When Ellie mentioned how Church arrived just early morning before sunrise, both Louis and Rachel's faces changed, showing different reactions.
With a confused look on his face, Louis looked at the windows and the floors where the marks of mud with cat paws led inside the room.
When Ellie pointed at Church, who was standing inside the cupboard, Louis looked shocked while Rachel looked at him sceptically.
'Shit! Did I fuck up?'
were the only thoughts in his mind because he knew Church was dead yesterday.
Rachel was giving him a 'what the fuck' look.
He shook his head, completely at a loss, reeling.
There was no chance of survival or life signs when he examined his cat yesterday; it even had several broken bones that seemed to be crushed.
Gulp~
Taking a few breaths, Louis took a few steps forward to examine the cat to know if it was Church.
The cat's hair was standing still as if expressing goosebumps.
Louis knelt, reading the cat's collar: CHURCHILL.
But Louis's eyes contradicted in fear, looking at the blood marks visible on the areas where Church's bones had been crushed yesterday.
"Easy. Just want to take a look..."
Not able to believe what he was seeing, Louis went forward to examine Church.
Hiss~
To his surprise, the gentle Church suddenly hissed at him with aggression like he was its enemy, which startled him.
Ouch~
Louis pulled his hand back when Church suddenly attacked him.
After attacking him, Church immediately ran out of the room, which made him feel something was wrong.
Seeing Church run away from her dad, Ellie ran after him to prevent it from running away once again.
Jud's house...
With a grumpy face, Louis arrived at Jud's house to question him about what happened to Church and how the cat came back alive.
WHACK~
The axe came down, splitting a piece of wood.
Jud glanced up at Louis, a cigarette smouldering in his mouth as he set another piece of wood on the stump.
"Louis?"
Noticing Louis coming toward him in a hurry, Jud called him confusedly.
"What's going on? Church is walking around over there like nothing happened!"
Looking at the calm Jud who was smoking, Louis nearly shouted out but controlled his anger and asked him his questions.
"____"
"That's what you wanted, wasn't it?"
Hearing Louis's continuous questions, Jud asked him calmly.
"____"
Louis became silent when Jud gave a simple answer.
"That cat was dead, Jud. His body was getting stiff."
With determination, Louis continued pestering Jud with his questions.
Sigh
"Ellie happy he's back? Then leave it alone?"
WHACK~
After just stating that Ellie was happy, Jud once again started to cut the wooden blocks.
Louis's house...
After dinner, Rachel took Ellie and Gage to their bed to sleep while Louis was thinking about what had happened that day.
Along with his conversation with Jud, he started to feel something was amiss that he didn't know.
He took his laptop and started to research his house, the pet cemetery, and the village to see if he could find any clues.
"____"
The search brought results that made his eyes widen in shock and fear started to creep into his heart looking at the search results.
Many articles stated that in 1969 many died horribly, and the villagers claimed that demons from the pet cemetery were the ones who killed them.
But later, it was announced it was a serial murderer who killed his friends, family, neighbours, and at last himself.
While scrolling down, he found that similar murder cases took place in this area in 1929, 1901, 1889, 1878, and 1818, all somehow connected to the pet cemetery.
His thoughts drifted to Church, who refused to eat anything, even its favourite food.
But Louis could not help but find that everything with Church seemed wrong.
"Dad!"
Suddenly, Louis heard his daughter calling him and hurried to her room.
There he found that Church had attacked Ellie when she tried to comb its hair.
After consoling her and giving her first aid, Louis was about to leave the room, but Ellie stopped him and asked him to close the door completely to prevent Church from entering the room.
She was scared of him now.
After consoling Ellie to sleep, Louis went to his room and had a moment with his wife, but it was spoiled by Church carrying a half-eaten crow on his bed.
Ouch~
When Louis tried to carry Church out of the room, it bit his hand and ran to the basement.
Looking in the direction where his cat ran, Louis angrily walked to the basement.
Suddenly, the scenario changed into a forest when he entered the door.
There he saw Victor looking at him standing opposite him.
"You are going to lose everything: family, happiness, and peace."
Honk... honk...
