Bridger Page 8

  “I mean, why would I be in the way of them doing their job? And what is their job when you’re not here? What do they do when they’re not making sure you don’t get kidnapped in the middle of the night when you decide to go on a random hike? Didn't Tess say they were security guards? And the other thing is, Liam was telling me how all the folklore from Ireland was true. He acted like he really believed it.”

  Jamie’s head snapped in my direction. “What folklore?”

  “You know, the stuff Memaw has always talked about. Fairies and goblins and whatnot.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “I don’t know, not really. It seems like a bunch of urban legends. I mean, he talked about these things called Changelings and how they’d taken his brother, Aiden. I think he’s just really confused and upset about losing Aiden. He’s just not handling it well.” Talking about it was not helping my mood. I punted the rock Jamie had been kicking across a fence into a yard.

  Jamie breathed a sigh of relief and laughed. “There for a second I thought we were gonna have to institutionalize you,” she motioned to the lawn the rock had flown into. “You know, you could replace the field goal kicker for the football team. That was pretty good.”

  Grinning, I shook my head. “I think I’ll keep my pursuits to music and being able to eat more than anyone else in the entire world.”

  “If you could do both at the same time, you might be onto something. You could be a sideshow act,” Jamie said, slowing down.

  Matching her pace, I lifted my eyes to the horizon. “We really need to get back. It’s getting late.”

  “Want to stop by the convenience store and grab some snacks? We could go by the pool hall as well; they’re close to each other over this next hill…” Jamie left the offer hanging.

  In all honesty, the pool hall didn’t sound the least bit fun. “We can stop and get some snacks, but I don’t want to hang out with any creepers.”

  Jamie puckered her lips into a pout. “They’re not creepers, but fine.”

  We grabbed some identifiable snacks at the convenience store and then continued on our way home. Jamie eyed the pool hall with sadness as we passed. The loud ruckus coming from inside did nothing to convince me it was somewhere to spend any amount of time. I pulled Jamie along. She finally gave up and returned to our previous conversation.

  “You know Ash, I don’t think Liam is up to anything good. It seems like him and Jesse are trying to get in between us.”

  I was instantly defensive. “What are you talking about? They’re family.”

  “Oh, so you’re drooling over your relation?” She teased, rolling her eyes.

  “You know what I mean.”

  The guys couldn’t be up to anything bad. I wholeheartedly believed they were just looking out for our best interests, which was tough to do when Jamie was running all over town at midnight. The trip across the countryside started to seem a bit foolish; wasn’t that the kind of stuff Memaw had warned me against? We were lucky nothing had happened. Tess was probably worried sick at this point.

  A black truck slowed as it neared us, an old man sticking his head out of the driver’s window. He looked older than time itself, his skin layered and translucent. I could see half the veins in his face and his eyes were sunken in, his eyelids drooping over them like a basset hound.

  As I tried to figure out how he could even see out of his eyelids to drive, Jamie squealed in delight. She ran to the window as if she’d known the old man forever. “Andy! How are you?”

  Andy? Who was Andy? Trying to figure out how Jamie could know Father Time, I stood in place, apprehensive about the situation. This just seemed too weird. It felt like the temperature had dropped fifteen degrees since Andy had pulled up. The guy gave me the creeps for some reason. Nervous, I played with the pendant on Memaw’s necklace through my shirt. It was still as cold as ever, even after being against my skin all day.

  Jamie introduced us. “Ash, this is Andy. We played pool together last night.”

  Andy didn’t seem to fit the bill of a person Jamie would play pool with. Actually, he didn’t fit any bill of Jamie’s. She was no Mother Theresa and she definitely didn’t hang out in old folks’ homes back in the States. I nodded, waving to the man out of common courtesy. He nodded back, smiling as though he had just won the lottery by Jamie showing up.

  His smile revealed many missing teeth. The ones that remained didn’t look like they’d been brushed in a long, long time. “Do you ladies need a ride?”

