Dangerous Romance Club
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Kitty’s hands were shaking, and her legs wobbled with each step she took. She could feel the heat of the fire burning in her belly as she stepped over a log; the flames had spread quickly through the dry branches and pine needles covering the forest floor.
The ground was soft under her feet but covered in dead leaves, so there was little purchase for her heels to sink into. If it weren’t for the thick layer of smoke and ash above her head, Kitty might have been able to walk much faster. Instead, she walked on tiptoes just to make sure she didn’t slip in the dark. She could still hear the roar of the fire roaring up from below.
Kitty was out here, all alone. And now that it was too late, she realized how foolish she’d been not only to go outside like this when her mother wasn’t home yet but also to go off by herself in the first place. But she’d been excited about meeting some new friends…
She stopped abruptly as she looked ahead of her and saw an open door, its glass was broken and the wood surrounding it blackened. There had once been a house standing where Kitty stood now, and it must have taken quite a bit to knock the whole thing down. Now there was just this gaping hole leading inside to what seemed to be the center of the blaze itself.
“It can’t possibly be that easy,” Kitty said to herself, turning away from the doorway. “You’re just being mean, Mother Nature.” Then Kitty remembered the last words that had passed between them.
Mother nature is never nice to us, Kitty, I’ve told you that already.
And then she heard another sound coming from behind her—not a scream or a cry of alarm, but rather a whimper, followed by a heavy thud as if something big fell. It sounded as though whoever or whatever hit the earth was hurt, and now they would be moving around in an effort to get back to their feet.
Kitty didn’t know anything about wolves, but she knew she had no hope against such a formidable opponent if one chose to attack her. The best she could do was hide, and maybe run, if she had enough warning that someone or something was headed straight for her.
So, instead of following her instinct and running for cover, she kept walking toward the flames and smoke, searching in every direction for signs of movement. When there weren’t any more sounds or scents nearby, she turned slowly towards the door and stared at the broken window.
She had to force her eyes shut because everything else she saw was too terrifying. Her heart pounded wildly against her ribs as she forced herself to take slow and steady steps. She wanted to yell out a warning but thought better of it when she noticed there were no other people in sight.
If anyone else was in this area, it was probably too dangerous to call out to them right now, even if it was for help.
Then suddenly, she caught sight of the silhouette of a body lying motionless on the forest floor near her left foot. There was a large pool of blood spreading around it, and the smell of burned flesh filled her nose.
“Oh my god,” Kitty gasped, taking several steps backward until she slammed up against the edge of a tree trunk. As soon as the wind blew up, the stench of burnt hair and flesh began to fill her lungs again.
She coughed violently and covered her mouth with both hands as tears streamed down her face. “God damn it! No!” Kitty screamed out as loud as she could. “I won’t let anyone else die for me today! Do you think you can scare me? Do your worst, Mother Nature! Bring it on!”
Kitty felt like an idiot, but she had no choice but to stare hard at the charred remains of whatever lay before her and imagine that it was really him. She’d come so far…
But he wasn’t alone…
She saw another figure beside her, sprawled out in a similar manner, except the person didn’t move either. Kitty’s heart pounded heavily as she watched them closely. Both of their faces had been singed by the heat, and she was afraid to touch either of them or try to see who it might be.
What if she accidentally crushed their skull or poked at them in the wrong way, only making them suffer more than they already were?
“No…” Kitty whispered through gritted teeth as she knelt next to the person on the ground. He had no pulse, but she couldn’t tell if he was breathing. “Come on, Mr. C.”
The man on the ground had long dark hair, almost like the kind of locks that Johnny Depp sported in the movie Blow. His eyes were closed, his cheeks were flushed from having breathed in so much smoke, and his clothes were smoldering where the fire hadn’t reached them yet.
Kitty tried desperately to wake him up, but all she got was a faint moan. It was too soon to give up hope, but there was only so much that she could do by herself. She looked back to find something she could use to put the fire out, but there wasn’t anything close enough, and besides which, she wouldn’t risk doing anything that might further damage their wounds. She had to keep them alive…
Kitty started crying again, knowing how weak and helpless she’d been when confronted by her mother’s killer. She couldn’t go back home to safety without first seeing these two people safely buried.
They were innocent victims like herself, and she was the only one who could make sure they went somewhere peaceful in peace. She had no idea what they’d done to deserve getting caught in this terrible mess, but she couldn’t abandon them. This time, her mother was dead for real. If there was any chance of saving them, it was going to be because she did something about it now.
“What happened here?” she asked aloud, trying to focus on the task at hand rather than the fear-driven panic that was threatening to overtake her. “How many of us are still alive?”
