Dawning (The Risen Series Book 1)

by Marie F. Crow

  “I thought my parents were fighting,” our pink tinted pixie says as the sharing continues like a round table of revelations. “They did that. A lot. Mom would say something to get him really sparked and it would go back-and-forth until she hit below the belt. Verbally. They never actually hit each other. Mom’s words did more damage anyway than any blow she could ever land. She was a peach like that. Dad would storm out and come back hours later always smelling of smoke and that same perfume which always caused him to smile when Mom noticed it. Mom never had a come back to that smile.” She smirks at the memory before catching herself. “Anyway, there they were, Dad on top of her, holding her down and choking her. I thought this was it. After all these years, it has finally come to it. I was screaming for him to get off her and he kept telling me to go back to my room. Go upstairs Amelia. Just like when I was a kid and they would start in on each other. Go upstairs, Amelia.”

  Though I had just had the exact same dinner as she, I could not recognize the vegetative substance on her plate. As she uses it to paint a green abstract of art style patterns, her eyes never focus. Not the way the eyes of everyone around her are now focusing. We stare at the small woman among us with unrestrained sorrow. When Evil dances with a male, it’s more bearable than when it chooses such a partner as she.

  Aimes tilts her head, staring at whatever masterpiece she sees in her mind before starting again. She says, “She was making these strange sounds and really fighting. She just couldn’t reach him no matter how much she struggled. He was just sitting there choking her as if it was the same as reading the Sunday paper. No emotions in him at all. I went and got the little gun Mom kept in her nightstand. I was just going to threaten him, like they show on those shows and the man always backs down. He wouldn’t though. Just kept telling me, “It’s not what it looks like. Go to your room,” over and over. I kept screaming for him to stop and he kept screaming at me to go. I don’t know how it happened. It just went off. It was so fast I didn’t even understand what had happened at first. He was yelling and then he was down. But it was okay because I was just protecting Mom, so it was okay. Till she started eating him.”

  Aimes stands from the table, taking her new modern art piece to the sink making Marxx wince with her proximity. Losing her own emotional battle, she still reaches out to comfort Marxx before turning to leave the room. Our gentle pink pixie is broken and retreating.

  “He was never hurting Mom. I shot the wrong one,” she says, as she leaves the room and there is not a sound following her exit.

  Chapter 18

  The days at the cabin are mind numbingly uneventful. Up late, Aimes and I giggle under sheet-made forts to cover our flashlight’s beam. Some nights our laughter will invigorate the cabin, bringing life back to its many cobwebbed corners. Those nights a telling stomp will come from the loft above us as J.D., like an annoyed father, signals for us to go to sleep. Our giggles turn into full laughter with his annoyance, resulting in our names being shouted by him as he once again becomes the father figure we have made him.

  Other nights, Lawless will sneak into our room and we will all snuggle in a dog pile sort of way amid mocking innuendos. It’s then when I am wrapped under the night’s seclusion and surrounded by the safety of our little world, I am able to find the ghost of the girl I used to know.

  We have fallen into a routine here, creating private jokes as we invent a new normal for us. Laughter is free flowing, healing the wounds of our minds. Lawless and I have begun creating stolen moments, searching for comfort in desire-inspired embraces under the full moon and its many stars.

  There are no more sessions of the round table at dinner. There are times when the conversation lapses and those who have confessed their sins look to those of us still holding on to ours. We keep neutral faces as if oblivious to what they are looking for in us.

  Then there are nights when I swear, I can hear Lilly’s laughter. Her small feet dance across the wooden floors of the hallway in a swirl of white hemmed lace nightgown and her blonde hair. Her tiny hands clapping along to a song only she can hear in her joy- filled moment. I watch her and my heart refills with the hope I have lost. She notices me standing there in my silent worship of her and smiles at me with her shining blue eyes.

