Crushing Emeralds

Chapter Nine

We take small cautious steps into the cabin. The smell leave you breathless and I have to breath through my sleeve to prevent myself from gagging. Even with the sun shining outside, the cabin is pitch black. Evan begins yelling for Neil immediately. No answer. Not surprising. The curtains make the light that does manage to enter have a purple tint. Evan runs his hand along the wall by the entrance door checking for a light switch so we can have a better look around.

“Of course the lights are out. You would think he would have a separate breaker or something.” he says as he fiercely smacks the switch.

I stumble and nearly lose my footing as I make my way to a window. My feet slip in slick spots and I trip over debris. With my fingers finally twisted in a curtain, I rip it off the rod immersing the room in light.

I instantly regret it. Everything was torn to shreds, blood is all over the floor and even the walls. A thick trail of smeared blood goes throughout the house. I step around it following it through the house. The wall dividing the kitchen from the living room area catches my eye. A long bloody scratch goes down the entire length not far from the ground.

I lean down to get a better look and yelp with realization. four small scratches, fingernail scratches. I retreat as fast as I can only to slip on more blood falling flat on my behind. I go on all fours for better footing as I stand up. My fingers graze a small rounded object on the floor, stupidly I pick it up.

“Holy hell.” I scream. I through it and quickly get to my feet back pedaling once again. A yelp escapes my mouth when I slam into Evan.

“Apparently you can’t walk in flats either.” He jokes.

“Very funny. I slipped and found a damn finger.” I show him one of my fingers. “A finger not attached to a hand.”

“Two rooms left.” Evan says looking at me with wary eyes. We both know what’s in one of the rooms. The question is who is going to get that room.

We walk side by side until we have to split up. I take the first room and Evan takes the room further up the hall. I feel the wet stickiness of the blood that now freshly covers my back. I let the shiver that creeps over my body physically shake me. I need a shower...badly.

The door is cracked open, a small feminine foot is jammed in the c***k. No. Putting my hand on the wood, I slowly push it open. I didn’t need for it open fully to know who’s inside. I think about walking out and waiting for Even, but cowardliness is not a trait I want to associate with right now, so I push it open. A small amount of light finds its way inside.

Mrs. Claire’s butchered body lays heaped in the bathtub, her arm hanging over the rim, blood still drips off the tip of her fingers. The shower curtain is nothing by shredded plastic. The sink was filled with blood, the mirror above it cracked. One foot followed by the other, I back away from the body, I back away from our teacher.

“Emerald!” Evan yells from inside the bedroom, but I’m already at the door.

He soon finds me outside takes deep breaths of fresh air through my mouth.

“What’s the matter with you? Neil was in the bedroom.”

“Mrs. Claire is in the bathroom.” I start to get dizzy from the deep breaths, but I couldn’t stop.

“Come on. We have to be the bearer of bad news.” Evan takes me by the hand and forces me along the path back to the Common Room.

Once the building comes into view I see several kids scattered around, their cell phones high above their heads searching for a signal. Jordan approaches us with more bad news. No one can get a signal.

A girl whose name I can’t remember yells in our direction “Where’s Mrs. Claire and Neil, did you find them?”

I look at Evan and just by the look in his eye, I know that I’m going to have to tell them. “We found Mrs. Claire and Neil...in Neil’s cabin…” I pause looking at the surrounding faces that were waiting for some kind of happy ending, “They’re dead.” I blurt out looking directly at the floor.

An hour after breakfast is supposed to be served we’re still waiting for the ladies to arrive. It was unnaturally quiet with people huddled together in quiet groups or with people still wondering outside searching for that perfect spot for a signal. That quiet comes crashing down when the doors crash open. A boy bends over with his arms on his legs to keep his torso up barges into the Common Room trying to catch his breath. Everybody starts to panic thinking that the wolf has come back. We all eagerly wait to see what he has to say.

“I was over by the main entrance to the camp and uh…” he seems nervous to continue. He lowers his voice and difficult to hear him, “There were two cars that were sitting in the middle of the road nearly at the exit. They looked like the ones the ladies left in yesterday.” He takes several more breaths before continuing. “I ran up to them and it isn’t good.

“The windows were stained red. A back window was broken out of one cars and the other one had the passenger side window shattered. I didn’t look inside. I don’t I need to see bodies to know that they’re dead.” His voice gets louder and louder causing panic to erupt.

the people that were outside come flocking in. The door is barricaded closed once again. We all pace the room, eyes on the window, the door.

“I don’t get it?” I mutter to myself as I find an empty corner.

“What don’t you get?” Kordie asks following right behind me.

“The outline of events. It doesn’t add up.” I replied. “That thing had to kill the ladies hours before it made itself known to us. But how could we not hear a thing?

“It is pretty far out there.” Jordan interjects.

“I just don’t get it. How did the power go off? Out here it has to be a deliberate action.”

“You think this wolf cut the power?” Evan stupidly questions.

“It’s smarter than we think.” I’m not sure where that thought came from, but I knew it to be true. “And it got what it wanted, us herded in here like cattle, all you can eat just bust through a flimsy wooden door buffet.”

“You need to rest.” Kordie now wraps her arms around my shoulders trying to comfort me, but it doesn’t work. Nothing will comfort me knowing that the wolf is still out there. Lurking about. Waiting for us to slip up.