Dawning (The Risen Series Book 1)

by Marie F. Crow

  “Then what did happen?”

  With our refusal for his logic, he is soft spoken and fearful of our answer. Who wants to admit their mother tried to kill them? I have no answers. I only know that the word zombie ranks right up there with sparkling vampires and teen heartthrob were- wolves with perfect abs. In my mind they are not real, lame and not real.

  “Besides, did you hear her mutter the word brains even once? Everyone knows zombies go around saying brains over and over with some lame body limp walk. Duh!” Ashley informs him.

  Yes, that is my sister Ashley. She is the keeper of all the perfect logic of the world.

  I smile as they debate the beyond truth, well-known zombie facts that everyone should already know in the back seat. The small sliver of my responsible side knows I should stop them, but I won’t. The sound of their child-pitched voices in their heated debate brings some small sense of normal back to the day and a smile to my face. It’s something I have not really worn in a long time. After this morning, I cherish it now.

  This is what our mornings are supposed to sound like. The birds singing in the trees around us as I drive faster than I should to make it on time. The hum of my small compact car as we travel down the two lane, small town roads. The horrible pop music they make me listen to, making me wonder how many people Taylor can break up with in one album. The kids spending the car ride debating some small fact that holds no real weight to the world, as they are now.

  They argue as if some event of epic proportions depends on their side winning. I glance in the rear-view mirror to see the animated verbal tennis match causing me to smile wider. My mind drifts to mornings where Ashley would never agree with Conroy and Conroy would continue to counter Ashley’s points until the whole thing dissolved into a giant “yuhuh/nuhuh” mess. That’s when Lilly would join in, clapping her small hands and chanting along with both sides until I have to end it for pure sanity reasons. However, Lilly will not be joining in today.

  My smile fades as my chest becomes tight with grief and reality sneaks up on me. I can see Lilly’s broken frame on the floor where we left her, and I have to close my eyes against the image as I come back to the now. I can feel the sting of tears and I know if they start, I will not be able to stop them. Memories will flood and break the fragile dam holding back the weight of my heart.

  I see my memories of her long ashen hair flowing behind her as she runs. She was always running. Always on the go. She was always laughing with her bell-like giggles. She was always gentle. Always loving to those around her with her soaked in perfect youth-filled innocence.

  The new image of her twists the truths that I know of her. She was never so still. She was never so silent. She was never so broken. Yet here, in the back seat, remain two voices that are a reminder that I have no time for grief. They are depending on me to figure this out. Depending on me to find us safety. I breathe through the pain, rebuild the dam, and blink past the threatening tears.

  I glance into the mirror once again and see they too are now silent as they fight to remain in control of their emotions. There will be time to grieve for our broken flower later. There are answers for “why” out there somewhere waiting to explain it all to us. There has to be. No matter what the sun and birds refuse to accept, there has to be.

  Locked in the slow unraveling of my mind, I never saw or heard the truck racing towards us. The blaring horn jolts me, pulling on my heart and dropping my jaw as the truck careens towards the passenger side of my car. Pushing my car for all the engine is worth, I slam on the gas daring and praying at the same time for someone above to be watching. The truck never veers from our collision course. Its grill may as well have been open teeth should it strike us. It is a near miss as my car pushes through the inter- section as the truck slides through it, never stopping or the driver looking our way. One of those almost wrecks where both parties sit with disbelief as they examine their bodies and their pants.

  “Douche!” Conroy shouts at the rapidly disappearing truck. “Way to drive, Helena,” Ashley mutter as I recover from not only the heart attack of the almost wreck, but also the shock of hearing such a word from Conroy.

  “Where did you learn that?” I stare at the reflection of him in the rearview mirror not fully able to detangle my fingers from the steering wheel yet to turn around.

  “Aimes.” Conroy shrug as if I should already know the answer. I kind of did.

  “Way to pick a best friend, Helena,” Ashley says with folded arms, and the perfect glare of a ten-year-old.

