I AM FUCKING THRILLED TO FINALLY BE ABLE TO PRESENT YOU WITH THIS LONG-DELAYED CHAPTER. ENJOY, MOTHERFUCKERS.
"Yeah, no problem." Zack Evans says, carefully ruffling his dark shaggy hair. His green eyes keep flickering to my face, and it's no wonder. Even for a first time meeting someone you're bound to look. But with someone with a face as noticeable as mine now is? It's hard not to, even if you've been around me for a while. Somehow Toby manages to not gawk at my face like everyone else has taken to, despite being around me 24/7.
"Oh, thank you." says Toby, squeezing my hand very gently in reassurance.
I stare down at the floor, criticizing the one little blood splatter that is my fault at my feet. Revolting. How does anyone stand to be around me?
"No, thank you, that was hilarious, do it again next week?"
"Tomorrow, if you want," I say, "If I don't sicken you too much."
"No, no, of course not!" he says, even though I give a wry smile. Toby even wraps an arm around me and tightens it.
"Okay. Tomorrow, then," Toby says, questioningly, and Zack nods.
"BABE, GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE NOW OR I'M GOING TO CHANGE 'VodkaCommandoGaming' TO 'ILoveToDropTheSoap'!"
This is accompanied by a loud honk from the dark blue car outside, and I have to smile and admire Zack's girlfriend - and flatmate.
"Oh, shit, gotta go," he says as he bolts out the door, a warm breeze dancing into the house, much to my discomfort. "See ya tomorrow!"
Toby yells out a farewell and closes the door, sealing the hot outside and the cold inside. I ignore the rev of the engine outside and the sound of the car pulling out of our driveway and instead touch my hand lightly to my belly.
"I'm hungry," I say, and skip around to the kitchen, rummaging through cupboards.
"Will you be able to keep anything down?" asks Toby, looking doubtful, as he follows in after me.
"Probably not, but I'm going to need the extra strength tonight, aren't I?"
Toby grimaces, and says, "Yeah, I guess. What've we got?"
"Really big dicks," I say, and Toby rolls his eyes and clarifies, "What's in the cupboard and fridge?"
"Oh," I say, deflating, but quickly notice some of this weird 'Milo' cereal stuff that tastes like magic. I pull it out of the cupboard and grin.
It's like this chocolate stuff, but from some weird Australian brand. I like it.
"Cereal? In the afternoon?" he asks cryptically, raising an eyebrow.
"Why the fuck not," I shrug, and then demand he fetch me a bowl.
I stare at his back whilst he reaches up and opens the cupboard, pulling out a white china bowl. The pale grey fabric stretches over his lean back in an oddly appealing way.
But the lack of blood on his clothing disturbs me, and the fact that it disturbs me, disturbs me even more.
I prance about to the fridge, happily opening it. Fridges make me happy, always have, always will. 'Beauty is on the inside' has never been truer.
The cold air trapped in the fridge swirls outwards and I stand, pleased at the coldness.
"The milk...?" I mutter, trying to find where it's hiding. "Gotcha," the sneaky bastard was hiding next to some Red Bull.
I whirl around with the milk bottle and grin.
"I found the milk," I say cheerfully, and Toby smiles, uncertainly.
I trot to the table (after I've found a spoon) and eat it with a decided cautiousness.
Toby doesn't eat, but he watches me somewhat curiously.
"Does it taste weird, or something?" he asks, scraping the chair on the other side of the table backwards to sit on.
He folds his arms over each other and lean his head on them.
"Kinda," I shrug. A small frown flickers on Toby's face.
"What?" I ask.
"What?" he asks, bewildered.
"Why're you looking at me that way?" I specify.
He takes a while to reply, as if trying to pick his words carefully.
"I don't... want you to get... hurt." he sees my un-impressed look and adds on, "More. I don't want you to get hurt more."
This is about tonight. We're doing it, we're actually going to do it; we're going to go back up the farm and somehow fix this. We've got a plan, a sort of loose one, but there is one at least.
