Chapter 23
Coralina had broken her right arm. His wife, Kelly had walked on the roof in her sleep, and he still had a fucking bloody nose. He drove back slowly holding his nose tightly.
He kept thinking about how he followed that old lady, the lady he thought was the witch. How he had contemplated killing her. He had her license plate now. What if she wasn’t even a witch? His mind was spinning around all the possibilities. What if he killed a woman who wasn’t a witch? His teeth were clenched painfully tight as he drove, and he realized he was hunched over the steering-wheel like an old man.
Maybe he was going crazy.
But if they were going to have a new symptom, or a new stage every day or so, which is what it looked like, and they were only about four days away from him killing them all.
Or five days from Coralina killing them, or six days from Kelly killing them all. Fuck. He needed to find that witch. She would have to cure them. Or he would do whatever it took.
His finger was throbbing, as he tried to drive one handed, his other hand clasping his nose. Mark was exhausted he hadn’t slept more than two hours in the last night. He’d stop by the house and grab his gun, tell Kelly his plan, then bring the witch back and have her fix this. With whatever the fuck witches did.
When he got there, there was chaos. Beth was crying, Coralina was screaming, and Kelly was nowhere to be seen.
“Girls?” He said, quickly checking Beth. She was covering her eyes, but she didn’t appear to be injured.
“Blood.” She said, with panic. He turned and stared at the kitchen, and there was a lot of blood.
“Daddy it won’t stop.” Said Coralina, between big hulking sobs. It sounded like she was practically choking to death on her own tears. And her nose was gushing. Stage three. Her nose was gushing blood. He grabbed a kitchen towel and press it to her face, showing her how to tilt her head and pin her nose.
“Stay like this. Where is your mother?” He said, bit of panic running through his soul. The shock of the blood everywhere, was lessened by his own knowledge that he had been gushing from the nose, and he was fine, not even lightheaded. But it was still unnerving. Why had Kelly left them? Why could she leave them like this? Where had she gone? “Kelly!” He shouted, hoping that his wife’s call would answer him.
But he didn’t hear anything. Finally he ran up the stairs, glancing around their bedroom, and he saw her foot sticking out from the bathroom door. He ran in, and she was unconscious on the floor. Her ankle twisted in an unnatural angle. Bone snap, stage two. Fuck.
She was slowly waking while he was shaking her. “You look like you hit your head, are you okay do you remember your name?”
“I remember your name, dickhead.” She said, with a certain amount of sass even as she reached up and touched her head. Pain ran across her eyes as she gingerly touched a large goose-egg forming. She shifted slightly and then pain ricocheted up and down her body. He’d seen her this way before, her body shuddered from pain. But only in childbirth. Right before they managed to get that epidural in place. He hated to see his wife in so much pain. Her eyes grew wide with shock, and she let out a whimper.
“Kelly, stay still. Your foot is definitely broken.” He was wrestling his cell phone out of his pocket, and called 911. Not fifteen minutes later Kelly was packed in an ambulance flipping him off subtly with a wink as she was wheeled inside.
She was gonna be okay.
But they, had to stop this fucking curse.
