The Shadows' Empress (Part 8)

Roland sat on his bed thinking about how he was going to complete his task. There was no way he could open it by any conventional means. Which, to him, sucked. It seemed the most important things were never easy, and he hated that life worked that way. The young man listened, sitting quietly to the noise coming from outside of his room. There was none. He felt like people were listening to him through the door, but he had to get another look at the box.

            Sliding down onto the floor, Roland sat on the cheap, clue carpet on his bedroom floor. He scooted over to his left a bit so that he could reach behind him and slide the box out from it’s hiding spot while watching the door. No one entered his bedroom, so he slid the box into the light of his bedroom, making sure to keep it concealed behind his right leg so that if someone did open the door they wouldn’t see the box.

            As soon as Roland felt the old, wooden box against the outside of his right thigh he glanced down at it, then back at his bedroom door. He suddenly began to feel as if there were security cameras in his room where there were none before. Ignoring the feeling, he studied the box, noting the red symbols that he’d remembered from his dream. For a second, he contemplated breaking the box open. His dad would be going into town tomorrow to pick up some groceries—a task the kids rarely participated in. He could destroy it with one of the hammers that Jacob kept in the shed while the twins were busy playing outside.

            It sounded like a decent plan. However, despite how frail the box appeared, Roland seriously doubted he would succeed. If the virile young man couldn’t open a box that was barely holding itself together with his bare hands, there was no way a hammer would work, either. There was something about it that seemed supernatural. The markings had an innocuous feeling that meshed with a demonic one. And one of them was gone.

            When had that happened? There were seven when he put the box under his bed, and now there were only six. The area where the seventh symbols was felt cold under Roland’s fingers while the rest emitted a faint heat.

            And then he remembered the visions he’d had in his dream. The dream within a dream. Roland hated those.

            There was a brisk knock coming from the other side of the door. It sounded like it was coming from the top.

            “Hey, bud… It’s pizza night,” Roland’s father said, quite cheerily through the large wooden slab.

            Roland quickly pushed the box back underneath his bed, making sure his sheets were perfectly draped over the edge so no one would suspect anything. Then, he stood up and rushed over to the door and opened it up.

            “Pepperoni!” Jacob heard his son’s stomach growl and he laughed until he cried.

            “One large pepperoni…check,” Jacob typed Roland’s order into the memo app on him smartphone.

            The pair walked downstairs, and Roland sat on the couch to watch television with his younger siblings. They were watching cartoons until the pizza arrived at their house. It was also movie night, and they’d picked out a superhero movie. Spencer was huge fan of Harley Quinn, and Batman.

            Roland looked over at his dad who was placing the order as he paced around the kitchen. The phone in Jacob’s hand reminded Roland of when he took a picture of the map on top of the blueprints. He leaned to the right, sliding his own smartphone out of his pocket. He opened the photo gallery app. The first photo that came up was the picture he took of the map. In his dream.

            His heart began to pound in his chest as he turned the screen off and put the phone back into his pocket.

            ‘No fucking way!’ Roland tried to keep a straight face, maybe smile a little at his siblings rolling around on the carpet. But in his mind, he was jumping with joy!

            ‘I can’t believe that worked!’

            The joy didn’t last too long, though. Roland could even feel his appetite slowly dissipate when he realized that the vision he’d had must have been just as real as the picture he took.

            Spencer stared at his older brother, noticing Roland’s attitude go from “normal” to “my dog died” in just a few second. He climbed up onto the couch and hugged his older brother.

            “What’s wrong?” Spencer asked looking at Roland. The younger boy stared directly into his brother’s eyes the way he did when he was trying to read people’s minds. He couldn’t actually do so, but he liked to try.

            Roland smirked at his brother to reassure him that things would be fine. “I’m alright. Just had a weird dream.”

            “Like a nightmare?” Spencer asked?

            “Exactly. Been having them a lot, lately.”

The Shadow Man (Part 11)

“Well…” Jesse began, feeling very awkward about telling someone—especially a stranger—something that would make him sound crazy. “I saw someone in the woods. Just behind the first few trees over there,” Jesse pointed towards the woods behind a house where he ran to chase after the shadow figure that hid in the cave. By this point, he wasn’t sure if he should explain everything exactly as it happened, or to leave out the part about the man he saw being a shadow.

“Okay,” Officer Perez led Jesse to continuing his story. “What happened after you saw this person?”

“I thought the might have had something to do with Olivia’s disappearance because he was staring at me in the area where I found her watch.”

Jesse had a sudden thought; if the shadow man had Olivia, then where was she when the two encountered each other? Had the shadow already hidden her in the cave? Was he waiting for Jesse to come look for her?

Officer Perez wrote down notes in her notepad about Jesse recounting of the story. When she noticed that he’d stopped, she asked him if he was okay thinking he might have a concussion.

“Do you need to sit down?” She asked.

“No, I’m fine. I was just wondering…”

“Yes?”

“If he had Olivia, where was she when he was watching me pick up her watch?”

Perez had no idea how to answer that. In fact, she was wondering the same herself. The police officer had an inkling that Jesse was trying to counteract his story by asking such a question when he realized part of his story didn’t add up, but he seemed sincere. Instead of calling him on it, Perez wanted to get his entire story down on paper before she started speculating.

“Let’s hear your entire story first, then we’ll worry about that,” she said with a smile.

“I followed the man into the woods to a cave that was on the other side. But then I started feeling dizzy. I think I was hallucinating, or something. I saw some big grey cats that looked like they were shadows, and they attacked me while the man went into the cave.”

