Clinging to Friendship

Chapter 17

“So… Um… What did you mean about us not knowing what it’s like to not know what happened to a family member? …Did that happen to you?” Poppy asked me. Currently, we were in the kitchen of the cafeteria, searching for either salt of an iron skillet. Either would be great to have, especially if they worked. Poppy had been searching in the cabinets when she had decided to question me about what I had just said.“Sorry, I’d rather not talk about it. I didn’t mean to say it and it was something I said without a second thought…” I groaned, I really did not want to get into a conversation about my family with her or Layne.“Oh… right. Sorry for prying,” She muttered, checking me out curiously. I sighed, really, I did not need her questioning glances and headed over to Layne, at least he wouldn’t ask me any questions, I hoped.“Hey so… Um… did you and Kian? You know?” And there was a question. Really what was with these prying siblings? I may have liked them but right now I didn’t need any questions, looks, or anything. They just needed to keep their mouths shut. But something struck me as odd.“How do you know that?” I questioned, it sounded a little rude but right now I was tired, and I didn’t care.“Well,” Layne started speaking in a whisper, “He was having trouble with, well, his feelings. So, he came over to my house and asked for my help… And… that’s when this idea came about…” he suddenly realized.“Was this the first idea you came up with? This idiotic test of courage?” I asked. If this was what was come up with… then it was my fault. I bit my lip, closing my eyes trying to keep any tears back.“No! Our first idea was the movie and dinner… but that didn’t go well apparently so… Oh! Wait I found some salt we can use!” Layne cut himself off, excited over the fact that we have our first weapon. He held up his giant package of kosher salt. I nodded, wiping away the tears that had begun to form.“Perfect, now all we need is something made of iron,” Poppy said from her place at the cabinets, just as I found what we were looking for.“I think I have that something made of iron,” I held up two, very heavy, iron skillets as best as I could. “I was thinking that we could have two people using skillets and one person throwing the salt.”“Sounds like a plan. Poppy do you want to throw the salt?” Layne asked her, “I’d rather you not be too close to whatever we’ll be attacking.” Poppy scoffed and grabbed one of the skillets from my hand.“No way. I already know that you actually rather be throwing salt, besides, I’m better at hitting things then you are.” She said, smiling softly at him.~“…Should we leave now?” Layne asked the question that no one else wanted to ask. We may have felt braver with our weapons but now that we were facing the door to the cafeteria, I wasn’t sure anyone of us wanted to leave.“Yeah, I think that we should just do it…” I whispered. Poppy took a step closer to the door, reaching for the handle but stopping short.“Are you sure? Couldn’t we just wait until morning? You saw what that thing did to Kian, these things don’t really have enough of a reach PLUS what if these don’t actually work on it and then we’re screwed, and we all fricking die! I don’t want to go out there. I don’t want to die.” She suddenly yelled. Over the course of the night, Poppy had been keeping it fairly cool for a while but now, she was finally falling apart. Layne set the salt bag onto a nearby table and ran to hug his younger sister.“Hey Popps, it’ll be ok, alright? It’ll be ok,” Layne murmured, holding her against him, petting her hair and speaking softly to her. It was touching to see… I missed my older brother so much. Despite him being older than me by a lot, and him being a real jerk sometimes, he was usually really kind and patient with me. I smiled at my memory of him.After a couple of minutes, Poppy pulled herself away from her older brother. She mouthed some words to him, I couldn’t catch what they were, but he looked happy with them.“Alrighty… Let’s go then,” Layne announced, and even though we were about to go and fight some monster will all of this random stuff that we’d found, he had a bright smile plastered on his face. I nodded and opened the door instead of letting Poppy do it. I took a couple steps outside of the door, my skillet held out in front of me.“So where do you think Kian went?” Poppy whispered, and I pointed to the corridor to the left of the cafeteria. She nodded silently heading the way I had pointed, Layne moved as well, staying close to her. He threw a bunch of salt out in front of her, much to her dismay because it ended up hitting her in the back of her head. Even I could see she was a little pissed off from that. Though I couldn’t blame her for that, I’d be pretty pissed off too.We walked quietly, Poppy and I sandwiching Layne between us. I kept my ears strained for any possible sounds, like Kian calling for help or footprints from the thing stalking us. So far nothing, except for our breathing. We kept walking down the hall, occasionally one of us would leave the group to check if a door was locked or not, most of the time it was.