There's no rush of darkness that washes over her like ice water, no deep voice that doesn't belong to her, but the Chens remember. All it takes is her stepping out in front of the grownups to have them freezing in place for an instant, analyzing and listening to the threatening hiss from Eve. They scatter back into the tunnel like the Devil is nipping at their heels and Dominic is looking down at Taylor like she's Rosie Cotton dancing with ribbons in her hair.
"What? I'm freakin' awesome."
"Yeah, you are." He smacks a hand down on her shoulder, giving it a slight shake. "Let's get the hell out of here and find the others." They're almost twenty feet inside when they realize Shelby isn't following, standing just outside the tunnel with a determined set to her jaw. Taylor knows the expression, but it used to mean her aunt's going to chug three cans of Red Bull in order to finish a term paper. "Shel, what are you doin'? Come on."
"No," she says, shaking her head. "Someone needs to stay behind and keep those assholes distracted. Get Taylor out of here." Taylor goes to lunge for her aunt in the same instant the older woman slams the door shut, Dominic catching the eight year old around her waist and tugging her further down the tunnel.
"No," she screams, thrashing against Dominic's hold. "No, I need her! I need my Shel!" Dominic doesn't say anything, just settles her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and keeps walking. "Let me down! I have to go—" She makes a gut-punched sound as white hot pain lances through her chest, knocking the air right out of her.
"Taylor? Are you okay?" She can't answer, can't do anything except heave her chest and try to breathe. Oh God, I can't breathe. I'm gonna die. She doesn't even register the fact that Dominic's laid her on the damp earth until he's rubbing a hand over her chest, pressing and massaging until the pain fades to a dull throb. "What the fuck was that?"
"Shelby…." Taylor's voice is hoarse, her throat sore as she sucks in deep breaths. She can't finish the sentence, can't force it out into the open and make it real, but Dominic seems to understand. Shelby's dead. She's lying in a puddle of blood next to Matt and something inside of Taylor seethes. "I need my daddy. I gotta see him."
"Alright, I'm gonna take you to him. Come on, girl." He helps her up, fisting a hand in the back of her shirt to keep her steady. It's comforting, she's always been tactile.
The next twenty minutes seem to stretch on for an eternity, but then they're out in the fresh air and Cricket's waiting for them dead ahead. He looks almost decadent in his black suit, but he's frowning like they've just stomped all over his grave.
"What the hell are you thinking, coming out in these woods," he demands, banging his cane against the dirt. "It's dangerous out here!"
"Only if you draw attention our way," Dominic rasps. "How about you shut the hell up and help us find her daddy." Cricket rakes his eyes up and down Dominic's body and Taylor shudders in disgust, affection like that still awful in her mind.
"They're half a mile along the path, heading back this way. I give 'em fifteen minutes if they hustle." He stares over his shoulder and there's a dry tilt to his lips that sets Taylor on edge. "Course, I doubt they'll be hurrying much considering Lee's got a chunk carved out of her thigh."
"They've been with the Polks," Taylor realizes. "Man, talk about traumatizing. Those people tried to make me eat Elias the last time I saw them." Cricket snorts, eyeing Dominic again. It's beginning to get annoying and she might say something when she doesn't feel like someone's just punched her in the breastbone. There's a rustle and then Lee, Audrey, and Nico come bursting out of the trees at a near sprint, Lee hauled up against Nico's side. "Daddy!" She jumps forward, wrapping her arms tight around his waist with her face in his belly.
"Oh, my baby," he gasps, dropping to his knees to hug her. "I was so worried."
"Aunt Shelby…. An-and Uncle Matt…." She can't force the words out past the lump in her throat. "We can't go back in the house."
"So we'll go in the cellar for the night. Why not? Elias lived in there for God knows how long." He picks her up despite the fact that she's too old for that now, Dominic moving to support Lee and following after them.
Taylor's never actually been in the cellar before, she's seen it on TV and eavesdropped on the stories Matt and Nico passed back and forth, but none of that prepared her for the earthy smell and leftover rot. It's a distinct smell, musty like old mothballs that have been forgotten in a closet all summer.
The wood table has collapsed at some point, a pile of rubble at the back of the cellar. The shelving is still up, though, the nails rusted and poking out of the wood at odd angles bound to give someone tetanus. Overhead, roots grow through the ceiling in intervals, thin and spidery and pale in the dark.
"Anyone got a light?"