Jesse chuckled at the last part thinking if he played it off he could tell her as much as possible without sounding too crazy. Perez stared at the young man with a bewildered expression on her face. She’d heard a lot of crazy things in her nine years as a police officer, but nothing like that.

“Cats? Shadow cats?”

“Or something…I know, it sounds crazy. I think it was just part of a dream I had when I passed out. I’ve been taking Percocet that was prescribed for pain…”

“And you think maybe they had something to do with this…dream?”

Jesse nodded. He didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t think his story was believable, so he did his best to retell it so that something that didn’t makes sense would sound normal. The only way he could think to do that was to say it was a dream and blame it on his medication. ‘What now?” Jesse thought. ‘Am I gonna get committed? For all she knows, it was a weird dream I had when I passed out.’

The young man stared at the ground feeling incredibly stupid for saying anything at all. He wondered if this feeling he had was what people who had psychotic episodes felt. Knowing no matter what they said from that point on nobody would believe them.

“Alright, I think I have everything I need,” Officer Perez said realizing for the first time that Jesse had blood dripping from the inside of his shirt in three parallel lines. She smiled again and reminded Jesse “If there’s anything else you remember let us know,” handing Jesse her card.

“Okay,” Jesse returned the officer’s smile. He looked down at the business card she’d handed him. ‘I didn’t know cops had these things. I thought they just wrote their number on a sticky note, or something.’

Jesse felt a hand on his left shoulder, causing him to jump in fright.

“Whoa, whoa, it’s just me,” Jesse’s dad laughed. “The officer told me that you used your Percocet.

“Yeah, why?”

“You think maybe the does is too high? Or…maybe, possible, you took too much?”

“What, you think I’m a drug addict now?” Jesse asked in annoyance as he stuffed the card Officer Perez gave him into his back pocket.

“Nah, buddy. It’s not that. I’m just shocked you took it when you said you didn’t want them. You feeling alright?”

Jesse thought about his answer for a few moments. “Yeah, Dad, I’m alright. I just had this weird ache on my left side. My ribs haven’t fully healed, yet, I guess.”

“Alright. But, you let me know if it gets worse, eh?”

“I will,” Jesse said, his father pulling him in for a bear hug. Jesse hugged his father back, wincing at the pain in his side.

“Where’s your brother?” Jesse’s father asked surveying the dissipating crime scene? “He usually follows you everywhere…”

The Pits (12/12)

For the first time in several months, Max felt his life was getting back to normal. If you can call it that. He was going through a major transition in his life; starting college and moving out of his mother’s house. Max decided to go to a school that was two states away from home. After the events that occurred months ago that resulted in the deaths of his two closest friends and having to go to their funerals, he felt like he wouldn’t be able to move on if he stayed too close to home. A university in Michigan sounded nice. Far enough away that he could leave his past behind, but close enough to home that he could visit on longer breaks.

The new college student was more excited to leave home than he felt he should be. But, that was okay. He had always felt like he was in the way; a nuisance to his parents. This way, he wouldn’t be in their way and wouldn’t suffer the consequences for it. Who was Max kidding? He hadn’t had to deal with any of that since he was sixteen. Still, he’d never been able to get used to things being normal. Now was a good opportunity to finally feel like his life meant something.

Max and his new roommate, Ethan, had hit it off immediately upon meeting each other. The two young men found themselves in a new environment, completely alone despite being surrounded by people for most of the day. They decided to explore the campus, looking for the locations of all of their classes so that neither of them would get lost on the first day.

Ethan was a Biology major, which Max—a Chemistry major—thought was cool. He figured they could help each other since they had some of the same classes together. It would be like when he asked Simon for help back in…Max shook his head to make himself stop thinking about his friends. They were gone, and he wanted to move on, which Max found a more difficult task than forgetting people used to be.

“You alright?” Ethan asked? He’d seen Max shake his head, but a bit confused because he hadn’t asked a question.

“Huh? Yeah! I’m fine,” Max replied. “Just realized what homesickness was.”

“Yeah…I know what you mean,” Ethan said offering a small smile. “I’ve never been away from home until last night. I could barely sleep.”

“You’ve at least slept over at your friends’ houses, right?”

Ethan shook his head, “Nope. I was homeschooled, and most of the kids in my neighborhood were either a lot older or a lot younger than me. Didn’t have many friends.”

“That sucks…” Max thought for a second that maybe it was for the best. Ethan never had friends to lose in the first place. “On the bright side, you never had to leave any friends behind. That sucks, too.”

“I’ll bet,” Ethan nodded. “I’m guessing…you’ve had to do that a lot?”

“With a couple friends, recently. And all of my family accept my mom.”

“Damn…” Ethan felt bad knowing his new best friend’s life must have been more tragic than his own. However, it gave Ethan an idea. “Well, we’re nowhere near home, so we should just start over here!”

Max chuckled at how suddenly Ethan’s happiness could manifest itself. “Sure!”

The two friends were walking down a hallway that supposed to lead to a game room. Max forgot what it was called—something related to the school mascot—that was at the end of the hallway. All of the lights were out, so Ethan suggested they go downstairs to get some food from one of the many restaurants that operated on-campus. As they turned around, Max was instantly on edge, something he hadn’t felt since his escape from the Pits. Something about the janitor that was moping an area near to the intersecting hallway put Max off.

‘Where’d he come from?’