There was no answer, so she crawled over to the person on the ground who wasn’t breathing. She grabbed one of their arms gently by the wrist to try and pull him onto his back, then laid him out flat across her lap so that she could feel for a pulse. She pressed firmly on his neck and listened intently to see if he was breathing, but nothing came.
Suddenly, Kitty remembered how she used to hold her father’s hands when she was just little and how comforting it was. She took off his wedding ring and put it carefully inside her pocket, then placed both palms over his forehead with her thumbs touching the center of each of his temples.
“Mr. C, please breathe,” she whispered as softly as possible into his ear. The smell of his charred clothing was overpowering, and she knew that he wasn’t in good shape at all. She wished she could have saved him, but all she could do was watch over him.
A shadow passed overhead, and Kitty flinched as she thought that she heard the sound of wings coming closer. Then she froze in terror as the silhouette landed directly above her. It was the giant crow that she’d seen earlier, and its head tilted down so that she could clearly see it peering down at her with glowing red eyes.
It spoke to her, though her voice was so low and raspy that she hardly dared believe what she’d heard.
“You know, Kitty? You’re not nearly as scary as you think you are.”
***
He didn’t look like himself.
His eyes were open wide, and his mouth was hanging open. His face had swollen severely, turning his features unrecognizable, but he seemed more alert somehow. She wondered if he was still in pain from the burns, or maybe the smoke had made his lungs so full of fluid that he was drowning. It would take a while before she could even attempt to determine his injuries.
Kitty held him tightly in her arms until she found the right words to say.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to die. No matter what happened, I wish you could have lived.”
After several seconds of silence, Kitty noticed that her words brought tears to her own eyes. But she couldn’t stop now. There was something inside of her saying that she needed to keep going, telling her that the person lying on top of her wasn’t actually dying after all.
“Please, Mr. C, don’t leave me here alone with nothing but this awful nightmare left behind.” Her breath was beginning to catch, and she felt lightheaded. She had to stop for just a moment, taking another deep breath to regain control of her breathing. “Do you remember what I told you about the first time we met?”
She waited patiently for an answer, but none came.
“Are you asleep? Did you hear my voice and just can’t speak for whatever reason?” She tried to sit up so that she could see his expression, but it was impossible to lift him without hurting herself. “Well, it doesn’t really matter which one of those possibilities is true.
All I need you to understand is that I’ve got to finish talking. So please listen very closely to what I’m about to say. You won’t have much time once you wake up.”
She turned her head slightly, listening carefully for signs of life. He wasn’t breathing anymore, and neither was he moving, but she was certain he’d heard her and understood the message she was sending.
“The night you died was the last time I saw you as yourself. The next thing you’ll see will be your guardian angel. That’s where he always takes you when he flies away, and that’s also why we never stay here long enough to let anyone else see you.”
Kitty paused for several seconds, feeling the tears streaming down her cheeks again. “We must go. I don’t want to leave you, but it’s already too late for us to escape through this hole in space-time.”
With great effort, she pushed herself off her knees, then stood to place Mr. C’s body on the floor. It took considerable strength to move him at all, as he weighed considerably more than usual. She pulled his arm across her shoulders in order to brace her against the weight, and together they staggered outside.
Once on her feet, she realized how difficult it was for her to walk in the sand. Even though there should only have been a slight breeze blowing from the south, the sand carried tiny grains of grit that were being kicked up by her boots.
As a result, every step became harder and more exhausting with each passing minute. She could no longer avoid thinking that it had to have happened just like Mr. C said: The world was coming to an end, and Kitty and Mr. C would soon be dead.
But that still didn’t explain the way things appeared to be changing. At least she was finally able to tell that it was night again—though whether it had just begun or if she’d been walking around in the dark was hard to say.
But the clouds were gone, and the moon shone brightly over everything, illuminating the desert as though the sky had opened up. The stars glowed brilliantly overhead, and Kitty was almost sure that the moonlight shining between them meant that she was standing on top of a mountain peak.
And yet she continued to notice a sense of unbelievability whenever she looked back at the cave, seeing nothing more than a pile of rubble and a few scattered rocks.
Kitty had hoped that Mr. C would return with the answer, but he hadn’t even shown up yet, leaving her to figure out the rest of her story on her own. And with no choice at all, she began to run down the slope to reach the valley floor below.
***
It didn’t take her very long to find a suitable place to build a fire. There had been some bushes near the entrance to the cave, and she’d found a few large stones nearby that might provide a decent foundation.
As soon as the flames rose high, Kitty began searching through the brush for kindling wood. She knew she needed dry branches, so she gathered several handfuls of twigs before returning to the fire. She used the sharp knife to cut several sticks into short pieces, placing them beside the flame where they caught quickly and burned well, creating plenty of smoke to give their hiding place away.
