Surrounds (Bonds) (5 page)

Henderson set her down in the living room with a can of beans and vanishes without a word into that bloody kitchen. Lacey understands Henderson and she without asking guessed he was going to bury the woman's body. His grunts and returning a few hours later, now covered in dirt was proof.

His hands are bleeding and he can barely stand on his feet. His body swayed, his dark, sweaty hair stuck against his face, cheeks hollow, eyes hunted. He was so small in his large T-shirt.

This frightened her.

He weakly stumbles over, falling onto the couch beside her, brown eyes on the ceiling. She couldn't bare to look at him any longer and finds herself looking away, gaze landing on the opened, but untouched bean can. She grabs it and offers it over, her hands shaking with nerves she honestly hadn't noticed.

He takes it, but only to set it back onto the coffee table, untouched.

She only stares at it.

"What's going on, Henderson?" She asks after a minute. "What are we going to do?"

He never answers.

(O)

Chapter 11

Lacey

Hygiene is obviously not important when your running for your life, but after a while it can become too much. Seriously. Whoever said manly musk has a subtle charm is a fucking liar.

Lacey made certain she walked ahead of Henderson and his funky-goodness. Of course it would be nice breeze today too. She glared ahead of her, frowning at the buildings sprouting upfront with hatred.

"Do you want to take a break, Lacey, check out a few buildings for supplies?" Henderson calls out. The girl stops and slowly turns, facing her friend who is holding up his machete and pointing with it at a yellow barn a few yards away. "We can stay in there and walk into town and look for supplies."

"Sounds like a plan..." Lacey sighs. Wonderful, another night cooped up in a foul smelling barn, with a foul smelling boy, and with a can a beans. She begins following Henderson slowly.

It had been a day and a half since the yellow kitchen incident and neither of them had brought it up. Lacey saw no point in it. It already plagued her nightmares. Without fail, screams and begging rarely left her mind, and instead loudly echoed inside of her like a god-awful catchy tune. Henderson wasn't much of a talker, which constantly left them both in hours of silence and her mind in constant wondering.

Lacey frowns unhappily at the back of Henderson's head. Why on earth did she find his near muteness attractive again? Silent and mysterious, she thought there was more to him. She curses under her breath. She would hand over her last can of beans for someone who talked nonstop like her little brother. Yeah, that little idiot never shut up.

Lacey stops suddenly, which goes unnoticed by Henderson who continues forward. Her baby brother, he was alright, wasn't he?

"Henderson..." He had yet to say anything about her brother. Her stomach churns. How could she forget about her brother? He was only seven and he needed someone to look after him, he had annoying habits of getting himself into trouble. Also, their dad wasn't very parental, he liked his work and nothing else. "Alan..."

"He's with your father." Henderson assures without even turning around fully. "He's fine. All we have to worry about getting to him and your dad."

His news does nothing to calm her down.

"Come on," he continues, "we only have a couple of hours of sunlight left." He begins walking again.

(O)

Chapter 12

Alasa

Alasa frowns down at the wood in her lap, she had spent hours attempting to carve it into a dog and only succeeds in making a... thing... An unhappy sigh escapes her. Her lack in skill likely is a result of having no talent and being watched like a hawk by 'him'.

She's not even sure why he's doing it. Why he's sitting across from her like that and watching her destroy a poor piece of wood. But then again, she's not very sure why he actually does anything. It is hard understanding someone who only growls. Why was she here? Why here? What in the heck was flying in the freaking sky a day ago?

Alasa gives up, dropping the wood and her feet and instead beginning to amuse herself with watching the flames of the fire flicker lazily. She notices when he grabs the wood and blade which had been dropped by her and began hacking away at the wood, but never looks at him.

Five minutes later, an impressive carving of a wolf is dangled in front of her face and she has no choice but to look at the beast. He's watching her intently, a little to intently. Gooseflesh springs up over he flesh and she forces her gaze away from his and onto the wolf. She frowns.

She tentatively takes it. Can he understand her? She wasn't understanding something.

"What's your name?" She blurts, running her fingers slowly over his work, it was detailed. Something wasn't adding up here. Alasa wasn't expecting an answer, but ends up looking back up at him anyway, expectantly. He only looks at her. She bites her lip, looking back down at the carving. "You need a name... everyone has one."

He only sits in front of her, off to the left, not blocking her view of the fire. Which she finds oddly thoughtful...

She wasn't understanding something here.

"How about... Ian?" She had always liked Ian as a name. A couple of her dogs were named Ian... Not that he's a dog...

He only stares at her blankly. She takes his silence as a no. "Yeah..." She nervously says. "You don't actually look like an Ian." She thinks for a few minutes, digging her feet into the earth in front of her. "Guy? What about Guy?" Her best friend's father's name was guy. Once again he only stares. Her attention settles on the flickering flame in front of her before falling to the carved wolf in her hands. "Wolf?" He once again stares intently, but he blinks slowly after a few seconds. She assumes he agrees. "Wolf then... I'm Alasa..." Alasa motions slowly to herself. "My name is Alasa." He only growls a brief growl before turning around and leaping out of the cave's mouth.

(O)

Chapter 13

Lacey

She had never seen anything like it and she hoped she never would have to see it again. Above them the once blue horizon had seeped red, a dark bloody red, an unnatural red. Around her wind whipped at her hair angrily, nearly painfully as Henderson pulled her along. His panic was felt, it, as if it’s on living thing, pumping into her.

"Damn… Damn…" She could make out Henderson’s low mantra as he quickly led her forward, around a fence and across an open field. She trips, because clumsy people always fall when they shouldn’t, but Henderson in his rush continues dragging her along, barely slowing enough to right herself. "Damn… Shit…Shit… fucking shit."

