Authors Note / Disclaimer: See Part 1.
"Catch!" The group of five teens sat around the TV, not watching it but in their own groups doing what they wanted. The two girls gibbered away about the new foreign exchange student Ian, while the three guys played catch with a misplaced football.
"Hey Cy, Catch!" Not listening, Cy twirled her raven hair while listening to her blonde BF Keira. But the ball was thrown anyway.
CRASH
One of the boys jumped up, his chin length dirty blonde hair swinging in front of his bright blue eyes.
"Aw, man! Look at my mom's TV!" As they were the ones sitting closest to the TV, Cyane and Keira had already jumped up yelling and dancing about trying to escape the fiery sparks.
"Oh, sorry Jack, I was aiming for Cy's head."
Cy, going to comfort her long time best friend and now boyfriend, sat on his lap and turned towards the perpetrator, "And that, Ronnie, is why you're a defensive lineman, not a quarterback!"
Keira, fanatically defensive of her boyfriend, jumped up and started stroking his long brown locks, "Well, he's the best Jefferson High has ever seen!"
"Go Wolves!" shouted the third boy enthusiastically waving his arms around, his blonde streaked mane flying everywhere in his wavy, below the shoulder cut.
"Alex, we know you're proud of your new position as team mascot, but that better be the last cheer I hear tonight or you'll be 'hoora-ing' an octave higher," Cy said while badly mimicking Alex. Alex quickly sat down holding his hands protectively in his lap.
"Well, what are we gonna do?" asked Ronnie.
"We could head over to Anna's. She has a new one of those projector-thingies, so the TV is like huge," Keira answered practically molded into Ronnie's side.
"To Anna's it is!" Cy says, raising a pointed finger towards the door.
"But my mom's TV!" Jack was practically hysterical.
"Out the door, now." Cy said waving her arm madly.
"One can obviously see who wears the pants in that relationship. OW!" Alex's snide remark was cut short with the door snapping closed in his face.
"Don't let the door hit you on the way out!" They filed into an SUV parked in the driveway and headed down the main street until they reached the turn off for Anna's street. They saw the red and blue lights as soon as they turned the corner.
Parked no more than a house away, the group slowly got out of the car, their usual jovial nature missing as they looked upon the horror of their best friend's house. When they saw the black body sized bags being lifted out on gurneys, Keira and Cyane started sobbing.
Alex, looking away when an arm slung out of one of the bags, displaying huge gashes from forearm to shoulder, saw a pair of figures not far from them, conversing quickly. He recognized the taller of the two. "Ian! What are you doing here? What's happened?"
Ian looked much older than he had earlier today in school, a look of sadness marring his natural carefree appearance. "Anna's house was attacked by a group of animals of some sort. Everyone's dead." Alex blanched to a sickly shade of white.
"What about…"
"Anna and I went out after school, but she had a lab report due tomorrow, so we planned to meet up later. She must have got home late because she's okay. She's not here, but she's okay." Ian said with a distant look, his thick English accent deepening.
"Not here? Where is she? The hospital, the police station…" Alex was relieved his friend was alive, but not as much as he would be if she had been here in front of him.
"I was just talking to the last person to see her. Alex this is Janet Reis, an EMT who was one of the first people here. She said that Anna was unconscious and being carried away by a doctor who was a relative of hers."
"Michael is home?" Alex hoped to what ever power was out there that it was Michael.
"No. It wasn't Michael. It was someone else."
"Where did they go? I mean did someone get the license plate?"
"She's safe, don't worry. The person who was with her said that she was bringing her somewhere she was going to be comfortable so she could grieve properly," Janet said, speaking for the first time.
"The cabin, they must have gone to the cabin. It's Anna's favorite place in the world, if the person knew her and really did want her to recover, she'd bring her there," replied Cyane, who at noticing Alex's absence had wandered towards the back of his very recognizable head.
"I have to see her," spoke Ian and Cyane in chorus. "Do you know how to get to the cabin?" asked Cyane hopefully. "I was asleep for most of the ride up both times."
"Yes, I know the way," answered Ian, automatically turning toward the car the group had come in.
"Whoa, what do you, Ian?" Jack had automatically stopped the guy about to climb into his SUV, "What…?"
"We're going to get Anna and we're taking your car. You can come or not, but we're still taking the car," said Cyane as Ian climbed in the drivers side and she circled the car to the passenger door. Alex opened the back door with an expectant look on his face.
"Well I'm not about to let my girlfriend go off with some guy I barely know, in my car none the less," said Jack as he climbed into the back seat, following Keira who had jumped at the thought of seeing Anna alive.
"Same here!" shouted Ronnie, not really from the fact that his girlfriend was in a car with three other guys, but the look she was giving him as she rolled down the window. It perfectly said 'If you don't come you're gonna be very lonely for a very long time.'
"I'll follow in my car," said Janet, motioning towards the Mercedes she drove back to the house after her shift was over.
"We need clothes," "And food!" "And food, for the trip. I recommend you do the same. Meet us at the highway station 20 miles north," Ian instructed Janet.
By the time the group had been supplied, written notes to their parents telling them to call, and got on the road, it was well past one A.M., and the convoy of worried, sleepy teens and an EMS (wondering if curiosity really did kill the cat), headed north.
They got to the mountains by midday, the soft autumn rainclouds in the distance burst as they raced up the drive. As Ian and Cyane woke the rest of the teens in the truck, Janet knocked on the door, trying to escape the downpour. She was let inside, but Ian couldn't see the face of the woman who opened the door. In his moment of thought, the groggy teens had all but flown out of the car and were charging the door.