  “Oh, that’d be great,” sang Jamie, hopping into the bed of the truck. “We’re only about three miles down the road, on the left. It’s a little cottage. You can’t miss it.”

  She was settling into the back, which meant there was no hope of turning down this gesture from the strange man. I sighed and used the tire as a ladder in. Still uncomfortable with this arrangement, I sat on the corner of the bed, not completely getting in. Jamie noticed and called me on it.

  “He’s not a rapist, Ash.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “It’s only three miles,” she whined.

  “It’s fine. We need to get back, anyway,” I said, holding onto the edges of the bed. “Let’s go.”

  Jamie began our previous conversation yet again. She wasn’t going to let this go. “But, like I was saying, there’s something fishy about the guys. I just think it’s odd they’re all about stalking me and keeping you out of the way. That sounds like horror movie material. I mean what are they expecting, a serial killer to come after us?”

  She was mixing up all of my words, jumbling them into a different order. However, when she put it that way, she had a point. I wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. It seemed like everyone had a secret they were keeping except for her. I was glad to have one person I could confide in and trust.

  “We should go play pool tonight with Andy,” she said as we came around the bend and the Walsh’s house came into sight.

  I was going to listen to Memaw and stay with the guys and Tess. It wasn’t a hard promise to keep. I enjoyed their presence, even if we had gotten in an argument that morning. “No, Jamie, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Groaning, Jamie caught sight of Desmond and Issac walking down the driveway. “Well, that complicates things. Andy…” she said, a cautionary call for him to slow down.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  As we neared the driveway, I tensed my legs in preparation to jump out of the truck bed. Instead of slowing down, Andy accelerated. At the sound of the tires squealing against the pavement, Desmond looked away from Issac. Issac’s head snapped up, following the source of his brother’s attention. His face turned white.

  It all happened very fast.

  Desmond yelled at the house. Jesse, Liam, and Tess sprinted out, looking for the source of the commotion. Confused by what could have freaked Desmond out, I looked past Jamie. Did the old man fall asleep at the wheel? Did the engine catch fire? Were we on a collision course with a giant meteor?

  None of those things had happened. It was worse. Much worse.

  Sucking in a shocked breath, I began to scream.

  Where Jamie once sat was someone – something - I had never seen in my life.

  Skin tinged green, hair in mossy snarls and flying in all directions was what moments ago had been my blonde-haired friend. She was still pixie-like in size, but her venomous glare and sudden growth of fangs took away every aspect of a Barbie that she once had. Instead, she was closer to a glorious version of the swamp thing. Still beautiful, yet completely horrifying, she moved toward me like a hunter cornering its prey. She grinned. I swallowed convulsively. For some reason I didn’t think this version of Jamie wanted to have a slumber party or paint each other’s toenails. No, this Jamie was deadly. Mom and Memaw would have to write my obituary. This wasn’t going to end well.

  Jamie lunged forward suddenly with her clawed hands extended. I fell off the back of the truck bed in an attempt to get away. I
nstead of hitting the ground, I was hanging upside down. My head was six inches from the ground, looking under the body of the truck. Mud from the tires filled my mouth and covered my face. Still moving down the road, I tried to figure out why I hadn’t hit the ground. That’s about the time my possessed best friend began pulling me back into the bed of the speeding truck.

  Choking on mud, I kicked the air blindly with my free leg. Jamie continued to reel me back into the bed, so I grabbed the bumper of the truck in an attempt to hold her at bay. On the third wild kick, I connected with something hard and heard a screech.

  “Ashlyn, you can make this easy, or difficult. All I wanted to do was go play pool!” Jamie screeched crazily. She pulled at my leg, digging her talon-like fingernails into my skin, anchoring herself physically to me. I cried out in pain and let go of the bumper in shock. Flipping in the air, Jamie slung me back into the truck. All the air was knocked out of me as I crashed back down into the truck bed.

