Magic was in the air at the old Sanderson house in Salem, Massachusetts. Unfortunately, it was the kind of magic that should never be used even by those with the purest of intentions, and Winifred Sanderson was not possessed of anything so kind-hearted. Her sisters Mary and Sarah assisted her in concocting a potion as their captive, Dani, struggled against her restraints. The young girl's guardian Binx, an immortal talking cat with the spirit of one of the sisters' past victims was trapped in a bag near the fireplace. The potion which the sisters were brewing would transfer the life force of Dani into all of them, allowing the trio to remain young and, more importantly, would keep them alive past tonight.

Long ago, in the 17th century, the Sanderson sisters were infamous witches who lived in the woods outside the town of Salem. As they grew older Winifred, the brains of the family, began to search for a way to restore their, or more specifically, her own youth. Within a terrible spell book she discovered such a means; a potion which, when drunk by a virgin or small child, allowed his or her life force to be inhaled by the sisters. When at last the sisters succeeded in taking enough life force to restore their youth the brother of their victim, Thackery Binx, was transformed into a black cat to live forever with the guilt of failing to save his sister, Emily. Shortly after the transformation the sisters were captured and hung, but legend told that when the Black Flame Candle in their house was lit by a virgin on Halloween night that they would return. The sisters would have one night to brew the potion and suck the life force out of a child, after which they could continue doing so to prolong their youth. If they did not consume life force by the time the sun came up, they would die.

Sunrise was less than an hour away, but they had both the potion and a child. The atmosphere of their ancient, dreary and somewhat frightening abode was abuzz with excitement and fear. The sisters could barely contain their excitement at being successful in their gambit to survive the night when death had seemed so certain and so close. Dani, meanwhile, was aware of what would happen to her and Binx was terrified of letting another young girl with whom he had built a connection have her future stolen away by the evil sisters.

The house flashed and permeated with green light as Winifred finished the potion and the sisters gathered around the cauldron. Their skin was aglow both with their anticipation and the eerie radiance of the concoction. They dipped a large wooden spoon into the cauldron and then Winifred drew it out, advancing on Dani. Her younger siblings, acting little more than minions, tried to open the young girl's mouth.

"Don't drink it, Dani!" Binx warned, to which Winifred responded "Shut up, you!" and jabbed the potion-filled spoon in front of the young girl's face. Despite struggling to keep her mouth closed, Dani managed to knock Mary's large elbow with the hard wood of the chair. Sarah began to laugh when Dani kicked her in the shin and caused her to cry out in pain. Upon recovering both witches grabbed at the girl's mouth with renewed vigor.

Just as it seemed Dani's mouth would be forced open the door to the house flew inwards and her elder brother, Max, rushed into the building. "Prepare to die… again." He told them, eliciting little more than a laugh from Sarah. From the hanging gibbets two imprisoned male teenagers sat, instantly brightening as they saw the familiar face. "Hollywood!" The blonde in the leather jacket spoke, referencing Max's having moved to Salem from Los Angeles.

"You! You have no powers here, you fool!" Winifred retorted, having grown tired of his outwitting them time and again. "Maybe not…" Max spoke loudly. "But there's a power greater than your magic, and that's knowledge. And there's one thing I know that you don't."

With an irritated sigh Winifred momentarily stopped trying to feed Dani the potion. "And what is that dude?" She spoke mockingly at which Sarah began laughing. "Daylight savings time." Max spoke confidently. All three of the witches seemed amused by his petty statement and Mary repeated his sentence with a sardonic voice. The witches' mocking ended, however, when a pastel pink light shone into the house, and their smiles disappeared. Winifred gazed at the impossible thing, as if it represented fear itself. All three of the sisters recoiled from it, drawing behind the cauldron as they shielded themselves from the uncompromising illumination. Max grinned in victory and ran over to the chair Dani was tied into in order to free her.

The sisters began to drop to the floor, already feeling the magic leaving them at the emergence of dawn. Dani bolted from the chair and together with Max, they freed Binx. Max glanced back and saw Sarah speaking "It hurts!" in agony before she fell as well, the last of the three to do so.

