The Risen (Book 2): Margaret (7 page)

CHAPTER 12

I
t didn’t take long for the others to catch up to me. The “shadows” crept into the space with silent movements and watching eyes. Their eyes being the only acknowledgment of me with their slow stare and a general assessment of my actions. They are aware that while they hung back for one, I was hunting two. With what part of me accepts as respect, they do not pass my steady pace as they easily could. Instead, we keep the pace of the group with eye contact and silent communication as we continue in our hunt.

The dark part of me that enjoys the sensation of fear in my victims, knows that the same sensation could be used against me if I allow those now crowded around me to sense it. A blank resolve to stay calm settles over me because no one understands the hunt better than the hunters.

Her scent is easy to follow. It is as if it tugs on me to come forward with ghostly fingers, leading me straight to her death. Half of me is elated with how easy this is proving to be. Another half of myself is disappointed in the simple foundation of the game. For it to end in such an uneventful trend, yet again, leaves me feeling robbed of a victory that I do not understand.

Her scent is hiding behind a metal barrier that blocks our path. An image of what this is flashes in my mind. It’s showing me the function and purpose of it, helping me to comprehend how to defeat her escape. The “shadows” twitch as they stare at it. Their minds formulating a path through it faster than mine.

It gives easily under the force of their shove, swaying into the room before swaying back to us. A harder shove results in the barrier swinging wider before returning. We smile, grasping the concept and with one more solid shove, the barrier’s secret is removed.

We pour into the room with eager mouths and deadly thoughts. Her scent wraps around me like the music of a far away ice cream truck, exciting me with her tune, but she only leaves me hungry for more because just like the truck of frozen treats, she is not here. The room is empty, void of her and the melody of comfort.

Her scent is everywhere. I should be walking around her as if she is the flowers of a blooming garden, filling the air with their fragrance. I can also smell the boy. He is a soft under current of gentle hints and fragile promises. He is here too, somewhere.

The room is wide and easy to see in every angle. There are no places to hide, keeping them from us. The objects are too tall, or too thin, to shield them from us. No corners to crouch around, peering bravely at us from a hidden shadow of security. Nope, this room is bare and void of our prey. There is just their scent lingering in the air to taunt us and mock our hunger.

I know this room. I have spent many afternoons huddled around the tall objects placed throughout. Faded sounds of laughter and the loud clattering of plastic trays play through my mind like an old black and white movie. The colors are not the only aspect missing with the facts hidden from me. I know the sound attached to the room though.

Cafeteria.
The sound tells me nothing more than of syllables and lost memories.

Confusion fades before swelling to anger and then fades back to emptiness with no other action left to me. Remotely, I follow those that resemble my own features in size and shape. I block my thoughts, trying to escape the aching and burning torment that feels to be mutilating my body from within. We shuffle in clumps and lines, keeping to our own, with the hopes of keeping our minds busy on any action that will help distract from the pain. A pain that only seems to crest with each wave of her scent that reaches me before the current pulls me back into its hateful grasp.

With nothing more to do now than to walk and endure, pictures randomly insert themselves into my vision. The random pictures of smiles and faces that stir a moment of a trickle of remembrance for a time I have forgotten inside me. Moments of emotions associated with such faces whisper to me like an old friend that I should know. Some of the pictures match up, in a small way, to those around me. The whispers tell me that I should I know them. I should know them all, but I don’t, not really.

There are the sparks and flashes again of attempts for a feeling when I notice one or another, but nothing solid. It is the same again for the others. Our eyes meet, and for a brief pause, there is a second of connection, but in general, it fades and we are left as we are now. We are aware of each other, but unaware of who or what we are. We are nothing more now than hunters. We are monsters that cause screams at our sight. We don’t seek the smiles the pictures flash in my mind’s eyes. We don’t embrace each other with grins and joyful laughter. We walk, or stand, together for protection, not for any building of emotional interactions. We hunt. We eat. We wait. We repeat.

CHAPTER 13

T
hree tones and the room becomes a garden of small statues instantly. Feet are raised, heads are cocked, bodies balance with the constant shift of required weight all while we try to assess what has happened. But there is something else we are straining to grasp, too. There was another sound that rang out through the room. A sound our minds pique with the yearning our bodies crave. Prey.

