The Witches Heart

Prelude to The Zombie Within

This piece was born from The Zombie Within. I think it’s interesting to consider various characters’ backstories. What pushes people to become another person’s nightmare? If you enjoy this story, please read its originator and feel free to comment.

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The loneliness born from unrequited love is an agony so pure it burns your very soul to a blackness akin to the deepest coal.

When I was very young, the boy who held my heart was, to my eyes, beautiful like no other. Growin’ up, I would always try to brush my hand against his as we passed one another in the school halls. The tingle of electricity elicited by this stolen contact would travel up my arm to my heart and jolt it into rapid action.

I longed hard for a profound touch.

But that was not to be mine.                        …Never was it to be mine.

As we grew older, my teenage heartbreaker remained the centre of my quiet and lonely world. I was always cast to the outside of polite society’s stream, but he seemed always moved in a current of his very own making.

How jealous I was.

To be within the embrace of other people's acceptance yet still be allowed the room to be himself and enjoy his individuality was a miracle far beyond my reach.  I was nothing but the daughter of a crazy woman who lived in the poorest of houses by the edge of the bayou. And to the horror of my youth, whenever my Muma felt the weight of the world crush down upon her soul, she would drink her liquor and then scream her woes to the moon and stars all night long.

The very next mornin’, the girls at school would gather in their tight little circles and laugh quietly as they looked at me sittin’ alone in the cafeteria, eatin’ the plain leftovers from our meal the night before.

When those girls grew older, they stopped laughing and, like their mothers, became aware of how my Muma made our money.

When she sold all her little concoctions underhandedly to women who wished not to bring forth life, I would sit at our bare table, watching the clean, pretty dresses scramble in and stand uneasy in our home. Even though my Muma helped them lessen their burdens safely, they always failed to meet her eye. Nevertheless, the money was always quickly thrown onto the table and into the ‘Cradle Robber’s’ grasping hands. The clean dresses would leave and, unlike me, would have the luxury of forgetting my mother.

I hated them all so much. Their lives were so easy. Any problem they had was soon fixed with money. No matter how hard I tried, my lot in life remained inescapable.

I had never understood why my Muma didn’t use one of her lil’ concoctions on me. Since I was little, she made it downright plain and obvious that I had stolen so much from her.  

I knew I was not a bad girl.

I did not start out with a blackened heart.

I did not deserve the life I was shackled into.

I deserved better.

I deserved him!

 Maybe it was his difference from the people who surrounded us, maybe that was the reason he caught my eye.

He was singular, as was I. And in my darkest of times, my eyes were always turned to him.                

…Always!

But he, just like everyone else, never noticed me.

I was the poor, dirty, dark creature standing uninvited and unwanted outside his circle, longing to be seen and acknowledged but always invisible to him!

I decided at eighteen to step forward and introduce myself to him as he worked in his father’s drapery shop. I had made a pretty dress by myself and bought white gloves and a hat from the big department store’s catalogue. Everything matched, including the shoes, which took me three months to save for. I had swallowed my pride and worked as a cleaner at the Robinsons’ big house. Scrubbin’ their toilets, washing their clothes, and fending off Mr Robinson's unwanted creeping hands.

Heartbreaker smiled as I walked up to the counter, all full to the brim of shuddering energy. He was polite and friendly and commented on my hat, making me blush under his attention.

I tasted heaven for one moment in my life. It was divine and sweeter than wild honey, but then …she walked in.

My smile was taken and given to her. He glowed when she spoke to him. His hands caressed her arms as he gently showed her to the back room.

And then he turned to me, and along with his fading smile, all the light in his eyes blinked out.

“Can I help you?” he asked, standing half-way in the backroom doorway.

And with the most painful smile I have ever given, I cheerfully forced out, “No… no, I’m beyond help.” Then, I turned, left his shop, vowing never to step in where I was not wanted again and cried my way home.

At that moment, I felt my heart break, shattering into a billion tiny shards.

He would never smile at me the way he had to her. He would never touch me in any way that I desired. His heart belonged to another. And my broken and useless heart… would always be his.

I had not escaped my cruel and unkind destiny.