"Yeah," Nico answers. There's a rustle of fabric and then a match is struck to life, Nico pressing the head of it against the dry wick of an old oil lamp. The globe of it is cracked along the edge, but it gives off enough light without being obvious and the oil has a sweet smell that covers the less pleasant ones.
Lee collapses against one of the walls, sliding to the floor with a pained moan and clutching at her bloody thigh. Someone's tied a tourniquet just above it, but the jeans have been cut off one leg and the pink of muscle is visible among the mess of blood and loose skin.
"Alright, so we'll stay down here for the night and then we'll hike back to town."
"No, we'll go to that farm," Lee says, breathing hard. "It's closer than town and they have a truck. Nico can hotwire it."
"That was one time and you promised not to bring it up again."
"I also promised not to teach your daughter how to pick a lock." He sends Taylor a sharp look and she smartly glances away, more interested in her bare toes and the bright pink polish that gleams in the flickering light. "We're going to the farm and we'll grab Monet while we're there."
"You're staying here with Taylor when we go."
"Like hell I am!"
"You're not leaving me alone again," Taylor argues, stamping her foot. "Every time you do, something bad happens!" Nico heaves a sigh, running his fingers through his hair. It's already messy and there are brown leaves caught in it, making him look like Mowgli or even Tarzan. "I'm going," she says, softer now. "I can't be left here again, Daddy. I just can't." Tears sting her eyes as they gather, blurring her daddy's face. "You can't leave. Please don't do that.
"Alright, Princess," he soothes, kneeling down and cupping one of her cheeks. "It's alright, I'm not leaving you. Not ever again."
"You can't change the future, Princess. You just have to keep a good head on your shoulders because he's going to need our support."
Taylor jolts upright with a strangled sound, hands going to her hair and pulling almost viciously until someone is untangling them. The sentence from her nightmare hangs in the air like a physical presence, ready to fall on her head like a ton of bricks. She doesn't understand what the woman in her dream was talking about, couldn't untangle all those images that go blurry around the edges when she wakes up.
"Were you having a nightmare," Audrey asks, keeping a loose grasp on Taylor's wrists. Taylor nods, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "I've found talking about them can help in the long run. Just getting them out in the open where they can't hurt you."
"They can hurt me. This one is gonna come true." And that scares the bejeezus out of her, the idea of that awful hellscape being real; the hazy fog that chokes the life out of people, the blue-black wings of crows as they fly past a dark red sun that hangs low in the sky. It makes her wonder if she really wants to survive the Blood Moon, what the point is in continuing to live when it's all just going to end in ruin.
"It always feels like that at first."
"No, this is different. It's the same dream since I was four years old and nobody understands it. My therapist just thinks I'm suppressing things but she's wrong. All of you are wrong." Her hands jerk as she tries to bury them in her hair again, but Audrey holds on tight. There could be bruises later, bracelets of red and blue and yellow, but she doesn't care. A few bruises are nothing compared to what might happen if they don't make it out before the moon rises.
"Listen to me, dreams cannot hurt you. You are a strong young woman and you will survive everything. I watched an actress playing you for six months and you're a brave little girl." Taylor shakes her head, but she relaxes her arms and Audrey lets go after a moment longer. "You are safe and we are going to get out of here."
"What time is it," Nico asks, rubbing his hand over his face. There's stubble along his jaw from three days of not shaving and there's some gray sprinkled through it.
"Almost noon. It seems we all slept in." He groans and sits up, some of his hair hanging over his forehead. He's grown it out in the last year, now it curls around his ears and allows him some anonymity when he does his grocery shopping. "Do you think we should wake the others?"
"Yeah, best to get a move on." He and Audrey move to the other two sleeping in a huddle nearby, Dominic coming awake with a jerk until he realizes he's relatively safe. "How you feeling, Lee?"
"Like someone turned part of my leg into jerky and pickled my ear," she grumbles. "Audrey, do you have anything for the pain?"
"Yeah, I've got some Oxy in my bag," she says. "Dom, you wanna be my backup?" He nods and stands up, letting her go up the ladder first before following her. Taylor leans back against the wall, staring down at her hands in her lap. When the actors come back ten minutes later, they each have a bag thrown over their shoulders. "We brought some clothes for everyone."
"That's great," Nico says, genuinely meaning it. "Thank you." Nico and Dom take a change of clothes back outside while the girls get dressed in the dim light from the oil lamp. Taylor changes out of her dirty nightgown and into a pair of jeans and a black top with #Selfie printed on it in bold green letters. She pulls on her wellies and straightens her ponytail before settling on the ground again, Eve draped around her neck.