It was a high-pitched scream of stark fear and the boy with the blue cloth stuck to his arm has found the source first. There is another set of barriers once again blocking our exploration. Barriers that we had not noticed until now that are holding the sound of our target behind them. The riddle of the last barrier is still fresh in our minds.

The boy applies the same test to them, watching them sway slightly from his hand. He smiles with the simple mechanism of the blockage and pushes harder, catching one with the same hand. With a pause, he waits for us to gather behind him. His body is tense with the anticipation of what may lie on the other side. Like soldiers, we file in behind him waiting for a signal to come. His arm is ready to open the door and we will march, not to defend, but to destroy.

The chime comes again, three loud sharp tones with no pattern other than a basic repeating, and it brings forth the signal we were waiting for. His scream is an invitation. It is the power held by a motivational speaker on a high stage, spurring others into action and we act with it.

The door is shoved open, allowing no hidden space between it and us. It grows stuck on some hidden spring, giving us an edge in our game with its wide, welcoming space held open. There is nothing to segment our formation now with irregular closings that would limit the number of us entering at a time. We are a long line of hunger and shades of desperation.

I know it is her before I am able to enter the room. The scent that has been playing peek-a-boo with me is now heavy in the air. It hangs like a thick fog on a fall morning. I can see through it but it coats me with each step I take until I am wearing it as if it is mine. But this scent is hers. She has trademarked it and claimed it in my memory and I can’t wait to taste it. I want to feel it roll over my tongue before it slides down my throat. My hunger pulses with the pain now that I know she is so close to me.

Our minds retreat into a world of prey and predator. We match their every backwards step with one of a forward. We are keeping the perfect pace with the prey to not trigger a fight or flight feeling from them. Our eyes become mind readers that stay and lock on panicked faces with our calm thoughts that project no need for any rush. We are given clues with the body language of our meal as to how to adjust our hunt. We are told when to speed up, or keep pace. We watch, trying to guess any changes in their behavior. We wait, yearning for the signal that will tell us when the time is right to take them.

It is a tango of death. A dance full of stiff movements with locked arms and blank faces. It is hard to tell who is the leader of this dance. Are we leading them, or are they leading us? With the change in the brunette, it is easy to see the dance is about to come to an end.

Her eyes glance around with too much white exposed by her fears. She is looking for an out that is not to be found. There are no more long hallways to run from us. There is not a barrier to place between us, hiding her from us. There are just makeshift rows of an alleyway that lead us deeper into the new room.

I told you I would find you.
I smile with the thought.

There is a shift in the brunette. Her body language hints at a discovery she is trying to shield from us. I am not the only one to figure this out with the air of a mood swing around us. Our calm veneer is wearing thin with the constant pressure to remain docile and the hunger that fights against it.

Fingers flex, fantasizing with the thoughts of their soft flesh under them. Feet shuffle in a haste to reach the blocked space ahead of them, resulting in a faltering of ranks. Placid faces pull back, showing the true monsters that we are. The game is over. The dance is ending. We are no longer hunting. We are ready to kill.

CHAPTER 14

H
is screams fill my ears and it thrills me. There are words in his raised voice, but it is the sheer sound of it that matters to me. His fear vibrates the room with his small voice. The voice is weak and yet forceful with the loud shouting of his emotions. It rolls our eagerness inside us with a force from behind a thick dam until it bursts forth, unable for it to be restrained any longer.

She has attempted to block us again with a thick reflective barrier. The boy that has finally stirred our inner nature is secure behind it. Our army crashes against its mirror surface with the full force of our disappointment as we are being cheated again from our need. Disappointment rips through us and out with sounds of desperation for him.

The handle that she used to open it is too high for our outstretched arms. Fingers dislocate, snapping and popping as our mind forces our bodies to find him. Shoulders are brought out of joint with our minds wrought with anger and need, destroying these fragile shells of ours. We feel none of it. Only the cramps that are clutching us with a madness all to its own. We feel only the pain from the hunger that we are unable to satisfy now.

His screams still fill the air even blocked from us like this. It is a mingling of fear and pain from within this metal closet in the kitchen. There are pictures that are spread over the doors of two women which are set in the same backdrop of this room. The whispers come again. I know these smiles that we are destroying with our efforts to figure out this riddle. Moments of time are shown to me from memories I hold in another part of me. A part that is still fighting to hold on as I fight to let it go.