After shouting, Victor vanished, and suddenly a truck at high speed tried to hit him.
When he fell, he was back inside the basement, taking heavy breaths in an adrenaline rush.
While he was experiencing the illusion in the basement, his wife was experiencing another illusion where she saw her older sister dying as she did when she was a little girl, through the mirror.
After the illusion ended, she rushed out of the room, hugged Louis, and told him about the illusion she had just now.
Sigh~
With a sigh, Louis consoled her, saying the reason they moved here was because Rachel experienced a similar illusion in their old house.
So it was not new to the couple that Rachel experienced illusions.
The next day, when Louis looked at one of the drawings on the paper, which looked very disturbing, he immediately went to Ellie to ask her about it.
"Ellie, did you draw this?"
"No... Gage drew it."
Hearing that the one who drew the drawing was Gage, who couldn't even walk properly, Louis asked his daughter,
"Did you see him draw?"
After Ellie shook her head and said she found the drawing in Gage's hand, Louis looked confused.
He went to see if his son was alright, but when he arrived, he saw Church hissing and trying to attack Gage, who looked very scared.
He hurriedly lifted Gage in his arms while Church ran away.
After this incident, he went to comfort Jud and tell him what happened.
Hearing what happened in Louis's house, Jud apologized to him sincerely and told him his side of the story where he once buried his dog there, which came back alive.
But after that, his dog behaved violently, attacking many people, which led to the incident where he killed it with his own hands.
Jud asked Louis to kill the Church to prevent it from causing anything serious.
Coming back to his house, Louis caught Church, who was acting very violently, but he couldn't prepare himself to kill it.
So without Ellie knowing, he took it with him and dropped the cat in one of the forests, away from two villages from his house.
After two days...
Louis and his family were preparing for Ellie's birthday party when all the guests arrived and celebrated her birthday happily.
On that very day, Ellie died in an accident when she ran to Church, which had returned, travelling all the way here, and was hit by the very truck which always travelled fast on this road.
After burying Ellie, the atmosphere in the house became depressed.
Louis sent his wife, who was in PTSD, and his son to Rachel's parents' house to help her recover.
When the car left, Louis's eyes landed on Jud's house, and his gaze became firm.
On the night after chatting with Jud and sending him off, Louis went to the cemetery and started digging Ellie's grave.
He carried Ellie's body in his arms and went to the land behind the pet cemetery where he and Jud once buried Church to bring it back alive.
On his way, he met Victor, who tried to stop him, but he didn't heed his advice.
With a solemn look, Victor's spirit vanished from the forest.
After burying Ellie there, Louis went home with the hope Ellie would come back alive.
But he didn't know this was the decision that would take everything from his grasp all at once.
At Rachel's parents' house, Rachel heard Gage screaming.
When she went to her son's room, Gage informed her, looking very scared,
"Victor said don't come here. Mom... Victor asks us to go home as soon as possible."
Hearing Victor's name, Rachel was shocked.
She had heard Louis mention a boy named Victor who died when he tried to save him on his first day of work.
Creak... creak...
At midnight, Louis woke from his sleep and went downstairs, hearing the sound of the door being opened.
"Dad."
When he was looking at the door which was opened, Louis saw the footprints in the mud there.
Suddenly, a voice came from behind him.
Feeling a little scared, Louis turned back and saw Ellie standing before him, alive.
Present day...
Ludlow, Maine...
Jojo and the gang arrived at the forest in a car they had rented after arriving here, looking around curiously.
"Edward, this is your first time, right?"
Looking at the emo on the back seat, staring through the window without spacing out.
Meanwhile, Alice and Freya were having a girls' talk in whispers.
Rosalie was sitting in the front along with Jojo, who was driving the car.
"The forest looks amazing, though we came when it's night."
Rosalie looked curiously at the very silent forest.
"Well, this forest holds something more scary than you think."
Hearing Rosalie mention how beautiful the forest is, Jojo commented, looking in one direction.
He had already felt the disgusting aura and spell coming from inside the forest, which got stronger with each passing minute as they ventured deep into their location.
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(Author's POV)
Thanks for reading the chapter!
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