Witch of the Wild Woods

Chapter 21 - One by One

Chapter 21 - One by One

    They hadn't run far. Only a few meters. Each step that landed on the loose gravel felt less like rocks and more like shattered glass. With every pace, those deafening, echoing crunches could have alerted every animal in the pinewood forest that surrounded Spirit Lake, not to mention the three that still roamed out in the darkness: The Omens. The lion, the wolf, and the panther that had recently eaten.

    Now, six humans remained.

Lane hadn't bothered with searching for a key to the locked door. He and Luna had simply kicked the wooden door in and were now busy securing it back on its hinges. There were no lights on in the foyer of the Great Lodge. Nina held the steel curtain rod that was still burning the oiled rag on one end. It was an adequate lamp, providing just enough light for The Twins to erect a barricade of chairs and a couch in front of the door they'd broken.

"Where's Julia?" Gracie panted out, leaning against the wall.

Jordan only glanced in Franki's direction. Off the black girl's face frozen in horror, the acting lead councilor shot Lane an accusatory glare.

Nervously, Nina touched Luna's shoulder, "We, w-we have to go back for her, right?"

Luna's downcast face gave the Pixie Girl the answer she didn't want to hear.

The Truth. Julia was gone.

Franki kept breathing, rapid, short breaths.

Gracie tried to cover an ocean's-worth of fear with a napkin of optimism; "Nina's right, we can't board up the place if there's a chance Julia might-"

"She's dead," Jordan said. Her words hung heavily in the dark, empty foyer.

"You can't just... Jesus, Jordan, do you have any consideration for Franki at all?" Nina protested. "What the hell is the matter with you?"

"Great question, for when we're not being chased by animals. We have to keep our heads grounded and focused on getting out of here alive," Jordan stated plainly.

"But you don't have to be so cruel, so callous, so..." Nina was trying to pick a fight. She was trying to be angry on Franki's behalf. The black girl didn't look angry though. She didn't look as if she were feeling anything at all. Franki was catatonic. That may have scared Nina more than the thought of being hunted by ghost animals, or demons, or whatever those things were. For Nina, to feel nothing, especially the loss of someone she loved, terrified her.

"Jordan's right," Lane said delicately taking the curtain rod from Nina. "We stay focused, we stay together, and we stay alive."

"Don't try and take my side and play the hero," Jordan snapped.

"I'm not," Lane clapped back. "We need to secure ourselves in here for the next fifty minutes until the rescue chopper arrives. Any doors, any windows--"

"The whole back wall is nothin' BUT windows, sugar. If you're looking for a good hiding place, this ain't it. Any one of those things could break through the glass," Gracie rattled off.

"Unlikely. During the initiation or baptism, I noticed these windows used two-pane, laminated glass; the same stuff used in zoo enclosures. You could run up to it at full strength with a sledgehammer and not make a hole big enough for, say, a large animal to get through," Lane replied. Until now, it seemed a little overkill to use such high-grade materials. Seeing his sister play her invisible violin, she seemed to be on the same wavelength.

"You think they'd planned ahead for such an event?" Luna thought aloud.

Nina's eyes went wide, "You think, somebody planned for those... Things? For all this?"