The bonfire was breathtaking. Yet despite the awe-inspiring spectacle, something or someone, rather, was missing. Alternating between scanning the crowd and glancing at her watch, Melissa eagerly awaited Gabriel’s arrival.
An hour passed, then another, and then thirty more minutes. Still, Gabriel had not arrived.
The longer Melissa waited, the more completely her hopes were dashed, until finally she concluded that Gabriel must have come to his senses and realized she was simply not good enough for him.
Dejected, she decided that two and a half hours was long enough to wait for him and told Daniella and Alexandra she wanted to leave. Her friends agreed that it was time to go.
As they were leaving, Kevin was arriving.
He strode confidently toward the girls. His broad, cocky smile displayed his over-bleached teeth.
“Ladies, ladies, what’s the hurry? You guys aren’t leaving now, are you?” Kevin asked. “The real party is after this lame, campfire stupidity is over. Melissa, we’re supposed to hang tonight, remember? Me and the guys already set up the keg in the woods.”
“Yeah, about that, umm, my head is killing me. It must be a migraine or something,” Melissa lied hoping to make a swift, uncomplicated exit.
“Hey, I think I have some Tylenol in my car. If not, I’m sure one of the firefighter dudes has a first-aid kit with something that will help.
“Uh, no thanks. I’m just going to go home and sleep.”
“Come on, I thought we were gonna hang tonight,” Kevin whined. “Just stay for an hour. How about that? I’ll get you some Tylenol. Take one or two and we can hang out.”
“You can’t be fucking serious after last time!” Alexandra began, but Melissa shot her a look.
She had no desire whatsoever to spend time with Kevin. The thought, in fact, made her head begin to ache for real. But it couldn’t hurt to hang around a while longer. Gabriel might show up after all. And she wouldn’t look pathetic if she were talking with a group of people rather than just waiting around with her two best friends.
After exchanging a number of furtive glances with her friends and receiving the crystal-clear message indicated by Alexandra’s erected middle finger behind Kevin’s back, Melissa decided that an additional hour of her time would not kill her.
“Fine, Alex and Daniella and I will stay for an hour. But that’s it,” Melissa said firmly.
Much to their annoyance and with protests that ranged from eye-rolling to obscene utterances expressed exclusively by Alexandra, Melissa’s friends agreed to stay with her, acting as chaperones.
“Great. I’m so glad. Let me go get a couple of Tylenols for you, okay.”
“Sure.”
***
Kevin strutted away in search of analgesics for Melissa. Though it was a crucial element of his charade, he was nauseated to accommodate her needs. After all, he was way out of her league. Melissa was cute, a little skinny and flat-chested, but cute. But he believed himself deserving of a girl who more closely mirrored his own level of attractiveness.
As he trudged along past masses of mediocre girls, he noticed how all of them looked at him approvingly, adoringly. He wondered how the hell an average looking girl like Melissa had had the nerve to reject him. She should have considered herself lucky to have been with him. Any other girl in the school would have been thrilled to be in her place, they would not have turned him down. Her prissy little virginal act was infuriating, but also enticing. He loved a challenge. And since she was loath to give it away willingly, he would help her along pharmaceutically. He kept a prescription bottle with several Vicodin inside in his car; a couple of them along with a few beers and Melissa would be far more cooperative.
He smiled to himself, knew that the dimple in his cheek deepened as he did so and how much those around him loved his smile. He continued working his way through the throngs of dazzled onlookers and strutted away from the crowd. Near the edge of the grassy area, he spotted his friends, John DeNardi, Eric Sala and Chris Mace.
John spoke first. “What’s up man? Where’s the princess?”
“I left her back by the bonfire with her babysitters. I’m getting the royal virgin a little something for her headache.”
“She better make your head ache later! Know what I’m sayin’!” Eric joked.
“You know it, man!” Chris chimed in, high-fiving his friends.
“Tonight’s the night. No more of her cock-tease bullshit,” Kevin declared.
