Maddie Thann Test Chapter

I story about werewolves I'm working on.

*Warning graphic language*

Maddie Thann

Free falling into the Abyss

Draft_2

By: Chase L. Currie

 

(1)

 

Maddie sighed deeply, looking over at the late hour of the night. She sat up in her bed pulling her boots back on. She glanced at the phone seeing a text message from George with the address. She would have to get an Uber; she didn’t want to wake Grayson up. She didn’t want Grayson to go at all. She was home, Charlotte was her home, and most of all, she was running to help George. It was her turn to take care of him for all those times he kept her safe.

                “Where you are going?” Grayson asked, looking over his shoulder.

                “Out for a bit,” Maddie said.

                “What you mean out for a bit?” Grayson questioned tossing off the blanket and climbing out of bed. “We need to be moving on soon.”

                “We have time,” She hissed back, picking up the leather jacket. “The spells are holding.”

                “Not for too much longer,” Grayson said.

                “Then we’ll move on before they faded,” she said, heading for the door, but Grayson grabbed her arm.

                The fire blew in her eyes with her snarling at him. “Where are you going?” He asked calmly again.

                She yanked her arm free and growled, “George needs me.”

                “What?” Grayson almost shouted, but he kept his voice low, and the rage still boiled over. “I knew it. I knew once you saw him you would want to stay around for him. He is not your friend anymore, Maddie, and you can’t keep him. You’ll get him killed if you do.”

                “I’m not going to keep him,” she snarled back. “And he is not coming with us, he just needs my help right now.”

                “What if Trent finds you while you are with him?” Grayson asked. “The pack is coming for us.”

                “It one night, Grayson, that is all,” Maddie said. “I’m going to help him.”

                “Then I’ll go with you,” Grayson said, looking for a shirt and his keys.

                “No.”

                “No?” He asked, shocked at the word, almost wound at the sounds, but the angry was quickly overshadowing all of it.

                “I don’t want you to come,” Maddie said, crossing her arms. “I can handle it myself.”

                “Can you now?” Grayson said, letting his voice rise.

                “Yes,” she barked, stepping close to him to stare up at his face. “You know I can, and I will unless you want me to prove it again.”

                “Don’t push it,” Grayson hissed down at her. Maddie might be one of the best bawlers Grayson had seen in years, but he wasn’t known for backing down. He had no problem going a few rounds with her if it came down to it. His fist clenched with the rage tapping into his blood.

                “I’m going,” she said softly, glancing down at his fists. “Please, let me do this.”

                “Why do you want to?”

                She shrugged a little, looking away from him. “I don’t know. It feels like old times. It nice to see George again.”

                “You still love me, him?” Grayson asked holding his head up high.

                “I do,” Maddie said with a slight nod. “I would have ended up with him if �"“

                “The pack didn’t find you,” Grayson said.

                “Right,” Maddie said, “if we didn’t become monsters.”

                “Remember that, Maddie,” Grayson said, “we are monsters now, and George is not. Let him have a normal life.”

                “I will,” Maddie said, feeling her phone go off in her hand. “He needs my help is all.”

                “Be safe,” Grayson said, heading back to bed, “Call me if you need me.”

                “I’ll let you know when I’m on my way back,” Maddie said, opening the door with Grayson grunting at her. He rolled back over trying his best to close his eyes and go back to sleep. Sleep wouldn’t come for him after his sister had left. He would rise early in the morning feeling the urge to go pay his respect to the dead.

                Maddie jumped in the Uber with the long hair boy smiling up at her. He turned in his seat and with a smooth voice, asked, “Are you sure you want to go there, ma’am? It's not the best neighborhood this time of night.”

                Maddie smirked, wanting to say, “Trust me, I’m worse than any of those monsters,” but told the man to drive. He nodded and then pulled away. She stared out the window of the sleepy city watching lights race by. Odd, how most cities at night all looked the same, and Maddie had seen her fair share of cities all over the world. She traveled more in her life then she had ever dreamt, guess that’s why they called us the Wandering Pack. She hated traveling now, but her life was nothing more than moving to one place to the next with no place to call home. She missed having a home.

                The Uber driver pulled up to the CVS, letting Maddie getting out with a warning to be safe. She smiled back at the guy thinking he is sweet but thank god I’m not hungry. She stood in the parking lot staring at the CVS thinking back to the night her life had changed forever. It was the night she met Trent and the pack.

                One car sat in the lot with a George hanging out of his driver's side throwing up all over the ground. She raced to him, holding on to him with George mumbling, “The Long Man, I saw him, he is coming, the Long Man.

                “Come on, come on,” she said, helping him to the back seat. “Let’s get you back to your room.”

                She jumped into the driver seat, pulling the car out of the parking lot. “Are you okay back there?”

