Angered Seasons: Volume Four (I Will Survive) (3 page)

Lane went to stand by him. “I’m sorry. We walked into
a trap. I…” He cleared his throat. “He tripped. There were too
many…”

Shawn closed his eyes, his entire body shaking.

“Shawn?” I could tell by the fear in Jenny’s voice
she already knew what she was about to find out. She ran to her
brother and wrapped her arms around him, her tears soaking into his
t-shirt.

Jason and Grant moved by them as quietly as possible
with the struggling Yellow Eye.

Jenny’s hand flew to her mouth at the sight of her.
“She’s just a baby.” She wiped the tears from her face though not
fast enough to dry the ones still flowing down her cheeks. Her eyes
found Max’s who was staring, shocked, at the child.

He turned his attention to Jenny. “Jenn… I’m sorry.
About Robby.”

She shook her head. “It’s not your fault.” She
attempted to stop her tears once again. “Terra needs to be stopped,
Max.” She gestured toward the house as Grant, Jason, and the girl
disappeared inside. “This needs to end,” she whispered.

Max nodded and walked into the house. A few moments
later, Jason and Grant were back outside.

“Maxy says to stay out here for a bit.” Jason was
frowning.

Grant ran a hand through his hair. “He says to stay
out of the house no matter what happens.”

“Holy fuck!” Pete pointed to the house and we all
gawked at the silver light filling all of the main floor windows.
It disappeared for a few seconds then started up again.

The silver retreated slightly and a yellow wave of
light pushed against it.

“Dude!” Granted glanced at Lane. “Maybe we should go
in.”

Lane was already walking toward the house. “Max!” He
grabbed the handle and swore. “Maxy, unlock the door!”

Silver and yellow mixed and danced, the light coming
out into the air around us. I took a step back involuntarily.

“Lane! Get away from the house!”

The light pulsed and I ran to stand behind the truck.
“Lane!”

Yellow seemed to push over the silver before being
completely engulf in one final silver pulse. We stared, unsure of
what to do next.

The front door opened to reveal Max carrying the
little girl, her head resting on his shoulder. I ran to them and
brushed her hair back from her face. Crystal blue eyes blinked at
me through dirt encrusted lashes.

“Jenny, can you get a glass of water? Grant, um…
crackers. Something light. If we’re out of crackers then a piece of
bread. Jason, we’ll need to fill the tub. Can you start heating
some water?” Everyone scurried away to get things done. “Hey,
sweety. My name’s Gabby. What’s your name?”

“Taylor.” I barely heard her whisper.

“Alright, Taylor. Can you tell me how old you
are?”

She nodded shyly. “Eight.”

Jenny appeared with a glass of water and some whole
wheat crackers. “Grant went to help Jason.”

Max sat on the step and Taylor wiggled so she was
sitting beside him.

“Try to drink slowly, alright, honey?” Jenny handed
her the glass of water. Taylor closed her eyes in pure delight as
the first sip of water ran down her throat. She took a few big
gulps then took a couple of crackers. One cautious nibble was
followed by another.

I dreaded asking her, but the next question had to be
asked. “Do you remember anything, Taylor?”

Tears streaked down her dirty cheeks. She nodded.
“Everything. I fell asleep. When I woke up, my mom was screaming.
My dad…” She choked back a sob and put the crackers down. “I ran
and hid in the tree house. Some people found me and everything
seemed like it was going to be okay.”

Max put his arm around her and gave her a
squeeze.

“But then one day, I fell asleep and when I woke up,
I was stuck.” She buried her face in her arms but kept talking. “I
was still me, but I wasn’t. I did things I didn’t want to..” She
ran off the step and puked up the little bit of water and crackers
she’d had.

I knelt beside her, rubbing her back. “Ssshhhh. It’s
okay, sweety. It wasn’t you. You’re not the one who did that.”

“Sometimes… sometimes, I almost made myself
stop.”

I thought back to the Yellow Eye who had hesitated at
the sight of my gun pointed at his chest. He’d known I was going to
shoot him. He’d known he’d been about to die but the sprite had
managed to override his better judgment and he’d come at me anyway.
I felt the bile rising. All of those people we’d killed…

Lane knelt beside us, his eyes wide.