When I returned to my cobbled-together home and sat at our worn table crying, for once, my Muma, who was lying in her cot by the fire, noticed my agony.

“I could’a told ya, girl, he’s not for you!” came as a faraway whisper to my ears.

Clambering to her feet, Muma stood behind me and, in an unaccustomed manner, caressed my wretched head, consoling me with, “You tried, girl, you tried. But the likes of him ain’t for the likes of you.” She turned, reaching for her liquor bottle on the mantle. After a swig, my mother looked at me and shook her head, “I knows you read my books, girl.”

Her breath was stale and acrid, but I knew better than to do anything other than sit still and silent.

She pulled a lock of curled hair from my face as I stared into her widening eyes. “Youse tired of scrubbing toilets, girl? Youse tired of being the dirt beneath their feet? Youse tired of being forced down on your knees by those who want your mother’s help but won’t address me by name?”

The shadows in each corner of our kitchen blackened, deepened and gathered closer to us, drowning out the pitiful light from the fire. Diming out reality, a new world of asphyxiating darkness grew in its place, waiting in anticipation for my reply. The truth burst out of my mouth as my skin puckered in the cold.

“…Yes!”

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The knock on his door rang out loudly, shivering with eagerness, I waited for my heartbreaker to answer. Trying hard not to smile, I concentrated on breathing rapidly and forcing tears to well in my eyes.

Slowly, he peered from behind his solid blue front door. “Yes? Can I help you?”

“I’m so sorry, but some ol’ boys have grabbed your lady friend and taken her into the bayou.”

The door was opened wide as he came out onto the front step. Stepping back, I pulled my old shawl tightly around my shoulders and pointed into the darkness.  As my confidence in acting like a caring, frantic friend grew, I stammered feverishly. “I tried to call out at them, but I was just… they just…”

“Where’d they take her?” He grabbed his boots and jumped into them as we ran down the dirt road.

“I can show you; follow me!” He kept pace as I led him into the darkness, along the pathways I knew so well. Each step took him deeper into my mother's clutches and closer to being mine.

After a minute or two, I whispered, “Look, see a fire in the darkness over there.” My lips were so close to his warm, moist skin that it took everything not to lick the salt from his cheek. Drowning in his dark blue eyes, I whispered, “Follow me!”

As we broke into the fire-lit circle, Muma stood with her back to us, facing the fire silhouetted in evil. Heartbreaker stopped dead in his tracks, fear instantly replacing his heroism. “What’s this? Where’s my…”

Muma turned like a striking snake, blowing powdered darkness in his face. Elation swamped my heart as he fell to the swamp floor in a stupor. Bellowing and screaming out my excitement. “Muma, Muma, it worked, it worked.” Oh, the joy and wonder of it all. My heart beat a rapid tattoo of lustful desire. Now I could touch and caress him, feel his lips against mine, breathe in his scent, run my fingers through his hair, and hold his face in my hands. His body was all mine to play with and enjoy.

“Stop it, girl. I’s told you. He ain’t for you.” Muma held a potion so dark it snuffed out the light around it. Dread silenced my voice as shadows formed behind her, swirling and shimmering into human shapes, ready to strike out at me if I dared ignore her.  

“Please, Muma, please!”

Her yell echoed around the clearing. “I said his flesh is NOT for YOU!” She stalked closer, drawing out a knife so sharp it glinted as evilly as the look in her eye. “I intend to rule, girl, and to do that… I need me a zombie.”

Terror ripped out across the swamp’s dark silence. “No Muma! NO!”

Her shadows expanded and stretched themselves, the horror of it froze me to the ground before they wrapped their cold, biting tendrils around my wrists and dragged me off my heartbreaker.

My mother’s laugh echoed out around the clearing, cutting my feet from underneath me. This creature who should have loved me now drove the point of her knife into the flesh above my heart. “Your choice, girl!” Screaming only made her smile and murmured ominously, “Become a zombie or stand aside and give him to me!”

I do not know what possessed me at that moment. Maybe love for my heartbreaker? Even though my feelings were unrequited… it didn’t matter; I still loved him! I would not let anyone harm him.

