"Wonderful." Camden stood up, and with reluctance, Chloe followed suit. "I hope you'll consider all of this thoroughly," She said as she ushered Chloe towards her office door. "I think you will eventually see the logic in it."
No, I won't. "I'll think about it." She had made up her mind already. There was no way she was joining the retard class. Not in this lifetime.
She was glad Camden didn't call Sgt. Mackey and Mr. Don back to escort her to her car like was the usual protocol if she wasn't being dragged out by her mom. Instead, Smurfey was waiting in the main lobby when Chloe emerged from the principal's office. She could hardly see the girl for all of Chloe's belongings piled in her lap. She only managed to find her face because Smurfey was wearing her earmuffs.
"So how long did they get you for?" Smurfey asked as she approached her. Chloe helped her move her things onto an empty chair and began to put them on.
"Four weeks," Chloe grumbled, slipping her arms into her coat and avoiding looking at her friend.
Smurfey whistled. "Camden sure stuck it to you this time. Guess that means no A.D.S. concert for you."
Chloe tried not to scream. "Guess not." She held her hand out for her earmuffs. She yanked on her hat. She sighed when Smurfey finally managed to catch her gaze. "Go on. I can see you're itching to tell me. What's everyone saying about me?"
"They say you were standing in the hallway talking to yourself, and then Steven Newark walked by and you just jumped on him. Any of that ring a bell?"
Chloe shook her head. "As usual, I don't remember any of that. That's not what I saw."
And she never would remember the truth. She felt terrible. She was scared. She felt like an idiot. She wanted to cry, and Chloe never cried. She just couldn't believe that her life could get any worse.
She looked at the wall clock. She had just enough time to slip out of the building before first period let out. How horrific would that walk of shame be if she got caught out in the hallways while the students were changing classes?
"I have to go now," She said. She tossed her backpack over her shoulder. There were books in it, but she didn't care which ones they were. It didn't matter. Nothing really mattered right then.
"Okay. Well, call me…whenever. Maybe we can run lines over the phone or something. You have the number." Chloe forced a quick smile, gave Smurfey a thumbs up, then as fast as she could without running, she vacated the office.
The student parking lot was eerie with silence. She wasn't used to seeing it like this. It was usually bustling with the typical student parking lot activities: gossiping, bullying, snacking (cafeteria food was appalling), and the usual array of teenaged mayhem. Never had she seen it so dead quiet.
She took her time walking knowing she didn't have to worry about meeting anyone out there. Her little old car, Putt-Putt, sat in the far back of the parking lot, nestled between another beat-up car and a truck. It was one of those big trucks that dwarfed Putt-Putt into looking like a toy sitting beside it. It probably belonged to one of the football players. Only they drove cars big enough to hold the entire football team, airhead cheerleaders included.
She leaned up against Putt-Putt, putting her forehead against the edge of the cold roof. She dreaded getting inside. The next step would be to drive home. This was sure to be the longest ride of her life. Her mom was still at home, her nurses's shift not starting for another five hours. Camden had probably already called her, informing her of Chloe's suspension, signing her death warrant. She was probably sitting at their kitchen table with only three chairs––the fourth one, her father's chair, being stored in the attic since he had split six years before––drinking on her millionth cup of coffee. She was such an addict. Her long legs were probably crossed, her left foot shaking like it always did when she was mad. Chloe could see her mother's eyes now, brown and angry, her pink lips pressed together, irritated beyond all excuses, running her fingers through her straight, shoulder length red hair. Pissed, but lovely. Many people said Chloe was a beauty like her mother but she didn't see it. She was a peasant next to her model-esque mother. And she would slave like a peasant too, for the next four weeks. Her mom would make sure of it.
Chloe groaned and slung her backpack onto Putt-Putt’s head. She yanked the zipper open and dug around in it for her car keys. She found them lying among the crumbs and bits of paper at the very bottom and pulled them out. Then, she heaved the pack back over her shoulder.
