by E. M. Fitch
They all chuckled. Cassie heard the low sounds of amusement like an afterthought.
Cassie teetered on the edge of the fair, the light and sound an actual warmth behind her. Her thoughts flew around to the people she knew were behind her. Officer Gibbons was back there somewhere, she had seen him in passing, felt his eyes on her back. He was with his wife, a thin woman around the same age he was. Her hair was blond, though even in the strange, colored light of the fairgrounds, Cassie could tell that gray was starting to appear.
Cassie didn’t speak to him, but she couldn’t help but acknowledge, nod and catch his eye.
An ominous feeling welled inside of her. She felt it after every encounter in the last week, wondering …
Is this the last time?
Laughter startled her. It wasn’t the deep baritone chuckle of the men by the speaker or the soft amusement of the woman lying on the padded bench in the back of the ambulance. This was like tinkling music, light and joyful. And familiar.
Through the haze of lights that enclosed the fair in a bubble of civility, two figures burst through. They came out from between two food trucks, nearly tripping over the cords that snaked through the grass from behind. The guy caught the girl, both giggled, looking around and seeing no one. They jogged a few steps into the surrounding field before slowing down.
Cassie stood completely still, blending with the night under the drifting banner, as Ryan and Rebecca turned to face each other.
They kissed as though they had kissed a hundred times before. Ryan’s hands reached for Rebecca’s face, drew her close as he stepped nearer. Cassie could almost feel the pressure of his palms on her cheeks, she was so familiar with the gesture. Instead, she stood immobile, watching as her friend’s hands came to settle at Ryan’s waist before slipping under the hem of his shirt. A sliver of his pale, bare skin shone white in the dim light.
Something small cracked in Cassie’s chest. Her breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t take her eyes off the two people she loved most in the world, finding happiness and comfort in each other’s arms.
Pain lodged in her throat, laced with regret. She was broken, too broken to explain to Ryan what was going on with her, how creatures were taunting her. She wasn’t a friend to Rebecca, not like she should have been, too mired by the past, too focused on Laney, a girl who had turned her back on Cassie. She drove them both away. Maybe not to this. This, Ryan tilting over Rebecca, drawing rasping breaths against her lips, Cassie had not seen coming.
In retrospect, she understood it. They were both adrift, like Cassie was. And while Cassie’s anchor called to her from the trees, Ryan and Rebecca had obviously found another weight to pull them down.
Beyond the couple grappling at each other, lights appeared at the edge of the wood.
They flitted about like fireflies, though Cassie knew they weren’t. She had seen these lights before. Once, Ryan had dashed after them, following the sound of Laney’s voice. And another time, Cassie had seen one floating by the cemetery, mimicking the legend of The Gray Lady’s husband, searching for her lost body in the storm.
“Do you see those?” Rebecca whispered, pulling away from Ryan and looking to the tree line. “How pretty.”
He smiled down at her, gentle and soft. He laced his fingers with hers and tugged. They moved like gazelles, jumping and running through the tall grass of the meadow, chasing after the floating lights.
Cassie screamed. Her voice was drowned out in the yells and shouts of the crowd behind her, the bass of the too loud country band and the line dancers in front of the pavilion. Only a few of the men sitting by the ambulance looked over at her. One asked if she was all right, but none of them moved. None of them saw what Cassie saw.
Two innocent teenagers, running to their death.
The grass was tall and damp. It whipped at Cassie’s legs as she ran forward, even through her jeans she could feel the lash-like strikes against her skin. She called ahead of her. Ryan and Rebecca didn’t slow, mesmerized by the lights that were moving ever faster into the forest.
Cassie pumped her arms at her side, trying to reach them before the trees swallowed them whole. But they had picked up speed, they were sprinting now, leaping over the pit falls of the meadow hand in hand. She could hear them laughing, gaiety and happiness pouring from their mouths, becoming lost in the breath of the forest. The moon shone brightly, the atmosphere too breezy for clouds to hover; they swept across the surfaces in passing shadows, lingering but unable to hide the luminescent glow.