  “Stop being a douche,” Conroy tells her, and all I can do is roll my eyes.

  “Let’s do me a favor and stop saying that word, okay?” I ask, as I lean back into my seat ignoring the smile on Conroy’s face before slowly easing back onto the road.

  “Helena?” Conroy’s small voice floats to me, and I can only wonder which combination of “douche” he is going to be using now.

  “Hmmm?” Is all I dare trust my voice within my mix of grief and false confidence.

  “Where is Dad?” he asks, as a somber feeling invades the car from reality crashing upon us all.

  That is a good question. I glance back in the rearview mirror to let him know I still have no answers for him as another debate begins between them as to his whereabouts.

  Where is Dad? That is a good question. Once again, where is the man we are to call Father when we need him? Or did we leave him behind as we left Lilly, broken and discarded for someone else to find?

  Chapter 4

  The school parking lot is at its normal capacity. The lot is filled with society’s mixed ideas of the perfect family vehicles and an occasional mid-life crisis hiding in the rows of slanted white lines. At this hour, there is no crosswalk guard or teachers waiting to be sure our over-privileged darlings mingle well with one another. There are just the birds and the sun, like stalkers waiting to see what happens next with their most annoying fashion. I can feel the morning’s events taking their toll on my under caffeinated thinking process. I’m fighting the urge to flash a middle finger with misguided self-indulgence and to explain to Conroy what douche-like really means.

  My boots click too loudly against the school’s colored tile floor designs. My dark colored outfit is a silent affront to this lurid pastel surrounding us. I often wonder who thinks to combine such horrible colors. Apart from each other, purple and teal are cheerful selections. When swirled together though they make an almost pathetically desperate attempt of pep. Adding too much pastel does not equal cheer. It makes a migraine. The pastel yellow walls are also someone’s sick idea of children’s décor. I hope that someone dies a brutal death to compensate for my many mornings of this idea of a welcoming committee. If I could bring them back to kill them again, that would be even better.

  The school halls are silent and for once Ashley and Conroy are not rushing past me to avoid being seen with me as is their normal reaction to mornings where I am unable to shower and change before being graced with the chore of bus duty. Each has a secure grasp of a hand as they walk slightly behind me, allowing me to turn the corners first. Their eyes dart around as if some unseen horror is lurking there. Nice to know in their minds I am bait, or worse, their protection.

  I hesitate at the double doors of the office. My “bar uniform” is enough to earn glares from the females inside, but add in the B horror movie makeover and I am sure the speculation will be super fun. The Hawthorn Angels are still in their pajamas and with none of their school materials, well that will just be the bright red cherry to my cupcake of failures they will love to eat up. Bitter? Who, me? Like arsenic. Should they ask about Lilly, my previous sins will crumble as I explain my newest crime.

  There is no office staff today. The space is minus the glares. There are no gasps at my failures. No female-perfected-covered-whispering at the situation before them. The silence is almost anti-climatic to the verbal build up I was preparing myself to receive. Why is it we always have the best one-liners for times when they are
not needed, but never for when they are?

  “Mrs. Schinder is always here.” Ashley’s voice is filling with the same confusion that Conroy’s face is wearing. “I mean, like, always here. I think she lives under the desk, for real. That’s why we call her The Office Troll. You know, because a troll lives under a bridge?”

  I glance over with one eyebrow of parental reprimand letting her know that I get it. At least I know I am not the only one not in the Schinder fan club, but troll is not as descriptive as I mentally have worded her.

  I walk through the mini-cages of small offices looking for some- one as my new shadows keep their footing behind me. The security staff should have met us long ago with as much noise as my boots are making. This ignorance from a staff that almost tackled me for forgetting to stop by the main office on my way in one afternoon causes me to slow my step some. An over-privileged private school does not allow this sort of freedom on normal days. One thing I am sure of, it has not been a normal day.

