Countess Cara Goes To Hell
Chapter I
HALLOWEEN REBORN
* * *Salem — 1666
The cold night air fills with a staunch aroma of dense smoke and burning flesh, a girl’s frail voice crying out in unbelievable anguish to all of the crosses and pitchforks raised up before her.
“AAAUUUHHHHH!!!!!” Her screams intensify as she’s fastly consumed by the flames, literally burning alive while a puritan village surrounds the horrific display of fiery public execution.
“Burn the witch! Burn the witch! Burn the witch!”
Two wooden pyres burn opposite each other, each writhing corpse gradually succumbing into the flames before going lifeless, while a third woman bound to the center pyre watches enraged.
She wears a tattered chemise dress, her light blonde hair tied up into a long renaissance braid, flowing in the wind across her shoulder like an outstretched spider’s leg grasping for freedom…
“Godless whores.” A smirking preacher in black circles around the two burning corpses before painfully striking her, a steel cross fixed upon his collar and a tattered Geneva Bible in his hands.
Tears run down her face as she struggles in her tight bonds, her beautiful blue eyes filling with sadness once they meet with the charred remains of her dead sisters again.
“She’s a filthy pagan! Burn her!!” The growing crowd hisses obscenities, holding their crosses up to the struggling girl, and she closes her eyes right before a group of angry villagers dump a bucket of oil over her body.
“Send the bitch to Hell!!”
“Ah!” Her soft voice gasps, reopening her eyes to scowl while he addresses the angry mob with a waving torch.
“Let this be a lesson to the rest of you heathens!” He casts the flame dangerously close to her face, making her wince and turn away.
“God’s mercy is just, and it is divine! Let him drive out wickedness, wherever the devil may root himself!!” A set of crucifixes are placed by the foot of her pyre, many holding up their own iron crosses, while a few begin to spit and throw rotten fruit.
“Burn the witch!!”
The helpless woman fights her restraints even more now, desperately writhing against the wood and leather. But it’s no use, she’s trapped, helpless, immobilized just like a fly caught in a web...
“Monsters!! You’re all nothing but monsters!!” Her voice, young and high pitched, loudly screams, gritting her teeth while clutching her bound fists behind her.
“You will never understand the natural beauty of Mother Earth!” She yells, before the preacher takes her throat in his gloved hand, violently tossing her crying face backwards into the wood.
“...You’ve killed my family for nothing…And I swear…I will haunt you for this…” She angrily spits in his face, only getting a perverse smile from him in response.
“Beatrice Bishop, I find you guilty of the crime of witchcraft. You are hereby sentenced to burn for your sins…May God have mercy on your wretched soul.” He drops his torch onto the pyre, instantly casting the girl into a blazing inferno as the mob cheers louder.
“AAAAAAUUUUHHHHHAAAA!!!!!!!!”
Her skin begins to peel, and her voice cries in agony, her lungs popping and her burning throat filling with blood as the flames take her to the other side…
“Burn the witch!! Burn the witch!!”
The mob continues to chant, and soon her screams descend into pained gurgling, the worst misery of her short life washing across her body as she writhes against the pyre.
“Burn the witch! Burn the witch! Burn th—”
.............
.............
Their shouting suddenly becomes completely inaudible, the pain intensifying to a maddening degree with each ing second as the world mutes in her ringing ears.
“.............”
She watches their angry expressions cheer on her execution without a sound, her own agonized screams soon vanished, despite the fact she’s yelling louder than she ever has before.
“...Say now…What have we here?”
A soft and sad whisper slowly fills her mind, her bulging eyes being drawn past the crowd to stare across the vast dark woods surrounding them….
…
Just beyond the furthest tree, a frail arm slowly reaches over the bark, waving its long, clawed fingers to her, before sliding back around the trunk.
A second arm soon emerges from the other side, followed by six more, each pale and sickly looking, far too thin and long to be human.
…
…
Soon an unnaturally happy and misshapen face slowly peaks itself around the tree, salivating with delight at the sight of her fiery demise. Two empty craters resembling sunken eyesockets fill with light, and a pair of sliced lips part to reveal a razory smile of bladed teeth.
Her eyes widen as the deformed face slides back around the tree, suddenly peaking around from the next closest one, grinning to her with sadistic amusement.
“...How beautiful you are…”
The creature torments the burning girl with its presence, slowly drawing closer and closer to her with each dreadful appearance, until at last her pupils dilate wide open into complete black, slowly filling with unending light as her life slips away past her control.......
.........
.........
“....Pull!”
