The Unwanted (Black Water Tales Book 2) (24 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

T
hey sat in silence as the building came to life with morning movement. Travis coughed violently into his hand, the cherry red contents of his palm peeling away any confidence that he had left. “What about Petro?”

“What about him?” Blaire asked.

“Maybe we could stay with him and Soreena until the storm lifts.”

“Okay, that could work,” Blaire said, pondering the idea. “We’ll tell everyone that we are going to get provisions for the storm and
last
-minute supplies for the party. We will go to Petro’s house and see if he will board us for the night.”

“Okay,” Travis responded through one of his hacking coughs.

“Why do I feel so terrible?”

“Because we are leaving them,” Travis said. “We’re leaving them all to fend for themselves. What’s going to happen to them? What if they run out of provisions during the storm?”

“What other option do we have? We can probably help them more by getting out of here, because being here doesn’t seem to be helping too much,” Blaire said, trying to remind him of their dire situation. She thought for a moment. “Fine, we will go out and get supplies for the storm, and then we go to Petro and see if he will board us. We come back here, drop the supplies, and go back to Petro if he and Soreena will have us.”

“Can we just go?” Travis asked with a shallow breath.

Just as the pair reached the front door, they heard a commotion erupt from somewhere on the first floor, followed by a montage of loud animated voices and scattering feet. Anya spotted Travis as she came clamoring down the hall.

“Travis, help! It’s Andre! I think his arm is broken,” Anya explained in a panic.

Travis looked to Blaire, to Anya, and then back to Blaire. “You just go and come back. I will take care of Andre, and then we’ll be out of here,” Travis instructed her in a whisper as he allowed himself be dragged back down the hall by Anya. Blaire stood frozen.

“Just go!” he called back to her.

Blaire ran to Travis and grabbed him, pulling him close.

“Please, Travis!” Anya pleaded.

Blaire whispered into his ear, “Stay away from Natalka! Don’t eat her food! I found out last night, it’s poisonous.”

“What?” Travis responded, his watery eyes glazing over in shock.

“Just stay away from her!” Blaire demanded. “I’ll be back shortly.”

Anya pulled him harder. “Travis, please!”

In silence, Travis allowed himself to be drawn back into the belly of St. Sebastian.

Blaire turned and ran out of the front door, hitting an icy tidal wave of cold air. By the time she got down the hill to the edge of town, she could hardly feel her fingers and toes.

The wind roared like a roller coaster, ripping through her head, into one ear and out through the other. It was the kind of cold that burrowed deep inside and froze one from the inside out.

Once in the heart of Borslav, Blaire began running through the streets that were empty and abandoned as people sought hibernation from the storm. On Petro’s block, the homes sat far apart, but each house along the row was more familiar than the one before, and she knew that she was getting close. Blaire started to run until Petro’s home came into view, and she was drained of all but an ounce of hope as she stared at the empty driveway, but Soreena, maybe Soreena was home. Morbidly stiff with the cold, Blaire’s legs had trouble bending for the porch steps. Darkness prevailed from the windows on the house. Blaire banged on the door and windows in an apex of fierce fury that had been building in her for several weeks now. She turned back to the abandoned streets, which were covered in the shimmering white death. Everything was being buried alive, one tiny particle at a time.

“Soreena!” Blaire called through painfully chapped lips. Her knocks grew slow and heavy. “Please…” she pleaded, as frost gathered on her eyebrows and in her nostrils. The thought of staying at St. Sebastian one more night terrified her, but the even more terrifying thought was that she would not make it back there on foot, as she was so cold now that she could barely move. Surely, there must be people around, but one wouldn’t know it from the landscape. Borslav looked as if it had been abandoned for years.

“Hey!” a
high
-pitched voice called out, and Blaire’s heart sunk as she knew who was standing behind her before she ever turned around. “American girl!” Another familiar voice sneered.

Franks Pertrick and his two
pay
-rolled punks dotted Petro’s front yard. There was no one but them and her, and she could not escape. They began closing in until the two followers were at either side of the porch railing, and Franks was at the foot of the steps. He paced back and forth gingerly, daring her to run.

