The Funeral of Macarena Luna

She was a very vicious witch in her youth. A lot of folks hated her, but others with the same demeanor as Luna adored her. She was known to bring pain and suffering to those who opposed her, especially to those that made the mistake to make enemies with her. She also made some people’s lives a lot easier. She helped many take their revenge on others, and also helped repel the malice that was brought upon certain people. She was the best. Of course, her services were very expensive, and the damage reaped on her victims was never disappointing.

Her name was Macarena Luna. She was from El Salvador, and it was there where she learned her black magic. Back in her homeland, many Masons were afraid of her, for she knew how to cast spells accurately and were very deadly.

One night, she was murdered.

She was strangled to death on a full moon. People from the town said that three men broke into her house. They raped her and later strangled her. Her body was later mutilated and her mouth was sewn shut. Many say that her enemies were scared that she might recite a spell even after her death. She was 45 years old when this happened.

The three men that raped and murdered her were found torn to pieces outside her home, deep in the forest. One was found right outside the house. The other two didn’t make it very far from there.

They didn’t get away with their crime. You see, she had a panther for a pet. Instead of owning a black cat like a normal witch, she had a full-size panther. Many say that she brought it as a kitten when she went to South America to expand her knowledge of black magic. Whatever the case, she had a panther as a pet and it was very loyal to her.

Many of the town’s people wanted the panther removed, for it was a dangerous species to have around. The town’s people thought about the children. They came at her with licenses to take the cat away. They came at her with animal control agents. Whenever this happened, the panther was gone.

“I don’t own the cat. No one ever owns their cat. The cat owns their master, for it goes wherever it wants. A master of a cat is only lucky that their cat likes them enough for it to stay with them from time to time. It’s a privilege, not a responsibility.”

The town’s people would always argue that she brought it from South America to be used as some sort of avenging tool. Of course, it never happened. The panther never killed anyone from the town. It was just seen at night. Its eyes were always seen lurking in the forest at night.

“It found me during a bright full moon.”

This was of course a lie on Macarena’s behalf and everyone always knew.

There was no evidence of her lying though.

Their attempts to capture the cat were always a failure. The black cat always eluded them in the most mysterious way.

The men that murdered Macarena must have trespassed into the house while the loyal cat was gone. Their luck ran out when they went outside and met their death by staring into the eyes of a black panther that knew that its master was murdered. The blood was in the air, and it knew who it belonged to. The black cat was emotionally tied to its master and decided to spill more blood.

No one knows what was of that panther after its master’s murder. The town people searched for it for days after Macarena and the murderers were found in their grotesque dying positions. Many believe that it ran off into the mountains to die.

Many men loved Macarena. She was a wicked gothic woman with beautiful black long hair. Her eyes were dark brown and her eyebrows were always sharply plucked. She loved dark red lipsticks that she used to manipulate men with. She used her lips to hypnotize them and take their seed. Always dressed very elegantly in sophisticated dresses that always made men turn their heads whenever she walked by. Although her potions were very powerful, she never needed any of them to make a man notice her. She was truly born with the gift to make men very excited with the sway of her walk.

Her long nails were always another tool that she used to forsake men to empty their pockets for her.

She died at 45 but she looked like she was 25 years old. It wasn’t black magic that kept her young. She knew how to maintain herself with nature itself. She knew many secrets and many of them died with her. Despite her beauty, she was the evilest bitch around. Anywhere she went, she always won the prize.

After her gruesome death, the local sheriff, who always defended her when the town tried to deprive her of anything, took the time to investigate the murder. He came up with nothing. The three men were outsiders—never seen before. They had no connections to anyone. It was premeditated carefully.

The Sheriff thought that she had it coming. He knew that she was surrounded by fate. He knew that she always played with it and passed it around like it was a card game. He thought that it finally caught up to her and bit her in the nastiest way possible.

The Sheriff found a box by the shrine. The shrine that Macarena had was of La Santa Muerte. The statue of death stood there about three feet high with roses and money all over it making it beautiful in its own sinister way.

The incense was out, while the smell of blood was still in the air.

He opened the box as he looked up at La Santa Muerte. He was spooked by it. Once he opened the beautifully crafted onyx box, he saw a huge notarized letter in it. The letter was a will. It had legal demands and it had the Sheriff’s name on it.