As she reached down to unlock the door, someone slammed into the back of her, knocking the wind right out of her lungs. She heard them grunt from the impact. While she was choking on her limited oxygen, trying to get in enough to scream, their hand swung around to cover her mouth. Her eyes widened with fear. She struggled against the weight of whoever it was, but they wouldn't budge. They were strong, very strong, even though they didn't seem to be very tall. She took a few blind swings at her attacker, but like it was no trouble at all, they quickly secured her arms behind her back using their own body to keep them immobile.
She screamed a muffled, "Help!", but of course no one heard her. There was no one to hear her. She was alone. Just her and her attacker.
Then, something dark and swift passed overhead, eclipsing the very faint sunlight of the Winter morning. Chloe could feel the body behind her stiffen with anxiety, which transplanted itself into the pit of her own gut. They were anxious, too. It came again, the shadow overhead, like a ghost on the prowl, closer this time…much too close. Chloe felt an icy wind blast her face and knew the person behind her had felt it too. Before she could even begin to contemplate what might be flying above her, the person's hands grabbed both of her shoulders and flung her around, slamming her back up against her car.
"Name's Summer." Chloe was astonished to find a girl in the place of the maniacal serial killer she had expected to find. "And I think it's time to run now."
*****
III. Chloe
The girl was about sixteen or seventeen years old, with wide brown eyes, a pierced freckled nose, and choppy blonde hair that was streaked with bright purple dye. Her eyes were rimmed with black eyeliner and her nails were painted yellow and pink in an alternating pattern. She had a scar above her thin lips that stuck out against her pale skin. She was dressed in heavy boots, ratty jeans and a pink t-shirt under a thin blue jacket. She was shorter than Chloe, only by a few inches, but she was stronger and the grip she had on Chloe's arm was iron tight. When the girl started pulling her towards the forest surrounding her school, she didn't even resist. What was the point?
"He's been following me for a while now," the girl, Summer said, "I could feel him. Come on. We need a little cover." They stepped over the threshold into the forest of the massive, live oak trees.
Chloe stumbled along behind her in a daze, scared of where the girl might be leading her, but not really wanting to turn back. Something was back there. She did not want to know what it was.
"What's going on?" She managed, looking back as her school and Putt-Putt became specks in the distance. "Who are you?"
"I already said. I'm Summer. Summer Pinot. If we live through this, I'll explain why you should care." She pulled Chloe deeper into the woods.
Then she saw him.
He was standing in the the thicket of trees ahead of them, half hidden behind a pillar of a trunk. He was an average sized man, as if that mattered, with phantom white hair and even whiter skin, and he wore an all black suit. His only occupation seemed to be with Chloe, and ignoring the girl Summer, his eyes narrowed onto her, locking her into his glare. His coal-colored lips pulled back into a heinous smile that made Chloe's blood turn cold. "It's him," She whispered to herself. Summer didn't seem to notice and continued forward, pulling Chloe along. It was unsettling to her how the distance between the pair and the man never seemed to shorten, no matter how far they walked.
She watched the man disappear and appear behind one tree and then another, and she wanted to warn Summer that they had company or to stop her from taking them clos
er. But it was like the man had robbed her of her voice and her legs just kept on taking one step after another. Her brain conjured up all of the times she had seen the man in her nightmares. For weeks, every night, he had haunted her dark hours until her throat had gone raw from her screams. Until she woke up drenched in sweat and her mother came bursting into her room to comfort her. Until she was so shaken up, sleep became impossible.
But bad dreams were a reoccurring torment she had learned to deal with. It was him, this white-haired man, that made them unbearable. Probably because he kept killing her in them. The last time he had haunted her sleep, he had strangled her with a scarf. The time before that he had smothered her with a pillow. Once he had even pushed her off of the top of a building, and another, a bridge. He never seemed to just want her dead. He wanted her to know she was about to die, but not before he tortured her first.
As if he knew what she was thinking, he stepped out from behind a tree and a scream gargled around in her throat.
He had dragged someone out behind him. It was the red hair. It hid her face, but why would she need to see it? She didn't want to see it. She didn't need to see her face to identify her own lifeless body held up in his grip.
