The Curse of the Werewolves

CH13: THE MEDALLION.

The low painful moan of the man whom I thought was dead gave me a sputtering shock, and I stumbled back from the victim, crushing my foot onto the leg of the dead-bald man. I could hear the crushing sound and the disintegration of the bones present inside the leg. My eyes had gone wide with stupor and fear; thinking that the man had become some sort of a supernatural creature.

I couldn't blame myself. Encountering werewolves and venturing into abandoned foreboding houses had made my rational mind turn into a complete voodoo irrational mind. Now anything which happened in front of me wouldn't look enough real to me.

The man groaned and moaned in agony. He shook his head side to side gradually, uttering low moans and words which I could not hear. My blood had run cold and my back could feel several prickles, like the ones you feel when you are bitten by a hundred mosquitoes at the time your playing in the woods. My throat suddenly felt dry, and my mouth developed the taste of chalk; the taste you feel when you haven't drunk water for days.

I opened my mouth to say something. "...Y-You... H-How?.... I-" I said in a hoarse stammer, pointing at him. "...How did this happen? Who's killed them?" Then I pointed back to the two dead bodies.

"If...Hff...Go home..."  The man said in a faint whisper. He barely had the strength to talk, and I felt like I was burdening him with questions.

"O-Okay okay hold on. I will do something. There must be an aid box around here. Just stay quiet..." I said, trying to reassure him.

"N-No... Don't... If... If... Help me- Just leave... They will get you- They- Oohhhhh..." The man moaned, pressing his hand onto the slash, thus making all the blood flow out into thin streaks. He moaned again, even louder.

"You are in a terrible state", I told him. "Who are you and who are these people?"

He did not answer my question, but his eyes motioned for me to look down onto his left side whilst opening his mouth to grunt in the excruciating pain. I lowered my eyes to his left side and caught a glimpse of something shiny between his pale rigid fingers. He uncurled his fingers to reveal a.....

"A... Medallion?"

Yes! It was a medallion. A small oval-shaped medallion with a small red ribbon tied around it in a small scarlet cross. The medallion was golden in colour; a radiant glossy golden colour, which glinted and glimmered limitlessly. I scrunched up my nose and then made a confused face. What was a thing like a medallion doing in this man's hand?

"Uhh... Do you want me to take it?"

In response, he wearily nodded and then said in a hoarse whisper, "keep it... It is going to come handy...."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

He nodded.

I bent down to cast a better look at the shining medallion but the sparkling glinting of it made my eyes hurt, so I quickly obtained the object from his palm and as usual, dropped it in my satchel. "Thank you", I thanked him. "Oh no- You don't look good... I should get you out of here... We can make it if we try."     "Too many of them... More... Too many werewolves... Too many... Cannot make it..."

"Too many?" I said, raising an eyebrow. "That means your saying there are more werewolves than just one?"

He gave me a slight nod, and then sighing heavily, he closed his eyes once again and then his head falls to a side onto his shoulder, lifeless. The man became deceased.

Although I already knew that he had deceased, despite witnessing the rapid changing of the skin colour on his forehead to a deadly yellow pale, I still automatically began to nudge him by my foot and whispered to him to get up. Of course,e he didn't listen. "Please wake up... Please tell me that you know where my grandma is..." All I got in response was the deafening silence that echoed in the walls of the house.

I shook my head. This man was my last hope. Last hope. He could be the one who would know where my grandma was, or at least he would have some information about the mysterious disappearance of my grandmother and the morbid statues out on the lawn.

I need to search for more clues, I thought. But first I must grab a knife from the kitchen, just in case.

                            ***
I exited the kitchen which was built right next to the staircase in the foyer, with a sharp knife in my hand. The blade glinted and shone, and the tip of the knife told stories about how painstaking it can be when stabbed. I squeezed the knife in my hand, making my hand starting to sweat. I was getting a LOT nervous. I swore to myself that that time, if that werewolf came in front of me, I would not think of running, but quickly stab it in the chest... Or in the shoulder... But I vowed to give it a fatal stab wound.

I took quick but quite steps up the stairs. The stairs creaked beneath my weight, but not loud enough to alter a werewolf. I kept sliding my hand onto the wooden banister as I walked up the stairs.

The upper portion started to become visible; the three doors, two without doorknobs and the one (bathroom) with the knob. A wreckage of a chandelier just in front of the doors appeared in sight. Had it been there before? I didn't know, and I didn't want to know. The putrid smell coming from the foyer of the ripped corpses followed me up to the staircase. And again, I had to damp my nose with my hand and make an uncomfortable sound.

The paintings hanging on the wall gave me the creeps. Their grave eyes seemed to follow me up as I reached the upper floor.

I did not dare to shout for my grandma, but every single time I imagined that I was shouting for my grandma, she would answer "Yes?" in a sweet and rhapsodizing voice, but I knew that wouldn't happen. At the current time, I needed to find something important which belonged to her. Something... that would give me a hint. A hint about where she is. A hint about the curse of the werewolves... But what could possibly belong to her which would give me clues?

I started to wonder, standing still onto the floor. I didn't want to even take a step forward without having a plan. Of course,e I had a plan, but it wasn't right. I needed to gather evidence first.

I closed my eyes and concentrated, tapping my finger continuously onto my temple, and reciting the words over and over, "Think Hannah think."

And then my mind amazed me. Believe me that I already expected my mind to think of something useful which belonged to my grandma, because, what can I say, journalists have a smart mind. Even if you are dumb and an idiot who does not understand anything, when you apply the career of a journalist, your mind will become productive in weeks.

"Her journal!" I snapped my fingers in the air excitedly. "Her journal is all I need to know about this whole mystery. She might have left some clues for me in her journal. I have to find it. No matter what!"

I started to advance towards a vast wooden-black door with a small oval slot located just right in the middle. The door had two narrow rows of glossy white glass on each side from where the slot was located. Surprisingly, it didn't have a doorknob, and moreover, I hadn't ever EVER seen this particular door before.

The wind howled outside, making the windows rattle. I walked towards the odd door, and that's when a screech just outside the window made me stop dead in my track. It wasn't a screech of an animal or a human, but it was a screech of something else. Something different. Something strange. That was what started to scare me.

Someone was definitely trying to enter inside through the window!