“Maybe this is a bad idea. You ever seen a moon like that?”

Gabby actually shivered as she said those words. She glanced up at the sky again, and there it sat, the pale disc with the large, ghostly halo around it, filling half the sky. It was disturbing, like a scene in one of those end of the world movies. But her boyfriend didn’t mind. He chuckled and threw away his cigarette.

“Yeah, it’s a big, scary moon,” he said, sneaking a hand behind her back before it playfully pounced to her neck. “A big, scary moon that’s going to eat ya!”

Gabby yelped then swatted at him with a giggle. “Kyle, you dork! You scared me. Your hand is cold.”

She gave him a half-hearted shove, then leaned against him and hugged him by the waist, as did he. “I guess Lana scared me, with those cards,” she muttered, breathing in the cold air of early spring. 

“Yeah, the big scary moon will try to kill us,” Kyle chuckled again. “Such BS. Hey, it probably looks like that because of the storm!”

“I guess. Hey, where’s Lana, what’s she doing back there?”

“I dunno. Maybe the cards ran away from her! Like she said, they’re “alive”. Oooh…” he imitated a scary noise.

Gabby smiled a little. She was still worried. Maybe not so much about the moon, but about driving for four hours straight with a severe storm warning in effect; and about taking the shortcut through the so-called haunted road. The road that supposedly claimed the lives of those who ventured there after dark, if the weather was bad. That was such BS, though… Of course there were accidents, when people drive in the dark in bad weather! She knew they’d be extra careful. Then why did she have this bad feeling in the pit of her stomach?

“Hey guys,” she heard Lana’s voice, as their friend exited the diner behind them. “I was checking the storm updates with the Wi-Fi… Wow, you see that moon? It’s called a moon broch. It’s a sign of the coming storm. Maybe we shouldn’t go? My cards were kind of scary tonight.”

Gabby had a mental flash of looking at the Tarot cards on the table, just a few minutes ago. Lana wasn’t a professional fortune teller, but she did more than dabble, and with her mom being half-Romanian, with authentic gypsy blood a few generations back, she had learned to do the cards as a family tradition. Lana was an interesting mix of ethnicities, a quarter Romanian, a quarter gypsy, a quarter Russian and a quarter Irish American. She was told that cards liked to “talk” to the mixed-race people… or so Lana had told her friends. She also told them that she sort of believed in the cards. And sort of didn’t.

Gabby shivered again. Those cards had turned up the worst symbols on that diner’s table. There was the Pope together with the Devil, a sure sign of black magic at play, hanging over them. That was the first warning. It made Lana frown and pull more cards to clarify. Then it showed the Moon. The illustration for the Moon card was that of a lobster crawling out of water. It was flanked by a wolf and a dog, their mouths hanging open, on the background of a blood moon that filled the sky behind them. Lana explained that this card stood for fear, madness, confusion, secret enemies and messages from the subconscious. Or it could simply mean the moon. With only 72 cards to represent every possible permutation of life situations, Tarot cards readers had to rely on their impressions, which were influenced by the neighbouring cards and subtle hints from their own intuition. Gabby had listened to all the explanations with interest but without much care.

But then came the Death card, and she didn’t like that. Nobody likes to see that one pop up. Lana pulled another two from the shiny new deck, presumably to answer her unspoken question, and out came the Strength and the Queen of Wands. The Strength card was pretty. It showed a girl adorned with flowers, taming a ferocious lion, pushing its jaws closed. The Queen of Wands was a majestic blonde in a red dress. It wasn’t a Major Arcana, as Lana explained, therefore it generally represented a real person. It was supposed to stand for an energetic, “fiery” lady over the age of twenty-five, ambitious and driven. That didn’t seem too bad. But Lana didn’t like any of the cards. She frowned and huffed, and tried to pull a few more, but it just muddied the waters.

“So, what’s it saying?” Kyle had asked, grinning.

Lana shook her head. “I’m not sure.”

“Aw, come on! Tell us our fortune.”

She finally replied, with a shrug, as if she didn’t believe her own words. “It’s kind of saying we’re all gonna die because of black magic, and it’s the moon that’s going to kill us, and there’s nothing we can do about it. The Moon can stand for our own fears, but my impression is that the cards meant it literally, meaning, the actual moon. But that’s nonsense.”

Gabby mulled over this, while the rational part of her snickered at her fears, in the back of her mind.