That was good. Cassie could see each dip in the earth, each patch of bramble that hung low. The world was lit though devoid of color, a black and white monster movie. The trees were black brooms sweeping a dusty sky, the stars white pinpricks.
The two figures were just shadows chasing the light. They slipped through the trees like they belonged there, still laughing and holding hands.
“Ryan!” Cassie called. “Becca!” She paused, breathing hard at the edge of the meadow. The fair was far behind her now, a bubble of light, happiness, and normality that Cassie didn’t belong to anymore. She couldn’t go back to that, to not knowing. It was a foolish thing to ever wish for. She knew too much.
The handle of the knife she now held was molded to her palm. She turned it absently, catching her breath. She could still hear the tinkle of their combined laughter, pure and fresh, up ahead. She moved forward, into the forest’s embrace.
She felt the shift, the softening of the night around her. The trees were thin and tall here, leaping up into the night sky, the canopies at the top just started to fill out with leaves. Cassie could see the sway of them against the moon. She called for her friends, crouching low and slipping past the trunks.
They were ahead of her, still chasing the lights. She could just see their outlines, bounding forward, darting ahead. She hurried to follow, wary for the sounds of anything else, waiting for the whispers that would alert her to their presence.
The trees became more scattered; the ground began to dip. With trepidation, Cassie inched forward, not entirely surprised to see a large clearing ahead in the woods. The lights gathered there.
She had never seen them so close before. They weren’t lanterns and they weren’t fireflies. These golden orbs hung completely unattached, a glow that sent a ring of light outward with no discernible source. The centers were bright, too bright to be able to see properly. It wasn’t a flame or bulb, they were like mini, softer suns. They came together, absorbed into one another, and then burst like a firecracker, showering the clearing with flecks of light.
“Ryan!” Cassie called out in the burst of noise, hoping in the confusion he would turn and see her. He didn’t. Instead, he turned back to Rebecca. He gripped her face again, pressed his lips to hers.
Cassie froze, the iron knife in her hand felt weightless, insubstantial. Her lips parted in horror as she watched, knowing suddenly that she wasn’t seeing Ryan.
There was no way, not after chasing a ball of floating light into the forest and watching it imploded, that the Ryan she knew wouldn’t turn right around and walk away. He was curious, but he was intelligent. And Rebecca, quiet, cautious Rebecca. No, that wasn’t her either.
The two figures in front of her kissed softly for a moment. Cassie took a quiet step back.
In synchronization, their heads turned. They broke the kiss and two sets of black eyes stared at Cassie.
The fake Ryan’s mouth yawned wide, a dark chasm. It didn’t stop where it should have naturally, his jaw unhinged and hung low, the upper bridge of his teeth thrust farther up, as a large vine snaked its way up his throat and out of his mouth. Cassie couldn’t help the gasp that escaped her teeth. She froze in abject horror, watching the form of the boy she loved get ripped apart from the inside.
Rebecca’s body snarled as her chest cracked open. Branches burst forth, brittle and dry. They pushed through the orbits of her eye sockets with hollow pops. Ryan’s head jerked on his neck as snake-like
tendrils curled from his nostril and behind his ear.
Both bodies stood on trembling legs, both turned toward Cassie, and moved. They lunged forward, as though they were about to start running. Roots sprang from cracks in their legs, seeking purchase in the ground. Hanging bits broke free, trailing dirt. Cracking and splitting, the bodies crashed toward her, howling into the night.
Cassie’s screams were swallowed by the swaying leaves, lost in the breeze that caressed them. The fake Ryan’s fingers swept her face, twigs springing from open fingertips, wet with blood. They scraped down her neck as she reared back, stuck in the brush that had sprung up all around her.
She thrashed and kicked, felt the thorns she was suddenly surrounded by prick and break through her skin. The figures in front of her broke to pieces, roots and vines, branches and bramble breaking through their skin like new growth through desert soil. The trees that sprung forth left nothing but skin turned to dust in their wake, the bones and blood of the bodies that had kissed in an explosion of light nothing but fertilizer for the forest.
