by Nunn, Alexis
“No time for chitchat, children!” Feliks ordered us, voice growling with authority, “We go now! All of us.”
There was a ferocious, booming aspect to him now. He was loud and assertive, getting his way when we all rose and started to follow. He was our leader now.
Fadiyah lagged behind us but it was better than her back and abandoned. We rounded a curve, coming across a section of logs and dead trees blocking our way but were above our heads in height.
“We have to climb this. Darylene, you go last. Fadiyah! Get Lilya and go!” Feliks decided for us, stomping his front paws and standing bravely towards danger behind us. His stern behavior was only disengaged by a sharp, snotty sneeze that made him jump up and knock his leg on the ground.
I directed a dire gaze to Fadiyah, “Fel is right, you guys need to go first. If you are lagging, you need a head start more.”
Fadiyah was shaking with trepidation. She was scared to climb the logs but she had to. She patted Lilya’s back and told her to climb on her back. Lilya swapped sides fluidly and let Fadiyah have open arms. She now had to cling tightly on or else she would fall.
The second youngest of us all began climbing, and we saw how the logs shifted under the sudden weight. Lilya had to get off Fadiyah’s back for her to climb safely. It took longer than we had for her to get onto the other side. The werebies were approaching dangerously fast. They figured out how to get to us. Lilya went next, following Fadiyah’s footsteps.
I saw her disappear over the horizon of the logs and I went next. My long legs aided me with the ability of a long stride. I jumped the top log like a fence and rolled down to the ground. I saw Fadiyah was farther away and Lilya was in front of her. When I came over the side, Lilya came running. Behind my I saw a bottom trunk crush inwards and the rest came tilting towards us.
“Feliks! Be careful! They are collapsing!” I called out to Feliks.
His head soon appeared over the ridge, followed by extended claws on splayed toes. I saw strain in his face and I saw logs starting to roll down the hill, especially the bottom log that was parallel with the drop off, the one holding all of the wood up in place. He was huffing and kicking, finally throwing himself over the side.
Lilya cheered for him, running towards him while I ran after her to catch her, but I saw Feliks and I stopped in my place. Feliks took her down, not able to control where he fell. They both were knocked to the ground, but Feliks kept rolling a few feet. The little girl whined and rubbed her face and Fadiyah jumped into action to grab her because the worst of what happened yet occurred, all the logs were popped loose from their slumber and they took two directions; towards Lilya and towards the cliff, where all eventually tumbled down. Since there was a greater distance behind me to Fadiyah than from me to Lilya, I knew Fadiyah wouldn’t make it. Fadiyah didn’t get there in time and she was about to be next. When Fadiyah got close to getting taken under the pressure of falling timber, I grabbed her shirt. It was a thickened, black log, that right after the mess began bounced up and landed on Lilya. It hit her on her neck and I heard her screaming from underneath the pile but she was washed down the incline. Fadiyah’s screaming was unbearable. We should’ve held on to the precious darling more carefully but we had been too far away to grab her in time. When I saw the logs begin to crumble, I skidded and turned away. I couldn’t get myself killed as well.
Feliks ran to the incline first, Fadiyah nearly knocking him off as well to peer down after her. She kept screaming her name, over and over. Lilya. Lilyan! Lilyan! But we saw exactly what we knew was down there. She was turned over, resting on the logs instead of under. She was still, purplish spots already covered her dark skin and I saw deep red gashes across the back of her neck, covered in bark. Lilya was dead.
All because of us.
Feliks dropped to the ground, shaking, guilty because he had thought he caused her death. Fadiyah descended and raised her knees to her chest, destroying her voice by screaming to the afterlife because she thought she was to blame. And I stood behind the two of them, watching down the sloped path because knew I was too selfish to risk myself to save her innocent life. I was the true monster. I was to blame. Feliks was an accident. Fadiyah was too slow. I let her die.
THIRTY-THREE
Our second wave of mourning was cut off once again by the terrors of the forest. The damned things were back, running up the side. There was no longer a barrier for us to hide behind. When they ran up the corner, I saw there were only about five left in the hoard.
