Released, Agents of Evil Series, Book 1

by Megan Duncan

  Chapter 4

  “Sounds good to me,” Max agreed, and I smiled at him.

  “Carter?” Max asked for confirmation.

  “Fine, but we need to plan it out a little better than that. We can’t all pick the same target. Abby you drive, stop at about twenty feet away and take out one of the birds on the body and I’ll take out the other. Max you ride shotgun. Take out the bird on top of the van, and jump out to see if someone is inside. Okay?”

  We both nodded and got into our positions. I looked over to Max before starting up the Bronco. “Your leg good to go for this?”

  “Hell yes,” he said, while he pulled down the hammer on his gun. It was bizarre to me how at that moment, my body prickling with fear of what we were about to do, that I found Max to be incredibly sexy. Leave it to me to think of something completely off the wall when my attention should be directed to more important matters at hand.

  I took a deep breath and focused my thoughts before I put the Bronco in gear, and slammed my foot on the gas pedal. As we came speeding down the road, the demon birds started shrieking loudly and spreading their wings in an almost challenging posture.

  “Now!” Carter shouted as we got near the van.

  The Bronco obeyed with a jerking halt as I slammed my foot on the break. I pulled my shotgun off my lap, and fired at the demon bird closest to the Bronco. The bird flew backward, landing in a giant, feathery heap. I watched as one of Carter’s arrows landed in the other bird with a solid, sickening thud.

  The one I had shot was struggling to get up, and its eyes locked onto me. I fired again, the same time as Max shot at the one on the van and my ears rang from the assault on my ear drums.

  Carter opened the back to jump out, and retrieve the arrow and I ran to Max as he approached the van with his gun raised. His movements were unwavering and confident, taking the short strides to the passenger side door without hesitation.

  As I neared the wrecked van I tried to peer into the windshield to see who, or what was inside, but the cracked glass made it impossible to see. The spider web of silver lines completely blocked whatever was inside from view, and I wondered how it managed to stay together.

  “I’m going to open the door,” Max said. I nodded and took a position off to the side, so I could shoot at whatever came out. If it wasn’t human. “We aren’t going to hurt you.” He spoke toward the van, and then I heard him whisper under his breath “unless we have to.”

  As Max jerked the door open the windshield crumbled into a glittering mound on the dark pavement. I could immediately see the form of a girl sitting with her knees to her chest, and her eyes frozen in terror.

  “Hey,” Max said softly, holding out his hand to her. “It’s safe now, you can come out.”

  The girl began to sob uncontrollably, and Max got down on his knees to help her out. He nearly dragged her out of the van as she wailed. I thought for a moment that she would start thrashing him, but from the looks of her I was surprised she had the strength to even cry. Her body was frail, and dirty, and I wondered how long she had been in there.

  “My… My mom,” she let out in blubbering sobs that were almost unintelligible.

  She clung to him weeping, not willing to let go when he tried to pass her to me. He looked to me, confused on what he should do. I stuck my gun into the back of my pants and put my arms around the girl.

  My arms felt as if they could wrap around her twice as I held her to me. I tried to think of things to say to comfort her, but all that came to mind were things my dad would say, and I did not think this scrawny, barely teenage girl in my arms could handle it, so I came up with the simplest thing I could.

  “It’s going to be okay. You’re safe now.” I didn’t really know if that were true or not, but at this point it didn’t really matter. She wasn’t trapped in that van anymore, so that was an improvement for her.

  “We gotta go,” Carter said, as he came around the back of the Bronco. “Holy shit!” he stopped in his tracks as soon as he spotted the girl in my arms. “It really was a person. What happened?”

  “Carter I don’t think she can really talk about it right now.” I directed his attention toward the body on the ground, but he still wasn’t getting it. I then made a mental note to harass my brother about how dense he was.

  The girl and I crawled into the back seat, and she leaned against the side of the Bronco, silently crying. As Carter hopped into the driver’s seat he looked back at us.

  “Is she alright?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. He looked at the girl for a moment then started the Bronco. I wasn’t quite sure if he was glad we had found someone or not.

  As we drove past the van I looked out the window and saw what had made the van flip. A giant hairy mass lay contorted in the road. They must have hit it. I saw Carter look at me in the rear view mirror, and I knew he had seen it too. Another terrifying beast to add to his book, but the more we added to it, the more I could tell he was starting to get really scared. We were all starting to get really scared.