A large Jack O’ Lantern flies into the air, smiling with its classic glowing eyes and triangle mouth at the enormous flaming pentagram etched across the lunar surface of a full Halloween moon.
“...I don’t think it’s nice you laughin’!” My voice giggles, casting a fireball into the sky from my bladed fingertips and torching the airborne pumpkin, its flaming debris raining down over a small decorated cul-de-sac.
Instantly the kids behind me cheer, and I spin around to face them with a grin, holding my hand up to my black lips like a gun and laughing as I blow a bit of smoke from my finger.
“Let’s see Clint still do that one today!”
The two boys applaud me as I take a bow, looking so cute in their Halloween costumes.
“You’re the best, Cara!!” One of them in a red devil mask excitedly runs over, and I gently pat his fluffy auburn hair with my claws as he jitters around on a sugar high.
“Yeah! It’s not Halloween without the Countess!”
Another boy in a homemade ghost sheet hugs my waist, and I let out a soft ‘awwwn’ as I pat his head too.
“Thank you, thank you! Oh my subjects, you are too kind to me!”
I decide to reward my loyalists with a puff of red smoke across my sharp fingertips, forming into the expression of an angry skull, before a full carton of eggs lands into my waiting claws.
“Run along now my little monsters, and spread some wickedness on this night in the name of your Countess~” I chuckle to the ghost boy, placing the eggs in his sheet covered grasp and sending them both off with another motherly pat.
“You got it Cara!”
“All hail The Queen of the Night!” My red irises watch the two boys run off, already tossing a few eggs at people.
...
Beatrice’s long and fuzzy legs soon pull her up onto a nearby wicker fence, scampering towards me with a chocolate bar held within her giant spider fangs, the words ‘Happy Halloween!’ written into an intricate cobweb behind her.
But she pauses for a moment as she gets closer, her eight eyes all glancing down into the burning pumpkin below, studying the flames as if in a trance, before she snaps out of it and leaps onto my bare shoulder.
“Ah such good boys….Shame what they’ll grow into...” Gently my finger nuzzles the enormous and pretty tarantula, before smoothing out my black offshoulder gown, clutching my hands together and tilting my head back as I laugh maniacally.
…
My black heels click against the sidewalk with each sultry step into the night, my porcelain face smiling at all the lovely decorations. Everywhere I look all I can see is lit pumpkins and decorated yards, the streets lined with autumn leaves and candy wrappers.
This is so wonderful! I honestly can’t even the last time I’ve seen the Halloween spirit on full display like this!
Well....Maybe having to look up at my giant pentagram on the moon all year long might have something to do with it…
…
My claws reach out to touch a few hanging ghost decors, smirking to a handsome plastic skeleton before crossing the street. When I notice Beatrice finishing her chocolate, I reach inside my generously large bosom and place another to her fangs.
But as we a blue port o’ potty, my black lips frown when I see a translucent green chain shackle its way free, followed by three more which dig into the sidewalk with their bladed hooks, one of them ripping a fire hydrant out and spraying water everywhere.
A ghastly looking specter soon emerges, floating towards me with his chainlinked box dragging along behind him, spilling an ocean of empty glass liquor bottles into the street.
“Oh. You.” I sigh, waving my hand to disperse the green mist around my face, the sounds of his box scraping and chains rattling almost unbearable.
“You didn’t have to brrrrp ditch me at that rave, you know.” His gruff and gravelly voice echoes, crossing his chain covered arms after throwing another empty bottle past the hellish moon, his eyesockets glaring at me as I continue walking.
“And you didn’t have to tag along at all! This was supposed to be a girl’s night...“
My clawed hand reaches out to shove an illuminated pumpkin off a ing fence, stepping around its messy flickering remains with a disappointed sigh.
As I’m trying to ignore the annoying ghost floating beside me, I can soon feel my eyes drawn to the only undecorated house I’ve seen all night, sticking out like a sore thumb among all the festive spookiness.
“Still managed to get that White Lady’s number, despite what you thought—racist.” He echoes to me, dragging his transparent chains as he quickly floats ahead of us with a frown.
“...Ughh...There goes Mister Dickwad…”
I stop in my tracks to watch his ghostly green ass fade into the distance, before slowly turning my attention back towards the barren home, the cold wind and happy munching sounds of my girlfriend all I can hear…
A woman dressed rather conservatively hangs a large wooden cross by her door, scowling when she finally spies us, and I return her affections with a very flirty smile, blowing her a kiss.
“Hmpf!”
My face drops into a scowl once she disappears into her boring house following a loud door slam, resting my claws behind me as I strut away with a dismissive eye roll.