“Run!” Feliks barked.
Fadiyah didn’t rise from her place on the ground. She looked at me in the eyes, shaking her head, and sniffled.
The werebies were close at our heels and they did something curious. Three of them stopped to inspect the dead child lying at the bottom of the curve. Two of the three jumped after her and took her body as their feast. The three left waited, cocked their heads, watched.
Feliks and I were making progress, but Fadiyah was almost lunging space away from the monsters. I turned around and ran after her. She stared at me with her dark fawn-brown eyes. I reached her and grabbed her arm with a mighty force. She had to come with us or I would make her. There was no way out.
Feliks stopped to wait for us. After some coercing, Fadiyah began running by herself.
The mountainous path we followed began to slope downwards now, and to my right, I saw the most familiar sight. The ravine was below us, shielded by trees.
“That’s the tree tunnel!” Fadiyah announced, pointing down at it.
“It’s the ravine Feliks and I slept in. I never realized how fair it went.”
“It leads to Lewis’s town!” Fadiyah said.
“It leads to where Feliks and I came from! I know where we are! We’ve made a circle!”
Fadiyah gave me a surprising smile, “Good!”
I just nodded and kept running. I kept running.
The three werebies drew away from the side of the drop off and went after us. God, were they fast. Of the werebies, two looked like labs and the lead was a German shepherd dog, just like Feliks. I saw a brief catch of the lead and I notice a large, dried gash going from the side of his neck down to the other side of its chest, as if slashed by something or attached by say a tent pole being thrust upwards into its chest. I noticed the shepherd was missing the skin on both front paws and had a skeleton tail. I couldn’t stare back for too long, the clouded eyes were freaking me out.
Feliks was whining, running out of steam. Both of our adrenaline was running low. I could feel pain coming back to my ankle and I was drastically reminded of the damage to my ear.
A recurring issue, I tripped because of a misplaced foot. Fadiyah yelled my name, but I just dully looked at her. I just wanted to give up and die at this point. Feliks jumped on my back and off, urging me to find strength.
“We are losing ground! They are right behind us! I-”
They were already there. Fadiyah punched one in the jaw as it jumped at her, throwing it off balance long enough. The second lab also pounced on me, taking my pant-leg and the back of my boot. I was glad it didn’t pierce my skin.
With how close it was, it was a perfect shot. I pointed the gun and fired into the square of its skull. The werebie let go, but it didn’t die. It had to be a severe infection because it was closer to zombie than rabies. I got up at the chance, knowing not to waste more bullets. I only had two left. The injured werebie was disorientated, waving its head madly, spraying a shower of blood on the ground and us. Fadiyah and I took off but the shepherd and labs went after us again. My legs were burning with overuse. I was getting drained by running so much. Fadiyah was falling behind me, even with my sluggish pace. We had no more than feet of a lead when Fadiyah stopped, staring in my face. She hugged me tight while my heart was crying, screaming with fear and exhaustion. I was busy watching the werebies jump up at us. Fadiyah kissed the space between my nose and cheek for a wordless goodbye before stepping back. There was no more ground behind her; she w
as on the ledge above a space of nothing.
I was confused by what happened but she let a werebie grab her. She flipped around and grabbed both werebies by the scruff and jumped. Fadiyah jumped off the cliff to take out werebies. Fadiyah sacrificed herself to keep werebies from getting to us. She disappeared into the line of trees and the acoustic surrounding echoed the crack of her fall up to us.
“Fadiyah! No,” I could only whisper.
Feliks bound to my side, grabbing my arm in his teeth and running off. Three people have died because of me, five if you count Grandpa Nikolai and Mother, six if you count Ulf, too. Six people should not have died because of me or, even worse, for me! Six! Such a foul murderer. You don’t deserve life more than them, Darylene. You are worse than the werebies.
I started howling, not in a wolfish way but instead with the tearing agony of sorrow that rips your ribs out from your chest and impales the deepest shells of your psyche with your own betraying body.
