The Survival

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Belfast is beautiful. Period.

It’s my favourite city by far. Yes, I know this is only our first stop on this trip and it’s going to last one month. And, we still have the entire day to see Belfast, but that doesn’t matter; I still love it, simple as that.

One thing I’ve noticed is that it’s hard to be discrete around here. What I’m trying to say, is that we are the ones that can’t be discrete, at all. We students are getting a lot of attention that may be because of the excitement that’s coming off of us in waves. We are three large groups, talking loud enough for everyone to hear us. The good thing about all this attention, is the boys.

With all the noise we make it’s normal for all the citizens here to look our way, but I don’t care about any of their stares; only the ones from the hot boys.

Why can’t we have these sexy boys in Nashville? The mothers here must have gold in their wombs. Would they mind if I kidn*pped their sons and took them to Madagascar so I can marry 7 Irish guys all at once? Don’t answer that.

“Please tell me I’m not dreaming.”

I pinch Beth’s arm, which causes her to squeal and rub her arm on the spot I touched seconds ago.

“What was that for?” She says with a frown on her face.

“It was for you to realize that you’re actually awake.”

“You could have simply said that, and I would have believed you.” She pouts and rubs the place I injured her that’s now red. Maybe I pinched too hard? Oh well.

“No, I couldn’t have. Sometimes in your dreams, you hear people talk and I wanted to make sure that this wasn’t a dream to you.”

“You’re one crazy bitch.” Tell me something I don’t know.

“I love you too bade, but think positive, now that you have that red mark on your arm you can say that some Irish, hunky, man gave you a hickey.” Her eyes sparkled after I said that, but it doesn’t last long.

“Why would he give me a hickey on my arm?”

“Maybe it’s a fetish of yours?” I answer her; shrugging with a smug smile on my face.

“Sarah can you help me here?” Beth says. She starts throwing a tantrum by crossing her arms over her chest and pouting. Seriously, if she decides to act any more childish, I’m going to buy her candy just to make her happy.

“Sorry, I’m not getting myself into this.” Only a foot ahead of us, she turns her head to look over her shoulder at us, with a malicious smile on her face. “In fact, while you two are arguing I’m going to enjoy the view, more known as…. Boys.”

The girls and I are heading to Victoria Square and it’s a mall, sort of, I think. You may not believe this, but Lucy is with us. This morning when we were getting ready to go take breakfast, we started talking and talking and we lost track of time, so Sarah and Beth came find me. Long story short, Lucy spends her time with us, and we have so many things in common. We all love the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and our favourite flavour is cookie dough, we adore movie marathons and we all have a passion for Channing Tatum. These are only three of the oh so many things we have in common.

Also, Dylan and I have shared a few glances with each other since our encounter, something simple and without any meaning, but still. I noticed that he is quite popular, and he doesn’t belong to the football team, which is a relief. But he is always with these two guys.

One has a hair the colour of fire, with deep blue eyes from what I can tell. And, he has loads of tattoos with different colours all over his arms. The other one is a curly haired boy with green eyes, from what I can tell, and he is in a good shape; like Dylan but even better. He also has tattoos on his arms like the ginger one, and he is the tallest of the three of them.

I must say, they are all very attractive.

***

“Oh man, I missed this.”

I’m received with a chorus of hmm…

At the moment, we’re at MacDonald’s and I’m eating a Big Tasty Menu because, oh my god it’s so good and big.

That’s what she said.

Shut up, some people are trying to eat here.

We are eating our delicious and mouth-watering food, when by the corner of my eye I see movement. You can see a crowd forming around the source of agitation. The reason is the TV.

Trying to see what is showing on the television, I discover that it’s the news. I nudge Sarah with my elbow and kick Beth under the table making her squeal gaining Lucy’s attention. When they are focused on me, I nod with my head to the direction of the television, too busy chewing on the food.

It’s difficult to watch the TV from our seat, but with a little bit of effort we manage it. On the screen you can see, ‘KILLER STILL ON THE RUN’. It seems that the crazy man has been hiding for four days now and the authorities still don’t have a single clue of where he may be. The reporter tries to remain a blank face without showing any trace of emotion, keeping it as professional as he can, but he is failing miserably.

You can see the panic and nervousness written on his face, and he may have sweat on his forehead. He informs the citizens of the dangers of this man, what he has done, how many people he has killed and his ways of killing his victims. Before moving on to other news, he adds, “The authorities think that he may stay hidden for a while and he is going to avoid crowded places. But remain alert, and if you see him, remember to call the local authorities...”

What if we see him? The police don’t know how he looks like, except for knowing he is white - and they have not explained how they discovered that till now - so how are we supposed to know?

Oh wait, I know. Maybe if we have the misfortune to be face to face with him, he’ll reveal himself to us, and then when he proceeds to kill us, we can say something like ‘Okay, let me just call the authorities and tell them that I found you, or better yet that you found me and that I’m most definitely going to die, and then you can proceed.’

Pretty effective don’t you think?

“... and always travel in group or with at least one person everywhere you go, only for precaution. I repeat, he may not go to public places for the next few days but stay alert and be careful. We will give you more information about this case soon.” The man moves on to other news about school and violence involving kids. The spell surrounding us was broke. The silence vanished to give place to the noise.

“That is one crazy son of a bitch.” are the first words leaving Sarah’s mouth.

“I know.”

“Do you think that we might encounter him?” Sarah’s eyes are almost bulging out of their sockets.

“No, didn’t you hear the reporter? He said that the killer would stay away from crowded places.”

“I heard it, but what if he does the opposite because no one expects it? What if he is here? What if he is watching us eat?” She starts looking around the place, her red hair flying everywhere.

“Sarah, chill out. I bet you that he has better things to do than watching us getting fat by eating junk food. Don’t you agree with me Beth?” Lucy says, Beth’s head was down, but after hearing her name she looks our way. I realize that she hasn’t spoken a word since the news came up.

“What are you thinking about?” Lucy asks again.

“You know that feeling that usually only females have?” Her voice is trembling almost like she is afraid or too weak to talk.

“The sixth sense?” Sarah guesses.

“Yeah, I’m having it right now, and it’s not, a good sign.”

“Why?” I ask cautiously.

“When I have it, it generally means that something bad is going to happen... I can’t explain, it’s a weird feeling.”

“You’ve had it before?” I speak again, and she nods.

“Last time I had it was at night and the next morning I still felt it until I crashed with Josh Bolt.”

Me, Sarah and Lucy stayed silent to let her finish. I don’t know about them, but I have a bad feeling about this.

“We talked for a while, not saying much and nothing important, and when he left, the feeling went with him,” She pauses and takes a deep breath, “The sense only came back the week after that. Do you remember what happened?”

“Josh died in a car accident…” Sarah gasps as if putting the puzzle pieces together. While I remain clueless, with Lucy exactly like me.

Beth nods and continues, “The feeling left when the principal called all the students from our school to the gym and said that Josh had died that morning in the hospital.”

I’m so lost, Sarah is almost having a cardiac arrest, and Beth is deep in thought. Lucy seems like something has clicked inside of her. I want to know what is going on, what is happening? But I’m too afraid to actually know the answer.

“What... what are you trying to say?” I finally gain the courage to ask.

Beth’s blue eyes lock with mine, making it impossible to break contact. And then she speaks…

“I think that something is going to happen and it’s going to involve the killer, someone we know, and maybe even ourselves.”

My heart stops.