The scream finally made its way out of her mouth.
Summer's hand clamped down over her lips and she drug them behind a giant oak.
"What’s your problem?" She pulled them both down into a crouch.
Chloe's mouth flapped open and she pointed aimlessly out in front of them. The man was gone and she could come up with no sane explanation for why she had screamed.
"What did you see? You look like you've seen a ghost." Summer lit a cigarette she pulled from her jacket. "You saw him, didn't you?" She blew out a puff of smoke and looked around. "Your kind sees everything. I will be forever grateful that I am who I am, and not like you. And that says a heck of a lot."
"What do you mean?" Chloe asked. Her voice was thick, like her throat had been stuffed with cotton. "What's going on?" A terrifying thought crossed her mind. "Did something happen to my mom or Benjy? Is that why you're here? The creepy guy said something about hurting them…”
"What creepy guy?" Summer pulled long and hard on her cigarette. "Just how many visions have you had today?"
Chloe mumbled, "A couple." She frowned with suspicion. "And how do you know about the visions?"
The girl shrugged. "I thought all of you had visions."
She didn't want to know what the girl meant by "all of you". "So my family's okay then?"
Puff, puff. "Yeah, yeah. We've had guardians on your family for weeks now. The last report said Benjy's at school and your mom went into work early today so she doesn't know you're suspended yet." Chloe's mouth dropped open. "Don't worry. They're safe." A dark shadow flitted between several trees nearby, leaving a cold, eerie mist around them. Summer flicked away her cigarette. "Unlike us," She said, "Tried to hide our scent with the smoke, but their sense of smell is vicious. They can smell blood from a mile away." Fear gripped Chloe's chest.
"What is he?" She asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"No time to explain, Chloe," Summer said, standing up, "We need to get to the transportation before he gets to us. I know you're fast. I've seen you dust the track before."
And then she was running away.
Chloe didn't disappoint and almost outran the girl, even in her thick coat. Despite being scared out of her mind, it actually felt good to stretch her legs. She hadn’t ran in days.
The dark shadow followed them, flitting from tree to tree. It kept its distance, chasing them deeper and deeper into the woods. They kept running with the sound of dead leaves crunching underneath their feet and their heavy breathing in their ears. Summer led and Chloe followed. Adel was her home, but she had never ventured out this far and it was strange to her how well the girl seemed to know just where she was going. They leapt over fallen trees and ran around clusters of protruding rocks that had started to become part of the land's layout. She didn't know that Adel had such topography. No one really came into these creepy woods. For good reason.
The shadow crossed in front of them, then doubled back and moved between them. Chloe felt like she had just been frozen inside of a block of ice.
"Don't look at him, Chloe!" Summer shouted from up ahead of her. "Keep running! Don't give him a chance to materialize!"
She had never stopped. The shadow flitted around a tree and came so close to her that it flipped her hair. Her scream froze in her throat. Then she felt it push her. She stumbled, and before she knew it, she was flying into a tree.
Whack! "Urrgghh," She groaned, crumpling to the ground. She sat for a minute, dazed, the force of the attack leaving a numbing feeling running throughout her body. Her clarity and the pain hit at the same time. She groaned again and grabbed the back of her head where the pain was the worst, and pulled away bloody fingers.
"Chloe!" She heard Summer shout. But her voice seemed far away, lost in the mist and the thick, settling fog.
"I'm here…" But it only came out as a pain-filled gasp.
"Run, Chloe! Get out of here!" Summer's faint voice called out.
Feeling a surge of adrenaline from somewhere deep inside of her, Chloe stumbled to her feet. Watching for the shadow, she searched in the direction of Summer's voice. Her head pounded and her vision was blurred, and it didn't help that the fog was making seeing anything further than a few feet in front of her almost impossible.
So she shed her debilitating backpack and just ran. Towards Summer's voice––or away from it. She couldn't tell. The shadow reappeared and followed her, pushing her and tripping her up. Her head throbbed and she could feel the wet stickiness of her blood on her neck.
