As Jenna holds the lifeless raven haired head in her hands, she can’t believe what she just saw.
Jenna was on her way to visit her estranged aunt Rachel. Her mother never wanted to visit Rachel, the much younger sister of Jenna’s dad, especially after her dad had mysteriously disappeared. The why was simple: Jenna’s mom was deeply religious and disapproved of aunt Rachel’s lifestyle.
And said lifestyle was exactly why Jenna wanted to visit her aunt. Jenna wanted to turn heads, to be desired, to have her pick of guys and girls (her wishes for girls she kept well away from her mother. And aunt Rachel had all that. True, the woman was naturally pretty much divine, with all the right curves, perfect skin and complexion and shining black hair, but Jenna figured that her aunt would have advice for her all the same.
Now, Rachel lived a few hours away, but Jenna had just finished High School and told her mother that she was going on a cross country trip. Having graduated at the top of her class and being generally a dutiful daughter had paid off and her mother had asked no questions, just asking her daughter to get in touch every now and then.
She had taken the train and could already see her aunt’s property. Hedges protected the house and pool from prying eyes. Jenna was already looking forward towards relaxing in the sizeable pool next to her aunt. Rachel had always been very kind to Jenna, though even her dad was somewhat apprehensive about that. Seeing how Jenna wished she could be like her aunt, he had probably been right to worry.
Jenna was nearly there, when a black sports car passed her by and neatly parked in front of aunt Rachel’s garage.
For a second Jenna wanted to run up and greet what she expected to be her aunt, but instead she decided to sneak up on Rachel. And a good thing, too, because aunt Rachel wasn’t the driver or inside the car at all. The driver was a handsome, middle-aged man dressed like one of the higher ups of her mom’s faith all in red and purple, an exarch or something equally silly.
For a second Jenna was confused, but then a grin spread across her face. It looked like aunt Rachel’s latest conquest was one of those self-important preachers. She stealthily followed him, but the man wasn’t even bothering to look around. He didn’t ring the bell but instead walked around the house to get directly to the pool.
As Jenna snuck after him she expected to catch him in some form of passionate kiss with aunt Rachel. Before Rachel could glance around the corner of the house, however, a sun lounger flew passed her. And as freaky as that was, far weirder was that it didn’t make a sound. In fact, there were no sounds at all.
Jenna inched closer to the corner. She could feel wind rushing from there and even saw an umbrella being carried away by it, but she heard nothing. Not the umbrella, not the wind, not even her own steps.
Finally she was close enough to take a glance. There the church man stood in his weird purple get-up, glowing in a muted light reciting words from an open book in his hand, if his moving lips were any indication. And opposite him was aunt Rachel clad only in a black bikini. And something was very wrong. She looked as gorgeous as Jenna remembered her, with her black hair fluttering in the wind and her piercing blue eyes staring defiantly at the interloper. Her ruby red lips were also chanting something, but instead of a light, she was surrounded by swirling miasma of dark colours. And, as if that wasn’t enough to make it clear who was ‘evil’ here, at that moment some of those colours flowed together behind Rachel and formed the outline of something clearly inhuman.
Spears of light were piercing oily tentacles and streams of gold struggled against waves of blood. And still there was this utter silence. Even the surroundings of the pool looked completely untouched save for few things the blowing wind disturbed. Whatever was going on, it happened beyond what could be considered real, that much even Jenna understood.
Slowly, but steadily aunt Rachel was losing ground. The pure light beating back her ever wilder and firecer attacks. Soon, she was down on one knee and with one last effort the preacher dispersed the demonic outline behind Jenna’s aunt. Like a puppet with its strings cut, Rachel collapsed to the ground.
The second she was down, the remainders of the magic started to dissipate. And once it was gone, the sounds returned. Finally Jenna noticed that she was hyperventilating and tried as best she could to control herself. Luckily the man was busying himself with helping her aunt into a more comfortable position and checked pulse and breathing.
Satisfied that the woman was apparently fine, the mystery man finally spoke. “You were lucky, Ms. Miller.” For a second Jenna thought she was caught, but the man soon went on and it was clear that he meant aunt Rachel, who shared Jenna’s last name. “Your sister-in-law noticed that something was wrong with you. But now, you can live your life in peace, undisturbed by the horrors that had besett you.”
With that done, he swirled his finger through the air and all the displaced stuff flew back to their places. With that he turned around and started to leave. Quickly Jenna hid herself and the man walked right passed her, got into his car and drove away, like nothing had happened.
Jenna didn’t know how long she stayed hidden, but after some time she made her way to her aunt’s unconscious body. It was there, lying next to the pool, breathtaking as ever. Only now her aunt wasn’t breathing. Jenna kneeled next to Rachel and tried to check the pulse, but the second her hand touched her aunt’s wrist, the latter started to disperse into ash. In fact the entire body was being blown apart.
The entire body except for the head.
And now Jenna is sitting there, shocked and disturbed, with her what remained of her aunt Rachel in her hand. The head isn’t even a real head anymore. It looks more like a cheap mask of her aunt than her actual head. The red lips seem glued together, the eyes are gone and nose had the only holes with which to breath through. Even the hair feels fake and synthetic. It’s very stretchy and has an opening at the neck.
Jenna can only stare at the opening and wonders what to do now.