Your Scream's a Whisper

Everything seemed calm. There was a light evening breeze, rustling through the bushes and leaves. Stars illuminated the sky. Crickets began chirping and hopping around as birds nestled into their nests. The twilight brought a sense of peace to nature.

Unfortunately it couldn’t do the same for me.

My palms were sweating. My heart was thumping loudly against my chest. My body was restless. Where was Zacky? Why didn’t they bring him along on the hunt?

Of course the only “logical” excuse that my mind could develop right now was the last possible thing that I would want to happen. They killed him. They couldn’t bring him along because he was dead.

Nothing else seemed to make sense. I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to know the truth. Keeping my movements as silent as possible, I pushed myself up off the ground and into a crouched position. The bushes that we hid behind weren’t the tallest, so I was sure that at least part of my ponytail was sticking up over the top. But I didn’t care.

“Katie, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Chris whispered harshly.

“I need to get back to the house…to see if Zacky’s okay.”

Ronnie scoffed. “That’s practically a suicide mission. We should take advantage of what that blonde bitch did and get to a safer location.”

I scowled in his direction. “If Myra was the one inside that house, wouldn’t you be desperate to see if she’s alive?”

He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms stubbornly over his chest. Chris had a thoughtful expression on his face. I could tell that he was considering my opinion at the very least.

“If we could be sneaky enough, it might work. But I barely know my way around these woods,” he sighed.

Great, that meant the decision would be under Ronnie’s discretion. Regardless, I wore my best, pleading look of innocence. “Ronnie, please help me out here. If anything happens, I’ll take full responsibility.”

I knew that was a lot to promise, considering Syn wanted nothing more than to kill Ronnie. It would be worth it, though.

Finally, his stubbornness cracked and he agreed, mumbling all sorts of swear words to himself as we crept out of the bushes.

Myra

There was no point in concealing my true feelings on the matter. I was horrified. Disgusted. Terrified. You name it.

It was already bad enough that we had kids in the picture. Imagine the fucked up lives they’re going to have. Syn was incapable of being a father figure, and I could already tell that he hated Renee with a burning passion.

Then of course there was always the potential of child abuse, which I would not put past him. They were all murderers; so surely hitting a defenseless child wouldn’t really make the top of the list. That thought alone sent chills down my spine.

He took advantage of my deep contemplation and managed to pin me up against a tree. The rough bark dug past my shirt and into my skin. He had one leg centered between both of mine. The other leg rested on the outside. His hands were holding my shoulders in place with an unnecessary amount of bruising force.

I glared at him and tried to move, though quickly noticed that it was damn near impossible. “What do you want?” I asked, exhausted from my brief attempts.

“You just seem so tense after hearing my proposal.”

“Proposal?” I sneered. “I’d say that it was more of a threat.”

His smile dropped instantly and his grip tightened. “Call it whatever you like, Myra. It doesn’t change the facts.”

“What facts?”

“Surely you’ve already thought about it. We’re going to be one big family soon, and I don’t want any negative influences to be present.”

“Well if that’s the case, then you better leave now,” I laughed.

His brown eyes darkened into a shade of black. A shade of absolute darkness, rage. One of his hands moved along my collarbone and up to my throat. He squeezed tightly, causing my windpipe to collapse inward.

His other hand formed a fist. It was pulled tightly together, all fingers bent together, with the thumb running along the outside. The fist flew forward, heading directly toward my face. I gasped for air through a small opening left in my throat. Just as I exhaled, his bony knuckles collided with my temple.

A flash of white flooded my left eye’s range of vision. My head snapped to the right harshly, against his hold on my neck. A sensation of whiplash numbed the backside of my neck. Finally, he released his chokehold and created a small distance between the two of us as I tried to steady myself.

“You’re wrong. I’m not the negative influence. Rather, your friends are. That bastard Ronnie, I know he finds you attractive, wishes you were his. That nerdy guy you’re friends with always fucks up the plans. And Katie keeps you distracted from what’s important.”

I held a hand up to the tender skin on the side of my face, trying to glare at him though failing miserably due to the unbearable pain that accompanied the action. “Y-you’re insane if you think I’d just let you kill everyone I really care about so that I could suffer the rest of my life with you.”

