We sat in a booth in the empty café, waiting impatiently. I glanced up at the clock on the wall.
“They should be back by now.” I looked around the table at the other three. They looked more concerned that I did. Even the girl who started this all.
“What was their dare?” I asked her.
She didn’t move. She just stared at her pedicured hands.
The empty cafe felt hollow. Jill’s dad, who owned the place, left us the keys to lock up. It was already past midnight.
The second hand ticked against the silence until Zoe turned on music from her iphone. Viva La Gloria – Little Girl, by Green Day blared from her hands.
“Music, Zoe? Seriously?” I glared.
“What? Would you prefer that I had played Happy by Never Shout Never?”
I just rolled my eyes and looked back at the door. The darkness of the night seemed to melt through it.
I slammed my fist into the table. “What was their dare?”
All three of them jumped at the sound of the table, rattled by my fists. Before she could answer, the glass door burst open, the ‘closed’ sign banging hard, flipping around, the warm, salty ocean air breezing through the café. We expected both to return. We had set out in pairs. We should have all returned in pairs.
But there she was. Alone. The British flag tank top she had borrowed from me last week tattered, torn, hanging off one shoulder. Her white shorts stained red. Her legs muddy, a long bloody scratch stretching down her thigh. Her feet bare.
“Becca, where are your sandals?” Zoe asked.
I glanced across the table and gave her a you’re seriously asking her where her sandals are? look.
“Something…” Becca stammered, hanging onto the door handle. She paused, looking around but not seeing us. She looked confused. Like she didn’t know where she was or who we were.
“Something wicked…” she faltered again.
“What is it, Becca?” I asked, standing.
“It’s…it’s something wicked,” she answered, looking up into my eyes, like that was enough. Like she didn’t understand why we were just standing there and not running away to save our souls.
“Wicked..” she stammered again, and then collapsed onto the café floor.
YOU ARE READING
Don't Speak
Teen Fiction6 high school girls on a game of dare set out in pairs. Only 5 return and the one who was paired with her returns in tattered, bloody clothes without a clear memory of the events that unfolded. Finding her brings them to a village deep in the woods...
