Chapter 28
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
MATTY
Given the pattern and what we’ve gleaned from Mack, I’m not in the least bit surprised when more Chokecherry show up on our island like an annoying broken record.
It’s apparent that they’re after something.
Mack might not have been privy to that information, but those who are here looking for Kennedy are in fact looking for something else.
Vivienne, the ghost from Chokecherry who hitchhiked her way to Dark Island on the boat that Mack arrived on, states that there’s a dark presence around Clark, and it tends to prevent the other dead from getting close to him.
It doesn’t sound like it’s another dead person, but it comes from Clark himself.
Over the last few days, I’ve wondered if there’s such a thing as a dark soul.
People, especially religious people, tend to be dramatic about souls and whatnot.
It’s easy to have an opinion on something you’ve never seen, can’t touch, and doesn’t speak.
They can argue endlessly with zero evidence and no proof, just the determination to be right.
In my experience of the past two and a half years of hearing and seeing the dead, those religious zealots are talking out of their asses.
Souls are souls. There are no good souls or bad souls; there are no light or dark souls.
There are good and bad people, and their souls reflect the way they lived in life.
I may refuse to address the dead directly, but that doesn’t mean I don’t listen to them.
I’ve learned a whole fucking lot since my brain broke, giving me the ability to see them.
I’ve even seen a newly dead person become a ghost. I’m not even entirely convinced souls, in the way people refer to them, are a thing.
In one breath, the religious say ghosts aren’t real.
In the next, they talk about a soul that is equally substantial and proven as a ghost.
Only one of the many things I’ve found them hypocritical about, but for argument’s sake, let’s say there is a really bad, evil person that’s so awful in life that they can give off a black, uh…
glow? Aura. We’ll go with aura—something equally unproven and unseen.
In this scenario, a soul equates to what ultimately becomes a ghost after death.
Is that how ghosts like Jared are created? Their darkness was so dense in life that it somehow altered their death aura, allowing them to create some kind of nasty, dark vortex that the other dead can get sucked into?
Regarding Clark, is that what Vivienne is seeing? He’s such a shit person that he gives off a toxic darkness that doesn’t allow purer souls like Vivienne close?
“They’re so much more aggressive tonight,” Martha says. She’s a woman who died in her mid-thirties. She claims she died of cancer and maybe the weird way her body shimmers with mutilation in certain light is what cancer looks like on the inside. I don’t question her.
Her words make my heart race. I pick up the radio in my hand and repeat her words. “They say that the intruders are more aggressive tonight. Be careful.”
I’m not running through the trees with my boyfriends this time. Boyfriends. I’m momentarily distracted and smiling like a child on Christmas morning at the word. My. Boyfriends.
Okay, we haven’t actually had a conversation where we voiced that out loud. Not since the brief one in bed when Zephyr agreed we’d see where this went. But I’m claiming it. They’re my boyfriends.
Anyway. I turn my attention back to the dead.
They’re different outside. As if the island itself has its own dead, and the castle has its own.
They can move between the two, and some do.
Like Mason and the little boy, George. Others, like Gabriella and Mrs. Callendale, stay inside.
I’m sitting on the stairs closest to the trees, peering into the darkness.
Mrs. Callendale is crouching beside me, listening just as intently as I am to the dead from the island.
“There are four. Four of them.”
“They’re at the tower. They’re trying to get in.”
“Their boat is floating away!”
I click the button on the radio and repeat his information. “Four and they’re at the tower. Their boat is floating away.”
I don’t like that they can’t respond. They can hear me. We’ve been testing radio communication, so I’m not following.
“He’s going to fall in,” Patrick says. He faces me and brushes his hands over his jaw and around his mouth. Liam. “He needs to turn left immediately.”
My heart jumps. “Liam! Turn left. Turn left!!”
It’s torture not being able to get a response. I watch Patrick, the dead farmer, who stands at the edge of the tree line. He nods and I release a breath.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Mrs. Callendale says.
I nod in agreement.
“They’re so loud,” George says as he crouches on his hands and knees. He’s practically covered in snow because he’s so small and the snow is shoveled into a heap where he is. I think his hands and knees are on the ground beneath the snow. “Do you hear them? Hear them screaming?”