  The room fills with the perfume of her baby shampoo and soap causing me to lose myself in the innocence of her as if she were still with me. She never says a word to me, but her laughter fills conversations with my soul and I forget how to breathe for a moment. I can feel her fragile hand in my own as peace with all that has happened begins to wash over me. I want to stay like this forever, but even as I drown in the joy of it, I know something is wrong.

  It starts so slowly. A small spreading of color against her all white floor-length gown begins to take a life of its own. It coats her before dripping to the floor with a heavy sound. Her smile never falters as her gown becomes soaked with the crimson stain. It never falters as her body crumples before me like a porcelain puppet with its strings brutally cut. It never falters as her baby blue eyes lose the light which once so brightly shined in them and it still never falters as I wake screaming, still thinking I am clutching her fragile hand in my own.

  Some nights I scream her name. Other nights I just wordlessly scream as the waves wash over me. Every night I stare at my own hand, a hand so empty now.

  Aimes is always there to talk me down. Lawless comes in some nights to hold me until I can sleep again. My tears become a lake of regrets upon his shirt as he shelters me in the strength of his arms. I become a small child and I pray every night he will keep the monsters away while the sound of his heartbeat sings me to sleep. To their credit, they never ask what I see when my eyes close. They never question my demons. We just wait until the dawn comes to chase them away.

  “Who do you think this place really belongs to?” Aimes asks, from behind the wide-styled sunglasses she swears is the rave of fashion. If bugs are now fashionable, then I guess so.

  We are both wrapped in various moth-eaten quilts, trying to build a barrier against the battling weather as we walk through the wooded paths before us. The sun provides the warmth of the last days of fall, but the wind holds winter’s vanguard with its chilling touch.

  “You mean you don’t believe he kept this placed stashed in his pocket the whole time?” Lawless asks, swaying easily under low hanging branches of the trees before us with his normal ease and grace.

  He is leading our little trio through the fall-kissed forest sur- rounding the cabin we now call home. He turns to us with the same mock disbelief we would hold for J.D. before returning to the path. Our feminine laughter floats through the crisp air over the rustle of thick fall leaves under foot, causing him to smile at us.

  “You don’t like his hunting cabin located in woods seemingly bare of any wildlife?” I ask.

  “Maybe her sunglasses scared them all away?” Lawless asks, looking to me with a wink. “I’m sure we can find another bunny foo-foo for dinner if you want, Aimes.”

  I giggle remembering the ordeal of having to finally inform her of what our meals were consisting of. The fish she was okay with, but once she realized Rhett was serving her rabbit, it was a meltdown of impressive feats making Rhett giggle like a little boy with his teasing. When she began to release the rabbits from Rhett’s traps, he was no longer amused.

  “Douches, both of you,” she says pointing to us both and my memory skips back to a morning long ago before she starts again. “I just mean it’s not exactly J.D., a little old lady J.D., maybe, but not our J.D. I mean, come on; he is sleeping under a pastel painting of a barn. Pastel, people! Of a barn!”

  We laugh over her punctuation.

  “He must have forgotten to grab his pin ups on our way out of town. I guess you think you own the color pink now? Or, is it the barns you want ownership over?” Lawless teases her, tossing a handful of leaves in her direction.

  Their ember hues float among her sharp contrast of white blonde and pink streaks, framing h
er in fall’s beauty. She returns her own handful, but he is too fast for her as the trees shield him from her attack. I watch the sun roll over his natural golden skin tone and dark close-cropped hairstyle. His lips hold a soft colored hue of seduction with his teasing smile. He weaves in and out of the trees, taunting her with jests of a girl’s aim and strength with his faces to match the insults. He encourages her playful wrath with ease. Her mocking insults match his taunts until they are both using more laughter than words while the forest sky be- comes a ballet of fall’s beauty with their mock combat.

  I watch it all, selfishly holding my tongue as I refuse to join them. Their joy only reaches my surface and I am envious of their abandonment in it. I am not sure when the numbness crept into my heart and truthfully, it’s not even the coldness that scares me the most. What worries me the most is, what if I can never find “me” again?

