way. She wasn’t the only one in that cave. You see, it wasn’t my grandmother who was the handmaiden. It was me, except I wasn’t a handmaiden.” Bethel giggled. She waved a hand in front of her face and it completely changed. He was staring into the face of the witch he had just killed.
“Who are you?” David screamed.
“I’m Bethel Rosemont, and you just got rid of my twin sister, Marcela. She stole my husband and my daughter. Sacrificed her for her own immortality. I worked with him, but in order to seal her away I had to seal myself in with her.”
“What are you going to do with me?” he whispered.
She walked over to the basin and scooped up and handful of water, she placed a hand over it and repeated an incantation over it. It glowed like fire. She poured it onto the ground and it cracked open. David turned to run, but a skeletal arm grabbed his ankle and he fell to the ground. The skeleton dragged him into the crack as his soul became engulfed in flames. As his soul burned the skeleton became more and more human. David’s soul burned away and David was lost to oblivion.
A beautiful woman stood before Bethel. She smiled.
“Mother. I’ve missed you.”
Bethel took her hand and they walked away into the woods. That was the last time spirits walked in Eureka Springs, but if you ever see one, just remember they aren’t there to harm you. They’re there to warn you.