Dawning (The Risen Series Book 1)

by Marie F. Crow

  “You know, in the movies, it’s always in the forest where people die the most.” Lawless raises an eyebrow at Aimes trying to frighten her.

  “Yeah, but we aren’t camping, Mr. Brightside,” she tells him, not amused with his teasing but she does glance behind her a lot more now.

  “Yeah,” Lawless starts again, undeterred by her refusal or the frozen log in his path, “what was the one all about a wrong turn?”

  “Look, we are not going all Donner, party of six, today okay?” Aimes asks, and I watch as the light comes to Rhett’s face.

  “Spare us the innuendos, Rhett,” I tell him as he laughs. “Then spare my toes and find a tree already.” Rhett is still chuckling to himself.

  With my luck, he is storing that missed one-liner I deprived him of for later. Oh, happy days.

  “That one!” Aimes startles us all with her excitement.

  She is going to get shot one day doing that. Literally, I will shoot her.

  “Of course, it is,” Lawless sighs, as we all turn to the tree she has picked out.

  The tree has a light dusting of snow on it giving its green limbs an emerald shade. It’s thick with its many full branches spared from the ice. The round base gives no clues to the size of the trunk. It’s a monster of a tree if trees were cast as such. Luckily, we already have enough monsters in the world sparing us from such a threat, but I am not the one who has to cut it down, either. Chapel slides, rather ungracefully, under the large tree with his stolen axe. His vocabulary is four-letter-word tinted with his effort to find the base through the thick sharp needles of the tree’s limbs fighting against him. We can’t help but silently laugh listening to his many expletives, which are so unlike him. Not everyone is in the holiday spirit it seems.

  Rhett nudges Lawless, pointing to the other side of the tree. They exchange a smile mothers of adolescent boys would cringe with the fear over wondering what they are going to do next. They position themselves across from each other on either side of the tree still wearing Mischief’s trademark smile.

  “Now,” Rhett says, and they both begin to shake the tree be- tween them.

  It scatters the fresh snow on the limbs around the tree’s base, cascading it down where the white waves plummet onto Chapel. “Funny,” Is the only response they receive from our Preacher’s son with only his lower legs in our view.

  It’s enough and it sends the two clowns into hysterics.

  Cutting the tree down was a three-man effort. How much of it is from having to battle the thick trunk with a hand axe or their lack of trust for being the center of a mischievous joke goes unsaid. Finally hearing the snapping of the trunk’s surrender, Rhett and Chapel guide the forest’s monster to the ground. The forest echoes from its fallen comrade, sending the birds scattering through the skies with their farewell.

  Aimes claps again with her excitement and childlike joy. She tackles Lawless in a hug as he stands, causing him to laugh with her appreciation and return her hug. She begins to clean off the forest floor from his back and arms as I watch them in their friendship.

  “Let’s not cue that rerun,” J.D. says beside me.

  My face must have shown my feelings and I fight to regain its placidity, ignoring his private message.

  “Man was in the forest,” Aimes says, as they look down upon the giant tree.

  “You can call me-,” Rhett begins, but she cuts his sentence short.

  “I am so not calling you anything,” she tells him, trying to keep a stern face amid his teasing.

  “Not even wolf?” Rhett lowers his voice with sexual tension, hinting his knowledge of a not-so-long-ago conversation.

  Her cheeks flush with her memories of that morning. Rhett wins again.

  He looks to me in his victory over her. We exchange smiles of our own and I know his mind is now remembering a different game he played. A game he lost.

  “Any time,” I tell him. “You don’t even have to ask.”

  I taunt him with his own words. The color of his eyes deep- ens with his excitement at the memory. I am watching his face become one of a pure hunters with his racing thoughts of our rematch. His smile grows in proportion to Lawless’ shrinking.

  “Seriously, not again,” J.D. mutters to me under his breath. “We’re all still too fresh for this little show of yours.”

  “I’m not showing anything.” I force my smile to stay frozen, sliding my words out between locked teeth.