  I found myself looking up at the darkening sky. Suddenly it was no longer there. Jamie had eclipsed the now purple sky. Her grin was filled with what looked like moss between her fangs. She lifted her hand and sneered, looking as though she was going to slap me across the face. Her face changed from sadistic pleasure to shock. “Your eyes…” she stuttered, eyes widening. “Ankou, her eyes…are you sure - ”

  “Don’t worry about her eyes, Jamie! Yes, I’m sure! Grab her now and get her in the cab before the Protectors come!”

  Ankou? Isn’t that who Liam had mentioned yesterday? Protectors? Had I missed something? What was I talking about; of course I’d missed something. My best friend had been a psycho, green pixie for the better half of two years. Most people might have noticed that. At this point I had probably missed a lot of things. Scrambling back from Jamie in her moment of bewilderment, I hit my head against something in the corner of the bed.

  A crowbar came across my forehead, which left me seeing stars. The stitches in my head from the last accident pulled apart. The side of my head was quickly being covered in blood. No time to think. There had to be something I could do. Racking my brain, all that came to mind was a self-defense show I’d seen on TV.

  Right as Jamie brought her face down to mine, I remembered seeing the victim ram the palm of their hand into the assailant’s nose. Hoping it would be as effective as it looked on the show, I mimicked the action. Connecting with Jamie’s nose, there was an audible crack. Screaming in pain and fury, Jamie fell backward as Andy slammed on the brakes. Jamie lost her balance and slammed into the cab. Holding onto the back of the truck to avoid sliding into Jamie, the crowbar began to slide toward her. I stopped it with my foot and kicked it back up to my hands. Taking aim, I slung it at Jamie, hoping it would connect with her head. She jumped deftly out of the way, catching the crowbar in mid-flight. She grinned. “That wasn’t so smart, mortal. Now you have no weapon, and you’ve really pissed me off.”

  She was right. I was totally screwed. Opening my mouth to scream, she brought the crowbar down across my chest with inhuman strength. No pain could compare to this. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. She had to have broken ribs.

  “I missed the chance to kill you last week, but I won’t fail again now, Ashlyn.”

  My mind reeled at her comment. When had she tried to kill me last week? Hadn’t we spent the better part of the week together? Then I recognized her mossy hair from somewhere.

  When I had been taking Chris back to the house, moss had floated to the top of the water in the pond where Dad died. Only, it hadn’t been moss. It had been Jamie. Chris was right. There had been something lurking under the water. It hadn’t been the Loch Ness Monster, though. It was much more dangerous than that. It had been my best friend.

  “You…you killed my dad?!?"

  “You were very much the target, love. Then, when I tried to kill you at Reese’s house, he just had to know you had an EPI pen.”

  This wasn’t making any sense. She’d tried to kill me not once, but twice, in the same day. If my best friend was capable of this, I really hated to know what the guy in the front of the truck was willing to do.

  She rapped the cab of the truck before she began to approach me again. “My Lord, I think we can go home now.”

  Home? She’d mentioned home before. She’d been talking to this maniac since we first got here. She had planned this all along.

  Wherever ‘home’ was for her, it was a pretty good bet I wasn’t going to like it. The truck accelerated again, the force pushing me against the truck bed wall once more. Jamie lost her balance momentarily from the sudden jolt. The only option was to somehow get out of the vehicle before she was back on top of me. I pulled myself over the side of the bed with the last of my energy. I prayed Jamie wouldn’t react quickly enough.

  I felt her claw at my ankles once, but this time surprise was on my side. The truck continued to barrel down the road. My face connected with the mud. My nose cracked. Hearing her shriek of outrage, Ankou screeched to a halt once more. I looked up soon enough to see Jamie hurtling herself out of the bed of the truck, flying towards me. Ankou spun the truck around, coming to a stop to face me. He looked out of the windshield with hungry eyes, waiting on Jamie to finish her job.

  So dead. I was so dead.

  In my brief moment before death, there was no flash before my eyes. All that was there was Jamie’s triumphant smile. No one would ever believe I was flayed alive by a mossy-toothed, sophomore cheerleader. That was a tabloid cover if I’d ever heard of one: “Fairborn High School Cheerleader Turns Into Swamp Thing.” Cue the movie deals.

