by Shelly Crane
Calvin and Lily look happy and excited and I’m tempted by this mans offer for a split moment but then remember where I’ve seen him, though his appearance has been modified some to seem less abrasive.
I gasp and as soon as I do it all turns black and the wind whips, blowing my hair around my face. Everything is black. The sky, the grass, him and the children. Everything. Nothing.
The Taker is in my head yet again and this must be another dream. It’s not real, Sherry, I think to myself as I stare at blank darkness. Then he appears before me out of nowhere, inches from my face, back to his longer black haired, harsh and choppy, black eyed Lighter self.
“Awww. Sherry. Why oh why must you fight me, love?” he says, very deep and seductive.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you. I know all about you. You and your Keeper lover. The children and all the others in your safe home. Trying to pull the wool over my eyes. If it’s power you want, Sherry, I can give it. If it’s children you want, we can have them. If it’s love you want,” he says as he shifts so fast I don’t even see him move. He sweeps my hair across my shoulder and he licks my neck from behind as I cringe. “I can give you more than you can handle. Come to me, Sherry. Be with me and let the children live a life more than starving underground, waiting for death.”
“What are you talking about? Why do you want me?”
“Calvin is very Special. And Lily is too. They are both vital to my life force. Pure. Peaceful. Lily with her spirit of peace through tribulation. Oh I know she’s young but she’s been through hell. And Calvin’s spirit of thoughtfulness and unselfishness. Both so pure, innocent. And you, my dear. You tie us all together. You have a spirit of love and forgiveness. You forgive under any circumstance. You’ve even forgiven Phillip. Yes, yes. I know all about it. And you love everyone and everyone can’t help but love you. Just like your Keeper,” he said as he snarled the last word like it was a cuss. “I need you, Sherry. To complete my mission.”
“That’s a pretty lame pick up line...Taker,” I said carefully, trying to show him I can stand up to him but not anger him.
“Ah. So you are aware of me. I wasn’t sure you remembered me from the store that day. If I had realized who you actually were, and not just an extremely intriguing beautiful human woman, I would have snatched you then. Why don’t we go with the pleasantries and you call me Crandle. Hmm?”
He continued to circle around me. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t even see our feet or feel anything but the black wind around us and his gaze that never left my face. I see his body is about thirty or so.
“Whatever you say. This isn’t real anyway. Just a dream that I wish I could wake up from.”
“No, it is not a dream. This is a visit, of sorts. A visit to your subconscious. It’s easier to come to you when you’re asleep but you’re not dreaming. And I’m afraid this is all very real.” He comes back around to face me, closely and speaks with a low voice. “You see. I am drawn to you, as everyone else is by your love and affection.” He grabs my hips and rubs his hands up and down in a slow exploration. He moves closer. I can feel his breath on my neck as he sniffs my hair, but I can’t move. Physically, I can’t move. “Even your Keeper mate is so drawn he came to earth to find you. How sickening sweet. But he can’t give you what I can. He’s weak. It’s time to stop playing around and get serious, Sherry. You’ve seen what I can do. You’ve seen what I can make. I can always be the image of the man I was before in your eyes, if you prefer that. The handsome groomed gentleman you find so appealing from your memories. Like your Merrick or Matt I should say,” he says glancing at the scar on my arm and it starts to glow red. “I want you and you will come to me and bring the children. This is no coincidence, Sherry. This was meant to be. Come to me and let’s be together. I can fulfill every wildest fantasy.”
He touches my temple and the scene of him and I in a huge white covered bed in my head is not one I’ll ever mention nor do I want to see again and hopefully, he can’t tell I’m blushing. And why does he keep repeating himself?
“Tempting.” Refocus Sherry. “Why do you want Calvin and Lily? Takers want to be Daddies too?”
“I need them. Yes, I would be their father figure so to speak. But I need them to complete me, just as I need you. I need you three to be with me for the balance. Good and evil so I can rule. I need them and you will bring them to me.” He says looking at me so intensely, compelling me a soothing voice, but in my blurry dream I can’t completely make out his features.