“You wanna guarantee payment, just slip her a Vicodin or two chased with a beer and she’ll have her panties down like all the others did,” Chris added.
“That’s the plan, my brother! I’ll see you guys in a little while. I gotta get the bitch something for her pain. I’m gonna run to my car and serve her up some real pain relief.”
“Take care of business, man. Take care of business,” Eric said, punctuating the word business with a joint fist pound with Kevin Anderson.
Kevin jogged to the rear parking lot to retrieve a pair of small white pills from an orange prescription bottle in his glove compartment before jogging back to Melissa smiling and displaying his trademark indentation in his right cheek.
***
Melissa looked up just in time to see Kevin returning.
“Here’s your Tylenol,” he said, extending a hand that held two pills toward her.
She accepted the medicine despite the fact that she did not, in fact, have a migraine headache or any other pain that a pill could cure. But before she put them in her mouth, she inspected the oval-shaped tablets. They did not resemble the ones she kept in her medicine cabinet.
“They look funny. I mean, don’t they usually have one red end and one blue end and the word ‘Tylenol’ written in the center?”
“Oh, yeah, all they had in the first-aid box was the generic stuff. Sorry. They told me it works just as well,” Kevin lied before adding, “Oh damn. I didn’t grab you a water bottle. You’ll have to just wait to take it at the kegger.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
Three hours into the annual bonfire at Harbingers High School, the fire waned and students began to disperse. As the crowd grew smaller and smaller Melissa and her friends decided to leave.
Kevin informed Melissa, Alexandra and Daniella he would meet them behind the school at the entrance to the woods. Beyond the entrance was a trail leading to where the party was set. Normally, the trail would be tricky to navigate, but Daniella came equipped with a small flashlight.
Alexandra and Daniella walked ahead of Melissa and Kevin. He tried to take her hand in his. Melissa, uninterested in any type of advances, subtly rebuffed his gesture by putting her hands in her pockets feigning to search for a pair of gloves.
After walking along the footpath and arriving at the clearing, she and her friends found a large boulder to sit on. Kevin went to one of the kegs to get them each a beer.
“Ladies, your drinks are served,” Kevin quipped pretending to be a butler tending to his employers.
“I’m driving. None for me,” Daniella told him.
“Are you kidding me? If I come home with this shit on my breath, my father will kill me. And then my brothers will kick your sorry ass,” Alexandra crudely affirmed.
“Suit yourself,” Kevin replied, handing a plastic cup filled with beer to Melissa. “More for us, then. Oh, Melissa, here’s you bargain-brand Tylenol.”
To placate Kevin and maintain the charade, Melissa accepted the pills and swallowed them with a swig of beer.
The clearing quickly filled with students. All held tall, red plastic cups that they had forfeited seven dollars apiece for so that they could visit the kegs an unlimited number of times. Each partygoer drank quickly to achieve intoxication as quickly as possible. The threat of patrol cars with their sweeping spotlights loomed ceaselessly, lending the gathering an air of urgency.
Melissa had barely finished her first beer when Kevin, beaming, arrived with another.
The alcohol was affect
ing her more than normal, going straight to her head. Without warning, she felt lightheaded and loopy. Her surroundings took on a fuzzy, indistinct quality. Muffled voices faded in and out.
Kevin spoke to her and his voice sounded as if it were echoing from the end of a long tunnel. “Wanna take a walk?” he asked.
“Are you crazy? I’m not going anywhere with you,” Melissa laughed loudly and felt less inhibited than she’d ever felt before.
The large smile he’d been wearing sagged. He looked over both his shoulders, checking to see if anyone had heard her. When he looked back to her, his eyes had hardened. “That’s cool, whatever. No walk,” he said tightly. “I’ll catch you later.”
Kevin walked over to a group of girls and began chatting with them.
“Holy shit! That was fucking awesome!” Alexandra gripped her elbow and gave a hearty shake, “I never thought I’d see the day when you’d grow a pair, but damn girl! You shot his arrogant ass down!”