Once we’re a few steps away however, a playful smile returns to me, and my slit red eyes glance back to the barren home in my peripheral vision.
“Mahahahaha!!”
When my index claw raises, the cross beside her door quickly spins around to invert itself, my soft and wicked laughter disappearing into the night…
…
“Cara! Hey Cara!”
I glance towards a rather stocky built man dressed in a flannel hoodie, his face hidden by a chipped hockey mask, though I still recognize his voice from summer camp.
“Knew him before he came out of the lake.” I whisper to Beatrice with a chuckle, moving past everyone in their costumes like a graceful feminine shadow.
My demonic vision continues to take in all the wonderful Halloween beauty, an owl hooting as the barren trees all reach to me with their clawlike branches.
“E—...Excuse me…Miss Countess?”
Suddenly I feel a pull on my gown, and I’m greeted by a young girl in a princess costume, a few leaves ing by her painted face while shivering and clutching her wand.
“What’s up, Diana?”
She continues to stare up at me in awe, before her nervous voice returns like a soft whisper.
“M…May I pet your familiar?”
“Of course dear, but call her by her name. She’s her own woman after all.”
Her open hand takes an unwrapped chocolate from me, giggling when Beatrice crawls down my wrist to lightly pat her cheek. She gives the girl a nuzzle, before taking the chocolate in her fangs, hugging the girl’s face with her front pedipalps…
…
“Ah, Samhain night is always my favorite night of the year!” I laugh, taking a blue colored chocolate from my chest and munching it with red, happy eyes. This vampiric metabolism was great and all, but god damn does it give me some serious fucking sugar cravings.
It’s not long until the lights and noise gradually fade behind me, all of the spooky decor ending when the sidewalk leads us into a large dirt path lined with a few trees draped in toilet paper.
My claws retrieve another large chocolate from my chest, cursing as I fumble with the yellow wrapper while stepping through an iron cemetery gate, the steel cover I reading ‘Puns of Corpses’.
“...But hey, now that all the kiddies are in bed, it’s finally time for our coven to spark up at the cemetery and read some classic hypno hor—”
“Ah, you witches brought hemp with you?”
My whispering is cut off by the rattling of chains, bits of transparent green saliva hitting my face.
Slight flames appear within my eyes as I scoff, quickening my pace off trail and deeper into the cemetery. Damn it, tonight had been the best Halloween since I first turned...up until Casper the unfriendly drunk showed up.
I look down to study the river of stone graves that my sharp heels, a slight fog beginning to kiss my porcelain skin as I lose myself into the monument of loss.
You know, in two years I really thought he would’ve moved on to haunt someone else by now.
I had my beloved prince back home, a girlfriend with eight legs to scissor, even a pet rescue shoggoth, and yet there was always this green mooch lingering about my afterlife, like a fart cloud that just wouldn’t clear....
“Here bug, try some of this whiskey if you enjoy that brrrp tasteless chocolate so much.“
“Don’t pressure her like that. I’ll turn your dick corporeal again.” I scowl with annoyance in my pentagram gaze as he quickens up to us, spinning around to float on his back.
“The fuck is your problem?”
“You are my problem, Lake Mungo.”
We’re so busy bickering with each other that neither of us notice a thin and sickly looking hand, clawing against a tombstone as our voices trail off into the fog, reaching for one of our discarded candy wrappers as light casts over the chipped stone…
....
“Mmmm…”
My lips release a dark puff of skull shaped smoke, covering the burning pentagram on the moon above me with a contented sigh.
I relax my open backside deeper against the tombstone I’m resting on, glancing over the edge of the cemetery cliffside into a frozen lake surrounded by decrepit trees, before looking back down to the vibrant red grimoire seated on my legs.
“Now that...—” I pause to give a small chocolate tasting burp, kicking my heels playfully.
“...was a damn good Hypnonomicon special! Even better than last year’s!” My chirpy voice hiccups, closing the Maleficarvm in my lap and taking another relaxing puff from my long dark cigarette holder.
Beatrice gives us a happy and exhilarated look in her eyes, the adorable tarantula swimming around an ocean of candy in a cauldron shaped bowl, resting on a cross tombstone opposite me.
A river of pleasurable smoke runs from my nose, and I tilt my head up to puff a heart cloud over the burning moon, before blowing a few smokey bats through it.
“I liked the one where you and that Erika chick got into it at some party. Wish we got to see more of that.” Marley’s echoey voice coughs out, his chains rattling as he moves his translucent arms to stand himself.
Taking the closed spellbook in my delicately clawed hands, I place it to my inviting chest and slide the Maleficarvm deeper inside my heavy bosom.
