SOTC: Ghost Town by Adam Lambert
• Walked into the flames, called out your name. There was no answer •
We found a house close by. I turned to Kee as she stuck a bobby pin into the lock. "Are you..." I trailed off, trying to phrase my sentence so it wouldn't be offensive or unearth ugly memories, like back when we were talking about Terminus before we got here.
"I'm fine," she gulped. Her words came out strong, despite the ghostly paleness to her cheeks. I wouldn't have noticed it before, but there was a sheath of tortoiseshell-mottled skin visible just beyond her orange-plaid collar. She'd done a good job at keeping it secret, buttoning the shirt up all the way up and never exposing any skin up from her ankles. Her eyes had crescents under them, accentuated when she laughed or smiled. She never let the desperation flare up in her gaze, it was always quietly masked.
"Okay," I remarked, kicking the door inward. It flew around its hinges and banged against the wall, and I gasped when the sound of a gun cocking resounded five inches from my nose.
Enid's eyes widened. "Oh, hi." She lowered the gun and shift-smiled at Kee. "Come in, before the wolves do."
Wolves? I asked her what they were, and she told me they were the intruders that had ravaged the town.
"But... how did they get in?" I pushed the door closed behind us. Kee went up to the couch and collapsed, curling into the crook of its embrace.
"I dunno," Enid said. She set the gun down on the coffee table. "I've been hanging out here for the past few hours."
I sat on the sofa next to Kee. The cushion sucked me into the springs, as if it were a vacuum cleaner. Enid got the remote control and pressed play.
The screen reanimated an old cartoon, with a scruffy coyote huffing and puffing in the roadrunner's dust. He pulled a phone out of his fur and dialed a number, and then the scene switched to him trotting around a box marked ACME. I brought my feet onto the couch as Enid switched off the lights. Wile E. Coyote sniggered and licked his lips.
Kee was smiling. The lights played across her eyes like strings of Christmas LEDs. Then she looked at me, grin still playing on her face. Maybe she was forgetting about the death contract threading through her bloodstream. I sure hoped so. Perhaps her last few hours... No, don't think that way, Carl. Don't cry. Don't let her see how much she's hurt you.
Ø Ø Ø
Blood dripped down her cheek. I watched it all happen, at a distance, unable to help, yet so close as to see the panic welling up in her eyes. She squeezed them shut, tears growing sticky on her cheeks. An invisible force threw itself against her: she cried out in pain and struggled with the chains cinched around her ankles and wrists.
"Let her go!" I screamed, but the thing wrapped around my words and swept them away. "Please," the meek whisper barely passed my lips.
She winced as a web of bloody scabs trailed across her shoulder and around her neck.
It began to strangle her.
Ø Ø Ø
The knocking was what jarred me out of the violent depths of dreamland. Kee sat up from her position curled up into my legs. "Who's that?" She growled, standing and heading over to the door. After looking through the peephole, she nodded and began to work at the lock.
I unfurled my numbed legs and surveyed the room, noting that the TV had been cut off and Enid was nowhere to be found. Then my arms brushed a notecard perched on the armrests of the sofa.
Shit. That had to be Enid. And Enid wouldn't drop a random piece of advice like this unless she was gone for good.
The door creaked open, revealing Dad with his finger itching at the trigger of his holstered gun. Relief flooded across his face as he recognized mine. "We have to go," he rasped. "The group has gathered in the house."
I took a deep breath and ran out, tucking the note into my back pocket to show Kee later. The morning sunlight invaded my retinas, thankful that it was blinding me from the corpses strewn across the road. My vision cleared, revealing the body of the wolf that Kee killed yesterday, red blotting out the asphalt below him. There was still a clear canyon in his neck, the remains of his head snarling and flicking his yellowed eyes around. Flies picked at the rotting carnage.
Kee rushed into the street and pushed the knife into his head, closing her eyes as she walked back to me. She thought that it would be her in a few days.
No. No, that can't happen, I tried to reassure myself, It's gonna be okay. It'll be okay. Okay okay okay.
She didn't say a word, to Dad or even me. What was going through her head? And how about why she wasn't telling him about the bite?
We reached the house, and Kee immediately shut herself into the upstairs bathroom. I could comfort her. But... If she wanted me she would've asked.
I paused before my knuckles could tap against the door. She wants privacy... But she has only a day or two until it's all over... STOP IT CARL.
I knocked. She flung open the door, red cheeks and blotchy eyes. "What do you want?" She spit with a pain to her voice.
"Do... Do you need anything?" I whimpered.
She wrapped her arms into a knot. "No."
Then she shut the door.
My fingers floated an inch from the wood. I wanted to call back wait! but it was too late, for her, for me, for us. I fell against the wall opposite and fell face-first into my knees. Sobs racked my throat and dropped into the frayed threads of my jeans.
It won't be long until she's gone, and then I'll have no one left.
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A/N: well here's a new chappie! Filled with remorse and pity! Hope y'all liked it lmaoooo
QOTD: Are you wearing socks right now?
AOTD: Why yes, I am. How did you know?
QOTD: I'm the one asking the questions here, buddy.
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Word count:
1079
Created 3-26-16
Edited 3-29-16