Dark Calling
By: Cheryl McIntyre
One:
She doesn’t need to see him to know he’s there. She can hear the distinctive sound of his footsteps. Ugly sounds. Sounds only he makes. Step, slide. Step, slide. The way it sounds as his feet find the fine particles of dirt on the smooth cement floor. Like nails on a chalk board. Step, screech. Step, screech.
Huddled in the corner of a filthy warehouse, surrounded by empty pallets, her hoodie doubles as a cloak of invisibility. Eyes unwilling to close even though she wants nothing more than to block him from her sight. Her hunter, who is surprisingly light. His meticulously combed golden hair, flawless pale skin, dressed in a stunning white suit. He is burned into her eyes, into her memories, forever.
Darkness is supposed to be ominous, where evil lives and hate is bred. But the dark keeps her hidden. Keeps her safe. If she hadn’t dressed head to toe in her black costume, if it weren’t night, if shadows weren’t blanketing her, shielding her from the monster, she’d be dead already.
No. Darkness isn’t bad.
His words echo in her head like a throbbing headache.
“Here kitty, kitty, kitty.” Step, slide. “I just want to play.” Step, screech. Light reflects off his perfect white teeth, off the thick, sharp blade in his fist. Shrinking back as tight against the wall as possible, she wishes desperately for the possibility to melt into the brick. It scratches against her back where the bare skin is exposed between her jeans and jacket. She barely feels it.
He’s standing in front of her, tall and lean. More like a model than a murderer, but she knows better now. She can smell the sickening sweet stench of cigars. Her eyes focus on the speckles of crimson that dot his sleeve and knows it is blood. Knows it belongs to her. Squeezing her fists, she feels the burn in her forearm.
He takes a step forward. Step, slide. Eyes scrunching shut, she holds her breath. Fear shakes her tightened limbs.
Step, screech. Step, screech. Her eyes pop open and dart from side to side. The monster is gone. Instead of relief, she is consumed with unbearable panic. Where is he? Is he hiding? Waiting?
Terror makes it hard to breath. Moving could be a mistake. It could expose her, but as her eyes glide to the open doorway, the hope of freedom screams her name. It’s the only means of escape. Deciding it isn’t that far as her fingers grip the mortar between the bricks, she pulls herself up. Turns her head to the left, eyes searching. Then to the right. Breaths panting out as sweat trickles down the back of her neck. Dirty blond hair clings to her skin. She lifts her foot to step over the crate blocking her path and freezes. Her senses are dulled and heightened at the same time. Not feeling the cold or the dampness of the night. Not noticing the blood running down her slender arm and dripping from battered fingertips. The gash in her arm scarcely hurts. But the smell. The sticky thickness of cigar smoke, old and stale, sends warnings to some more alert sense. A sob nearly escapes her throat. She chokes it down. Her eyes search again, bulging in the sockets. Raking across the cluttered warehouse. They move up, then down.
Where are you, you bastard?
Inhaling deeply, she tries to focus. I can do this. I made it this far. I will not let him win. Another deep breath. She tries to listen, to hear any sound above the hammering heartbeat in her ears. Her body’s noises are much too loud. Can he hear them?
“Oh, come on Kitten,” he says. “Let’s not be like this.” His voice is shockingly close, words smooth, crisp. It’s an angel’s voice on the lips of a devil. She gasps, startled. Hands grip her throat before she has time to react. Their eyes lock, his a beautiful icy blue full of malice. Her trembling hands grip his wrists, dirt crusted nails digging in.
“Please,” she tries to beg, but it’s an unintelligible rasp. White dots fill her vision, swimming in front of her like happy little fireflies. Her lungs beg for air. She begins to thrash. Hitting him, punching him, kicking him. She uses all her strength, but he doesn’t even flinch. Instead, he smiles. This enrages her more than anything else he’s done. More than the attack itself. But he’s so much stronger. She stops fighting. Blinks her eyes several times, struggling to see past the tiny stars that blur in front of her. His smile fades, morphs into something ugly and satisfied. He enjoys this. He’s proud. He’s disgusting.