With a last shattering crack, the vine burst through what was left of Ryan’s face. His visage smashed to pieces, scattering on top of the dead leaves at Cassie’s feet. Rebecca’s body was gone already. The small tangle of trees that stood where the teenagers once had was rooted now, the new foliage settling like a sigh. Only on a few of the shiny leaves could Cassie detect a smear of blood.
She still had the knife held tight in her grasp, like it was melded there. She hacked at the bramble that surrounded her but it didn’t help, it only succeeded in tangling her further. There was nowhere else to go but forward. She would have to enter the clearing and try to circle back around. Her legs trembled with each step, but her hand was firm on the knife. She couldn’t catch her breath. It felt like she had run a marathon, a dozen laps for crimes committed on the softball field. Her heart beat an erratic staccato and her thoughts flew like trapped birds beating inside the cage of her skull. Only one thought stood out above the others, a bird that had given up and lay panting on the floor of the enclosure.
Get out, it croaked.
The moon lit the clearing, a circle not unlike the size of a softball diamond. It was a depression in the earth, a small bowl, cleared of trees. It was completely empty. Except for Cassie.
Cassie, and the girl that materialized directly across from her.
Laney moved into the moonlight. It cast sharp shadows down her features, elongating them. She stood tall, her shoulders back. Only her stomach stood out, rippling irregularly.
“Laney,” Cassie whispered. Her grip on the knife loosened. “Laney, where are the others? Are they here?”
Nothing but a low growl issued from her friend. From behind Laney, high-pitched laughter, like the cackling of hyenas, sounded. Four boys emerged from the woods, two on each side of Laney. Their clothing was coarse and loose, their feet were bare. The dull pink caps on their heads glinted almost silver in the moonlight. The air in Cassie’s lungs turned to ice.
“Not for you, boys,” Laney hissed, holding her hand out to stop them from leaping forward. “Her blood is mine.”
The boys—or not boys, the monsters, the creatures of the trees—faded back into the branches with angry hisses. The sounds dissolved quickly into laughter again, frighteningly clear, childish laughter that bounded away into the forest. Moments later, a high squeal from an injured animal sounded from far away.
“Your pets?” Cassie asked icily, straightening as she regarded her lost friend. Laney snarled.
“I should have let them have you. It’s no better than you deserve,” Laney bit out, eyeing Cassie. “They’ll drain the animals but they prefer the humans.”
Mark DeRubertis’ face swam in Cassie’s vision as fury flooded her veins. The anger was sharp and pungent but it made way for fear as Laney crouched low across the clearing, ready to spring. Laney’s stance shifted, the intent suddenly clear on her face. She was about to attack.
“You wouldn’t,” Cassie whispered, holding her hands out. Some part of her was still convinced that Laney, her Laney, couldn’t possibly do anything to hurt her. Cassie dropped her weapon. It made a dull thump as it landed in a pile of softened, dead leaves. “Laney, you can’t. It’s me.”
For the space of a single moment, Cassie believed everything was going to be okay. Then Laney threw her head back, her dark hair hanging in waves down her back, her belly protruding in the moonlight. She threw her mouth open and Cassie watched the subtle movement of her throat as she laughed, shrieking into the night sky.
“You! You, bitch!” Laney wailed. The laughter ceased in a screech. Laney’s features twisted. Anger contorted her face—not like with the others, not the confusing, hazy shift of features, as though you were looking at them through a heat wave. Laney’s skin melted and lumped, formed and reformed, her mouth pulled down at the corners like a sad, Halloween clown. Her eyes grew wide, the skin around the holes sagging and then stretching, black orbs that reflected the starlight and the swaying trees stared at Cassie from across the clearing. Jowls swung from her jawline, then rippled into the smooth column of her neck. Her nails burst forth, blood-red talons, sharp as spears. It was as though she couldn’t be contained, or she didn’t want to be. Her anger exploded out from her, bursting through the clearing toward Cassie.
Everything shifted, everything changed like a cheap horror movie trick, everything except her belly. Rounded and smooth, it commanded more of her presence than anything else. She orbited around it, shifted and moved in ways to accommodate the growing creature inside of her, as though it commanded her body more than her own mind did.
