Sons of Night

Andy’s POV
“Why did you leave us alone, Andy?” My mom screamed at me. She was a wisp of herself, I could see her face so well, twisted in grief. I wanted to see her smile again, not see her in all this pain because of me.
“Are you dead? Where are you? Did you really kill that boy? Why did we have to bury our pride and joy without finding his body? Do you even care how that made us feel?” She yelled at me again, collapsing to her knees in grief. The black background, I assumed was some sort of Hell, sucked away her gray form like dust on the wind.
“We wanted to see our son succeed, not become a legendary murderer! Why did you let us down?” My dad yelled as he appeared in front of me. His gray toned fingers reached out to grab my shoulders. I couldn’t feel him touch me, his hands dissipated as he tried to grab me. The rest of him followed, sucked away like my mother.
“ I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!” I screamed after him, trying to grab on to make him hear me. I was crying. I tried to go after them, but I couldn’t. I needed to tell them that I was still alive that I was trying to make things better again so I could see them, tell them that I was okay. Then the worst part happened. Two blank faced monsters appeared. Tall and thin and radiating rage, I tried to turn and run but I was suddenly welded to the ground.
“You murdered our son! He was destined for greatness and you cut him down in his prime! You, it’s your fault! You should be dead not him, he meant more than you!” They roared at me in unison. They came at me, their claws reaching for my chest. Unlike my parents, I knew they could touch me.
“I’m sorry! I wasn’t trying to hurt him!” I yelled, trying to wrench my feet out of the steely grip of the ground. My hands flew up to try and defend myself as their claws, yellow and pointed, reached my face. I felt the pain and then I jerked awake.
I looked around in a panic, the nightmares never ended. trying to remember where I was at. I felt a wetness on my cheek and I realized I was still crying. I wiped away the tears and felt the weight in my arms. I looked down, the girl. I thought about the night before. When I found her I was sure she was dead, she was so cold. I had been tempted to just leave her there, she was dead anyway I had assumed. Then I took note of just how beautiful she was, I had to try. So I did, and I guessed that it worked. What was I going to do with her? I didn’t want to let her go. Of course she needed to go back to her, probably terrified family. I didn’t want to let her go. She rested there in my arms like my own little piece of springtime out here in the bitter winter. For the first time in years I felt like the ice that was my heart was beginning to melt, and it was her warmth that was doing it. I rested my chin on her shoulder, feeling her move with her breath. I didn’t want to let her go. I had been alone for so long. I mean of course I had the rest of the Sons of Night, the rest of the guys, but that didn’t count. I needed someone, someone who wasn’t a grief hardened, someone who wasn’t just as cold as I was. Most importantly, I needed a girl. She felt so right being there, my heart a ached to think that today I was probably going to let her go.
Part of me wanted to tell her who I was. I guessed that she went to Waren High, just like I had. I guessed she had heard about what happened. There was no one in our town who didn’t know what I did. I also guessed that my name had been smeared, a vicious murderer who killed everyone’s best friend in a fit of rage. All she’d probably heard about me was that I was a killer. I didn’t want her to be afraid of me. The other part of me really wanted her to know who she laid with all night. Maybe then she wouldn’t believe all those stories about me being evil. As I thought about it, maybe I could keep her with me for another night or two. If she went to Waren she probably knew about the serial killings that happened. She probably knew more than we did and could get us a clue or two so we could be just that much closer to finding the killer. So I could make up for my crimes and go home when we found him. So I could apologize to Cody’s parents. So I could see my mom and dad again. That was the goal anyway. I decided I’d take her to the rest of the group.
I pulled my arms away from her and sat up. The cold morning air grabbed at me. I stood, stretching out the kinks that showed up from laying on the ground. I stirred up the coals of the fire, and threw on a few more sticks to get us warm. I rubbed my hands together and held them to the fire. A yawn stretched my jaw. The forest around was alight with a whitish glow from the snow, some birds chirped about and as I looked a little rabbit hopped along wiggling its velvety nose. I looked back at the girl. I didn’t even know her name. She was still in just a sweatshirt with a t-shirt on under it, and sweat pants. She would freeze out there. We needed to stop back by my personal little cabin to get her some more clothes before I took her all the way to the real camp. That was a lot of walking for a day. We needed to get started. I reached over and shook her shoulder gently.
“Come on sweetheart, you need to wake up so I can get you where you need to go,” I said softly. Her eyes opened. I saw that for a moment she didn’t know where she was, she looked at me in confusion and then remembered.
