Page 28 of Dead By Dusk

I would be shaking my head in agreement if it weren’t for the manic laugh that erupts out of Silene. We all look towards her in confusion, all except for Carmen who just looks around us like she’s ready for something to go bump in the night while we hash this out.

Whatever itis that we’re unaware of.

“You know you would have never caught us if we hadn’t been forced to turn back, right?” Her voice is filled with admonishment and disbelief, making me feel like a dog with my tail tucked between my legs, and I wasn’t even the one wholly on the receiving end of it. “News flash, you go that way you’re going to end up looking like a malnourished turkey on Thanksgiving.”

“What’s with you and using food to describe death?” questions Nate, as he tries to fix his hair which had gone from flopping over his forehead to wild and poking every which way from sleep. His eyes are wide and brimming with curiosity and disbelief at her ability to compare just about anything to food.

“The large presence of one combined with the absolute absence of the other makes it easy. But I feel like you’re worriedabout the wrong thing here,” she urges with an eyeroll. It wasn’t until she had mentioned it though, that I began to think about how I don’t recall the last time I ate. The dehydration was an obvious weight pulling me down, but the hunger…my stomach roils loudly in retaliation for the days it has spent empty. I try to go back to what I had been doing this whole time already.

I ignore it.

If only for the sake of not reminding anyone more than she just had and interrupting the conversation that needs to be had right now. “What do you mean?” The question leaves Adonis slowly, like he’s tasting each word as it leaves his mouth, unsure of how to feel about the uncertainty. As he voices it though, everything around us stills, the wind included, as if even the air is holding its breath in anticipation.

For what, though? An answer?

Or maybe whatever God is out there also knows what I do—when she speaks, nothing else has a chance of being heard.

Nothing else should even try.

She, graceful as ever, hmphs over to the center of the group, and plops herself onto the ground while grabbing a nearby stick.

“Gather around, children. Mother is speaking,” she says, and I can’t help but choke out a laugh at the way she doesn’t look at any of us as she begins to draw a picture on the ground using the small stick, probably just assuming we’d do what she said. Unsurprisingly, we do. Gathering and crouching by her side. Everyone else for the most part moves in front of her, but I opt to be slightly behind her. I look over her shoulder as my breath fans the bare skin there. I use my arms to brace myself on the ground, slightly brushing against her upper arm and elbow.

Her breath shudders as she stills. It may have only been for one painstaking moment, but it was a reaction enough to know that she’s not immune to me. That I affect her just as much as she does me. It may only be a small victory right now, but Isuppose a win is a win. The more affected she is by the small brush of skin against skin might mean the less likely she is to try and kill me again, though I’m not sure I really mind much if she does.

I’ve always found her particularly beautiful when she was on a vicious streak.

“So,” her low voice interrupts my thoughts, and I bring my focus back to the ground where I notice she has drawn a small little picture of a house, squiggly and sharp lines surrounding it, and then a large circle encompassing it all. “This house is where we all woke. Our starting point.” She’s using her stick to point to the drawing of the house in question, and looks at us to make sure we’re all paying attention, but when it comes to me, she doesn’t turn her head to meet my gaze. At least not fully. Instead she just gives me a slight tilt of her head and looks towards me using her periphery as much as possible.

It would only take another inch of movement from her and the tips of our noses would touch. Our breaths would fan across each other’s lips and mingle. But that doesn’t happen. She doesn’t allow me the honor of remembering the way that it feels. At least for now.

“This.” She takes the stick and drags a long line from the house to the first bit of squiggly lines around it. “This is the field surrounding the house, and these are the trees that lead into this fun lil’ forest of death. You guys following?” She doesn’t look up again as she asks, telling me she doesn’t actually care if anyone speaks anyway. No one does. Instead, most of us nod our heads, and she follows suit as if she could feel the physical response.

“Good. Now, we’re somewhere around here.” This time she uses the small stick to point to somewhere about three quarters of the way through the forest, close to the large circle drawn around everything. “We keep heading west and you’ll end up here at this fun little thing I like to call a death wish.” She looksback up, proud of her little demonstration as she drops the stick and wipes her hands off on her pants, attempting to rid herself of the dirt coating them, but failing considering there’s not much of her that isn’t covered in dirt or dried blood.

Unfortunately for her, Nate and Adonis are still looking at her like she has three heads and didn’t explain anything good enough.

“So…when you say ‘death wish’ is it like…something we can work around, like a—uh—I don’t know, apossibledeath if we’re not careful but could still be an option?” The exasperated stare she levels tells me there’s no “option” here, and we need to go back to the drawing board.

“Just to be clear,” Carmen cuts in quietly while maintaining eye contact with Silene. “I think you did a lovely job explaining things. If you wanted to continue as we were, I’d be okay with that. They can go whichever way they please. I trust you.” Silene gives her a small, friendly nod. One that seems to express gratitude.

“We have no choice but to trust you wouldn’t do anything that goes against your best interest. I just would like to know if—”

“An electrical fence of sorts.” Her voice is cold and sharp as she interrupts Nate again. “Tall enough that I couldn’t see how far up it goes, stretches far enough I couldn’t even begin to guess where it ends, but you can feel it from several feet away. You can feel the current run through you as the hair on your body stands straight up in warning. I don’t want to get anywhere near that thing.” As she finishes her sentence, he just nods.

He looks around and appears to be thinking about a new plan, since the one we were working off seems bleak at best and tragic at worst.

“So, where do we go from here?” This time it’s Adonis, his voice cutting through the silence, asking the question we were allthinking. All except her, I guess, as she wears a wicked grin on her face filled with satisfied delight.

“Is it not obvious?” Her eyes meet his before they flick back down to the shitty diagram at her feet before she wipes it away.

“We go back to the start.”

14

Ghosts That Haunt: Silene

Distance.

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