Our plan of action is to creep up to the farm, disable the man somehow, get the women outside, and call the police. It's very risky, of course, but we're prepared to do it. Funny thing is, our main concern is almost identical; the other getting hurt. I don't want Toby marred, and he doesn't want me completely ruined. I glance up at him as I continue to eat my way through the bowl of cereal- it's almost gone, and I feel like acid is foaming up in the back of my throat. I'd rather keep this down, so I swallow, somewhat painfully, and Toby's weird small frown-y face comes back.
"We'll be fine." I attempt to re-assure, reaching over the table to touch the tips of my fingers to the back of his hand. He turns his palm up and ends up holding my hand.
"I don't care about me being fine." he says, his voice level and even, his hazel eyes very serious and intense.
"I do." I say, and to my surprise he tries to suppress a smile and lets me move my hand away.
I frown at him, confused, but let it pass. For now.
"Stop." Juliet commands, her back as straight as an arrow. She's sitting very stiffly in the car seat, her face set like stone. I've never seen her so serious.
"Is it here?" I ask, deciding to keep the keys in the ignition in case we need to get away fast. Juliet nods, her short, curly mess of pale hair going across her face. Her working eye looks at me somewhat nervously. Her scarred skin is white under the red and pinks lines.
"We can do this," I assure her, reaching for her hand.
"I know we can." She gives me a wan half smile, and I squeeze her hand before we get out of the car.
Long, tall trees line the almost empty highway, and Juliet leads me past these to the gravel that marks off as a driveway.
Juliet ghosts past me and opens the metal gate, ordering me to push the right one as far back as it can go while she does it with the left. She lightly makes her way across the long gravel driveway to meet up with me on the right side, and at my questioning look, she says, "So either the women can escape a bit quicker or so that the police won't be slowed down."
I nod.
The sky is dark, dark gray. Any light that the stars could've given us it exstinquished by the clouds moving across the sky. A summer storm.
Juliet's small hand slips into mine, and I look down at her.
Her large eyes are wide, one startling purple and looking directly into my eyes, and the other looking like it's been bleached and keeps twitching closed. It's clear she's fighting for it to stay open. I wonder if she can see anything from it. It doesn't look like it's punctured through her pupil. I wish I had forced her to go to the hospital instead of letting her stay at home when she begged me.
"Let's go." I say, and she bobs her head and lets go of my hand, walking fast ahead of me.
I can barely see where we're going, it's that dark. Juliet stops every minute, listening, hard, and then we keep moving.
After a while, when we stop, I hear what she's straining to hear, too. Screams.
"What're those?" I ask, though I know, obviously.
"Sounds like Sylvia," says Juliet, looking up at me briefly.
"Sylvia? The snake woman?" I try and recall. Juliet had run me through the basics as I drove; Lucinda, blonde, pale eyes, sweet and short, Sylvia, tall and strong, hissing voice, always coiled for attack, like a snake. Nameless Woman, tangled brown hair and screams at random intervals, talks to self, hard to have conversation with. Taylor, dirty, straight blonde hair, knows us, scars less defined than others'. And, not least - black eyes, reddish hair, tall and muscular.
I wonder how successful Juliet and I'll be.
"Yeah, her cuts are all jagged and sharp. He cut into us all differently, Luce's are kinda curling and gentle. If that makes any sense."
"It does, I think." I say, eyeing her intricate scars. I'm not sure whether they're more like her basic description of Sylvia's, or Lucinda's.
"Good. Let's keep moving," Juliet says, and we keep moving.
As we near the barn, a shadow of red and brown with golden light spilling out of the large square that is the door, Juliet reaches back and clamps her hand in mine. I don't let her go.
We move quieter and slower. Juliet's hand is trembling, the tremors probably running down her arm. I'm willing to bet that the rest of her is shaking, too.
We creep quickly to the wall, and we both press ourselves flat against it as we listen.
But not before I caught a glimpse of the inside of the barn. My stomach curls in over itself, my throat feels like it's sticking together.
I try to ignore the fact that I just saw two dead girls stuck to the walls like Jesus on the cross, but decaying and dead and covered in cuts and one with no eyes and the other with no lips.