“Yeah well, gotta wrap shit up sometime, don’t wanna be like Stephen King now do we?” I rise up, dusting off my sexy gown while Beatrice hungrily devours a never ending trove of unwrapped chocolate and caramel.
“Ha, this year was actually kinda fun with you weird little freaks!” The ghost laughs, placing his hands behind his head to float against a lonely slab further away from us, his chainlink box whisping through my unimpressed face.
“Ya know witch, your boy Nefastus and I go back quite a few centuries. We might have more in common than you think!” His empty eyes study me up and down, paying close attention to my open leg as I give another irritable scoff.
“I think I’d rather give our guest room to Charles Manson for his reunion tour next year.” I ash my holder in his face with a coy smirk.
“If you insist on staying, perhaps we could set you up outside, with the little thing Maxwell’s outgrown?” My fangs smile, chuckling as I watch his spectral expression sour with an angry growl.
“Bah, stupid spoiled brat...What the fuck would you know anyway, only been dead a few years.”
“And I’ve been married to Dracula’s son the whole time! Tell me, why should royalty care what some flaccid little snot rag thinks?” My nose tilts upwards, giving another fanged smirk.
“Pfffff…Royalty? I thought you guys just won a big lawsuit or somethin’.” He spits out some of his beer laughing.
I just respond to his words by hissing, snapping to vanish my cigarette holder and crossing my arms, feeling my soft gown beneath my sharp bladed fingertips.
“Surface shade or not you are still a denizen of Hell, Marley, and that makes me your rightful Queen! You will show me the respect I deserve BASTARDO VERDE!” My hair flies up for a moment as my vision is consumed by flames, before fixing my gown when I eventually simmer.
“...Now, If you’re returning to the Phlegethon, I suggest you make yourself scarce around me for the next few decades or so. ‘Lest I know who to call...“
His scowling, empty eyes watch my outline fade into the mist with a laugh and middle finger, before raising one of his hooked chains to his face with a sigh.
“Good for you, witch...Most of us don’t get a pleasant ing...”
Beatrice stops eating and looks to him, as if to solemnly agree. One of her fuzzy legs gently nudges a small box of raisins from outside her candy pile, her many eyes watching it fall with a sad look...
….
My head gently nods along as I hum a siren tune, gazing upwards to study the flaming embers scorched across the moon’s surface in a blazing inverted star.
Wow, can’t believe it’s already been two years since I rescued my husband from Purgatory, and tagged up our neighbors house with my favorite symbol. I think there might’ve been some global panic at first, but like most horrific things this decade, everyone just kinda got used to it eventually.
“Ahh...” I sigh, raising a dark chalice to my lips, and enjoying the lovely burn it gifts me. Mixing blood with alcohol like this could be sorta messy, but I’ve built up enough of a tolerance by this point in my afterlife.
“Much better!” My voice happily moans as I reminisce, relaxing against the small stone fence, and using my exposed leg to mindlessly kick a few bits of dirty grass with my black stiletto heel.
I still feel bad about leaving my girlfriend back there, but I just needed to get away from the ghost of hairline’s ed, if only I could roll the window down on him for good.
Sigh...I guess tomorrow I could make it up by taking her to the pet store…That was always good for a laugh…
When I set my chalice down, I feel my gaze naturally fall across the haunting open field before me, licking my dark lips as I survey nothing but fog and decayed grass among the forgotten headstones…
...
While I’m enjoying my buzzing high, I soon feel another mournful and very dead presence.
At first I think it’s just Marley creeping up on me again, and my eyes briefly become enraged pentagrams. Can’t I get one moment of peace away from that stupid noxious fart cloud?
But as I tilt my head to the woods, I notice a pair of deep, sunken eyes, watching me from behind one of the far trees, the dark outline of which almost seems to resemble a black hood. If I didn’t have my perfect vision there’s no way I could see whatever it was this far away, especially with so much fog everywhere.
A grey, clawed hand twitches beside the tree roots once it realizes I’ve seen it, the eyes quickly sliding themselves back behind the trunk almost skittishly. I give pause as I raise a bit of chocolate to my lips, intrigued by the shy creature, whatever manner of dead it might be.
Hm, knowing how large this place was, it’s probably just someone who got turned around.
My eyebrows raise as three more arms emerge to grip the bark, all lanky and disfigured, a snakelike hiss echoing in my ears once the pitch black eyes return to stare me up and down.
This time the foreboding creature shows me its full skull-like face, extending a long neck out to greet me with a smile from its razory grin, parting like jagged blades of steel. It looks like the victim of a car accident, or the average DA mod.