“You killed him,” she hissed, crouching low in the clearing. She looked like a cat about to pounce, a cat perched on a round beach ball. Her back arched and Cassie watched as moonlight reflected off each elongated point of her spine.
“I didn’t mean to, Laney,” Cassie whispered, hoping her old friend could hear her. “You know I didn’t.”
“He’s dead!” she roared. “Everything, everything is gone from me. You did that.”
“I—”
Laney lurched forward, nails outstretched and reaching for skin. Cassie half-turned, knowing it would be fruitless, but not willing to give up without a fight, even if all she could do to fight for her life was to run. The trees swayed like a stadium crowd around her, roaring their approval of the coming bloodbath. They would watch, eager spectators as Laney ripped Cassie to pieces, left her alone and bleeding on the forest floor. Because, in Laney’s addled mind, that’s how Cassie left Corey.
Cassie saw Laney’s expression change first, the confusion in her drawn eyebrows and scrunched forehead. Her skin shifted again, melted and tightened. She crumbled to her knees in the middle of the clearing.
Cassie paused, muscles locked, tensed for flight. Above, a low whine echoed out of the night sky, and a small, sharp light flung into the heavens above them. It hung directly overhead, ringed perfectly by the black trees that had paused when Laney crumbled. The light disappeared for an instant and then burst open with a crack, red and white sparklers fizzed in a giant circle in the sky.
The fireworks had started.
Cassie turned back toward Laney, shocked to see her laying on her side, panting in the fetal position. Another flare shot high and Laney moaned, clutching at her stomach.
She was a dark outline on the tall, matted grass, a creature of the forest, cradled in its embrace. She was also alone, hurt, and in need of help.
“Cass,” she whispered, looking up to her old friend. Her eyes locked on Cassie’s. In the sudden burst of light, white and blue and orange, Cassie saw the hazel eyes, now ancient in pain and loss, but so recognizable as Laney’s that she couldn’t stop herself from moving forward.
“What’s wrong?” Cassie asked, inching closer to her lost friend. Laney cried out in answer, curling in over her bulging stomach. “Is there anyone? How can I contact them? The boys … I can—”
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“No!” Laney cried out, her hand darting out and grasping at Cassie’s arm. “Not them.”
The terror in her voice elicited a tingle at the base of Cassie’s skull. She was overcome with a feeling of being watched and her eyes flashed to the forest. Her attention jerked back to Laney when nails dug into her forearm.
“He’s coming, Cass,” Laney cried out, her feet kicking uselessly into the grass.
“Who? Who’s coming?”
“My baby.”
The world seemed to tilt and shift. It was so wrong that here, in the middle of the forest, Cassie would be by Laney’s side as she prepared to give birth to her son.
Cassie had never before pictured this moment in her mind, never even considered it. In a sudden flash she could see it, the future Laney had turned her back on. She could see herself holding Laney’s hand, her arm draped by a faded hospital gown, tubing from the just-in-case IV dangling loose and free. She could see the nurses, the shadowed face of whomever Laney married, the grip that Laney would have on Cassie’s hand as the nurses yelled, just like on television, for Laney to push! Push, harder!
That was not now. That was never to be Laney’s reality again. Instead they were here, deep in the middle of the forest, surrounded by whispering trees. They were in the dark, only their silver, moonlit outlines visible; until a burst of light and noise from above illuminated them.
In some small way, Cassie could see how in another time and place this would be a very fitting place for Laney to give birth. Now, here, alone, she was nothing short of terrified.
Laney cried out again, curling in around herself. She reached a small hand out, the skin luminescent in the moonlight, stark white in the glare from the fireworks. She gripped Cassie’s fingers hard.
“Okay,” Cassie breathed, steeling herself. “Okay, Laney, lay back.”
She removed her fingers from Laney’s grasp and eased her on her back. In a move she never thought she’d have to make, she felt her way down to Laney’s pants. There was no button, just a tight expanse of fabric across her hips. Cassie hooked her fingers under the material just as Laney cried out again, her shout mingling with an explosion from above. The very skin under Cassie’s fingers tightened and spasmed, the muscles beneath clenching.