“Maybe it’s just warning us about the storm,” Lana concluded, hiding her mouth behind her hand, looking at the spread on the table, her eyes narrowed and uneasy. “We should be careful, but not too careful. Sometimes by being too careful and too scared, people get themselves in trouble… No, but shit!” she grabbed at her head, still staring at the cards. “No, I really don’t like this. I know my cards have been wrong before, but look,” she continued. “These are all Major Arcana. The Major Arcana represent karmic, unstoppable events, and there’s five of them. Five out of six! I asked what is it that we can do to change the outcome, and it’s all in the hands of this Queen of Wands, whoever that might be. She’ll be running the show. It’s kind of clear, and it’s giving me the creeps.”

Gabby shuddered at remembering all this. Shit, what’s wrong with me? I’m not even superstitious. Note to self, never ask Lana to do cards again.

“You okay, bae?”

She nodded.

Lana seemed to share her apprehension. “Let’s just not go that way, guys,” she suggested.

Kyle raised his hands and took a step back to have them both within view.

“Whoa, ladies!” he began. “Let’s not lose our shit, al’right? We’re gonna be fine. We’re taking a shortcut, so we’ll be out before the storm hits. If not, there’s that shitty roadside Inn, or whatever, down the road, you wanna go there? Didn’t think so. Look, driving out in the storm is dangerous, but I’ll be careful. We’re not making decisions based on fortune telling cards, are you kidding me?”

“Kyle is right,” Gabby agreed, suddenly certain that he was right. “We need to chill. As in, get our ass in the car and get going, before that storm gets here.”

And so they did. They got going, their suitcase and backpacks in the trunk, Gabby and Kyle in the front, Lana in the back. Gabby almost envied her friend, who had the full back seat to herself and would be able to stretch out, maybe even doze off during the hours of their upcoming ride. She pushed her seat back, preparing for a long and boring stretch of dark roads. Provided that the storm didn’t get to them first! It certainly wouldn’t be very boring in that case… Gabby vividly imagined being blown off the road, tumbling through the fields in a bloody mess of broken bones and twisted metal. She quickly pushed the image out of her head. Bullshit, she thought. She trusted Kyle to be a good driver, and she knew that he was very careful when the going got tough.

Soon, the lonely country roads twisted and turned under the wheels of their car; road signs emerged in the headlights at regular intervals, only to be swallowed again into the darkness. They could no longer make out the farmhouses which they knew to be nearby, less than a mile from the road. It was a sleepy stretch of road with little development and few landmarks. Exits lead to logging roads quickly disappeared into the brush. Within the next ten minutes, they took the one leading onto the famously haunted road.

More or less famously haunted. If anything, it was an urban legend, that got some hype from time to time. Like last week, after a crash claimed the lives of four college students as young as themselves. The road was rumored to be haunted by an evil spirit that collected the souls of young people who drove there at night. Especially a rainy night. Or a stormy night.

Such bullshit! Of course driving out in a stormy night could be dangerous, no evil spirits required.

They took a final turn and there they were, squarely on that famous road. It was forested. Grey tree trunks lined up the way, their branches stretched over the road and into the night. There was no light source of any kind, save for the glow of their headlights, which seemed weak in comparison to the encroaching darkness.

And of course, there was the enormous moon, rolling alongside them in the night sky, in hot pursuit.

Gabby sighed and stared off into the darkness ahead. She knew it was going to be a long, one-way stretch of the road, with nothing but the silent, densely black forest around them. The conversation had trailed off a while back. Kyle’s profile was focused yet relaxed. Things were okay, and Gabby thought she might doze off, as the hypnotic monotony of the drive took over. Theirs had been the only car on the road, for all this time.

Suddenly, the wind began to pick up. Seriously pick up! Within seconds, the car was trembling at the violence of the blasts.

“Shiiiit…” Kyle growled, peering into the darkness which was now broken through by sheets of rain and wind. “The storm is here. How the fuck did that happen?”

The girls were fully alert as well, anxiously sitting up. It had begun so suddenly, it was uncanny. First they were driving on a boring dark road, then they were shaking in the wind and the rain, mixed in with ice pellets. The wind howled behind their windows and whistled through the trees, making fierce eddies of ice pellets on the road ahead, while sheets of icy water poured down the windshield. The windshield wipers barely managed to keep up, providing an uncertain view of the chaos outside. Soon they could see nothing beyond a couple of feet. Before they knew it, the rain had morphed into snow, and the darkness was now scored by blasts of white. Like swarms of white flies, blast after blast, the snow completely overtook the road.

