It crawls free of its grave, howling in triumph; Dream Diary 71.
“WITCH HUNTER”
Far up in the western mountains a small community is nestled between the peaks; an insular group of hardy survivors living apart from the wider world. It isn’t quite a town as the small houses and cabins are too far apart but its people know to see to one another.
It’s this uniquely isolated culture that draws a reporter to the place during the summer months to interview the locals and show the world who they really are. The reporter, a short haired blonde woman is never seen without her notebook and camera as she drives around the serpentine mountain roads.
The locals aren’t quite forthcoming, seeming superficially content with their humble lives but with an undercurrent of sadness that suggests something deeper. Sifting through news archives, it’s revealed that a less than respectable egyptologist moved to these mountains in the 1920’s, hoping to live out his days alone in obscurity after being humiliated for his wild ideas about egypt’s past and brought all manner of research and treasure with him.
Sensing a new story, the reporter soon chases down the old home, now an abandoned hovel partially reclaimed by the wilds. In the dusty cellar she finds a surprising amount of goods including notes on an unknown queen along with her sarcophagus!
The story takes a turn as the mummy’s spirit awakens and drags the reporter out into the woods to a lake, spouting exposition of how she has the people of these mountains in her thrall while visions of their true forms flood the reporter’s mind. Each month they make sacrifice to sustain and build her power and soon she will spread her influence to all lands!
The touch of the spirit world leaves a mark on the reporter and now she sees the locals for what they are; long dead miserable shapeshifting revenants. Figuring that the undead queen can be stopped by stopping the sacrifices, she confronts the locals one by one.
Along the way, she meets the local priest. Not quite undead, he knows the score as well and sees an opportunity to set things right. Together, they exorcise a highy protective owner of an apple orchard by crude weapons and a strange ancient burial rite as the priest explains it; no power of the church will let these beings rest. Their curse predates it, after all.
In the orchard, they find a crude, angular knife resembling a kukri, obviously homemade with a strange calendar etched all along the blade. These are the daggers for the monthly sacrifices! Another undead servant is confronted; a sad, dark haired lady that just seems to want it to end, having just finished her monthly blood tithe, dagger in hand.
The sorrowful spirit is released using the orchard dagger and she passes on her shapeshifting to the reporter, claiming that having used it to hunt, it will help in ending the ancient curse. Now a hunter of the undead and the witch queen that rules them, the reporter takes flight as a crow, ritual daggers at the ready.