Max began to turn for the door when the blonde teenager called out to him again "Man, get me out of here!" Max seemed to hesitate, gazing at the two who had, less than a day ago, bullied him and had taken his shoes. "Hollywood!" The other one said, a bigger guy with "Ice" shaved into the hair on the back of his head. "Help us out." The young man nodded his head nervously, as if hoping it would help Max's decision. Their hopes were extinguished, however, when Max simply took his shoes back and said "Tubular" to mock them before heading towards the door with Dani. The siblings ran to the exit of the house but Dani stopped on the way there. "Max! I want to see her turn to dust!" She spoke in hatred for Winifred. However, not a moment after she'd spoken the young girl caught sight of the truck outside, its headlights shining into the house through colored paper. "Pump it!" She shouted before running with them to the car where Allison waited. The teenage girl had been whistling for them to come out and her breath had finally failed her as Max and Dani began to get into the truck. They had escaped, for now. The witches would soon realize that they had merely been tricked, but until then they could use that time to get to the cemetery where it would be more difficult for the sisters to- they heard a moan. No, it wasn't that simple; there was something else to it.

"What is that?" Allison requested as the voice repeated. It sounded sleepy, as if someone had just awoken after staying up late. They heard it coming from the forest, but could not tell from which direction it came. The wind blew, causing the leaves to tremble as the air grew cold, and a foul smell wafted over them. The humans covered their mouths and noses as Binx tried to ignore it and focus on where the sound was coming from. He knew that smell; it was the stench of death. Was it Billy Butcherson, the man Winifred had revived from the dead to chase after them? No, his mouth had been sown shut, and it didn't sound like him. Then who could it be?

"Max, we have to get out of here before the witches get up!" Dani told him, getting in the truck. "You're right, Allison get in." Dani moved over to allow Allison to enter, but as she did someone stumbled out of the forest. His clothes were heavily faded, and his skin was pale. His hair lay matted upon his head and he stood with a slouch. It was as if someone had left him in a cramped dumpster full of sewage. His eyes, though, were the most terrifying aspects about him; they didn't see. The group of adolescents saw his eyes moving about, as if scanning for something, but the milky white orbs didn't seem to register anything they spotted. He looked dead.

The man caught sight of Allison, and he moaned louder as he began to limp towards her, his arms outstretched. The teenager didn't know what to do; should she help him or get in the truck so that they could run away? The decision was too hard to make and by the time she had decided, he was upon her, bashing the girl into the side of the truck. His blistered hands grasped at her shoulders through her sweater as she tried in vain to push him away. The rot that permeated from him was breathed onto her face from his decaying mouth as he bit at her.

"Get off of her!" Max yelled as he got out of the truck and began to run around it to help her. "Max, help me!" She pleaded as her strength began to fade. Stinking drool dripped from his mouth onto her shirt as his teeth grew ever closer. Just as they began to rake against her skin Max grabbed the man from behind and threw both himself and the psychopath to the ground. Allison leaned against the truck, holding the area of her neck that the man had almost bit into. Max started to get up from the ground, but their attacker was quicker, moving with the instinct and ferocity of an animal. He lunged onto Max, but the teenager managed to get his feet under his assailant and pushed him away. Stumbling, the psychotic man reared around and started towards Max again. Once more he began to raise his feet, but they got caught on a root and he could do nothing but raise his arms to defend himself as the cannibal drew closer.

The air filled with electricity, arcing in impossible patterns through the early morning air before the murderous man stiffened and fell to the ground, now looking even more lifeless than he had before. Behind him, standing in the doorway, was Winifred Sanderson smiling evilly.

"Now that our little interruption has been silenced, prepare to meet thy doom!" She declared, her sisters drawing up behind her. The witches' control of the situation did not last long, however, before more moans echoed from the forest, this time from all sides. Max swallowed as he stood up and looked about the clearing. In the woods trees seemed to move, swaying about. It took a few moments before he realized, to his horror, that they weren't trees. Allison seemed shut off to the world as Dani peered out from inside the truck and caught sight of one entering the clearing. "Over there!" She yelled, pointing at the figure.