  After about forty-five minutes, the girl had fallen asleep. I looked down at her and tried to softly pull away the hair that clung to her face, revealing tracks of tears that trailed down her dirty face. She couldn’t be much younger than myself, I thought, maybe fourteen or fifteen.

  There were cuts and bruises on her arms and I felt an overwhelming urge to protect her. Realizing what she must have gone through, watching her mother get eaten by those demons. I couldn’t imagine the horror she must have felt. It made me think of Carter. He was the one who found our father and I knew that the image of that would haunt him the rest of his life. He had saved me from that pain.

  It was late one night when we had heard the sounds of our neighbors screaming and my dad rushed over there to help them. Carter held me back as I chased after my father, begging him not to go, and begging him to take me with him, to let me help.

  But our dad never came back that night, or that morning. We waited and waited, and after two days Carter went next door to find him. I stayed in my room until I heard the sounds of Carter in the backyard and saw the contorted mass wrapped under a blue tarp lying on the ground beside him. We buried our father that day, and neither Carter, nor I ever went into the backyard again.

  The crackling sound of gravel under tires shook me out of my trance, and I saw that we had pulled off the road onto a long driveway and passed a large wooden sign that read, “Camp Bug Juice” with the motto “Live, Laugh, Learn” painted underneath, and bordered with a rainbow of handprints. It was strange to see something so cheerful after I had visited such a painful memory.

  Max and Carter whispered as they tried to decide where we should stay. They had agreed upon a cabin labeled the Eagle’s Roost near the camp office.

  “Abby, you two stay here while we take a quick look around okay?”

  “Okay, but be careful, Carter. This place is kind of creepy.” I looked around and noticed that all the buildings had funny names like Rabbit Hole, or Bear Hollow. It was ironic how a place that would otherwise be full of fun and happiness could look so ominous. It was winter when everything happened, so most likely there was no one here. I tried, but I could not find a drop of blood anywhere. That fact should have comforted me, but it didn’t.

  “Where are we?” the girl asked, sitting up.

  “Somewhere in Montana, I think, at a summer camp. We’re going to stay here for the night,” I said, trying to sound comforted by that fact. “I’m Abby.” I held out my hand to her, and smiled.

  “Taya,” she said, as she tugged on the strings of her hoodie and looked down at my open hand, but did not take it.

  Her eyes shot around wildly, so I put my hand on her knee trying to comfort her. “You’re safe now.”

  She jumped at my touch, recoiling as if I was a monster and I tried not to feel offended. “There’s no such thing as safe. There is alive, and there is dead. Anything in between is just dumb luck.”

  “Well th
en, I guess we are pretty damn lucky,” I said, and a tiny smile appeared on her face only to be quickly removed.

  “Looks secure,” Max said, as he popped his head in the driver’s window. Taya let out a quick shriek.

  “Well, hello there! I’m Max,” he said with a toothy grin. He opened the door and pushed back the seat so we could exit. Taya was hesitant at first, but took Max’s hand when he offered it.

  I grabbed my bag before leaving and followed them up the steps into the cabin. It was a lot bigger on the inside then it appeared from outside. There was a small kitchen area to my right, attached to a small dining nook. Two couches faced each other in the living room, with a large, wooden coffee table in between.

  The walls were covered with various artwork; many obviously painted by kids. There were large photographs of groups of people wearing the same colored shirt that I guessed were camp photos of years past. The children’s happy faces smiled back at me, and I felt myself grow envious of them, wishing I could feel as happy as they looked.

  I saw that Taya had curled up in a chair in a far corner. She held her knees to her chest with one arm and was holding back a curtain with the other, peering out as if she was expecting something to come charging at us at any moment. I figured it was best to leave her be for the moment, so I continued on throughout the cabin.

  I tossed my bag on the dining table and made my way to the back of the cabin. There was only one bedroom and one small tiny bathroom, but it was nice enough. From the lack of rooms I guessed this was probably one of the camp owner’s cabins or something.

  “What do you think, Abby?” Carter asked, as he walked in carrying a bag he was bringing in from the Bronco.