“They’re pretending to look for Kennedy in the tower.”
“One has a gun.”
I click the button on the radio. “One has a gun.”
Fear flutters through me. My god, it’s like watching a movie, but the screen is black. I hear what’s happening. Unlike a movie, it’s real, and all the people I care about the most are in danger. Fighting for their lives. Fighting to keep the island’s secrets hidden.
“Oh. That’s a lot of blood. They bleed a lot.”
I press my lips together and don’t ask who.
If it were one of mine, I’d know. They’d say so.
They don’t refer to anyone by name. They never have.
Not really. Liam is the only one with facial hair, so when they rub their faces, I know they mean Liam.
When they outline the lenses of glasses around their eyes, they’re referring to Darwin, even though he doesn’t always wear glasses.
He’s the only one of us who wears glasses at any time.
Zephyr often wears a hat backwards in the summer. He hasn’t much recently. Not since everyone left. But when they mimic putting on a ball cap and turning it around, I know they’re talking about Zephyr.
“It’s not one of ours, dear,” Mrs. Callendale assures me. “None of ours are bleeding.”
Martha shakes her head, confirming Mrs. Callendale. I try to feel relief, and I am relieved, but I’ll feel much better when this is over and my guys are home. When they’re wrapped around me, and I can feel their heartbeats, assuring me they’re well and safe.
“He’s trying to break a window. Tell them to hurry.”
“Those are old windows! I’m going to stab them with broken glass if they break our pretty windows.”
“Oh, look at how he slammed that bad man against the stone! Hell yeah. Go, us, go!” Patrick punches the air with excitement.
“Such violence.”
“He still has a gun. Oh! Hear that scream? One fell into a forgotten well.” Mason turns to face me and circles his fingers around his eyes. “Tell him to be careful.”
“There’s a well close by, Darwin,” I say into the radio. “One just fell in. Be really careful.”
“He just turned around. Good.”
“Good, Darwin,” I repeat. “You’re heading away from it.”
“Still three alive.”
“Except maybe the one who was slammed into the tower. His face is mangled.”
Gabriella gags and turns her face away. She’s standing behind me, back pressed to the door, ready to escape back inside if it gets too intense.
“Hit him hard! Be careful; his knife is sharp.”
They talk over each other as they recount, punch by punch, someone’s fight.
Based on their reactions alone, ours is coming out on top.
I can’t tell who it is. They won’t use names.
Which is fine. I can follow along without names.
In a way, it might be better if I don’t know who they’re talking about.
I suppose I’m less stressed without those details.
“Oh no,” Martha says and stands straight. Every single dead stills as they stare in a single direction.
“He’s bleeding. He’s bleeding badly.”
Suddenly, everyone is looking at me. Three of the ghosts put their fingers and thumbs in circles around their eyes.
Darwin.
“Go. No one is close.”
“Go before it’s too late.”
“He has a gun.”
“He’s going to kill him.”
I jump to my feet. Mrs. Callendale urges me down the stairs. “Darwin!” I scream into the trees and run in the direction my dead are pointing. They form a line, all watching me and pointing in the direction. A long stream of dead leads me looping through the trees.
Panic urges me quickly. I don’t know how I manage to stay on my feet as I fly through the trees. “Darwin!” I scream again.
A thick crowd of dead forces me to go around them, and I know there’s a hole of some kind that they made me avoid since I’m back on track with it directly behind me a second later.
“Go,” they urge.
“Hurry!”
My side aches like someone has punched me in the kidney. Tears make my vision blurry as fear clouds my head. They come into view a second later, as if they popped out of nowhere.
There’s a big man with a gun in his hand, but it’s the knife glistening with blood that makes my stomach roll. He’s holding it up, taunting the heap on the forest floor.
Without thinking, unknowing what I’m doing, I put my head down and slam into him at full force without slowing down at all. It sends us painfully careening over the forest floor. My back hits a tree, and a sob is shoved from my body with all the oxygen in my lungs.
“Up.”
“Hurry.”
“Look here. Take it. Take the knife.”