An image of Simon yelling at Max to run flashed in his mind, and he instinctively grabbed Ethan’s hand. Ethan looked at Max’s hand grasping his, thinking Max’s life had been rougher than he’d thought. To reassure Max, Ethan reciprocated, holding onto Max hand. After all, his parents had always told him to help other people when given the opportunity.

As they walked, Max could feel his heart beat faster. By the time the two were close to the janitor, he was feeling chills running down his spine almost as fast as Max wanted to run from the man cleaning the floor. The janitor’s hat concealed his face, and his coveralls covering nearly everything else. Max was afraid the janitor was lash out at him and his new friend as they walked by, but he didn’t. Max felt his heart rate decrease and he began to relax when Ethan whispered, “I thought the janitors wore jeans and a polo shirt with the school colors on it…”

Max’s heart rate increased again, and he almost ran away, with Ethan in tow, when he noticed that Ethan wasn’t walking anymore. He turned to see what was wrong with Ethan to see blood dripping from the other young man’s neck. It started at a trickle at first, but Ethan’s head began to tilt back tearing more of the skin as it did so. In seconds, the front of Ethan’s body was covered in thick, shiny, crimson blood, and he collapsed backwards onto the floor where the janitor had been mopping.

“Damn kids. I just cleaned the floor,” said a raspy, familiar voice.

Max looked up in horror, still holding onto Ethan’s hand. The Janitor took off his hat with the same hand he was holding his knife in.

“You’re shitting me…” Max muttered. He looked into the eyes of the old man who murdered his friend, Gio, and several cultists.

“I told you, if I could still see you when I finished killin’ them cult bastards, I’d be commin’ for ya,” The old man growled. “When I was done countin’, you were hangin’ upside down from a tree.”

“B-but…I wasn’t…I mean…” Max stammered. He didn’t know what to say, but that wasn’t stopping him from trying to talk.

The old man put his hat back on, raising his knife to Max’s throat. “Should’ve just dies with your friends.”

The Shadows' Empress (Part 6)

For once in a very long time, Roland woke up much more peacefully than he’d slept. He didn’t open his eyes immediately. Instead, he laid in bed thinking about the dream he had last night. At first, the light coming through his windows shining through his eyelids made him feel safe. And then, he remembered what he’d discovered in the last few moments locked inside that office in the hotel. He made his best attempt at holding the tears back. When he finally lost the battle feeling the warm tears rolling down his cheeks, Roland felt something he hadn’t since he was about twelve years old: the feeling that he was being watched. Roland opened his eyes and stared up at his observer. It was his father, Jacob.

            “Oh, morning, Dad,” Roland said with a smile. “I had a feeling someone was watching me.”

            “Did ya?” Jacob raised an eyebrow. “How long were you awake?”

            “Just a couple of minutes.”

            “Did you have another bad dream, bud?”

            Roland froze for a second, “How did you know? Did I yell, again?”

            “Nope,” Jacob smiled, reach over to his son’s face. “What was so bad about it that it made you cry when you woke up?”

            Roland was taken aback. He had seen some variation of this question coming, and he still wasn’t ready for it. Possibly because he didn’t think he dad would ask it so soon. So, he lied.

            “I had a dream that some people broke into the house, dragged me out, and made me watch while they blew up the house with you and Scarlet and Spencer in it.”

            That’s obviously not what happened, but even the thought of that terrified Roland. Because of how intense that sounded, he began to wonder which was worse; the fake nightmare, or the real one.

            “Ah, yeah…that’s pretty messed up,” Jacob said, rubbing Roland’s lower right leg. “It’s a good thing that was just a dream.”

            “Yep…”

            “You hungry? I made bacon, eggs, and pancakes for breakfast.”

            “Uh, sure. I’ll be down in just a sec.”

            “Good,” Roland’s father said as he stood up. “Because someone needs to mow the lawn and I’ve got to get to work.”

            Roland stared at his dad for a few moments. “But, you work from home. I thought that’s why you wanted to be a writer?”

            “Yes, but I have a midnight deadline, and I nave to crank out the last thirty pages.”

            “Holy crap, Dad!”

            “I know, I know! This is why you don’t procrastinate. You end up like your old man!” Jacob said with a chuckle while walking into his office.

            Forcing himself out of bed, Roland went over to his dresser, and pulled out a pair of camouflage shorts and a black tank top, figuring it would be hot outside after he ate breakfast. It was always hot this early in the morning in central Texas. He decided he’d just take a shower when he was done with the lawn. He’d likely end up doing so anyway to rinse of the sweat.

            When Roland got downstairs, his sister, Scarlet, was already in the living room, watching cartoons. Roland sat next to his younger brother with his plate of food.

            “Why aren’t you done, yet?” he asked, tousling Spencer’s hair. “I thought you two were inseparable.”

            “I don’t wanna go in there,” Spencer said while he smoothed his messy blond hair.

            “Why not?” the older boy asked.

            Instead of answering, Spencer hopped off of his chair at the dining room table, and brought his empty plate to the sink, dropping it in. The small boy then ran upstairs with his stuffed animal held tightly in his arms, closing the door behind him.

            The irony was not lost on Roland when he couldn’t help but mutter, “You’re too young to be acting like a teenager. The older boy put his plate in the sink as well and went out to the backyard to get the lawnmower. Fortunately for Roland, it didn’t take him too long to get the rather large backyard squared away. He was proud of himself for finishing his chore in record time; fourteen minutes and twenty-seven seconds, according to his Smart Watch.