Her hands release his wrists, dropping to her sides. It’s so loud, the ringing in her ears. It is incredibly hard to keep her eyes open. She’s gone much too long without air.
One of his hands leaves her throat. Hope bursts into her chest. He’s letting me go. She’s barely formed the thought when his hand reappears with the knife, the tip stained with blood. My blood, she reminds herself. She thrashes against him once again, her limbs flailing helplessly. He laughs softly. It’s like music.
“I think you are my favorite.” His tone soothing as his lips touch her forehead, each cheek, her lips. They’re so cold. She shivers and tries to squirm away. He presses his lips harder against hers. Tears rush from her frightened green eyes, soak her shirt, spill on the floor. “My Keely. My beautiful.” He pushes his forehead to hers and sighs. Inhales deeply, smelling her hair. “I love you.”
The knife flashes. There’s a sound like fabric ripping. Only, there’s a sound beneath it. Something wet. Similar to slurping the bottom of a cup with a straw. Her mouth tastes of metal. She doesn’t understand. My neck feels warm. My shirt is what? Damp?
His hand relinquishes its grip on her throat. Keely collapses to the floor. Step, slide. Step, slide. Step, slide. His footsteps fade into the night. She tries to suck in air. Just one breath, that’s all she needs. There is a horrible gurgling noise. She chokes. Tries to breathe again. Chokes more. Blood spurts from her mouth, splashing onto her face, into her eyes. My whole body feels wet. No, cold. No, numb.
Numb is nice. There is no pain in numbness. There is no fear.
Though Keely knows it’s useless, her lungs relentlessly struggle to find air. Each rise of her stomach only chokes her more as she drowns slowly in her own blood. Darkness plays with the edges of her sight. She rolls to her side. Rolls again to her stomach. Reaches forward, grasping for anything. Her finger tips touch the cool cement. She tries to pull herself; her only thought is to get through the door. Too weak, she goes nowhere. Tries again, leaving smears of blood on the floor. Lays her cheek to it. Thoughts switching. Muddy thoughts. Hazy, muffled thoughts of her parents. Of friends. Of her dog, Lively. She says a silent prayer for God to protect them. Mouths goodbye. A final tear falls, sliding across her nose, drops to the floor mixing into the pool of red. The darkness closes in as everything goes black.
Two:
Keely slams her hand on the alarm clock, missing the button that will silence the annoying buzzing. Who invented such horrible contraptions anyway? Her fingers slide sideways searching. Hit the snooze.
She tucks her arm back under the blanket. The air conditioning causes it to feel like winter. It’s the end of summer for goodness sakes. The thought causes her stomach to tighten. She opens her eyes. With a sigh, she turns off the alarm. There will be no going back to bed for her now.
First day of school. First day as a senior. Yay for her. Hip, hip fricking hooray.
Flipping the blanket off, Keely stretches. One of those really good, make-you-growl-loudly-until-your-face-turns-red stretches. She pops out of bed. The blood rushes to her head and she staggers for a moment until it settles. Yawning widely, she heads for the shower.
Feeling somewhat more alert as she emerges from the steamy bathroom, Keely drags the brush through her thick tangle of raven dyed hair. She searches her closet for the days outfit. Decides on a layered black knee length skirt that she pairs with black and white striped leggings. Finishes her ensemble by doubling up black and white tank tops.
Keely heads back to the bathroom to brush her teeth and line her green eyes in black. She glosses her lips and coats on mascara to cover the embarrassingly blond lashes she’s been cursed with. She looks at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair is already beginning to curl as it air dries. She pushes it off her shoulders so she can stare at the shiny pink line that scars her throat. Her fingers reach for it automatically as she eyes the scar on her arm. Her hand shakes. Blinking, she pulls open the medicine cabinet with more force than necessary and places a trembling grip on the pill bottle marked with her name. Shakes a pill into her palm before popping it in her mouth. Swallows without water. Keely replaces the bottle, curls her hand into a fist. She doesn’t give herself a second glance as she leaves the much too happily decorated bathroom.