For the briefest, and I mean briefest second, a look of devastation and rejection flashed across his face. After what happened during the guitar stunt earlier, I knew that he loved me, in a twisted sense of the word. Then, he was betrayed…

The point I’m trying to make is that I know he ‘cared’ about me, about having a family. But he didn’t understand that it was totally impossible. Since he didn’t say anything after my last comment, I decided to continue with my rant, regardless of whether or not his heart was breaking inside.

“After everything that you’ve done, not just to me, but to whoever for the past three years, all the sins you’ve committed, who would ever want to call you his or her father? You know just as well as I do that we could never have a true, loving family.”

With each word that I said, I could see an increase in his anger level. His face was red with rage, his eyes narrowed, and his jaw firmly clenched. I don’t care if he came after me for what I said, it needed to be said, that much was obvious. As expected, he took small, calculated steps toward me. Matt and Val stood in the background, silently observing.

“It’s not like you to give up on something before you’ve given it a chance,” Syn said in a foreign tone. It…it sounded just like something he’d say to me back in high school. He lifted up a hand, and I cursed myself for visibly cringing. He smirked and wrapped the arm around me in one of those half hugs. He pulled me up against his chest and placed his mouth just above my ear. “I think I ought to instill a little motivation.”

Val

I cradled both babies carefully in my arms. Caring for babies wasn’t exactly something I was familiar with, considering I hadn’t had any chance to have some of my own. Myra was lucky in that respect. Not to mention the fact that she had a rare pregnancy.

Was I jealous? I glanced down at the babies, one a boy, the other a girl. The boy was watching his parents with great intensity and interest. The girl looked like she was about to cry. Did they understand what was going on? No…there’s no way.

Syn whispered something in Myra’s ear and then created a slight distance. His eyes were scanning the forest floor for something. They lit up once the object was identified. He walked over to a nearby bush and tugged on a vine until it fell off a tree. It was covered in thorns. Myra caught on quickly and scrambled to get away, but he was faster, reaching for her hair and pulling her back.

He wrapped the vines around her, initially to be used as a restraint; once it was wrapped all the way around, he shoved the thorns into her skin, as deep as he could. She cried out in pain as blood trickled out from the multiple holes in her skin.

Syn forced her onto her knees and held her head still just before slamming his knee into the exact same location he punched her. Myra fell to the ground from the force of the blow, but even still I could see her face, swollen and purple on one side. He reached down and grabbed the collar of her shirt, pulling her into a sitting position.

And then he pulled the gun out. Most people used guns as a means for killing, which was something that I knew Syn didn’t plan on doing right now. I mean, the only other thing he could do is shoot her in an arbitrary location and make her suffer through the pain. If that was the case…

The babies shouldn’t be exposed to this. I don’t know why I give a shit about the emotional stability of her babies, but I couldn’t let myself do this to them. I turned around and took in the scenery, bracing myself for the sound of gunfire.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Syn asked. I knew it was directed at me.

“I…I don’t want the kids to see whatever the fuck you plan on doing to their mom. There will be plenty of other opportunities for them to be scarred.”

“Last time I checked, I just asked you to hold them, not take care of them. Turn the fuck around. I want them to see this.”

Knowing that he really didn’t have a reason for me to stay alive just yet, I didn’t have much of a choice. With a glare in his direction, I turned around and subtly held the babies closer to my chest than before, hopefully narrowing their line of vision in the slightest way.

Once he was satisfied with my position, he returned his attention to Myra. Interestingly enough, her attention wasn’t on the gun anymore. She stared at me with a rather unreadable expression, though I got the feeling that it had something to do with her appreciation. I hope she doesn’t think this makes us friends again.

“When you wake up, I better see an attitude adjustment, or you will experience the greatest amount of pain that I can inflict, do you understand?” he growled.

Myra turned to face him with a look of defiance and silence. He shrugged. “Since you’re not offering some sort of typical sarcastic rebuttal, I’ll take your silence as acceptance.”

It looked like she was about to protest, but he didn’t give her the chance. He pulled the trigger swiftly and without a single thought. The bullet was aimed at her leg and embedded itself somewhere within her thigh. Blood squirted up just after the moment of impact and her body convulsed in shock and pain.

Syn crouched down so that he was at eye level. He smirked at her, watching her writhe. “See you soon, honey,” he sneered. He paused just long enough for a look of confusion to make its appearance on her face before he slammed the butt of the gun into her temple, knocking her out.

I was so caught up in the moment, that I didn’t even register the sound of crying. I looked down into my arms and almost dropped the babies when I saw that the girl was crying her eyes out. Her face was crimson, and her screams were piercing.