Winifred scowled and walked down the steps of the house and into the clearing. She raised her hands into the air and electricity erupted from her fingertips, shocking the recently-emerged form and stilling it as she had done the other. As it fell, though, two more entered from behind it, and as the focus fell upon the road nearby everyone spotted an approaching mob numbering in the dozens. "What are they?" Dani yelled as Winifred drew back from the edge of the clearing. "Such fiends; they are scuttling out like a pack of rats!" Winifred remarked. The group's attention was drawn back to the house as Sarah shouted, recoiling from the cannibal who had risen from his place on the ground. "Uh, Winny?" Mary called after their sister as the two drew into the house. Winifred marched towards the figure and electrified it again, this time making him smoke before he fell to the ground.

Their previous plight momentarily forgotten, Binx shouted for everyone to get inside the house as yet more shapes began to wander out of the woods. Max began to run towards the house but noticed that Allison had not moved, he grabbed her hand and led the dumbstruck teenager towards the steps as Dani and Binx did the same. Their gazes drew down as Winifred repeatedly shocked the original attacker who was still trying to rise. Smoke rose from his charred body but his moaning and groaning never once ceased.

"Winny!" Sarah called after her sister, causing the eldest to look about the clearing and see far more approaching bodies than she would be able to deal with. She nudged the downed person with her shoe, pushing him into the bushes before marching up the steps and into the house, where her sisters closed the door behind her.

"What's going on here?" Max demanded of them as Mary placed a long plank of wood in the catches on either side of the door. "What did you do?"

"Don't get your knickers in a twist! This is not my magic!"

The hungry calls of the gathering mob outside the house wafted in through the tiny cracks of the building as Sarah clung to her larger sister, Mary. "Is there a spell in that book that can stop them?" Binx requested. "The dead raised by the spells in my book are not so barbaric, as I informed you buffoons, it is not my doing." As Max began to make more allegations, Allison seemed to return to the world and grabbed his shoulder. "They're zombies!" She told him, causing the group to grow quiet. "These… things aren't the voodoo servants from old legends; they're undead, cannibalistic creatures from modern zombie films. There might not be anyone responsible for them."

"Then what are we going to do? We can't just stay here forever and hope they'll go away." Max responded.

"In the movies they usually stayed dead if you destroyed their brains, but I don't even know if that would work. Besides, we don't have a way to do that."

"So-" Max cut himself off as he realized the sisters were no longer near the door. "Where did they go?" The group looked around before hearing the sisters squabbling upstairs. As they walked towards the steps they caught sight of Mary holding the long wooden spoon used for the cauldron and poking it out the window. "It won't reach." Mary told Winifred. "Give that to me! You're not doing it right!" The eldest sister snatched the object from Mary's grasp and began jabbing at the zombies' heads down below. Binx narrowed his eyes, finding it difficult to remember how these witches could be so threatening. "Is there any possibility that will work?" He asked Allison, to which she replied "Not a chance."

Winifred glanced down at them and then scowled, snapping her head back at her youngest sister. "Sarah! I told you to keep them busy!" She scolded. "Keep who busy?" Sarah asked with genuine curiosity. Winifred sighed at the futility of her attacks on the undead as well as Sarah's prevalent stupidity and drew the spoon back inside the house. "So be it. I will have to find another way to dispatch them." She thrust the spoon back into Mary's hands and stomped off.

Shaking their heads, the group down below walked back to the main area and got some dusty, cobwebbed chairs to sit on as they thought of what to do. "There isn't any way that we're getting out of here without having to destroy at least some of them." Binx explained. "Since we don't know how long they will wait for us outside we can't simply be patient and wait this out. And let's not forget, the witches upstairs still have not used their potion; they will be desperate to obtain life force before the sun comes up, which will not be long now."

Max looked at the cauldron and the glowing green potion within it. If he hadn't already been weighed down by the gravity of the situation he probably would have tipped it over. Still, as he gazed into the green pool within he couldn't help but think they'd forgotten about something.

"Come on, man! Let us out! What's going on out there?" One of the imprisoned teenagers spoke, apparently having run out of patience. Everyone gazed up at them and eventually it was decided that they should let the jerks out; in a situation like this you needed all the people you could possibly have to help. They opened the gibbets and let the two fall out of their cages onto the dusty floor, coughing as they inhaled some of it. "What- *cough* what is going on out there, man?" The long-haired one asked. "Zombies; they've risen from the dead and they've surrounded the house." Allison explained. The same guy, a blonde guy named Jay, laughed as he started to get up.