            Roland pushed the lawnmower to it’s resting place in the shed that his father had built. As the machine rolled into the small building, it hit a bump where the ground and floor at the entrance were not level. Jacob kept saying he was going to fix it, but he never did. Instead of making things difficult for himself, Roland pulled the lawnmower backwards and pushed the handlebar down to avoid the bump. However, the teen’s hands were sweaty enough for him to lose his grip and the heavier portion of the lawnmower that was painted bright red and covered in lawn trimmings slammed down onto the floor inside the shed. Just as Roland was hoping his dad hadn’t heard the noise a box fell from a shelf above the doors that he had forgotten existed, bouncing off of the machine, causing an even louder metal ting sound.

            Hoping he didn’t breaking anything important—the box and its contents, or the lawnmower—Roland pushed the mower into the far back of the shed thinking he’d pretend the weather caused it to break if it didn’t work next time. After that, he picked up the small, wooden box, turning it right-side-up. He’d never seen the box before. He could tell there was something in it, something heavy, by the sounds it made when Roland moved the box around. The only thing that seemed familiar about it were the markings. Instead of writing on it in Sharpie there were symbols.

            ‘They look like the ones on the map…’

            Roland’s heart started racing. There’s no way this could be happening! He wondered if his dad would know he took it, and just as quickly, decided he didn’t care. He was too excited about this situation to let this chance pass. He left the shed with his new package in tow and closed the door and locked it. Roland went back into his house, passed his sister still watching television, up the stairs. He stood at the top of the stairs. The room to his brother’s bedroom was closed as was the door to his father’s office.

            ‘Good…’

            Walking fast, with his heartbeat seemingly getting faster with each step, Roland made it into his room, closed the door, and slid the box under his bed, far enough that no one would ever see it.

            ‘Now to get the lock off.”

The Shadow Man (Part 10)

“…up. Get up…” there was a sound that Jesse couldn’t quite place. It sounded as if he was underwater. “Jesse, get up!”

            ‘Wow. Even in death, people like to rush you…’ Jesse told himself.

            “Jesse!” The sound was clearer, now. “Oh, please wake up!”

            Taking a second to think, Jesse realized that the voice he was hearing sounded familiar, in a good way. And then he realized: he could think. His eyes snapped open when he figured out what was happening. He wasn’t dead.

            He started blinking rapidly to clear the blurriness from his eyes before looking around to see his parents and Mrs. Sandoval standing over him. In the corner of his eye, he could see red and blue flashing light getting closer. Jesse sat up.

            “What happened?” He took a second to examine his surroundings. He was lying on the sidewalk, exactly where he’d found Olivia’s watch. ‘How’d I get here? I was in the woods…wasn’t I?’

            “Are you okay?” Mrs. Sandoval asked Jesse. Looking her in the eyes, it was obvious that she had been crying for quite a while. That’s when Jesse remembered why he was outside in the first place.

            “I’m fine. Did you find Olivia?” Jesse asked, speaking quickly.

            The adults all looked at each other, then back to Jesse. His parents shook their heads. Mrs. Sandoval began to cry again.

            “No, but they’re looking,” she said as clearly as she could through her tears.

            Jesse held up the watch that he was still holding. He’d squeezed it so tight at one point that the glass on the clock face crumbled, cutting his hand.

            “Where did you find that?” Mrs. Sandoval asked.

            Jesse looked down at the ground. “Right here…”

            Mrs. Sandoval took the watch from Jesse, examining it. A part of her didn’t believe the watch was her daughter’s watch. Or maybe she didn’t want to believe it because of the implications that would have.

            To make sure, Mrs. Sandoval flipped the watch over and checked the underside of the metal plate that covered the batteries. There was an inscription that read:

            “To the sweetest, smartest, girl growing up to be an amazing woman. I will always love you, even when you don’t love yourself.” It was something that Mrs. Sandoval thought would be a good thing for Olivia to hear as she was given the watch while in a mental health clinic two towns over recovering from her body dysmorphia and subsequent eating disorders.

            Jesse follow Mrs. Sandoval’s eyes, knowing exactly what she was looking at. As tear welled up in her eyes again, he spoke the words in his mind. He was glad that someone in her family took notice of Olivia’s situation, and tried to help her through it. Aside from Jesse, Olivia’s mother was the only person who would even talk about her problems, even if only with Olivia. No one else wanted to talk about it. Not her friends nor the majority of her relatives, and especially not her father. He couldn’t fathom the idea of someone with a mental illness of any kind being a part of his family. In fact, he was usually the first to make jokes about “crazy people shooting up schools”.

            Two police officers walked up to Jesse, drawing his attention back to the present. “Hello, young man,” they said as the bigger of the two helped Jesse to his feet. He was a huge guy. Tall with the build a bodybuilder would have. Jesse immediately thought about telling Izzy that he got to talk to someone who was his younger brother’s type.

            “I’m Officer Perez. This is Officer Clayton. Do you have a minute to give us your statement?” the other asked. Jesse was taken aback by her appearance. She was beautiful. Dark hair, rather short, with a Hispanic accent. Jesse had a feeling people didn’t take her seriously, whether it be people who broke the law, or people who were the law. ‘Who says women can’t be badass?’

            “Sure,” Jesse replied.

            “I’m gonna go talk to the mother,” The larger police officer said before walking over to the sobbing Mrs. Sandoval through a crowd of other officers and detectives.