“Oh, heh, ya lookin’ for the bathrooms, honey?” I laugh, pointing one of my own claws east.
“Think the politicians are to your left, but any old grave’ll do~”
I direct her with a grin, spinning around to leave. Only once I turn, I can see the same colourless and vile entity staring back at me through a different set of trees, like a reflecting twin mirror.
Its long and deformed face seems amused by my lack of confusion, letting out a wincing noise that almost sounds like pained laughter. Its twisted expression remains the same when I spin back around to face its original reflection again.
“Ooh, neat parlor trick, Copperfield. Can you do the thumb gag too?” My voice remains playful, but quickly trails off when I notice the creature’s eyes suddenly light up in a fiery white glow.
Two small vortexes capture me, drawing my full attention away from my thoughts and into an endless light. The Aspect’s smile widens, even more of its elongated limbs emerging to carry it from the trees with multiple snaps.
“A-Ahh-h...” I give a soft sigh, trying to fight off the intrusion. Whatever this was I could feel it peeling open my mind to claw apart my thoughts, as if my mental barriers were made of butter or didn’t exist at all!
Normally I had to actually submit myself to being hypnotized, but this thing was effortlessly seizing control over me!
The misshapen nightmare snaps a few more trees to rise up like a hissing serpent, now over twelve feet tall. Endless arms stretch down its sleek body like a dress, towering over me like a frail colourless giant, while more and more sickly looking arms emerge from the woods behind it.
“N-N—...Na...Ah—...” My pitiful gasps only cause more venomous giggles, my red irises slowly filling with the same glowing, inescapable light.
Another involuntary gasp escapes me while my jaw drops open, twitching my dark eyelids as I struggle in vain to free myself from the spiritual hold this thing has on me.
One of its long, decrepit arms slowly rises into the air, pointing a clawed finger towards my defenseless body to playfully beckon me closer.
“Nnn—...Nnnaa—...”
Chocolate and blood drool from my lips as I feel my exposed leg rise out before me, completely beyond my control. My heel returns to the grassy tundra, before I raise my other leg, mechanically stepping through the fog to my doom like a wind up toy...
“Come, little dead one~”
I can hear a set of dark and brooding voices echo inside my struggling mind, subduing me further like water over flame, unable to stop myself from marching towards the eldritch horror.
“You are mine...You are always mine...”
Like a mindless zombie I step closer and closer, the rest of my consciousness spilling away into a thumping pool of light. Multiple arms wrap around me now like gripping tendrils, cupping my face and forcing my glowing eyes to open wider.
The arms pull me closer, squeezing me tightly and pinning me to a nearby tree, my disfigured captor laughing more as she struts closer to my face, moved by the hands of her arm-dress, a row of jagged and sharp blades surrounding her neck like a demented ruff collar.
She pins my legs together, my arms bound to my sides while my bones are crushed beneath the weight.
“Mmm...Mmnaagga...?” My sharp lashes start to droop and flutter the closer she comes to my face, losing myself completely into the bright hypnotic swirling, unable to resist the soul catching enticement.
“Shhhhhhhh...” She whispers, one of her hands covering my mouth.
The cocoon of arms and hands constrict me tighter into the bark, while I’m powerless to stop my mind from emptying completely, filled only with the unending light of Death...
“That’s better...”
The creature’s voice sounds like five or six people talking at once, men and women both, a clawed finger dismissively giving my porcelain cheek a pinch.
“Have you done this to my moon?” She asks, one of her claws pointing upwards to the burning pentagram above us, her jagged smile never leaving her decrepit face.
“No? Or was it someone else? Someone older? Smaller?”
Her voices all chuckle as she dances around my restrained and subdued body. One of her claws teasingly circles around my face, moving up and down, forcing me to nod yes against my will.
“...Hairier?”
The holes near its mouth open to sniff my flowing mane, squeezing my face tightly in its clawed hands while digging slightly into my blazing eye sockets.
“Mmmm...Yesss…Pain...My favorite foreplay...”
My swirly, glowing eyes bulge from my head as I’m squeezed even tighter, feeling some of my limbs starting to break and snap under the mounting pressure.
“I detest your kind because we can never meet on my …Child of Lucifer…” The hands grip my cheeks, my mesmerized eyes closing shut when another colorless palm conceals my swirling vision.
“But to waste such a mind...You would enthrall me for eons...”
“Mmmmmffmf—.....” The tree breaks off from its roots, rising me up higher into the air.
A claw pierces through my flesh, probing deep inside of my skull, and my closed eyes roll up far into my head with a frightened squeal, everything I know going white.
“Now show me where the little witch is hiding…”