His voice is calling to something in me. For a split second I consider his offer and then blink wildly to expel the thought. Coming to my senses. Ashamed and abhorrent. I realize why he keeps repeating himself.
“What are you doing?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Trying to compel me with you’re Lighter speak? I’m not bringing myself or the children anywhere. I guess your magic doesn’t work on me.”
“It would seem not.” He pursed his lips. “Not in your dreams anyway. Then we’ll have to try another tactic.”
As he spoke it all turned to fire and smoke. It blew through me and I could feel every lick of every flame. I scream. Light so bright it burns and my eyes can’t physically stay open burns all around me.
The ground is removed from my feet and I’m falling, burning into darkness. Hearing his words ‘YOU WILL FEAR ME AND COME TO ME’ bellowed and burned into me like a brand.
My arms flail and ache and the pin pricks in my shoulder are the most painful they’ve ever been. I wait for my feet to hit bottom and crush beneath me. All the while I burn and scream and fall flailing in the darkness.
I catch glimpses of things, the Takers mind. I remember Merrick telling me you transfer thoughts when they look into your mind. I see patience and amusement. He will wait for me, for the right time and he finds me...entertaining, silly and intriguing and actually does think I’m beautiful. And, unfortunately, that little bedroom scene he showed me was only one of many.
Silly? What does that mean? And why do I care? He thinks I’m silly because I’m naïve and trusting. I care about people and that makes me weak. If I had never grown to love the children, he could never have used them as a liability against me. He wants me to come to him to balance things out. What does that mean?
Then I hear Marissa. What is Marissa doing in my dream? She’s saying something but I can’t hear her over the singeing and crackling flames and my owns screams which echo all around me even though I’ve stopped.
She’s saying ‘breath’. Why would she say breath? I’m breathing aren’t I? I take a deep breath to test myself and am brought out of my dream into Merrick’s arms. With Jeff, Marissa, Danny and more standing in my door frame, watching me with wide scared eyes.
My throat is sore and I grab it reflexively. I’m covered in sweat and the scar on my arm is burning and throbbing and glowing red.
“What happened?” I said wheezing, and then coughed from the scratchiness.
“You were dreaming,” Danny said.
“It was him wasn’t it,” Marissa asked, kneeling to sit beside us on the floor. “The Taker. I’m sorry, Sherry. I saw it but it was too late. He already had you by the time I got here,” she seemed almost out of breath.
“You saw him come for me?” I gasp. “That means it was real.”
I glance down to look at my shoulder to check and it’s still glowing red, just like when the others are near. Oh no. It was real. Merrick rubs it with his thumb and frowns.
“It was very real, Sherry. And this isn’t the first time you’ve dreamed of him is it?” she asked but it sounds like she already knows the answer.
I brace myself for the onslaught of unhappy glares from Danny and Merrick at my confession.
“No. It isn’t. Once before.”
A low grunt from Merrick and I look to see the worry on his face. He still has me on his lap so I pull myself further into the shelter of his chest.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think it me
ant anything. The last one wasn’t like this one. This one he tried to...seduce me.” Embarrassed, I look up to see everyone looking at me in disbelief.
“What?!” Merrick barks.
“Not just sexually-” I start but Merrick cuts me off.
“Not just sexually!”
“Not just sexually but with other things too. Like motherhood for one. He claimed he would give me everything I desired, if I would come to him. He had Calvin and Lily with him in the dream.”
“Sherry...I don’t understand. Why would he...” Merrick is shaking with fury now.
I run my hand up to his scratchy jaw and pull his face down to look at me.
“Merrick.” I forget about everyone else for a minute an focus on Merrick, who is so full of rage. More than I’ve ever seen him. “Baby, look at me. He knows you. Of you. He knows about all of us somehow. He knows about the bunker. He knows about all the people we have here. He wants Calvin and Lily too. He said we create the balance he needs to be complete? I don’t know what that means but... He didn’t hurt me, well not until the end, in fact he seemed jealous...of you. He said the only reason you’re here with me is because I’m a magnet for people to love and be loved and you couldn’t help yourself. That everyone is attracted to me and that’s why he needs me. He was just trying to push my buttons. I knew it was a dream for most of it... Don’t worry. He just wants what he doesn’t understand. That’s all.”