                “Yeah.”

                “Did I ever tell you how about the last time I took that s**t?”

                “No.”

                “Well, it is one hell of a story,” Maddie said.

 

(2)

 

Maddie stood in the aisle of some CVS on some road in the middle of nowhere, staring at the purple box of cold medicine. The bold red heart hung halfway off the edge of the box while the other side of the heart was lost in the nothingness. The purple box beside the red heart told the reader of all the things the little reddish pills will do in the case of taking them, stop fevers, coughs, and dealing with the world. Maddie knew if she took more than four of the pills, she could get high from the drug, she was planning on taking the whole box, which was somewhere around twenty-four all together.

                It’s going to be a good time, the Long Man said. It wasn’t the first time Maddie took a hand full of pills, some she knew what they were, but other she had no idea.

                She twirled her dirty blonde hair dyed a deep green between her fingers, staring at the box. She needed to dye her long hair again before the roots started to leak back through. She hated her natural color; it reminded her too much of her mother, a mother who packed up her things and disappeared into the night leaving her and her brother with a drunk for a father. Her father reminded her all the time how much she looked like her mother, and he did it with vile enough to make the devil dance in glee. It didn’t seem fair she had to deal with her old man in that kind of state. It didn’t seem right she had to share any kind of resembles to her b***h of a mother.

                She wanted to hate her mother, and maybe, there was a part of her that did, but by God, she couldn’t hate her with all her soul. She understood why her mother ran away far more than she would like to admit to any living soul. She sometimes told the dark of the night how much she wished her mother would have taken her, but she couldn’t leave Grayson. He was barely holding himself together as it was, but she couldn’t take it anymore. She was running away in her own way.

                I understand you, mom, it’s why she couldn’t hate her mother and not at this moment standing in the aisle of an over lighten CVS. She might have hated her more before now, but the hate gave way to a cold understanding. An understanding Maddie hated more than the fact her mother left them.

It would be a good time, the Long Man whispered to her again. You need a good time.

                She couldn’t have disagreed with the voice in her head about needing a breaking from all this s**t. She glanced around the store, no one was in there but her, and the employer who was hating night shift now didn’t seem to care about much of anything. The devil himself or God could have strolled into the store, and the old man who had smoked too much weed back in the day, along with dropping out and tunneling in, would do nothing more than bat an eye at them. Then he would go back to remembering the good old days where the acid was better, and the sex was free.

                Maddie sighed, not yet reaching for the box, but it was going to happen. She was going to take it for sure, but she hoped, somewhere deep down, the phone in her pocket would ring, that someone would call her, stop her, but no one did. And before she knew it, she was sitting in the bathroom room of the CVS, pulling the box open and dumping all the pills into her hand.

                She sat on the floor of the one stall restroom with the door locked, thinking to herself the old man upfront might not care about his job or his life, but he sure did like having a clean place to take a piss. The bathroom and its floor had to be the cleanest place she had ever sat down on before. She could have eaten anything off it without fear of getting sick.

                One of the pills did land on the floor, her tiny pale hands overflowed with the twenty-four escape hatches from her mind. “Kind of look likes Skittles, huh?” Dain said the first time they got high together before tossing them into his mouth with a wicked smile.

                They might have looked like candy, but they sure in hell didn’t taste like candy. The dry plastics ran down her throat making her almost gag from the amount she was trying to eat. It wasn’t the worse thing she had ever tasted, that was blowing her boyfriend, Adrian, who blew his load into her mouth the first time. And it was the last time she ever let any boy come in her mouth, but she now understood why they called it a blow job. The load shot to the back of her throat like someone was testing out a syringe. The utter shock and surprise of the shot almost made her throw up, but she fought back the gagging, making sure nothing happen. It might have been a little awkward to barf all over her boyfriend’s lap.

                The pills almost tasted equally as bad, but she didn’t seem to mind it as much. There was nothing dirty or wrong about swallowing a hand full of pills, even if there should have been.

                She knocked her head back to make sure all the pills went down, wishing she had brought a drink before going into the bathroom. Once everything had hit her stomach, she opened her eyes to her heavy army boots running her hands along her shoulders like she was trying to hug herself. She still wore her brother’s old leather jacket, the one with all the punk patches and the painted f**k you or f**k offs on it. He loved the old jacket, given to him by their uncle, who made sure the leather smelled of cigars. The smoking would kill him years later, and Maddie cried for days when they found out he killed himself before the throat cancer got him.

                  Grayson wore the jacket for almost a year until he joined the football team. Once he got on the team, and there was no way the coaches weren’t going to put her brother on the team. He was a giant, who liked to work out too much, hurt people other than her, but most of all loved reading Shakespeare. The football team needed someone who didn’t mind breaking a nose or an arm and did it with a smile. He couldn’t wear the jacket anymore, so she took it.