  “Really? Seems to me you are showing him you don’t forgive them yet,” J.D. tells me, turning his body to appear as if he is scanning the area to cover our conversation. “You were a daisy until she hugged him.”

  J.D.’s words steal the smile from my lips and pulls my face to him. It’s all the confirmation he needs to the power and truth of his words.

  “Get over it,” he tells me, walking to the rest of the group to help them figure out how we are going to carry our kill back to the high school.

  The very last thing you want to tell a woman is to “get over it.” The phrase is the exact opposite of what a woman will do when told to do so. Now, I am willing to sit in this funk all day just to prove to J.D. I will not simply “get over it.” I am completely secure in the fact I will be the Grinch who stole “over it” in the middle of their Whoville celebration. Unless, I have to paint myself green. Then all bets are off.

  Chapter 44

  It‘s the flash of her white nightgown I see first above her bare, ivory feet when she goes by me. The delicate white eyelets of its lace float above the white snow as she runs, keeping pace with me. The trees shield her, keeping her in a peek-a-boo pattern. I can almost hear her giggles as I watch her golden hair trailing behind her.

  I am not surprised my mind would bring Lilly forward now. If innocence has a mascot, it would be her. The only thing that made this season bearable for me was she with her loving heart. In the past, this season would always bring the best of humanity from mankind. Those who were already blessed with such depths, only added to its heights of peace and goodwill.

  There was not a heart Lilly could not melt with her smile. Years of frost would loosen from any soul she touched with her laughter. This season was her playground and she has come back to play.

  She runs beside our group, keeping a line of trees between us in the winter cold. Sometimes she runs ahead of me to see what the men are doing with their heavy evergreen burden. Sometimes she keeps pace with me, running from thick tree trunk to tree trunk, keeping hidden from my full view. Other times, she waits behind, only to have to run to catch up with us. She runs beside me now just as silently as she stalks me in my mind at night.

  There is a clearing ahead and I know I will finally see her fully with the parting of the trees. My heart elates with it. My mind shivers with the dread over what she may show me.

  Just as I had anticipated, she darts forward into the clearing, keeping her back to me. My soul pines with the need to see her smile. My mind is screaming, afraid I will.

  Her long blonde hair is thick with her unkempt curls. The hem of her nightgown is tarnished from its natural white with the mud and snow it has collected. Like a phantom of winter chilling my mind with fear, she stands so still ahead of me and the world has grown silent with her appearance.

  J.D. grabs my shoulder, halting me roughly. I cringe under his fingers grasping me so tightly.

  “Shhhhhh,” he whispers into my ear.

  My confusion turns me towards him, and what I see only con- fuses me more.

  His eyes scan the area ahead. He silently takes a position ahead of me, blocking her from my sight. His body is tense with what he is seeing. I don’t see the danger. All I see is Lilly, standing so still, so silent and so alone before J.D. and me.

  It can’t be possible, but I am going to ask him anyway. “You see her?”

  He turns only his eyes to me, keeping my body behind his. “Shhhh. Yes, I see her,” he whispers.

  “…but she’s dead,” I whisper to him.

  Images
of my broken flower flood my mind the way her blood poured from her wounds, hotly, painfully and rapidly.

  “Yes, that’s normally how it happens.”

  He is as confused over my confusion over a situation we have encountered so many times already. He does not understand this time it is different. It is Lilly. It has to be Lilly.

  J.D. stares into the clearing ahead of us with caution. He whistles the men’s whistle of warning to gain their attention without startling the apparition beside them. Like statues, they still, mid- step, looking for the danger J.D. has signaled. The tree is forgotten in a gentle heap of a motion when Chapel, Lawless and Rhett stare at what has formed beside them. They were lost in their conversation of laughter and teasing, swept along with Aimes in her joy. They never noticed the girl until J.D. had stopped them. Melting backwards to us, in an attempt to keep the frozen girl’s back to them, Aimes and I are pushed behind them as they form a half circle around us. I want to tell them it is okay. She just wants to see the tree. She always loved the tree when it was decorated.

