Crawl(10)

And, as the pain took over, and Juliet melted into the grass surrounding her, Colton flitted into her mind. That engine in his lap looked awfully dangerous. He might want to do something about that. She wondered if they’d ever hold another conversation.





6.


A shy young man in his last year of college, with dreams of building skyscrapers, and a young lady with a mind for teaching, converse in front of a fire at a rather banal Christmas party thrown by a mutual friend. This friend, William Beaumont, has recently moved to Mobile to attend college at Faulkner. Juliet has eyes for this young, wannabe doctor. Has eyes for his future success as well as his rumored prowess in the bedroom. Her bestie, Natalie, has been to the promised land before—twice—and was saved. So, why is it that she’s talking to this geekish boy with dirty blond hair, chubby cheeks, and a granite slab for a nose? He’s interesting. Too captivating for her to pull away from. What is this magic, she thinks, twinkling in his cinnamon eyes? What kind of dark sorcery has he cast upon her?

Across the room and through the crowd, a bright woman is approaching. This woman looks like Julie sounds like her, too. The doppelganger is happy. Maybe happier than Juliet-by-the-Fire. This twin, this reflection of her, moves through the party, ignoring the geek by the fireplace. Juliet-by-the-Fire glances back to the architect-in-training and sees that he’s no longer interested in her. He wants the Bright Julie. Because the Bright Julie doesn’t hold grudges. She looks past symptoms and delves to the heart of what-ails-ya. And the problem is her—Juliet-by-the-fire. Bright Julie can’t have the geek. He’s the property of Juliet-by-the-fire. And she’s his. But he’s already getting up. And the fire at her back is too hot. It’s burning her. Burning… burned… burnt…





7.


Juliet woke with a snap, screaming and smoking. Her feet forgotten for the moment, she rolled back and forth, trying to put out the flames. Lying on her smoldering back, she dealt with the last embers by smothering them beneath her. Other than a sensitive spot or two, she surmised she’d missed the worst of it by waking in time. Somehow, she’d gotten too close to the fire. Or she’d been pushed.

Colton always told her how soundly she slept. How she didn’t toss and turn and roll around like the women his buddies had married. She didn’t snore either, which Colton marked down as another blessing bestowed by the relationship gods. This didn’t mean, of course, that she was incapable of movement while asleep, only that Colton had never experienced it.

Colton…

No, she couldn’t think of him right now. She had to get moving. Find a way—

(I suggest you crawl)

—out of this mess.

Biting her lip until it bled, she managed to roll over onto her knees. Her remaining toes grazed the ground, sending bolts of electricity up her hips and into her back. Moving on her knees wasn’t going to work. The action caused hamstrings to seize because she had to try and hold her feet out of the grass and clay. She dropped to her belly and army-crawled, using her forearms to progress, holding her damaged feet up by her butt. She had to round the entirety of the campfire before the domed trail came back into view. That brilliant white light still shone at the end, like a beacon meant to keep her from running ashore. The start of the tunnel was, at her best guess, thirty to forty feet away. The space between looked forever long, but the stretch of road beyond seemed longer by an eternity. How far was she from help? Would anyone be at the light when she got there? Where was she? What was the light? And, furthermore, was she headed toward more danger?

That last thought stalled her engines, and she lay there, prone on the cold clay, breathing slowly, contemplating whether or not she really wanted to go near that light. It looked like salvation, but that could all be a less-than-subtle ruse. Hadn’t the red priest wanted her to leave the safety (maybe) of the campfire? Hadn’t he wanted her to (suggested she) crawl? What other way could she go?

She glanced back over her shoulder, saw the post with the bloody, fleshy nails; the smoking campfire giving up its heat to the heavens; dark shadows, cast by the flames, flickering through the tree line, looking lithe and alive. But it was what she didn’t see that bothered her. What she didn’t see caused her heart to jam down on the accelerator, ramping its speed up until it seemed the speedometer would go full circle back to zero.

Where the holy fuck is the boy?

The teenager with the squashed-in face was tardy from class, that little shit. Maybe he got a slip home. Perhaps he had to see a nurse. After all, his face wasn’t going to put itself back together.

Reality crashed against the rocks of Juliet’s mind, and she focused even harder on those lithe shadows dancing at the tree line. Her eyes drifted down, down to the scrub, where the clearing met the woods, and the boy’s crooked sneaker as it was pulled into the bush.

There was something in the trees. And it was chewing.

No. That’s not it at all. What you’re hearing is the snap, crackle, pop of the campfire. It does sound a lot like chewing, doesn’t it? Ha! It sure does. Just like someone sloppily tearing meat from bone and gnaw-gnaw-gnawing away with their jaws jacking. How rude! To think their mothers didn’t teach them to chew with their mouths closed. Someone should say something to them…

Snap.

Crackle.

Pop.

Growl.

Now, campfires don’t growl, do they? They roar, they blaze, sometimes, they even fart, but they most certainly do not growl. Not like a hungry wolf. But it didn’t really sound like a wolf, did it? No. It sounded like a… like a… Like something you’ve never heard before. It sounds hungry, that growl does. Like, maybe, the teenager won’t satiate it. Like, perhaps, it’ll still be hungry even after it’s picked its teeth clean on that boy’s bones. Then what? Then it’s coming after you, Juliet. And—