Melissa wanted to tell Alexandra how she was feeling, that her inhibitions had melted away, and had apparently taken her ability to think straight with it. She wondered why the beer was hitting her harder than normal. Perhaps if her nerves would have allowed her to eat a bigger dinner, she wouldn’t have felt as loopy as she currently did. Earlier, she’d been excited about seeing Gabriel, too excited to eat.
Gabriel, she thought. He could be looking for her right now.
“I’m going to go back to the bonfire to see if Gabriel is there,” she surprised herself by announcing in a voice far clearer than she felt.
“We’ll go with you,” Alexandra offered.
“Yeah, we’ll come,” Daniella said.
“No, no, you guys stay in case he comes straight here,” she said.
“I don’t want you walking through the woods by yourself,” Daniella worried.
“Don’t be such a worrywart!” Melissa smiled. “It’s just down that path,” she pointed toward a narrow clearing. And there are people everywhere.”
Daniella knit her brow concernedly and slid Alexandra a glance. Alexandra shrugged.
“All right, just be careful and come right back, okay?” Daniella hesitated.
Melissa saluted her and said, “Yes, ma’am,” then she headed toward the path.
She began walking through the woods along what she thought was the path. Voices of party-goers began to fade and the canopy of trees above her seemed to hover lower than before. She turned, looked behind her and realized nothing looked familiar. Brush pulled at her ankles where it hadn’t on the way in. She narrowed her eyes, squinting against the deepening darkness, to get her bearings, but could not. Everything had assumed a fuzzy, muddled quality. Her heart began to race frantically. She wondered what was happening to her, why everything looked blurry, how she’d gotten herself turned around on a path she knew well. Beer had never affected her as it appeared to be now. A voice sounded from behind her and her heart made a mad leap to her throat.
“Hey, if you wanted to get me alone, all you had to do was say so,” Kevin’s voice said nearby. “You don’t have to play these games, you know, making me follow you and all. I saw that look you gave me before you walked off.”
“I didn’t give you a look. I didn’t even look at you,” Melissa snapped.
“I said enough with the games, Melissa. You know you want me. Stop with the tease routine.”
Melissa spun to face him, to shout every curse word she could think of, but felt the world tilt violently. She stumbled, the woods suddenly spiraling.
“Whoa,” she said and shot both arms out to her side to grip something, anything. “I think I need to sit.”
Kevin rushed to her side and grabbed her waist. She supposed she should have felt grateful for him being there to help, but she did not. Her skin crawled at his touch. A strange feeling, a warning, whispered through her and made her shiver.
“Let me hold you. You’re shivering,” Kevin said embracing her as he seated her atop a moss-covered fallen tree.
But quickly, his embrace progressed to something else entirely, something unwelcome. He began kissing her neck, tightening his hold on her. Melissa, despite feeling inexplicably hazy, stiffened.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing?” she protested.
He did not respond. Instead, his lips moved from her neck to her mouth.
“Stop it!” she said and tried to shove him, but her arms felt as if they were moving in slow motion.
He continued to kiss her, but she did not kiss him back. He persisted, his lips flattening hers, suppressing her ability to speak.
Melissa panicked. Her arms and legs were uncooperative. Her responses were sluggish. She felt as if she were moving against a current of water. She fought against it, and after a lot of effort, managed to bring her arms between their bodies. She tried to push him off of her with the heels of her hands, but her effort was ineffective. He did not let go. Rather, he moved his hand up under her shirt and under her bra. Anger replaced her wooziness and she tried to fight, to resist him. She struggled and pushed harder with her hands to unpin herself, but to no avail. Kevin leaned on her with all of his weight, slammed her back against the felled tree and positioned himself on top of her.
With her heart slapping against her ribcage, Melissa turned her head and tried to scream, but Kevin covered her mouth with his. She shoved at him, tried to force his body back and off hers. But he did not budge. Her attempts to free herself proved fruitless. Tears singed her cheeks as the gravity of what was happening became clear.