The dead remain surrounding us, encouraging me. Instructing me. Telling me everything I can’t see in the dark.
My body is weak as I struggle to fill my lungs again. I try desperately to get where they’re pointing as the man grunts on his back. At least I knocked the air from his chest, too.
I manage to inhale just as my hand lands on the knife. With it in my hand, I lean up on my haunches just as the guy begins to do the same.
“Hurry.”
“He’ll kill you if you’re not quick.”
“You need to kill him first.”
“So much blood. Hurry. He needs you.”
I’m sure it’s my fear for Darwin more than myself that propels me forward. A terrified scream is wrenched from my chest as I raise the knife in my hands and shove it into the man’s chest. His eyes go wide, and he falls backwards.
I clamber to follow and stab him three more times. Fear—terror—at what I’m going to find when I finally get to Darwin fuels my attack. Tears stream down my face.
When the knife gets lodged and my hands are wrenched free without it, I stop and stare. Bile instantly rises in my throat when I see what I’ve done. Then there’s the blood all over me.
A new sob releases, and I scramble backward before tearing out of my gloves and jacket to get the blood off me as much as I can.
“Over here.”
“Hurry, Matty. Hurry.”
“He’s bleeding so much.”
“Over here.”
Remembering why I’m out here, I scramble toward the heap on the ground that is Darwin. His face is covered with blood. I carefully pull him toward me and find that his eyes are open, but he’s not moving. Is he breathing? My hands are shaking so fucking badly that I can’t tell.
“ZEPHYR!” I scream as loudly as I can. “LIAM. HELP. HELP, PLEASE!” My voice cracks as I try to examine Darwin to find where he’s bleeding from.
“This side.”
“His head.”
“Right there.”
Unsure what to do, I rip my hat off and put it on Darwin’s head so there’s something between my dirty hand and the open wound before placing pressure on it.
His body twitches in my hand.
“Are you alive?” I ask as I pull him against my chest. “Please be alive.”
Darwin groans. His body weight falls onto me completely, and I let my tears fall as I feel him breathing against my skin. “It’s okay,” I whisper. “It’ll be okay now, Darwin. I have you. It’s okay now.”
The dead surround us in a circle. They’re quiet as they watch. Fearful, maybe? Protecting us? I don’t know.
I continue trying to assure Darwin that everything is okay as tears pour down my face. I’m careful not to place too much pressure on Darwin’s wound, but I keep my hand securely covering it outside of my hat. He needs to stop bleeding. I don’t want to hurt him further, but the blood needs to stop.
A light suddenly blinds me as it flashes in my direction. The dead shift, but they’re not shouting a warning, so I know it’s Zephyr or Liam. He drops to his knees in front of me, and I can’t hold in my terror anymore and begin crying for real.
Zephyr takes Darwin’s face in his hands. “Look at me, sweetheart. Open your eyes. Come on, Darwin.”
I can’t see Darwin’s face, but Zephyr releases a breath. He looks at us, at how I’m holding Darwin, and nods.
“Okay. Come on, Matty. I need your help. Can you help me with Darwin?”
He takes Darwin from my arms, and I wipe at my face, trying to get the tears from obscuring my vision. I nod. “Yeah.”
“That’s my brave man. Come on. Help me get him to his feet.”
I struggle to do as he says because I’m shaking so hard. “He’s okay?” I ask.
“We need to get him back to the castle and see what’s up.”
“His head,” I say.
“He was hit with the knife and then kicked in the head. He hit his head again when he fell.”
Tears sting my eyes, and I struggle to repeat the words the dead on my other side said.
“Darwin’s strong,” Zephyr says, though I can hear the strain in his voice. “We need to hurry, Matty. Okay?”
I nod and get under Darwin’s other arm. Together, we carry Darwin back to the castle.
The dead lead us as directly as they can, avoiding all the hidden holes along the way.
Liam is just breaking the treeline as we do, and he stares in horror.
It might be a trick of the light, but I think the color drains from his face.
He rushes up the stairs and opens the door. “Take him to the first bathroom on the right. There’s an extensive first-aid kit there.”
Without a word, we do as Liam says. In the light, Darwin already looks dead.