Sheriff Rodrigo was the one to carry out the last wishes of the witch. It was his duty as an authority figure to do such a thing. He had to carry out the wishes of a hated beautiful witch. He knew it was a risk. Macarena was always doing something sinister, even in the smallest way her acts would amount to a monolith malicious event.

In the letter, Macarena asked to have the funeral at the town’s chapel at night during the next full moon. The letter had a list of people that were invited. No one else was permitted according to the letter. The letter also included a bank account number that gave Sheriff Rodrigo access to an account that had a nice amount for the Sheriff to keep as long as he committed to the wishes of the dead witch. The letter also had a death threat stating that if the founder of this letter ignores it or if the person ran away with the money from the secret bank account without following the letter’s orders, a horrid death would be inevitable. The letter didn’t state how death would come, but the Sheriff knew deep down inside that it was true.

He wished he had never seen the box.

A few weeks had passed and the funeral was ready to be held. It took at least two weeks for Rodrigo to convince the town to have this funeral. He convinced them with a threat. He made it clear that Macarena wanted this done or else.

The town had seen horrible things which were blamed on Macarena but never had the evidence to convict her. Lynching was out of the question. They were scared of her. For the most part, they let her be. People that suffered repercussions from her witchcraft were the people that got involved and wanted to hurt others with her services. These people’s errors were envy, jealousy, greed, etc. Nevertheless, the people of this town decided to go on with the funeral as the Sheriff had told them to do so.

Once the funeral began during the night of the next moon, people started coming into the chapel with extreme caution. The invited were worried. All of them had faced a dilemma once they got the invitation. They knew that if they didn’t go, it would be imminent death somewhere, somehow, sometime after ditching the event. Macarena had a grand reputation with these types of matters.

They all sat once inside and kept quiet. No one really dared to walk up to the open casket that held Macarena’s last beauteous stand before the consequences of rot began. Her face was pale, smooth, full of wonder, and immaculately gorgeous. The town’s mortician had done his masterpiece, for he had a love for her. He adored her ability to dance around darkness, with glee.

The mortician was not on the list to attend. He comprehended everything and was glad that he was ousted from such a thing, not because he was scared of Macarena, but because he truly felt sorrow when she passed to the other side. It deeply saddened him. The mortician left town the night of Macarena’s funeral. No one knew where he went. Stories have it that he became a drunken drifter for many years and eventually passed away in some gutter in some town with a picture of Macarena in his hands.

They all sat there staring at the altar. They sat there nervous, wondering what was next. They all looked up the cross as if to ask for mercy. They all felt threatened somehow.

The doors closed, and the chapel was only lighted with candles. No one was at the altar, and the town’s priest was not there. The invited whispers floated inside the chapel, like cool breezes driven by useless fans.

At the door, outside of it, Rodrigo was arguing with the town’s priest.

“Father, you are not on the list!”

“It is my duty to hold a mass in my chapel! I must pray that Macarena’s soul is forgiven by our Lord, our Father,” demanded the priest.

“You were not invited to this party Father,” insisted Rodrigo.

The Father just looked at the Sheriff and knew that it was not a good idea to persist in crashing Macarena’s funeral. Plus, the Father was told ahead of time that he would not be able to attend. He was paid a nice hefty amount to follow those orders—everyone has a price. The priest was there to show that goodness is persistent. The example he gave was that goodness has no place where evil dwells when he decided to walk away.

The guests sat there oblivious to what was going to happen in the next few minutes inside that cold candlelit chapel. The front door was shut for quite some time and some guests were starting to think that they were going to have to conduct the funeral themselves as a punishment of some sort.

Suddenly, the front door opened.

From the doorway, a young man in a black suit and a black shirt walked into the chapel. He was in his mid-twenties or so. He was a handsome man. Most of the women that were attending the funeral were amazed by his appealing energy. He looked straight ahead and his seriousness was very cold. He walked towards the altar.

No one knew him, and many of them thought that he was an assassin. They started to get up to get ready to run or duck or whatever their silly paranoid mind brought them.

This young man with slick shiny black shoes walked straight to the podium. He turned and looked at everyone in the crowd. Some were sitting, some were standing, and some were arguing with others in whispers.