In the distance Melissa thought she heard Daniella and Alexandra faintly calling her name.
Flooded with terror and adrenaline, her mind reeled. Scattered thoughts failed to present a defined escape, but she knew she needed to keep fighting. She writhed and twisted and turned her head from side to side. Screams escaped each time she turned, but all he did was grope at her more aggressively.
She thrashed and wriggled, fought him as best she could with limbs that refused to help, and brought one hand from between their bodies. She clawed at his face, hoped to gouge an eye, but missed. Her effort did distract him long enough for her to free one leg and bring her knee up between his legs. She thrust it as hard as she could and landed it squarely against his crotch.
Kevin released her immediately then cursed and fell to the ground clutching his groin. She paused as a wave of dizziness and nausea washed over her. She steadied herself and attempted to run but was halted as Kevin seized her ankle. She fell to the ground on her hands and knees.
He dragged her back toward him before rolling her over and slapping her across her cheek. The blow stung, disoriented her into temporary silence and submission. Her face throbbed.
“You little bitch!” he spat.
Melissa regrouped quickly from the unexpected strike. Instinct compelled her to continue fighting. She flailed and scratched once again, this time marking Kevin’s face with a bloody scrape. His hands immediately went to the area just below his right eye, felt where her fingernails had broken the thin skin and pulled them back to inspect them. He screwed up his features in anguish at the wet and reddened fingertips he retrieved. Melissa saw Kevin’s preoccupation with his injury and attempted to seize the opportunity. She twisted more forcefully, resisted his weight atop her and struggled and fought as hard as she could. But her exertion was useless. He outweighed her by more than a hundred pounds.
Seeing his blood, Kevin flew into a fit of rage. A flash of what she could only describe as hatred flickered in his eyes before he raised his hand to her again. From high above his head, he brought the back of his hand crashing down against her face. A blast of white-hot pain exploded from her cheek and her ear rang deafeningly. Over the incessant ring in her eardrum and the intense pain emanating from her cheek, she heard Kevin shout at her.
“No more of your fucking games!” he screamed spraying spittle at her as he began tearing at her jeans unbuttoning them. “I will not be dicked around anymore. This can go one of t
wo ways. You can let it happen or things will have to get rough!”
***
Gabriel arrived at Harbingers High School just as the annual bonfire was ending. The crowd had thinned to a small group of stragglers surrounding a smoking heap of scorched wood.
He quickly scanned the faces of those who remained and approached a small group of girls to ask where everyone had gone. They told him that most of students that had attended the bonfire had gone to the wooded area behind the school’s rear parking lot for a keg party. The girls even escorted him along the footpath that led to a clearing in the woods where the gathering was being held.
After thanking them for their help, he moved through clusters of drunken classmates. He examined every person he passed. He spotted Alexandra and Daniella at the edge of the clearing. They seemed to be gazing off into the darkened woodlands. Melissa was not among the party-goers. Neither was Kevin Anderson.
An immediate feeling compelled him to go off in search of Melissa. He could not explain it, but something deep inside of him, something primal sensed that she needed him.
Striding blindly into the thicket, he wandered slowly at first, allowing his superior vision to adjust to the blackened shadows of the forest. Stepping over copses and averting entanglement in various prickled shrubs, he ambled aimlessly until a feminine voice was heard in the distance.
Though muffled, the sound was distinct and urgent. He continued toward it, his feeling growing stronger.
His feet crossed the leaf-strewn forest floor soundlessly and with agility, responding stealthily to every obstacle that presented itself. He halted when he heard screams slash through the darkened canopies. The voice was unmistakable. It belonged to Melissa.
Though gatherers at the keg party on the outskirts of the woods would not have heard her cries as readily as he had, his enhanced hearing enabled him to do so. Her tone indicated distress and struggle. Adrenaline surged throughout his body, propelled him forward through undergrowth and brush and drove him at full speed toward her panicked screams.
Planet Urth Boxed Set Page 77
