Apollo's 11

by Anna Collins

  I took a few steps back and found myself breathing heavily; his breath smelled like vodka which was kinda intoxicating, not any more intoxicating than his inky black eyes which now had a playful pink shade in them. Was it just me or whenever I looked into his eyes there was a different shade of color in them? The guy literally talked with his eyes. But his eyes spoke a different language than his mouth, his eyes always showed the most intense expressions. What was it with his eyes that I couldn't look away? Sometimes he seemed like a total stranger, but at the next moment, it felt like I knew him from the core of my heart.

  "Hello madam, are you even listening to me?" he snapped his fingers in front of my eyes bringing me back from the intense darkness of his eyes.

  I blinked my eyes, "why should I listen to you? All you talk is nonsense. And who is this Suzy? And why were you out with her? How many times do I have to tell you that you can't communicate with any of your circle?" I spoke in a breath.

  Zack looked at Shawn, and both started laughing.

  Okay, now I was beginning to think that they had gone totally mad.

  I looked at Shawn, "what's there to laugh?" I asked.

  "Freya, Suzy is his sports bike. Not his girlfriend," he said while laughing.

  "What? Who names a bike with a girl's name? Jeez! You are so weird," I said while throwing looks of disgust at Zack.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Zack

  Haha! She actually thought that I was out with a girl named Suzy. She was really something; I bet a part of her even got jealous imagining me with 'Suzy'. Nah! She was not that much into me. Stop getting paranoid Zack.

  Ouch! Was she leaving? No! No! The teasing session was not over yet.

  "Umm...Miss Lawrence, you forgot to check me out," I said playfully.

  Her eyes seemed bigger when she looked at me, but before she could give me an earful, I made a smooth recovery.

  "Hey, dirty mind. I was talking about checking my progress. See? I even cut my hair short, though it makes me look fucking different but at least my boss will be happy with it," I said.

  "I wish you had cut your tongue instead of your hair," she smirked.

  "You don't like my tongue?" I asked while sticking my tongue out in a seductive way.

  By now Freya was boiling with anger though she didn't quite express it. How did she do that? I could never keep it within myself.

  "I think this look is very sexy," Shawn added.

  "Thanks, man. At least someone likes me," I mocked.

  "Shut up. And what did I say about not using slang words? Robert Hudson was known for his class and elegance; he never spoke in that cheap streetwise tone," Freya breathed in disgust.

  "I'm working on that too. But it's gonna take some f....hmmm...fine time," I said.

  Freya shook her head, "it was a huge mistake; you are nothing like him!" She said and went upstairs.

  Shawn had this silly smile pasted on his lips as he came to me. "I see what you are trying to do. You want to make her so mad that she will get tired and drop this idea eventually, right?" He asked.

  "No! Why will I want that? I may be bad, but I intend to help her. I know she has a lot of stuff going on in her life," I said slowly while looking at the direction where Freya was going.

  "But your attitude doesn't speak in that way," Shawn said in awe.

  I smiled. "I have my own reasons for that. Reasons that you will never understand."

  Miss Lawrence stormed out of the villa. Ouch! Maybe I went a bit too far. But you can't put all the blame on me. It takes two to tango. I thought to myself as Ronaldo kicked the winning goal. Real Madrid won in style. Shawn and I celebrated with a loud cheer and hi-five. But Rick was upset as he was supporting the other team. We made silly faces at him and his frown went bigger.

  "Ok peeps, this is all the drama I can take in for a day," Shawn announced.

  "I'm leaving too. Have a lot to catch up. It's the weekend after all; you know what I mean right?" Rick winked.

  "How will I know what it means? My life is nothing but a pendulum, it always comes back at the same place," Shawn frowned picking up his travel bag.

  "Bro! Have some shame, you are married now!" I teased.

  "Marriage sucks. I'm never throwing myself into that mess again," Rick shook his head lightly. It looked like his mind showed him a scary image, and he was moving his head to wipe it.

  "Again? You were married before?" I asked in awe while scooting close to him.

  "It's a sad story, and right now I don't feel like remembering it over again," he sighed.

  "Must have been really bad. Anyways, we are off for the night. Are you sure you will be alright on your own?" Shawn reconfirmed.

  "Stop treating me like a third-grade student. You guys have left me alone so many times and see? I'm sitting right here." I said pointing towards myself.

  "If sis got to know the number of times we bailed on our babysitting duties, she would have gone insane. But she worries for no reason; I have full faith on Zack. He can be evil at times, but he doesn't have it in him to deceive anyone. Right boss?" Rick smiled and patted on my shoulder.

  Retards! They had no idea about my capabilities. If I set my mind on doing anything, there was no force in this damn world to stop me. And I was in this silly game of them for my own benefit, the benefit which is far beyond the thinking level of their tiny brains.

  Freya

  Me and my stupid plans. There wasn't a single instance when I didn't get in trouble because of my crazy ideas. Freya you are nothing but a fool. How could you even plan something like this? The voices in my head kept questioning me. Ahh! I so wished I had those answers. I so wished that for once in my life I had been lenient with me. Wow! Freya you are getting pro at handling life, the voices in my head taunted me. Why shouldn't they do that? This time I had crossed all limits. I actually spent my hard-earned money and brought disaster on me.