  “It’s nice, lots of windows, though,” I whispered the last part not wanting to worry Taya any more than she already was.

  “Yeah, I thought that, too. Max went to find the maintenance building to see if he could find some paint.”

  “Good idea. Have you checked the cabinets yet? Any food?”

  “No not yet. So, how is she doing?”

  “I’m not sure, she hasn’t really said much.” We stared at each other for a moment, “I’ll try talking to her. See what happened.”

  “Okay.” He patted me on the back and headed for the front door. “I’m going to go find Max, and see if I can help him before it starts to get dark.”

  I looked out the window and noticed the sky was starting to change color, signaling the setting of the sun. I sighed, grateful that the day was over, but this was our first night outside of our house and I wasn’t happy about spending the night someplace new.

  As I walked toward Taya I tried to think of what I could say to her, then I tried to think of what Carter told me after we lost our father. The girl was obviously scared to death, and honestly I was too, even though I tried my hardest not to show it.

  I had an idea of something that might help keep her mind off of things, so I turned around and headed into the small kitchen area of the cabin.

  “Hey, Taya,” I called her from the kitchen, but she didn’t even flinch, just continued staring through the window.

  I continued, even though she had ignored me. “You want to help me make us some dinner?”

  “Okay,” she said and looked out the window one more time before heading for the kitchen. I watched her walk and took notice of how dirty her clothes were. I made a mental note to offer her some clean clothes later. Her black hair hung in knotty, matted ringlets around her face and I could see her boney frame sticking out underneath her clothes. She caught me looking at her and I felt guilty for staring, but I truly did feel sorry for her.

  “Alright, Taya, why don’t you look in the bag over there and see what looks good.” When I heard her rummaging through the bag I began to open cabinets looking for anything that might be edible. In the end, I found only some rice and a can of expired Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup, that I was hoping wouldn’t be too far past the expiration date.

  “So… Taya, what were you doing out on that road all alone?”

  “I wasn’t alone. I was with my mom; we were heading to New Mexico. We had heard over the radio that the military was there, so we were trying to go there.”

  “What happened?” She froze for a moment while trying to open some canned chicken. I could tell she was struggling on whether or not to tell me. “It looks like you and your mom hit something in the road.”

  “I don’t know what it was, okay? It was d-d-dark, and I was sleeping while my Mom was driving.”

  “How long were you stuck in that van?”

  “Three days.”

  “I’m sorry Taya. I’m sorry you had to go through that. We’re headed to New Mexico too; you are welcome to come with us.” I put my arm over her shoulder and tried to comfort her.

  “I will take care of you.” I meant it too. “How long ago was it that you heard the transmission over the radio?” I tried not to sound too excited about my question. I was growing more and more obsessed with checking the radio as we made our journey, any tiny bit of transmission I could hear would give me the hope I needed. I wanted so badly to know that there were still people at the military base, that there were still people who could help us, who could save us.

  “I don’t know. It was a while ago.” She simply shrugged and didn’t look at me. I wanted to ask more questions, but I could tell how difficult it was for her.

  We continued with dinner and I tried my best at making casual conversation. Taya told me about her life before. She was a freshman in high school, and was excited about making the cheerleading team.

  “Your nails are pretty,” she commented as we were setting the table.

  “Thanks,” I said looking down at my bright red fingers. While she was sleeping in the Bronco I dug out my polish and against the protests of Carter and Max, I painted my nails. It was a ridiculous thing to do, but I needed to do something normal to take my mind off reality, anything to keep from thinking that the world was overrun with demons. At the time, I had thought red would be a fitting color to represent all the demons we had killed so far. As scary as it was, I was proud that we had managed to kill them, hopefully it meant that, in some way, we had saved someone somewhere from being their victim.

  “I have more colors in my bag if you want to try them later.” I adjusted the pitch in my voice in an attempt to sound light-hearted, hoping that maybe spending some girl-time with her would help her to feel more comfortable with us.

  “That would be cool, but why did you bring them?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I wanted to have something normal to do, ya know? They don’t take much room, and I kinda have the habit of painting my nails like once a week. Or, at least I used to.”

  “Cool.”

