by Sara Clancy
Caught in her frenzied bloodlust, Olga abandoned her wild strikes in favor of her teeth. Flopping down upon Evelyn, using her larger bulk to pin the teen’s wrists to the ground, the serial killer latched onto Evelyn’s neck. There was a moment of intense, burning pressure before Evelyn felt her skin pop like a ripe tomato. Olga’s teeth sunk deep. Blood spurted free. Drenching her skin and gushing into Olga’s mouth. The taste seemed to feed her madness and she began to shake her head like a dog, widening the wound. Evelyn bucked, trying to shake the woman off, all of her attempts only increasing the damage. Even the serpent’s body winding inches above them didn’t deter the attack.
Suddenly, Olga lurched back. There was a flash of metal. A short scream and a quick jerk. Evelyn looked up to find that she no longer had the mad woman’s attention. Aleksandr stood behind his mother, one arm wrapped around as if in an embrace. It took a split second to realize that Aleksandr had pulled his mother back by her hair. And that his loving hug actually ended with a knife plunged into the woman’s gut. Olga twitched. Blood oozed from her slack mouth as she turned to look at her son.
“Alek,” she whispered.
His face remained an expressionless mask as Aleksandr pulled the knife from its fleshy sheath. He yanked Olga’s head back and swiped the blade across the exposed throat. A wave of blood washed out over Evelyn as the woman gargled and groaned.
“Move,” Alek demanded as he reared up, dragging the bleeding woman up with him.
Evelyn rolled onto her stomach, pushed up onto all fours, and twisted to look at him. “Nadya?”
“Car.”
As if to add substance to his single word, the engine roared to life. It drew everyone’s attention.
“Go!” Aleksandr ordered.
The word was barely heard over Petya’s agonized scream. He’s seen his wife, Evelyn realized. A new layer of hell and vengeance was charging towards them and she didn’t want to be around when it struck. The ground bucked like a living beast as the snakes snapped around, torn between blocking the vehicle and attacking those still out in the open. As she ran over the debris, she caught sight of the vehicle. One of the twins was behind the wheel, barely able to see over the dash as they sunk into their seat to touch the pedals. The other had found their shotgun. As she neared, Evelyn realized that the backpack must have had some ammo, because they reached into the pockets each time they needed to reload.
The vehicle lurched forward for a few feet before the snake slammed its body down to block its path. Then the shooter would pop, fire at it to get it moving, and the process would begin again. Putting everything she had left into her sprint, she raced to the vehicle and threw herself in through and open back window. The shooter whipped around. There wasn’t much room to move the gun and Evelyn was easily able to grab the barrel.
“Don’t shoot me,” she hissed.
She wasn’t sure which one she was talking to, Ivan or Nadya, but it didn’t matter. The driver slammed their foot down and the vehicle lurched forward. Built for rough terrain, the wheels rocked over the remains of the shed, weaving, tossing the occupants one way then the next. They plunged out into the night just as something solid slammed down upon the roof. Evelyn had to flatten herself against the seat so the child could whip the gun around. The shot never came. Aleksandr threaded himself through the driver’s side window, seamlessly taking over for the child driver as they scrambled out of the way.
“Father?” the shooter asked.
“Alive,” Aleksandr said.
“Why would you do that?” the driver whined.
“Because,” he said as he forced the car faster into the bottomless night. “Live bait is a better distraction.”
Chapter 12
They had to drive for forty-five minutes for the stars to return to the sky. Further still for any recognizable landmarks to appear through the car’s high beams. Evelyn hadn’t noticed how strange the world had become until the real world began to emerge from the fake one. Clicking into place as they left the monsters behind. During this time, Nadya had been in the back, helping a very confused Evelyn tend to her wounds. It was almost comical, catching the teen’s expressions in the rearview mirror when the ten-year-old informed her she needed stitches. As the twins had pointed out to her, a proper serial killer needs to know how to tend to their own injuries, and the Sokolovsky children had been taught well. That didn’t mean that Evelyn was too excited about the idea of a pre-teen jabbing her neck repeatedly in the back of a moving car. The humor wore off the instant the needle sunk in for the first stitch. All the essentials were in their emergency evacuation bags, but any good quality painkiller wouldn’t have lasted, stored in such conditions. Evelyn had to endure with aspirin and a few small bottles of vodka.