  Arghhhh! I kicked in the air, and by now my legs were in pain. How far had I walked? Hell! Where was I? Because all I could see was darkness and the heels of my designer shoes were sticking into...what was this? Was it mud? Eeks! Oh! No! I had been so lost in my thoughts that I didn't even realize when I took the wrong turn, and right now I was standing in the middle of the forest. And I had no idea how to head back.

  Wait...why did I come out of the villa in the first place? It was my house; I should have thrown him out. Freya you are totally mad, you are even worse than that Zack. At least he knows how to twist his ways, but you, you only know how to twist your own life, the voices kept rebuking me, and I kept sulking.

  I will get myself out of this one; it's not gonna be that difficult, I said to myself and reached out for my phone to find out my location with the help of Google maps.

  Location Unavailable? W-T-H! I was such a lazy bum that I even refused to get up to fetch a glass of water for myself. How on earth could I cover this amount of distance, that too in this uncomfortable pair of shoes? The thought of losing Zack and my whole plan going into the drains was affecting me this much? God! I was acting like the old amateur Freya. Where was the new and confident Freya who feared nothing? That idiot was bringing back the old me. His talks, the fights with him, in fact even a simple conversation with him, made me forget all of my pain and responsibilities. But why was he affecting me like this? I barely knew that guy. Okay maybe his looks were affecting me, but most of the time, I lost myself in his eyes, his eyes were not like Robert's. Then why those inky black bulbs were pulling me towards them?

  I had lost it. If the mental asylum people got to know about me, then they would definitely want to admit me to their special ward. Jeez! Freya you are trapped in a total unknown location and all you are doing is thinking about him; again the voices in my head threw the reality on my face. It was annoying, but they were right all the time.

  I took a few deep breaths. The wind was so chilled and piercing that I had to pull my red sweater close to my chest. I was wearing a white and red printed knee-length dress
and a bright red sweater along with it. Red was complimenting my pinkish white complexion, and on top of that, it was really comfortable. I didn't wear this to work, I changed later; partly because I was about to come here, and by here I meant the villa, not this spooky place. God! This darkness and the howling of owls were bringing back my long lost fear of darkness.

  After checking Zack's progress, I was about to go out with Kate. She had planned a girls’ night out, although I was not in the mood to party. But being myself, I couldn't turn her down. Some things never changed.

  Now I needed to call someone who would come and get me out of this situation or whatever the hell I was in. My palms were so sweaty that I was having a hard time keeping my phone in my hands.

  After about five minutes, which seemed like ages I heard a dial tone, but Rick didn't receive the call. Maybe he was sleeping. No, he was not the type of person who slept early, that too on a Friday night. Ahh! Whatever! Then I tried calling Shawn, but the network was too bad, and the call kept dropping. Great! Now there was no one to help me.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Freya

  I was surrounded by a mist of silence, which felt nothing else than the calm before the storm. I wanted to scream, I wanted to run, but I also knew that that would be useless. Darkness had entrapped me in its arms. The trees stood still, the cold breeze had begun to dance in a fierce form. It was a full moon night, and by now the generous light coming of the moon had been my only source of light. But now everything was turning darker, even darker than before. I held my breath and started to go by my gut instincts, which told me to leave the place ASAP.

  How could I leave when all I saw was darkness? How did I even get here in the first place? Shaking away those freaking thoughts, I turned on the torch light of my phone and decided to go by the signs of my own footprints. I needed to save myself, that's all I could think at that time.

  I was walking blindly towards an entirely unknown path. It was a big gamble, and I was almost sure that I would lose it. I yelled for help, trying my best to attract the attention of the forest guards. I once heard that the guards of the trinity forest were very helpful and a police car always stayed at the end of the greenery. Thankfully there weren't much of wild animals in there, but how could I be sure about that? I had never read something about the presence of wild animals. I swallowed as I imagined myself in the mouth of a hungry Hyena. "Nooo," I yelled in panic.

  It wasn't helping. No matter how much I tried, my shoes just kept sinking into the wet mud. And I was tired of walking like that, so I took off my shoes, gathered them in my left hand and started walking barefoot.

  It didn't take me much time to realize that I wasn't alone there. I could strongly feel the presence of some negative energy around me. And before I could make out who or what was it, my ears caught the sound of footsteps. It wasn't any forest guard, because I couldn't spot a torch light, nor did I hear the sound of a whistle. Then who were they? Yes, there were two people and they were approaching towards me. There was no time to run, now I had no choice but to face them.

  They could be anyone, drug addicts, goons, rapists. O-M-G! No! God, please don't let them be rapists, just make them some muggers, I was ready to give away all my money.

  "Who are you? And what do you want from me?" I demanded fearlessly to the people who were now standing like a statue in front of me.