  The door suddenly flew open sending a dead potted plant crashing to the ground while both Taya and I jumped, nearly spilling dinner all over the dirty linoleum floor. Carter stomped in, his arms filled with wood, followed by Max who was carrying two gallons of paint and tons of sheets.

  “Looks like you got what you were looking for,” I said smiling at them, and trying to calm my rapid heartbeat. I had been worried about them wandering around the camp alone, even if it did look safe to them. Sometimes a guy’s standard of what was safe, was much different than a woman’s, and neither of them were ever described as being very perceptive. Who knew what could be hiding in some vacant cabin.

  “Yeah. What smells so good?” Max asked, sniffing the air like a puppy.

  “We made dinner,” Taya said a little hesitantly, but I could tell she had warmed up to us a bit. I decided to introduce everyone more formally and after a couple handshakes we all sat down to eat. Our dinner concoction had turned out pretty good. It had been a while since any of us had eaten a real cooked meal.

  Living back at the house with the guys, we rarely sat down together to eat and typically would each grab something when we were hungry, eating alone in our rooms or somewhere else in the house. By the way Tay
a was eating, it was obvious it had been a while since she had eaten anything and I smiled at her wondering if she could even taste it.

  Dinner was mostly quiet, Carter flipped through the pages of his book as he ate while Max and I stole glances at each other between bites. I thought about what he had told me in the Bronco and wished we were alone, so I could ask him about it. Did he really think about asking me to Prom or was he just teasing me like he usually did? It was so hard to tell sometimes. I must have drifted off into a daydream, because when Carter spoke it startled me and I had to prevent myself from jumping in my seat too much.

  “We can settle down for the night, but I want to get these windows painted before we try to turn any lights on or light any candles, okay?”

  We all nodded at what Carter had said. Leaving the dishes on the table, Taya and I grabbed a gallon of paint and got to work on the kitchen windows. There were only two so it didn’t take long. There weren’t enough paint brushes to go around, so I simply used my hand, dipping it in the can and then smearing it on the glass. The paint was warm and thick as it dripped all over the floor.

  The color of the paint was a dark green and I joked with Taya about what place in the camp they would want to paint such a hideous green. She added that it probably was the color of the boy’s bathrooms and we both laughed. It felt good to laugh, and I thought to myself that it was nice to have another girl around.

  After all the windows were painted over, we drew all the curtains on the windows that had them and pinned all the darkest sheets over the windows as well, leaving the lighter or white sheets for ourselves to sleep in.

  “Carter, what do you think we should do about the front door?” Max asked.

  “Let’s carry that dresser from the bedroom over.”

  “Good idea.”

  The two men made a lot of noise moving the furniture to baracade the front door, but once they were finished and the cabin was as secure as we could get, we all started to feel a little safer. I knew Taya and I both felt much better after we took turns taking the world’s shortest showers. It wasn’t much, but it did feel good.

  After cleaning up Taya and I curled up on one couch, sharing a warm wool blanket that was in a terrible yellow and orange plaid pattern. It was itchy and had a strange odor, but it was better than nothing. I had set out all the different color polishes I had brought and Taya was busily surveying the lot, trying to decide what color she wanted.

  “So… Taya,” Max said, flopping down on the couch across from us, “I hear you’re going to go to New Mexico with us. I’m glad you decided to stay. I could use another person to help keep brainiac…” he pointed over to Carter with his thumb, “and little miss troublemaker, over here, in line.”

  Taya giggled, and I joined in when Max waggled his eyebrows at me. Once the laughter had subsided we all became quiet once again.

  “My mother and I were on our way to New Mexico before… before you found me.” Taya didn’t look up when she spoke, but simply analyzed each bottle of polish like it was incredibly interesting. “We listened to the transmissions and when they stopped, we got scared. She preached that the prophecy of our destruction had begun. I thought she was crazy at first…” She was starting to struggle with her words, so I put a hand on her shoulder and she took a deep breath to calm herself.

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I know how you feel, I lost my parents too and Abby and Carter lost their dad.” I felt my body stiffen when Max mentioned my father. That wound had not yet healed, and it probably never would.

  Taya nodded and began painting her fingers a very bright pink. I chose black again. It took me longer to finish than normal because I kept glancing up to watch Max by the small fire he had built, which provided just enough light. He was holding his mother’s gold cross necklace in his hand while staring into the fire. He never spoke of what happened to his parents, but I knew that it was probably a subject I shouldn’t bring up.

