08. ᴛʜᴇʏ ꜰᴏᴜɴᴅ ɪᴛ

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"There it is. Go. Go!" After Alice's death, the three of them run to the Hanging Tree as quickly as possible with their shovels. Stumbling around they locate the area where they need to dig. Melissa looks around her trying to spot Aurora or Nick in the darkness.

"Dig! Dig!" Cindy encourages. Grunting the three of them dig into the ground looking for Sarah Fier's body. While digging Ziggy and Melissa notice a boy with a bat walking towards them, they point it out to Cindy, "Just keep digging!" She urges as they begin to dig more frantically.

They continue digging as Ruby's singing get's louder and the Shadyside killers approach. Melissa's shovel hit something and she alerts the other two. Pulling it out she notices that instead of a body part she finds a stone containing the words 'The witch forever lives'.

"Cindy, what does it mean? Cindy?"

"I don't know"

"Well, where is she? Where's the body?"

"I don't know!" The killers get closer as Cindy pulls Ziggy and Melissa up close to tears. Turning around she notices Tommy, who she had previously decapitated, jogging towards them. Cindy and Mel then realised why they continue to chase them, Ziggy bled on the bone and they won't stop until she's dead.

"What do you want Sarah Fier?" Cindy shouts, looking around at the killers, "You want this? You can have it!" she shouts holding the hand, "Just let my sister live! Just let my sister live!".

"Ziggy, you bled on the bone. They're after you." Mel reveals, "get ready to run" She advises nodding at Cindy, both of them knowing what they had to do to protect Ziggy.

"No, Cindy, No! No, Melissa" She shouts as they push her to run away as they run towards the killers. Cindy towards Tommy Slater and Melissa towards Ruby Lane. They both let out screams as they run towards the killers seemingly in slow motion.

Cindy screams as Tommy knocks her down with his axe and Melissa as Ruby stabs her in the side with her razor. Ziggy lets out a cry at the carnage but doesn't get very far before the Milkman stabs her in the stomach. Ruby stabs Melissa once more before leaving her to bleed out.

Ziggy cries as Tommy hits Cindy in the chest with his axe. The Milkman stabs Ziggy again as he drops her on the floor on the other side of Cindy as she watches her sister get murdered. She reaches her hand out to Cindy as she does the same. Choking out her final words as Tommy continuously digs the axe into her chest.

"Nothing... will pull us... apart."

"Never again" 

"That was July 19th, 1978. Five thousand, nine hundred and thirty-seven days ago. Melissa was dying, my sister was dead... and so was I."

"Nick! You get Ziggy! I'll get Mel!" Aurora cried out. Nick dropped next to Ziggy, assessing her before performing CPR in the hopes he could save her. Aurora stopped by her sister, noticing she was still alive but covered in blood. "Oh god! You're going to be okay. I'm going to help you!"

Aurora strips off her jacket and applies pressure to the stab wounds in Melissa's side as she coughs up blood over the both of them. Melissa drifts in and out of consciousness as Rory tries to do everything she can to save her.

"Come on, Mel! Stay with me, don't die! You promised me!"

"And most days... I wish I'd stayed dead"

Ziggy coughs as Nick successfully resuscitated her.

"Hey, what's your name? Look at me, what's your name?" Ziggy gasped.

"Ziggy."

"It's Christine. Her real name, it's Christine Berman" Nick corrected. Ziggy tried to ask where her sister was but stopped seeing her body being covered with a sheet and Melissa being loaded into an ambulance. 

"Cindy... My sister... She sacrificed herself for nothing. I told everyone the story of how she died. The story I just told you. And no one believed me"

"And Melissa, Nick and Aurora?"

"It was her." Ziggy started, "Sarah Fier, the witch. The curse, it's... it's real."

"Melissa was in a coma for months, eventually her parents took her off life-support. And Nick, I thought he was different. I thought he would believe me, but Nick had a destiny in this town. And you don't become sheriff talking about ghost stories."

"Aurora?"

"She believed me. She knew what had happened, she sends cards, presents and visits every so often, but Nick has her twisted around his finger and she's too in love to care about what their lies did to me."

Nick watches the ambulance and police cars leave, Aurora approaches and Nick tucks her into his side holding her close.

"What the hell happened here?