The words from my mother’s books rose from the dark recesses of my mind, clawing their way over my vocal cords as the bile from my stomach rose, drenching my mouth in obscenities of darkness.

“No, girl! You stop it, damn you!” Muma pushed her knife deeper, her intent to drag me into living death clear in her contorted features.

Tar-like saliva dribbled down each corner of my mouth as the old, powerful words swirled and grew on my fear, forming a shadow of my own. My creation reached out with razored fingers stabbing into the scrawny flesh of my Muma’s chest. Her eyes widened with terror as my shadow tore her beating heart out from her chest cavity.  “You should have loved me proper, Muma!”  Her fingers clawed away at my shadow’s arm.

The shining darkness of her life force was held in front of my mother’s face, cupped in my shadow’s hands. “Girl… No!” was her last before she watched wide-eyed as her once faithful shadows abandoned her side. Her empty remains fell to the damp ground as I took the cup from her and commanded my shadow to pour my mother’s dark soul into it. Watching with silent glee as she did, a smile of true happiness finally embraced my features.

Heartbreaker woke as I squatted down and sat on his lap, his back pressed against an old cypress tree.

“Where… I… I…”

 Fingers stained with darkness traced his lips, “Hush, now lover. I am here.”

As his mind became his own, his body stiffened before he began to try to push me off. “What are you doing? Get off me.”  I was not having any of that and whispered one simple word.

“Get off me!” was screamed in panic as his arms became nothing but heavy, useless weights.

I leaned in and kissed his lips, “My lover-boy!” It was thrilling to see my dark bile covering his mouth. “I offer you salvation from the mundane. I offer you the power and the right to rule by my side. I offer you love.” I reached down and touched his crotch between my legs and continued, “I offer you me!” Even though he tried to turn his head away, another kiss was planted on his lips.

“Get offa me, WITCH!”

“Come now, lover-boy; you’ll forget your woman. She’ll be nothing once you commit your love to me!” I smiled, full of hope and joy.

Looking at the cup held in one of my hands and the knife in the other, his eyes closed, and after a moment, a tear rolled down his cheek.  “They all said you and your mother were crazy and evil, and I never believed them. I always said you were just poor and misunderstood. I know nobody, including myself, has given you the friendship you need so badly.” His dark blue eyes met mine as another tear ran freely from them. “But I can promise you this. If you let me go, my best friend and I… We WILL be your friends!”

“Be friends with you and her?” I was astounded at the suggestion.

“Yes! Yes! She is the kindest and sweetest person you would ever want to know. She lifts me up and holds me when I struggle.”

My breathing built rapidly as I felt my dreams crash to the swamp floor.

“I know what it’s like not to fit in. I know it all too well.” Another look was taken at the knife, “I promise you. I promise you on my mother’s heart. You’ll be our friend.”

“Do you love her?”

“Yes! I love her. She is my soul mate. She is my one true friend—the one person in the world who knows the real me and isn’t disgusted by it or full of thoughts of betrayal. I love her as you would grow too as well!”

“Do you lay with her?” My heart beat a rapid drumming against my chest wall.

“No!”

Anger rose, and along with it, the dark bile as I screamed, “Don’t LIE HEARTBREAKER! It does nobody any good if you LIE!” Black tears ran freely from my eyes as I whispered once more, “Do YOU LAY WITH HER?”

“NO! She’s my best friend! I love her, but not in that way.”

Laughter filled the air as the final crack in my heart severed it into pieces. “Love has no other way!”

Heartbreaker screamed and screamed as I thrust my Muma’s knife into his chest and began carving out his heart, yelling as I did so, “In this dirty, putrid swamp, you will live your entire existence with the frogs and toads. The catfish will glide through your empty gut, and the worms wriggle through your brain. Oh, yes! Yes… Dead Man, you no longer has power over my heart.” My black saliva stained his shirt, mixing with his gushing blood as I forced the death potion down his throat. “You won’t ever be able to be with your woman ever again ‘cause she will only see your dead rotting flesh.” I leaned forward and kissed his parted lips, “And I won’t ever let you forget who put you here… who’ll keep you here, and who’s gonna hold your heart… forever!”

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