The Risen: Dawning

by Marie F. Crow

  “You’re a good girl, Helena. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Anyone.” His voice trails behind him as he leaves me sitting there, still confused and startled by his random actions.

  The walk alone to the bonfire refills my numbness. My eyes see what is ahead of me, but my brain does not admit to the images. It blocks the many sad faces around me, and the still bare ever-green tree that mocks my mood. It shields the sighs of Leslie sitting in what is our corner with many people surrounding her, giving her comfort. It keeps the view of Ross, who now wears his smile, from my fragile state. If only it could remove the sounds as well. Maybe if I clap loud enough? Nope, they are still there, but Leslie isn’t as weepy anymore. Small bonus.

  The winter wind bites my face with its dark hello. It sucks the air from my lungs with its kiss as I make my way to the little family I have acquired, standing around one of the barrels. The fire casts sparks and shadows into the air around them. Their faces glow with the warmth-giving light. It is beautiful to watch.

  “You’re late.” Aimes tells me with a hug and smile. I embrace her back, letting our past finally bury itself. It is what he would have wanted. It is what I want.

  “J.D. isn’t coming.” Marxx is not asking me. He is accepting the fact with admitting it out loud. I know he sees this as an insult, and as much as I want to explain what happened three floors up, I remain silent. J.D.’s grief is not mine to share.

  A bottle is passed to me and I take a deep drink before I look to see what it is. The fire in the barrel is not the only source of heat as it slips past my tongue. My throat and stomach ache as the liquid slides down them, bringing coughs and rapid motions of my spare hand. Male laughter builds around me as my body burns with their betrayal.

  “I wanted to warn you, but they thought this would be more amusing to watch.” Aimes takes the bottle of dark liquid from me. “Somewhere these clowns found whiskey and scotch. Neither was enough to make a full bottle, so what did Rhett-stein decide to do? Mix them. Clap for Rhett. He is very proud of himself.”

  Rhett reaches for the bottle, and in a salute to his brilliance, he takes a long drink. He mockingly shudders at me when he finishes. His eyes glow with his amusement. “Got to love when a plan comes together. Want another?”

  He points the bottle at me with a smile. My rejection only adds to their mirth. The fire of my belly only adds to my resolve to never take a bottle from Rhett again.

  “Law would drink it. He could out drink us all.” With that, Marxx has started the bonfire. “He would never admit to the hangover the next day either.”

  “Do you remember that one St. Patrick’s? The next day we had a charity ride. The boy kept calling for a break to hide the fact he was losing his guts in the bushes.” Rhett laughs with the memory.

  “Getting sick on the tot-banger that day though. That was priceless.” Marxx adds to the story and the laughter from the men.

  “Do I even want to ask?” Aimes caustically voices her concern over Lawless’ past. I know the story, so I just smile.

  “No. No you don’t.” I tell her, and with the admittance of knowing the story, the men form a complete uproar of laughter.

  “I miss his music. He always had that beat up black guitar with him.” Aimes shifts the mood with her memory.

  “He made up some twisted songs.” Chapel smiles and we are back on track. “Singing about drunken hookers and addicts with his face all serious. I don’t know how he did it as the rest of us were losing it all around him.”

  We all laugh with the memory of his antics. The way he would walk around Grit strumming that black guitar of his, while strolling from table to table, making up lyrics using those he came across as the subjects. Each lyric would become more ridiculous than the last with his twisted sense of humor. There was not a topic he would not twist into a song for his amusement.

  “I didn’t think he’d survive his Mom’s death,” Marxx pulls from a different pool now. “Even when she had him arrested for defending her from his old man, he was still there for her. He took a lot of blows that were meant for her. He was always there for her.”

  “That’s how he was.” His sentence pulls a cord too recent in my heart. “If he cared for you, he was there. No questions. No judgements. Just how he was.”

  The turn of the memories requires the men to pass the dark bottle around as each mentally relives their own version of it.

  “He was loyal. Never asking whys or hows. He did what he had to do. Then he buried it.” Rhett stares at the crackling fire, seeing something other than what is before him. “He did shit no one should ever have to do. He did it for the club. He did it for J.D.”

  The men grunt their approval of Rhett’s words. The fire has become a safe beacon for their eyes, and they watch it, trying to not drown with their memories. The bottle makes another round.

  “That damn bike of his. I wanted to kick his ass when he showed up with that V-Rod.” Rhett brings the mood back around again with another long draw from the bottle. I am not helping them carry this large man up the three flights of stairs.

  “….until he left your ass behind on it.” Chapel taunts Rhett with his smile.

  “No, then I wanted to kick his ass twice.” Rhett’s answer revitalizes their laughter.

  “You would have to catch me first, Old Man.”

  The voice freezes us faster than winter’s deep kiss. My heart climbs into my throat with hearing it. The feel of his arms sliding around me unhinges my knees, making him catch me, pulling me close to him. I feel his lips on my temple, and as if he pushed a button, scalding tears escape.

  “You have to catch me to kick my ass.” Lawless smiles at the stunned faces standing around the barrel. “Look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “This is so much better than an Ouija board.” Aimes whispers, before springing into him with ear shattering squeals.