            “I’m sure you’ve been through a lot tonight, so I’ll just get to it, if that’s alright…”

            “Sure.”

            “Can I ask you what you were doing in this area?”
            “I called Olivia…well, I tried to. Her mom answered, instead, and told me that Olivia left the house, and hadn’t come home.”

            Officer Perez wrote Jesse’s response on a small notepad she’d pulled out of her breast pocket. “Do you remember what time this happened?”

            “Around five or five-thirty, I think?”

            “Okay, and what happened before you fell unconscious? Do you remember?”

            Jesse didn’t actually want to answer this question. Should he tell her that he ran into the woods and got attack by shadows at a cave? That sounded stupid even to Jesse.

            “Uh…well, Mrs. Sandoval said she was probably walking back to my house after a fight they’d had. I just decided to go from my house to hers to see if I could find her along the way.”

            “Okay, good. And after that?” Officer Perez tried to keep Jesse talking. She was hoping for as many candid responses as she could get out of Jesse, but she felt like he was holding something back from her. He kept rubbing his right arm with his left and shifting his eyes a bit.

            Jesse hesitated to answer. I-I…saw a something in the trees,” he said as he pointed to the woods behind the houses.”

            “And did you follow it?”

            “No…not really.”

            Officer Perez raised an eyebrow at Jesse.

            “’Not really’?” Perez lowered her notepad.

“Look, Jesse, I have three kids. Two of them are your age.” The officer smiled. “Plus, I’m a cop. I know when I’m being lied to.”

Jesse knew she was right. Parents always know everything their kids do, even when the kids think they’ve gotten away with something. And cops are trained to distinguish truth from lies.

“If I tell you, do…you promise not to tell my parents? They’ll think I’m crazy.”

“Pinky swear,” Officer Perez held up her pinky finger with a big smile on her face as Jesse linked his pinky with hers.

“Uh…okay then.”

The Pits (11/12)

To say Max was stunned was an understatement. This weird old man didn’t look like he could walk more than fifty feet without needing a break. But he’d nearly vaulted down the stairs, swinging around a rather heavy sledgehammer; the same one that had incapacitated him just minutes earlier. ‘Just like the killers in horror movies…’

            Before Max could ask the old man how he was still standing after losing so much blood, the old man swung the hammer to his right with a force that seemed more than what a man his age should have, hitting one of the other cultists in the jaw. Their jaw hung down connected only to the rest of their head by the skin of their face. They collapsed to their knees trying to hold their lower jaw in place and, unsuccessfully, attempting to limit the loss of blood.

            There was a sound of bones breaking, bringing Max’s attention to a cultist standing to the left of the old man. Only the cultist was no longer standing. Instead, she was lying on her side, clutching the right side of her face. The murderer had slammed the sledgehammer into her to bring her down, then brought it above his head.

            “You must have a death wish,” the older man said to Max. “If you’re still in my line of sight when I’m done, you’re mine!”

            At that, Max took off running past the old man. He didn’t wait to see him hit anyone else. Although, he did hear the dull thud of the hammer coming down, probably finishing off the second cultist. After that, the old man began counting down from ten. Max barely heard the old man yell “Eight!” as he ran out behind the tree line.

            He knew there were more cultists than what were in the house. Max only had a limited amount of time to get back to the parking lot before the leader of the cult realized his so-called family was being picked off.

            Max ran through the woods as fast as he could, paying attention to what was on the ground, so he didn’t trip. That was the last thing he needed.

            “AAHHH!” Max screamed as he was pulled up into a tree. He’d fallen into a trap. The rope tightened around his ankle and yanked him into the tree so quickly he almost didn’t register that he’d taken a heavy hit to the head against the ground. For a minute, he flailed in the air, spinning in the grip of the rope. Max stopped, calming himself so that he could figure out the best way down, when he noticed he could still see the old man’s cabin from where he was hanging. The man’s words echoed in Max’s head ‘If you’re still in my line of sight…’

            Remembering the one good thing his father had ever done for him, Max reached up into his boot to pull out the pocket knife he was given for his birthday years ago. The only reason he’d kept it was to remind himself that there was good in everyone. He flicked it open before reaching even further to saw at the rope next to his ankle; he didn’t need a long piece of rope getting caught on something, or by someone. Just before he could finish cutting the rope; however, an arrow whizzed past, grazing his hand. A second arrow followed, slicing through the rope, leaving gravity to pull Max to the earth as hard as it would allow.

            Winded, Max sat up, leaning on his left arm to balance himself as he stood. A third arrow pierced his arm.

            “Son-of-a-bitch!” Max screeched. ‘At least their getting better at hitting moving targets.’

            Max stood up, and began to jog, but couldn’t stand the pain the arrow was causing him. He knew it would continue to bother him if he didn’t do something.

            ‘The arrowhead is interchangeable’ he reached to the arrowhead and began to unscrew it. In the past, he’d seen professional archers switch the safety arrow tips with ones meant for hunting. The blades on the arrowhead were sharp and cut his fingers as he jogged, but he cared more that his bloody fingers might make it more difficult to grasp things. Finally, with the arrowhead off, he pulled the arrow out of his arm from the back. Max felt a wave of intense pain followed by relief noticing his wound hurt less now.

            Max dodged more arrows as he ran onto the main trail.

            ‘Finally, something familiar!’

