chapter seven
witch's hand

ZIGGY LED THEM to the storage closet in the back of the Mess Hall, all three of them holding knives. "We're going to kill this motherfucker," Ziggy announced to them quietly. She stepped into the small pantry in the storage closet, motioning for the other two to follow her, which they did.

Cheryl's breath hitched when the door began to rattle from Tommy trying to get in. He began swinging his axe, making a hole in the door. Once the hole was big enough, he slipped his hand in and unlocked the door.

Ziggy stepped out, putting a finger to her lips. She expected to be able to attack Tommy without being heard due to the music. However, Carry On Wayward Son ended, allowing Tommy to hear her shaky breathing. He turned around and Ziggy stabbed him. He punched her in return, making her crash into a shelf.

Cheryl and Theo ran out just as Tommy pushed Ziggy against the same shelf. While he was occupied with Ziggy, Cheryl stabbed him and Theo punched him.

"I know your mommy taught you to never hurt a girl, Slater," Theo stated, sarcastically tilting his head a bit. Tommy stood back up, reaching for his axe, but Theo threw another punch. "Bastard!"

Tommy stumbled and Cheryl quickly grabbed an empty potato sack, throwing it over his head. Tommy fought against her, falling to the floor in the process. Cheryl held onto the sack as tight as she could.

Tears fell from her eyes. This was Tommy she was strangling, but it wasn't. It was just somebody who looked like him. Her Tommy would never.

He managed to fling her off, sending her flying to the floor while he stood. Cheryl accepted her fate and prepared herself for death as she watched him raise his axe. Theo flung himself onto the floor, right in the way of the axe as it came down.

"No!" Cheryl screamed, watching the blade cut into her best friend's flesh.

Ziggy grabbed Cheryl's hand and pulled her out of the room as Tommy repeatedly struck Theo. They were barely out of the room when Tommy went after them again.

Tommy kicked Cheryl, making both girls fall to the ground. Just as he began to raise his bloody axe once more, Cindy Berman stabbed him in the back. Tommy turned to his girlfriend - probably ex-girlfriend by now. Cindy stabbed him twice. "Fuck. . . you."

Tommy fell to the floor next to the girls with a thump. Ziggy could only pant and point out something. "You swore."

"It's becoming a habit," Cindy responded before dropping the knife and falling to her knees, wrapping her arms around her sister.

Cheryl scrambled away from Tommy, trying to breathe in strangled gasps.

He was gone.

Theo was gone.

Her best friend since the third grade was dead, chopped into little pieces. She'd never get to hear his voice, never tell him how much she loved him anymore.

Ziggy turned toward her girlfriend and rushed over to her, wrapping her arms around her. "It's okay," she soothed, getting the girl's hair out of her face. "It's okay, Cherry. It's okay. . ."

"He's dead," she buried her head in the crook of Ziggy's shoulder. "Theo's fucking dead." She cried harder than she had ever cried before. She didn't say anything, and neither did Ziggy. Cheryl didn't think she'd ever stop crying, but eventually, she did. . . when something started banging.

Cheryl lifted her head off of Ziggy and wiped away her tears. The Berman sisters made eye contact. Cindy moved towards the sound. Cheryl's heartbeat picked up once more as she waited for whatever horrors would pop up next.

Cindy seemed to relax. "What took you so long?" Whoever she was talking to began climbing out. Cheryl could barely make out Alice Hart.

Alice glanced over to Tommy's limp body when she got out of the hole before she looked back at Cindy. "You did it."

"We did it," Cindy corrected quietly, pulling Alice into a hug.

"Okay," Alice groaned. "Be careful, okay? This thing's like a million years old." She pulled away and gestured to the bag by her leg.

"I bought that a month ago," Cindy stated, clearly confused as her eyes flickered down to the bag.

"No, I'm not talking about your stupid bag, genius," Alice grinned. "Blood will fall. Satan's stone, okay? It was right there. All this time, buried under the moss, and I found it. I fucking found it."

"Found what?" Cindy questioned.

"Three guesses," Alice answered cockily. She then slowly limped her way out to a Mess Hall table, the three other girls following her. Once everyone was sitting, Alice took a skeleton hand out.

"What?" Ziggy's eyebrows furrowed. "What is it?"

"It's a skeleton hand, Zig," Cheryl playfully rolled her eyes, hoping to use some light-hearted teasing to fill the new hole in her heart.

"Ha-ha," Ziggy played along, lightly nudging Cheryl with her elbow.

Alice sucked in a deep breath. "Correction, it's Sarah Fier's lost hand."

Cheryl's stomach churned at the mention of the witch. She gagged, vomit coming up her throat. She swallowed it, leaving a disgusting taste in her mouth. "Fucking Christ, why is that here?"

"Nurse Lane, she-" Cindy started. "She spent her entire life looking for this. A way to stop the curse that took her daughter."

"Without her hand, her grip on the land holds firm," Alice recited, sliding a book over to Cheryl, who was sitting beside Ziggy and was closest to Alice. "The curse will last until body and hand unite. This led us to the hand bone. And if the legend is true, that means her body's still buried-" She placed her finger at a spot on the map - the Hanging Tree.

"By the Hanging Tree," Ziggy realized.

"We can end this," Alice nodded.

"No more murders, no more curse, no more. . ." Cindy exhaled shakily and looked over at Tommy's body. ". . . pain." She returned her attention to the other girls. "We can save Shadyside. . . tonight."

Cheryl Watson was still trying to wrap her head around the death of her best friend and everything else that had happened that night. She wasn't sure she could handle the fact that they could possibly end the curse on Shadyside.

Ziggy delicately slid the hand over to her, staring at it. Her nose began bleeding, and a few drops fell on the bone. Ziggy tensed, her eyes going wide. Cheryl worriedly placed her hand on the girl's shoulder as her sister gripped her hand.

"Zig, what just happened?" Cheryl inquired softly. "Are you okay?"

Ziggy quickly wiped away the blood from her nose. "I bled on the hand and. . . I think I just saw her."

Cindy and Cheryl shared a concerned, wide-eyed look. Cheryl turned her focus back to her girlfriend, and Cindy her sister. "Who?"

"Sarah Fier," Ziggy breathed out. "She was. . . she was angry."

Alice clenched her jaw, eyes flickering down to the bone for a second. "We have to bury this thing. . . right fucking now."

𝒎𝒆𝒍 𝒎𝒆𝒍 !!
theo ):