Chapter Twenty Eight

‘Derek!’ I throw open the door to the apartment that my brother, my mom and I have lived in forever. I see them standing in the living room, they turn to me, eyes filling with tears. I carefully close the door behind me.

                It’s real. I’m home.

                I run towards them, hugging them, tears rolling down my cheek. I bury my face in my mother’s shoulder and for a moment, we sit in silence. There’s so much I have to say. I want to tell them I love them, I want to tell them that every moment not at home was a nightmare, and tell them I’m sorry I put them through the stress. I want to apologize for being a s****y daughter and sister, and tell them I would be better to my mom if I had the chance. There’s so much I have to tell them. But my words get stuck in the back of my throat, I start coughing. Maybe I’m crying to hard. I'm choking now; the words are forced back down into my head, into cloudy thoughts swirling around. I’m still choking, grasping at my neck, clawing at my skin. There’s something there, someone’s killing me.

                ‘Get off the poor girl, you creep,’ I open my eyes to see a giddy Rippir on my chest, he’s got a firm grasp on my neck. I thrash and kick, trying to get him off.

                Phoenix grabs his shoulders and tears him off of me. ‘You’re gonna seriously hurt her Rippir!’ She says as she fights to pull him off. I gasp for air as he giggles like a schoolgirl, and hops off of me. Fabian stumbles into the room, he looks tired, sore, and a little bit drunk.

                ‘What’s going on in here?’ He sits on the end of the bed, and glances confusedly between the three of us.

                ‘We’ve got some good news!’ Blaze grins. This has got to be the happiest I've seen her, her bright blue eyes are alive, her face seems to have a permanent smiled etched into it. Come to think of it, Rippir and Mark have been a lot happier too. I've been in and out of consciousness enough to hear clips of their conversations, and see the smiling, hear the laughing. I've been unconscious thanks to this wound too much to understand why.

                ‘Good news, huh? How different,’ the f**k boy side of Fabian is back. It’s weird how much I've grown to like the quiet, miserable side. He really is a lot like me. The resemblance is uncanny, same nose, shade of hair, same brow shape, same general hatred for everything and everyone.

                Mark walks in too, so happy you’d think he just saw God or something.

                ‘We’re only a day from where she rests,’ Rippir leans against the T.V stand, his sparkling blue sequence pants catching the light of the dim lamp.

                ‘Where who rests?’ I say, still upset that I was torn away from my sweet dreams, into this bitter life.

                ‘The Queen of the Forest, of course. She’s only the entire reason were driving to Oklahoma you dense b*****d,’ Rippir hisses.

                ‘What he’s saying Cori, is we’re one day away from being saved. Everything will go back to exactly how it was. Everything will be okay,’ the sound of relief and relaxation in her voice is contagious. I sit up, wincing in pain, and pull of my baggy light grey pullover to examine my stab wound. A searing pain falls over my whole body, but I won’t let this drag my morale down. It will all be okay. For the first time since I was dragged into a hearse after taking a flower pot to the head, I'm smiling.

                F**k boy walks over to the door and adjusts his beanie before leaving, not completely convinced that we’ll be safe. I’m not either, but the hope is enough to get me through. I hear everyone exit the room as I lay on my back applying pressure to the wound on my stomach that has now reopened. I close my eyes and hold in the tears. My dream won’t be a dream, it’ll be real. I’ll see my mom and Derek again. I’ll get to tell them all the things I’ve wanted to say, and have been preparing to never actually get to do.

                I turn on the news for some background noise as I clean out my stab wound, and freshly bandage it. The concerned woman talks about a string of murders, each with the victims laid out posed strategically in beautiful, macabre, sick ways that almost seemed to tell a story.  I’d usually be devastated to hear of such events happening so close, but at this point, I don’t care. I’ll be out soon enough. We’ll be out of here soon enough. I wonder if Fabian and I will still talk after this, or if he’ll continue living in P.E.I, and I in Toronto. My vision goes dark again, I'm bleeding too much, I know this feeling all too well.

                ‘Blaze!’ My voice is airy and quiet, but somehow, I still catch her attention. She opens the door, and walks over to me, bandaging me up again, and cleaning the wounds.

                ‘Everything’s going to be ok, you’re going to make it out of this.’

                My eyes close, and I give her a weak smile.

 

                The Queen of the Forest. She’s so close now. Although she’s the reason we’re all the way out here in bumblefuck nowhere, none of us seem to know anything about her. We’re driving through native reserves, and Mark carefully follows Rippir’s directions, weaving us throughout highways until we get to a forest surrounded by barbed wired fences, and deer fences. A small gravel path leads in, and we park. A small wooden building stands nestled back in the thicket. Mark and Rippir get out of the front seats to open the doors for the rest of us. We climb out of the car, Fabian slings my arm over his shoulder, and helps me walk.

                ‘What’s the matter girlie,’ Rippir turns to me, ‘is your paper cut acting up again?’ I glare daggers at the kid, who laughs and heads down the trail. The rest of us follow, his confidence affecting us all.

                Fabian’s face is still stressed, and none of the good news had seemed to do anything for him.

                ‘What’s wrong Fabeenie?’ I tease. His expression is still cold and distant, and my calling him names didn’t even distract him from his thoughts.

                A few moments pass before he opens his mouth to talk, but is quickly cut off by an old native woman calling to us from the front deck of the tiny cabin. The woods look magical, golden light streaming through the trees, a light warm breeze, and the woman walking towards us, dressed in feathers and beads that glistened in the setting sun. Rippir hastily asked her about the Queen, telling her it was urgent, that we needed to speak with her. The woman chuckled, shaking her head in the way that parents shake their heads when they’re child does something cute, but stupid.

