by Palvi Sharma
“Jenny?” she called out. “Rafe? Fiona?”
She walked towards the fence and tried pushing on it. When it didn’t budge, she ran to her left and gasped when she saw that the way to the lagoon was also obstructed by the fence. She was trapped! The metallic fence was now running all around her, barricading any exit.
“Hello?” she called out but heard no answer. “Where is everyone?”
She ran on the other side and saw that the grocery store had inevitably burned to the ground. She looked at the small restaurant and rushed towards it. She pulled on the door and found it locked.
“Can anyone help me?” she called. She spotted a brick lying idly near a recycling bin and picked it up. There might be a phone inside and even though she wouldn’t call anyone in the city for help, perhaps she could call someone in a nearby town. Or her parents.
She pulled her arm back and flung the brick as hard as she could on the glass door of the restaurant. The glass shattered noisily and Melissa looked around her to see if anyone had heard her. She was hoping that the noise would bring her friends from their hiding places, but another thought occurred to her. What if the riders found her instead?
She stepped in through the broken glass door as carefully as she could. Once inside, she spotted a telephone on the counter and made her way to it. But before she had even raised it to her ear, she knew it would be dead and to her disappointment her guess had proven right.
She flung the telephone on the floor and started to cry. Nothing here made any sense. Where were her friends? What was she doing here all alone?
“I’m not supposed to be here!” she cried. She laid her head on the counter and sobbed loud.
“No you’re not.” A voice said from the doorway.
Melissa felt her heart skip a beat as she recognized the voice. She turned around and gasped. Standing near the doorway was one of the riders dressed in leather. He held a gun in his hand and he put it down gently on the floor before reaching for his helmet.
Melissa clutched the side of the table when the rider removed his helmet. She knew who he was. How could she forget the green eyes, dark hair and broad shoulders? She had left everything for him.
“Mark!” she exclaimed.
Chapter Eight
The minute she had laid eyes on him, Melissa had felt a surge of hope rush through her veins. Until today, she hadn’t realized how much she loved Mark and how much she missed him. Seeing him standing in the doorway like that made her feel safe somehow. Everything would be fine now because Mark was here to save her.
But as her eyes travelled all over him, she noticed his leather jacket and trousers and motorcycle boots. It had been too dark last night, but her eyes had made out the outfits the riders had worn and if she wasn’t mistaken, Mark was wearing the very same attire. Her mind screamed that it couldn’t be true. Mark wasn’t capable of killing innocent people. He had cheated on her, he had been dominating and selfish, but he wasn’t a murderer!
“Mark?” she asked in a whisper.
Mark stepped inside and Melissa could hear the glass crunching under his heels. She instinctively started to search the counter for any sort of weapon, but to her dismay, she found only ballpoint pens and old receipts stashed away in the shelves underneath.
“You weren’t supposed to be here.” Mark said disconcertingly.
Melissa went behind the counter and picked up one of the pens. She might be able to poke him with it before he picked up the gun from the floor and killed her just like Shane and Sara. “I can’t believe it!” she said.
“Melissa...”Mark started to say and then hesitated. He looked all around him with a puzzled expression on his face. “Is there anyone else with you?”
“Where’s Jennifer?” Melissa asked. “If you’ve done anything to her...”
“Jennifer?” Mark frowned. “When I found you, you were all alone.”
“Found me?” Melissa asked. She glanced towards the exit and wondered what her chances were to escape from here. She wasn’t quick enough to push past Mark who was taller and stronger than her. Mark had long legs and before she could have even taken four steps, he would catch her and kill her right then and there. Plus, he had a gun and although Mark hadn’t bothered to pick it up yet, it didn’t mean that he didn’t intend to use it.
“I saw you jump into the lagoon and swim towards the islet. I made my way quietly in a canoe and brought you back here.” Mark explained.
“Jennifer was right beside me.” Melissa answered and hated herself for coming so close to tears, especially in front of him. This wasn’t the time to breakdown or display her weakness. She had to think fast.
“There was no one beside you.” Mark said. “Are you absolutely sure, she was there with you when you fell asleep?”
Melissa looked down at the pen in her hands and saw that the nib was blunt enough to break the skin but was likely to do any actual damage. And then she started to think if she would really have to use it. Mark looked genuinely concerned about Jennifer.
“I can’t believe you killed them!” Melisa accused. She started to go around the counter so that she was now on Mark’s right. A few more subtle steps and she could make her getaway. “How could you?”
“Who else was with you?” Mark demanded to know. “Who else is left?”
“What’s wrong with you?” Melissa asked. “What kind of person kills people for fun?”
“It’s not what you think.” Mark said. “Some deserve to die.”