  I am lost in self-absorption when the first pinecone sails past me with a soft whistle. I look to see Aimes covering her face behind folded hands, holding her laughter at bay. Lawless is posed to throw the next cone at me with an exaggerated arch. I cannot stop the smile that slips over my face at his wiggling eyebrows and playful warning smile.

  I take a few steps back, pointing at him with the same mock warning as he tells me, “Better run, Hells.”

  I do.

  My feet crash through the branch-bare forest. I can hear two other sets falling in fast behind me as we rush through the paths with the thrill of our game chasing our every step. Her laughter coaxes my own to come play with girl-styled squeals. We slip and slide over the many leaves piled thick along the trail.

  I feel Lawless before I see him run past me. He pulls up short, spinning around to corner me and catches me in a giant bear hug. Kicking my feet, I am weightless in the air as we spin. The world tilts past me, lost in a smear of oranges and reds. His strong arms support me and hold me close to his body as we spin. He heals my wounds with this time-stopping memory and our laughter, but time always has to start again. It does for us with a scream.

  Her scream is ear shattering. The spinning stops so suddenly we both have to stagger as our equilibrium attempts to catch up. Lawless pulls me instinctively closer to him as his eyes scan for the danger making Aimes scream. Her eyes are cast on something we cannot see from our vantage point. Whatever it is it makes her walk in a sideways pattern to us, too afraid to turn her back on it. Lawless pulls me behind him, kissing my forehead as I pass before he walks to meet Aimes. Each stride pulls the strings of his mood swing from him until his face melts down to one of blank preparation to meet whatever is beyond the trees. He never missteps, leaning down to take the gun from the top of his boot under his loose-fitting jeans in one fluid well-rehearsed motion. The click of the safety reaches my ears with a finalization of the reality of what is about to happen. He reaches her, swinging the gun around in an almost choreographed single dance movement when they pass each other. He never flinches at facing down whatever she is seeing before them.

  With Lawless as her shield, she finally gains the courage to turn and run. I reach out to her, but her eyes change from relief to panic as another scream escapes her very pink lips. She is reaching for me, pulling me to her and guiding my steps further sideways to the cabin’s path. I don’t want to look. I want to stay in my ignorance, but as he begins to squeeze the trigger filling the very forest, which was just our playground with echo after echo, I do.

  We had allowed ourselves just one unguarded moment of happiness. We had been lured to an apathetic attitude about our safety with the amount of uneventful days having passed. The days began encasing us with a refusal of admittance to the events happening around us. They allowed us to be untouched by the horrors showing on the small screen of the den with growing details. We were a cocoon of our own making. We were safe, secure and turning into something beautiful with our new little family. Now surrounding us are the consequences of that in the forms of shambling shapes and glazed eyes that are rimmed with hate. Risen of various persona have filled our playground. They trample through our imaginary swings and pretend slides invented to stir childhood glee. They bring us childhood fears as the wind brings us their inhuman eagerness to come play. Some amble to- wards us looking like torn remnants of what they were in life. The missing flesh or limb telling the horror stories of their deaths.

  Some bare no marks, and other than their glazed eyes, one would almost think they were still human. If you didn’t notice their graceless steps or their ignorance of any harm occurring to them. If you don’t see their many layers of stained and torn clothing or hear the sounds coming from somewhere deep inside them being inspired by the sight of us, they look like sleepwalkers. No matter which group you see first, there is no confusion of either group’s ambitions.

  His gun follows his eyes with a synchronized motion as he slowly walks back to us with one firmly placed step after another. He squeezes the trigger and Risen twitch, falling as he is picking his next target. He is trying to keep the edges from spilling around us while randomly aiming for the center cone of the ones nearest to us. His mouth moves with each squeeze in a silent whisper.

  Lawless is counting backwards, keeping track of exactly what is left in the clip. He is keeping track of how long until we need to panic. The more that fall, the more that seem to materialize between trees in a horrific game of “hide and seek.” I don’t know how many he has killed. I only know it seems to be hopeless, and when I hear him say for us to move, I know it actually is.

