by S Gepp
Suddenly, in a brief frenzy, Sean slashed sideways, ripping open her throat. He then rammed the weapon into the gaping wound, coloring the entire upper half of the white clothing a deep, almost purple crimson.
"Now! Before she's dead!" Troy yelled furiously.
"What?" Francis was in shock.
"Shit!" Troy growled and leaped at him, landing on him like a wounded animal. He grabbed the knife from Francis's belt and shoved it into his hand. Francis's fingers grasped it on instinct. "Now, you bastard!" Troy demanded
Francis shook his head meekly.
Troy grabbed his arm and lifted it.
Francis found the mental strength to fight against it.
Sean then leaned on him as well.
He was moving, despite his best efforts. He twisted his body as he fell.
The knife entered her smooth, milky flesh, severing the femoral artery in her upper leg as messily as any other wound on her battered body. Her blood burst forth and struck him in the face, a sticky mess that assailed his nostrils and matted his hair and was her.
It was Chelsea.
He jerked his head around quickly.
In front of his eyes, her own bloodied face filled his vision; it was all he could see.
Chelsea gasped once. One last time.
Then everything was still.
And red.
And changed.
Forever.
Chapter Twenty-Three
2012
Nathan's and Chantelle's hands remained tightly entwined as they slowly followed Luke through the trees, guided only by the single beam of his old flashlight.
"This hasn't stayed the same," Luke muttered absently. "I thought it might."
"Twenty-one years, dad," Chantelle stated, squeezing Nathan's hand as she spoke. "Of course, it's changed."
Chantelle's finger-grip remained strong. Nathan saw more than a hint of worry cross her face. The man with them was not the confident teacher who had brought her up in a loving and caring home. This was a nervous wreck whose eyes darted about like a frightened rabbit, a man who had done simply what he had been told and so had come out here with barely an argument to face his own fears and past without question.
"Ahh, here's something." Luke's voice had gained a note of confidence.
Nathan and Chantelle felt their throats constrict and moved in closer together. "Here's what?" Nathan asked, trying to keep himself in control.
"The track. Look." He shone the torch down to illuminate a river-smoothed stone about the size of four fists, then to their left another about five paces away. "Your father did that. I never really understood why this was the path he made, but I think it was the way he found his way to come back here so no-one else could." He paused and finally looked at the teenagers. "Well, at least once a year, anyway, I reckon," he added as an afterthought, as though it meant nothing.
Without further word, they followed the path of rocks. Some had been moved over the years, and some had been overgrown by the grass or covered by the forest detritus, but soon enough they found themselves at the edge of a small copse.
"Holy shit," Luke mumbled.
Nathan and Chantelle rushed to his side. The grass of the clearing looked like it had actually been cut, and relatively recently, too. Years of fallen branches were piled up on the sides, along with leaves and small saplings, creating a natural wall, sort of like a beaver's dam. And standing proudly in the middle was a cairn of small stones about a meter high.
"What's all this?" Nathan asked quietly.
"I don't know. It wasn't like this the last time I was here," Luke responded, his voice distant, shocked.
"When was that, dad?"
Luke did not answer for a long time, and when he spoke, it was as though he were in a dream. "It was nineteen years ago. You were still a baby. I came here on September nineteenth, the anniversary. The second anniversary. I was here the year before as well, but that second time… Yeah. Francis was here. Brandon, too. I think Julian might have turned up as well. We didn't say anything. It felt too wrong. I knew I wasn't coming back. I had you, I had a real family. Julian must've left first. Brandon and I went together. We left Francis here. I'll bet he comes here every year, though. I mean, look at this place."
"He really, truly loved her, didn't he?" Nathan whispered, his voice hoarse, cracking with emotion.
"Yeah, he really did," Luke said. "If Troy hadn't jumped him, he never would have… Shit, he was forced into this. And I reckon he really has lived this every day of his life."
"Mum said when they divorced she thought he was involved with another woman," Nathan said. "I never believed her, but then I never would have guessed it was a dead girl."
Those final, blunt words made Luke jump a little, his body becoming tense. "Well, let's go," he murmured, speaking quickly, obviously eager to leave the place.
"Where?' Chantelle asked.
"Well, this is where we… where… where… you know." Luke was barely holding it together.
"Where she actually died?" Nathan tried.
He nodded slowly. Chantelle was sure she could see a tear on his cheek. "But I think Francis wants us to find her. The real her."
The two youngsters looked at one another. "She's not here?" Chantelle whispered.
Luke shook his head. "We took her," he whispered. "She was still in the bag. We zipped it up again and carried her off." He touched Nathan's arm. "Francis didn't come. He stayed right here, in the darkness. He wouldn't even clean her blood off his face.
"Hell, that poor girl spent three days in a bag at Troy's place—he had a room out the back and his parents simply never went out there—and he said he let her go to the toilet and fed her, but I don't think he did. She said he didn't, anyway. He made her change into that white nightdress, and I think he might've taken advantage of her as well. Don't know for sure, but… Well, yeah, then we brought her out here and… well, you know what we did. And then we dumped her like yesterday's garbage, in a garbage bag."
