The Curse of the Werewolves

CH6: A NEW PLACE.

I began to hear voices. Human voices. The voices which I dreaded to hear since my encounter with that vicious beast inside that devastated house. The voices were soft, low and numerous, chittering and chattering like magpies. I would have liked my eyes to be opened quickly, but my body was still kind of paralyzed, causing my eyes to open slowly and slowly. From a blurred vision, I could make out that a dozen faces were looking down at me, whispering and talking continuously. Someone poked me with their foot in the leg, whereas someone kicked lightly my arm.

"Look!" A woman pointed at me. "She is waking up!"

Everyone gathered more closely around me, bending their faces down and staring at me with faces of awe and supposition. My vision began to become more clear; I lifted up my arm and then dropped it back down onto the ground. I realized that I was laying down onto a mass of spiky grass and rough stones. "Where am I?" I muttered, again lifting up my arm and throwing it downward. Again, the spiky grass blades caressed my skin and the pointy stones collided with my elbow.

"We found you lying here somewhere, injured and unconscious. Thank God that you are fine by the grace-" An elderly woman, with a shaky but a calm consoled voice, spoke lightly. I focused on her facial features; she had bulging eyes ( the eyes of a bullfrog ) with long black eyelashes. Her cheeks were slumped down, covered in a sea of deep wrinkles that lined up to the corners of her eyes. A small golden cross dangled from her neck.

"Dear, how did you get here?"

"I-I-I..." I searched for the right words, the right words to describe the creature which I had seen the night before, but how could I tell them that I just had seen a Werewolf? A vicious nasty Werewolf! Obviously, these folks
would not believe me. They would not believe a single word of mine which I would tell them. They would just stare at my face with complete emptiness and blankness,  and then the crowd would soon erupt in booming laughter
They would think that I am crazy.  They would tell me that because of crashing my head on the ground, I had gone completely mad.

So the best answer to them was playing dumb.

"I do not remember, but I need some water-"

"Come", the same woman spoke,  flashing me a calm and a serene smile; a smile which one could not forget, extending a friendly hand towards me.  "By the grace of God, you need to be taken care of. "

                              ***
The sun was starting to sink behind the grey and thunderous rainclouds, blocking a sparkling streak of sunlight which reflected from the window of the room and struck upon a painting of Virgin Mary a minute ago, which hung from a rusted nail hammered into the wooden wall. I was sitting in a congested wooden room filled with numerous paintings related to Christianity: The Last Supper. The Virgin Mary. The birth of Jesus Christ. All hanging in a neat row on the wall.

I was brought in this church by the same woman whom I met a couple of minutes ago, the one who was wearing a gold cross-chain. I figured out that she must be a priestess. She had told me that she was going to get me a nice warm cup of tea, and some dry clothes, along with something to eat. I had told her that I would just be needing some dry clothes, and the rest she should not bother.

Although I was so hungry that I could eat a horse, but I did not want to trouble her. She already was too kind to offer, and her favor of giving me a place to rest was very considerate and liberal. The hinges of the wooden door squeaked like a mouse as the priestess turned the knob and opened the door. "Milk is finished, so I left the tea, but I brought you some dry clothes..." She spoke, her voice sounding friendly and polite... There was also a familiarity in her tone... As if she knew me already...

"Oh, that was so unnecessary! Just dry clothes are what I need."

I noticed that her elbow was draped with a hand-knitted light green sweater, a plaid parka, a white full-sleeve T-Shirt, and long black leggings. She handed me the clothes, ( which I thankfully received and then put in my lap) dragged a worn-out chair that stood with the wall in front of me and then settled herself. The clouds must have moved, because the sunshine came back again, and this time, instead of shining on the paintings, it shined on the woman giving her an elegant glow.

She resembled a little with my grandmother. Huh, I had not noticed that before. I looked down at my lap, smiling. "It had been a tough night, and these clothes are just what I needed-"

"-I know you-"

"Huh? Excuse me?"

"I said I know you."

Huh? What was this woman talking about? How did she know me? She was a complete stranger to me, and we had just met, then how-

I was pretty sure that the woman had noticed my confused face, because the next sentences which she announced made pretty much sense to me: "Of course I know you. Everybody knows you! Your Hannah Stonehouse. The great journalist who writes inspiring articles. Look!" She picked up a half-soaked newspaper from the coffee table on her side and then offered it to me. I took the newspaper from her hand and then glared at the title of one of my articles: "MISSION JUPITER by Hannah Stonehouse" written in immense bold letters.

It made sense. Actually, it made too much sense. "Oh" was all I could say, nothing else came to my mouth.

"I'm Darla Grace, but you can call me Ma. I became an admirer of your articles when I read that you uncovered a smuggling business in Zurich."

I smiled proudly and then snapped my fingers in the air, recalling the smuggling business which I uncovered a year ago in Zurich. The gangster which was involved in this treacherous business used to bury heroin and drugs in the graves of the corpses at midnight. Apparently, the graveyard aligned to a grocery store, and by the streak of fortune, I was there. When I got outside of the store with shopping bags full of who knows what, I caught sight of them!

The night was extremely dark because of the weather changes but, God may have made a pattern, a glowing post lamp standing on the graveyard's iron-wrought gate made me see everything clearly. The gang was apparently too dumb in case that they should have at least eradicated the source of light first, but no...

The next morning, I planned to pay the same graveyard a visit. When I went inside it, the first thing which I did was to check the soil of the graves, and just as I had thought, they had been dug recently. I also found a list of names somewhere behind a bush with several names crossed out. I did not plan to further investigate, but immediately called the police to deal with this matter.

The police arrived in no time, and I have told them every single detail: How I was at the grocery store the night before. How I stepped out and saw the gang digging up graves and burying something. How the post lamp made me see everything, and how the gang escaped from the spiked-fence of the graveyard. The officers dug up graves and found heroin, tobacco, and several other drugs dug beneath the soil instead of corpses.