Page 2 of The Zagorath
Too bad that the same couldn’t be said for every guy in the coven, most who just struck her as over the top and abrasive. Not that Jess seemed to notice.
Taking the tiny figure of the grain mother, the queen of all food crops, into her hands, she rubbed her thumb across it, chanting softly to herself as she allowed herself to sink into the energy of the surrounding forest. She was determined to at very least do her part to sacrifice and honor the spirits of growth and abundance.
“Hey, Liv,” Brad—or ThornWolf as he called himself—yelled out, startling her out of her meditation. He lifted his empty bottle and gestured with it toward the other guys around him who grinned over at her. “Can we get a fresh round here? We are getting ready to throw the hotdogs on.”
She bit her tongue, wanting nothing more than to tell him to trot his own happy little ass into the cabin and get it himself from the ice filled cooler inside. But that would rock the boat and put a damper on everyone’s fun. For Jess’s sake, she refrained and slid off the log, pushing to her feet.
“Would be delighted,” she bit out and stalked into the cabin.
Chapter
Two
Even though the early evening light outside was bright enough, the light within the cabin was awful. The front windows, draped with ratty stained curtains made from what looked like recycled flannel blankets, barely let enough light in to cast a dim, murky illumination in the dusty interior.
“Such charming facilities at our disposal,” she muttered as she headed to the kitchen.
Of course, no one had bothered to show up earlier to clean the cabin and prepare it for occupation over the weekend. Motes of dust filled the air, catching sunlight, and every surface was thickly coated with dust from the table and chairs to the countertop, and the overstuffed and worn furniture sitting within the gloom. Cobwebs liberally clung to the corners of the ceilings, and she gagged as she caught sight of a spiderweb over the kitchen sink from which a large roach dangled. Not only that, but there was a putrid, musky scent that seemed to be ground into the rugs and furnishings that made her stomach turn.
“Un-fucking-believable. And we are supposed to sleep here?” She shuddered visibly as she visually sought out the cooler. “This is unsanitary as fuck. I guess the guys are expecting the girls totidy up. Fat chance in hell. Jessie, I love you, but you’re taking me home in the morning. I didn’t sign up to play weekend housewife for a bunch of frat boys.”
Her eyes drifted over the table where partially full grocery bags were spilling all over the place before finally landing on the cooler. With one finger, she shifted a sweat-stained shirt off the top of the cooler and let it fall to the floor.
“Disgusting.”
Wrinkling her nose, Liv kicked the shirt further away and lifted the lid on the cooler to the sight of beer bottles nestled among partially melted ice. She reached in to grab a few bottles when a dozen crows burst from the tree branches just outside the window, their loud caws and the cacophony of their beating wings startling her. A bottle of beer fell out of her hand and shattered on the wooden floor, splashing its sour contents over her ankles and feet. She didn’t even look down at it. An ominous pressure was rapidly filling the air as everything suddenly went very silent.
The door banged open, making her jump, and she whirled toward it as Jessie hurried toward her with an anxious smile.
“Are the beers coming? You know how the guys get when they are barbequing. They are all complaining that they are parched, like they haven’t had a thing to drink all day,” she said with a little laugh as she went to the cooler and pulled out several more bottles.
She glanced at the broken bottle on the floor and Liv followed her gaze. “What happened here?”
A cold tickling sensation crawled up her spine and Liv shivered as she glanced toward the window and the heavy silence just beyond it before looking back to her friend. “Don’t you think that something is… off?”
“Off?” Jessie echoed, and her head tipped as she briefly considered the question. “Not really. How do you mean?”
“Everything is just so… quiet,” she observed as an almost static sensation filled the air with the increasing weight in the atmosphere.
The hair on her arms stood on end and there was a low-pitched sound, as if the woods were bending and moaning.
“Wh… what is that?” Jessie whispered and then dropped to the ground with a scream when the floor pitched and began to shake violently.
Trees groaned louder and everywhere there was the sound of them breaking and falling as if something surged deep within the woods. The ground rolled as if releasing some great force beneath it. From outside they could hear the screams of the coven. Jessie went pale, her eyes going round in her face as she stared out the window. A roar shook the air, making the windows vibrate as the screams grew louder.
“Gray!” She bolted for the door, but Liv latched onto her arm and pulled her away from it.
“Are you crazy, it’s dangerous!” she hissed.
Jessie shook her off, her eyes wild with desperation. “We can’t just leave him to die out there! I love him!”
“You just met him six months ago and aren’t even dating, you will get over him,” Liv insisted but Jessie shook her head emphatically in denial. Liv sighed, her patience growing thin. “Look, the smart thing to do would be to bolt the door, be as quiet as possible, and pray that whatever is out there doesn’t get too curious. Do you not hear all that screaming? It’s like a production of Evil Undead out there. If we go out there, we will be vulnerable to whatever is causing all of that.”
“Liv, I can’t. We haven’t told anyone, but we’ve been going out exclusively for weeks now. We’re in love. I have to help him. To help all of them. We can’t let our friends die!”
“I barely know them,” Liv reminded her but, though Jessie’s lower lip trembled, a familiar look of stubbornness descendedover her friend’s features that had her sighing heavily. “Fuck. Okay, fine. But if you get mauled into tiny little pieces, don’t expect me to stop and collect them all for your funeral service. I will send a nice bouquet though,” she muttered to herself as she turned trepidatiously toward the door.
Jessie was practically pressed against her back, her friend’s hands fisted in her clothing. Liv could feel the air on her midriff from the material being pulled so tightly as she opened the door. They stepped outside into chaos. Large, bat-like monsters the size of football players descended from the trees like shadows, their glowing red eyes and the inky blackness of their wingspan betraying their presence. They dropped at random from the sky, grabbing at the humans who were scattering in every direction to evade them.