"Tommy Slater." Nick starts.

"I guess he just went crazy." Aurora finishes looking up at Nick with a nod to show him that she'll stand by his story to protect him.

"Fucking Shadysiders." The police officer says before walking off, leaving Nick and Rory together as the rain begins to fall. 

"I couldn't see him again. Not after that. The witch... The town curse... For one night, Cindy believed there was a way to end it. So I thought there was too. Now I know... there is no end"

"I'm sorry we weren't fast enough to help your sister"

"You tried and that matters, it's up to the hospital to save her now. Do you still need to give another name?" She questions, trying to brush the dry tear tracks off her face.

"Not for fifteen years at least, I don't think. I show you it all another day to make sense of it, I promise. but you can't tell anyone, not even Ziggy or Melissa."

"Anything for you, Nick. How about we head home? I need to change before seeing Mel"

"I'll come with you" He concludes kissing her gently.

They all jump as Ziggy's alarm clock goes off,  she goes to turn it off as the two kids in her house stand up.

"Like I said, your best chance is to run from this place. Go as far as you can, and hope a bus doesn't hit you on the way out."

All of them jump again as they hear knocking on the door. Ziggy moves towards it picking up the knife she had discarded as Deena and Josh follow her. She lets out a sigh of relief when she hears the person talk outside the door with her distinct accent.

"Ziggy? Are you in there? I wanted to check in after seeing all that stuff about Ryan Torres. It's just me, Nick's working tonight!"

Ziggy unlocks the door pulling it open to see a tall beautiful woman with black hair and bright blue eyes. Stepping forward Ziggy pulls her into a hug, something that shocked the woman as Ziggy isn't known for being affectionate.

"Oh hello there" Aurora laughs while being suffocated by Ziggys hug, "if I knew you missed me this much I would've popped round sooner." Ziggy pulls back to look at her as Rory notices the children hiding behind Ziggy.

"You have company? Ziggy didn't kidnap you, right?" She laughs as Ziggy ushers her in looking around outside suspiciously before locking the doors. "I'm Aurora Goode, and you both are?"

"Goode as in Nick Goode? I'm Deena Johnson, this is my brother Josh." Aurora jumps as she hears demonic growling from somewhere in the house that reminds her of Camp Nightwing. 

"He's my husband. I'm sorry, what is that?"

"That's my girlfriend, Sam"

"Right..."

The three of them sit Aurora down and explain the situation. Aurora has a concerned and confused look on her face.

"Another one? But there's only ever one and we already had Ryan Torres as the newest Shadyside killer."

"Mrs Goode, the witch won't stop with one. We need to stop her. And we found the body. Off-highway five in the woods between Shadyside and Sunnyvale."

"Please call me Rory and it's not possible," Aurora says with a concerned look.

 "Oh, it's there. Trust us." Josh replies, "The chains, the bones, the whole thing."

"That could be anyone." Ziggy points out.

"Why do you think our friends died? For the same reason, they killed Alice, your sisters. The killers came after us because we found something they didn't want us to find. And I wish to God that it never happened, but we found it. We found what you were looking for in '78. We found Sarah Fier." Deena tells the two women.

"Look, please, we... Nurse Lane was right. We can end the curse by reuniting the hand with the body. And we know where the body is, so all we need is the hand. What happened to Camp Nightwing? Is the hand bone still there? Is it still buried underneath the Hanging Tree?"

Aurora explains how Shadyside Mall was built where Camp Nightwing was and that tree in the Mall is the Hanging tree. Deena and Josh run off to the Mall leaving Sam tied up with Ziggy and Aurora. Ziggy sits down to process the entire conversation as Aurora explains that she's going to phone Nick. After a few rings, he picks up.

"Hello?"

"Nick? They found it. They're getting the hand and then they're going to Sarah Fier's body off-highway five. They're going to break the curse" She whispers into the phone so Ziggy can't hear. "but you lied to me, you said one name! Why is there a teenager now tied up in the bathroom who's possessed? You chose Ryan in hopes that you could save people!"

"Sam knew. Sarah Fier showed her. It was either I die or she gets possessed" He tries to reason. 

"Just don't hurt them, they're kids and they've gone through enough."

"I'll sort it. Stay safe, I love you."

"I love you too."

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