"Definitely Sylvia," Juliet mutters, disturbed, to herself.
Now that we're so close, the splintery wood pressing through my shirt into my back, I can hear all sorts of sounds under Sylvia's shrieks.
Rustling of hay. Uneasy murmurs. Heavy breathing.
"What now?" I mouth to Juliet, and she gives me an unsure look before whispering, "Wait until he's done."
"Wait until he's done hurting Sylvia?"
"She's used to it. And I don't want him jabbing her eye out." Juliet mutters, slightly reproachful, as she presses her ear to the outside barn again.
I get her logic; if we barge in now, we'll shock him, which could be good. But he could end up damaging Sylvia or someone else more if we jump him while he's in the middle of that... torture.
"Wait until he comes out. Then, um, Toby. You restrain him..." Juliet looks up at me. I don't get why she's looking at me that way until I realize she's concerned that I may get hurt. Or worse.
"I can do that. I'll be fine. You just have to get them out and run into the house," I tell her, unconsciously lifting my hand to hold her face.
"Okay."
We couldn't bring our mobiles, because there's no reception. I checked in the car. They were useless to bring with us.
Suddenly, Sylvia's screams cut off into strained breathing, and I hear a deep chuckle that belongs to no woman. I shuffle in front of Juliet, pushing her behind me despite her quiet protest.
We wait.
The crackle of hay comes closer, as well as the man's loud breathing. He chuckles a bit more and I see the edge of a black, cracked boot appear at the opening. I press myself flat against the wall. Another crunch, and he's in full view, oblivious to Juliet and I standing here.
His hair is reddish, and clustered in curls on his head. His thin lips are in a straight line in his strong, thick jaw. His eyes are as black as Juliet said. As he clenches his fists and looks to the right- not the left, where Juliet and I are- the muscles in his arms pop out.
I brace myself. Now or never.
As he turns to look our way, I leap forward and tackle him down. Surprise is on my advantage; we both thud on the ground, gravel digging into my forearms, and I hear shrieks, whether they be the women's or Juliet's isn't my concern right now.
The man's yell reverberates through his large chest and he starts fighting back instantly. I feel a whip of air over my ankle as Juliet quickly hops over it and then my head is knocked back at the crushing impact of the man's fist.
I hear a crunching sound from behind me, and a noise from Toby, but I don't look back. I'm too afraid to.
Luce, whose wide grey eyes had been locked on Toby and the man in horror, springs to her feet at the sight of me, her pale hair falling in a thin curtain around her hollowed out face.
"Juliet!" she cries, rushing forward, the grey material wrapped tightly around her middle fraying at the bottom.
The hale bale she was sitting infront of rustles and Taylor rushes from behind it, fresh cuts under her eyes making it look like she's been weeping blood. She managed to find materials to tie around her chest and bottom half. Her ribs stick out, angry pink and red lines smudged around her.
Sylvia groans from the cutting corner, and I whip around. Her skin is being stained crimsom, and she looks as though about to faint. I feel my own blood flee from my face. There's so much blood...
"You need to get everyone out," I rush, turning back to Luce. Taylor glances, horrorfied, at Toby and the man at my next words. "Toby's dealing with him, but..."
Luce nods, her mouth shut tight, brows furrowed sternly in determination.
"Don't worry," she says, before turning away and yelling, "Everyone! Get out! Go down to the gates! Now, go!"
A woman with tangled blonde hair shoves past me, her brown eyes wide, hay caught in her hair. The women are fleeing, rushing past Toby and the man with no regard, no second glance apart from that first terrified look of a gazelle caught in headlights before they continue to sprint.
"Go!" Lucinda yells, rushing to Sylvia. Sylvia's short dark brown hair is matted to her sticky red forehead, her sharp, narrow eyes closed. Her eyebrow and corner of her mouth twitch constantly. Her eyes flicker open and she hisses, "Fucking go!"
I whip around and run out, trying not to look at the man or Toby. I don't want to know.