“Maybe we should stop!” Lana pleaded. “We should wait it out, this is horrible!”

Gabby disagreed. “No, don’t. There’s nowhere to stop, and someone could run into us from behind.”

She had completely forgotten about Tarot cards and mystical warnings. What they were facing now was very real, and very dangerous. They were driving through a white puree of ice and snow, with the storm howling outside, shaking the car. Kyle was struggling to keep it going straight.

“It’s a hurricane,” he muttered. “Hold on, girls. We’ll make it.”

And just as he said it, the weather began to clear up! First it seemed like a temporary reprieve, but the wind died down, then stopped entirely. The snow turned into light rain, then that ended as well. They were driving on a dry road again; all within the span of two minutes. Maybe it was a tornado? Gabby glanced out the window onto the sky. The moon was out, the same moon with the enormous halo around it.

“Watch out!” Lana screamed, at the same time as Kyle slammed on the breaks with a muffled “Oh shit!”

Gabby was jerked back into her seat and stared at the road ahead, as the car came to a halt.

There was somebody sitting in the road.

“Shit, what the fuck…” Kyle continued, and switched on his emergency lights, trying to pull to the side a little.

Seated cross legged in the middle of the road ahead, appeared to be a woman in a black dress. Her long hair hung over her naked shoulders, as she was facing away. Gabby could see her very clearly. Kyle hissed another breath, and gave a short honk, but the lonely figure gave no sign of acknowledgment.

“Clusterfuck,” Kyle muttered, and rolled down the window. “Hey! Hey, what’s your problem? Can you move please?!” His movements rough with frustration, he opened the door and set his foot on the ground.

It was very silent, outside. The dark forest thrummed with the breeze, the air was cool but not icy, and the road was dry. Where did the storm go? It was as if they were on a different planet! It didn’t seem natural. Seeing Kyle about to get out, Gabby finally reacted. “Wait! This is fucking weird, come back! Don’t you go out there!”

“Chillax,” Kyle replied. “Hey! You okay?”

The woman gave no response or acknowledgment, and Gabby’s heart fluttered with panic. “Kyle, get back in the car! Get back here!” she shouted, and glanced back at Lana. Her friend was pale, her eyes wide with fear. “He has to come back,” she whispered. She leaned forward, her fingers gripping Kyle’s car seat in front of her. She glanced at Gabby then back at the road, at Kyle. “Oh God. Make him come back, Gabrielle.”

“Kyle! Please! Come back! Get back in the car, I’m scared!” Gabby yelled.

Kyle paused by the car, and looked back in. He looked worried, and a little pissed. “We can’t get past her, it’s in the middle of the road,” he replied. “If it’s a dummy, we can move it, before that storm catches up with us.”

“No!” Lana cried out, shaking her head.

Kyle threw up his hands, glaring at them. “You’re freaking me out! No what?! Gabby, come out and help me.”

“Maybe it’s a trap!” Gabby screamed at him now. “To lure out stupid dudes like you; get your ass back in!”

“Shit, maybe you’re right,” he muttered, glancing around, and jumped back in, locking all doors.

At that precise moment, Gabby saw something impossible. The woman in the road had been facing away from them, but now, she could see her face. From one moment to the next, the figure was looking right at them. Still seated cross-legged in the middle of the road, except that she was facing them. It was definitely a woman, but her expression was the most evil, and the most crazed, Gabby had ever seen.

“Kyle!” Lana shouted, recovering sooner than Gabby. “Kyle, drive! It’s a witch!”

Kyle had seen it too. The figure stood up, and began a slow walk toward them. Its face, and its color, were terribly wrong. It was a pearlescent white, like it was made out of a smooth, greyish-white plastic. The rest of the body was covered in a shapeless cloak.

“Kyle, run over this fucking thing!” Gabby shrieked. “Go!”

The car took off in a screech of tires, but the figure disappeared as soon as they headed toward it. They gave a collective huff of astonishment and fear. It was gone in the blink of an eye .

“What the fuck?” Kyle muttered through his teeth, giving quick little glances in the rearview mirror. There was nothing there. “What the fuck was that thing?”

“We’re in deep shit,” Gabby whispered, as those words pulsated inside her head.