But she never stopped moving.
The shadow chased her for what seemed like miles, then, with no apparent warning, it disappeared into the fog.
She realized why right away. It had achieved its purpose. It had separated her from Summer.
She looked ahead and noticed a clearing spread out behind a cluster of trees. She stumbled towards it, but didn't step out into the open plateau, which appeared to end at a cliff. She didn't want to reveal herself. She wondered about Summer and hoped the girl was okay. She felt a bit ashamed for leaving her. But what could she have done? Besides, Summer was strong. Chloe was the helpless one.
She heard leaves rustling nearby and feet moving over them. With her instincts telling her to hide, she ducked behind a tree and kept as still as possible to wait it out.
Summer stumbled into the clearing, breathing hard and her hair full of leaves. Her jacket sleeve was ripped and she was missing a shoe, but she was alive. Chloe felt relief flood through her and she stood to go join her. But then she felt a cold chill surround her and she watched in horror as the shadow appeared on the clearing with Summer. Feeling her heart drop into her stomach, Chloe sunk back down behind the tree.
The shadow fluttered…like a reflection in a puddle...then turned into the man from her nightmares.
Summer's eyes widened but with something that wasn't fear. It was rage. Chloe's heart raced faster. Summer was trapped, with the cliff's edge her only escape and no clear way to defend herself. The girl shouted something and made a sign with her hands. The man did nothing. They exchanged words that Chloe could not hear. By the look on her face, Chloe could only guess that they were fighting words. She felt a sense of helplessness as she watched the girl and wished there was something she could do. But what? Scream out so he would get distracted and decide to come kill her instead? Make an actual stand with Summer against the phantom man? She hated that her only choices were which way she was going to die.
Her decision made, she stayed right where she was.
Summer let out a sort of battle cry and pulled a dagger of some kind out of nowhere. She lunged at the man. He evaporated into the shadow and Summer flew right through him. He materialized behind the girl. She seemed to have been expecting this and avoided the chokehold he had been about
to put her in. From there, they engaged in an impossible corporeal versus ethereal battle, which left Chloe completely convinced that this girl was some kind of alien. Summer should not have been able to move like that.
But just that fast, the man materialized and won. Summer choked and tried to twist her way out of the death grip locked tight around her throat. A useless task.
Only Chloe saw his heinous smile as she watched the girl struggle. Summer seemed to find her then, and her determined eyes screamed at Chloe to make a run for it. Instead, her entire body went numb.
Then, with minimal effort, the man threw Summer right over the edge of the cliff.
Chloe's hand flew up to muffle her scream.
The man laughed, then becoming the shadow, he blew into the forest.
She waited for him to come for her next. With her knees drawn up to her chest and unintentional tears turning to frost on her cheeks, she waited for her time to die. She was alone now, and there was nothing standing between her and death. But forty terrifying minutes later, she was still alive. That hardly gave her any solace. He was only prolonging her agony, she knew, just like he did in her dreams.
But maybe not. Maybe he had only come for Summer, maybe she had been his target all along. Maybe she was hallucinating and the girl wasn't even dead. You should go confirm that for yourself. Yes, she would do that.
She forced herself up, crept the ten feet standing between her and the clearing, and climbed over a giant fallen limb into the open area. There was no sign of the white-haired man, but she felt no better about it. She spent several minutes just staring at the place where Summer had stood last. The image of her resolute expression in the second before she knew it was over, replayed itself over and over in Chloe's head like a scratched DVD. She could feel the girl's staunch fear because it had now become her own, and the feeling that she might soon meet the girl's fate slithered back into her heart.
Maybe she's alive. She stared at the cliff's edge for a while, like if she willed it hard enough, the ground would stretch on so that it had no end. But it didn't, and something morbid inside of her told her she had to see. She had to see for herself the results of all that had just happened. With bated breath, she inched towards the cliff's edge and with regret, she peered over the side––to find a fifty foot drop-off and Summer's body lying in a heap of leaves.
Prophecy of the Most Beautiful Page 3