  They don’t have to fear her. It’s just Lilly, my gentle Lilly. “What are you doing?” I hiss at Lawless, as he pulls his gun

  from his waistband.

  “She’s right. If there are more of them this close to the high school, then the shot may trigger them to head this way,” J.D. says while reaching over to push Lawless’ gun down.

  “Too late.” Chapel is staring at another spot in the forest.

  Many weaving shapes blend and contrast with the sunlight and trees. There is no denying what is slowly flowing our way.

  “Plan?” Rhett asks anyone.

  His eyes are trying to monitor the shape before us and the many shapes beside us.

  “If we get far enough away from their sight, they will go back to their “resting stage.” It may keep them far enough away from the high school. We can take out the one in front of us and slip away. The others are too far away to really rush us,” Lawless offers.

  His plan makes sense, except for the part about Lilly. Why do we need to hurt her?

  “Why? She will just go away,” I tell him, trying to get him to understand.

  “Hells, since when do they just “go away”?” His response chills me.

  “Always. They always just go away.”

  All of their eyes swing to me. Most of the eyes hold confusion, but two pairs are holding much more. They see what I am seeing. Chapel and J.D. capture my gaze with understanding and melting sadness.

  Chapel pulls me through the line of men to his chest.

  “Don’t look,” he tells me, securing me tightly against him so I have to obey him.

  How can I “not look”? When have I ever been the one to “not look”?

  I place my face flat against his winter-soaked coat. This allows me to see from the safety of his arms. I am a small child hiding from the opening of the closet at night. Part of me is curious to see what is about to happen. Another part of me is filling with sadness, knowing what is about to happen.

  Chapel had the sense to remove the axe from my hand before holding me to him. He hands it now to Rhett, the only man he deems dark enough to do what has to be done. How little Chapel knows of my sins. The sin who is now standing before us, waiting for me to repent for my wicked, wicked ways. The sin who slowly turn towards me with her desire of a confrontation in my daily denial of them.

  I want to yell at her to run. I want her to escape what is about to happen to her. I want me to escape what is about to happen to her. I have seen her laid low once already. I have seen her die a thousand times when I close my eyes. We should not have to go through this horror again, but we do.

  The little girl turns slowly, clearing a path of fresh snow, dragging her feet with her motion. Her little toes do not feel the razor-sharp pain from the cold. She can’t feel anything anymore. I stare at those tiny fragile feet unwilling to see her face. The sight of her white nightgown is enough. Even as I fight against seeing her, I look up anyway. When have I ever been the one to not look?

  Reluctantly, I visually take in inch-by-inch of the white doll standing there, watching us. The front of her gown is not the virgin white I had seen running past me. Many shades blend together from the dark, dried browns to soft yellows of its wear upon her. Her fingertips are damaged and caked from the overly rough use of their tender flesh. Her face is pockmarked with missing flesh in irregular patterns from horrors we will never know. It’s covered with the rage only the Risen can hold at the sight of their prey. Faded brown eyes hop from each person before her as she gauges which one to attack first. Rhett takes the debate from her with his sharp axe and smirking face.

  “It’s not her,” I whisper into Chapel’s coat.

  “It’s not her,” I whisper again to myself with each wet, thick sound Rhett fells upon her.

  “It never is,” Chapel whispers into my hair.

  I know at this moment; I am not the only one haunted with the sounds of delicate laughter and the scent of baby shampoo.

  “Let’s go.” I hear J.D.’s voice fills the now very silent space around us as other sounds stop. “You got her?” I know he’s asking Chapel about me without having to peek from my shelter.

  Chapel’s sliding of me under his arm to cradle me, still in his protection as we begin to walk answers J.D. He doesn’t tell me to not look. At this point, we both know his words will be hollow advice.

  She lies on her back with the many brutal cuts to her torso gaping up to the sky. Her once white nightgown is embedded into each slash and it slowly pulls the dark blood into the material, staining it with his assault. Her face is a ruin of blows to her skull, leaking blood and thicker materials to the ground around her. Only her eyes stay intact, and for a moment, they are the crystal blue of warm oceans peering out at me amid so much destruction before my mind can switch them back to their true color. The red snow is seeping into the white snow crystals as her blood creeps, expanding its circle with its escape. Her body is truly broken now from Rhett’s massacre.