They weren’t left alone for long. She heard a gurgling gasp in the back seat and turned around to a vision of utter horror.

A hand had materialized inside the car, coming out of the seat behind Lana, and had grabbed her by the throat. The hand was large and mottled with grey, with long nails, like that of a rotting corpse. Lana was grabbing at it, and struggling to breathe. Her skin was sizzling audibly, turning raw and bloody as if burned off by acid, where the hand made contact. Streaks of bright red blood dripped down her neck, onto her chest and knees, while she desperately grabbed at the hand, burning the flesh off her own fingers, her lower body writhing in pain and in desperate attempts to get away.

“Lana!” Gabby screamed, aghast.

In the back window, she could now see the same figure, right behind their car. That same evil, glazed-over face, with dark, disheveled, dirty hair, but the witch wasn’t running, or even moving. She just stood there, outside the back window, despite the car moving at fifty miles per hour. The witch opened her mouth and with what Gabby saw, she felt faint. There were three large tongues in there, joined at their base, the whole thing coming out, protruding forward. Then the eyeballs burst, oozing a sickly yellow liquid over the tongues. Large spider-like legs came out of the orbits, and it looked like something was struggling to come out of the witch’s head .

At the same time, the corpse’s hand suddenly tightened its grip on Lana’s throat. Blood gushed out of her nose. Her face turned blue.

“Oh God!” Kyle let out a desperate scream, as he had looked in the mirror. He slammed on the breaks again. Lana was propelled forward by the force of the stop, hitting the seat in front of her.

In that moment, the hand let go of her throat, and the poor girl slumped to her side, bleeding from her mangled hands and neck, but alive, taking deep breaths.

The witch had disappeared, but they all heard her voice. It wasn’t a female voice at all; it was deep, harsh, inhuman. “Drive,” it said. “Drive, or die.”

Kyle pressed on the gas. On the road ahead, Gabby now spotted something else .

Another woman.

This one was standing. Standing tall, her legs slightly firmly apart, her long blond hair jerked from side to side in the wind. Her hands were in the pockets of a black leather jacket.

“Another one!” Gabby yelled. “Don’t stop! Run over this fucking thing!”

She glanced back at Lana. Their poor friend was alive, still lying on the seat, shaking and breathing heavily, blood dripping from her neck.

Gabby faced forward, her face full of terror.

The tall figure in the road hadn’t budged, and Kyle wasn’t stopping. They were seconds from impact. As it often happens in such moments, time seemed to slow down.

But there was no impact. Instead, their car just stopped. It didn’t violently jerk to a stop, it didn’t slam into anything, it just…stopped. There they were, huddled in a car, immobile, transfixed with fear.

The woman was but two feet away, and Gabby now saw her clearly. She looked young, thin, beautifully proportioned, with large eyes, beautifully defined lips and a straight nose, her long, silky hair ruffled by the wind. Her clothes were dark; a ribbed turtleneck under a leather jacket, and slouchy mid calf boots over dark leggings. Her eyes were large and breathtakingly beautiful. An artist couldn’t draw more perfect eyes. In that moment, they were also extraordinarily intense.

Out of nowhere, smoke began to form at her feet, rising in tendrils, creeping toward their car all around their car. It was rising from the road. At least it looked like thick, grey smoke, but soon it took on a more defined, humanoid appearance. About seven feet tall, it towered over the female stranger, as it stood to her right, almost behind her. A hunched-over figure covered in a grey cloak. Yet, as much as it looked like a figure in a cloak, there was nothing human about it. Its head… its head was utterly alien. A black mass, but even the blackness was abnormal, as it had an opaque, otherworldly quality to it. The head ballooned into enormous, protruding eyeballs, of the same opaque blackness. A drooping beak-like appendage took root below the eyeballs. It looked like a solid snout, except that it descended straight down to the creature’s feet, in a vaguely triangular shape.

The smoke continued to rise all over the place. Its wispy tendrils now crawled over the car, making a scraping sound on the windows as they slid past. As if the smoke was in fact as hard as claws.

The demonic monstrosity stood by the young woman, but she didn’t seem to notice. Or didn’t care to notice? She didn’t even take her hands out of her pockets. Instead, she was peering inside their car, and Gabby met her eyes. The stranger looked concerned, like she was searching for something. Finally, she resolutely stepped forward, but the cloaked demon silently barred her way.