When Kitty was satisfied that she had enough wood to make her fire last for a while, she pulled Mr. C’s body onto its side, then rolled her over until she could see his face better.
The wound that had killed him had torn right through his forehead, causing massive loss of blood and brain matter. The damage made it impossible for Mr. C to recover any part of himself, despite the fact that Kitty was certain that there remained some spark of humanity left inside him.
Kitty held the blanket in front of her friend’s head, covering all three parts of his skull and keeping them warm. She placed a wet cloth over his brow and pressed gently to hold in heat as she tried to comfort him the best she could. She knew it was pointless to hope that he could ever regain consciousness, but she did her best to keep his spirits high anyway.
After a few minutes, however, she became aware of something wrong with one of Mr. C’s eyes, which refused to close properly as though it were stuck open. His eye was wide open and dilated; he couldn’t blink and seemed to be staring straight ahead without blinking, but there was no pupil whatsoever. It was as though his iris was gone.
Kitty had never seen anything like this before. If it were possible to die of fright, she thought she might do just that because she didn’t understand what she was looking at.
She reached to touch Mr. C’s leg, hoping to feel the warmth that might indicate that he was still alive and aware somehow, but it came back cold and lifeless. Then, as she turned his body to get a better look at his other leg, she noticed that one of his feet was missing completely, and there was absolutely no sign of a toe or foot anywhere.
She’d only seen two toes before, and now both had simply disappeared.
Kitty felt faint and sick to her stomach. Her knees buckled, and she sank to the ground, trying to force herself not to throw up. For a moment she considered crawling away and letting her fear take over, but she was unable to let go. Instead, she grabbed onto the blanket, using it as a pillow to cover her head, and waited for Mr. C to show up, to prove to her that she wasn’t going crazy.
But nothing changed, and after a few moments, Kitty forced herself to sit back up. He wouldn’t have died for no reason. Someone had taken a blade to him.
Kitty stood slowly, holding Mr. C’s head tight against her chest with one hand as she searched frantically for a weapon. When she returned to the fire, she saw that she’d already lost most of her hair during the fire, and she realized that the flames must have melted all of her clothes away—along with everything else besides Mr. C’s head.
That was when Kitty decided she couldn’t live like this any longer.
For the first time since her ordeal started, she allowed the full scope of her fears to come out into the open. She imagined herself alone and defenseless in an unknown location surrounded by predators, who could strike at any time, and she trembled, wishing that someone would rescue her from such misery.
She wanted someone to help her survive, and if there was no one around, then maybe she could kill something instead. She could eat something, then hide somewhere safe until night came again. But it seemed too late for that, and even if there was something to eat nearby, Kitty didn’t want to change her life on it.
Instead, she looked down at the dead man sitting in front of her and wondered how she could possibly carry him back to the cave in the middle of the woods, especially considering how much weight she’d lost.
She put Mr. C back on his back and pushed him up onto her shoulder, then she staggered over to the nearest boulder and climbed it, leaning her weight against it and resting her arm across its top so that she could use it for leverage as she pulled up a small piece of bark from the tree below it.
She used the stick to dig into the sand near the base of the boulder to get rid of dirt, then she wrapped it tightly around her waist with the end of the rope that Mr. C had given her earlier.
Once she felt confident that the knot was secure and would stay fast, she tied the ends together behind her waist, looped one end of the cord over one of Mr. C’s legs, and then attached the other end to the opposite ankle.
As soon as she’d got one foot secured, she moved to pull up the second leg, but it came loose from under her almost immediately.
“Shit,” she said and jumped back down. “Damn it.”
Kitty had barely begun her ascent when she heard footsteps approaching on the other side of the boulder, and she turned to see who was coming toward her. As soon as she saw the woman’s face, her heart began beating wildly once more and she froze in place, unable to make a sound.
The young girl was short, probably ten years old, but she was very attractive, with long black hair, pale skin, and large brown eyes. A white dress covered her body, except for her bare feet and arms; she had a necklace around her throat with three gold bracelets dangling down beside the collar of her blouse.
And although she was smiling happily as she approached, Kitty noticed that the woman’s left eyebrow was slightly higher than her right, causing them to appear uneven.
This was no human woman, and as the child came closer, she saw that her mouth was sewn shut. Kitty knew that if she tried to scream, she would just pass out, and then the girl would tear off her face.
So, instead, she took hold of Mr. C’s head in both hands and held it tight against her chest so she wouldn’t be able to move, either way, hoping desperately that she could think of some kind of defense. The girl’s attention fell on Mr. C’s head, and Kitty saw that her eyes had gone wide with fright. Then she turned and ran back into the woods, screaming as loud as she could.
The End