Writer Games | Death Wish & 51

Task Five: The Dear Departed /QF - Alicia Washington [29]

I gripped my  bleeding arm, biting back curses and gasps of pain alike. Warm wetness  trickled past my elbow, falling to the floor with an almost inaudible plip, plip, plip.

    I was a fool. Plain  and simple. I was supposed to be the smart one, the one who kept herself  together even in the darkest times. It was my job to stay calm and  reasonable, to  think things through when everyone around me fell apart. 

    It had to be some strange sort of irony that I had left a piece of my body for the thing with Dylan's face. So much for keeping it together...

    My breathing was  deafening in the still, dead air of the room. I sat, my back against  some strange piece of dusty equipment. My flashlight was off, but within  easy reach of my uninjured arm- I couldn't risk turning it on for fear  of attracting that.

    Plip, plip. I  shuddered to remember the thing, striding bold as brass into the light  of our little camp. Dylan Cole, the boy who loved the hidden monsters,  had returned from the depths of the laboratory complex. He had smiled,  laughed, and hugged his friends who had all but resigned themselves to  his death. I had sat speechless, alone in the corner while the happy  reunion took place, while Dylan was welcomed back with open arms.

    I had said nothing,  even though I thought his eyes were strange. The Dylan I knew had eyes  like a warm summer's night. His gaze had been deep, warm, and welcoming.  The Dylan that returned had had eyes that were as black and cold as the  space between stars.

    Plip, plip. I  needed to stop the bleeding, or the thing with the lying face would be  the least of my problems. Hissing with discomfort as fabric passed over  the wound, I grabbed my fraying scarf, the poor, lumpy child of my  failed attempt at knitting, and started to wrap it around my upper arm.  It wasn't ideal, but it would be better than nothing- I might be able to  survive long enough to find the first aid kit.

    I bit my lip,  leaning my head back against the cold metal device. I should have  recognized it. I should have known that there was something down there  that had taken Dylan, and Solace, and all the others as well. I should  have realized he was gone, never coming back when I saw empty eyes in a  smiling face.

    But I hadn't raised  my voice, aired my suspicions, until Sarah-Kate and Kerry were gone and I  saw Dylan pressing chloroform against Maria's sleeping mouth.

    He had snarled at me  as I shouted, pulled a knife from his sleeve, and slashed a wide gash  in my arm as I approached to pull him away. Maria had been shaken awake  as the others fled, terrified as his face twisted and distorted into  inhuman proportions. I didn't know how many made it out. With a wounded  arm and blood full of adrenaline, I hadn't cared, fleeing down the  corridor as fast as my legs would take me.

    I shivered again,  remembering that face, changing into some monstrous form with only the  dark eyes as a constant. Even if I made it out of here by some miracle, I  would never be free of that nightmare.

    "Happy now, Dylan?" I  whispered to the dead air. "Looks like we finally found your cryptids."  That first campsite out in the cave, I remembered his stern, almost  sullen look, black hair and piercings like every goth stereotype under  the sun. It had taken a couple swigs of Solace's whiskey (which  technically shouldn't have existed) before I got him talking- but after  that, I couldn't have gotten him to shut up with an entire roll of duct  tape. He had spent hours doing nothing but describing his cryptids,  fantastical creatures that I would have automatically associated with a  lunatic magazine for people with tinfoil hats. Still, I listened, even  after everyone else had gone to sleep or turned to have their own  conversations.

    He had always talked  about finding his cryptids. It broke my heart that the one that had  taken his life had also stolen his face.

    He had been excited  and innocent. He had made me smile for a night before we went into the  darkness. What sort of monster would kill that?

    He was just a damn kid, and he didn't deserve to die.