Sons of Night

Mayden’s POV
I stepped into Andy’s little bungalow, the wooden boards creaked underneath my feet and I heard him step in behind me and close the door. There was a moment of doubt in my mind. I had no real reason to trust him. He hadn’t proven that any part of his story about trying to find the killer was true. Then again, he hadn’t given me any reason not to trust him either. I stood a few feet in the house listening to him coming in behind me. I felt like I was frozen, I couldn’t comprehend the absolute idiocy of the choice I’d made. I chose to go with him, I chose not to stab him when I had the chance, and at that moment I was kicking myself. I was in a tiny little house, in the middle of no where with someone who was supposed to be dead. Someone who was rumored to be a vicious killer of people who entirely matched my description. I knew he was faster than me, I knew he was stronger than me. I couldn’t run if something went bad. The noises of him entering behind me, shuffling and huffing, had ceased and he had faded into silence.
“I know it’s not much but it’s mine, and I built it myself,” He said in a slightly apologetic tone. He had noticed my stillness and silence and took it as me being disapproving of his home. I didn’t answer him, I didn’t move except my right hand slowly drifting to my right hip where the knife was held. I swallowed hard swearing to myself that I’d really stab him this time if I needed to. I heard his footsteps come around to the front of me, he slung the backpack down in the middle of the single room, then turned to look at me. It looked like he was about to say something when he must have noticed my tense posture. His eyes drifted to my hand gripping the knife handle.
“I know, I know this looks really bad. I know all of what I’ve told you could be a lie. I get it, you don’t trust me. I totally understand why, it’s a bad situation, but I promise, I’m not going to hurt you,” He said taking a step towards me. I took a step back and gripped the knife tighter, my palms began to sweat. His hands raised in surrender.
“How about this, I promise that I will not touch you unless you give me permission to until you completely believe that my story is true, deal?” He said backing away from me a few steps. Part of me was glad he was keeping his distance, the other part of me was insulted that he was treating me like a caged animal.
“Deal,” I said, letting go off the knife handle and wiping my hands on my pants.
“Okay, well I’m going to grab some stuff and get ready, you can give your feet a rest, I don’t mind if you sit on my bed,” He said gesturing to the single bed in the corner. I slowly made my way over to the bed that I hadn’t even noticed yet. The frame of the bed was hand made of wood and as I sat the mattress rustled, it was a sheet stuffed with dry grass. It was comfortable though and it was covered in store-bought quilts with forested scenes stitched onto them. I traced my fingers over the stitched ridges feeling the yarn beneath my fingers. I sighed and looked up at Andy. He was opening up some cupboards that also looked homemade and taking bits of canned goods down from shelves and putting them in his backpack. He reached up onto a shelf above the stone fireplace and pulled out a handful of granola bars.
“Breakfast?” He suggested holding them up for me to see.
“Sure,” I said and he tossed a few to me. I tore them open and munched on the sweet oats. As I watched him he tore a bar open himself and shoved the whole thing in his mouth at once.
“Nice,” I commented. He turned to me, chewing massively, with an innocent look on his face. I took another bite as he turned back to what he was doing. A second later he swallowed.
“Sorry, I’m not used to having manners,” he said.
“It’s cool I understand,” I said. He bent down to another cabinet and pulled out a heavy winter coat as well as some gloves and a hat.
“Put this on so you don’t freeze and we’re ready to go,” He said tossing the jacket at me. I stood up and put it on as he lugged his backpack up onto his back. It was clanking with all the cans that he’d put in it.
“What do you need all that for, is it a really far walk to the rest of the camp or something?” I asked as we headed out the door. He turned and dropped a heavy oak piece over the door, barring it shut.
“No, they just need a bit more food over there and it’s hard to get it in the winter,” He said as he began to trudge off into the snow.
“You do realize that with me here I’ll just take up more food, assuming you’re feeding me,” I pointed out following in his tracks. For a moment the thought that he could be a cannibal flashed through my head. I checked to make sure the knife was still on my hip.
“We’ll have enough, I think they’re just tired of eating deer and squirrel all the time and they knew I had some vegetables and stuff,” He said. I was satisfied with his answer and we continued trudging along in silence. I breathed deeply and I smelled the cold smell as well as the sweet smell from the pines strewn to and fro. I watched cardinals peck around at the ground and heard red headed woodpeckers tapping at the trees. The hollow sounds echoed around us through the white trees. Every once in a while I’d notice a white bunny hopping around just outside my vision. We were heading slightly downhill and the gradual slope made things a bit easier on me. The sun shined down on us, but it was still freezing cold on my nose. I was grateful for the extra clothes Andy had given me.
“How much farther?” I asked after about an hour and a half long period of walking.
“Not far at all, in fact that is the smoke from one of our fires,” He said pointing out to a lower place and sure enough I saw smoke rising from the trees. We kept walking and the ground turned steeper, to a point where I was nearly just sliding on my butt down the hill. Eventually we heard a repeated thumping sound that was accompanied by a ringing and an occasional crack. I couldn’t place the sound. We entered a fissure between two large chunks of rock that I couldn’t see around. The repeating sound stopped as we got closer. Whoever it was had heard us.
“Is that you Andy?” A voice called. Andy stopped walking.
“Yeah, and tell everyone to mind their manners, we have a guest,” Andy called back as he kept walking. He stepped out from behind the rock and I followed him.
“A guest? Dude what the fuck are you talking about,” The voice said and then we saw each other.
“Oh! Hello!” He said as I entered. He was shorter than Andy with chin length spiked up hair. I could see his blue grey eyes from across the clearing. In his hand was an ax and a pile of wood sat around him. Behind him there was a large cabin made of wood with glass windows and a door that appeared lockable. The smoke that we saw was rising from the trees came from the chimney on the big cabin. To the left of the cabin was what looked like a big shed. He laid the ax down on the ground and walked over to us. I could feel my shyness starting to take over and I looked at the ground.
“This is my friend Mayden,” Andy said gesturing to me.
“Hello Mayden, you can call me Jinxx,” He said reaching out to shake my hand, he had a very powerful grip. After making eye contact and nodding at me he turned abruptly to Andy.
“Not to be rude, but why is she here?” He said.
“Where is everyone, I want to tell everyone at once, long story short I saved her life and she owes me one,” He said.
“CC is sick, Jake is in the cabin trying to shove food down his throat and Ashley is down at the river fishing and getting water, I can go get him if you two want to get in there and get warm” Jinxx said.
“Cool, we’ll go do that, I’ll introduce her to Jake and CC and then we’ll get on with life,” Andy said. He started to walk across the clearing to the cabin. My stomach sank. I wasn’t that great at meeting new people.

Notes

Hello everyone! This is the update for this week because I will be going out of town this weekend and I will have little to no Internet. Anyway I hope you all enjoy and I would love to hear what you have to say about this when I get back from my long weekend out. See you all later.