Hunt

I was at a party. Right now, I?m a freshman; start of the year, everyone?s learning the ropes. Welcome to high school. Jordan and Riley were ****ing in one of the bedrooms; proud of the kid, his first time. Nick?s on the floor, passed out. Ben?s on another planet. Great. Most the other people have left the house, and it?s down to the few who are too drunk or too high to go do anything. Kalee, Jack and I. All high off our ***** on some crazy ****; something so bad we don?t remember what.
Jack?s giggling, talking about this game his older brother used to play. He taught it to him. It?s called ?rolling the dice.? Went something like this; you started out with multiple dice. Greater numbers meant greater rewards. You took a dice away with every roll ?till you were done playing the game. The lower numbers?
That?s when the danger came in.
I don?t remember most of it; too high. Neither does Kalee. Not a word outta her. All I can remember is this. We did something before we played the game. We might have never played the game, honestly. I don?t know what, but I remember seeing a shard of a broken mirror. Gemstones. Flashing lights. If you?d see it taking LSD, that?s what I remember.
Doesn?t come clear though. It?s like a kaleidoscope.
Pieces.
When we finished playing, Jack was already dead. Riley found him; woke up the whole house with her screams. Jordan came after. Heads start rising, bodies slumping forward out of drunken and smoke-filled sleep. More screams. Everyone?s grabbing each other, screaming into each others? faces, only aware of one thing;
They know they?re not hallucinating, cause everyone else is screaming, too.
Jack was backwards. I don?t know how else to say it, but Jack was backwards. Head mangled so bad it was 360 degrees around and facing up, at a right angle. His arms were splayed out in ways they shouldn?t have been- worse than double jointed. I don?t know what happened to his legs; they were wrong.
His eyes; they were silvery, washed out amongst the stars.
The tears were many. So were the screams. The debate goes on a while; snitch on ourselves and get the cops called, or take a risk and wait ?till we?re sober. We turn ourselves in. Reluctantly I should add. Most the kids who went to the party that night stayed the same, smoking and turning up every weekend. The few who stayed after were a different bunch. We changed.
Months went by. I?m still friends with Kalee, but fallen off with everyone else. Jordan?s still a hefty drinker; Riley wound up dating him. Kalee and I are out with Nick and Ben one weekend, camping. Nick?s old; he?s already able to drive. Kalee needed out of the house; her mom and dad never stop fighting.
I went out into the woods with Kalee for a minute to talk. We?re staring at the stars, watching meteors shoot overhead, naming constellations. I?m seeing a different Kalee. Not just one who pops pills and gave Jack head. Maybe a girl with dreams. Maybe a girl who?s starting to see high school for what it is; I knew the taste of vodka was getting old already. Nick and Ben didn?t think so, blunts lit.
We get onto Jack. Kalee and I are standing under a tree, she?s putting the blunt out against the bark. She?s talking about how much she misses him; they were good for each other before, this close to dating. I coulda seen them married. But now he?s dead, she remembers. Mangled up into a ball. She puts the blunt out again for good measure, stomps it in the dirt. Scoffs about how weed smells like ****.
Nick and Ben scream.
We run over. Ben?s on the ground, arm bent out of place. The bone?s showing under skin. He?s rolling around in agony. Kalee?s shouting at everyone, trying to get answers. Nick just keeps asking for help getting him outta there, talking about ?the eyes.? I?m in the middle, trying to calm everyone. Asking what happened. All the voices are rampant, shouted. Common sense goes down the drain and panic settles in less than a minute. The night?s just filled with screams.
The bushes shake.
I look over, check through the trees. There they are.
Twenty of ?em.
Their eyes glow like cosmic headlamps. Like kaleidoscopes. Their mouths hang open, bleeding rainbows and stars. They?re real though. Nothing make-believe.
None of them charge.
We all stop staring, grab Ben and help pick him up. The feet start flying. We leave everything behind. They?re chasing, fast. They?ve done this before. Rolling the dice was a bad idea. Each of us run in a row through the trees. I keep checking over my shoulder just to make sure they don?t catch us. They?re quick. They?re gaining. They?re only feet away.
So?s Nick?s truck.
We hop in the doors. Nick gets in the drivers? seat. Guns it up the gravel, somewhere off into the thicker parts of the woods. We escape them, this time; spend the rest of the night driving circles on the highway and the morning going back to pack our bags. All four of us shoot each other a look as we?re gathering everything; we know something?s happening now. We know what happened to Jack now.
