Paul leans his head back against the door. Looking up at the popcorn ceiling, he says, “I assume they are going around to meet back up with their army. They know where they are and how to find them. So even if we move on before they get here…”
He trails off and the implications hang heavy over us. My head bows as I bring up my knees to my chest. My white country-dress slips back as I rest my chin on my knees. My cigarette hand rests over the arm of the couch, going unsmoked. A long line of ash falls to the linoleum floor.
Either way, we are stuck in the middle of dark fae—and who knows however many other armies are out there in the black. This village hasn’t been touched yet, and that means that some fae armies haven’t finished what they started—so there should be more coming.
Surrounded, I see no way out of this. And apparently, neither does anyone else.
I mean, it could be the world wearing us down to scraps. We’ve been at this a long time. Over a year. I don’t know exactly how long, but it’s been time that has stretched us from hopeful to absolutely desolate and hopeless.
I can’t stop the thought from invading my mind—what if none of us really want to keep at it anymore? We have no more fleeing, running, escaping left in us.
And our fantasies of life by the sea are just that—fantasies. How can we adapt to a proper life in the dark? Who’s to say that we won’t be found by other armies—or even other survivors, the none-too-kind ones that aren’t exactly rare.
None of us offer up any solutions. Well, not until Harry speaks up—
“We could fight.” His voice is small, broken by how unused it is. He’s not much of a chatterbox.
All gazes cut to him.
Silence sweeps over us, an expectant and laughable tint to it.
With a bitter smile, I finish off my cigarette then flick it to the floor. Using the toe of my boot, I stamp it out, then bring up my knee to my chest again.
Paul is the one who answers, “Fight against the dark fae?” He manages to fight off the incredulity from his tone, though I recognise it in the corner creases of his eyes.
“We,” Harry repeats, elbowing his only friend in the group, Jamie, “could fight.”
I lift my chin from my knees and narrow my eyes on them. Confusion is etched onto the grim tilt of my mouth.
Jamie shoots his friend a baffled look.
“We have everything we need in this room,” Harry goes on, his mind churning behind his bottle-green eyes, working faster than he can speak.
“We wouldn’t stand a chance,” Spike—he says that’s his name, but I doubt it to this day—argues, an irritated edge to his tone. “They’d massacre us all before we could lift a knife!”
“No, no, we wouldn’t have to get close, not at first,” Harry says, his eyes lighting up. “We build a bomb. That gives us a chance to …”
“Finish them off,” I say, eyeing him with a whole new outlook. Smart cookie. Bet he was destined to be some genius before all this shit happened.
He looks the part, too. Pimples—all red, angry and yellow-tipped—litter his chin and cheeks, and his auburn hair wears the oil carried from weeks of not washing it. Beneath his baggy, torn t-shirt (with some cartoon character on the front, go figure) he is all scrawny skin-and-bones.
But if the kid says he knows how to build a bomb, then good for him. And it might make the difference between going out with a blast and going out with a sizzle.
I’m leaning towards the blast idea.
I’m the first to nod.
Paul watches me for a long, quiet moment. Then he nods, too.
It’s a ripple after that. All except Spike seem to agree, even if none of us are terribly happy about it.
Finally, Spike pushes up from the cabinet beneath the stained sink and strides to the pantry. He rummages through it for a moment before he pulls back, holding two bottles in his hands; cheap whiskeys caked in dust.
“Well if this is it, then I want to have to some fun.” He grins something oily, baring his plaque-stained teeth at us. I suppress a shudder. “Who’s with me?”
Only Laura reaches out her hand for a bottle.
I roll onto my side and lay there. I stare at the wall.
And silently, I listen as the next few hours roll on. There’s the clinking of glass, the glugging of whiskey, and the two weeds in the corner, working on the bomb.
Snares of sleep dare start to wrap around me.
I don’t know how long I’ve been tucked up here, but just when the murmurs in the kitchen begin to muffle, my eyelids are fluttering and my mind has drifted off to that strange place between sleep and reality.
In a life full of almosts, slumber only threatens to take me. It starts to. But before it can secure its grip on my melting mind, I hear it—a heavy skittering sound.
I blink, awake.
Looking at the wall, a frown knits my blonde eyebrows together and I listen. Maybe I just imagined it. It could have been a sound of my strange dreamlike thoughts.
Then it skitters out again, this time followed by a wet slapping sound, like a pile of squids being dropped to the floor, then rolling down wooden stairs.
The unusual blend of noise has disturbed the whole group. The rustle of jackets and bags being moved crawls through the room. Then a hush rolls over us.
Whatever that alien sound is, it’s coming from outside. And my churning, watery gut is telling me it isn’t good.
5
NOW
Paul is the first to move, but Spike—fuelled by liquid courage—suddenly decides to take charge. He pushes up from the wall, staggers a step before he rights himself.
Eyes are glued to him as he strides to the window, hidden by sheet-metal blinds. He carries a grotesque swagger with him all the way. Loose in his hand, swinging at his side, is a thin torch that I can tell just by looking at, its light won’t be strong enough to see down the three stories to the street below.
Still, he is undeterred, and he pauses by the window before craning his neck to glare at us all and push his bony finger against his lips. Something inside of me prickles and I have the urge to put laxatives in his whiskey.
With a flick of his thumb, the faint white light wisps out of the torch and illuminates the dust particles clinging to the air. He lifts the torch as he peels down a slat of metal and peers out into the thick black.
My breath is trapped in my chest.
He aims the light outside and—
The glass blasts inwards. The window explodes into shattered pieces and Spike is thrown across the room from the sheer force of it.
The window is suddenly pulverised specks shredding through the kitchen. I have just enough time to throw myself over the arm of the couch. The couch is a shield against the violent rainfall of glass and I land beside Paul.
He has flattened himself to the ground, hands folded over his head. At his feet is where Spike landed, and he’s all crumpled up like a crushed sheet of paper.
Skt skt skt, skrrrrrttttt.
That strange skittering sound is suddenly screaming above me, so loud that I cringe against the linoleum floor and slap my hands to my ears. Whatever is making that noise, it has smashed inside through the window and now it’s in here with us.
Sllllrrrrpppp, sllrrpp, sllllrrrrpppp.
Torches are ignited all around the kitchen. The dotted light is barely enough to pierce the thick darkness rolling in through the window.