It had moved without moving. It had transitioned from one spot to the next without any logical connection. It hadn’t disappeared and then reappeared; it simply was there, and then it was elsewhere, in the blink of an eye. The grey cloak parted a little, as if the creature had begun to open its arms, but then it fell back into place. A high-pitched rattling sound accompanied the movement.

Gabby heard a voice, coming from the cloaked, moth-like demon. It was human, and rather soft, insidious. It was frankly feminine.

“I am Mary,” it said. It made another sound, something between a hiss and a fluttering of wings, before carrying on. “I am legion. I am what’s left in the end. You can’t win. I will roast your heart inside your body. I will suck your eyes out. Run. Flee for your life.”

The young woman had been quite still, looking straight at the monstrosity, without flinching. Gabby now saw her take one hand out of her pocket. It was elegantly gloved in cognac leather.

“Hi Mary,” she heard her say, totally matter-of-fact. “And I am Sentinel 10, the one and only. Why would I run?”

She took a sudden swipe at the creature, slapping the air, exactly like slapping someone in the face, but not making contact. Yet the demon screeched in pain. It screeched, and was thrown off balance, to the side. It regrouped, getting up again. Despite the seemingly quick recovery, Gabby saw that its beak had been broken in half, and what remained attached to its face was now oozing black tar. With a swift movement, it threw open its grey cloak. It had the segmented body of a giant insect, under the wings that had been held folded like a cloak Multiple leg-like appendages hung from a striated exoskeleton. Its wings fully deployed to the sides, remarkably large, at least five feet each. They did not flap; they vibrated, making it hover above ground, resulting in that high-pitched rattling sound again. The bulbous eyes began to glow red, and the moth-demon screeched, again and again, as blobs of black tar fell to the ground below. After a few seconds, its eyes glowed as bright as a pair of car reflectors.

Hovering and screeching, however, seemed to be all it could do, at least against this particular adversary. Not in the least affected, the lady spread out her arms. She appeared to focus, and Gabby could see the air changing consistency near her open palms, trembling like the air trembles near the horizon in scorching summer heat. But there was no heat. Instead, their saviour emanated power; incredible, fantastical, out of this world power.

She brought her arms together. Joined at the wrists, her palms opened like a chalice, and she directed the opening at the demon, hurling invisible energy at it. It reached it instantly, and the abomination began screeching nonstop, visibly struggling to get away but unable to move. Like a moth in a flame, shaking under the onslaught of the mystical energy, it was being melted into a pile of black tar.

Sentinel 10 suddenly released it, and brought her hands together one more time, with a big clap.
What remained of the black demon was squished right out of existence. Evaporated. It was gone in an instant, along with the crawling smoke. It left a modest pile of black tar, visible from Gabby’s perspective. But then…it happened so quickly, she barely had time to see it.

A huge shape emerged from the forest, taller than a person, with enormous antlers. It was bellowing in a frightening way; leaves and small branches flying to the sides as it emerged onto the road. It rushed straight at the lady.

She made no movement. It was unclear that she even saw it in time. In spite of this, the bellowing mass ran into an obstacle; it stopped abruptly, as if it had run headfirst into a brick wall. There was a hideous sound of crunching bones, then all movement and sound stopped. The creature slumped down, and was immediately catapulted to the roadside by a sweep of the lady’s arm.

Gabby saw it more clearly then. It was an elk. A huge, male elk, the biggest thing she’d ever seen. While Gabrielle was reflecting on how come an actual elk had attacked their saviour, her ears alerted her to a desperate gasp and gurgle from the backseat. She looked back and saw that the witch was inside the car, throttling her friend. Fully corporeal, she was sitting on top of Lana’s body. Her grey, cadaver-like hands were on the girl’s throat, squeezing, burning, making her bleed and gurgle for breath. She didn’t have long.

The car doors flew open, both doors on the driver’s side. Both of them opened simultaneously, and the back door was ripped off its hinges. Gabby could see the black leather woman standing next to it. Still throttling her victim, the witch slowly lifted her head to face the intruder. The witch’s face was now that of the moth demon, except that it had remained of the same sickly greyish-white color. Her bulbous eyes began glowing red. But unlike the demon’s, her snout- or proboscis- was short and mobile, and it was advancing towards Lana’s eyes, while the rest of the facies was directed toward the lady standing outside. It had a disgustingly small slash of a mouth, lined with bristled black hair, like that of a spider. That foul opening let out a screech.