Honestly, despite the ominous sky, she found Henderson’s sudden change in his potty mouth mantra, funny. It was so ‘unlike’ him. She also then decided spending so much time alone in that basement had altered her state of mind. No biggy. The clouds were bleeding and last week she had witnessed a murder and didn’t even help. Someone was begging for help and all she could do was hide in a smelly closet.

The girl blinked. So that had been traumatizing, she noted. She was honestly worried.

A monster of a hill appears ahead of them and she whimpers, her legs weak and her feet were blistered, busted, and now bleeding. But the fact that whatever had Henderson so spooked was friends with a red sky, forced any ideas of a break back down inside of her.

As she had been expecting going up was hard, but it was going back down that obviously hid a sneaky danger. She couldn’t feel her legs, so it was only ‘sort of’ surprising when she tripped over her own feet and began tumbling downhill, successfully bringing Henderson with her.

She lands on her face and blood filling her mouth. It hurt. The thought of never moving again filters in and out of her mind for a few seconds as Henderson calls her name.

Then a loud, bone chilling screech, like a thousand, no a million, bird-monkey hybrids yowling begins, nearly deafens her. She instantly sits up, attention instantly going to the horizon that was now black instead of red. A pitch black, a shimmering onyx. It takes her a minute to realize that the wind is no longer blowing. It takes another for realizations that the horizon was still red, but there was something nearly half as large and black slinking through it. It took another minute to realize that it wasn’t one thing, but hundreds flying through the blood red sky.

Then she feels it. The overwhelming feeling of the air gaining weight and pressing harshly down on her. Suddenly she cannot breathe and she wheezes pathetically, shaking her head disbelieving above her. It was so heavy. So, evil.

She’s in danger. Her life is in danger. It’s a sudden realization which hits her squarely, perfectly, without a mistake. Her body tenses, her mind flashes. Run. She can’t fight and running is her only option. Run.

Only, her feet can’t hear her. Her legs aren’t going to listen. Suddenly her feet are filthy betrayers and hate her.

No… She whimpers. No… No…

The black portion of the blood red sky is drawing closer, so close now, she can see the winged beasts which make up most the black.

Suddenly her left cheek hurts and she’s staring into the wide brown eyes of Henderson. Her hand finds her stinging cheek. He’s shouting something barely heard at her before yanking her onto her feet.

Henderson and she bolt off.

She can hear again without even realizes she couldn’t and she honestly wishes she couldn’t, agony assaults her hearing each one of the monster’s screeches like a blade to the ears.

It’s so loud and so painful, she barely notices Henderson breaking a window of a house and pulling her inside of a darkened living room. She barely notices as she yanks her upstairs and into a bedroom. As soon as she has both hands free they cover her ringing ears. Henderson pushes a bed in front of the bedroom’s door and a dresser in front of the window.

She finds herself once again inside of foul smelling closet, her body pressed against Henderson as she clung against him. Her body shook her mind wasn’t working.

A scream lifted from inside of her as something large hit into the other side of the house, causing it to tremble as if the whole thing was going to crash down. Then something smashed into the window, shattering it. Henderson tugged her against him, her screams becoming muffled by his shirt.

Outside the closet, the home continued shaking as more of the black monsters hit the home.

A cry escapes Lacey as another monster body slams into the house and something lands into the bedroom outside the closet. The body smashes into the walls, destroying everything inside of it. Its body even crashes into the closet and nearly shatters its door open.

Lacey cries harder.

Henderson’s arms grow tighter around her and he whispers soft words and shushes her.

(O)

Chapter 14

Lacey

It takes only ten minutes, but the house no longer shakes and all is quiet. Too quiet. They don’t actually leave until an hour later. Henderson leading the way, they both step out into a destroyed home. The wall leading into the hallway is gone, along with the wall which the window once was.

Outside the huge hole, is a now clear sky, not a creature in sight, not an ominous unnatural hue either. Its blue again, with random fluffy clouds lazily drifting across and blocking out the high noon sun.

Henderson urges her out of the home, worried it would fall down on them.

Lacey takes only a few steps outside before crumbling to the ground. Her fingers run over a ten-inch gashes left in the earth, claw marks. She's never seen anything like it. Its surreal.

"What in the hell, Henderson?" She whispered, her voice weak. "What was…?" He had said anything about creatures flying from above, only people going mad, being taken over by something. Never a red sky and it being filled with creatures.

He never mentioned hoards of… hoards of… What were they? 'Demons?'

"Sometimes… It happens…" Henderson collapses onto the ground beside her, his upper half bent over his legs, his body trembles.

Sometimes it happens… Lacey stares at her shaky hands. Sometimes it happens.

"Are you alright?" Her attention lifts and settles on Henderson. He’s asking if she’s alright. Inappropriate annoyance and anger begins filling her. He’s asking if she’s alright after living through a nightmare. There were hoards of demon… things… roaming about and he hadn’t told her? Did he forget? Not very likely. Why in the hell was he always hiding things?

A few acrimonious words were biting at her lips, but then she truly looked at him. His brown eyes were wide, too wide, too brown, too filled with complete and utter fear.

Helplessness began to settle over her. If he was afraid, how was she not to be? If he wasn’t alright, how would she even think about being alright?

He had been the one to get her out of the field and away from that hoard, he had snapped her out of her fear and saved her. Because without him she would have been a bloody mess, half of her in one of those things and another half spread out across rural Untied States.

Why on earth would she be angry at him?

She’s use to it. The girl realized. She’s use to being angry at Henderson, it was so easy. He was quiet, he never fault back, he never argued. He never stood up for himself. Every argument they had been it, he would always accept blame. He would agree that everything was his fault.