“What are you doing here?” one of the sidekicks asked, his voice as sharp as a razor’s edge, cutting and propelling her back to a reality that made her feel severely conscious once again, bubbling inside with burning fear.

“I…I was just looking for Petro,” she stammered.

Franks took several steps toward Blaire, smirking at her in a way that made her press her back hard against Petro’s front door.

“Him and Soreena are gone for the weekend,” Franks said. “But I don’t have any plans. What did you have in mind?” He spoke to her with a wanton grin that featured one discolored tooth near the front of his mouth, damaged on an occasion when he had taken too many prescription painkillers while partying and passed out, falling face first onto a cement sidewalk. The other two punks wore matching mischievous faces. Blaire flinched as the one on the left hopped up over the porch railing in one sweeping move. The other followed, climbing over the railing and seating himself upon it.

“Nothing,” she answered. “I just want to leave.” She told them as she began to make her way down the stairs, trying to maneuver around the ringleader, but he moved to either side to block her exit.

“Why are you leaving so soon pretty American girl?” Franks taunted, moving forward, forcing her back against the door. His hot cigarette and
beer
-flavored breath assaulted her, and she was forced to turn her head to one side to avoid the pungent odor. He was close, too close now, another inch and his lips would be planted on hers. Putrid vomit sat just at the bottom of her throat, and she tried hard to push it up, in hopes that it would spew all over them, warm and odorous, making them ditch the fancy they seemed to be building for her.

“Have either of you guys ever been this close to a pretty American girl before?” he asked his friends with his lips now even closer. His long, spiny fingers traveled toward Blaire and pressed her dark hair back behind her ear.

“No, but I think that Petro’s shed out back is unlocked and open for business,” one of them said as Blaire felt the red hot sting of tears in her eyes. “No one is coming to save you this time, Petro is gone, and even your boyfriend, Latif, has run off to the city too,” one of the sidekicks teased with a laugh. She could hear all of their footsteps coming closer as her memories of the Frightening Four came bubbling to life with their incessant chanting.
Jump, jump, jump, jump!
Her heart raced, and her mind spun with voices and taunts.
Ring around the rosie
…

They were too close; they were all just too close.

Jump, jump, jump, jump!

Blaire tried to stop the mixture of haunting voices that were swirling in her head.

She hated them. Blaire hated them, and they were ALL too close.

They’ll take you, torture you, rip off your head. The children in white will tear you to shreds. They’ll circle around you until you are dead. The children in white will leave you in red!

“See there, you have the opportunity to kill three birds with one little stone,” Franks informed her, nodding his head toward his loyal followers.

“Please, just let me go,” she begged, as she pressed passed the thug with all of the force that was left within her. She cried out as he pushed her forward, causing her to tumble down the steps. She had only enough time to roll over and look up before they descended on her with the gray sky at their backs.

“Wait! No! Please!” Blaire screamed.

“HEY!” someone yelled out, his voice ripping through the commotion along with the sound of shoes shuffling in the snow. Blaire’s vision was a clumsy mosaic of black coats, white snow, gloved hands, and then suddenly light. As the gang recoiled, the light from the sky poured down on her the same way it had that day on the riverside. Blaire removed her forearm from in front of her face and saw that Franks and his sidekicks were standing several feet away from her. At the end of the walkway to the street was a man standing in front of a pickup truck, its engine growling agonistically against the harsh environment.

“You little punks get away from her. Franks, the last thing you need is another visit from the authorities. If your mother tells me right, you ain’t full well got out of the last bit you were knee deep in with that girl from Kerchaviv,” the man shouted through a
snow
-tinged red mustache.

“Mind your own business, Horace. You’re not much for good advice on staying out of trouble,” the ringleader spit back. Franks’ face was twisted in a scowl of seething anger toward the man who interrupted his fun.