I didn’t know what to do, but it hurt me to see her in pain. Synyster walked right past me without a single look. And I hated him for that, because he just gave me a reason to sympathize with Myra. I felt sick.

Katie

Ronnie led us along a sad excuse of a path through the woods. I wanted to get back to the house as soon as possible, but we had to take each step slowly to avoid making any noise. Damn crunchy leaves.

To get back to the house we had to pass by where the others were, by the waterfall and surrounding area. That was when we had to walk the slowest and safest.

Ronnie stopped suddenly and crouched behind a bush. He parted some of the branches so that he could get a better look.

“What are you looking for?” I whispered.

“Found Myra.”

Chris and I exchanged a concerned glance before getting on the ground as well. Syn was holding a gun, aimed right at her. I could barely bite back the scream that resided in my throat after witnessing him shoot her. But there was nothing we could do to help.

“I-If we stay here any longer, we’re going to get caught,” Chris said solemnly.

With some unknown willpower, we tore ourselves away from the scene and continued the trek up the steep hill. Chris broke the silence. “I’ve got a question…once you get back to your lover boy, what the hell do we do next? It’s not that hard for them to gang up on us.”

“You were working with the cops before, weren’t you?” Ronnie asked. “Why don’t you figure out a way to let the people back in NYC know what’s happened?”

Chris scanned the area and paused for a moment to think. “The patrol car that Officer Peterson and I rode in should still be parked near that lady’s house.”

“What lady?” I asked.

Chris shrugged. “Some lady lived not too far from where you’ve been all this time. I think her last name was Roth or Radford or something with an R.”

“Radke?” Ronnie whispered.

“Yeah! That was it. How’d you know?”

“That’s my mom.”

Another awkward silence fell upon us as we switched gears and headed toward Ronnie’s mom’s house. The way he responded, it was obvious that he either didn’t want to talk about her, or didn’t want to be near her house. Either way, I didn’t feel comfortable enough pressing the topic.

The patrol car was exactly where Chris thought it was, perfectly untouched. He opened the car door and slid inside, reaching for the radio. “This is Chris Parolee. We’ve got some officers down on the A7X mission. Requesting backup.”

“Chris, this is Officer Williams, we have pinpointed your location and will send a unit over.”

“Mission accomplished,” he said, slamming the door shut. “Let’s go finish this.”

Luckily, the house wasn’t too far away. I stepped inside first, glancing in every direction to make sure that no one would spring out of a closet or something. Although there were no traps or rigged entrances, the sights left behind could be considered just as worse.

Aliza’s bloody body was still lying on the floor in the living room. She was sprawled out with her eyes closed and mouth slightly open. Ronnie froze in place, just staring at her body. He swallowed loudly and stepped into the room, trying his best not to step in puddles of what he presumed to be her blood.

He turned her body over so that she was laying on her back. He pushed some hair off her face and gently closed her mouth. “Hurry up and do what you came here to do. We don’t have all night,” he muttered.

I didn’t take his tone personally. I knew that he was hurt.

Chris followed me into the kitchen. We both called out Zacky’s name, mine sounding like a desperate plea, while his sounding like a forced, disdained utterance. A loud thump, thump, thump noise prevented me from shouting any more. “Did you hear that?” I asked. “I think it came from over there.”

We walked into the laundry room and saw nothing but a washer, dryer, and sink. Oddly enough the dryer was on and making some awfully loud noises for clothes.

“There’s nothing weird about this room, Katie. It was just the dryer…”

I shook my head. “Why would they care about drying clothes, with all that was going on?” I needed to confirm my suspicion. After exhaling, I reached forward and ripped the dryer door wide open and screamed when I found anything but clothes spinning around in there. It…it was Zacky!

His body hung out of the dryer, his head spinning in disorientation. He began coughing relentlessly until a wave of vomit leaked out of his mouth, dripping down his cheek into a puddle on the floor.

“Gross,” Chris muttered, stepping out of the laundry room.

My body finally snapped to attention once I realized that he probably needed help getting out of there. I reached in and grabbed his arms, tugging as hard as I could, though not really making much of a difference. “CHRIS!” I shouted, knowing I’d need an extra pair of hands.

“What now?”

“I need help pulling him out.”

“Of course,” he mumbled.