He turned then and strode away, the flashlight finding each rock as though guided there.
Chantelle and Nathan stayed where they were.
There was something about this place, especially as it gained the blue glow of night when Luke disappeared down the rocky trail. It was strangely calm, a well of quiet in a world that no longer made sense.
Nathan's and Chantelle's hands moved so that they allowed their arms to slide around one another's waists.
Under different circumstances, the place could even have been said to possess an allure, a sense of calm. They squeezed one another briefly, then Chantelle placed a soft kiss on his cheek. He even managed a smile.
Neither of them considered where they were; the atmosphere was no longer that of a graveyard, a memorial to death. It was their place now; nothing else mattered, just this tiny pocket and one another.
A white mist started to form, spreading across the ground, a low-lying cloud, soft, like the last remnants of the smoke of the campfire, the down from the wings of an angel. It added to the atmosphere, giving it an otherworldly texture, like a dream made solid.
It swirled around a little in a breeze neither could feel, circling about the cairn, becoming thicker, covering the stones, looking like a statue made of the very air itself.
"It's beautiful," Chantelle whispered. Nathan smiled and kissed her forehead in agreement. Their embrace was organic, their kiss was lingering.
The aura they could detect was filled with love, not with the death and horror and loss that this place, hidden away for over two decades, represented to their fathers.
They parted, their eyes remaining fixed on one another, their smiles slight but sincere.
A movement on the very edge of their vision caught their attention. They turned quickly, the mood evaporating, though not completely. Chantelle giggled in embarrassment and was about to suggest maybe it was an owl or something when there was another darting motion, this one more definite.
And definitely made by
something larger than an owl.
"Where's Dad?" Chantelle suddenly whispered.
Nathan didn't get a chance to reply.
She stepped out from behind the cairn, rising to her full height like a flower opening itself to the morning sun. If anything, the photographs in the old yearbooks and on the Internet and the brief glimpses already afforded them had understated her beauty, the lustrous golden hair that was draped over her shoulders and covered her chest appearing like a halo of heavenly light, the perfect and unblemished skin seemingly made out of the purest marble.
And her smile… It was sweet and innocent, the smile of a goddess.
She opened her arms wide, and everything about her was so welcoming. Chantelle's hand dropped and took Nathan's; he responded by pulling her in right beside him. Neither could take their eyes from the personification of beauty in front of them.
Her mouth opened and the word, "Come," floated to them on a wind that didn't exist.
Chantelle began to step forward first.
Nathan hesitated, then took one slow step toward her.
Another movement distracted his attention.
His father was standing there. His eyes were wide with fear, and he was shaking his head violently from side to side.
Coldness wafted over Nathan, and he spun to gaze at Chantelle. Now drifting lightly across the grass toward the woman and her wide, outstretched arms.
"No," he whispered.
He took two steps and jumped as the white, glowing arms closed up. He tackled Chantelle about the waist and pulled her to the ground, both crying out as they landed. Nathan could feel the wetness from Chantelle's stomach leak alarmingly over his arm; his own leg was a mass of pure agony, and he could not bear to look at it to see what extra damage he had caused.
"What the hell was…" Chantelle began, rounding on him as well as she could, but the words became stuck in her throat. Her eyes grew larger, her jaw fell open, her lips quivered.
Nathan spun around and fell to his back, resisting the temptation to push himself away on his throbbing, pained leg. Instead, he groped for and found Chantelle's hand yet again and held on tight. He was not abandoning her now.
The woman was now standing with her hands folded across her stomach, her eyes squeezed shut, her mouth set into a grim line. And there was blood. Blood flowed from her shoulder, neck, chest, wrist, stomach, hip, and leg. It covered almost all of her white clothing in a glowing scarlet that moved and rippled over her perfect form, a separate entity living all over her.
The eyes and mouth shot open.
Blood, So much blood. Too much blood.
The blood poured from them in a neverending waterfall, pooling on the ground at her feet in an ocean of putrefying body liquids.
Chantelle screamed.
The mouth twisted into a malicious grin as the blood-filled eyes narrowed and the arms were thrown wide once again in a welcoming, warming, wanting embrace.
* * *
"Here," Luke mumbled.
"Here," Julian agreed.
The other three just looked down at the creek bed, a channel that clearly had not held water in many years.
"Here? Exactly here?" Sean whispered tentatively.
"I don't really remember now," Luke said, his voice still vague, his eyes distant.
It was Brandon who knelt down and started to claw at the soft earth with his bare hands.
The others soon joined him, even Julian with only one usable arm.
Just over twenty-one years earlier they had done this already; then it had been digging into the bottom of a flowing creek, going down until they had struck too much rocky material.
That was to conceal.
Now it was time to reveal.
* * *
"Stop! Please, please stop!"
Francis ran across the small field and stood between the strange, horrific apparition and the teenagers. Chantelle threw herself at Nathan and cowered against him, hiccupping in terror and pain.
The blood-drenched woman stared at him, the grin curling into a scowl. The eyes stopped crying their crimson tears; the blood slowed as it dribbled over her bright lips.
