The Other Randall

One

|Liza's POV|

The warm New Zealand sun beat down on my back as I tossed hay bales into the bed of the black and silver 1989 Dodge Ram truck I've been driving.

Things aren't the same since Chase moved, I think as I swat at a mosquito.

"Elizabeth! Are you done with your chores yet," my mother shouts.

"Almost, Mom," I shout back as I throw the last bale on the truck.

"Hurry, Elizabeth, your older brother is on the video phone," Mom shouts to me.

I hopped from the truck bed, my leather work boots crunching the gravel they landed on. I sprinted to the front door as soon as Mom opened the screen door.

When I sat in the computer chair Chase's face lit up the screen.

"Hey, Liz," Chase says.

"Hey,Hotshot," I reply.

"How have you been," Chase asks as five other people stand behind him.

"I'm good," I say, noticing a familiar face from the four behind Chase.

"Oh, Liz, Riley says 'hi'," Chase says, pointing to Riley Griffin, an old neighbor and friend.

I wave at Riley through the computer screen and he waves back.

"Good to see you, Liz," Riley says.

"Good to see you too, Rye," I say, smiling.

I watch Riley's face redden on the screen.

"Hope you can visit soon, Lizzy," Chase says.

"I'll try to, Hotshot," I say, laughing a bit.

Chase and I end the Skype call, then I head back out to chop down a tree to use for firewood.

My shoulder length brown hair was tied up in a half ponytail, half braided style and a black bandana was wrapped around my head.

I begin humming an old New Zealand folk song as I step foot in the woods surrounding my home.

I bet Chase misses climbing these trees with me, I think as I find the tree Mom told me to cut down. Suddenly I hear a gunshot and I grip the axe.

A boy, two years younger than me staggers forward. His blonde hair is matted, his face flushed.

"You must find it before they do," He says groaning.

"Find what," I ask.

"Find the rock that glows blue," he hissed before he leaned against a tree.

~Farther in the Woods~

I began scouring the trees around me, coming up with nothing. I sit under an old, gnarled evergreen pine resting when I suddenly find something in the bedding of pine needles I was sitting on.

What is this, I ask myself as I slowly pick up a weirdly shaped rock.

I pocket the rock and I sit there unmoved by the find.

"Give me that rock," Someone shouts.

I clamber to my feet, my heart hammering against my rib cage.

A creature I know all too well from mine and Chase's 3 AM Skype calls steps from the trees.

"Get away from me, Fury!".

Fury smirks and I run off for the town as fast as a black panther.

~Downtown~
I don't stop running until I reach the small gift shop I work at after school, then once I do several weird looking monsters surround me.

Save the town! Save the town, kept running through my head as I use my right boot to kick up a discarded metal fencing post.

"Get into your stores and don't let anyone else in," I shout to the townspeople. They nod, knowing, remembering something Chase and I did when we were fifteen and fourteen.

I snarl as I take down ten monsters at a time. I watch Fury go after two of the children I babysit and tutor after school.

I somersault over some monsters and in front of those two kids.

I block Fury's sword with the metal fence post, my body shaking under the pressure.

I hope I can keep Fury from destroying my home!