  This is not my Lilly. My flower is withering, pressed between the yellowing pages of my memories. She sleeps with so many other angels lost to this cold world. The angels who have turned their vision from those of us still remaining here in this hell. Just as I had mine, I leave this broken blonde child behind as she spills her life onto the white floor surrounding her.

  Is someone missing her the way I am missing mine? Does some- one screams her name into the darkness of night with the fear of what has happened to her? For her sake, I hope not. I hope they are now finally all at rest, together.

  I dared to ask my Wonderland a question and it answered me in the most horror-filled answer pulled from its darkest secrets. It brought forth its White Queen to me. Now, as we follow the red dotted trail of her blood dripping from the axe that took her head, her army searches for us. Silently, we escape with our stolen winter prize among her army’s vocal fury.

  “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,” said the White Queen to Alice. If she only knew how correct she was.

  Chapter 45

  Dear Lord, what has happened?” a female’s voice calls out to us.

  Paula rushes to us, skipping around the many red teardrops Rhett leaves behind in his wake.

  “The tree fought back,” Rhett answers her with his “prove me wrong” smile.

  We know it means he does not want to talk about it. She doesn’t. “Are you hurt?” Paula rubs her hands over him, looking for the

  wound she cannot see.

  I guess she has not caught on that, unless it is self-inflicted, the axe in his hand is a glaring oversight.

  “He’s fine,” Chapel offers, trying to save Rhett some dignity.

  His annoyance with her is amusing. Do I sense a little jealousy there, Chappy?

  “Did you find something to put this in? And where?” J.D. asks her.

  “Marxx is waiting for you upstairs,” Paula tells him, motioning with her head to the stairs. H
er voice is icy, sensing Chapel’s disapproval.

  “Why is it always upstairs?” Rhett sighs, adjusting the weight of the tree in his hand.

  “Not you,” J.D. remarks and motions for Rhett to hand his side to Chapel.

  “He’s right. You can’t go up there looking like a Christmas version of Macbeth,” I tell him, “and no, I will not help you wash out the spots.”

  Rhett performs a mocking pout over my words, but laughs just the same, saying, “Stars, hide your fires. Let not light see my black and deep desires.”

  He kisses the top of my head, the way the men have found the habit to do. Unlike the rest of the men, his hand slides down my back, cupping me in his hug providing further weight to his quote. One never knows with Rhett how much of his personality is games and how often they are not. This is no exception, but it stirs something inside me just the same. I watch his back retreat to the showers of the gym with many thoughts swirling in my mind. “Somehow, I find it very fitting that he can quote Macbeth,”

  Aimes whispers in my ear.

  She overheard our exchange, and with a sly smile, she joins me as we watch him leave. He turns, feeling the weight of our stares and flashes us both an amused smirk before rounding a corner.

  “Somehow, I find it very strange you knew it was Macbeth.” I point out my amusement of her literary sense.

  “You always fill me with such great confidence,” she says. Her words might be formed to be biting, but the tilt of her head as she watches Rhett turn the corner takes any heat from them.

  “It’s a gift.”

  We both almost sigh when he fades from view.

  “You ready to get this upstairs?” Lawless’ voice shreds the images of my imagination, as if they were smoke. They slip away in wisps of unspoken desires.

  “Three flights of stairs, sharp bends and cussing galore? What is not to look forward to?” Aimes asks as she leans into the heavy metal doors, propping them open with her body to help the men with their haul.

  That is exactly what followed, a lot of cussing, a lot of stairs and a lot of sharp turns requiring many attempts of reverse to shimmy the tree up the stairs. Aimes shouts her helpful advice at each bend until finally the glares reduce her to silence. True to Aimes’ earlier words, once the three are able to get it through those final metal doors, they drop it. Chapel, J.D. and Lawless collapse on the couches near the door with their refusal to help in any more of Aimes’ holiday planning.