It looked better on you anyway, he would say all the time.

 

(3)

 

The tears wouldn’t stop raining on the shelves of the jacket as her head was buried in them. She was balled up against the wall crying for what seems like a lifetime. The tears brunt her eyes, jumping to their deaths free-falling from her shape jawline. She hated crying, then again, she guessed most people didn’t like crying, but she went out of her way not to let any emotions get out of hand. After her uncle died and her mother left, she vowed not to cry ever again. The vow was broken which only enrage her more, in turn, making her cry even harder. The tears were no longer drops of sadness born from the idea, no, it was an action racing through her mind now, but the tears were mixed with angry. She could no longer tell what she was crying over, was it being sad or angry?

                You have to get there, the Long Man said, before they kick in.

                Right, she nodded, climbing to her feet, rushing over the mirror to clean her face. The thick eyeliner around her dark blue eyes left tales of what had happened in the small bathroom. She snarled at the mirror hating her long nose and face using the butt of the pocketknife she always carried to smash the glass.

                Oh, seven years of bad luck.

                F**k your bad luck.

                The knife went back into her pocket; the box went into the trach, and she stormed out of the bathroom. She found a bottle of Dr. Pepper to buy, a drink her best friend George drank too much of and went to the counter to pay for it. She had learned a long time ago if you are going to steal something from a store it was best to buy something small while what you really came for hung out in your pocket, or in this case, my belly.

                The old man stared at her face for a moment taking the bottle to scan with shakenly hands. She couldn’t help but watch how much his hands rocked back and forth with her drink in it. If she opens it right after the old man got done holding it, it will explode everywhere.

                Come on, hurry up, they are going to kick in soon. Maddie had roughly about forty-five minutes before the acid in her stomach would eat away the coding around the pill flooding her body with the drug and shooting brain into the clouds like someone testing a syringe.

                “Ma’am,” the old hippie asked, “everything all right?”

                “A rough day is all,” Maddie said, trying not to wonder what this old man thought of her. Here she was standing in an oversized leather jacket with all sorts of profanities on it, a torn AC/DC shirt older than her, jeans which seem oddly new and dry rivers of makeup running down her face. He couldn’t see the big army boots which complete the outfit, but Maddie could care less; all she wanted to do was get the hell of the place.

                “If you need a smoke,” the hipper said with a wink of his eyes, “I can hook you up.”

                For a second, she went to say yes. A nice bowl would do some good to calm her nerves, but the weed wouldn’t do well mixing with the pills in her stomach. She did it once and spent the whole night sitting the bathroom throwing everything up while Grayson sat with her. After everything had escaped her stomach, she was then carried off by her brother to some bed in the house. She wasn’t sure where they were during the party, they jumped from house to house all night, but it didn’t matter because Grayson was with her. As long as Grayson was with her, then she was safe, and she could fall asleep anywhere.

                She wished Grayson was with her now, but it was better than he wasn’t for what she was about to do.

                “No, thank you, sir,” Maddie said, trying to smile, but the clock was ticking inside her. The hand of the clock was racing to flood her body with the drug. When the hand hit the mark on the clock two events were going to happen, one for sure, the drug will get released, but the other, which could happen or not, as she was going to need to retch everywhere. She didn’t always throw up but when she did it would come fast against her body.

                “If you feel like you need to vomit,” Dain explained, “then do so, and don’t fight it. Once, you vomit, you’ll feel a lot better.”

                She listened to him as if he was the wisest man she had ever met, and by God, he was right. All she hoped now was she wasn’t going to vomit all over this hippie’s counter.

                “You sure, little lady?” He asked, watching her count out the cash for the soda.

                “Yeah, man,” Maddie said with a nod sounding too much like Grayson for her taste. “Keep the change.” She grabbed the bottle rushing out to her old beat-up white car. She had no idea what kind of car it was other than a Ford and something Grayson and her dad keep going. They worked on together all the time; it was the only time their father smiled anymore. Maddie would sit outside listening to them joke with each other while working on all their old used cars until her dad would smile at her asking, “You want to get dinner started, my little dancer?”

                “Sure, Dad,” she would say, jumping to her feet and stepping into the house to cook dinner, taking the place of her mother.

                Her heart would jump for joy a bit, doing a spin when her dad called her his little dancer. She loved dancing, it was the only thing she had a passion for, and she could remember always being in the studio. Of course, like most people, she believed it was her mother who wanted her to learn how to dance, but she soon notices it was her dad who came and watched her show. It was her dad who kept paying for her dance lesson, even when things were tight. It was her dad; he wanted her to be a dancer, not her mother.