            He began to run faster, getting a second wind from the realization that he was no longer lost. His shoots kicked up dust as he pounded his way up the trail that opened to a field that was used for extra parking during events that were held during the summer. Just before he got the sidewalk that encircled the majority of the park Max felt something sharp hit his left leg half-way up his shin. He tripped sliding across the grass, wet from the sprinkler system doing its’ job. Max didn’t even have to look. He already knew it was another arrow. He did, however, look back to see the cultists that were chasing him were much closer than he thought.

            ‘Gonna have to suck it up. I don’t have time to take it out. Just pretend it doesn’t hurt.’

            Max pushed himself up, trying to run as fast as he could, given his newly acquired handicap. He ran across the football field hoping the shortcut would get him to his car without anymore injuries. As he ran past the pavilion Max noticed there were two teenagers playing basketball.

            ‘They wouldn’t attack me in front of other people, would they?’

            One of the cultists took aim and fired and arrow at the teenagers, hitting one of them through the back of his head, poking out his right eye. The girl he was playing against began to scream as loud as she possibly could, prompting the second cult member closer to catching Max to switch he focus to the girl; firing an arrow that flew into her open mouth, through the back of her head.

            By this time, Max was in his car, and the cultists stopped chasing. They had used their last arrows on the kids playing basketball and couldn’t do any damage to someone enclosed in plastic, glass and metal parts. He turned on the headlights flashing beams of light onto the hill behind the cultists. On top of the hill was the old man, saturated in the blood of his enemies. Holding the head of the cult leader.

 Max panicked, putting the car in the wrong gear before he hit the gas, causing his car to charge backwards into, presumably, the car the teen drove to the park. ‘They won’t be needing it, anyway.’

With all of the thoughts running through his mind, Max decided the first thing he’d do was drive to the police station. He didn’t feel safe driving directly home. Plus, he needed to go to a hospital for his injuries, and he vaguely remembered promising to Simon that he’d get help. Or was it Gio? Did he even say it at all? Who cares. It had to be done.

Max pulled up and stopped at a red light. He looked to the glow-in-the-dark rosary his grandmother had gotten him.

“Hey, Grandma. You think the cops’ll believe me with an arrow in my leg?

The Shadows' Empress (Part 5)

The Nitris, as the Empress called it, had finally stopped pounding the door. For the first time since Roland encountered the icy beast, it was quiet. Concerned that the horse-like creature would return if it heard any movement behind the door, Roland came out from under the heavy desk and stood slowly. For a minute or two, he stared at the door, half expecting the banging to start again. When it didn’t, he placed the map of the hotel and the blueprints on the desk he hid under to examine them.

There were so many rooms in the blueprints. Rooms that weren’t on the map. They looked as if they led to places that you couldn’t get to from any of the main rooms. In fact, the blueprints showed what looked like an entirely different building placed inside the old hotel. On one hand, there were the rooms designed to be a part of the hotel that spread outward, giving the building it’s wide structure. On the other, the secret rooms seemed to be built on their side; as if the building was vertical.

“A skyscraper….?” Roland said quietly, before quickly clamping his hands over his mouth.

There was a faint sound of a horse snorting on the other side of the door. Obviously, the horse hadn’t left, yet. Roland wasn’t sure if it was waiting for him to come out, or if it was planning on roaming the halls. Roland preferred the latter. At least then he’d be able to dash from room to room, ducking out of danger if he needed to. That idea led him to the realization that there might be more than just one Nitris.

‘Or something even worse.’

“How can they put two structures in one building?” Roland whispered to himself. “Am I even looking at this right?”

The confused boy began to look around the drawer from which the map and blueprints fell out of. There were several large pieces of paper stored in it; however, none of them were complete. Each piece of paper was marked with thin gray lines in what looked like random areas. Nothing connected. Everything seem out of order, and on a majority of the poster-sized papers there was on one line, if any at all. And then, he noticed that each page was numbered.

‘Maybe if I put them on top of each other in order…’

Roland did so, arranging the numbers so that the first page was at the top of the pile, and the eighth was at the bottom. That didn’t help the lines makes sense, so he rearranged the pages, with the first at the bottom, but still no luck.

‘They’re probably just mistakes,’ he reasoned, putting the failures back into the drawer. For now, he’d only use what he had. At least the blueprints and map made sense in a weird sort of way. ‘This is a dream, though. Nothing really has to make sense.’

“But…what if it everything I’m seeing here really means something?” Roland asked, looking down at the map. He couldn’t help but feel like the red symbols meant something. None of them look like anything particularly familiar. There were seven of them, but only three different types. Three of them looked were a circle with a small dot in the middle. Another three looked like X’s that didn’t connect in the middle. And the last one looked just like a set of French doors. Similar to the entrance, and exit, of the hotel. The only problem was that this symbol was nowhere near where Roland had come in. Instead, it was at the center of the building.

Noticing this made something click in Roland’s mind. The rooms with the symbols on them coincided with rooms that matched up on both the map and the blueprints. He put the blueprint on top of the map since the blueprints were printed on some very translucent paper. Roland looked over the map at the areas where the symbols were.

“I need to get to each of these rooms,” He said, not bothering to keep quiet any longer. He was too determined to figure out what he was looking for and leave the hotel. It occurred to him that he could possibly just pry the boards off the windows, but the Empress made this sound so important. Not to mention, he had a feeling that what he was looking for had something to do with what he’d heard his father say the night before.

‘Stop bothering my family. They’ve done nothing to you.’