  I remembered the night he had shown up at our house. There was a huge rain storm, and he must have been pounding on the front door for a long while before any of us heard him. When he finally made it inside he was soaked to the bone. I watched from the stairs as my dad and Carter spoke to Max, trying to comfort him. He didn’t have to say much for us all to know what happened, the rain had not washed away all the blood on his clothes nor could it hide the tears and sorrow on his face. Never before had I seen a person look so completely broken, and it hurt me to see him that way.

  He must have felt my eyes on him because he looked up, and quickly dropped the cross back into his pocket. I gave him a small smile in comfort, which he returned before heading over to the dining table with Carter.

  “What is he writing over there?” Taya whispered to me.

  “Oh, Carter? He has this book that he likes to write everything in.”

  “Like a journal?”

  “Sort of. He writes down everything he learns about the demons, and then when we get to New Mexico we can show it to the military and maybe it will help them.”

  She just nodded silently and after a long silence she added, “That’s a good idea. He’s really smart.”

  “Yeah… and it helps him too. Helps him deal with everything, I think.”

  “Did you see the size of that thing?” I overheard Max asking Carter, and I wished he had said it a little more quietly. I knew instantly what he was talking about and I didn’t want him to cause Taya to be on edge again. She had already come so far in such a short amount of time. She was really proving to be very strong for such a sensitive looking girl; most people would crack under such circumstances.

  “Yeah, it was damn near the size of a frigging bear. Abby said Taya isn’t ready to talk about it yet, but obviously the thing is strong enough to flip a van.”

  “True, but they must’ve hit it pretty hard cause it looked dead to me,” Max said.

  “You’re probably right.”

  I shot them both a look that shut them up quickly, but I knew Taya had heard them. She had paused for a moment and her breath trembled, but she held it together.

  Taya and I decided that we should share the bedroom and the guys were happy with getting the couches. None of us had any pajamas so we just wore what we wanted and crawled into bed. I had given Taya a clean shirt to sleep in and she had quickly fallen asleep almost as soon as she hit the pillow. It took me longer, though. I was exhausted, but it seemed that as soon as I lay down, my mind just started to race with thoughts and I couldn’t relax.

  I tossed and turned for hours and dreamt that Max and I had gone to Prom together, but a giant beast ran through the crowd causing complete panic. People were screaming and the sounds of the demon’s claws against the gymnasium floor made my skin crawl, like nails against a chalkboard.

  I bolted up from sleep just when the demon was about to grab me and realized I was in the cabin. I looked over at Taya; she was twitching softly but still asleep thankfully. I tried my best to crawl gently out of bed, not wanting to disturb Taya. I crept down the hallway to take a look at Carter and Max in the living room before I went to the bathroom. Carter was sprawled wildly with his mouth hanging open, luckily he wasn’t snoring. Carter could take down walls with the sound of his snores.

  When I looked over into the other couch it was empty and I quickly searched for Max. Just as my heart started to thump in my chest I found him. He was slumped over in an arm chair near what remained of the fire. The embers glowed very faintly and I guessed the fire had gone out a while ago. I walked over to him and a sparkle in his hand caught my eye. His mother’s necklace was wrapped around his fingers and my heart broke for him. Having to see the pain of what Taya was going through, must have brought back his own painful memories. He kept them buried inside, and that burden was obviously weighing heavily on his mind.

  I pulled the wool blanket I had used earlier off the couch and draped it over Max. I wanted to hug him, to kiss him, but I was too afraid. I had known
him my whole life and always considered him like my second big brother, but there was something about him. There had always been something about him that made my heart beat harder whenever I saw him. I had always been hesitant to be the one to take that first step, and see if we could be something more.

  I wanted there to be something more, but with the state of the world it made it much more difficult. I studied his strong features a moment longer before I turned to leave. His thick, dark lashes cast shadows on his cheeks through the soft glow of the fire and I noticed that his lips, that I so longed to kiss, were slighted turned downward revealing the slightest hint of a frown. I realized at that moment, how very much alike as well as different we were. When he started to stir I quickly retreated, not wanting to get caught looking like I’d just been staring at him.

  ~