Chapter 22
"End of a Beginning"
The next few days were torture. All I did was read, sleep, and eat. Toby and I found no substantial evidence that there was anyway to kill, or banish, or just get rid of the operator. Book after book nothing came up.
"I've seen him everywhere. I go to the grocery store. There it is. I go to my favorite Restaurant. It's there. I hope my sweet Y/N is doing okay at college. I hope it doesn't go after Y/N. She's my pride and joy. The only thing I have to live for. I will do anything to protect my girl. The last thing I want is her disappearing in the woods like so many other young people do. Sometimes I wonder why I haven't been taken with the rest of the poor people who have been. I still don't know what I'm doing right. What I do know though is that it'll kill me one way or another. I've heard that there's extra radiation in the woods. It's dangerous to live this close to the woods. Maybe that will be what kills me."
When there was nothing to read on the page I stopped. Toby wrote in our notebook. It was nearly full already. I threw my head back onto the armrest of the couch and groaned. "We're never going to get out of this mess." Toby looked over to me and pulled my leg to get me upright. "Read the next one, we only have a few more." I sighed, and flipped the next page.
"September 12th, 2017. I learned something new this week. I have to tell Y/N when I see her next, if only she wasn't so busy with school." My words picked up their pace as I read the next few lines.
"The forest caught on fire this past weekend. Some kids were camping and didn't put the fire out. The fire got pretty close to my house, I was lucky it didn't reach my house. Anyways, for the whole week that fire has been raging, I haven't seen that monster. I think it's scared of fire."
I threw the book down and let a yell of victory out. "Woo hoo! We did it!" Toby let a sigh of delight out. I jumped up and spun around. I grabbed Toby's wrist and pulled him up into a big hug. I wrapped my arms around him. He tensed up, but eventually returned the hug. His arms formed a cocoon around me. "We did it." I mumbled into his chest. Toby's hands ran up and down my back, as his hands brushed over my hair. "We did."
"I can't believe it." I pulled away from the hug, and held onto his shoulders. "We actually did it!" Toby looked at me, he looked like he had never been hugged before. I pulled him in for one more hug. My arms wrapped around his neck. "All thanks to you." Toby said. He smelt like a campfire, and cinnamon.
I pulled away, for real this time. "What first? Do we need to buy gasoline, or a lighter?" Toby laughed, and shook his head. "Not yet. We need a plan." I nodded along with his words. "We need to be sneaky. Who knows how many monsters live in that forest." I looked over to Toby, he gave me an unamused look. "Right! You do."
I pushed him back down onto the couch. "Start writing." I demanded. "How many people does he have under his control?" Toby shrugged. "Who knows. I do know who you should be wary of though." I nodded.
For the next two hours Toby and I went over who I should be afraid of, and where I'm likely to run into them. Jeff, Natiley, Tim, Brain. The list goes on and on. The biggest threat was of course the operator. He was everywhere. If we didn't do this right then we would most certainly be dead.
We planned where we would start the devastation. I would drive down to the town over, we would find a recluse part of the forest, and start trailing gasoline throughout the forest. We would bring camping gear, so that I could have a reason to be in the forest in the first place.
"I think that's it." Toby said, he looked over at me and smiled, his scar moved with his cheek. "What about you?" He raised an eyebrow at me. "What about me?" I turned to face him. "What are you going to do after this whole thing is over? You're kinda a criminal." He realized what I was saying, and looked away from me to think. "I don't know. Maybe I could go by a different name. I was thinking, William." He looked at me with starry eyes. I laughed and quickly shook my head. "No way!" He smiled. "Why not?" I started laughing again, it was uncontrollable. "You are definitely not a William."
"You don't know me." He laughed. "Then tell me who you are." He gave me a weird look. "Who was your first girlfriend?" His face immediately flushed. "Don't tell me you've never dated before. Or is it really that bad?" He quickly shook his head. "I've had a girlfriend before."
"Then who was she?" I raised my brows, ready for a story. He sighed and leaned back. "You know that girl Natiley I told you about?" I gasped, and covered my mouth with my hand. "No way. You dated the freaky clock girl?"
I fell back laughing. He whacked my shoulder to get me to shut up. "Hey! She is not freaky." I flung myself back up, and held tightly onto Toby's shoulders to stop from falling over. "You still like her? Oh my god you do!" He shook his head quickly, he held onto my elbows to keep me from wobbling off the couch. "No, I do not."
"You so do!" I giggled. "I'm not in elementary anymore, it's not like that." I scooted in closer to him. "Then what is it like, hmm?" He looked away. "Nothing." I nodded and hummed my lips together. "I knew I was right."
As we talked about Nataliey my stomach hurt. I didn't know why I felt like this. I would mentally cringe every time I talked about her. I quickly realized something. If anyone was crushing on anyone it was me crushing on Toby like I was a school girl.
"Let's go somewhere, to celebrate." I looked over to Toby. "We could get ice cream." I grabbed Toby and pulled him up. He looked down at me and finally smiled at me again. "Yeah, let's get some ice cream."
We walked up to the ice cream parlor. Loud music screamed from the small ice cream shaped building. He grabbed my arm and we walked up to the stand together.