She plucks her black hoodie off its hanger and darts down the stairs to the kitchen. Her parents have already left for work, but Mom has left a note complete with smiley face. Typical. It’s all, “good luck” and “how exciting.” Keely tosses it in the trash. Grabs a bottle of juice and a banana, she only ingests healthy foods now that she is forced to swallow happy pills every morning, slides them into her overly used backpack. She steps into her old black Converse that are so broken in, trained to her feet she no longer needs to tie them. She takes her keychain from the hook and heads out the door.
The drive to school is short. She slows her silver Honda as she bumps through the pothole filled lot in search of a parking space. She pulls next to a new BMW and slips out of the car careful not to ding the door of the very expensive car that makes her ride look shabby in comparison. Keely puts her hoodie on, slides her back pack over her shoulder, and peers at the ominous looking school.
Last year was a nightmare. As if it hadn’t been hard enough after the attack. The recovery. The excruciating physical therapy. The nightmares. The counseling. Then there was the move. A different state would help the healing process her mother had insisted. So, she has been a resident of Hunt, Ohio for the past—oh, nearly two years. So that meant a new school. Keely hadn’t been welcomed warmly to West Hunt High. The kids there viewed Keely as an outcast emo freak due to her dark clothes and make up. The irony of this is not lost on her. Or maybe it’s her quiet manner. The way she shies away from everyone, but that is to be expected after an experience like hers. Right? It isn’t her fault she has a hard time forming relationships. She doesn’t know how to trust anymore. In her mind, everyone has a motive to hurt her, and boys—well, they don’t have feelings or emotions. Not real ones anyway. Boys are just violent, malicious actors bent on hurting girls. Somewhere deep inside, Keely thinks she may be wrong about this. Possibly.
Things before the attack, or the accident as her mom likes to refer to it, were so much better. Keely had been popular at her old school. She had friends and a boyfriend. She had confidence and was naïve to the dangers of the world, living her happily oblivious life as the pretty blond cheerleader. She was in choir and took part in art shows. She aced Speech and Debate class, something she couldn’t even bring herself to take now.
“What the hell is that? Is everyone going freak now or something?” Farah Fritz, a short red head with a mushroom cut and freckles asks in her best preppy girl voice. Keely blinks, coming out of her haze. Expecting Farah to be referring to her, she drops her head and starts walking.
“Is that Nick Wallace?” Jocelyn Percellie, Farah’s best friend, asks bewildered. She is one of those perky types. Very blond hair and big blue eyes. Two years ago, Keely was just like her.
“Yeah. He was so normal last year. I don’t even want to know what happened to him over the summer,” Farah says, her voice tight with disgust.
Keely slows her pace. Looks in the direction the girls are glaring. Meets Nick’s eyes. She looks away quickly. In that moment, Keely sees what the nasty girls mean. Last year, Nick was a new student as well. They had started school in the same week. Where everyone hated Keely, they adored Nick Wallace. He was that perfect recipe for popular girls. Handsome, athletic, expensively dressed, aloof, and mysterious. Now, he is in faded ripped jeans, and not the kind you purchase that way, but the kind that get that way from a whole lot of wearing and washing. His dark hair is longer, half in his hazel eyes. He’s wearing an old Atari tee shirt and several leather wrist bands. On his feet, he’s sporting dirty red Converse, Chuck Taylor’s, that look as conformed to his feet as Keely’s are to hers. This is strange to Keely since it’s only been a summer; not long enough for jeans and shoes to show the wear of a favorite. She nearly shrugs. It’s too much effort to put thought into this. Decides she doesn’t think he looks like a freak at all. She thinks he is kind of cute—not that it really matters to her.
Farah’s evil laugh swarms up around Keely like an eerie embrace. “Maybe the two of them could hook up. They could have little emo babies and cut themselves as a family.”
Jocelyn laughs in encouragement.
Now they are definitely talking about Keely. She speeds her pace, moving around a group of girls talking about the year book committee. Puts enough distance between her and the mean girls so she doesn’t have to listen to their insults.