I flee to the right, towards the house. The grass crackles under my feet and helps tune out the sound of Toby and the man fighting. I don't want to distinquish their grunts and the sounds of their fists hitting eachother. I'm scared of who might be winning.
The house is smaller than I realized. My footsteps falter and I only have a split second of panic at the thought of what if he locked the door before the brass doorknob twists easily in my palm and the door swings open.
I stumble into the house, out of the overly hot wind and first warm rain drops, and am momentarily disoriented.
I'm not sure how I imagined the inside of his house, maybe with blood and entrails smeared over the walls and floors, more dead bodies, a certain hopeless, nightmarish look and feel to it, like the barn, but it's clean. There's a faded rug on the floor. A couch. A dark wood bookshelf. A closer look at the books on the smooth shelves reveal titles about the human anatomy and things that look like they belong in a doctor's study, not a cozy lounge room with a fireplace and walls and floors made of wood and stone, with the curtains drawn back from thick square windows being peppered with the beginnings of a heavy downpour.
I wonder if the wife I had not, and will never, meet was in the medical profession like Mandy-Renee, too.
I turn away from the bookshelf, and head towards the first door I see when the lack of a phone in this room becomes apparent.
I have to tug on the door really hard to get it to open, and when I do, I wish I'd given up and gone for the other one.
The smell of death that plurges through the doorway makes me want to vomit, and when I see what's at the bottom of the staircase, there's nothing I can do to stop the burning contents of my stomach from coming out onto the flagstones.
I almost sink to my knees in the doorway but I can't bear to look at the two dead, decomposing women who lay gutted at the foot of the staircase. I scramble backwards and shut the door, slamming it hard and then leaning against it for support. I still have bile burning in my throat as I remember the first one's tumbleweed grey hair and wrinkled, white face and the shocked look on the second's face, which was plastered with blood and her brown matted hair. The younger woman must've been his wife. The older one, his mother.
I stand up shakily and move to the other door. This one opens easier and holds no apparent horrific sights, just the clean white of a kitchen, a polished wooden table with a white table cloth and shelves, but I take care to keep my eyes from the jars on the top of the cabinets that look like they've all red jam in them.
I choke out a sigh of relief as I see the phone.
My trembling fingers fumble with it as I punch in the police number.
"9-1-1, what's your emergency?" the calm, collected voice of a woman asks, too slow and relaxed for my liking. I wonder if she even understands the garbled, frantic speech that next tumbles out of my mouth, and if when I pause and vomit again, if that gives her enough time to decipher it.
When she tells me the police are on their way, and to find somewhere to hide and remain calm, I drop the phone and run back outside.
I almost slide on the wet grass, as I give out a small gasp of pain as the rain stings my arms and face.
I hear a yell and I realize that Toby and the man aren't fighting outside the barn anymore. The only person I can see is ... Sylvia. Her face is almost white, her threadbare clothing dark red, her clawed, blood-stained fingers raking uselessly into the dirt and mud she's sitting on. Her dark, slanted eyes slide to the side and I realize that I hadn't noticed the huddled heap on the ground. Dark crimson stains the earth around her. I don't recognize the back of her head or the cuts on her thin, dark arms and legs.
"The police," Sylvia struggles out, and her voice sounds truly like a snake had learned a whisper of English, it's so quiet, sharp and hissy. "They're...?"
"Coming. And an ambulance."
She barely nods.
I'm afraid she's dead, too, but I can't stop and care for her, instead I bolt into the barn, my heart hammering the inside of my chest painfully hard.
"Toby!"
The man's on top, pining Toby down by his throat and a knife clenched in his raised hand.
As Toby hears my shriek, he struggles and the knife misses his chest, instead diving into his forearm. Red spurts out as Toby yanks it out, and I hear the loud, ringing sound of police sirens.
I hear the sound of Toby yelling, "No!" and I meet his panicked eyes for one split second before I feel something tear into my stomach, hot, sticky stuff coating the cold iron blade before it's wrenched back out and stabbed in again.
I cover the two gaping holes in my abdomen with my hands, pressing down hard, as Toby tears the man away from me.