By the time we had gotten our ice cream I knew there was a problem. The energy of the place had shifted. Clouds filled the sky, and a sharp breeze filled the area. Toby grabbed my ice cream, and started eating his, it was chocolate. "Are you okay?" Toby said, as he licked his ice cream. "I don't know, somethings just off." I licked my ice cream, and looked around. I looked around, and Toby followed my gaze.
Suddenly it hit him. I turned to face him, he looked pale, and sick. I looked around, everyone that had been around us before was gone.
"What's going on?" I moved closer to Toby. He looked around suspiciously. "I won't let them hurt you." Toby whispered. I quickly looked at him. "Let who hurt me? Are your friends here?" My head snapped around trying to find anyone. "I wouldn't call them friends." Toby wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close.
"Where are they?" I looked around and still couldn't find them. Toby grabbed my head and turned it to a bush I had looked over a million times. I only saw half of a head, staring right at me.
It was a girl, she had brown shaggy hair. "Are there anymore?" I looked back at Toby and he slowly nodded. Then another head popped out from the bush. My heart dropped when I saw his pale white skin, and his scars. Jeff, was that his name? The guy who I ran over. This couldn't be good.
"We could run for it. I'm a pretty fast runner." He quickly shook his head. "Sometimes you make me wonder how someone so smart could be so dumb at the same time." I scoffed. "Sometimes I wonder how someone so nice could be so mean." He laughed, despite our situation. "I'm far from nice."
I looked back at the bush. The girl had crawled out of the bush. She didn't look very happy. Suddenly I saw it. She had a clock in her right eye. I gasped. "Oh my god, that's your ex!" I spoke a little too loud, Toby put his hand over my mouth to shush me.
"Be quiet, they might hear us." I looked back at Toby. "Maybe she's here to win you back." I laughed, and he quickly shook his head. "We didn't end on good terms." Jeff stepped out of the bush and stood by Natiley. "That's a story for later."
Toby grabbed me, and spun me around, until I was facing with my back towards him. "You said you were a good runner, so run." Toby shoved my back to get me a head start. I turned back to Toby. "What about you?" My face crossed with worry and he brushed it off. "I'll be fine, just go!"
I pushed down my worry, and started running. The wind flew through my hair. I could hear heavy footsteps behind me. I looked back and saw Jeff not far behind me. Flashbacks of him choking me popped into my head. I felt like I was going to throw up.
This was not the time for that. I pushed them back, and continued running. I saw my car in the distance. Relief washed over me. "Get back here you bitch!" Jeff yelled. I looked back again, he was even closer. "You're going to pay for what you did to me!"
I remembered running his foot over. He was going to get me. I looked ahead, and there my car was, only a few steps away. He wasn't going to get me. I ran as fast as I could, and reached my hand out to my car door.
My hand wrapped around the door handle, and I was finally free. Until my breath was stolen from me, and I was slammed against my door.
I was facing him again, his smile crossed against his face. "Finally. Do you know how long I've waited for this?" I fought against him, my hands came up to his face and I clawed at his eyes. "Get off of me!" I tried to push him off of me, but failed. "You crushed my foot! I was tortured for weeks!"
"Deal with it!" I screamed at him, and stomped on his foot. His face scrunched up in pain. He let go of me for a second, then his tight grasp wrapped around me again, and slammed me back into the door. I screamed out in pain.
Jeff wrapped his arms around my neck, just like he had before. "I'm gonna get rid of you this time." He squeezed my neck tightly, so that I couldn't breathe. "Get-" I stopped to take a big breath. "Off." My voice rasped. A smile fell over his face again. "What was that? I couldn't hear you." His grip tightened. How long has it been?
I shoved at his shoulders. My eyes got watery as I scraped at his eyes trying to get him to let go. I kicked and punched, but nothing happened. I tried screaming out for Toby, but nothing came out.
My vision got blurry and it was hard to see. "Don't resist Y/N, the operator cant wait for you to be out of his way." I started clawing at his hands to no avail.
My legs got wobbly and my brain felt fuzzy. Suddenly I could breathe again. I took a gasp of air, and looked up to Jeff. He was smiling down at me. "This is fun Isn't it? Are you ready to go to sleep?"
Maybe it was the lack of oxygen, or maybe I'm truly going crazy but I wasn't going to let him kill me.
I looked down at his arms. They were still wrapped around my neck. I quickly leaned down and bit his arm, as hard as I could. He stumbled back and screamed out. "You're fucking crazy!" He held onto his wrist, blood was smeared across his arm. I wiped my mouth of any excess spit or blood.
"You haven't seen crazy yet." I grumbled, and pushed him back away from me. "You'll regret this, I swear, just wait." He screeched.
I jumped into my car and immediately started it. I pulled it out of the parking lot, just missing Jeff's foot. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Toby running. I was mesmerized, he was really fast. I quickly rounded the corner and sped towards Toby.
When Toby met the car, I stopped, and he hopped in. He wasn't in any better shape than I was. He had scratches and gouges all over his body. I looked out the window and saw Natily limping away. "I'm seriously bringing my gun with me next time, everywhere." I glared out the window at Natiley.
"I'm counting on it."