Sentinel 10 thrust her arm forward, bent at the wrist, palm to the front. The invisible energy she sent was so powerful that the car skidded off to the side. The witch found herself thrown squarely off her victim, along with the opposite door, taking it off its hinges. Both her and the door landed at the edge of the woods. With another sweeping motion of her arm, the Sentinel pushed the car aside like it was nothing, and made her way straight to the fallen creature. There was a hole the size of a cannon ball in its chest, but the thing wasn’t quite… dead? yet.

“I’m so sick of this ectoplasmic crap!” Gabby heard the lady, as she directed both hands at the witch, palms down, making her disappear in a matter of seconds. There was no tar this time; there was nothing left at all, except for their missing doors and the carcass of the elk nearby.

It was over. Gabby caught her breath, and the sound came out as a raspy whimper.

The lady now turned to them. She briefly studied them from a distance, then walked back to their car. Lana had raised herself to a sitting position, her chest heaving with each breath, her eyes staring, her hands shaking. She yelped a little as their saviour came closer and bent over to reach into the car.

“Shush,” the lady said, her voice soft and steady. “You’re in shock. But you’re safe.”
Bending over, she reached into the backseat, and carefully lifted Lana’s chin, to examine her neck. Lana whimpered in pain.

“That’s nasty,” the stranger remarked, and glanced into the girl’s terrified eyes. Her gloved hand carefully reached up and stroked her head. “Shh…It hurts, I know, I’m sorry. Wish I could make you forget all about this… Ah…Let me try.”

Gabby didn’t know what she meant, or what the woman was doing. From her perspective, it looked like she was just staring into Lana’s eyes, for a long, intense moment, and then relented. Lana’s breath steadied and she blinked a few times.

“Better?” The lady spoke to her again. “I don’t have a first aid kit. Maybe your friends do? No? Then drive to a hospital. It’s just like an acid burn, and it needs to be treated right away. Go ahead.”

Somehow, her voice sounded older than she looked. Even from up close, Gabby surmised she was at most thirty years of age. She was strikingly beautiful, and her eyes almost glowed with a mesmerizing, intensely turquoise color.

After a quick glance over at Gabby, she straightened her back and went around the car.

“You guys okay?” she looked at them, standing by Kyle’s side. Gabby wanted to say yes but she couldn’t even move her mouth. Her body was still terrified, even though her mind was fully focused on the woman. She couldn’t tell what Kyle was doing, as she was now solely focused on her, gazing into her green eyes. There was nothing but those eyes. Everything else was drifting, dissolving, like aquarelle paints bleeding into each other. Those eyes, they were deep and turquoise, like the warm waters of a tropical lagoon.

Her fear and her traumatic memories began to dissipate. It was as if a soothing lotion had been poured over her terrified brain; little by little, the horrible memories drifted away, becoming more distant, more dream-like.

The lady stood back, tall and slender. She pocketed her hands, and nodded. “Go on, guys. You’ll be okay now. Shit happens! Try and forget about it. Watch out for the storm though, it’s coming. You better hurry, or you might run into it on the way to the hospital. You know where to go? Good.”

With that, she turned away. Gabby now spotted a large black sedan parked by the opposite roadside. She hadn’t noticed it before, but this was their hero’s vehicle.

“Oh, and I’m sorry about those doors,” she added softly, giving them one last look. “I don’t know my own strength anymore.”

But before climbing into her car, the lady suddenly paused. Ignoring them, she looked around, almost like she was sniffing for something, and not liking what she was sensing. With shuddering breath, Gabby was watching her, waiting to see what else was wrong.

After a few more seconds of probing her surroundings, she abruptly slammed her square-heeled boot on the ground, stomping her foot. The ground didn’t shake, but Gabby saw something flash all over the stretch of the road ahead, as far out as a dozen feet, in all directions.

And what she saw were human skulls. Bones, and skulls, in various positions. Skeletons, too, laying side by side, right under the road.

The Sentinel slammed her foot on the ground again, and again. As she did it a third time, the road ahead remained undisturbed, with nothing showing.

Gabby suddenly knew what it meant. The road had been built over a burial ground, no doubt enabling the evil that took residence here. Gabrielle also felt that this place was now cleansed, and safe. There would be no more moth-demon, no more witch, and the ancient cemetery was at peace.

The lady climbed into the driver’s seat, and her black car with Massachusetts plates drove off into the night.