Mrs. Bell. Mrs. Tawny.
That part of me is begging me to remember. Almost pleading with me to remember, coaxing me back to another state of mind. My mind, my new mind, doesn’t have a need or room for such a life. It would only defeat my new purpose. I can’t have that, and the whispers are shut away, placed back in the darkest of corners that I won’t explore.

We are so mindless with our focus of him, that we have forgotten his partner. A scent that drove me to a level of madness, I had put out of my mind with the easy target of the one so simple to spark with fear. Fear that triggers the beast inside of me that is needed to do what I need to happen.

Her scream now dances on my conscious, pulling my attention back to predator. My body shuts down and lets my mind and its hidden beast take over. They work as one, giving my body commands, gliding it into action. The anger I was feeling washes away leaving my face back to a mask of preparation. Pain, and all its torment, is muted so I may focus on her. So that I may destroy her.

My head tilts to gain a better view of her. To watch her as my body glides forward, becoming a barrier myself to the boy that she let slip away. Her scent is not the same. It does not have the sharp musk of panic anymore. It is a blend of softer undertones with her normal smoky flavoring. This unsettles a piece of me and I focus harder on her actions.

My eyes follow her hand. Its random movements against the wall tell me that she is searching for something. She is looking for a way to defend herself and another instance that has this same feeling comes to mind.

Like what they did that stopped April.
I can see the one like me falling to the floor while we stood there pondering the cause of the noise. A moment that allowed the prey to remove those from us, reducing our numbers and our protection, just as she is searching to do now.

Anger at the thought of such a weak creature looking to harm me triggers the beast in me. I can already taste her flesh in my mouth with the hate that I have for her now. She thinks she can not only escape, but destroy us. The prey does not become the hunter. Hunters just become better killers.

The “shadows” are the first to sense the change. I can feel them bringing their focus to her without having to look for her. The noise behind me fades as each becomes aware, finally, of the threat. They are the frozen moments of time when our minds switch modes, but I know it will be a short pause. We are too hungry for our minds to let more time than is needed to slip past us.

Her hand grasps what I know will be something used to harm me if I allow her and the noise it makes when she claims it snaps her into the center of their thoughts. I cannot wait for them to catch up to me if I am to stop her. If she is to be prevented from escaping again, if we are to feed, I must face her on my own with hopes that they will join in shortly.

The beast is taking over fully. My face is no longer mine. It now belongs to the beast that stalks inside me. I feel my lips pull back into the glare and rage it knows how to wear. All thought process is removed with its presence inside me. I am nothing now but the simple needs of one that must feed. Her body is the key to my salvation and survival. There is nothing to debate. There is nothing to rationalize. I must feed. She must die. It is so simple that it is almost freeing.

There is a moment when our eyes lock and I know she is seeing something different than that of what I am. I know that she is comparing me to the one that screams for her behind the door. The one that she sought to save from us, but her tears hint at a failing to do so. It was just a moment. A mere flash of regrets before she gathers herself. Her scent changes with it. She is no longer the prey in her mind. I am.

She screams with her attack upon me. The knife reflects the lights in the room, seeming to glow as she plunges it into my body. There is a flutter of panic with a thought to the damage it should cause me, but there is nothing.

The blade is not cold or burning pain. It is nothing more than air. There is no pain, no obvious answer yielded by its mutilation. Without the pain, my beast never retreats. It rides my surface, seeking any opening to harm her and it finds one.

Her arm is so close to my face that I can almost see her pulse at her wrist beating in the deep blue veins. They are straws that I may sip on, pulling the hot, sweet syrup that I crave into my mouth. I want them.

I turn my head, seeking those straws with my teeth. Teeth that feel like days ago were just sinking into soft flesh, allowing me to reach the bliss. A bliss that I am denied with her continued fighting me. I didn’t feel her knock me down, but I am falling away from her just the same. Falling to the ground in a similar state that I started all of this in.

I am not a monster. I am just so hungry! Why won’t you help me?
My mind pleads with her to understand my need of her, but it is only anger I feel staring up at her.

I stand slower than normal. Something is pouring from me, from the place that she attacked me. With no pain to trigger any of what was once a way to know when I am in danger, I head towards her again, but I won’t reach her. I will never satisfy this hunger, but my pain will end just the same.

I’m not a monster. I just want the pain to stop. She may not have saved those she came with, but she saves me. She ends my suffering.