  I turned the torch of my phone towards them to see their faces. The black cloaks? My eyes went bigger, and the phone slipped away from my hand. It was my past, which had come to haunt me. I didn't need anything else to find out that these people were the devotees of Satan. Rebecca was dead, but her followers were still alive. And everything went bright; I could make out the reason behind Robert's death. These people had killed him brutally, and now it was my turn. They practiced black magic, so they were almost 10 times more powerful than any normal human being. I could feel that my end was near, so I closed my eyes and said my last prayer.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Freya

  "Miss Lawrence!" His voice shook me, and I opened my eyes.

  I turned back, I couldn't see him yet, but got the sensation that he was near me. "Zac..." before I could yell for help, something heavy hit my head and a feeling of extreme pain spread down, to all my nerves. I tried to scream in pain, but nothing came out. My weak body was no longer able to stand on its own, and I fell into the mud. With my hazy vision, I tried to spot my attackers, but all I could see was two clusters of white smokes which soon disappeared into the blackness.

  With a foggy vision and with the last bit of energy that was left in my body I tried to call out his name. That's when my cell phone started ringing loudly. "Miss Lawrence!" He called out my name and then everything just...just disappeared.

  Zack

  The dark forest now smelled like one of those slaughterhouses where the butcher mercilessly slaughtered lambs and pork. Blood was oozing and dripping out from the back of her head as she lay there unconsciously.

  The sight of blood and death was nothing new for me. I had broken several bones with my own hands, but when I found her pale body lying in a pool of blood, a part of me was actually shaking. The sight was so disastrous that I felt an enormous pressure building up inside my chest. And without reaching there to see if she was alive or not, I kept standing there, like a wax statue.

  "Sir!" The forest guard shook me, bringing me back to my senses. I even forgot that he was with me; he was the one to lead me to this path. I rubbed my sweaty face with my hands. I had no time to waste; I needed to check if she was alive. Setting my mind straight, I ran to her and kneeled down beside her. It pained to see her in that condition.

  I touched her hand, it was cold as ice, and I couldn't make out if there was any pulse in her veins or not. Then I checked if she was still breathing or not. Her breaths were slow, but they were still there, which meant she was alive. The sounds of her slow breaths were sheer music to my ears, and I sighed in relief. She was on the verge of death, and I needed to act fast otherwise, it would be too late, and I would never be able to forgive myself for it.

  "Sir, I called the ambulance, but it will take them at least three hours to reach here," the forest guard said in a shaky voice. It was natural for him to get panicked in a situation like that.

  I cursed underneath my breath, "three hours? She will be dead by then."

  I looked at her, and it felt like I could tear the sky to save her.

  Without wasting any further time, I picked her in my arms and started running as fast as I could.

  Waiting for the ambulance was not an option. Then I thought about Mr. Collins, yes he could help me. He lived nearby and was Freya's regular doctor. He visited the villa when Rick had fallen down from the stairs. But for that, I needed to reach the villa first. She was shivering so I kept her close to my chest, "hang on Freya, just hang on. We are almost there," I murmured softly in her ears

  It took him about an hour to make it to the villa as the roads were swamped with traffic.

  "Did you manage to keep her warm?" Dr. Collins asked as soon as he entered the living room.

  "I wrapped her in several blankets but she is still shivering, and I used some cotton wool and antiseptic to stop the bleeding," I said breathlessly.

  He put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. Dr. Collins was in his early forties, and though his hair had already turned gray, he kept himself fit. He had an average height and came from the north of America. Freya was very fond of him.

  The red walls and the dimly lit yellow chandelier in Freya's bedroom reminded me of the pool of blood where I found her. She was still motionless, and I was not sure if she was breathing. However, I just hoped it wasn't too late.

  Doctor Collins sat next to Freya in her bed as she lay there, buried under a sea of white and red blankets. Her clothes were covered in blood. It was such a nasty sight, even for me. It took me some time to understand that the huge pressure building up inside my heart was that of concern, which was
weird because through all my life I had been a totally selfish person. I believed in using people and then throwing the fuck out of them in the garbage.

  "She has lost a lot of blood, and now her body is very weak," he said as he examined Freya.

  I was standing in the corner, biting my nails in anticipation, waiting desperately for the doctor to reach a conclusion. Not just any conclusion, I wanted him to give me good news about Freya's health.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Zack

  The doctor just kept examining her with his instrument or whatever that was. My forehead crooked at the scene. What the fuck was he doing? It totally looked like he was slapping on those creamy cheeks of hers.

  "Hey, you, doctor man what do you think you are doing? Why did you slap her?" I demanded reaching out to the doctor and holding him by his collar.

  He was coughing hard, "let me go!"

  After a while, as soon as his face started getting red I let him. I still needed him to cure Freya.

  Calm down Zack, I said to myself and stepped away.

  "Are you mad or what? I was just patting lightly on her cheek to make her regain consciousness," said the doctor while catching his breath.

  Shit! That was a total nonsense behavior.

  "I understand you are concerned about her but will you let me do my work please?" He urged.

  I nodded and went back to the silent corner of the room. Shit man! I was acting like a total fool. He was a doctor; obviously, he wouldn't do anything bad to her. I shook my head in self-disappointment.

  When the doctor didn't say anything for a good five minutes, I lost all my patience.

  "You have added this damn drip, then why the hell isn't she opening her eyes?" I yelled.