Cursed For Scrumping

20250728

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

“Ooh, Jimmy, look! The hag had one of them dictionaries.” Frank plucked the cracked tome off the shelf and made a show of ruffling through it. “Lessee… Inerrant… Inert… Inertial… aha! Inescapable. ‘Incapable of being escaped, ignored, or avoided.’ Well now. Whoda thunk it, eh?”
“You didn’t have to come.” Jim growled through gritted teeth.
“Neither did you, if going through that witch’s stuff ain’t gonna shift your curse.”
“Fuck. Off.”
Frank snorted and rolled his eyes, then his gaze fell back on the book. “…Next word’s ‘inescutcheon’. Wanna know what it means?”
Jim refused to dignify this with a response. Despite knowing that nothing short of violence would make Frank shut up once he got going.
“Sez it’s a ‘small shield-shaped charge in the centre of a shield’. Shield within a shield, eh? Them heraldry chaps were real meta.”
“You shoulda been a fucking scholar.”
“Better than a tomb robber.” Frank scoffed, closing the dictionary with a satisfying ‘thump’ and shoving it back on the shelf.
“We’re not robbing nothing! And this isn’t a tomb! It’s a house.”
“The old biddy’s corpse is right there, Jimbo. This is a kitchy mausoleum.”
Jim didn’t turn his head to look at the wizened, mouldering figure peacefully cradled in the armchair. “If she was gonna get back up or do something she woulda by now. Ding dong the witch’s fucking dead, hallelujah. Now, have you found anything useful?”
“Nah.” Frank’s gaze swept the room with practised ease. “Plenty fenceable, but nothin magic-looking. Reckon she kept that in the back of the house. Y’know? Not in the sitting room.”
“Let’s go, then.”
Frank lingered. Unable to quite look at the dead Ms Smyth. He mumbled “Reckon we should, like, put a tablecloth over her or something?”
“Why, to broadcast someone’s been here?” Jim scoffed incredulously. “Don’t be daft.”
“Alright, but… how long has she been…? You said you thought she was away.”
“Well, yeah, even with her being ancient I didn’t expect her to just… die. Thought the town’d never be rid of her. Weird to think she was almost human, eh?”
“How long do you think it’ll take before anyone else realises she’s…?”
“Maybe never. Who would care? Certainly plenty long enough nobody’ll realise she’s had guests since - so long as you don’t mess about with tablecloths.”
“Mm.” Frank rubbed his arms and shuddered, then abruptly turned back to the door. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“Hey, you’re the one wasting time…”
The back of the cottage had a tiny, depressing kitchen crusted with mould yet devoid of insects, and a bedroom which looked like she’d barely been in here for years. Or else she liked to pile dust everywhere.
And, at the end of the hallway between those two rooms, a locked trapdoor.
“Basement?” Jim eyed it warily.
“Reckon so. Interesting…” Frank scratched at the wood with a fingernail. “Everything else here is pine. Doors, floorboards, trim, the lot. Why’s this oak?”
“Dunno. Ask a witch.”
Frank glanced uneasily towards the sitting room then brushed this off. “Any way to tell if the lock’s magic?”
“Dab holy water on it, see if it hisses.”
“Alright. Go ahead.”
Jim huffed. “I can’t go in churches anymore!”
“Woulda thought you could buy that stuff online these days.”
“Sure, but good luck getting the genuine stuff.”
Frank sighed. “Any way we can tell if this lock is magic, then? Surely you musta brought stuff for that?”
“I’m not a magician!”
“No, you’re a goddamn idiot. Take this piece of wire and poke it in there.”
“Why?” Jim demanded suspiciously.
“Because your neck’s on the line, not mine. I ain’t getting my arm blown off because you didn’t pack for this stunt you planned.”
Jim huffed but accepted the old wire coat hanger and jabbed it into the lock several times. “Nothin’s happening, but… feels like it’s stoppered?”
“Guess the lock’s only on this side. That’s… probably not weird for a basement?”
Frank unpacked his picks and got the lock open without incident. “Hmm. Cheap piece. Maybe there’s nothing down there after all. Or… maybe she wasn’t worried if people got past the lock.”
“Or maybe she thought nobody would dare sneak in here at all.” Jim hauled the trapdoor open, revealing the expected rough pine stairs leading into shadow-lined concrete.
“Right, well… I ain’t going in there.” Frank said firmly. “I’ll wait here, make sure that hatch doesn’t lock on you or anything, but I’m not going further. If she’s got anything to snap shut on looters, it’ll be down there.”
“Will you shut up about - we’re not looting! This’s… it’s justice, that’s what it is. Serves the witch right for cursing people.”
“Mm.” Frank peered into the gloom and saw no sign of a light switch. “Didja bring a light?”
“Got one on my keychain.”
“You didn’t pack a proper one, then?”
Jim huffed impatiently and fished the tiny torch out, following its feeble finger of illumination into the basement.
“Damn idiot.” Frank grumbled.
He listened closely as Jim’s steps creaked down the stairs. Tapped across what sounded like a concrete floor. A pause.
A gasp. Not a scream, or a cry, but a simple sharp inhale. Followed by the clatter of a keychain bouncing on concrete. But no sound from Jim. Certainly not the sound of a body hitting the floor.
“Jim?”
The stale air wafting from the basement was sweet and musty. And here he’d always assumed that Ms Smyth wore perfume.
Frank fumbled out the proper torch from his bag and pointed it down the stairs. But no matter how he craned his neck he couldn’t make anything out. Just a barren grey box.
With how hard he was straining his ears he would have heard any footsteps. Yet he heard nothing until bony fingers gripped his shoulder and a mouth dry as leather whispered “You were always a sweet child, Francis. I did warn you that hanging out with James would lead you to a tragic end.”

Prompt was “Write a story which incorporates the words ‘inescapable’, ‘oak’, and ‘looting’ without making them feel out of place.”