He stepped into the room and took care of Zacky’s left side, while I pulled on the right. It was still a bit of a struggle do to the unusual angle, but we managed to get him out as all of us fell back against the wall in a heap.

“Oh God, I stepped in the puke!” Chris shouted, crawling out of the room.

Any other time I would’ve laughed, but the look on Zacky’s face made that damn near impossible. I strained my body to reach for a towel that was resting on the sink above me. I wiped away the chunks of puke and pulled him up so that his head was resting on my lap. “They did this to you,” I whispered, realizing the truth. “They were trying to kill you…”

Obviously, they lost their trust in him. All the more reason for us to get the hell out of here before it was too late. “Zacky, can you hear me?”

He held a hand to his head and kept his eyes closed. He coughed a little before forcing himself to sit up. “I-I’m fine.”

“We need to get out of here as soon as possible. Right now they’ve still got Myra, the babies, and Nicole, so we don’t know if and when they plan on coming back here.”

“Alright, alright. I just need a minute to get rid of this fucking dizziness.”

I jumped up to my feet and extended a hand to help him up as well. Even though he was unsteady, I pulled him into a hug. “I’m so glad you’re alive.”

Synyster

Myra’s body was still. Her breathing was shallow, but I knew that she was still alive. I didn’t care about her level of pain. She deserved every second of it. After all, she was the one who fucked up our potential lives together.

It doesn’t really matter though. I can get rid of those feelings. The pleasure I get from seeing that look of sorrow in her eyes was all I needed.

I was torn from my mental anticipation by one of the least enjoyable sounds. Police sirens. I guess they must’ve realized that something was wrong when they didn’t get any feedback from their little task force.

“We need to get back to the house and pack our shit,” I said.

“What about the others?” Shadows asked, referring to Ronnie, Chris, and Katie.

I didn’t want to just let them escape, but I didn’t have much of a choice right now. I had who I wanted, and by the time we made it out of the state, anything that those fuckers have to say against us will be worthless.

“Leave them. Maybe if we’re lucky, they’ll get eaten by a mountain lion or a bear.”

I led them back to the falls and informed Rev and the Berries about the situation. They immediately followed, bringing a rebellious Nicole along. I had no choice but to carry Myra myself. It’s not like she could walk on her own.

The sounds of the sirens were getting closer now. Everyone else heard them too so I didn’t need to verbalize the necessity of speed at this time. We hiked up the mountain and were practically out of breath by the time we reached the house.

“Pack only what you need. We can buy anything else on the road,” I commanded, throwing Myra’s body on the foyer floor.

I was making my way to the kitchen to grab some food, but stopped once I saw a rather familiar face in the living room. “Hey there, Ronnie. Didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

Ronnie spun around with a shocked, yet angry expression. “Shit,” he muttered.

“Today’s your lucky day because I don’t have the time to kill you just now. So, I suggest you go pack your shit and get ready to go.”

Chris was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a banana. He started choking when he saw me, which was incredibly amusing. “Since you don’t have anything to pack, you get to be on food duty,” I smirked, grabbing him by back of his neck and shoving him into the pantry. He grunted in pain as some canned goods landed on his foot.

Guess I should check on Zacky. Maybe if I’m as lucky as I have been, he’ll be dead. I stepped into the laundry room, already noticing that the dryer wasn’t spinning. The sight before me was absolutely perfect. It all made sense now.

They abandoned their safety so that she could come back and save her boyfriend. “How sweet,” I sneered, scaring them out of their embrace.

Katie’s face was priceless. She really thought she could get away with this. Well, life sure is a bitch.

“The cops are nearby, which means that we need to get the fuck out of here,” I said, making my way out of the room. But I stopped in the doorway and glanced back.

“Thanks for the help, Zacky. Here I thought you’d be better off dead, but you sure proved me wrong. You managed to collect all of the missing bodies, without even moving.”

Everyone gathered downstairs in about ten minutes. We threw all the luggage in the back of a stolen Escalade and made sure that our “guests” were properly secured in the car. It was going to be a long, uncomfortable ride for them. Since Myra was still knocked out, she got to sit in the trunk with all the luggage.

I tore down the gravel driveway, doing risky speeds around the sharp corners, until I reached the main road. The cops turned just around the bend and were heading toward us. Because of the tinted windows, they’d never know who was inside of this vehicle. I smirked to myself as I watched them foolishly turn toward our house.

We were free, and this time, we weren’t going to let anything or anyone fuck it up.