“They were still people,” I whispered before running
to hide behind the truck as I heaved up everything I’d had to eat
that day. When I returned, I looked from one pale face to another.
The realization of what we’d done had us all shocked into
silence.

“Come have a bath, Taylor.” I decided the best way to
deal for the time being was to do something else. I showed her the
bathroom and where shampoo, conditioner, soap, and toothpaste were.
“Hand me your clothes when you’re undressed and I’ll get them
cleaned up.”

She nodded as she closed the door between us.

“Why don’t you give them to me, Gabby.” Marie took
the clothes from me as they came through the crack in the door. “I
have a couple pairs of pants I can take in. I’ll use hers as a
model for size. She shouldn’t wear these again.”

“I’ll go grab a couple of mine you can convert,
too.”

I waited until I heard the water splashing before
heading off to my room to find some clothes for Taylor.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Gabby?” There was a soft knock in the darkness. “Are
you sleeping?”

I sat up in bed and lit the candle on the night
stand. “Taylor. Are you okay?”

“I… I can’t sleep.”

I smiled, not surprised. After her bath, she’d slept
for over twenty four hours, only getting up once to have a drink of
water and go to the bathroom.

Lane rubbed his hands over his face. “What’s wrong?”
he asked sleepily.

“Nothing.” I kissed him softly. “Go back to
sleep.”

Taylor and I made our way into the living room where
I stoked the fire so I could boil some water for tea.

“Are you having bad dreams?” I sat beside Tay and
both of us stared into the flames.

She shook her head. “No. I thought I would, but
no.”

“Well, that’s good.” I got up, took the last two bags
of chamomile tea out of the box, and added water to the cups.

“I’m scared that if I fall asleep, it will happen
again.” Her voice trembled.

“It won’t happen.”

“How do you know?”

I smiled. “We have Maxy. If he could get the sprite
out of you, you can be damn sure that now that you’re here with us,
not one of them is going to try and show its face again.” I tried
to sound confident thought it had occurred to me that now that her
sprite was free, it might go back to Terra and tell her where we
were.

“I thought you said Max killed it.”

“Right. See, I thought he had, but Max isn’t sure if
he killed it or if he sent it back to its own realm.” There really
was no point in lying. The girl had been through hell and back.
Though she might be young, she wasn’t stupid.

“And Max is going to save us?” She took a sip of her
tea, cringed, and blew on it.

“That’s the plan.” While she’d been asleep, another
Yellow Eye had wandered near the farm. Grant and Jason, who’d been
out hunting at the time, had managed to bring it back to the house
in one piece. Silver and yellow light flashes later, we’d welcomed
a mid-forties woman named Kathrine to our group. It was now her
turn to sleep off the exhaustion.

“And he’s going to do that by getting rid of all the…
the Yellow Eyes?” Taylor tried her tea again, smiled, and took a
bigger sip.

I nooded. “When he’s strong enough, he’ll try to stop
this completely by killing his brother, Glade. He’s the one in
charge of the sprites.”

“You know, if this was a movie, it would be awesome.”
She smiled.

“Fucking zombie apocalypse.” I squeezed my lips shut.
“Sorry.”

“I agree. Fucking zombie apocalypse.”

Though every adult bone in my body wanted to tell her
not to swear, I started to laugh. The girl had earned to right to
say a couple of ‘fucks’.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Trick or Treat!”

I turned to Shawn and laughed at the confusion on his
face. Pete was grinning as he stood and went to the door. He leaned
up against the frame to reveal Taylor and Jenny. They’d somehow
managed to piece together two pirate costumes and were now standing
on the porch, their bags spread open and waiting for treats.

“Trick.” Pete stuck his tongue out at the girls.

Taylor gazed at him wearily. “What kind of
trick?”

“Well, sing, of course.”

Taylor looked at Jenny who grinned.

“Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something
good to eat…”

“Ok, ok. Good enough. God, I hate that song.” He
looked back to Marie who was giggling. “Do we even have any
candy?”

“Hang on.” She disappeared into their then reappeared
with a pack of Menthos. “Sorry, girls, that’s all we’ve got left
that resembles candy.” She split the pack in two and dropped it in
the pillow cases.

Jenny and Taylor laughed as they came back into the
house. Jenny took hers out and tossed one to Pete and Shawn while
Taylor shared hers with Marie, Lane, and me. I bit into mine,
loving the minty taste.