“Good morning,” She said.
“Good morning, sorry to wake you but we need to go,” I said.
“You’re gonna show me the way back home?” She said I could hear the hope in her voice. I sighed and bit my lip, trying to decide how to say it without lying to her, or sounding like I was kidnapping her.
“Uhm, is it okay if I hold onto you for a little longer, just a couple days?” I asked. I saw the fear in her eyes, she still thought I wanted to kill her.
“Why?” She asked, her voice was nothing but an afraid whisper
“You go to Waren High right?”
“Yeah,”
“You can probably help me and my friends, we’re trying to solve the murders,” I said.
“Your friends?”
“Yes, there’s a group of us. I want to take you to them, so we can talk to you and learn what you know and then, I swear, I will take you straight back home. Safe and sound,” I looked at her hopefully. She looked like she was contemplating, trying to figure out if she trusted me or not.
“I swear it. I swear it on the lives of all of my friends and family, I swear on the bible, I swear on my next meal, you will be back home safely within a week. I give you my word. I just really, really, need your help,” I almost begged, “Please” She looked at me longer. I knew she was going to say no. It was common sense. For all she knew none of those things I swore on meant anything to me.
“Who are you?” Was all she said.
“I’ll tell you if you decide to come with me,” I said, it was a dick move, but I figured it would help my cause. She looked at the ground in silence for a minute, then looked back up at me and studied me curiously. I remained silent, waiting for her decision. I was about to just say fine and take her home, when she spoke up.
“Fine,” She said.
“Really? You’ll come?”
“Yes but on one condition,”
“What would that be?” I said, curious to what she’d want from me.
“You have to have something on you, a hunting knife, an ax, something. I want you to give it to me,” She said, she was a smart girl. I couldn’t help but smile.
“That is totally fair,” I said. I reached for my backpack, where I did in fact have a hunting knife stored. I had put it in there when she started waking up so that she didn’t freak out more because I had a deadly weapon on me. I pulled out the sheathed knife. It was sharp for slicing on one side and had a saw blade on the other, the sheath was attached to a belt. I turned back to her.
“Stand up,” I said. She obeyed and I strapped the belt to her as best I could, obviously her sweatpants had no belt loops so it was hard to make it fit right. After a while of messing with the straps I looked up at her. I was suddenly aware of the fact that we were very close to eachother. Our eyes locked for a long moment and I forgot what I was doing.
“Does that feel okay?” I said, in an attempt to break the silence.
“What?” She said like she had just snapped out of a trance.
“The belt, is it okay? It’s not pinching you or anything?” I said, I saw her blush and look away from me.
“Yeah it’s fine,” She said. I nodded and took a step back. As soon as I was an arms length away she drew the blade. I stumbled back, she came a bit too close for comfort.
“Watch yourself now, that thing’s sharp, don’t pull it on me unless you plan on stabbing me,” I chastised.
“Sorry,” She said sheathing the knife again.
“Shall we go then, I’ll break the path for you,” I said, shoving the last of my camping gear into my bag and slinging it over my shoulder. There was at least a foot of snow, and it was the fluffy stuff that you just sank right into, the worst kind of thing for walking long distances. She had shorter legs so I knew she’d have harder time walking, also I was used to it. I started walking, smashing down the drifts of snow so she could have an easier time. On a normal day it would have been about a twenty minute walk back to my cabin. In this weather it could take about an hour. We walked for a while in silence. I was just trying to focus on finding the easiest path and listening to the sounds of her footsteps behind me.
“Wait,” I heard her pant behind me, breaking the silence.
“You need to take a break?” I said, she was sweaty and breathing hard, I couldn’t blame her I was getting pretty close to needing to sit down too. She nodded and sat down on a fallen log after she brushed the snow off of it. I sat next to her.
“You never told me who you are,” She said. I sighed and looked at the ground, I had been hoping that she would forget.
“Tell me your name first,” I said, yes I was procrastinating.
“My name is Mayden,” She said, then she turned and looked at me expectantly. My gut twisted with apprehension. I couldn’t make eye contact.
“Come on, just tell me,” She said. I took a deep breath.
“I’m Andy,” I said, and she reacted in the worst possible way.
Mayden’s POV
I was off the fallen log in a second. My heart was pounding harder than it had been while we were walking. I turned to face him, drawing the knife as I backed up until I felt a tree behind me. My mind was reeling. It was impossible. He was dead. I remembered hearing about his bodiless funeral, he was dead. He stood up from the log and took a step towards me.