Horace rubbed his icy beard as he looked at the ringleader, staring him down in a dual of sorts, the kind that took place between beasts in the wild. Horace was older, more experienced, and had no need to bark for the depth of his savagery to be understood. Franks contemplated the competition before backing down and commanding his pack to do the same.

“You need a ride?” Horace asked, finally breaking the sadistic stare he had set on Franks. Blaire scrambled to her feet and made an ungainly dash for the truck.

“Next time…next time, there won’t be any interruptions. I’ll make sure of that.” Franks turned his back on them and swaggered a few feet into the snow, waiting for his accomplices.

Blaire threw herself into the truck, fishing frantically for the lock, which she pushed down as the haunting tableau of the boys standing in the snow burned itself into her brain. Outside Horace laughed heartily and yelled words that were indecipherable against the soundtrack of the unforgiving winds and rumbling engine before he made his way back around the truck and climbed inside.

“Are you okay?” Horace asked as he began to drive the puffing, noisy machine that he called a truck.

“A little frightened, but I’m okay,” Blaire said as she placed her hands in front of the vents, which blew out only a small amount of heat.

“Town scum, you know, every place has them. I’m Horace and you’re lucky I happened to be driving by. You owe me one,” he informed her with a wink.

Blaire swallowed hard and said, “I’m Blaire. What do you think they would have done to me?” It was a question she had to ask, but one that she truly did not want answered.

The man looked at her for a couple of moments with an inexplicable expression.

“They wouldn’t have hurt you much,” he finally said with a grim smile. “You’re going to St. Sebastian, right?”

“Right,” Blaire responded, suddenly unsure of whether or not being with Horace left her in a better or worse position.

“You prepared for the storm?” he asked.

“Not really, I don’t think so.”

Horace sighed as if all women were comparable in their utter incompetence.

“You want me to take you by the Dobish market? You’ll need to get
non
-perishables, batteries, candles, and water. You may be stuck up there for a couple of days until the snow clears, and you will probably lose power, pipes could freeze, or any number of things. After that I have to get you back because I need to be getting home soon, too.”

A couple of days…couple of days
, Blaire thought frantically. A time period that was once inconsequential now seemed like an excruciating eternity.

Margaret Dobish was turning her sign around to read “Closed” when Horace’s truck rumbled up to the storefront. Blaire waved at the woman lightly and prayed that Margaret would show pity. The woman glared at Blaire before she rolled her eyes deeply and opened the door.

“There’s a storm coming. You realize that, don’t you?” Margaret Dobish yelled over the wind.

“I just need a few things. I won’t be long, I promise.”

The storekeeper sighed and stepped to the side to let Blaire in. Margaret had trouble closing the door against the wind. In the store, Blaire shopped nervously, with her hand shaking every time she stretched it out to grab batteries, fresh water, or any other necessity. Soon she headed for the counter knowing that she could only fill the cart with as much as she would be able to carry.

“Hunkering down for the storm, are ya?”

“Yes,” Blaire said.

“Are you okay?” the woman asked Blaire as she rang up her items.

Blaire looked up and wondered if she should speak. Blaire was afraid to say anything that may make the locals dislike her more than they already did, especially considering she was not sure when she would get out of Borslav.

“St. Sebastian…” Blaire’s voice dried to a scratchy whisper by the final syllable of the word. “You said that your aunt worked there?”

“She did,” Margaret confirmed.

“You said it was haunted by ghosts.”

The grocer stopped what she was doing and looked Blaire firmly in the eyes.

“I never said anything about no ghosts.”

“Wha…” Blaire began, confused, as she remembered Margaret’s words clearly.

“There’s no need for ghosts when you have children up there like that. Who needs spirits?”

“What do you mean?”

“That place is haunted enough by the living. Imagine one place, one dark hole, where people throw all of their unwanted, so no one ever has to look at them again, a place void of hope, happiness, laughter, and joy. That place is cursed daily. Its veins pump loneliness and misery through the walls. My aunt told me that those children become faceless. When you don’t have parents, you have no identity, and it is easy to lose yourself, but how can you lose something you never really were? You abandon yourself because you’re no one.”