"Yeah, right."

When no one said anything by the time he had righted himself the teenager began to doubt his initial cynicism. "You're kidding, right?" He asked, to which Allison responded by nodding towards a window.

"See for yourself."

Jay and Ice fought to get in front of the window before they decided to get their own and saw with their own eyes that what Allison had said was the truth. Jay backed away from his window, pushing his hands through his hair. "Whoa, man, this is heavy." He spoke in disbelief. Ice continued to look until a charred hand smacked on the glass and grasped against it, causing him to recoil. The hand drew back and struck against the window. With a pop it fell off and both Ice and the zombie looked at the area its hand had been attached to before it seemed to grow angry and sneered at him.

"Holy crap!"

"Told you."

Jay walked over to the group of sitting people in the middle of the room. "Alright, so what are we gonna do here, man? I mean, you've gotta have like a… like a plan or something!"

"There weren't that many zombies gathering outside my house in Los Angeles." Max retorted.

"Well we can't just stay in here with those freaky witches, dude!"

On the second floor they heard Winifred curse and stomp, shaking dust from the ceiling down onto Jay's head and causing him to cough once more. Max began to put his old pair of shoes on that he'd taken from Ice, which the larger teenager noticed. "Hey!" Max finished tying the shoes and tossed him the used pair he'd been wearing during the night.

"Alright, then we just wait here until they go away, right?" Jay asked.

"We can't do that, who knows how long they'll wait outside for us?" Binx responded.

Jay stared at him wide-eyed before looking at various faces. "Did that cat just talk man?"

"Calm down, we can't think if you won't stop talking." Max told them.

"I'm kind of freaked out, alright?"

"We all are; first the witches and now this… but we need to think about this; arguing won't accomplish anything." Allison spoke, trying to diffuse the situation. Jay turned around and walked away, once again running his hands through his hair as he paced back and forth.

"And I thought we were scared." Dani muttered.

Suddenly Jay came to a stop and spun around, facing back towards the group. "Wait, I've got it; there's this guy I know, kind of crazy, but he's totally hooked up with guns and stuff. He used to be in the military but he got kicked out. He's one of those conspiracy dudes. He'd know what to do."

"What are you, kidding? We're not going to just stroll across town to put our lives in the hands of some creepy psycho. Even if it was a good idea, we can't get out of the house."

Jay's temporary optimism vanished and he shook his head, thinking again despite how hard it probably was for him to do so.

"If only we had some kind of clue; something to help us think of a way out of this." Max thought out loud.

All of a sudden there was a loud crunch as part of the first floor ceiling gave way and Sarah's legs fell through the hole in the aged floorboards. "Watch where you walk, you dolt!" Winifred scolded the youngest sister. Her bare legs kicked about beneath the dress she wore, her untied shoes somehow staying on. Jay and Ice began drifting towards the area beneath the hole, but Sarah was pulled up out of it before they could get a peak at anything else. Allison rolled her eyes at the behavior as Max said "That wasn't exactly what I had in mind." However, a few moments later Allison moved forward in her chair, thinking. "Wait, this house is really old, right?" Max shrugged and said he thought so even though she was merely making a statement. "Lots of these old houses were mills in the wilderness. During the winter they didn't want to have to go out to a storage shed to get supplies so they built storage spaces beneath their houses. Sometimes they even had short escape tunnels in case the house caught on fire."

Jay and Ice immediately started searching for anything that looked like a panel or hatch, soon the others joined in on the search. Eventually they discovered a floorboard that was much larger than the others beneath a bookcase and decided they would have to move it. "Should we tell the witches about this?" Allison whispered. They glanced back at the staircase. "They do still likely want to use the potion to take the life force from children." Binx offered. "Besides, dying as a result of their time running out will probably be less painful than being eaten." Max added.