“Hello, my name is Pablo,” with no hesitations, “I’m a good friend of Macarena Luna. In fact, I am more than a friend.”

Everyone began to sit down as he paused for them to do so. They were still on alert as they wanted to hear more from this Pablo.

“I am more like a son.”

“Where is the Sheriff,” interrupted Ms. Perrin who was Macarena’s only friend and if a friend. Ms. Perrin was a beautiful woman and sometimes competed with Macarena in vain.

“No one knows who you are here! How could a total stranger walk into our town and into this funeral?” asked Ms. Perrin.

Pablo slammed his right hand down on the podium. The thud echoed across the chapel as everyone braced into instant silence. Ms. Perrin had her left hand on her chest distraught. Mr. Gomez, the landlord of many buildings around the town, started grabbing her right arm to slowly sit her down.

They all stared at Pablo.

“Better,” Pablo added, “we are here to honor my mother’s death!”

Some of them began to utter something but Pablo shut them down. It was clear that he was there to read a eulogy and it was going to be done. Everyone sat and got ready to listen to the words that Pablo was going to utter for them.

“Macarena was a mother to me. I am not her biological son, for my real mother was from Brazil, at least that’s what Macarena always told me. Macarena was always there for me as she was for many of you here. Many of you here have had help from my mother one way or the other."

He paused.

"I know some of the malicious acts that were requested by some of you.”

Some of the guests looked like they were denying this statement with their facial expressions, for many of them thought that their dealings with Macarena were secret.

“Don’t try to deny anything that you have done in your life. ‘Everything that you do is part of you.’ That is what she used to tell me when I committed my so-called sins or what we perceive as errors. So don’t deny who you are here, now, or ever. You see, Macarena always told me that people follow a certain light that is inside them. Some people’s lights are brighter than others. The ones that have dim lights are the ones that tend to be perceived as bad or evil. ‘That dim light is the brightest it can shine’ she used to tell me when approaching a melancholic person. Is it their fault that they carry that light? No, it’s not, for that is what we have inside us. Macarena’s light was dim. However, she lived in happiness, because she knew exactly who she was. She accepted the light that she was born with. She followed her heart; and just like her, all of you did as well.”

Everyone started to whisper and started to become uncomfortable with this eulogy.

“She made many of you wealthy, and she made some of you happy. In the end, though, she made all of you realize who you really are!”

Pablo looked at them in silence.

“There is one thing that always bothered her,” he continued and added, “Why did you judge her?”

Pablo looked around at the dumbfounded faces staring at him. They couldn’t answer the question or at least they didn’t want to.

“You people always prayed at night that Macarena wouldn’t come to you in the middle of the night like she was some demon. Yet, you went to her for help. Many of you here reaped damage on others with Macarena’s help!”

Pablo looked around in disgust.

“You know who you are!”

They all stared at his black eyes.

“She was who she was and you had no right to play God with her! Why couldn’t you just accept her for who she was? She never reaped any damage on you people unless you went to her to reap damage on your own neighbor; so the real monsters are you people!”

“Wait a minute…” Mr. Gomez stood up, “that is not true!”

“Oh, no!” interrupted Pablo, “wasn’t it you who paid her to put a spell on Mr. Baloo’s wife?”

“My wife died of a malicious illness!” shouted Mr. Baloo from the back of the Chapel.

“Yes, she did, and you Mister paid my mother to have Mr. Gomez’s errand boy to have an accident and die!”

“Please don’t say anything,” insisted Mr. Baloo.

“You wanted to take his job and you got it didn’t you!”

“I didn’t want him to die! I just wanted him to just get hurt!” Mr. Baloo started crying.

Mr. Gomez started to shout at Pablo along with other guests that felt that this was an outrage. They were harshly squelched by Pablo. It was a deep horrifying voice that did it.

“The spells that my mother used were as strong as your desires!” Pablo’s mouth was drooling as if rabid.

His eyes were starting to glare.

They were all silent again.

“Why did you have her murdered in such a fashion?”

It was very silent.

“There’s always a consequence to everything and we have to learn to live with it and what comes after it,” said Ms. Perrin, “Macarena told me this when I paid her to make Jake Perrin fall in love with me. I paid to have a wealthy man fall in love with me!”

Ms. Perrin looked around the room. They all stared at her.