The last standing werebie walked slowly, and there was an obvious smirk across his face. He growled, short, and airy. He was laughing at us. His milky eyes closed and he tilted his head forwards and rotated his ears around. When I made another step, his ear locked in place and he went at a faster pace, swaying his shoulders. There was something human about this werebie. I knew this wasn’t an animal on animal infection. This werebie used to be a human. It had to. Feliks’s allergies weren’t acting up anymore. He stared at the werebie with clear eyes. There wasn’t a reason for him to be allergic, they shared DNA. This was the werebie that changed him. Father werebie?
The “stair” section of the rocky graveyard was soon before us. There wasn’t stairs but instead a series of jagged ends that you could climb on. We didn’t have time for that so we both made the jump for the ground. When I landed, it felt like a section of my bone splintered out and into my leg muscle. Feliks dashed into the tree line and I was by his side, limping harsher and harsher the farther I got. Trees whizzed by my face, sometimes something irritated my remnant of an ear as I ran. We ran down the path in the tunnel of trees. The tunnel cut off outside sound. This was a tunnel of silence, cuffing around your ears and hushing the horrors of the past from whispering into your thoughts again. Yet, it didn’t quite work. The quiet only let thoughts fester and eat away. Before I even knew it, we were entering the clearing. I knew this place. Somehow, I ran close to a mile without remembering a second of it. I zoned out and ran while doing so.
There was a standoff between Feliks and the werebie. They were circling around each other, heads low and teeth brazen and boldly shown. The whip of a tail on the older werebie kept snapping to the left side like a gimmick to get Feliks to lunge first.
“I killed you! You are dead!” Feliks growled at him, breathing heavy and full of unhinged fury. He showed his teeth at the werebie.
“Nah’ ya’ wron’” No, you were wrong. I heard the other werebie speak but his voice was raspy and almost a howl. He was a full-blooded werebie but he had a sense of human instinct left. The German shepherd couldn’t fully articulate his words. He didn’t have the human dexterity of his cheeks and lips left from his past life like Feliks.
The fact Feliks earned an answer was not surprising to him. There was something I was being left out from. Feliks knew he could speak. Then it hit me. The way he acted, the way he held himself. The werebie taunted Feliks before going for a failed kill. Feliks almost died after being humiliated by a half-human werebie. If this was a trait retained by the werebie, then there was a chance this is why Feliks could still speak. My theory might’ve been wrong all along. Perhaps my brother wasn’t half-werebie all along; he was a new breed of werebie. Who really knows? What I thought was true just a month ago is now false. I can’t even tell anymore what means what or what might be possible. Back to the fight, the two had stopped moving.
“Ki’ meh? Twy ih,” Kill me? Try it! The werebie smiled, or rather smirked, before rushing forward and taking out Feliks's front legs and taking him down to the ground.
Feliks hit his head on the ground and almost fell victim to a life-ending snap of the dog werebie’s jaw. Feliks fought back just as ferociously. Feliks maneuvered to ram his shoulder into his opponent’s chest. This move pushed the werebie upwards and off. Feliks bit the werebie first, drawing a thick current of blood from his shoulder. I felt a twinge of all-knowing fear for what would turn out of this. Too much blood
There was a loud bay and they were teeth to teeth, snapping at each other. The older werebie tried to grab Feliks from behind, legs over legs, teeth on the back of his neck, but Feliks rolled over and used his weight to crush his spine into the werebie’s ribs, temporarily winding him. Feliks took the opportunity to go for the throat again. After behind tossed about, Feliks finally grabbed some skin and locked his jaws into place. There was no artery or windpipe under Feliks’s teeth so there was no long term accomplishment. Yet, Feliks did manage to bring in his hind legs and pin the other werebie down. His claws pressed so deeply into the flesh underneath that Feliks’s claws cut into him. Feliks began frantically kicking out his back paws, digging into the skin and tearing out muscles and organs. The werebie screamed a deafening bellow followed by a howl, and whipped his muzzle into Feliks’s head, knocking Feliks off with the aid of his strong legs. When Feliks was on the ground, leaping back up, the werebie got the upper hand and pulled the same trick.
