an inconvenient flame, n. goode

Chapter Six

I made my way over to Kate and Josh who were waiting by the ambulance.

"Where's Simon?" I asked as I took notice to the dingus' absence.

"I don't know. I think he had to go pee." Josh explained.

I only nodded my head at that respond.

Soon enough, Sam and Deena were both walking over to us at a fast pace. Oh fuck. What did they do now? I didn't like having Sam with us. She hurt Deena, my closest friend, by choosing Sunnyvale and I'll never forgive her for that.

"We need to leave." Deena began.

Sam felt the need to protest. "I think we should stay. We're safe here. What if that psycho shows up again?"

"Then we'll be ready." Deena said as she pulled a gun out of her back pocket. That explains why she was so focused on getting away from the station.

"Deena! You stole a cops gun?!" I panicked. "What is wrong with you?!"

She became annoyed. "They didn't believe us. We're on our own." I wanted to explain that Nick was on our side or at least I hoped he was, but that would draw their suspicion to us. I couldn't take the chance and had to bite my tongue. Deena began to look around. "Where the hell is Simon?"

Our attention shot to the childish scream that came from the nearby street. We all quickly ran to see what all the commotion was for. That scream was all too familiar though...Simon. Oh please don't be dead, Simon.

When we reached the source of the scream, we found Simon in the middle of the street, being straddled by a murderous girl with a razor blade. Before I could scream for help, Deena fired three shots into her chest. The girl fell to his side and he quickly stumbled back onto his feet.

"Simon, come on!" Kate and I yelled. He ran to us, screaming his head off in fear. That's when my nightmares became real. The dead girl rose to her feet and her wounds healed instantly. At first, I wasn't sure what I saw at the hospital, but now I know...

Monsters are real.

Deena grabbed mine and Sam's arms, pulling us with her as we all ran back to the ambulance.

-

Song - "Secrets and Lies : Ruelle"

We retreated back to Deena's house to recall tonights events. It was all surreal and I didn't know how to handle any of it. While Simon was shutting all of the curtains and locking all the doors, the rest of us tried to come up with a reasonable explanation for these circumstances in the basement.

Sam started with, "It doesn't make sense. It's...it's not possible. The bullets didn't stop her."

"No shit sherlock." I sighed as I paced back and forth.

"Who the hell was that?" Deena asked Simon.

"How the hell should I know? She...she was hot! I don't know! The bitch seemed normal!" Wait- backtrack. Did he just call the psycho girl who tried to kill him...hot? Silence fell over the room and guilt filled his eyes as he realized what he had just said. What I was doing wasn't any better, but I was in the fucking room when he said that shit. I began to walk back upstairs before Simon ran to grab my arm. "Y/n, please listen to me. I didn't mean to call her hot. It was just in the moment-"

I ignored him at first, continuing my way upstairs and into the kitchen. When he wouldn't shut up with excuses, I gave in. "Did she run after you or did you walk over to her?"

No response.

"Should've figured. Asshole." I said as I started to walk back to the rest of the group who were waiting downstairs.

"Oh yeah? I'm the asshole? I'm not the one fucking sheriff goode" His words caused me to stop in my tracks. How did he know? "I saw you two, at the station. I saw you two in the hallway together."

"Simon, I don't know what you saw but-"

"I saw enough" He said as he brushed past me and began to head back downstairs. Shit. He then turned back to me. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone about your little affair, but don't try calling me the asshole when you're no better, y/n."

Fuck! How could I have let this happen. I should've just broken up with Simon weeks ago before any of this even happened. Had I done that, maybe we'd still be friends. Now, he'll hate me forever and the only thing I can think about is if he'll keep my secret.

I took a moment to bring myself back together before returning to the group in the basement. They all felt awkward about the new situation between Simon and I, but we had bigger problems than that. Josh grabbed cut out news articles from his bulletin board to show us. He cleared the table of its trash and laid them out before us. Simon couldn't stand to look at me and Deena held my hand under the table to make me feel better. If only she knew the real half to this situation, then things might be a little different.

"This is Ruby Lane. The girl who attacked you." Josh explained as Simon took a closer look at the article and photograph.

"Holy shit!"

"She sang as she murdered her boyfriend, her friends, then she killed herself. Slashed her wrists."

Kate got a look at the article next, "Jesus. Yeah, why didn't I see this on the news?"

"Because it happened 30 years ago. 1965" Josh brought out other articles to add to his argument."Ruby is one of Shadyside's killers, just like Skull Mask- I mean Ryan Torres."

"Look, 1978. Sixteen years ago. Masked psycho murders kids at—"

"Camp Nightwing" I finished. "My dad and his sister went there."

"I didn't know your dad had a sister?" Kate asked.

"She didn't make it out of the camp that night."

"Oh my god...I'm sorry..."

Silence overtook the situation until Josh started again with the history lesson. "1950, Harry Rooker, local milkman slashes a bunch of housewives. 1935, Humpty Dumpty Killer. 1922, Billy Barker. 1904, Grifter guts girls, and on and on. It happens in Shadyside over and over. Normal people turn into psychos."

"Jesus" I sighed, wanting to throw up.

"Look at this guy" Simon commented as he picked up a sketch of a man without eyes.

Josh took a deep breath before explaining, "That's the pastor, Cyrus Miller. 1666. He was the first one recorded. He, um...killed kids and cut out their eyes. None of this is random. It's Sarah Fier. She's turning Shadysiders into killers"

"Do you really believe that?" Kate asked. Hell, I sure didn't want to believe that. I wanted scientific closure. "No one actually thinks that this witch shit is real."

"Exactly, it's just something people say to scare kids." I tried to object.

"No, no. Just listen to me. 1666, Sarah Fier was hanged for witchcraft, fact. But ever since she was executed, she's been possessing people, turning them into killers, to take revenge on the town."

"It's like the nursery rhyme." Simon said. " 'Before the witch's final breath, she found a way to cheat her death. By cutting off her cursed hand, she kept her grip upon our land.' "

I continued, "She reaches from beyond the grave to make good men her wicked slaves." Earning me a glare back from Simon. God this was gonna be tough.

"Yes, exactly. Don't you see what's happening to us? This is all proof" I hate to admit it, but the more Josh reinforced this witch theory, the more logical it sounded. "Shadyside isn't just some hotbed for psychos. All these massacres are connected to Sarah Fier. The witch's curse is real!"

Kate wasn't ready to except this yet. "Fine. Let's assume the witch has been possessing people for some sort of messed-up vendetta. This isn't the same as the mall massacre. Something different is happening to us. Something way worse. Ok, we have two of her killers after us and both of them are dead. Why is she so mad at us?"

"I saw her." Sam interjected. "Last night, I don't...I don't know. I thought I hit my head...It was...It was her. I saw the witch."