“He did hurt you,” Merrick said softly, rubbing my glowing shoulder.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” I said it twice, once for him and once for me.
I was still shaking.
After we moved into the commons room, I finish telling them the whole dream beginning to end. Knowing I need to be truthful so we can figure this out I tell everything, even the extremely embarrassing seduction stuff. Merrick is fuming about that still and at the mention of the bedroom fantasy...let’s just say it was all I can do to keep him from dumping me on the floor and going Taker hunting.
Jeff even intervened once with a hand on his shoulder to calm him, and I’m sure some silent words were spoken.
Merrick has me still on his lap, wrapped in a blanket covering my cami and shorts. Jeff and Marissa throw ideas back and forth and everyone there speculates as to what it could mean.
Other ideas were also thrown out. Not welcomed ideas of when the last time I had touched Marissa had been. That was introduced by Kay. I quickly dispelled that notion as I hadn’t touched Marissa but even if I had, she wouldn’t do that to me. Again. In fact she’s adamant about helping us and talking and interacting with us lately more than ever.
Marissa guarantees us that it was real, he was there in my dream and yes, he could hurt me for real if he wanted to, but he won’t. She see’s that he won’t ever hurt me physically.
Well, that’s some relief.
Still, everyone seems to steer clear of Marissa. Like she’s got a bad case of the plague.
Marissa also see’s that the Taker knows so much about Merrick and I from Phillip. Because Phillip is now a Lighter. They took his body and he has been sharing his memories with the Taker. Luckily, usually the memories, per Merrick, are only bits and pieces and they shouldn’t be able to find us by just seeing them.
The news shocks me when she confesses that she already knew that Phillip was a Lighter and Merrick did too. I’m not mad though but they both look at me like I’m gonna tear their heads off.
“Why would I be mad that you didn’t tell me? I wouldn’t want to know that. I still don’t. That he died. That he suffered like that. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even Phillip,” I say and mean it.
Maybe this explained what Phillip was talking about that day in my mind and how he was able to do it. Phillip was a lot of things but, no one deserved that end.
In the afternoon that day, I took up the job of cutting everyone’s hair. Mainly the massive quantity of guys we have acquired over time who were getting shaggier by the day and in desperate need of attention.
I had clippers in the bathroom, along with a chair and started with Merrick first. It was a shame. I was loving his shag. But, he insisted he was tired of it so I obliged and took an inch or two. No matter what you do, you just can’t ruin him. I’m pleasantly surprised when I’m finished to see the Merrick I met in the beginning.
I’m no expert so pretty much everyone is getting some form or variant of a long or short buzz cut. No one complained so I cut away. And cut and cut, for hours. My carpal tunnel is screaming at me to stop and my legs are cramping from swaying back and forth.
As Cain takes his seat, my final haircut, he asks me about my shoulder. The scar and why it was glowing and red earlier during my dream.
“It’s the Marker’s scratch, mark. Long and painful story. Ask Miguel. He was attacked by one too. He’s less reluctant to tell the story than I am,” I say as I shudder a little from the memory already popping in my mind.
“Sorry. I’ll do that. So...everyone’s attracted to, huh? Even Crandle, the leader of all evil. You are a popular gal,” he says smiling.
I know he’s trying joke, to make me feel better.
I also know that Jeff hinted for the haircuts, knowing I would volunteer, to give me something to take my mind of everything, and it worked.
“Ha ha. I’ve seen Crandle ya know. For real, at the grocery store a while back. Course, I didn’t know who he was then though. I thought he was just a Lighter,” I said as I started washing his hair in the sink.
“Wow. I’ve never met anyone who’s seen him in real life, or very many who have seen Lighters either. Accept those idiot followers of his.”