“We’re not thinking smart, you guys… That thing almost cut Kian in half and left him bleeding. Why don’t we just follow a blood trail? Wouldn’t that be easier?” Layne mentioned. I slapped my hand against my forehead.“Of course! Are we idiots? Like for real? Are we idiots?” I deadpanned. “There’s literally no blood that we’ve been following…”“Did you JUST think of that right now?” Poppy asked, glaring at her brother, who sheepishly nodded. She sighed and looked around inquisitively. “So, should we backtrack then?”“You think? There’s literally nothing linking Kian to this area,” I answered, honestly pretty rudely. She was almost 17, why was she asking these stupid questions? Like if we kept going the way we were going then we wouldn’t find Kian.“Hey, dude, can you just stop being rude to her. I know that you’re still upset with us, but can you just chill out, so we can work together?” Layne chided.“I would if she’d just stop asking dumb questions,” I responded, before turning on my heel and heading back towards the cafeteria. I heard footsteps rushing up from behind me, then a hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me around to face Layne.“Dude. f*****g chill out. I don’t know if you remember but there’s some huge f*****g monster coming to kill and eat us. We need to work together to get the hell out of here, so we don’t die!” He yelled at me, “Now come on, stop being a complete and total jackass!” He motioned for Poppy to come over and join us.“You know what? I don’t think I want to get through this with you guys. I’m going to look for Kian by myself,” I said, leaving the two of them shocked. I couldn’t deal with being around either of them right now. I needed to find Kian, and if those two were going to be dumb about it, I didn’t need to be around them. I ran off back to the cafeteria and headed down the opposite hallway, each step was practically agony, but I could not stand being around them for another second. I could hear Layne and Poppy scream for me to come back but I ignored their cries. If they truly wanted to come after me, it wouldn’t be difficult, we were in a school.Thankfully they chose not to follow me, probably heading toward the exit. Traitors. There was no way I was going to leave Kian behind. I was going to find him and bring him home. It wasn’t long before I accidentally slipped on something wet, slamming into the ground, the skillet that I had been holding smashed into my stomach. Oh god… I curled into a ball and wrapped my arms around my stomach, trying to take in deep breaths.“What the hell did I slip on?” I asked aloud, as soon as I had gathered my breath again. I climbed to my feet and stared at my shoe, the sole of it was dripping with blood. It was covered in a lot of blood… I searched the hallway to see if there were any other traces of blood on the floor. There on the floor was a trail of it leading to the classroom, I wasn’t sure if I was lucky or not finding it. I picked up the skillet, that I had dropped and followed the trail up to the classroom.I knocked on it over and over. “Kian?” I called out to him, “Are you alive in there? If you are, make any noise!” I pressed my ear against the door, hoping to hear anything, I was just about to give up hope when I heard a quiet cough. “Kian!” I shouted with glee. Knowing that the door wasn’t locked if he managed to make it in, I tried the door, but I found that it was locked tight.“Kian! It’s me, please unlock the door,” I begged, slamming my hands against the door desperately. It hurt that he was so close, and I couldn’t see him, I could hear him cough so I knew that he was alive. I heard the sound of the lock unclick. He was able to move! He was ok! I slammed open the door and saw Kian collapsed against the wall right next to the door, lying in a puddle of blood. I rushed over to him, forgetting to close the door in my haste. I pulled off his shirt and there on his left side were three huge claw marks that started from his side to his belly button. It was horrible, gaping, and bloody as hell… How the hell wasn’t he dead? I swallowed down my bile and pulled my own shirt off, beginning to tear mine into long strips. Tying them together, I placed them aside and pushed Kian’s shirt up against his injury and then began wrapping the strips around his body. Trying to keep him from bleeding out any further.When I finished my quick treatment I smiled, hopefully, he hadn’t lost too much blood and I could get him to the hospital in time. I helped Kian up, which caused him to cry out in pain, I apologized mentally before walking him away from the door. Once I sat him back down, I checked the room and that was when I noticed I had left the door open.“s**t,” I muttered. I stood up and rushed over to the door, and just as I was about to close it, I saw the monster standing about four feet away from me.