"Is everyone ready?"
"As ready as I can be," Lee tells her. There are some grunted curses as Audrey helps Lee to stand up, but they make it to the ladder and the men help her up into the open. Taylor's the last one out of the cellar, her daddy's ruined coat settled around her shoulders and giving her some protection from the cold. "Let's get this over with."
The walk to the farmhouse took them three hours last time, Taylor remembers every single step, but it takes almost twice that long this time around since Lee can only do a fast hobble. The sun is low in the sky when they make it to the property line, the group crouching behind some half-dead bushes.
"There's the truck," Nico says, pointing. It's the same one from two years ago, the back window covered with a plastic sheet. Someone died in there, someone was murdered. "Dom, go with Audrey and Lee to find Monet. I'll see if I can't hotwire the damn truck."
"What about me," Taylor asks as the others hurry away from them.
"You're gonna be my lookout." He takes her hand and they make a break for the rusted old pickup, staying low in case one of the hillbillies comes out. "Crawl under the truck and tell me if you see one of those hillbillies." She nods and drops to her belly, army crawling her way beneath the truck and barely fitting. It sits low to the ground and stinks of gasoline, but hopefully it won't take her daddy long to get it started.
She's so busy scanning the buildings that she doesn't notice anything going on behind her until someone's got her ankle and is yanking her out from under the truck, the gravel rough against her cheek and palms. She turns onto her back and kicks as hard as she can, the round hillbilly jerking his hand back with a grunt of pain. Next to her, Nico is clutching at his side and trying to stay upright as blood absorbs into the gray cotton of his shirt.
"Hey, asshole," Lee shouts, holding up a small camcorder. "Smile for the camera!" The hillbilly does smile, baring broken teeth and gaps, and then he pushes Nico out of his way and climbs into the cab.
"You killed Mama," he calls out the window. "Now they're gonna kill y'all!" He pulls out in a shower of gravel that has Taylor flinching away, arms up to cover her face.
"Shit, Nico!" Taylor glances at her daddy again, not liking how gray his face is or the way he can't seem to focus on anything for long. He keeps pressure on the wound, though, and the knife is still there. Taylor read somewhere that's a good thing. "Audrey, we got company!" Torches can be seen through the gaps in the trees, the Blood Moon full in the sky like a beacon.
"Lee, what do I do," she asks, the threads around her heart too tight. It's constricting, like someone's squeezing and not letting go. "How do I make him better?"
"You don't. It's too late for your daddy." She grabs at Taylor's arm, but the girl breaks out of her hold and crouches over her daddy. "We have to go!"
"Leave me alone!" The rush of darkness hits her like a train, driving Lee back a good five feet. Her skin is cold and tingling as the power rushes through her, heartbeat a loud drumming in her ears that drowns out all other noise. She watches as Lee turns tail and runs into the forest, the colonists following after her and completely missing the pair on the ground.
The power doesn't rush out of her all at once this time, it clings like a second skin, leaving her clammy and shaking afterwards. She's breathing hard as she lays over her daddy, his stubble scratching her cheek and his breath coming out as white vapor. She vaguely recalls Audrey, Dominic, and Monet running past them at some point, seeing the blood and assuming the worst without stopping to mourn.
Let them go. Let them run away and die, but Taylor won't.
She stays crouched in the open for hours, not noticing the time passing by until faint trickles of daylight began to warm her face. She sits up, eyes red and swollen and those threads around her heart finally, finally, calm again. They're gonna make it. The Blood Moon is sinking.
"Look, Daddy! It's almost daytime." He manages a weak smile in response, his hand loosely gripping hers where it's rested over his chest. "We're gonna be okay." She brushes the hair off his face, smoothing it down into something more respectable.
"Vile…." She looks over her shoulder, brows creasing as Lee stumbles towards her. "Vile…."
"Lee, are you okay?" The older woman doesn't say anything, stare blank as she shambles past the weed-choked driveway. The dappled sunlight glints off something lower down and Taylor's eyes widen when she sees the bloody cleaver in Lee's hand, fingers tight around it and slick with mess. "What are you doing?"
"Have to cleanse the land."
"Lee?" She stops in front of them, swaying back and forth and mumbling to herself before flicking her gaze down to them. She looks totally out of her mind, eyes glazed over and lips chapped from a night in the woods. She glances at the cleaver, raising it up so that the viscera catches the watery sunlight before bringing it down in one hard motion that has warm blood splattering across Taylor's face.
And Taylor screams.