Those words echoed in Roland’s mind as his eyes became glued to one room on the map that bore a symbol; one like a target with it’s small dot surrounded by a circle. When he registered that he was already in one of the rooms he’d been looking for he began to hear the song We Wish You a Merry Christmas being played from something that sounded like a music box. He looked around but couldn’t see where it was coming from. No matter where in the room he stood, it still sounded the same distance from him.

But it sounded familiar, and not just because he knew the song. The way it sounded, it reminded him of a snow globe. His favorite snow globe. His mother had given it to him for Christmas one year to add to his collection. It had a red base, lined with gold. A nutcracker soldier stood in the center, surrounded by presents. And if you turned the winding mechanism on the bottom it would play We Wish You a Merry Christmas. A memory of Roland holding it in front of him watching the snow fall in the globe played in his head, as he noticed the music he was hearing was part of the memory.

At the hospital, sitting in a chair in the waiting room. Holding the snow globe, watching the fake snow fall while listening to the music. In the background, Roland could hear crying. It was his father. Begging Clara not to leave him alone. Roland’s Grandparents were there, also crying. Holding his younger siblings who were trying to take off their heavy winter jackets.

The memory ended, and Roland felt like he’d taken a baseball bat to the head. But the physical pain didn’t bother him. Not as much as the realization that he’d been lied to his whole life. His father, Jacob, told him that his mother had died giving birth to his younger siblings. He knew that wasn’t true. However, Roland let himself believe that. His father would never lie to him. ‘Right?’

Shadow Man (Part 9)

Izzy stood next to his window, staring out at the trees in the back yard. He’d heard something that made him feel uneasy. It sounded like a muffled scream. At first, he wondered if anyone else in the house heard it. But, the faint sound of his parents who had decided to continue their argument in the living room told him that—in the very least—they didn’t. He doubted his older brother heard it, too. The last he knew, Jesse was sleeping. Izzy had been woken by a nightmare and, despite being thirteen, felt too afraid sleep alone. He went to ask if he could sleep in his brother’s room that night, but he saw the open bottle of pill on his desk and knew it wouldn’t be easy waking Jesse up, so he went back to his own bedroom, lying awake in bed. After a while, he’d managed to fall asleep, but the scream he’d heard woke him up again.

            ‘It wasn’t in the back yard,’ Izzy thought to himself. ‘It sounded too far away.’

            Taking one of the notebooks and his favorite blue pen from his backpack, Izzy began to write a note for his parents, and older brother. Given what he knew his parents were arguing about he figured one of them was going to come u to talk to him about…issues he’d been having with his Uncle. ‘Not like they can’t just ask Jesse. He dealt with it, too,’ Izzy thought before beginning to write his note.

            Only two words into writing his letter, there was a quiet bang coming from the inside of Izzy’s closet. He looked over, noticing the doors were shaking a bit. Then, there was another thump causing the doors to rattle some more.

            ‘In a horror movie, I’d die if I went to open the doors.’ Izzy thought about all the things that had happened that day, particularly the shadow man that appeared in Jesse’s window. Instead of walking up to the doors to his closet, Izzy slowly backed away from the door while moving to the right. There was a gap between the two doors through which Izzy tried to look into his closet. At first, he didn’t see anything. He stared for a few minutes, wondering if he should get a flashlight when a round white ball appeared through the gap in the doors. Izzy had no idea what the object was, until he saw the white spot disappear and then quickly reappear.

            It was an eye. Izzy turned to run for his bedroom door, but something wrapped around his mouth, and right ankle. After a few second, he felt something else encircle his torso and pull him backwards a bit. Izzy fought to reach the door, not understanding how something that barely felt real could have so much strength. He looked down to see solid black chains slowly wrapping around the rest of him, making it much more difficult to pull away.

            Izzy let out a muffled cry as he attempted to throw himself at his bedroom door, reaching out with his left hand. He didn’t make it. The chains were stronger than Izzy was, pulling him backwards. The doors to his closet flew open, and then shutting when the chains dragged him inside.

            He did what he could to force the chains to release him, but in the darkness of the closet, Izzy could feel the chains envelope his entire body several times. He struggled for a few moments before there was a snapping sound, and all was still. Izzy could no longer breathe, but he could feel a warm liquid pouring out of his stomach. He could see it, too. Through the crack between the doors, he could see red liquid oozing out and creating a large puddle on the floor just outside of his closet. And then, he felt nothing at all.

            “…up. Get up…” there was a sound that Jesse couldn’t quite place. It sounded as if he was underwater. “Jesse, get up!”

            ‘Wow. Even in death, people like to rush you…’ Jesse told himself.

            “Jesse!” The sound was clearer, now. “Oh, please wake up!”

            Taking a second to think, Jesse realized that the voice he was hearing sounded familiar, in a good way. And then he realized: he could think. His eyes snapped open when he figured out what was happening. He wasn’t dead.

            He started blinking rapidly to clear the blurriness from his eyes before looking around to see his parents and Mrs. Sandoval standing over him. In the corner of his eye, he could see red and blue flashing light getting closer. Jesse sat up.

            “What happened?” He took a second to examine his surroundings. He was lying on the sidewalk, exactly where he’d found Olivia’s watch. ‘How’d I get here? I was in the woods…wasn’t I?’

            “Are you okay?” Mrs. Sandoval asked Jesse. Looking her in the eyes, it was obvious that she had been crying for quite a while. That’s when Jesse remembered why he was outside in the first place.

            “I’m fine. Did you find Olivia?” Jesse asked, speaking quickly.