Once inside, Keely goes directly to her homeroom and pulls the schedule from her back pack. She reads it yet again. First period, Algebra—she is so not good with math. Second, College Prep English. Third, World History. Fourth period Gym—only because she didn’t take it last year. Fifth period is lunch. Sixth, Study Hall—really? Seventh is Art—happy dance. Then home—even happier dance. Senior year is going to be so easy. She deserves an easy year after all her hard work last year playing catch up. She made sure she only took the electives she needed to walk at graduation, which isn’t really like her. Before the attack, Keely was an overachiever, taking classes just because they would look good on a college application. After the attack, not so much. She doubted she would even go to college now. Maybe Hunt Community College. She’s still undecided.
Keely replaces the schedule and removes her banana, pencil, notepad, and iPod. Pushing the ear buds into place, she rolls her thumb over the screen, her version of Russian roulette, and randomly picks a song. She adjusts the volume and tears back the peel on her banana. Sketches a shadowy picture of the teacher’s desk as she eats, her leg bouncing to the beat of the song flowing into her ears. She discards the fruit and sits up in her seat, turning the pencil nearly on its side as she shades. She drops the pencil to the desk and uses her finger to smudge the led on the paper. Keely is so involved, pouring so much of her heart into this simple drawing on a sheet of spiral notebook paper, she doesn’t notice the boy, Nick, come into the room. Doesn’t notice him take the seat directly next to hers, placing his binder on the desk and removing several pens from his pocket before sitting. Doesn’t notice how he watches her.
Keely bites her lip as she retrieves her pencil once again and adds the details to the top of the desk. The small wooden apple. The in and out paper slots. The globe paper weight. The unusual jar holding the pens. The mug that says, “World’s Best Teacher.” She is sketching and shading. Sketching and shading. Her fingers moving faster and faster. Her wrist twittering like a humming bird’s wings.
She doesn’t notice the boy staring, unable to take his eyes off of her.
The bell rings loudly from just outside the door and Keely is finished. She looks over the finished artwork then picks up her banana. Finishes it. Her hands are smeared with black streaks. She doesn’t care. She pulls the ear buds from her ears as the teacher enters the room. Keely doesn’t remember her name, but she looks nice. A middle aged woman with that in between color that’s not really brown, but not really any other color either. She wears glasses, the squared invisible kind. She begins handing out a series of papers to be filled out or signed. As Keely turns to hand the stack back to the kid behind her, she notices Nick at the desk next to her. She looks him over again as the kid behind her thanks her for the papers.
“Welcome,” she says just above a whisper. She doesn’t know if th
e guy heard her or not. She doesn’t really care. The next sets of papers come and again she glances at Nick as she hands the stack to the kid behind her. Again, he thanks her.
“Welcome.”
Nick turns. He looks at Keely. He doesn’t smile, but he doesn’t look at her with the repulsion most people regard her with. His eyes are probing. There’s a depth to them, not the eyes of a typical teenage boy. Not like her other class mates. She looks away. Suddenly, she feels her chest tightening. Her breathing accelerates. She’s having a mini panic attack. It’s ridiculous really. Just because a guy looks at her. Not all men are him, she reminds herself. Her therapist voice whispers in her head, not all men are bad. Keely takes a deep breath. Passes the next stack of papers. The mouth breather behind her thanks her again.
“Look, there appears to be quite a few papers being passed out. You don’t have to thank me every time. Just once is fine, really.” The kid just stares at her, shocked at her outburst. Nick coughs out a laugh.
“Bitch,” the kid behind her mutters. He then proceeds to kick her chair for the rest of class. Thankfully home room isn’t long. Keely shoves her belongings into her back pack and heads quickly for the door, dropping the sketch of the desk in the trash can as she leaves.
***
Keely walks slowly to her next class. Algebra with Mr. Steffey, also known as Mr. Stuffy, or more often, Mr. Stiffy. He actually isn’t that bad, Keely knows. He was just unlucky enough to have a last name that was so easy for teenagers to make fun of.
The bell sounds just as Keely comes in the room. Mr. Steffey is waiting to close the door. She mumbles, “Sorry,” and takes the first desk in the first row. There is nobody in the seats around her, her peers choosing to sit as far away from the teacher as possible. This is how she prefers it, only now she is in the prime position for getting picked on. An easy target with everyone behind her.
Dark Calling Page 1