  Aimes and I run together as our forest takes on a new, darker feeling. The leaves underfoot only hours ago feeling of Fall’s glory, now crack like brittle bones. Branches we weaved through before, now claw at our hair and faces, trying to slow us down for their new friends to find us. The wind that brought winter’s greetings, now steals the breath from us with its bitterness. Even our once playful Lawless, now randomly stopping to send an echo through the trees, encourages us to move faster and faster until the cabin appears before us. Its occupants spill out toward us with rushed movements hearing our arrival.

  They had begun prepping for our arrival when the first echoes reached them. Chapel and J.D. are pulling the last of their motor- cycles around to the back door when we burst through the tree line. My warhorse is lined up with the length of the side windows and its chrome grill gleams like bared teeth to what is coming rapidly behind us. The steps are removed from the porch, leaving a shoulder high gap of space to overcome. Rhett and Marxx are kneeling with outstretched hands, encouraging us to jump.

  I slow to allow them to pull Aimes up first. My boots slip on the carpet of leaves under me with my sudden reversal of speed. Lawless steadies me, helping me with jumping into their waiting hands, before he lifts his own body up and onto the porch.

  J.D. bars the door after we spill into the small main room. The men take formation, peering through aged curtains and chambering ammo in various dark barrels. Their metallic clicks and the sounds of their sliding barrels somber the room quickly. Chapel stands by the back door. He is keeping watch over what may become our only exit while keeping an eye on our room too for guidance from the oning ammo in various dark barrels. Their metallic clicks and the sounds of their sliding barrels somber the room quickly. Chapel stands by the back door. He is keeping watch over what may become our only exit while keeping an eye on our room too for guidance from the one-man hell has made for these situations.

  “We should go. We should just go now!” Chapel shouts from his spot.

  “Now just hold on, son. Hold on,” J.D. says in his calm voice. “Keep your panties on. We are just gonna’ sit tight and see exactly what is out there before we go running off anywhere.”

  “How many are there?” Rhett asks with a sly grin, finally enjoying the thought of action while chambering the various black handguns placed among the windows.

  “A few,” Lawless answers, reloading his empty clip as he fights to fill his lungs with air from our run.

  Aimes makes a baffl
ed noise with Lawless’ response from our spot on the rug where we lay fighting to reclaim our stolen breaths.

  Lawless smirks, inserting his clip and chambering his gun. “A couple more than a few,” he says and shrugs, smiling at us.

  J.D. lets out a sharp whistle, tilting his head towards the front windows to let us know the Risen have arrived. He motions for Aimes and I to turn the lights off in the cabin. Night is creeping its cloak over the area, allowing the perfect backdrop for Evil to make its way to our paradise while we were waiting.

  Aimes and I creep through the cabin turning off lights and pulling curtains tight with a deluded sense of covering our movements with such thin material. They never ask us to glance out the windows or to keep watch. Sometimes it is good to be a girl. The first shot is from a high-powered rifle and it seems to rock the cabin with its force. The shadows begin to shift at once with a silent mutual agreement to head in the direction of the noise.

  Aimes and I also share a mutual agreement, heading to the side of the cabin where my warhorse is waiting.

  There, in what has served us as our room, we find the many bags piled high by the window waiting for us. As the shots begin to ring out in closer patterns, we begin to gently toss the bags into the long bed of the truck. The after-market lining allows us to slide the bags in. We keep our minds busy avoiding the truth of the monsters lurking in every shadow around us. We should have been paying better attention. Like a rabbit walking into one of Rhett’s traps, we are about to become someone’s idea of dinner.

  Chapter 19

  Truth does not like to be ignored. She will wait until you think you are safe before creeping up on you with a jagged blade. A blade so sharp, it will slide into your flesh without being noticed at first. The jagged edge will do so much damage, the scar will forever linger to always haunt you with the memory.