                She turns the key of the car being blasted by Pink Floyd ‘Wish you were here’ on the radio. She had it turn up loud enough not to hear herself think. She started off into the night with the song hugging her as the tears starting to row back down the black rivers on her cheeks.

 

(4)

 

 

The old white Ford rolled to a stop with Maddie hanging out the window, trying not losing everything in her stomach. She was letting her body throw up if it wanted too, but her body wasn’t ready to upload what needed to be uploaded. Halfway down the road to Tucker Town or the cliffs right off of the
Yadkin�"Pee Dee River Basin, reach all the way up from South Caroline, and before the dam where the water turns into Badin Lake, the pills hit hard.

She never knew why it was called Tucker Town, it just seems to be the name that it had always gone by, but it was a place in the back of the woods where foolish teenagers could jump off them into the water. The cliff was only about twenty feet high, and the cops always said it was unsafe. They would tell everyone people had died jumping into the water, but no one had learned the names of the dead, and for the most part, it was safe. It was safer than driving down the road high on cough medicine.

                The Coricidin broke loose into her blood racing up to her brain wrapping it around in a thick warm blanket. The warmth of this blanket shot up from her feet like fire racing up a tree, trying to reach for more air. It hit her toes making all her muscles tighten up all over her body, playing games with the lights cutting into the darkness. The light, bright white started to bend in her sight melting into a cold blue and then blowing up into a hellish red. She had to close one eye to keep driving even if the colors changing were fun to watch. She couldn’t hit a tree, get knocked only be found by a cop or someone else hours later.

                She couldn’t be found against a tree, but luckily for her, she was close to the cliffs. The car inched down the road may be taking a little too long to the pull off. There were no houses on the road, at least, from what she knew. She pulled the car over, trying her best to park far enough off the road not to get hit but not too far to get stuck, even if it didn’t matter.

                Maddie closed her eyes, trying to breathe with her heart jumping from the heat boiling in her chest. It felt like, “dying,” Dain would say, “why do we keep doing it?”

                “I have no idea,” She said to the night.

                She kept her eyes closed, but the blood rushing in her eyelids was making things worse. She could see the blood veins burning behind her eyes like worms of fire. She shook her head, making herself open her eyes, it was getting too much to keep them close, but at the same time, she had to fight to open them.

                Her eyes flew open after a few shakes staring up from the passage seat. She, at some point in time, had undone her seatbelt and was now lying across the seats. She took a deep breath telling herself either out loud or not, “I just need a moment. I’ll just need one moment before moving.”

                No, no, the Long Man said, petting her head, you have to get up. You must get to the cliff before someone comes by.

                “I’ll tell them �" I’m not feeling �" I’m sick, need a moment,” Maddie said, slowly losing her words, reaching up for the floating colors in her car. She couldn’t grab them, but she was close to getting one, and it made her smile every time.

                Get up, the darkness ordered her. She didn’t move for a moment, not sure if she could lift her body until the voice said, “Now.”

                 Maddie open the door, she wasn’t sure if it was the driver's side of the passage’s side, but either way, she was standing outside the car using it to help keep her upright. She stared out into the utter darkness of the woods keeping her from the cliffs. The trees move in the wind, but Maddie wasn’t sure the wind was blowing. She couldn’t tell if the night was still or not. She closed her eyes when the ghost wind raced by her knocking her to the forest floor. The wind hit her lightly, but she saw her body being ripped apart by it, slowly pulling her skin off her bones, and then chipping away at the white until there was nothing left.

                “No, no, no,” she started screaming, trying to shield herself from the wind, which might not have been there. She balled up on the forest’s floor, screaming, at least, she hoped she was screaming into her arms, but she couldn’t tell. She was outside of herself watching her crumble into dust on the ground among the dead leaves.

                This way, the oily idea whispered to her, pulling her eyes to the man standing on the railroad tracks, the halfway pointed to the cliffs. She glanced back to where she saw herself falling part; there nothing to see.

                Come on, I’m doing this for you, the Long Man with glowing red eyes and a Joker style smile reaching unnaturally to his ears said. A triangle was starting to come forth on his forehead with a C at each point on the inside of the orange walls. Maddie shook her head now, knowing who this dark idea was, a monster, created by George.

George was high on the same pills with them one night, but his mind wasn’t handling the drug well. He came wanting to climb under the bed to hide from the Long Man, and when they all turn their backs, George was gone. They raced around the house looking for him, praying and hoping he didn’t get out the house, but Maddie found him under the bed smiling from ear to ear. He garbed her pulling her under with him saying he was out there.

                “Who?”

