Save Me - Chapter 3
We had walked all day and we camped outside an old barn in case the earthquakes shook again. I lay with the fire at my back and covered in the table cloth with my head on the pack of supplies. My eyes snapped open as I listened to a strange voice from behind me.
“What the fuck, Jamessss? Thissss issssn’t the one.”
“The fuck it isn’t,” spat back James. “Do you really think it was easy to pull off what I pulled off?”
“She’s a teenage girl for fuckssss sssssake! I’m sure if she was sssssupposed to be a teenager, I’d fuckin’ know thosssse kind of detailsssss!”
“You were too fuckin’ lazy to do it yourself, and now it’s my fuckin’ fault?”
“Don’t you know any other words?” I demanded from my corner of the fire.
James growled, “Shut up, Miley!”
“No! You woke me up, now you have to deal with me.” I growled back sitting up, but as soon as I did, I wished I hadn’t.
The stranger laughed, “I sssssee you’ve been teaching her sssssome of your more charming mannersssss.”
The stranger was a deep shade of red and it wasn’t a sun burn. He had a short pointed horn on each temple and I could see a long tail casting a shadow in the fire light. Every tissue in my body screamed for me to run. This guy was bad news.
“Don’t move,” ordered James.
I clamped my hands to my thighs and stayed perfectly still.
“So, do you want her or don’t you?”
The stranger looked over at me, my skin crawled as he did because his forked tongue came out of his mouth and licked his lips.
“James, you can’t…”
“Shut up, Miley.”
My heart pounded as I waited for the verdict. Could I run fast enough to escape two grown men? Or, one grown man and what I could only describe as a demon.
“Have you grown fond of him, Miley?”
When I didn’t answer he came over and poked my shoulder with one slender black tipped finger. “I asssssked you a quesssstion.”
“Y-yes,” I stammered.
The creature burst into an almost hysterical laugh, his tail wagged back and forth like a deranged puppy. I could see from here that all his teeth were pointed and his whole body was lean and pure muscle.
“You didn’t fulfill your part of the deal, Jamesss. That means you sssstill owe me. I travelled all thissss way, that should count for sssssomething!”
“Yeah, well add it to my bill. It’s not my fault you don’t want her.”
“Sssssorry, sssssweetheart you’re sssstill sssstuck with Jamesssss. Tisssss’ a pity though, you look quite… tassssty.”
“Stuff it, Dev, did you bring me anything?”
“A little ssssomething, but only becausssse I conssssssider you a friend.”
James caught a baggie of something I couldn’t see in the firelight.
“Fuck, that won’t last more than a couple days!”
“Then you ssssshould have come through with the goodssss. You’re such a ssssorry excuse for a man, you could be so much more.”
“You can fuck off now, Dev.”
“Jusssst remember, you owe me now.”
“I don’t owe you a fuckin’ thing!”
“Sssssuit yourself, Jamesssss. But you’re on your own now.”
The red man vanished. He was there one moment and gone the next.
James turned away and grabbed his bottle of water. He popped a couple things into his mouth and sighed in relief after taking a swig of water.
When he opened his eyes, they were bloodshot again. I was shocked at how quickly they worked.
“Are you afraid?” he asked.
I nodded a yes.
“Good, you should be. Don’t ever talk to one of them if you ever encounter one like him again. Don’t look them in the eyes, they can be very persuasive.
“Is he, the Devil?” I whispered.
“Dev? Ha, ha! No. Dev is short for Devon , not Devil… but he is a demon, and demons are very dangerous, do you understand? Don’t talk to them.”
“There are others?”
“Yes. Did you understand my words?”
“Yes. What are the pills for James?”
“Never mind that, it’s none of your business. You were supposed to still be asleep. Go back to sleep.” He sank to the ground and warmed his hands over the flames. I watched as the licks of light reflected in his increasingly glassy eyes. I felt the rage building in my chest.
“But you tried to give me to that… demon! I won’t be able to sleep anymore. How can I trust you?” I exploded.
“I knew he’d never take you. What do they want with children?” He spit to one side and reached for a cigarette. “I was just playing along.”
James sat there like I wasn’t about to lop off his head with my bare hands! I sat there and the tears started to fall, yet again. I was shaking with rage and frustration, I wanted to jump on his back and pound all my frustration out on him, but it all crumbled into a wobbly mess of tears.
“Awww, shit, Miley!”
I tried to swallow some of my tears, but they just didn’t want to stop. “I’m s-sorry, I can’t help it.” I whimpered, “I don’t know what happened, I’m afraid of everything! I was afraid of the earthquakes then the flood, I’m afraid of you and I was afraid of what we would find when we walked after the whole day, and we found nothing. Nothing that will make me feel safe, nothing that would explain what happened, nothing that will tell me we won’t starve when all the water and granola bars are gone!”
“I’m afraid of everything, James, even you. Nothing makes sense and I feel like I’m going to go crazy. It’s only been a day and a half, but it feels like a year has passed since I was a normal girl taking a ballet class! I’m not getting any answers. All I’m getting are more questions.”
I paused to take a breath. I was heaving in sobs and trying to wipe my nose on a crumpled up tissue I found in a pocket. “Can’t I have at least one answer? Where did everyone go, did my parents survive?”
“It’s the apocalypse.”
“Apoca-what?” I sniffled.
“The end of the world, the apocalypse… whatever you want to call it, all it means is that there is no longer any difference between heaven, hell and here.”
“But, I don’t believe in hell.”
“It doesn’t matter what you believed. Faith had no part in what happened, this was foretold for generations. You’re such an innocent, Miley.” He sighed with a cloud of smoke.
“I don’t have to be! I’m sixteen, didn’t women used to be married with kids at this age once? I’m not a little girl and if I had my choice I wouldn’t be sitting here with a drug addict. ”
“We’re not living in the Renaissance, Miley. In this day and age, you’re just a little girl. And my addictions are none of your business.”
“You’re gonna’ run out eventually.”
“Yeah,” he agreed with a frown. “Go back to sleep.”
I tried to.
“James?”
“Yeah?”
“If he was a demon, does that mean there are angels too?”
“There’s a lot of things out there that most mortal humans didn’t know about. Faeries, ogres, elves, dragons…”
“Why do you know about them?”
“I told you before, I’m not a good guy.”
“So, all criminals know about that stuff?”
“All the ones like me, yeah.”
I watched the flames flicker some more, James reached over and tossed another piece of wood on top.
“I’d like to see a dragon,” I murmured.
James snorted a quiet laugh but didn’t comment.
James snorted a quiet laugh but didn’t comment.
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