As Mark spoke, Melissa stepped closer to the door. She spotted the broken glass on the floor and saw a large shard that she could use as a weapon. If only she could reach it...
“No one deserves to be butchered the way you and your friends killed my friends.” Melissa said. Mark had turned towards her now and he was carefully watching her movements.
“Friends?” Mark scoffed.
Melissa felt a rush of anger inside her. He knew that she didn’t have any friends apart from Jennifer, but did he really have to rub it in? She turned around and started to walk away when Mark grabbed her arm. She let out a scream and lost her balance.
“You are not leaving!” Mark said.
Melissa winced as a small piece of glass pierced her skin and drew a trickle of blood. She scrambled on the floor and her hands closed around a glass shard. “Let me go!” she cried, but Mark dragged her towards him. Melissa drew the shard in her hand and thrust it into Mark’s thigh.
Mark let out a howl and Melissa shoved him away. She ran out the broken door and ran outside when a thought occurred to her. The fence couldn’t possibly be all around the shops could it? Her mind hoped like crazy that she was right. Would they really take the trouble to put a large fence and block this whole area?
She ran as fast as she could through the passageway between the restaurant and the theatre. She turned back once to see if Mark was following her. She sighed with relief when she didn’t spot him and ran as fast as she could, before finding herself being pushed back roughly.
Melissa gasped as she tumbled on the ground. She looked up to see that she had been thrown back by the fence. She stared at it as her eyes welled with tears. Her ankle hurt and her hands were grazed by the metal fence and there was still no way out. She was alone and she was trapped and the sun was scorching her arms. She pushed herself in the shadows and sobbed into her hands.
She cowered when she heard a noise. She got up slowly and pressed herself against the wall. Mark was inside and her friends were missing, so where were the rest of the riders?
Just then she saw four men walking towards the restaurant with their helmets on. Melissa wiped her tears away with the palm of her hands and lowered herself behind the bins.
Don’t let them see you, her mind screamed. If they do, they’ll kill you and you’ll never be able to do the things you wished for last night. You’ll never see your family again and never find out where Jennifer is.
She heard the four riders walk into the restaurant and listened
as they whispered softly amongst them
Melissa pressed her ear against the walls, hoping to find out what they had done with her best friend.
“Did you find Melissa?” one of them asked.
“Yeah and she stabbed me!” she heard Mark say. “Didn’t even give me chance...”
“Were her friends with her?” someone else asked.
“Wouldn’t say.” Mark replied. “She barely gave me a chance to say anything. Just stabbed me and ran away somewhere.”
“We have to find her.” Melissa heard one of the riders say. “We have to kill them all!”
Chapter Nine
The theatre wasn’t as small as it had looked from the outside. There were posters of upcoming movies plastered on the walls and Melissa found herself thinking if the movies would actually be coming soon here anytime, considering what was happening around her. The theatre was deserted, just like the restaurant had been, but the fact that nothing looked in disarray or broken made her realize something that should have caught her attention sooner.
The theatre was closed, the snack counter was closed, but nothing looked as if it was still was in the process of running before it had to be shut down in a hurry after the incident occurred.
Melissa walked through the lobby in a daze. She came to the ticket booth and frowned. Everything was put away neatly here too. No ticket stubs strewn on the floor and no bills lying unattended. Another thought occurred to her then and she reached for a register lying on the table. ‘Show timings’ was labeled on it and Melissa knew what she would find even before she had opened it.
The ticket seller had obviously kept the register for his own record because the pages inside were written in casual handwriting rather than printed neatly. She turned the pages to yesterday’s show and frowned.
There were no shows scheduled after the afternoon show and the next show listed in the register was scheduled for next week. She closed the register and put it back on the table. Everything was planned, after all.
The barricades, the police officer, the shutting down of all the shops, restaurants and the theatres, had all been carefully schemed and executed. The people in this city had waited patiently for new visitors who wouldn’t know about the legend and then ‘feed them to the wolves’- just the way Rafe had said. Only the gullible population hadn’t known that who they thought were demons were only a group of cruel and adventurous guys who enjoyed slaying innocents for their pleasure.
“How could you Mark?” Melissa sobbed. “How could I be so wrong about you?”
She took several deep breaths to calm herself down. This wasn’t the time to dwell on these things. She had to find a way to escape. There was always a way out of any adversity.
Melissa reached for the phone in the ticket counter and put it up to her ear. No dial tone. She found herself starting to cry again and slammed the phone down.
Her head was starting to ache and the theatre was getting hotter by the second. The power was out so she couldn’t switch on the air conditioners and if she opened a window, the movement would catch the attention of the riders who were next door to her.
She crawled on the floor and peered out the window, towards the restaurant where she had seen all the riders go in. It was too quiet out there and she had half expected the riders to start looking for her so that they could kill her. There weren’t a lot of places she could hide, so why weren’t they looking for her?
