Smoke Me.

Chapter 47: Placating

The campus seemed haunted at night. The store looked abandoned. The cafe was shrouded in darkness. And I was passing all of this by with my heart wanting to beat out of my chest. Wishing I could run back to where I came from.

Through the spindly trees. After streets and more streets. The dead vegetation mixed in with the crude green leaves was finally surrounding this one flickering streetlamp and the black terrain from under it.

By the time I was under the sole source of light, the guy who was concealed by the darkness five steps ago emerged and he was all smiles, exposing all of his five teeth. Back prompted against an old, thick tree and hands buried in the black leather jacket.

I walked up to him and enunciated the words: "Sunny D."

He began walking at once. Leading me towards the rest with two short, crooked legs.

"Did Jay arrive yet?" I asked him. Aka the guy who always refused to ever talk to me, specifically.

It wasn't long until the trees of the forest started to thin out into a clearing that was embraced by many other trees from both sides, hovering over us like dark spirits.

And the sounds of our feet stepping on the earth or leaves were replaced with the sound of a screaming woman.

'Please don't be someone I know. Please don't be someone I know. Please don't....' This is what I repeated in my head until I heard Jay announcing:

"Look who's finally bothered to show up."

I pulled the corners of my lips up in response.

He reached out and grabbed me by the collar when I was close enough. Only to make me kneel in front of the King himself who was currently sitting on, probably, the only camping chair this forest had.

A Cheshire grin was illuminated by the two gas lamps from each side of the improvised throne.

"Got lost again?" He asked through a total of eight teeth.

"Sorry."

And that was the sole correct answer.

"Help me! Please! Hel...."
But one of the five guys covered her face with his boot and then smiled down at me. I smiled back.

Thinking: 'Thank God I'm not a woman.'

Because the only woman that was present, looking like she was around her 30thies, was tied up from the neck down with grey, shiny scotch tape. Butt naked, on the forest soil, with ripped hair and a bloody face.

'I shouldn't have looked. Now I won't be able to forget...'

"Did you bring the stuff?"
"Yes!" I made the grave mistake of reaching to unzip the jacket myself which earned me a gun pointed at the head from the tallest member.

My hands went up at once.

"Cousin." That was all that the King had to utter to get Jay to get the jacket off me and pat me down to make sure I didn't have any weapons or wires.

He threw the bag full of Oxy at the King's feet. Then pointed his chin at the skinniest man I'd ever seen in my life. No hair, no teeth, just bones.

The freak wobbled up to me and dropped another bag. Bigger and entirely see-through.

'Coke? Perhaps.'

"Keep this one for me too."
"It'd be my pleasure." I lied.

'As if the police would think any student would own this much of this shit for personal reasons.' I argued in the safety of my mind, filled with bitterness.