“Don’t you dare take one step closer to me. You’re supposed to be dead,” I yelled, pointing the knife at his chest with shaking hands. He held up his hands in surrender. I knew then how I recognized his face. He’d been all over the news a nation wide manhunt searching for the boy that I was staring at. He took a step closer, he was about two feet from being close enough for me to stab.
“What are you gonna do? Stab me? Does that make you any better than me? Oh, but you’d do it in self defense, right? That makes you better than me right? You kill out of self defense and I killed out of cold blood right? Oh no, but wait. The media never told you did it, I killed out of self defense too. You kill me and you’re a murderer, just like me,” He spat his voice dripping with venom. He took another step and a half closer to me the point of the knife was pressed against his chest, I was frozen. Fear radiated up through my bones, I still couldn’t wrap my brain around what was happening.
“Go ahead. Kill me. Take all my stuff, I have a compass in my bag if you head west for about a day’s walk and you’ll find yourself back home, the killer will probably get to you before you get there,” He said pointing in a direction behind me.
“Get away from me,” I rasped. He didn’t move. He stared silently and intently with those blue eyes that seemed so cold now. I couldn’t kill him and he knew it too. He grabbed my wrist that was holding the knife and started to pull it away from his chest. I threw the knife to the ground, jerking my wrist out of his hand in the process. I turned and ran in the direction that he’d been pointing. I heard his long loping steps behind me as I ran. I made it all of about two yard before I felt his strong arms wrap around me and pull me back into him. I struggled in his grasp, but it was useless, he was mountains stronger than me. Eventually I just my body go limp in his arms and he lugged me back to the log where we’d been sitting. He sat me down but kept his hands holding onto me. At that point I was shaking and crying like nobody’s business.
“Hey now, stop that crying. Nothing’s changed. I’m still not going to hurt you. I’m still going to take you back home within the week. I’m still taking you to see my friends, and I’m still not the killer,” He said. I sobbed and tried to turn away from him, but he pulled me back so I was facing him. I felt his gentle hands on my cheeks wiping away the tears.
“No, you’re supposed to be dead,” I cried into my hands. I felt a gentle touch on my back, and realized that he was rubbing my back slowly.
“I promise I’m not going to hurt you, and I’m sorry for yelling at you,” He said. I made myself look up at him, his eyes were back to how they were the night before. Soft, and concerned for my safety.
“I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I know it’s not an excuse, but I’m mad at the world and I took it out on you, I’m sorry. If you want me to take you home, I will walk you straight there, and you can even hold the knife again,” He said. I still couldn’t think clearly. I was starting to shut down, like I did in class when talking to someone got to be too overwhelming. All I could do was shake my head no. A very large part of me liked him a lot. He talked to me and treated me like a human being, not like a punching bag, like my classmates did. I didn’t want to let him down. He seemed like a very nice guy and I wanted to help him. The other part of me was absolutely terrified of him. He was offering to take me home.
“Let’s keep going,” was all I managed to squeak out.
“You’re sure? You want to stay with me?” He said. I could hear the surprise in his voice, I nodded, but I felt too weak to move. I looked at the ground, and I felt him get up from next to me and I heard his footsteps take a few steps away. Then they came back. I heard a soft sliding sound and felt a weight on my hip. He’d brought me back the knife. I still felt like I couldn’t move. He must have figured that out because I felt strong arms wrap around me and then I was lifted off the log and I could feel his warmth. I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. The rhythmic sound of his footsteps and the sway of his walk was quickly lulling me to sleep. Then he stopped.
“We’re at our first stop,” He said. I opened my eyes and looked around. Nestled in the middle of a clearing was a little snow covered hut. It had a stone chimney but other than that it was made entirely out of wood.
“What is this?” I asked.
“This is my personal little place, away from the group. We’re stopping here for a bit to get you some food, and warmer clothes,” He said. He placed my feet ground and we walked together to the front door of his little shack.
“Welcome to my humble abode,” he said as he swung the ramshackle door and I was looking into the place that the legendary boy who was supposed to be dead called home.

Notes

So this is long and early. This is going to be the update for this week because I will be going out of town and have no internet this weekend. Hope you all enjoy this long update and I hope you will leave me a comment and tell me what you think. If you were in Mayden's position what would you do? Tell me in the comments.