The Dark Place (#FrightFest2016 Gold Winner)

The Dark Place - Chapter Two

Chapter Two

1

The four girls lazed around in the hay bales at the back of the old barn. Fourteen-year-old Amanda Sheen had spent the whole of the last term looking forward to having six weeks away from school. Now, just one week into the summer holiday she was already fed up. Even in the shade of the barn, she felt sticky and uncomfortable; the thin cotton of her short, floral-print dress clinging to her like a damp second skin.

She drew deep on her cigarette and suffered the burning sensation as smoke travelled down her parched throat and into her lungs. Her eyes started to water and a wave of nausea swept through her, but still Amanda managed to suppress the coughing fit that built up inside her and swiftly passed the cigarette on to the next girl. Penny Stevens shook her head, then closed her eyes and lay back against the hay bales with her arms behind her head.

"Go on, take it you silly bitch." Amanda laughed huskily, still fighting the choke in her throat. "It's not like it's going to kill you or anything."

"Really?" Penny said idly without opening her eyes. "Well, that's not what the warning on the box says."

"Stop being such a coward. Everyone knows they only put that there to frighten kids."

"Well, in this case, they've succeeded." With this Penny rolled over, turning her back to the other girls.

"Look, just leave the cry baby alone and give it here," giggled Sarah Wilmot, "I'll have a go if she won't."

Amanda sat up and handed the cigarette to the slim, pale-skinned redhead who lay to the left of her. She watched transfixed as Sarah drew on the filter and swallowed the smoke, then released it through her nose without even blinking. For a moment she wasn't sure which of her friends she admired more, Penny for not allowing herself to be dragged into taking part, or Sarah for assimilating the habit so quickly. Then the answer came to her. She didn't admire either. How could she? It was their job to admire her After all, she was their leader.

"Sometimes you can be such a lame duck Penny," Amanda said as she reclaimed the cigarette from Sarah and let another flood of smoke into her lungs. Automatically, Amanda regretted the action but tried her hardest not to let it show. "Go on, just give it a go." She said, handing it to Penny again

"No. I said I don't want to!"

"Don't be such a baby." Amanda chided.

 "Pass it up here." Wendy Jones called from her perch on one of the higher bales. "Who wants to live forever anyway?"

"I didn't say that I wanted to live forever, but I at least want to make it to fifteen." Anger had crept into Penny's tone.

"God, Penny." Wendy yawned as she claimed what was left of the cigarette from Amanda. "If you believe all the shit you read you'd never do anything."

"Look, I'm not smoking it and that's that," Penny shouted, jumping up. "Get used to it okay?"

Wendy took a long drag on the filter and released a cloud of smoke in Penny's direction. "Oh well, all the more for us then."

"Yeah, that's right, all the more for you. Just don't come crying to me when you're all dying of lung cancer."

"Don't worry, we won't." Sarah giggled, snatching the smouldering remains from Wendy.

Amanda watched as Penny slowly sauntered over to the huge barn door. Her long dark hair flowed down her back, past the waistband of her short-cut jeans. Even after laying down in the hay it didn't look the least bit disordered. Amanda was jealous. Her mousy, shoulder length, extremely unmanageable hair was one of those gifts from her mother's side of the family. She knew that she shouldn't really knock her mother's genetic makeup; after all, that was where her elfin features came from, but she would gladly kill for hair like Penny's.