Eldritch Memory

I can still remember it. On nights like to night when it rains cats and dogs and the lightning flashes I remember those events despite my best efforts to blot them out.

Five years ago this all took place. It was raining cats and dogs then to. On the morning of those sinister events the rain hadn't moved in yet, but the sky was pale grey indicating the coming assault of moisture.

I was a detective. Notice that I said was. The events I'm about to narrate led to my retirement. I had. To kids had disappeared: Hetzel and Gretel.

The kids were the children of the Walters. They were a nice quiet family having moved here from Germany. At the present moment I was scouring the sight of their picnic. All that remained now was the checkered blanket and an overturned basket of food surrounded by bread crumbs.

The couple had left the children to play by themselves while they talked with some friends they spotted in the park that day. Last account they had of the children were talking to an old woman the family knew who ran a bakery.

I jotted down the information in my notebook just all detectives do. Looking up the sky I made a promise to have the children home before the storm set in. It was promise I hoped wasn't as empty as the pastry box at a Sunday meeting.

I didn't suspect kidnapping right away. Since the woman was a friend of the family I assumed maybe the children had gone off with her without telling their parents. Of course it wouldn't be the first time someone close the family did something like abscond with the children.

I made stopping by her bakery a priority. Perhaps it was blind naivety taking hold but I figured we'd find the children at the bake shop all snug and safe, eating sweets that Matilda (that was the proprietor's name) didn't want to tell their parents about. How foolish of me!

So on and on down a twisted rabbit whole this memory takes me. Arriving at the Steaming Muffin my partner and I radioed headquarters & entered the establishment. I won't waste time describing the place it smelled heavenly.

Matilda greeted us with a smile. The truth is she looked a crone and despite her kindly manners and cooperation after we flashed our badges something about her effected me like garlic in Italian food. She was almost to cooperative with ready answers to my grilling questions. I only half believed her when she explained the kids had asked to accompany her to her shop for some dessert and they had wanted to keep it secret from their parents. After that they left for a fling in the town. Ahh the innocence of the post war years. I was about to press her further when something clubbed me over the head Everything spun around and I blacked out.

When I came to it was because I was forced back to consciousness by to ruffians in masks dragging me from the trunk of a Thirty-Six Studebaker. We were parked in a dismal patch of woods with twisted trees and the rain was pouring down. They made the mistake of untying me to make my execution look less suspicious. I leaped on them like a wild animal. My fists plowed into their chins and they dropped like hot potatoes. Removing the masks I was horrified to discover one of them had been my partner. It was he who knocked me out at the bakery.

All at once I had assorted pieces of a sickening puzzle. Some well honed gut instinct told me to take that car and continue driving down that lonely road. If I did I'd find the completed picture and Hetzel and Gretel.

My journey took me to the dilapidated remains of a hotel that hadn't been use in over to decades, a charming love nest called the Ginger Bread House.

Exiting the car I heard some noise coming from inside. Edging closer to the house with my partner's pistol in my hand the noise became a rythmic chanting in a language I knew not. I snuck around behind the inn and entered through a badly worn rear door. Building was a three story and what blasted my eyes I will forever remember even as I do now. Gone was any thing that might have resembled the lobby. In its place was bare walls covered in otherworldly images and a blazing fire in the center of the room surrounded by men and women in the same masks as worn by my assailants. These were the people chanting.

Every hair on my neck was on end. Above this scene I saw the Walter children tied back to back on a platform that seemed to be operated by a pulley system that lowered it from the ceiling. This whole place had been converted into an occult temple.

I saw the most sinister sight of all. Matilda looked down on this scene from the railing of the second story stairwell. She was clad in some gaudy ceremonial robe. Her exact words are lost in the bloody haze of this portion of the memory. She said something about a dirty named Yog Zathoth and a holy book called the Necronomicon.

Without thinking I shot down the man operating the pulle then I took out any others foolish enough to draw on me. Lastly I shot down the screeching swearing creature called Matilda. She jerked and fell over the railing into the sacrificial flames intended for Hetzel and Gretel.

By now the other cultists had fled. I put out the fire and lowered the children from the deathtrap. "Let's get you out of here." I said. They took my hands and we left the house of horrors behind us.