“Well I’ve seen both and Markers. None of them were pleasant.”
I went on to explain about the Lighter that almost killed Marissa that day and how she compelled him to jump into the ravine. The black Marker skeleton we found. I also told him of the Marker that was here that night when the new recruits showed up.
“Wow,” he said after a stunned pause. “My group hasn’t had any action this whole time. Sitting up in that cabin, twiddling our thumbs. Waiting to find others like us. That’s terrible, Sherry. I’m sorry. If only we’d found you sooner. Maybe we could’ve helped in some way. Pap can’t hear worth a dang but he can shoot like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
“Well. We’re all here together, now. Hopefully, they’ll be even more of us coming. I don’t know what we’re gonna do when those need warehouses start,” I said, draping the towel around his shoulders and closing it with a hair clamp.
“We’ll be ok. We’ll just have to learn to conserve and start eating basics. Mrs. Trudy’s lasagnas and deserts aren’t going to cut it anymore. Pap and me had a garden back at the cabin. There are some vegetables that will grow in winter temps. Carrots, beets, rutabaga, cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli. Like I said. We’d have to get back to basics. Then the few of us that can go to the warehouses without suspicion can go and help supplement what we grow here. They only give you the food you need for the week for yourself so, it wouldn’t be much.” He sputtered at the end with a hair in his mouth.
“Well, we may just have to do that. I really don’t see any other choice at this point. But ya know. If we seriously stock piled non-perishables, like rice, dried beans and can foods, from now until then, we could last a while before things got really bad.”
“Yeah. We could, should do that. Fill up a couple empty closets with it as much as we could until the time comes. That’s a good idea, Sherry. You should tell Merrick. We can go ahead on our first run tomorrow if you want. I’ll go too.”
“Great. Sounds good,” I murmured as I finished up with a razor on his neck.
I thought his hair was already pretty short but he insisted he wanted it topped off and neatened up a bit. “Alright. All done. Look good?”
“Sure does,” he said looking at me in the mirror and smiling. “Thanks, Sherry.”
He helped me clean up the horrid amounts of hair and shaving cream. I tried to do
it in between but eventually gave up and decided to deal with it all at once.
We added it to the trash by the stairs, ready to be taken out and buried along with the rest of it. That was one job I was never privy to, and glad of it.
We walked back into the commons room. I can hear the kids and some others in Phillips old room. Some people call it the second room. I think I’ll start going with that too.
It’s raining. Must be raining pretty hard because we can clearly hear it beating down around us, thunder too. Usually, we can’t unless it’s bad. It’s quiet and peaceful in the bunker, except for the storms white noise.
Merrick, Ryan, Danny, Cain and Jeff are sitting on the floor, letting the women sit on the couches. Such gentleman. Funny that only two of them are human and still they all have such manners.
Celeste is sitting on the couch with Danny in between her knees. Kay and Margo are laughing about something, chatting on the loveseat.
Trudy is sitting next to Marissa, with Lily in her lap.
Lily.
I haven’t seen her all day. As soon as she sees me she jumps down and runs to me. It’s always the sweetest thing and I wanna cry again but I can’t cry every time she does this so I stave off the tears by grabbing her up and not looking at Merrick so I won’t see that look on his face.
“Shawwy. Mrs. Twudy said you wouldn’t cut my haiwr,” she said pouting and furrowing her brow in seriously cute contemplation.
It took all of me to one, not laugh, and two, not give in and give her exactly what she wanted.
“Mmmm. No. Your hair is so pretty already, Lily. We don’t need to cut it,” I said not being able to resist touching her hair as I spoke.
It was long and wavy, half way down her back.
She yawns and leans her head against my shoulder, letting her legs dangle at my sides. I can’t help but sway with her, even though my arms and legs ache from my haircutting afternoon. It was almost four o’clock. She was overdue a nap. Trudy mouths something to me about taking her. I mouth ‘not yet’. I missed her. Fiercely.