Driving flat out the entire way, they neared the small rural town earlier than anticipated. The agreement had been that they would stop, but none of them had felt safe enough to do so. It barely took a second to speed down the empty main road and join the highway. Once streetlights and other cars became a common enough sight, Aleksandr passed the driving over to the twins. They had done it enough times for him to have faith in their abilities. Working in tandem, one working the wheel and the other the pedals, they actually added up to be a decent driver.
Slipping into the back seat, he landed with a pained grunt and started to rummage around for any first-aid supplies that hadn’t been used. There was a bit of damage that would need looking after properly, and one of his fingers was most certainty broken, but nothing seemed life threatening.
“Are they okay driving?” Evelyn asked as she stared at the children.
He wondered if it was pain, exhaustion, or shock that had put her in such an apathetic state. In any case, her words had steadily slowed and decreased. Now, the brief conversation that did take place mostly revolved around checking for injuries and tending to the wounds mentioned. No one had approached the topic of what had happened yet. For his part, Aleksandr had avoided it out of superstition. A fear that, if he addressed it, the monsters would appear again.
“They’re fine,” Aleksandr assured as he lightly tapped the back of the driver’s seat with his foot. “You are doing the speed limit, right?”
“Yep,” they chirped in unison.
“Because speeding will draw attention and get us pulled over.”
The car slowed a little and he shook his head.
“Okay,” Evelyn said suddenly. “I can’t take it anymore. What the fu–”
“Hey,” Aleksandr cut her off with a snarl.
In the rhythmic glow of the passing street lights, he met her gaze and jerked his head towards the twins.
“Seriously? They just faced off with giant snakes, serial killers, zombies, and whatever else happened to them out there, but you’re concerned about them hearing mild swear words?”
“You have to have some boundaries,” he noted as he began to wash out the cuts on his arms with bottled water.
She gaped at him for a long moment. “Fine. What the frick-frack happened out there?”
“Furies,” Ivan chirped. “I told you they were real. No one ever listens to me.”
“That’s because you’re boring,” Nadya noted.
By the sound of it, she earned a playful smack for her trouble. Aleksandr sunk deeper into the seat, eyes drifting closed and a smile growing on his face as he listened to them squabble. Alive. Safe. And as sane as can be expected.
“What is a fury?” Evelyn cut in.
“Oh,” Ivan sounded surprised for the follow up question and took a moment to organize his thoughts.
Aleksandr had to admit that, at this point in time, he didn’t care what they were. All that mattered was that they were free. Finally, free. At least for now. Everything else was a problem for another day.
“It’s ancient Greek mythology,” Ivan said, quickly muttering an ‘I think’ before raising his voice again. “They’re like, three demonic sisters or something. In the stories, when people want revenge on evil
people, they ask the sisters to do it for them.”
“Why not just do it themselves?” Nadya said, honestly perplexed.
“I don’t know. Weak stomachs?” Ivan replied.
Aleksandr didn’t interrupt. He knew the kids had seen something, horrors on a far greater scale than what they were prepared for, but he wasn’t about to open those wounds while they were in a moving car. That was a conversation to be had when they were safe, clean, and had a full stomach. In their need to flee, he still hadn’t been able to give them hugs. His arms ached for it and a part of his soul screamed in protest at the separation, but this too had to wait. Because he knew, once he had them close, he wasn’t about to let go for a while. They needed to put some distance behind them first.
“One of my victims cursed us,” he mumbled. “I hadn’t thought it was real.”
“That’s because you didn’t listen to me,” Ivan said, his haughty tone making Aleksandr smile.
“So, according to these stories, the Furies just get called in to murder people? There has to be a simpler way to do that,” Evelyn said.
Ivan hummed thoughtfully. “No, I think they’re supposed to drive people crazy first. Then kill them.”
“Okay, genius,” Nadya said. “Why did they keep stopping all the time?”
Letting his head flop back against the seat, Aleksandr stared up at the ceiling of the vehicle. The passing streetlights flashed against the worn material above him in a rhythmic pulse. Maybe it was the head injury or the increasing blood loss, but he found the light fascinating.