Melissa wiped a bead of sweat of her forehead and rolled up the sleeves of her t-shirt. Her head was starting to swim and although food was the last thing on her mind, she knew she would have to eat and get some rest while she still could.
She walked towards the snack counter and picked up a candy bar. As she tore open the wrapper and started to eat, her eyes scanned the sandwiches packed in plastic containers. The bread looked too stale and since the refrigeration was off and the theatre was hot and stuffy, the sandwiches would probably end up giving her food poisoning. She wrinkled her nose as she saw the mayonnaise dripping into a small puddle inside the container.
She instead picked up a big packet of chips and sat down on the floor, leaning her head against the counter. As she bit on a sour and cream crisp, her mind started to race. Her first thought was where Jennifer was. Mark had told her that he had found her alone on the artificial land. But that was a lie. Jennifer was sleeping beside her, Fiona beside Jennifer and Rafe on the other side.
Melissa reached for a bottle of water from the counter and uncapped. The water was as warm as the room was, but nevertheless it quenched her thirst to some extent.
The last thing she was going to do was to believe Mark. He had lied to her and she could have lived with all his faults, but how could she forgive him for killing Shane and Sara? Keith had died because of him too. If he hadn’t concocted the whole tale about a ghostly gang looking for revenge, the police wouldn’t have been too scared and helped them all.
Melissa gagged then and spit out the morsel in her mouth. The sour cream and onion flavored crisp was starting to nauseate her now, and the heat was now spreading all over her body. She coughed up once and suddenly found herself throwing up everything she had eaten just now. Melissa sobbed out loud as she vomited and heaved for breath.
Once the nausea had passed, Melissa pushed herself away from the counter and dragged herself to one of the couches in the lobby. She lay down on it as her head spun and closed her eyes.
She found herself sinking towards a memory and Melissa knew she was falling asleep. In her dream she saw herself as a twelve year old in her pajamas as she made up a sleeping bag for Jennifer. Jennifer was a year younger to her and even though they were in different classes, they had been the best of friends ever since she had moved in next door to her when she was only six.
“I don’t want to hear it!” Jennifer screeched. “Stop scaring me!”
Melissa saw her younger self giggling helplessly.
“Oh, Jenny!” she saw herself say. “It’s just a tale. Dragons are mythical creatures. They don’t live under our beds waiting for us to fall asleep before they barbeque us and eat us up!”
“Stop!” Jennifer said and put her hands on her ears as she cried helplessly.
Melissa saw herself stop laughing and going over to hug her friend. Jennifer had just lost her elder sister in a drowning accident and ever since then, Jennifer had always been scared of pretty much everything. She had overheard her parents once say that Jennifer’s elder sister had died right in front of her and that she had been unable to do anything at that time because she had been too young and too scared.
“Don’t worry.” Melissa said. “I won’t let anything ever hurt you.”
“You promise?” Jennifer sobbed.
“I promise.” Melissa said.
She opened her eyes then and stared the ceiling. The theatre was getting darker and Melissa looked at her watch. The sun was setting in the distance and that meant that she had fallen asleep after all. She sat up on the couch and rubbed her temples, letting her headache subside.
It was getting darker and she still hadn’t come up with a plan to get out of here or search for her best friend- the friend she had promised to look after.
“Where are you Jenny?” she asked out loud. “Where could you be? You were right beside me!”
Had Rafe and Fiona taken her to the other side in the city? Had they seen Mark approach from a distance and just fled? But Jennifer would never leave her behind. No, something else had happened. Her friends were probably still on that islet, hiding. She had to find a way out of this trap and make her way back to the islet.
Just then, she heard the sound of motorcycle engines rumbling right outside the theatre. She crawled towards the window again and looked outside. The riders were out there again, wearing helmets. She spotted one of them with a white bandage on his thigh and she guessed that he was Mark.
She squinted as she spotted someone else in the middle of the road. She shifted to the side to get a better view and gas
ped.
It was her friends, huddled and looking scared as the riders approached them.
“Jennifer.” Melissa whispered and felt her breath being sucked away as Mark pointed a gun at her.
Chapter Ten
“You know what the best thing about Mark is?” Melissa asked on the phone. She was cuddled up in her bed, watching the rain and talking to Jennifer. She twirled a lock of hair in around her finger as she stared at her reflection.
“What?” Jennifer asked with a hint of disinterest in her voice.
“Mark makes me feel safe. It’s like, when I’m with him, I feel like no one can ever harm me.”
She heard Jennifer sigh on the other end and frowned. “I guess that’s what love should feel like, right? When you know that no matter what, someone will always be there to protect you?”