I curl up against the wall and the last thing I see before blackness engulfs me is Toby's fist smashing against the man's face accompanied by the sound of cars screeching to a halt outside.
Juliet shakes uncontrollably, and I can't do anything but hold her tighter in my lap. Her face is sleek with mud, rain and blood but I don't move away when she presses it against my shirt, I just make sure the shock blanket wrapped tightly around her shuts out most of the rain from her trembling body. Thunder cracks in the distance, a bolt of lightning forks behind a horizon of tall, thin trees.
Sylvia didn't make it.
Cohan had cut too deep and she died of blood loss before the paramedics arrived. I can only be thankful that they weren't too late for Juliet.
The wound wrapped in tight white gauze that's soaking up the scarlet on my forearm is nothing, absoloutely nothing.
Though Juliet complains, I'm glad for the stitches in her stomach that lay hidden under a thicker bandage than mine, glad that the paramedics tended to her before turning to Sylvia's crumpled form. It's been moved from the outside of the barn wall, and I have Juliet turned away from the gurney covered in the white blanket under which Sylvia lay.
A figure that looks like Death she's so pale ghosts up to me, reaches out a hand and touches Juliet's forehead. I stare at her hand. Her fingers are almost transparent, apart from the curling red lines adorning them.
"They found five more dead," Luce whispers, and I'm not sure if she's talking to me or Juliet. "They passed out from blood loss, too, while trying to run away."
"How many of you were there?" I can't help but ask, though I'm torn by wondering if she will take offence.
"24, including Juliet. Now only 18 are still alive."
Six. Six poor, tortured woman dead in one night.
I hear a cluster of yells coming from the direction of the house and a man rush out of the door and vomit. Luce looks frightened.
"What's in there?"
"Wife and mother, bottom of basement steps... Gutted. Decomposing." Juliet breathes, "And there were jars in the kitchen. Lots. Had... red stuff in them. Didn't look," she shudders. "Didn't want to know."
"It's okay, babe." I pull Juliet closer, rest my chin on top of her head. Juliet wraps her arms around my middle, and I can barely feel her heartbeat. It's like a hummingbird's, fast and small. "It's okay now."
"Can we go home now?" she asks, quietly. She's tired.
"Yeah. Let's go."
We somehow sneak past the abundance of police cars and ambulances and walk along the long gravel drive together in relative silence.
Nervousness bites around my stomach.
"Um, Juliet?"
She stops in her strangely silent tread and looks up at me.
"Um, Toby?" She asks somewhat coyly.
No backing out of it now.
"I, uhm..."
"Uhmmm?"
Fuck, Toby, aren't you supposed to be a man?
"I was wondering if, uh..."
"Once I wondered why it didn't rain pepperoni. I was on so much medication. I think that was at the hospital."
I manage to laugh. Only she'd think of raining pepperoni with that brilliant labyrinth inside her head.
"Anyway, you seem nervous... C'mon, Toby. You know you can tell me anything. I love you." Hearing her telling me these three words gives me the push I need.
"Juliet." I'm not sure how to do this. What if I screw up? What if she says no? What if I say it all wrong? I try to swallow these negative thoughts and I take her hands in mine. She looks up at me, her face looking amused but confused.
"Toby?" she asks.
"I got this while I was away." I let go of one of her hands, reach into my jacket pocket. She looks at the small, navy blue box in slight confusion. "It's yours."
I pass it to her and she opens it with a sense of bemusement.
"It's a..." Her voice trails off in surprise.
"Juliet, will you marry me?" I feel breathless and dizzy.
"I..." She looks stunned. Her eyes are locked onto mine. Well, eye. It doesn't matter.
"Yes." Her face breaks out into a grin. "Yes!" she throws her arms around me and it doesn't matter that they're so light I can barely feel them, that we're both dirty and filthy, or that we just experienced something terrible.
All that matters is us.
_
Thank you guys so much for waiting so long! I'm sorry, I've been getting sidetracked by literally everything, and I know that's no excuse but here it is.
Make sure to follow, favourite and make DOUBLY SURE to review and I'll try to get the next chapter out sometime soon!
Love you guys. xx 3