                ‘The queen does not speak,’ she smiles. They exchange a few more words, which I’m too out of it to hear fully. My brother holds me upright, and soon we start walking again.

                Only about a kilometer away from the cabin, we arrive at a small, fenced off area.

                ‘What is this?’ Mark asks, eyeing the barbed wire fence. A small, sickly deer stumbles over towards us. The outline of its rib cage shows, as the malnourished creature carefully sniffs at the ground.

                We exchange nervous glances, trying to keep optimistic. The woman gives the creature a look of pity.

                ‘Truth is,’ the woman starts, ‘this attraction is going under. People don’t visit the queen like they used to. We don’t make very much profit off of this anymore. The poor girl is half starving to death.’

                ‘Tourist attraction?’ Rippir repeats.

                ‘You didn’t think there was a real queen of the forest, did you?’ She turns her attention back to us in disbelief.

                ‘This was a f*****g tourist attraction?!’ Rippir shoves us out of his way and grabs the old woman by her throat, lifting her ever so slightly off the ground. ‘Where the f**k is the real one? Tell me or I’ll kill you right here!’

                We all watch in complete shock. The reality crashed over us so hard it hurt, were not getting out of here. This is the end.

                ‘The cops will be here soon. There were surely more people in that cabin to hear the chaos.

                ‘Where’s the f*****g Queen?!’ Rippir shouts. His voice echoes through the woods, clouds forming overhead. Rain starts coming down in heavy drops. The animals grew loud, and restless.

                ‘Put the woman down, please Rippir, put her down,’ Mark says. Rippir throws the shaking, horrified woman on the ground.

                ‘Your dollar store costume jewelry is as much of an eyesore as you are,’ he spits, ‘invest in some nicer clothing, won’t you?’

                ‘Come on Rippir,’ Phoenix grabs his shoulder and walks him back towards the hearse. Fabian, Mark and I follow, trying to hide the overwhelming feeling of hopelessness, and fake a smile for each other.

                A loud crash rings out throughout the woods as the squeal of metal grinding against our hearse fills our ears. I drop to the ground, my head pounding. Fabian drags my limp body under some foliage.

                ‘Don’t move. We’ll be back soon. Don’t you f*****g move a muscle,’ he orders. I nod, and listen as he runs off to the others. I crawl out of the hiding spot when I can’t hear him anymore, and soon hear gunshots ringing through the air. Soon the scent of burning trees and leaves, and gunpowder makes it too hard to even breathe. Steam from the rain soaked woods and burning thicket rises up, clouding my vision. I hear the screams and shrieks of the fallen, and to my horror, that of my friends, of Mark, and Blaze. I cradle my wound with one hand and drag myself to the hearse where the fighting has broken out. I see Mark face down in the mud, his green shirt caked with wet gravel and blood. I choke at the sight, and get closer. I can hear him gasping for air, his neck snapped and his shoulders dislocated. I carefully roll him over and help him into a better position. He drags his gun along the ground with him, not letting go.

                ‘You’re going to be alright Mark, you don’t need to keep fighting. I’ll protect you I won’t let you die,’ I'm frantic, my hands and knees shaking, my heart pounding. His arms slid out of my grip from the blood, as I leaned him against a boulder on the ground.

                ‘We’re not going to make it Coral,’ he chokes out, blood spilling out of his mouth with every word.

                ‘I won’t let you die Mark, please, hang in there for a little longer. I see Rippir running towards us, and turn away. Rippir won’t let him die, and I need to find my brother. I stumble through the burning forest, doing my best to avoid the flames that twist around my limbs.

                There he is, Fabian. I drag myself towards him, as fast as I possibly can. He’s got his back to the hearse, which now has the roof crushed, and his back to me. He shoots at the fallen with no hope of killing the things. They wail and shriek when the bullet pierces them, but they’re barely even slowed.

                There’s one that seems different somehow. It doesn’t ruthlessly attack like the rest do. She’s quick, but quiet, and unseen. The fallen turns to me, her beady black eyes staring me down. She wasn’t like the rest of the fallen, her face was pale gray, but intact and wasn’t rotting and peeling, long straggly black hair, and a long, sickly grey finger over her cracking lip. She pulls her light grey hood down, before stalking towards Fabian, drawing the sword from its sheath.

                No, he doesn’t know she’s there.

                I throw myself at the creature, pinning her on the ground with all of my strength.

                ‘Fabian! Help!’ I shriek, kicking the sword away from us. The creature swiftly rammed her elbow into my side with enough force to shatter my ribs.

                I saved him. I watch him turn to me and the fallen. He stopped for a moment staring at me.

                ‘Oh f**k. Oh god. I’m so sorry Coral,’ he says, and turns around, limping away, leaving me in the mud to die.

                The woman’s face twists into a sick sadistic grin as her eyes lock with mine. They’re two glossy black wells in her skull. She retrieves her sword off of the ground, pulling the end of the blade over the flooded gravel. She drags the end over my neck, and laughs. I stare up at her, not daring to say a word. My whole body is in excruciating pain, every bone in my body burns. The fallen sheaths her sword, and lifts me up under the arms, dragging me away from the hearse. My vision wavers, my ears ring. My heart is pounding faster than it ever has before.

                ‘Please,’ I beg with my dying breath, ‘don’t kill us.’ 

Reviews

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Hey guys! Thank you so much for reading and the positive response we've gotten. Just wanted to say sorry this chapter took so long to post, we're wrapping up the book soon and had to do a lot of planning for the end of it. The rest should be out within the normal week time-frame. Thanks again!