Ramona Reyes gandered at the wares on display at the Turner’s garage sale. She squatted down to observe a crystal ball hidden underneath some blankets and trinkets, smirking at it. She pushed the dyed red hair out of her face and rubbed it. The old lady at the table in front of her cleared her throat and tapped the table to grab Ramona’s attention.
“Are you buying anything, little girl?” Misses Turner asked her.
“Well--I… I’m just browsing.” She rubbed the back of her head with her hand.
“If you’re looking for Anita, she’s upstairs.”
“Thank you, Misses Turner. How much for this crystal ball?”
“That piece of junk?” She scrunched her mouth. “Give me five for it.”
Ramona shook her head and handed the bill to her best friend’s mother and snatched the ball before heading inside the building and up to apartment #2B, open as always. Anita was there, sitting on the carpet in front of the TV, bow-legged, along with their other friends. She had her hair done up in puffs like always and she was wearing a giant tunic with a stack of necklaces. Leon was next to her with his recently bleached and straightened hair, and he wore a suit jacket and pants but no shirt underneath. Martin was also there, his curly brown hair coiffed perfectly, and he was wearing his standard t-shirt and jeans combo.
“Did you all get the stuff?” Ramona said, but then felt silly when she noticed that they had a pestle and mortar plus random herbs on the table.
“Of course we did, darling,” Leon stated. “You’ve been lollygagging.”
“I’m so excited!” Martin slammed his fists against the table, shaking it.
“Let’s settle down,” Anita said. “We all know how my mom feels about us practicing magic.”
“Which is why we should’ve done this at Rae’s house. Her dad doesn’t care.”
“Well, I already purchased all this stuff for practice, so we better use it,” Leon berated. “My parents don’t like me using my credit card.”
“What are we doing first?” Martin tittered in place.
“Since I got this crystal ball from Anita’s mom, maybe we should try seeing the future,” Ramona suggested.
“Everyone knows that doesn’t actually work, but let’s humor it,” Leon said.
Ramona laid the crystal ball in the middle of the table on the stand that came with it. She reached into one of the bags on the table and sprinkled sand onto it while focusing her eyes on the center.
“Anything?” Anita encouraged.
“Not really. Maybe I should polish it.” She rubbed it a bit with her left hand.
“Try not thinking about anything,” Martin suggested. “It always works for me.”
“Hard to believe,” Leon said.
She placed both hands on the side of the crystal ball and stared directly into the center.
“Maybe we’re not very magical,” Ramona said. “Just because my dad is a warlock doesn’t mean I have any of that. Mom would be happy if I didn’t inherit anything from him.”
“You’ve done magic before,” Anita pointed out. “Every witch starts by levitating pencils, and we’ve all managed that.”
“Mine was a pen,” Martin said.
“Maybe we should try the version I saw online?” Anita said.
She grabbed some sugar in her right hand and pepper in her left tossing them into a transparent bowl. She went up to her counter and procured a pitcher that she filled with water and then empty the water in the bowl.
“Show us the future. An innocent to save. As I have willed it, so mote it be,” she chanted, tossing a few herbs into the mix. “As I have willed it, so mote it be. C’mon. Repeat after me, everyone.”
They all chanted together while staring at the water; it began to twirl out of its own accord, the ingredients fogging it up.
“Ooh! It’s happening!” Martin clapped in excitement.
As the water swirled before their eyes, they all tilted their heads back, a glaze coming over their eyes becoming as foggy as the water.
“Why are we doing this again?” Peter complained as he followed his wife Elaine through the brisk forest, a camcorder in hand.
“Five people have died here due to mysterious circumstances, but they’ve all been skinned completely; nothing but muscle and sinew remained,” she said with a frantic energy. “I want to take a photo,” she raised her phone with its professional camera lens extension, “of whatever is doing this. And then we can run and become famous, quit our day jobs.”
“And if the thing gets us?”
“Then we become victims number six and lucky number seven.”
“How romantic.”
“What can I say? I’m always trying to spice up our love life.”
They paced through the forest until they reached a meadow where the trees thinned out.
“This seems safe,” he said.
“Look, I’ve been following these weird footprints,” she explained. “And this is where they lead me.”
He looked down at the print, noticing that it only had a nub but now actual appendages. They glanced along the open field and noticed a few haphazardly made graves.
“What kind of murderer digs up their victims?” Peter asked.
“No clue.” She snapped picture after picture, uploading them onto her social media accounts right after.
“I don’t think you’re really processing the danger and oddity here.”
“I don’t think you’re processing how little I care. We’ll be fine.”
She walked closer to the graves to snap some more shots, but she stopped in her tracks when she heard a howl.
“Is that it?” she asked, her eyes going wide.
They looked in the direction of the noise, but they didn’t see anything, so they stared at the other side. Elaine screamed in horror but shot a photo anyway and Peter recoiled while still raising his hand to film it. A chalk white figure with a flat face appeared in front of them, it had antlers growing off the top of its fuzzy head, a torso like a human male, and a hairy lower body like a wooly mammoth. It raised a limb revealing that it actually had nothing but nubs for hands. It smiled at them and moved its limb forward; it grew claws out of the nub and hair appeared all over its body. Its face grew a snout too, and the antlers shrunk into its ears. The strange creature had become a wolf. All the while, Elaine kept clicking on her phone camera and uploading shots.
It prowled toward them, growling all the way. They tried running away, but it was faster than they expected. Elaine shrieked as it pounced on her and clawed into her back.
“Elaine!”
“Go!” She slid the phone at home. “Upload your video.”
“I can’t leave without you.”
“You have to. We uncovered something here. Share the whole tale with the world.”
“Babe, I can’t go without you.”
The wolf grinned like it had when its face was pale. It unhooked a paw from Elaine’s back, digging the other one further in as she spewed out blood. The paw became a pale limb again and stretched over to him, clutching him back towards its body. It opened its maw, and then…
The four young adults in the living room sprang awake again. Each of them heaved for breath as their minds returned to the present. The water had stopped twirling, and it had now mostly evaporated. One final spin, and it was completely gone.