"Chelsea, please," Francis begged. He showed her his hands, submissively, openly, honestly. "Please, Chelsea. Please."
Her gaze narrowed even further. Her arms were slowly lowered until they were by her sides, palms facing forwards. The flow of blood from the seven wounds slowed to a congealing trickle.
"It was never meant to be like this," Francis whispered. "I always loved you." He shifted sideways far enough to touch the top of the cairn. "I never ever forgot you."
Nathan recognized the opportunity his father was giving him. He forced himself to his feet, the blood gushing out of his wound as soon as he put his weight on the leg. He reached down to Chantelle; she didn't need to be asked twice as she grabbed his wrist and struggled to stand beside him, clutching her abdomen tenderly. "Come on," he whispered and virtually dragged her away.
They stopped short. Karyn held Allan in her arms, the young boy sobbing against her neck, and stared at them, scared beyond words, but unwilling to move.
"Who's…" Chantelle started, but Nathan touched her shoulder.
"What are you doing here, Karyn?" he asked quietly, gently, kindly.
"How do you know…?" she began to ask, fear touching her words, but then she shook her head. It wasn't important. What was important was that this was happening and it could not be real. Red women, (bleeding?), strange clearings in forests, her mum possessed. Not real. But this guy was, and he was here, and she was sure she had seen him at school; there was only one person this could be. "Your dad brought us." She could not help but look past Nathan at the glowing red, white, and gold woman. "He said he needed all of us here to stop this. What's going on?"
Nathan carefully touched her bruised face and turned her attention back to him and Chantelle. "I don't know," he said, "but if my dad wants us here, then I'll stay."
She swallowed hard and held tightly onto Allan. "Are we going to be okay?" she asked.
Nathan sighed and set himself. "Yes," he stated simply. He then slowly turned around to look at the center of the copse and its two occupants, carefully moving Chantelle behind him as he did so. "Yes," he repeated, "you will all be okay." His choice of words did not go unnoticed, and Chantelle wrapped her arms about him from behind, glad he could not see her crying this time.
Francis, though, did not notice anything. He only had eyes for the woman in white. The flight of the teenagers, the gathering of the children, none of it seemed to matter. Just the woman. He lifted his hand from the cairn and reached reached out to her. His fingers touched the blood-soaked cheek. It was cold and smooth, like stone.
Then her eyes suddenly shifted, gazing upwards.
* * *
"Holy fuck, she's still here!"
Brandon scuttled backward, unable to draw his eyes from the smallish hole they had created.
And from the thick, black plastic bag at the bottom of it.
The others just gaped at it, unable to say anything.
It was Julian who resumed digging, his one useful arm churning like a machine.
Before long, all five were once more going at it, uncovering more and more plastic, trying hard not to think about what it contained.
Who it contained.
* * *
The blood stopped flowing from all wounds, but Francis noticed with unease that the holes in her body remained open and gaping.
His hand moved slightly so that the palm cupped her cheek as though the blood was not even there. He allowed himself the hint of a smile. The stone of her flesh was no longer marble, no longer ice.
She opened her eyes properly, but her mouth remained downturned.
Her body shook a little, a brief tremor that ran through her whole being, and she blinked twice.
* * *
The outline of the bag sat there in the soft soil.
"Well?" Brandon asked.
"Ye
ah, well," Sean muttered in return.
Luke dug out the edge a little more. Then a little more. Small handfuls until his hand wedged between the ground and the soft, pliable side.
The whole thing moved.
"Oh, good God," he squeaked like a child. It still had solidity inside. He peered nervously at the others but stayed where he was.
"Fuck," Julian groaned and did likewise on the other side. The other three did not hesitate before joining them, knowing this had to be done. Too much depended on it.
* * *
Her mouth moved at the corners.
The coagulating blood trickled slowly and thickly down her body, a thousand crimson caterpillars making their way towards the ground, leaving the skin clean, the garments unstained.
Francis managed a proper smile, one that might even have been genuine.
This was Chelsea. His Chelsea.
She leaned her head into his hand and closed her eyes. The warmth of her flesh was increasing. He touched her chin with his other hand. "Please, Chelsea," he whispered.
The eyelids fluttered. The eyes themselves were slightly cloudy, but there was complete recognition.
"Franky."
The voice was hoarse, croaking, spoken as if the words had been forced out through disused and damaged muscles.
"Why?" Francis whispered.
She shook her head. Her gaze shifted over his shoulder.
He slowly turned his head, then could not help but gasp.
She was staring directly at his son, standing uneasily on one leg in front of the rest of the children, defiantly, firmly, bravely…exactly the way he hadn't stood up to his own friends twenty-one years earlier.
"Why not?" The words were formed as the wafting of the wind through the branches of the trees. But that was enough to send a chill up Francis's spine and into the back of his skull.
* * *
"One, two, three," Brandon counted, and all of them lifted on cue.
The mud beneath the plastic bag tried to hold onto its prize, keeping a firm grip that only the combined strength of the five men could overcome.