  Inspecting the many offices, the last one holds more questions than answers. Stopping the kids, I peer into the small space and try to make sense of what is there. The rest of the rooms are just empty, almost as if no one even showed up today. This one is in complete disarray. A purse left discarded and spilt, spilling its contents across the whole carpeted area. Lipsticks, coins, coupons and various other small items lay like shrapnel from a bomb. One pump in the hue of pink is left behind and it’s stained with a dark- ness that almost punches my stomach with fearful recognition. A cell phone sits on the desk with a shattered screen and the same coloring along its modern art of a case. There is a chanting in my head with prayers and pleas for me to be wrong.

  “Hey Ash, if there is a big deal event where does the school take everyone?” I force my voice to sound only curious, not worried. “First, I am not burnt remains of something to be thrown away.

  It is Ash-LEY, thank you.” She folds her arms, and I feel the over dramatic pout building. “Second, it would be the gym. It holds the most capacity in the school as anyone should know.”

  There is the perfect logic we have all come to adore.

  “Fine. Would you please do us the honor of leading us to the gym, Ash-LEY?” I ask her.

  “We can’t go anywhere until we are signed in! It’s the rules,” she say and glares at my mocking of her sincere concerns over her name.

  “Do you see anyone here to sign you in?” I as with a wide sweep of my hands to all the empty chairs and blank flashing computer screens doing my best to keep the office behind me hidden from their view.

  She answers me with a pivot of a socked foot, flip of her blonde hair and a push of the heavy metal doors. Conroy gives me a thumbs-up and smirks at her disappointment of finally being proven wrong.

  “Told you she is being a douche,” he whispers with a cupped hand.

  I’m not even going to try to correct him.

  With a gracious bow, I hold the door open for him and we follow a dramatically pouting ten-year-old pretending not hear our muffled giggles through the overly peppy done hallways. I grow more curious with each empty classroom we pass in our progress to the gym. I scan for signs of some clues like the office, but so far nothing stands out to me. There are no signs of panic or disruptions in these rooms.

  Small book bags line the classroom walls on color-coded hooks. Lunch boxes with their smiling cartoon faces stare at us with some secret joke they share between them as we pass. Lesson plans still outline a full day’s activities on white boards in various shades of script. I glance out the windows to be sure I remember cars being here in this total lack of life that is surrounding us.

  The school slowly takes on a monstrous costume with its empty desks and my boots clicking with their fight against the silence. By now, this far in, we should have passed someone. My Angels must have been running the same thought patterns. Their steps slow and become less deliberate with each room. Conroy often glances up at me in a silent exchange of mixed questions. I know their thoughts are filtering around this morning’s events for the simple fact mine is too. All this time I have been expecting some giant, blaring billboards of acknowledgement of those events. Like tiny shards, maybe the biggest signs are the silent ones creeping up on us.

  I can see the double purple steel doors of the gym waiting ahead of us. This is the same set of doors that Conroy must have passed through a thousand times, but now they cause him to hide behind me, peeking around my legs with wide blue eyes. I feel his fear vibrate up my body and place my hand on his back, pulling him closer, trying to calm him. His head rests against the back of my thigh as I call out to Ashley, still staring at the clown-inspired décor shades of the hallway.

  “Hey, wait up a minute,” I call out to her.

  It is shocking to see the Princess of Arguments not only stop but also actually walk back towards me the few steps that have lingered between us this whole path. The out of character response leads Conroy to cling tighter to me, reading his sister’s actions as not obedient, but her own form of fears.

  “Let me check it first,” I say. I find myself impressed by my voice’s certainty of my decision even as I am being met with two sets of wide eyes of disbelief.

  “So, you just want us to wait here in the hallway alone?” There are those crossed arms of Ashley’s again. “Did you think that through or just open your mouth and let the sounds rolls out like normal?” she asks me.