            The adults all looked at each other, then back to Jesse. His parents shook their heads. Mrs. Sandoval began to cry again.

            “No, but they’re looking,” she said as clearly as she could through her tears.

            Jesse held up the watch that he was still holding. He’d squeezed it so tight at one point that the glass on the clock face crumbled, cutting his hand.

            “Where did you find that?” Mrs. Sandoval asked.

            Jesse looked down at the ground. “Right here…”

The Pits (10/12)

With the old man incapacitated, Max dropped the sledgehammer and walked into the back room. He did so slowly as Max had a feeling that he was already too late to be any real use to his friend. At this point, Max felt he would only be able to say his goodbyes.

            It was very dimly lit in the small room. There was a fine layer of dust on every surface, and even more dust floating in the air, glittering in the single ray of moonlight shining through the boarded-up window. Max’s eyes did their best to adjust to the darkness. Before they could he heard a quiet moan coming from somewhere near the left wall a few feet ahead of him.

            “G…Gio?” Max called into the darkness; he was still having trouble seeing. He decided to try to feel his way toward his best friends, hoping he didn’t accidentally touch anything sharp on his way over.

            “Max…” Gio whispered softly. He likely wouldn’t make it much longer. Gio’s voice sounded so weak. He sounded defeated. The fighting spirit of the strong guy he was had left him, and his soul would soon follow.

 “I’m sorry…didn’t mean…to…leave…you guys…” Gio wheezed between breaths.

“Don’t apologize, bro,” Max had finally reached the edge of the bed and grabbed hid friend’s hand. “I should be the one apologizing. I dragged you guys out here. Figured it’d be a long time before we’d be able to meet up again.”

“…You said…Simon…didn’t make…it.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry about that, too.” Max’s eyes began to tear up as he realized he would soon be the only member of his friend group left alive.

“How?” Gio’s voice rasped in the darkness.

Max wasn’t sure how to tell Gio about what happened. Should he tell the truth, or let his dying friend thin he did the right thing by trying to save Simon? Max decided to go with the truth. Either way he’d have to live with it the rest of his life.

“Gio, I…I tried. I mean, I wanted to.” Max said quietly, trying not to cry. “The big guy grabbed him, and I wanted to take him back, but Simon told me to leave. And I did. He wasn’t gonna get far on his messed-up leg. They’d just catch us again. But, I didn’t wanna leave him there…”

“I know,” Gio said, turning to face Max. The old mattress springs creaked under his weight as he turned to place his right hand on Max’s.

“What?”

“I was…waiting for…you guys…to catch up. But…the cult guys…caught you. I saw the whole thing. But, I couldn’t help. I saw…what you did. It was…the right…thing.”

Despite trying his hardest not to cry, Max felt his tears rolling down his face and falling on his hand next to Gio’s. He felt a sense of relief that Gio wouldn’t die hating him. But, he also felt a bit of anger that Gio did nothing to help them. ‘He couldn’t have done anything.’ Max repeated the thought over and over, trying to convince himself that his current anger was misplaced. There was nothing Gio could have done to help Max and Simon in that moment.

‘But, he could’ve tried.’

Max looked over at Gio’s legs, and realized they were no longer attached to his body. A glance at a large bucket near the foot of the bed showed the new location of Gio’s legs. Gio watched as his friend looked at his injuries. Max knew the old man had cut his legs off, but a large part of him was hoping it was a bluff.

“Canyon Lake…” Gio whispered.

“What about it?”

“You have to go there, and ride around…in an inflatable kayak…like we always…said…we would…”

 “…Even if there are trees in the water like everyone says,” Max finished Gio’s sentence. “I will, buddy.”

“And tell my…parents…”

There was a long pause making Max think Gio had passed away, until the injured boy continued, “I’m sorry…I was a …bad son…”

Max could hear Gio expel his last breath. He couldn’t believe Gio was gone. Or Simon, for that matter. Max stayed where he was, kneeling next to his best friend’s body. He didn’t want to leave, anymore. He didn’t want to live knowing his best friends were dead in these woods. For a while, Max thought about going to the place where he and his friends had originally met the cultists and ask them to kill him. But, he realized that wasn’t what Simon and Gio would want for him.

Standing up, Max wiped the tears off of his face. He took deep breaths as he walked out of the back room, ignoring the smell of rot that permeated the air. Nothing mattered anymore, except getting home. Before he left, Max looked at the sledgehammer he dropped on the floor. He thought about bringing it in case he was attacked again but decided it would only weigh him down. Besides, the cultists had arrows. All Max could do was run. Fast.

He walked down the stairs, two at a time, trying to get the hell out of the old house. However, Max slipped when he was half-way down and tumbled to the base of the stairs. As much as it hurt, he refused to stop. He forced himself to stand up, and almost pissed himself. When he got himself into an upright position he realized he was face-to-face with Gabriel, the biggest of the cultists.

“Oh, shi--!”

“GET THE FUCK OUTTA MY HOUSE, WEIRDOS!” Yelled a raspy voice behind Max. There were loud footsteps coming down the stairs, causing Max to jump to the left and out of the way. The old man jumped off of the stairs near the bottom, swing the sledgehammer that Max left behind down on Gabriel’s head. The large man dropped to the ground, bleeding from a massive hole in his head.

The old man looked around all of the other cultists that felt it was okay to break into his house; all armed with knives and swords. Then, he looked to Max.

“If you’re still here when I get done with these fuckers, you’ll be next…”