Ten days later, and emails are being sent out to parents. Kalee Reeson is dead. Found packed into her closet with every bone broken. No incision, but her ribs are all gone. Head?s backwards. She?s a goner.
I looked at myself in the mirror that night and cried. Jack was the one who taught me crying?s for *******; my dad wasn?t around enough to do that. I made a promise in eighth grade I wouldn?t cry again, not unless it was worth it. But it had to come out somehow. Couldn?t keep Kalee in my head like that. Her and Jack. Weighed on my mind too much. I hoped Heaven was real; I hoped they found each other, and they were happy.
I went to bed with the door locked.
It?s three months after that; I?ve relapsed plenty. I go to school and skip half the classes to take juul hits in a stall. When kids ask me if I vape, I tell ?em I don?t. But I just need retreat. Dopamine. The weekends are taken up by rolled blunts and vodka shots. Maybe I go see Nick and Ben. Most nights I keep my distance from ?em. They?re getting crazy with the xanax. Not what I want to see happen.
After the school days are over, it?s a quick stop on the internet for me. I need something to get off to. Most the time, I?m not thinking about whatever crude video?s playing in front of me. Most the time I?m just hearing Jack and Kalee?s voices.
I slept with the door locked every night. I tried to sleep drunk or high if I could.
I was starting to think I?d escaped ?em. Maybe they were never real. I?d never seen them sober or seen what happened sober. Nobody talked about what happened to Jack or Kalee; coulda been group hallucinations. Maybe the truth was there, if only we?d ask the sober people. People share dreams sometimes, don?t they? So how crazy is it to think a buncha the same drugs can give a buncha kids the same hallucinations?
It was blissful to think about. Peaceful as hell.
?Till I rolled over and looked out my window.
They?re arranged on the yard like gnomes. Each of them staring into the window with beaming grins. Their mouths spill eternity, unwind the centuries into glitchy streams of static and color and lights. I stare into the rainbow fire in a trance; they can?t be real. Are they? Are they real?
They moved.
I threw myself out of bed. Dad?s rifle?s in the basement, and I don?t care if he hears me grab it. I run down the hallway, down the stairs next. The basement?s dark; when I flip the lights on, I half expect to see them all in the corner. No, just the shelf where the rifle hides behind. I run towards it, pull it aside, grab the rifle and load it. Pretty little AR; if only dad took me out to go shooting with it.
I?m back up the stairs fast. Somehow haven?t woken my parents. I race to the front door, scanning around the corners of walls like I?m a soldier. They could pop out any minute; I know what they?re capable of. I get there, stand behind the door a while. Waiting in cold sweat. I know they?re out there, I can feel their smiles. I can hear their infinity, their everything that unravels from their prismatic teeth. They?re waiting for me.
Probably right outside the door.
I twist the locks. They snap with cold metal noises, like robotic thunder.
I yank it open.
They?re all gone, every one of them. The lawn?s empty. There?s not a trace of them, no footsteps, no marks, no bodies on the lawn. I don?t see a clue they ever existed; might as well be mad.
All I?m left with is the sound of a rusty swing in the wind; childish, distant laughter.
Like ghosts.
I stand in the doorway, shaking. They?re coming for me next, I know it. They?re playing the game with me now.
Jack and Kalee are already down for the count.
I slept with the lights on one night; dad told me to turn that **** off, mom just looking at me all cold. She?s buried underneath his voice; I don?t think she?ll ever get out. I can still get away with the door being locked, all the windows too. I check every one of them in the house before I go to bed. Dad tells me I?m crazy, but I give him the middle finger. Sometimes he hits me for it. I?d rather take that than what Kalee and Jack got.
At school, the kids talk about me. Jackson Brandt?s gone mad. The kid?s addicted to all this ****, he doesn?t talk to anyone anymore. Needles up in the bathroom. He doesn?t hang out with Nick or Ben anymore. He?s a loner, really. The definition of a junkie. Sucks to see him go that way.
Whatever.
I wanna go back to that first party. The first real one I ever went to, honestly. I want to look my high ass dead in the eyes, and punch him in the nose. Jack and Kalee too. Whatever the hell they did that got me here, I wanna take that back. I?d go back to eighth grade after that. I?d get away from Jack, tell him to kiss my ass. Closest thing I had to a brother, but he was never a father. Love him; love Kalee, too. Wish neither of ?em had to go. But I?d do anything so they could ride out the rest of their lives, and so could I.
It?s been three weeks since they came. I got a bad feeling about tonight.
I think I?ll sleep with the gun this time.


Source.