“Where were you hiding these?” I asked Marie.

She smiled. “In one of the hidden compartments in the
diaper bag. I completely forgot about them until just now.”

“Man, I can’t believe it’s the end of October
already.” I sighed and leaned against Lane. “So long as we don’t
come off this farm, it’s almost easy to pretend life isn’t fucked
up.”

Max came down the stairs and shook his head at out
questioning glances. “He didn’t make it.”

We’d managed to find another lone Yellow Eye not far
from the farm and Max had taken care of sending the sprite back to
its own realm. Unfortunately, the man had been too starved and
dehydrated to survive being freed.

Jenny handed something to him and he stared at it
silently for a moment.

“Is that a Menthos?”

She smiled. “You tried your best, Max.”

“Yeah. I know. I just wish I could have saved him.”
He placed the candy in his mouth and closed his eyes. “I wish I
could find a way to save all of them.”

Jenny stood on her tip toes and kissed him softly.
“You will.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“What do you figure, Maxy?” I watched as Jenny and
Jason helped the newest recovered Yellow Eye off of the ground by
the barn. The man blubbered and sobbed but no tears came out. The
fact that he couldn’t stand by himself wasn’t a good sign. Of the
six Max had freed, Taylor and Kathrine were the only two who had
survived. Kathrine kept to herself most of the time and had decided
that laundry was her chore to do.

Max shook his head. “I think this one’s worse off
than the last one. Fuck!” He ran his hands over his face. “I don’t
understand why I can’t fix them!”

Jenny put a hand on his arm and he relaxed. “Come on.
I’ll go make some tea.”

He raised an eyebrow. “If you’re talking about those
weeds you put in the pot the other day, I’ll pass.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “They weren’t weeds.
They were mint leaves I found in the cupboard.”

“Well, either way. Man, I’d kill for a fucking cup of
coffee right now.”

I nodded. “I agree.”

“Maybe we should make a trip to town.” Shawn flinched
under Jenny’s glare. “Jenny, we’re going to have to go back there
eventually.”

Instead of arguing, his sister walked off toward the
horses who were grazing nearby.

I pulled at my tank top. “Good god. What month are we
again? Are we still December?” I knew it was after the twenty-fifth
because we’d managed to shoot a couple of ducks and had them for
Christmas supper.

“January tenth.” He pressed his lips to my forehead.
“Time flies when you’re having fun, eh? Come on. We’ll go in the
house. It’ll be cooler in there.” He glanced up at the sky in the
west. “I think we’re about to get dumped on.”

The clouds rolling in were phenomenal. I hadn’t seen
them move like that since our last showdown with Glade and Terra. I
looked back to the house, suddenly uneasy.

“Let’s go get the house ready, just in case.”

He nodded.

Grant and Jason were already boarding up the windows
when we got indoors.

Jason glanced up. “Shawn’s bringing all the guns and
ammo up from the basement.”

Taylor’s eyes widened. “What’s happening?”

“It’s probably nothing, Tay. We just need to get
ready.” I gave her a hug.

We all jumped at the knock on the door.

“Who is it?” Lane grabbed his rifle and aimed it at
the door.

“It is I.”

Shawn swung open the door and Time walked into the
house, not a bit bothered by the fact he had a gun aimed at his
chest. His silver eyes met Max’s.

“I have to say, I’m impressed. Staying hidden from me
is one thing, but managing to slip under your mother’s radar, now
that is another feat entirely.”

Max frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’ve managed to cloak yourself. I should
be able to feel where you are, but I can’t. And this,” he gestured
at the living room, “may be the most genius of hiding places. Who
would thing you would actually stay where you’d already been known
to be?”

“Um, Time, dude?” Grant held up his hand like he was
in school. “If he’s so brilliant and is managing to hide, then how
did you find us?”

“I had to ask a few dozen, but finally the dogs
decided to tell me where you were.” His eyes narrowed and focused
on Brat who was staring him down. “It seems your attitude has
filtered down to them.”

Max raised an eyebrow. “My attitude?”

“Your distrust.”

Max grunted. “Oh, I’m very trusting. I trust these
guys.” He spread his arms out to include everyone in the room. “I
trust those who have earned it. You have not.” He leaned back
against the wall. “Why are you here?”