Haunted

•six•

Callie couldn't even look at Jedidiah after he said that. She turned and just walked out of the bathroom, out of the bedroom and down the hall to the attic. "Callie," Jedidiah sighed, following her.

She swiftly turned and shoved him back down the stairs. He stumbled all the way back into the room directly across the hall. Another empty room. Callie closed the door and kept tension so he might not have been able to get out.

Jedidiah knew Callie was still there because of the shadow under the doorway. The clock struck noon. Finally. He decided to look around the room to see if anything was there. There was a fireplace up in this room too, cool carvings around the mantle. He dragged his finger over the carvings and got cut. It was small but it hurt like his finger just got cut clean off. He quickly put his finger to his mouth, as if his saliva would actually make it better. Then he noticed there was a door. He opened it, revealing a small closet that had a little box inside. He took it out and opened it. There were books in it, journals. They were in a different language but he looked at the pictures.

Graphic drawings of people being burned at the stake. Women. Salem Witch Trials type stuff, then a drawing of the mansion... a few pages later a drawing of a group of people, a tribe of some sort, roasting a pig over a fire. He spotted one of the people having a pig head on, with a cleaver in hand.

Everything was drawn in black and white, but as he read further, red splotches appeared on the pages. The next series of sketches depicted a man in a black bodysuit, on top of a woman with a pained look on her face. Kinky he thought. After that, the man in the suit started foaming at the mouth, the picture after that was him standing beside the woman. She was bleeding...

And there was a baby in the next picture, a baby with horns. Jedidiah closed the book, hearing a creaking outside the door. "Callie?" he asked. He looked under the door and saw her shoes. He quickly closed the box and put it away, trying the door but it would barely move. She was still holding it shut. "Callie," he sighed.

"Saying my name isn't going to help you," she snapped.

"Please let me out," Jedidiah pleaded.

"No," Callie huffed, sliding down against the door and sitting there.

Jedidiah did the same on the other side. He closed his eyes for a second and when he opened them it was dark again. "What the hell," he sighed, rubbing his eyes and hearing the clock chime eight times. It was eight already?

He looked around and there was a can next to him. Baked beans, and a crystal on top. Jedidiah turned and looked under the door. The lights in the hall were on and Callie was nowhere in sight. He got up, grabbing the box and the can and getting the hell out of the room.

"Callie!" he called. The attic door was open so he checked up there, nothing. He went to the master suite, nothing but the cat in the closet. The cat was still going crazy though. "Straight out of hell," Jedidiah sighed. As he went back into the hallway he saw a figure pass into the room Callie saw the monster in earlier. "Callie!" he sighed, a little relieved. As he reached the room, though, there was nothing and no one there. He did a quick sweep of all the rooms upstairs and she was nowhere to be found. He decided to plant himself in the hallway and eat. "You know, Callie," he said, hoping she was somewhere hearing him. "I found this book and I think it's about the house. It has some witch stuff in it, maybe you'd be able to read it if it's in witch language. There's some kind of cult too, or a tribe? I can't tell," he explained, flipping to the page. "They're cooking a pig," he chuckled, looking down at the page.

It wasn't a pig anymore. It was a man, gutted and roasting over an open fire. Jedidiah's jaw dropped as he looked across the railing. From where he was sitting he could see the front door. There was a huge window over that, as he looked outside he saw a group of people walking. "Is that Veronica and everyone else?" he muttered, getting up and walking downstairs. He looked out the window as he walked and they got closer. They had torches. "A bit extreme, I think they're trying to prank us!" he called to Callie. He reached for the door but Callie grabbed his hand. "Hey," he sighed.

"That's not anyone we know," she replied, locking the door. "Stay. Inside. I was locking all the doors, I knew they'd be here."

"Who are they?" Jedidiah asked, leaning to look out the stained glass windows on the sides of the door.

Callie grabbed Jedidiah's face so he would look her in the eyes. "Hide, they can't find us," she whispered.

Jedidiah started laughing. "You almost had me," he rolled his eyes.

"Jedidiah I am dead serious, get upstairs as fast as you can," Callie shook her head.

"Hey you should look at this," he said, handing her the journal.

"As soon as we hide upstairs," she crossed her arms.

Jedidiah turned and sulked up the stairs. "Fine," he groaned.

"Thank you," Callie sighed, following behind. "And also, witches don't exactly have a language, so I probably can't read it."

"It'd be sick if they did though," Jedidiah chuckled.

"Are you feeling okay?" Callie asked as they reached the top of the stairs.

"I feel great," Jedidiah nodded, stumbling on the stairs to the attic.

"Careful tough guy," Callie giggled.

"I cut myself," he said, holding up a his finger.

Callie gasped and got him up the stairs as quick as she could. "How come you didn't say anything?" she whispered, closing the attic door and locking it.

"Because it's small, look," he waved his finger in her face.

"Was in the room I locked you in?" she asked. He nodded. "On the carvings?"

"How did you know?" he gasped.

Callie's eyes widened and she trampled over to her bag, grabbing it and rummaging through it. She wrapped his finger in a cloth with some herbs and held it there, doing the praying thing that Jedidiah thought it was. As he watched her, he started getting drowsy again, falling asleep.