I was standing far away with my gun uselessly pointed forwards at them, but I couldn’t aim and fire. There was too high of a risk of hitting Feliks. My leg and ankle were killing me. I had to sit down and take pressure off my leg. It was going to take a while to heal from this one. What I wouldn’t give for a nice ER right now. I wanted to help Feliks, but I knew there was no way I could.
Back to the fight, the werebie wasn’t around his neck but now grappled around his waist, biting deeply into Feliks’s back. Right next to Feliks’s scar, the werebie got ahold of skin and tore the entire chunk of his flesh off, tearing it down the other side. The werebie disconnected the fur and skin, dropping it on the ground as Feliks writhed on the ground from pain. The werebie pressed a paw on Feliks’s head, tearing a hole down the center of his face down to his eyes. Feliks was whimpering, convulsing slightly. The werebie let go, but to his surprise, Feliks jumped up from his place and bit firmly onto the werebie’s laughing jaw. With a strong tug, there was a pop and they were back to rolling on the ground. Because of the weakened tissue due to the virus, the werebie’s skin tore off easily. Now there was a plethora of blood spilling across the ground underneath them. Feliks kept tearing, scratching violently away at his enemy’s face with his sharp claws. I saw something get thrown off to the side and roll across the ground.
It was a bottom jaw, bloody, with the boney sparkle of glistening teeth.
Feliks glowered triumphantly before diving back down to the squirming victim and tearing strip by strip away until I saw a severed head get lifted to the air. The bloody, gouged mass rolled away when Feliks dropped it. He lowered his head, gagging tremendously.
“You did it, Feliks…” I said quietly, slowly getting back up.
Feliks was quivering, not facing towards me.
He kept gagging. I saw him crouch and vomit up chunks of flesh and fur, a mix of black sludgy waste and thick blood. He started shaking his head, scratching at his own face. There was a steady stream of liquid, mixes of the dark and blood, leaving his gaping mouth. He froze, staring out into the forest away from me.
“Feliks?” I asked louder, scared now.
At the sound, Feliks’s body went rigid and his head slowly rotated around to look at me. I saw into his eyes and saw hell. There were too, opaque orbs glaring back to me. I saw Feliks but I did not see my brother. He’s turned!
My one true fear has become reality. I lived in fear that Feliks would completely get changed. Now I was completely alone, facing my own imminent death. I had to run. Feliks, or the body of Feliks, advanced towards me, twitching his head to the side with almos
t each step as if trying to shake loose some invisible assailant. He wasn’t there at all anymore.
“Feliks?” I asked more for myself, wanting, begging for an answer to drift towards me and to smother this terror but I only got a garbled growl.
He snapped at the air, stalking faster at me. I had to begin backing up, my leg wiggling under me and nearly giving away. Heart, adrenaline, give me strength.
The second Feliks began sprinting, mouth open, to attack me, I got up and ran faster, for half a minute. I didn’t have energy anymore. I couldn’t do this. An itching, burning pressure in my chest started to smother me. Like a rag over my face, I couldn’t breathe even though I knew my lungs could expand. I kept running, dizziness grabbing my feet and trying to trip me, but I sucked in a stale breath and powered through. A pain surfaced in my neck and shoulders from my shallow breathing and I felt my hands going numb. I felt patches of heat on my face and on my cheeks.
There was a sense of irony when I saw something appear in my line of sight. I had no clue how far we had travelled in what seemed like a short span of time. Although, I could see the sun already setting beneath the trees, I lied to myself and said it was only minutes. In reality, it was close to half the day.
Yet, the first chapter of my true horror story appeared before us. The hill Feliks initially got changed on was in my field of vision. Maybe it was this lingering sense of sentimentalism or perhaps it was a fated destiny for us to meet like this once again on our road to the end, but I was drawn to the rise of land instead of heading past to a higher chance of safety.
In my numbed, cold but sweating hands, I still gripped my gun. At some point in my programmed running, my finger pulled tight around the trigger and entered right above my hip, exiting with a gush of blood onto my shirt. It skimmed me more than enter, but the injury was good enough to remind me to keep myself in my head. I didn’t have much control right now over whether or not I operated my body, but a gunshot wound was sure to pull you to sensibility for a while.