“Because we weren’t afraid enough,” Aleksandr said.
“What?” Nadya asked.
“One of the illusions,” he mumbled, realizing a heartbeat later that he still needed to elaborate. “It felt like it needed me to be afraid of it. That my fear made it stronger. When I got angry instead, it got weaker.”
“Well, I guess we aren’t exactly its normal victims,” Nadya mumbled.
“Like we have a higher tolerance level,” Ivan happily continued the thought. “We’ve spent every day with murderous crazy. That has to make us ... what’s the word?”
“Immune?” Nadya said.
“No, not that.”
“Adapted,” Evelyn said. “You all know how to cope with it and can keep going.”
“Yeah, that.” Ivan said. “But, I don’t know why they didn’t get you.”
“Because I don’t give a ... frick-frack,” she hissed the last words and Aleksandr chuckled. “Plus, I’m not exactly a stranger to crazy. It’s a far different breed to yours, but still …”
She let the thought drop and no one was inclined to pick it up again.
“Alek?” Ivan suddenly sounded so much like the child he was, scared and vulnerable, that Aleksandr instantly sat up.
He leaned forward, pushing himself between the two front seats to properly see his brother.
“Yes?”
“Do you think mother and father are really dead?”
“Yes, I do.”
Ivan kept his silence, trusting Nadya to carry the thought on from there.
“The others aren’t going to be happy. They’ll come for us.”
“They won’t find us,” he promised. “We’re going someplace far away. Someplace safe. Where we’ll live new and boring lives. Where we’ll be happy.”
“What if they find us?” Ivan asked, his wide eyes focused on the road, as if he could will himself to be older and braver than his years.
“Then we’ll kill them,” Aleksandr said simply.
“What if the monsters find us?” Nadya asked.
“We’ll kill them, too.” Forcing a smile, Aleksandr twisted his arms around so he could place a hand on each of their heads. “For now, let’s just say that the plan is to slaughter anything that messes with us. Okay?”
“Okay,” they both said in unison.
“Good. Now, let’s just get as far as we can with this car and we’ll reassess from there.”
They both nodded their agreement and for a moment seemed satisfied.
“What about her?” Nadya asked.
There was no need to specify who ‘her’ was. There was only one person in the car who didn’t belong.
“Yeah,” Ivan chirped. “Are we killing her?”
“And waste all the stitches Nadya put in my neck?” Evelyn said.
At the mention of her work, Nadya was suddenly all in favor of keeping their guest alive. It sparked a fast-paced conversation between the twins that only stopped when Aleksandr returned his hands to their heads.
“We’re getting her to the city,” Aleksandr said. “And then we’re going our separate ways. Never to see each other again.”
Ivan snuck a glance at him. “She’s not coming with us?”
“It’s just us three now. She’s not a part of this,” Aleksandr said.
“Okay,” Nadya said softly. “But, what if the Furies don’t see it that way? What if they come after her, too?”
Aleksandr hadn’t considered the thought and, when he looked back to meet Evelyn’s gaze, he realized she hadn’t either. There was every chance in this world that they would never see the Furies again. Olga and Petya and been the cause of it all. The human plague that had spread nothing but misery and death. The twins, himself, Evelyn, it was possible that they had just been caught in the crossfire. Now that they had claimed their prize, the Furies might be satisfied to let them go. At the very least, Evelyn should be spared. Her hands were clean.
As much as Aleksandr searched the corners of his mind, he knew that he wouldn’t find an answer. The world he had known was gone. A few shadows remained, but none of them meant what they had only a few days ago. He had no idea what was to come. Or what would follow. All that he knew for sure was that their liberation had come at a cost. There was a tether now that existed between them and Evelyn. A debt that he couldn’t turn his back on.
“I’d have to help her,” he told Nadya.
Neither of the twins appeared completely satisfied with this, but they lapsed into silence, storing their questions for another day and focusing on the road ahead. As Aleksandr watched them, still unable to believe that they were here with him, partly believing that he was still back in that room with the monster breathing on his neck, he heard Evelyn mutter.
“So much for a clean break.”
No one spoke again. There was nothing more to say for tonight. They each just stared out into the night, waiting impatiently for the rising sun.
* * *
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