  I admit it, I am having a few thoughts of volunteering her first through the door, but she is right. Leaving them alone when I am not sure what is exactly going on is perhaps not the best plan of mine to date. Besides, everyone knows the one standing in the back of the group gets to say hello to the monster first. I pull Conroy into the space between her and I and smile into her glaring blue eyes that are so reminding me of our mother’s right now. “You two can wait inside this classroom. Just shut the door and wait for me,” I say, shrugging as if it’s no big deal to be left alone in an empty school in the middle of the day after your mother tries to eat you and after eating your baby sister.

  I point to yet another pastel nightmare across from us. This one seems to be themed with Mary’s Little Lamb. It does nothing to inspire courage with my decisions. Nor do the many painted black eyes staring out at us bring comfort to Conroy as he cocks one eyebrow up at me with the disbelief of his own.

  I force a smile of encouragement and untangle him from my legs, passing the torch of comfort giving to our sister. Rolling her eyes, with the ability of a teen pro, she leads them both into the classroom and closes the door behind her. I motion with my hands on this side of the door’s glass rectangle window to the two sets of eyes staring at me to turn the lock. I wait for the metallic click that signals that they are secure with Mary watching over them. The noise seems to echo loudly in this hallway. With no other delays I can find, I feel their eyes following me to the gym doors as we put my so well thought out plan into action. I hope those lambs in that room are the ones Mary kept as pets and not the ones led to slaughter because I am not sure on which side of the door which lambs are which at this moment

  Chapter 5

  I am grateful the narrow window only allows for a certain degree of a vantage point as I stand here before the double doors. I don’t want them to see just how afraid I really am. The cold metal of the door handle drains me of all the false bravado I was presenting just moments ago for them as soon as my hand rests on it. My heart races from the silence that whispers from the other side. A gym potentially fully of elementary aged kids should not be this silent. I am sure there are many teachers, on many days, in many schools, which wish it to be possible. It just is not.

  Humans are not silent creatures as a rule. We are quiet, but we are not silent. We shuffle. We breathe. We fidget. In some small degree, being alive means sound. This is why pure silence is the very core of fear. This is why we glance around subconsciously when we suddenly find ourselves alone in the thick of that silence. This is why our minds will seek to fill the
void when silence tries to surround us with random thoughts and to-do lists yet to be done. So, what option does that leave waiting for me on the other side of these doors?

  It feels as if the whole building just inhaled a deep breath, drawing in all the sounds and time itself as it waits. It is waiting to see what happens next. It and that damn sun with its ever-cheerful singing birds.

  The disengaging noise of the door signaling the handle has done its job makes my stomach clench. Any hopes of going unnoticed are dissolving with each metallic scraping, taunting my attempt to slowly open the door. My body clenches as I hold the door frozen in less than half-swing.

  No boogieman reaches through the crack to grab me. No sudden scream of horror-filled panic reaches my ears. Whatever monstrosity or mystery I had allowed myself to mentally invent is not unfolding before me as I had feared. I allow myself a small self-mockery and laugh in my relief.

  Glancing over my shoulder to double check Mary’s locked room, my smile fades. The monster is finally creeping out of the dark, but it is not with Mary. It is in front of me with boldness that only pure Evil can hold; one only true Fear can embrace.

  The monster is flirting with my senses. It dares me with the truths of its twins. It is waiting to share with me the secret joke that I was only so curious about a few moments ago.

  The smells hit me first. Smells that will forever haunt me now as smells often do. It surrounds me like phantom fingers caressing my face.

  “Come look. You remember me,” it seems to hiss in my mind’s ear, and I do.

  I hear my small escape of a whimper and I know now why the silence has been mocking us the whole time. I know why each unsaid word has been drawing us here in a sick twisted truth.

  We are here now. We are right where everything has been waiting for us to find it and I do not know if I have the strength to look even as my head spins around in defiance of my fear. Morbid curiosity causes me to inch the door wide enough to see the room before me just as it encouraged me to climb the steps this morning. I will forever hate myself for doing both. The sight before me will stalk my dreams for years to come.