  Laughter fills the courtyard now, his laughter, my tears, and Aimes’ squeals of joy vibrate the walls around us. This is not one of my haunting ghosts that demand to walk beside me. This is not a judging memory to shred me with its presence. Lawless stands beside with his warm eyes watching me, battle worn and tired. Only Aimes is secure enough in her emotions to fully embrace him as the rest stare wide-eyed and slacked faced at someone we had thought forever gone from us. Truth howls in the winter winds that whip around us with the disappointment of her failure and I know she is plotting to make us pay.

  Chapter 54

  “Pass me the bottle would you?” Lawless still takes all of this calmly as if it is every day that someone walks back from the grave. I guess now, it sort of is.

  Aimes is huddled under one of his arms, her tears freezing on her cheeks with the openness of her emotions. Lawless knows I am not as brave with my emotions, and has given me the space I need to collect myself from the shock. A task at which I am failing.

  “How the fuck…” Is all Rhett says as he hands the bottle across the fire. The statement is repeated in the men’s faces around us.

  “I told you. You have to catch me to kick my ass.” Lawless drinks deeply from the bottle, keeping his eyes on the man across from him. His eyes shine with laughter at their perplexed looks.

  Chapel comes to him, the first of the three, wrapping him in a giant hug mixed with many hard pats on the back. Aimes has to escape from their bonding before being broken between them. She comes to my side, holding my hand, as we watch the men rebuild their bonds.

  Marxx comes next, shaking his head with a smile upon his face, embracing Lawless.

  “You are one tough son of a bitch and just as dumb.” His voice is more gravel filled than moments ago as a new emotion stirs inside him. He roughly rubs Lawless’ head, shaking him with his joy of seeing him again. The three men now stand laughing together and patting their backs, lost in their amusement and pride of the one that they thought they had lost.

 
Rhett still stands alone watching them. His face is locked tight from any seepage of emotion. His eyes roam from one to the other watching, but not joining. “I saw you. I saw what was left of you. I saw what they did to you. I’ve seen it each time I close my eyes.”

  Rhett’s voice brings stillness to those around him. It is icy, and frost ridden, with his confusion. Anger treads lightly on the tips of his words.

  “It wasn’t me,” Lawless drinks the dark liquid as memories form for him. “It was one of those damn parking lot dogs that always seem to be lurking around. It was huge. The type of dog, that if a bunch of people eating other people weren’t screaming behind me, I would have been afraid of. Fido wasn’t so scary after the shit we’ve seen.”

  He pauses. Each word seems to lower his head as he seeks the answers for Rhett’s confusion.

  “The damn thing ran right at me when it saw me, so used to strangers for its survival. I kicked it. Kicked it hard enough to break something. They fell upon it. It never had a chance the way they tore into it. They spread it wide. I just wanted it out of my way. I never meant…..”

  He pauses again, taking a deep breath and exhaling it. His breath floats around him as the temperature drops, anticipating the ending of his tale.

  “I’ve seen it every time I close my eyes, too.” He takes another long drink from the bottle to dull the guilt he is feeling.

  “That wreck a bit back along the road, I jimmied the trunk of one of those cars. It wasn’t the warmest bed I have ever had, but I figured all the dead from the wreck still in the cars would cover my tracks from those things. It was still another full day’s walk this morning. These boots were made for a lot of things, walking isn’t one of them.” He smiles, encouraging Rhett to relax.

  Rhett and I both have yet to come to terms with his being here now. We are locked tight behind our wall of emotional safety. We had just begun to accept his death, to fully embrace the truth of it, and the pain that goes along with that. Now he is here and our minds do not sync with our hearts. One is screaming how impossible it is, while the other beats in celebration. Our wires are crossing, refusing to connect the two.

  Lawless comes to me slowly, with timid steps, not risking the chance of my spooking with sudden movements. His cold hands slide along my neck and into my hair, pulling my forehead to his. He stares into my eyes, trying to reach behind the wall he has so declared as a source of his suffering.

  “I told you I would always come for you.” With his whisper, the wall is broken. The bricks are tumbling down around us, and he catches me in his embrace with his arms, and with his lips.

  I cling to him in our kiss. It deepens with the need to comfort one another. He feeds me the reassurance that he is here. I feed him the relief of making it home. Winter sends her tears at our reunion as snow begins to drift around us. She blesses us with her cold sprinkling of frozen water, sealing our souls together again.

  Rhett’s sharp whistle cuts through her approval as the men around us give their own with clapping and jeering. Still, all the noise they make, it is not enough to cover the sound of the first shot fired. Nor is it enough to cover the screams that follow.

  Chapter 55

  Screams shred the celebration with many sets of razor-sharp talons. Windows flash, white bright, accompanying each shot that cracks like a drum inside the walls of the third floor. J.D.’s words roll back through my mind as I listen to the sound track of horror from above. The men are already running into the high school, preparing clips and loading chambers without a second thought of what may be occurring above us.

  “This is going to be bad, isn’t it?” Aimes stands beside me as we watch the men in our lives once again run into danger.

  The screams seem worse now, being alone in the dark with them radiating all around us, in an illusion of their source. We both know terror is waiting for us inside, but our protectors are in there also. Damned if we do….