                “The Long Man,” He said and said nothing more about it. She had to stay under the bed with him until he fell to sleep. But she didn’t mind being with George, with his miss-matched eyes, and they talked all night mostly about their dreams of days to come. He was going to be a great artist, and she was going to be a great dancer.  The next day when he picked her up from school, he handed her a detailed drawing of the Long Man, the very thing leading her to the cliffs.

 

(5)

 

There was no moon in the sky taken away by the darkness. It had died only to be reborn in a few days, but Maddie wouldn’t get to see it if everything went according to plan. There wasn’t much of a reason for it not to, no one was around, no one had called, and she was all alone on the cliffs staring into the pitch blackness. The only way to tell the difference between the oily water, land, and sky was the stars. The stars stared down at her, almost weeping for her not to follow the Long Man, but her mind was locked in a warm haze, unable to hear their cries.

                She took a deep breath looking down the cliff into the waters below. She couldn’t see the rocks down there, the one everyone jumped to miss, but she guessed it didn’t matter. She pushed some dust from the cliff losing sight of it in the night and then moved her boot a little close to the edge.

                Wait, wait, the Long Man said, you don’t want to mess up your brother’s jacket, that would be wrong.

                She glanced around the night with the shadows of the trees nodding to the nothing. She wanted to see the wicked smile again, those eyes, and the tattoo on the monster’s forehead, but he wasn’t there. The only thing she could find of him was the warmth of his touch and his grinning voice.

                “Right,” Maddie said to him, taking off the jacket slowly. The shelves seem to be a mile long with her pulling her arms free, but when they were free, she folded up the jacket. She ceremony sat it beside her feet and step ---

                Not the new jeans, the Long Man pointed out, you just brought them.

                “Yeah, right,” she nodded, looking down at the fresh blue jeans. She undid her belt shaking the tight jeans off her body realizing she still had her boots on. She slowly sat down moving to untie her boots hearing a break in the stillness. She shot her head back studying the wall of black waiting to see something move, but there was nothing. Nothing moved in the tranquil forest sitting in awe over her taking off her clothes.

                She felt the eyes of the trees on her like they were eyes of people watching and waiting.

                When nothing came forward in the dark, she went back to untie her boots. She slowly removed them, sitting them beside the jacket, taking off her sockets putting them in the boots, and then rubbed her feet for a moment. She needed to repaint her toenails and trim them a bit. Maybe, purple this time, she thought standing back up.

                Her legs moved closer to the water and before she stepped over ---

                Your shirt, the Long Man mumble, it was your father’s, yes? You should leave it for him.

                She pulled the shirt over her head, tossing it over the boots wishing she wore a bra; there seems to be a chill in the air. The coolness of the air made her n*****s stand on edge as her toes hung off of it. She glanced down at her body, that of a dancer, wondering if she was ever going to like her chest. She loved her legs, they were powerful, strong, and sexy, but her chest, it was --- lacking.

                I enjoy it, the Long Man said from nowhere.

                She didn’t close her eyes; she wasn’t ready to embed the darkness just yet. She looked up past the trees to the stars, the endless dancing angels. There were no lights out here to block out the stars, and she could see all of the Mikey Way, it made her smile. It made her wish Grayson was here to share in this moment before the Long Man took her. They shared everything with each other. They told each other every secret, every fear, everything. Some of the people she knew, she didn’t call them friends, but talked to them at school, thought her and Grayson were far too close to be siblings. Sure, they fought with each other, but at the end of the day, they had each other’s back. It was always been them versus everyone else. She liked to believe it happened when their mother left, but she knew they were always close, even before she walked away.

                They were close enough to each other that it became a problem with her boyfriends and some of his girlfriends. When it came to them, they would do anything for each other, even leave their lovers. It was only a matter of time before jokes and rumors got around town, they were West Virginia kind of brother and sister, but people can be cruel, and it was never liked that. They both understood one simple fact about life, they were family, and that meant they were always there for each.

                Maddie covered her face; not sure what crying would be like whacked out of her mind on pills and she didn’t want to find out. She didn’t want to cry, but she wished Grayson were here. She wished she knocked on his door in the middle of the night, telling him she couldn’t handle it anymore. She was done with life, with all the bullshit. She would hug him begging him to tell her it was going to be okay. Everything is fine, and life isn’t that bad, he would say half asleep.

                He would sit up with her while she uploaded all her thoughts and emotions until she passed out in his bed, and then he would pick her up, carry her back to her bed. In the morning, he would get her up for school with some eggs and bacon while she sat in her bed with a frown. After school was over, he would take her to get ice cream, the ice cream would make the day better, and life wouldn’t seem so bad.

                But she didn’t knock on his door. The Long Man got to her before she could find Grayson. He sat beside her in the car ride home after work, whispering to her dark thoughts, making her keep driving until she got to the edge.