  Appearing out of nowhere, Jesse and Liam came between Jamie and I. Jamie hurtled into Liam, limbs thrashing in all directions. Jesse leapt on top of the writhing mess, but there was no way to tell who was winning. Everyone was yelling. I curled up in a ball, just waiting on Jamie to come finish me off. God, I was an easy target. I’d better be Rambo woman or something in the next life.

  Tess was close behind the two men who were keeping Jamie at bay. She scooped me up in her arms and turned to sprint the opposite direction. Desmond and Issac came charging forward, each gripping daggers in their hands.

  Daggers not unlike the ones the chained men had wielded in my dream on Christmas.

  Desmond yelled at Tess. He threw his dagger at an unseen target from this vantage point. Whoever it was meant for, I hoped it hit its mark. “Get her out of here, Tess!”

  As Tess turned back toward the house, I was facing the brawl.

  Jamie had Liam pinned to the ground. He was bleeding from his head. Jesse was running toward the front of the truck to head off Andy, Ankou, or whoever the heck was in there. What he thought the old man was capable of, I wasn’t sure. Anything was possible, though.

  Tess held me tighter against her body to stop me from whipping around like a rag doll. “It’s all right Ash, we’ve got you. It’s all right.”

  All right? She had to be kidding. How was any of this all right? There couldn’t possibly be anything any further from the definition of the word. Everything was spinning.

  I was dizzy from the loss of blood. Groaning, I retched, throwing up all over the both of us. She didn’t even miss a beat in her stride as I slipped quickly into hysterics. Too busy escaping from the emerging war zone, Tess had no words of consolation. She simply held me closer. She pressed my bleeding head against her chest to stem the blood flow and my screams. I passed out.

  * * *

  Opening my eyes slowly, I was afraid to look around. Were any limbs missing? I silently willed each of them to move to make sure the crucial members were still attached. Legs? Check. Arms? Check. Head? I sure hoped so.

  Someone squeezed my hand. Reacting instinctively, the ensuing scream could have broken windows.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay, we’ve got you,” the voice said. “You’re fine, you’re fine. You’re okay.”

  I struggled to get away from whoever it was. My body was tangled in the sheets. Pushing as far away as poss
ible, I connected with the wall. My nose cracked in protest once more, my eyes instantly watering.

  Rolling back over to see if Jamie was really going to finish the job this time, instead I stared into the eyes of a very startled Liam. This brought on a new onslaught of tears. “You weren’t making the stories up. It’s real, isn’t it?”

  In a flash he was by my side in the bed. He cradled me against his chest. It was calming to be there; it felt like home. This frustrated me even more. Why was I so content to be in someone’s arms who didn’t want me the way I wanted them? Maybe I was a glutton for punishment. Maybe I was masochistic. Whatever it was, there would be retribution to pay for this little piece of enjoyment later when Liam left.

  “You’re all right,” he said in a hushed, clipped voice.

  “What...happened?” Unable to form a more coherent sentence, hopefully that question would cover the entire ordeal that had just happened.

  He didn’t answer. Pulling away from him, I sat up. A wave of nausea washed over me. “Woah,” I managed before having to lie back down.

  There was a woman’s voice. It must be Tess. “Don’t move if you don’t have to. You hit your head pretty hard.”

  Tess stood in the doorway. Closing my eyes, I knew I was safe with her nearby. “Tess…”

  Tess’s large frame pulled down the edge of the bed. She began rubbing my back, comforting me as though she were my own mother. “It’s okay sweetie, we got you. They aren’t going to hurt you.”

  Asking the question for a second time, this time it was aimed toward Tess. “What just happened?”

  Jesse and the rest of the guys filled the room. Laughing, Desmond plopped down at the foot of the bed. “Nothing just happened. You slept while we took care of the problem,” he said, chuckling as he fist bumped with Issac who looked just as smug.

  Liam laughed, pulling my head back to his chest. “I wouldn’t exactly call screaming bloody murder and spewing on Mum sleeping.”