  The first body lays twisted, and distorted, in the hallway we enter. I cover her mouth to stifle her screams, still unsure of what to expect deeper in. Unseeing eyes stare at us as we tip-toe past the body, but even in death, he seems to watch us. I expect his body to twitch towards us at any moment with how his eyes seem to follow us. The blood is already thick and discoloring around his fallen form. The broken neck gives the body a more visually disturbing allure than normal as his head rests at the wrong angle. I know this image is now stored with so many other sources of nightmares for me.

  The heavy metal doors are propped open by something we cannot yet see. Everything inside me clues me in to the fact that it won’t be something I want to see, and yet I creep closer anyway. Sometimes I give myself very good advice but I seldom follow it, said Alice when in Wonderland. There is nothing to wonder in this land, and I seldom follow it.

  Legs are stuck between one of the doors keeping it open. A fragile ankle is twisted the wrong way in broken stilettos. Her toes point with rebellion in the opposite direction of her other leg. The heavy door has slammed against her legs, lacerating them. Her blood mingles around her in separate thick, cooling pools her twisted legs blocking their joining.

  Aimes shudders, hiding behind me. The many constant screams only adds to the climate of the room. I push against the other door and feel it rub against something before opening. The sharp metal edge of the door’s bottom has serrated the flesh on the woman’s face. Blood oozes, but does not flow, from where the flesh once sat. It gives her face an evil mask of dark crimson as it coats her, slipping into her once pretty features. The cause of her death still protrudes from her blood soaked chest. It is J.D.’s hunting knife.

  Shouting now melds with the screams from above and it fills us with a false energy to run up the steps. There are more bodies waiting to shock us with their tortured deaths as we climb. I pull on Aimes, keeping her close to me, as we avoid deep pools of dripping crimson that slides down the stairs and outspread limbs to trip us. We focus our eyes on the space above the steps, praying to save our minds from what lies around us. Sometimes it works. Sometimes you can’t help but see. When have I ever been one not to look?

  We rush through the final set of doors, hoping to leave one nightmare behind us, but we have only stepped into a much more horrific version of it. Bodies lay dropped like used dolls around the common area. The walls are bathed in the brutality of the murders, dripping with the evidence of it. So many sightless eyes stare in random directions that all seem to find their way to the double doors behind us.

  The mammoth evergreen now wears a cloak that Red Riding Hood would envy. Its branches are heavy with the gore that shimmers in the light, like the decorations it has been waiting for. Its lights are now red-rimmed remnants of those that once sat around it and it sparkles more than any tinsel we could have applied to it. It even has a topper now as in some strange karma like act, a real doll has been thrown into the branches. It rests with a smiling face and its arms spread wide for the one that used to own it to save it. It too wears the red baptismal of their deaths.

  We step over the many dead residents as their faces match with memories, and their damning eyes stare coldly at us while we try to make our way to the shouting further in. Aimes is whimpering from the sights around us, as her panic flutters in her chest, like a hawk fighting to take flight. She slips on a pool of thick substance, applying a thick covering to her body. I pull her to my shoulder as she vocally releases the build up of her terror when seeing the cold film on her body.

  I pull her with me as I walk backwards through the hall. I keep her head down, sparing her the chest full of new materials to feed our nightmares. The red smears from the falling bodies that are resting against the walls. The handprints on the floor as a few tried to drag their bleeding bodies to safety. Most of all, I save her from the children that are now mingling with the other dead.

  The many broken porcelain dolls that lay limp and shattered around us. Red flowers bloom u
nderneath their bodies with petals that reach long and wide. Their winter pajamas in soft shades of childhood innocence now turned dark shades of corruption with the sin committed on them.

  I recognize one of them, and my stomach clenches with her death. Sweet, laughing Kira stares up at the ceiling from her deathbed. J.D. did not shoot her. No, that would have been too easy for such a perfect victim for his rage. Her head lies unevenly with the damage from her crushed skull supporting it incorrectly. Dark fragments and long streaks of thick splattering surround her broken head from the assault. Her fingers are disjointed and bent at strange angles from her desperate attempts to fight against the large man for her life. The long tee-shirt is rumpled, exposing too much of such an innocent. She never stood a chance, and yet she fought. Everything about her utterly still form says she fought against her death. It makes it so much more tragic than the rest.

  I spare Aimes from this even as I absorb it all. The blood running together in thick dark rivers between the grout of the tiles, the bodies spread wide across the spaces that seem to watch us as we creep past, and the heavy scent of the slaughter is waiting with sharp teeth to tear into my sanity when I sleep. If I ever find the courage to sleep again.

  A door opens to our left, startling us both. A man waves us over through the small crack the opening provides for him. His eyes are wide with the horrors he has witnessed tonight.

  “They got him cornered down there. You’ll be safe in here.” His voice is barely a whisper with his fears.

  “Go.” I tell Aimes as I push her to the door. “Don’t open this door until one of us comes for you.”

  My words bring her to a level of awareness she has tried from which to hide. Her face is no longer fear-filled. It is sadness that she wears now, furrowing her soft features.