 

(6)

 

Maddie, down here, the Long Man spoke to her, tugging her down to the water. She saw there in the dark water floating under it was the smiling face of the Long Man. The triangle on his forehead was burning brighter than before, and his red eyes were welcoming. He trod water, not having to breathe air while he c***s his head to the side with a simple wave.

                Come on, my little dancer, he said, the water is warm.

                Maddie nodded at him stepping forward to take the dive into the night water.

                “Hey,” someone or something shouted from the dark, but it had to be the drug. There was no one out there as she glanced over her shoulder, and the air jerked her from the land. The air screamed pass her, and before she could ever understand the act of falling, wetness swallowed her alive. The water opens with a mouth full of her legs pulling her deep into the ink.

                She opened her eyes, not knowing she closed them, but when they open there wasn’t much of change. She looked up, hoping it was up, unable to tell which way was the surface. There weren’t any stars above her head, but then there was nothing around her. It was a vast emptiness before her eyes.

                Her arms and legs weren’t moving, there was no way to go, and there was growing tightness in her chest. Someone or something had tied belts around her chest, squeezing against her lungs. She moved to lose the belts, but there was nothing there other than her flesh. The tightness was starting to get painfully, but the Long Man’s hands caress her pushing the pain away, at least for a moment.

                Let it all go, he said into her ears, kissing her neck, we are going to be free.

                “No,” She screamed in her skull, “no, I need to get to Grayson,” but the Long Man wouldn’t let her go. She started to fight away from his arms, but the monster fought harder to get ahold of her. She broke free kicking farther into the dark with the belts around her chest growing in its torment. She couldn’t get away from it, she couldn’t find the surface, air, she needed air.

                She couldn’t die this way. She didn’t want to die before hugging her brother once more. She loved him, and if she left him, then he would fall apart. She couldn’t drown to death, there had to be a way out of the blackness. She made a mistake, a horrible mistake, and there was always a way to come back from mistakes.

                She stopped desperately trying to find a way free from the crashing water. She stopped seeing the Long Man swimming away from her waving goodbye.

                God, no, I’m sorry.

                Someone grabbed her, and she fought back against the hand. It had to be the Long Man again. He was going to push her deeper into the water, but the hand felt, solid, real …

                Maddie glanced up at the face, unknown to her, with pale blue eyes, like a wolf and a strong square face. He pointed upwards a couple of times for her followed, and she nodded in agreement. They both pushed their ways towards the stars breaking the thin but strong layer between life and death. She came out of the water gasping for air taking as much of it as she could in one gulp. There didn’t seem to be enough oxygen in the world at the moment, and the trees against the cliff, the ones who stared in awe at Maddie, poured more air out just for her.

                She floated for a second with the water, trying to fight against the air. The blackness didn’t think it was fair she escaped, she shouldn’t have been free from it, and it pulled at her toes begging her to come back to it.

                “It’s okay,” the man said with a bright smile that would have out weight the moon if it was out, “I have you.”

                Maddie took hold of his arm as they started for the rocks a few yards away from the jumping spot. There was a line of rocks big enough for people to sit on and to climb out of to get back to the top of the cliffs. People called it a path back to the top, but it wasn’t much of a path other than climb between trees. A climb she wasn’t sure she could make from the burning aura in her chest. The air was starting to walk back into her lunges racing to her blood after seeing the emergency all over her body and easing the agony in her chest, but not enough to do the climb.

                “Trent,” a female yelled from the cliff. “You down there?”

                “Yeah,” he shouted back, “we are fine, Peanut.”

                “You got her?” Another girl yelled.

                “Yeah.”

                “Oh, good,” the voice said with a hint of hungry to jump after them, but Maddie almost didn’t notice the people talking down to them. She was sitting on the rock with her hand over her chest, feeling the sprinting of her heart trying to plump aid to all the wounded parts of her body. She was staring over the water with the warmth leaking out of her.

                “You okay?” Trent asked, swimming in front of her.

                “I think so,” Maddie said.

                “I know it is scary to almost drown,” he said. “Good thing we were here.”

                “Yeah,” Maddie said softly, looking over at his eyes, trying their best not to fall to where her hand was resting. She was sitting above the water, half-naked, half-dead, and not caring if he was studying her flat chest. “Thank you, so much, I mean it.”

                “No problem,” Trent said, swimming over to her sticking his hand out. “I’m Trent, but you heard that. It’s Trent Salem, nice to meet you.”

                Maddie took his hand, letting the water of her nude top lick the air and said, “I’m Maddie Thann.”

 

(7)

 

“And, and,” Maddie said, studying his head dipping in and out the still black of the water, “thank you for saving me.”

                He grinned in the water moving over to the rock to use it as a rest, but he hadn’t pulled himself up beside her, yet. “No problem,” He said, “We saw you jump, and when you didn’t come up, I thought it was a good time to be a hero.”

