Page 57 of Shrouded in the Dark
He shrugged as we both stepped back from each other. “Since now?”
“You’re so weird.” My smile let him know I said it teasingly. “Are you hungry?”
“Hell yes. You’re a harsh hike mistress. Didn’t let me stop for treats or anything.”
Looking over my shoulder at him, my smile softened. “I guess that means I need to make up for it.”
The quilt took seconds to set up in the middle of the play area. Axel placed two rocks at each corner of it so that it didn’t blow away if a gust of wind happened through and we weren’t sitting on it.
I sat the basket in the middle before sitting myself. The food was basic but that hadn’t been the point of this venture. Passing out the sandwiches, I only took one, Axel handed me a water. While he began to eat, I placed the candle on top of the closed basket as I lit it.
“I won’t leave this lit for very long.” I closed my eyes as I started talking to Dad. “Hey, Dad. I know it’s been sometime since I stayed here longer than a few seconds.” The aroma from the candle wafted around me slowly. “I’m doing okay. I’ve made some wonderful new friends. My art’s gotten better. Mom’s doing great.” I felt a single tear fall but this time, it was a happy tear. “I love you. I know you’re always there.”
A soft wind made the tendrils of my hair lift for a brief moment. When I opened my eyes again, Axel was watching me with an expression that I didn’t know how to describe.
“Hey, Dad,” Axel spoke gently as he kept eye contact with me, “I’m Axel. A friend of Becca’s. Promise that she really is doing great. My family is taking care of her, too.” He blew out the candle.
As the smoke slowly dissipated, I held my breath as we looked at each other. Some chittering birds flew over our heads, breaking the moment. My cheeks flushed, yet again, as I started putting away the now empty food containers. My drawing pad fell open when I moved it slightly.
Axel picked it up before I could. It had fallen open on the picture of the girl I’d drawn the first day I’d gotten into town. Axel’s brows furrowed together as I watched him trail a finger along the spine of the pad. “What’s this?”
“Honestly, I just emptied my mind when I drew that. I let my hands do the work. It makes me feel grief, overwhelming confusion, and haunted nightmares all together.” I took it from Axel. “It also gives me hope.”
“Hope? How?” Axel leaned forward so that his hair fell over his eyes.
“She’s crying out all of these feelings. When she’s gotten it all out, the tears won’t be black anymore. They’ll clear and that’s hope.” I closed the drawing pad. “It’s hope that keeps us going, even if it’s the most dangerous feeling of all.”
His hands slipped into the front pockets of his jeans as he rocked himself on the balls of his feet. “Now I’m even more confused.”
“Hope can keep us moving forward. It’s always teasing us with what’s right in front of us, but it’s only if we just keep moving forward. What happens if you reach the end of hope because it’s just gone on for far too long?”
“Shit, cupcake, that’s deep.” Axel shuddered visibly, shaking his shoulders.
“I’m an artist, teddy bear, it’s what we do. Deep emotion, heart string cutters. That’s us.”
Axel snorted as he stretched. “What’s the plan? I could use a nap.”
“Well, I wanted to get pictures of the area, it’s going to take a while. You could do that while I draw?”
Axel had his shirt off before I finished talking. My mouth went dry, yet again.
“Don’t mind if I do.” He scrunched up his shirt using it as a pillow as he lay down on the quilt. His eyes closed as his chest moved up and down smoothly.
The bird calls in the background were soothing as I began to start with landscape photos for a full picture of the area. I wanted to get the basics first. I’d get closer to each piece after so I could get more details with zoomed in pictures. I planned to do a memorial piece for Dad. It would take a while with what I had planned, but I was planning on it being my best work. It was the least I could do for Dad.
Time faded away as I focused on getting pictures. The lighting was slowly changing but I took the pictures following the light so that I would be able to get the best angles. I only noticed that it had been at least an hour when my phone gave a notification that the battery was overheating because of having the camera going for so long. I’d taken close to two hundred pictures.
Sitting back from where I’d been kneeling, I stretched my back. Axel looked like he was still sleeping. Turning off the phone, I put it in my pocket to cool down. I figured I still had about ten minutes before I’d have to wake Axel to start the small trek back to the cabin.
I sat across from Axel, making sure I had a good view of his face and started to do a quick sketch of his top half of his body. There really wasn’t a reason to do it, only that my fingers wanted to sketch out his features again.
I became so focused on the dip of his upper lip sometime later that I didn’t notice that the forest had gone silent. I hadn’t even noticed that Axel was on his feet until I looked up again. He wasn’t smiling. No, his face had turned predatorial. I swear his eyes had gone several shades darker as he slowly moved his head to look toward the creek.
When I followed his gaze, I didn’t see anything. But I did notice that all sound had disappeared. There were just the breaths from me. Axel gestured slowly with his left hand at me to be quiet as I’d opened my mouth to ask what was going on. The sudden sound of debris brought my eyes back toward where Axel was staring at so intensely.
Ice froze my blood as something straight from a horror movie stepped out of the cover of the trees. The thing had a lupine body including its muzzle, standing on all four legs. It had fur all over its body but in spots, it was short fur due to scarring that could barely be seen. It was huge. It had to come up to my shoulders if it were standing in front of me. The teeth were long, sharp, and covered in blood along its muzzle and nose, like it’d just finished a hunt. That wasn’t the scariest thing about it, though.
Its eyes were white besides a slit of black for pupils and I could have sworn there was an intelligence in them that wasn’t an animal. The sound it made at us made me want to run for my life.