"Well, well, it seems our stout right heroes have brewed a bit of deceit themselves." A voice chided them from the top of the staircase. Winifred descended the steps, her sisters right behind her. "Thou art not as good and pure as thee thought. No matter; I will leave you to scurry through your burrows… sisters!" At Winifred's command her younger siblings veered off, Sarah grabbing their brooms and Mary drew aside the wooden block in front of the door. "But scurry quickly, lest ye become a ghastly ghoul's delicious dinner!" She grabbed the most appropriate broom from Sarah's hands and opened the door of the house, zapping the nearest zombie with electricity before flying off into the night. Mary followed shortly thereafter on a vacuum cleaner. The adolescents' attention was drawn towards the cauldron as they heard a "plunk" sound, and Sarah finished sealing some of the potion in a vial before scampering to the door and flying off on a mop. The group shouted after them but had little time to dwell on the witches' selfless departure as the zombies could now enter the house.

Max called for Jay's and Ice's help in pushing the bookcase out of the way and, with some effort and kicked up dust, they managed to pull the heavy bookcase aside. Allison was instantly down on the floor and wiped away the dust near the revealed hatch's handle before smiling in relief and pulling it up. Hers, and everyone else's hope was extinguished, however, when they discovered that the passageway in which they intended to escape had caved in long ago. The mound of dirt that had buried their dreams symbolized their coming demise. Maybe the sisters had known about it and that was why they had not tried to use it earlier, or perhaps they had been unaware of it altogether. Regardless, those that remained in the house were left with a horde of flesh-hungry zombies to contend with and no escape.

"Come on, we need to close the door!" Max called while running towards the exit. But he was stopped as Binx told him "No! This may very well be the chance we've needed. The zombies are focused on where the sisters went after they flew off, and they're slow. If we run we may very well be able to avoid them. It's a blessing in disguise."

"What are you, crazy cat? I'm not going to play running back against a mob of zombies!" Ice argued.

"We either run or we lock ourselves in here and wait until they break through the door. And my name is not 'crazy cat' it is Binx."

They stood, deciding in silence. Eventually Max realized they didn't have time. "Binx is right; we need to get out of here while we can." Dani nodded, saying she was going to go wherever he went. "Allison, what do you think?" The girl asked. The teenager in question rose from the floor and nodded her approval before they all gathered near the door.

"All right, ready?" Binx asked. Though the answers weren't all agreeable, the consensus was made and they decided to regroup near the truck. They dashed out from the house, winding and weaving their ways around the zombies they encountered. At times they were mere inches from the ghouls' snapping teeth, but they quickly made their way towards the truck and Max leapt into the driver's seat as Dani, Allison and Binx got inside as well. Jay and Ice were trailing behind, having had to double back and with a gathering group of zombies chasing after them. "Where are we supposed to go, man?" Jay shouted as they sprinted towards the truck. Max pushed the car door open and leaned out to tell them to get in the bed of the truck. However, he had barely finished speaking before an unseen zombie tore him from the truck and threw him to the ground, grabbing at him in the dirt. Max shouted in fear and kicked at the monster as it grasped at his jeans but was unable to keep the creature from dragging its way up his legs. The dirty, cracked fingernails reached for his face as the undead ghoul's teeth snapped at him. It lurched forward; its teeth aimed at his neck, before it jolted to a stop and was pulled back down the teenager by Jay and Ice. They helped him up and he thanked them for the assistance as Dani shouted his name.

The rotting smell of death fell upon them as a zombie seemed to materialize out of nowhere, and bit Jay on the shoulder. Max jumped forward and pushed the zombie from the young man before getting in the truck and telling them to get in the back once more. They eagerly complied and as Max heard the bumping sounds of them climbing up into the bed, he closed the door and told them to hang on. The truck's wheels squealed as he drove around several zombies, and over several more. The crunching sounds combined with the bobbing up and down of the vehicle made him want to throw up, but they continued driving and were soon on the road away from the terrible place, and hopefully on the way towards somewhere safer.

I'm taking a slightly different writing approach with this story. Please tell me if you like it, dislike it, or haven't really noticed. Usual disclaimers. You'd think that a story based on a Disney movie might be a bad plot in which to put zombies, but if you think about it... for that very same reason what better plot is there? Ha. I'm trying to keep some Disney-esque humor in the story and hopefully Winifred's old English speak isn't too annoying. Please tell me what you think; this is kind of an experiment at the moment. Also, if anyone can think of a better name for the story, please tell me; this is just the best I could come up with.