                “I always did want my own hero,” Maddie said, beating back the idea this hero, who she just met, was kind of cute in the dark and with her mind still feeling the effects of the pills, it was best not to get hot and heavy for someone. She wasn’t going to dive headfirst into this feeling swimming around her stomach about Trent. It was best, she knew with time along with many mistakes, to take it easy, to back up and let her emotions calm down. Mostly because she almost died seconds ago.

                  “Did you get lost in the water?” Trent asked.

                Maddie pushed some of her hair behind her ears thanking God it was dark, and he couldn’t read her face filling with embarrassed, guilt, or was it both? She wasn’t sure, but she needed to find a lie quickly before the silence grew too large between them. Luckily, Trent had landed out the perfect lie for her. Maybe he meant to do it, maybe not, but she was going to take hold of it either way.

                “Yeah, I got lost,” Maddie lied. “My first-time night driving.”

                “And you did it alone?” Trent asked, rising from the water to show his bare chest. A body armored with muscle but running down from his shoulder to somewhere in the water was a nasty long scar. It looked as if some kind of large wolf had attacked him years ago, but the signs of the battle weren’t ready to be dulled with time.

                She had to force herself to look away from the lines wounding how painful it was to gain something so neat looking. There was a massive story behind his scar, one Maddie wanted to ask about, but now wasn’t the time. She made her eyes stare at him in the dark with a health smirk on his face like she was a big juicy steak being cooked.

                “Not my brightest idea,” Maddie said, forcing a hoax of a smile.

                “I don’t know,” Trent said, “sounds to me like fate. We did get to meet.”

                “Ye ---“

                A loud whoa shot both of them to see a naked woman and man crash into the water, followed by their heads popping back into the world. They were smiled big starting to swim over to Maddie and Trent.

                “You want to go back up?” Trent asked with Maddie’s looking down at her drying skin. “I don’t think anyone is going to care if you’re naked.” He said the word naked more like NA-ked as if he was born somewhere in the Deep South. She guessed if he said yellow, it would sound more a dumb redneck than a hero saving her life. “Most of them are NA-kad.” He nodded at his friends.

                She looked back at the rocks, mostly the dark tree and the hill to the top. She wasn’t sure if she could climb the side of the hill yet, she didn’t feel stronger enough yet.

                “Hey,” A sweet girl with her dark brown hair pulled into a bum on the top of her head and a pointed noise imitating her pointed chin, “guys, you two were taking too long.”

                “And we wanted to swim,” the boy said beside her with a round face and black Mohawk pushed to the side of his head due to the water.

                “Sorry,” Trent said to them both with Maddie, not sure what to say or do. Suddenly, a heavy way of shyness might have been formed the fact she was half-naked knowing they were fully nude, hit across her making her lock her jaw.

                “I’m Amber Wester,” she said, shooting her hand out of the water for Maddie to take. “Love your hair.”

                Maddie took her hand, “Thanks, I’m Maddie.”

                “Allen Tunner,” the guy beside Amber, said jumping up beside Maddie to sit on the rock with a horrible bite mark on the side of his thin rips. Allen was smaller than Maddie, and Amber slimmer than the water made her out to be as she dug herself out of the water next to Allen. He helped her get to the rock with Maddie eying yet another scar on Amber’s back. It seems to be another bite mark or crawls.

                Allen and Amber sat close together more so due to they wanted to rather than the rock making them. Maddie wondered if they were together, but she wasn’t about to ask and did the smartest things she could just assume they were with each other.

                “Where are Peanut and Duck?” Trent asked them.

                “Getting firewood,” Allen said.

                “Maddie, you going to chill with us, yeah?” Amber asked. “We have a beer.”

                “I don’t ---,” She started to say, seeing Amber frowning in the dark. She glanced between her and Allen then over to Trent.

                “One beer?” Trent asked. “I did save your life.”

                “One beer, and we are even?” Maddie asked with a c**k of her head.

                “We will be even,” Trent said, standing up to help Maddie get out of the water. She didn’t realize he was also nude, but it didn’t seem to matter to any of them, except for Maddie. It was a bit odd to see so many strangers naked in the last few moments. He held out his hand with her taking it as he pulled her up.

                All four of them climbed up the hill slowly with Maddie needing the help to not fall. Amber was behind her while the boys were leading the way; she guessed it was for the best. She didn’t want Allen or Trent staring at her a*s the whole time, well, mostly Allen.

