NATE
It wasn’t Leanne in the water with us. Nate confirms with a grim seriousness, his hands lowering to feel the growl rumble through his husbands throat, a matching shiver running through him. Wasn’t her in the forest either. Theres a wordless continuation, Nate not sure if even the snappy, half awake bitch in the cabin was really her. Not sure if they brought home a person or a mask in the end.
A hand lifts and falls onto Sunjata’s back as Nate says the word thump, a solid, open handed demonstration. He remembers thinking it sounded like the cops, sounded like his father in the middle of the night, sounded terribly, horribly human. He remembers the panicked silence of eight teenagers, all suddenly painfully sober, and the one adult who was anything but. None of us moved. No one... no one even breathed, and then we heard the uh, the fuckin’... the porch stairs creak, and then steps, goin’ out around the place. T’wards the cars n’shit, and then comin’ back. Fingers clutch and scrabble at Sunjata’s scales, the demi-god testing the strength of the dragons wings as worry begins to bubble up in him.
I uh... I locked t’door, and Connors cousin got the side door, and... and Nessie got the bathroom, cause the fuckin’.... the window was broken in there, but the door still worked, so... He shrugs. We all had like... weapons, a fire poker or... y’know. But... whatever it was didn’t bang again. We just... we heard it walk around the house all night, and... go through the crawl space, an’ tap at the windows, but... it went back into the woods when the sun came up.
Not that any of them had moved, not that it had been the all clear. Hours had passed, the sun beating down, and it was only the threat of clouds on the horizon, of being stuck in the fucking woods while a storm drowned the roads that got them moving, bodies rushing into cars and peeling down the road without so much as a goodbye. We found... Bart’s shirt on the uh, the mat. Outside the door. All... twisted, and mangled. Covered in mud and shit. We left it there.
A hand lifts and falls onto Sunjata’s back as Nate says the word thump, a solid, open handed demonstration. He remembers thinking it sounded like the cops, sounded like his father in the middle of the night, sounded terribly, horribly human. He remembers the panicked silence of eight teenagers, all suddenly painfully sober, and the one adult who was anything but. None of us moved. No one... no one even breathed, and then we heard the uh, the fuckin’... the porch stairs creak, and then steps, goin’ out around the place. T’wards the cars n’shit, and then comin’ back. Fingers clutch and scrabble at Sunjata’s scales, the demi-god testing the strength of the dragons wings as worry begins to bubble up in him.
I uh... I locked t’door, and Connors cousin got the side door, and... and Nessie got the bathroom, cause the fuckin’.... the window was broken in there, but the door still worked, so... He shrugs. We all had like... weapons, a fire poker or... y’know. But... whatever it was didn’t bang again. We just... we heard it walk around the house all night, and... go through the crawl space, an’ tap at the windows, but... it went back into the woods when the sun came up.
Not that any of them had moved, not that it had been the all clear. Hours had passed, the sun beating down, and it was only the threat of clouds on the horizon, of being stuck in the fucking woods while a storm drowned the roads that got them moving, bodies rushing into cars and peeling down the road without so much as a goodbye. We found... Bart’s shirt on the uh, the mat. Outside the door. All... twisted, and mangled. Covered in mud and shit. We left it there.
i love those quiet moments in the dark
where you can stop pretending
where you can stop pretending