“Later, Jake cheated on me with her. I was jealous, for what? I don’t know but I’m sure it was one of her spells. Or, someone here had her put a spell on me.”

Ms. Perrin had hatred in her eyes. She spat at everyone.

“I hate all of you, I always did, and now you all better be ready for Macarena’s wrath!”

“Please sit down!” yelled a man from the back who was another victim of greed or jealousy and only to have Macarena do his dirty deeds like everyone else.

Suddenly, a growl hung over the guests in the chapel. It was Pablo ripping his black shirt wide open and yelling at the top of his lungs. It wasn’t a yell. It was a deep growl. It was death coming to all of the guests who had used and betrayed Macarena.

“I am truly the son of Bagheera, the cat-woman who went to my second mother, Macarena, to look after me after she died hunted like an animal. Now, I am Macarena’s son and I will avenge her murder. You are all guilty of murdering a witch, a woman who served her purpose in this malicious world that you have all created. She was your agent to carry out your childish sinister deeds. Now, you will see what she had in store for you, for all of your heinous sins!”

Pablo growled above all the screams.

The guests were trying to get out the door, but it was bolted from the outside. The windows were boarded up. No one had noticed. All the guests were too distracted in the beginning. It was a mousetrap and death was breathing down their necks.

Pablo turned into a panther. The coat on this animal shone like it was wet and it steamed into the air. The panther stormed the room and began slashing and ripping throats.

Mr. Baloo’s guts were spilled onto the ground as he held his arms up high to protect his face when the black cat approached him. He stumbled backward and fell into the wall behind him as he stared at his guts, the trail of blood from where he was standing a second ago when he was in one piece. He died trying to put his guts back into his fat belly.

Ms. Berrin, who used to be Miss Gonzalez, stood there as she accepted her death that was overdue and she knew it; however, the pain was excruciating for her. The panther slashed her across the face. Her left eye immediately popped and oozed down the rest of what was her face. She had gashes across her face from left to right in a diagonal manner, down to the bone. Her nose was dangling and she felt gushes of blood go into her throat from the nasal passages. With her right eye, she witnessed the rest of the guests meet their fate. She was unable to scream. She was in shock. She fell on her back with her hands shaking next to her head, not wanting to touch the disaster on her face.

Mr. Gomez was staggering around with his jaw dislocated. The bottom lip and chin were ripped off. His tongue was moving around as if he was trying to ask for help but could not annunciate a word, just gurgling noises. His neck had a gash and was bleeding out. He sat on a bench and looked up at the cross. He wanted to ask why, but couldn’t. Blood spilled all over this right hand that was holding his neck because his other hand was ripped to shreds from the vicious bite from the panther.

The animal kept running around killing and slaying, spraying blood everywhere. Some of it got on Macarena’s face in her casket. It seemed like she had a wicked smile on her with blood lightly sprayed on her. She looked beautiful in her dire way.

Outside, Sheriff Rodrigo stood with a torch. He was full of tears. He could hear the screams of these people he knew his whole life. Their howls of pain made his soul cower down. He was spooked to the core. He couldn’t believe that he was frozen and listened to Death take his neighbors in such a haunting fashion. His tears ran down his face like water in parched dirt.

He looked back down the street where the rest of the town stood in their nightgowns and in shock. They looked in wonder at the Sheriff. No one dared to ask what was happening.

A crash came from the side of the chapel. It was the panther. It had jumped out of a boarded-up window. The window was forced open with pieces of jagged wood sticking out of it.

Sheriff Rodrigo walked around the corner and saw the panther. He didn’t know this was part of the act. He thought he was looking at the Devil himself. The cat’s eyes glowed red in the night. Its fur was glowing in the dark as if covered with reddish goo. It started walking over to him, but it stopped when the crowd down the street started walking over. The panther turned and bolted down the street into the trees.

Sheriff Rodrigo, in tears, tossed the torch to the edge of the chapel where it was saturated with kerosene and gas. He had done this while Pablo uttered Macarena’s eulogy.

The whole front of the chapel went up in flames. It lit up the whole town. The crowd walking up stopped and some began to pray.

Sheriff Rodrigo stood back and saw the Chapel burn for hours. He could smell the flesh burning inside.

He could smell sin.

He could smell the burning of a witch in her own little heaven.

-

by Bazooka Teaches