 

(8)

 

One beer turned into two beers, then three, and before Maddie knew it, she was sitting around the fire with the newly found people laughing along with their drunken stories. They welcome her into their pack with simple ease, and Maddie, for the first time in alone time forgot about the deed in which brought her to this cliff tonight. She didn’t tell anyone the truth about the death of her friend Catherine and how it was Maddie’s fault. Poor Catherine had come home to Charlotte for a few days last Christmas, clean and happy. She wanted to see her family, but most of all her old friends and Maddie were counted among those friends.

                They hung out for hours with Jeff calling up Catherine wanting them to come over to the party. “Are you sure?” Maddie asked.

                “It will be fine,” Catherine said.

                “Jeff is still in the life, Catherine,” Maddie said. “It’s going to be hard not to have fun.”

                “It’s why you are with me,” Catherine said with a big smile.

                It was the last smile Maddie saw her make. Maddie would have stopped Catherine from taking a hit of the heroin, but she was too blitzed out of her mind to know the difference. Catherine raced up to her at the party, begging her to let her take a little hit, and Maddie, not in her right mind said, “Sure, just be careful.”

                It was something, Maddie told herself later, she was in the right mind enough to tell Catherine to be safe, but how can one be safe when putting a needle into your arm for a hit of heroin? The answer, Maddie quickly found out, was there was no way to be safe. The heroin was cut with something wrong; it stopped Catherine's heart before she knew it. It put her on the floor turning blue from the lack of blood flow, and Maddie’s found her �"

                She never forgave herself for that night. The Long Man was the devil who was going to drag her to Hell for letting her friend die. She almost welcomes the death, but Trent had saved her. It was a sign from God that she was meant to live. He had a plan for her life; she was going to do something great in this world.

                Or, the Long Man whispered, He is going to punish you more.

                “So, where are you from?” Trent asked Maddie, pulling her mind back to them. She looked over at him with his wife Peanut resting against him. They were both staring at Maddie waiting for the answer. Maddie knew they were together because Trent explained it to her when they got to the top of the cliff but everyone else seems to be floating between each other like items, and sometimes, the way Peanut, Maddie hadn’t caught her real name yet, acted with everyone around her seem more like they were items as well. Maddie thought to herself maybe this group of friends was all sleeping with each other. It would explain why they were so comfortable with each other being nude.

                “Charlotte,” Maddie said, “you guys?”

                “All over the place,” the tall black man said, who named was Duck, again Maddie doubted it was his real name.

                “Yeah,” Trent agreed, “we from everywhere. We move around a lot, but we just came from Tallwater, if you know where that is.”

                “Not really and why you guys move so much?” Maddie asked.

                “Because there is a mighty big world at there, sweet stuff,” Amber said, downing a beer and sitting oddly close to Duck at the moment.

                Maddie giggled at the remark, but she guessed Amber was right. There was a world bigger than she had ever seen be on the walls of Charlotte, one she only dreamed about seeing. She hoped she would live long enough to see some of it.

                Not if I have any say in it, the Long Man said, sticking his head up from the cliff. The pills were still in her body, marching around but slowly. She could feel the heat of the drug pitching her skin from the inside.

                “We are staying in Charlotte at the moment,” Allen said, pulling long and hard on a cigarette. “You should hang out with us again.” He pointed the end of the smoke at her, with everyone nodding in agreement.

                “Yeah, you are a blast,” Amber said with a big smile. “And you can show me how to dye my hair like that.”

                Maddie duck hiding the smile forming on her face. “Yeah, I would like that, but only if I could bring my brother.”

                “If he is anything like you,” Trent said, “then, of course.”

                “He’s the coolest dude I know,” Maddie said.

                “Then, by all means,” Peanut said.

                “Sweet,” Maddie said, drinking her beer telling herself after this one was done it was time to hit the road. They all walked out together with Maddie getting Trent’s number and hugging him for saving her life.

                “Thank you again,” Maddie said.

                “Anytime,” Trent said, “but let’s hopes we don’t make a habit out of it.”

                “I don’t plan on it,” Maddie said, heading over to her car. “It was nice meeting you all.” A big smile waved at them as they all waved back with their own smiles. Maddie climbed in her car heading down the road back to her safe life. She glanced up one more time seeing the pack of friends watching her and the Long Man behind them with a big smile. She might have been free from him for a little while, but the guilt of Catherine was starting to crash back down on her shoulders. She killed her. She let her died.

                “She would make a great addition to the pack,” Peanut said, staring at the car, “or at the very last taste good.” She looked up at her alpha male and the head of the pack studying the car as well.

                “Let’s see how her brother is,” Trent said, “but I do like her.”

                “Me too,” Amber chime in.

                “We do need another to the pack,” Allen said, “or tow.”

                “Come, guys, we need to get going,” Duck said, opening the trunk of the car where two girls were crying, bounded, and beaten. The owner of the cars before they were tossed in the back of it never to see anything else after tonight. “I’m famished.”