Dark City

10.

On the porch, the three girls huddled around a glass pipe, lighting up a crystal. They tittered and smoke came pouring out from their purple lips.
"Come on, girls," Jacob said. "We're heading out now."
The group walked fearlessly into the woods. Jacob lit sticks of incense and handed them out. In the darkness of the forest, Alex couldn't trace the hiking path. She kept cracking twigs and getting her dress caught on thorns. She felt for trees, carefully footing each step as she followed the floating embers of incense.
Something about being a part of this made her feel invincible. In league with the witches, there were no more mysteries. These were just regular people out for a good time, and now she was one of them. They were moving through darkness, when a flickering light caught Alex's attention. She heard hushed voices and intervals of laughter.
A radiant fire dappled the nearby trees with color. Dark clouds lifted off the flame. Heat flickered and warped the air around willowy figures that swayed. They came to the clearing where Jacob had tied Alex to the oak tree. The tree was still there. Its trunk was still covered in pins, but the graveyard of insects and frogs was gone. Alex shuddered as she relived her memories attached to this place. There were enough people that she felt safe. They wouldn't harm her. Laura would take care of her. Alex's eyes were drawn to two women sitting across from each other on the ground with their legs in a spiders embrace. Their long rippling hair obscured their faces as they kissed.
Two women stood over them, a redhead and a brunette. The brunette whose body was painted in runes danced with a large glass contact juggling ball. Her pale skin glowed like moonstone in the firelight and Alex could hardly tear her eyes away. The redhead beside her wore a black veil and held a long candle. She sang about spirits white and gray, spirits red and black. There were three others who imbibed and made merry. Overwhelmed by the energy that mingled here, Alex leaned against a tilted tree.
"What are they doing?" she asked Jacob.
"Waking the spirits."
As Alex squinted through the darkness, she recognized Liam. He had his shirt off and wore red body paint and a necklace with a strange symbol that was something like an eye and a star.
"Liam?" she queried, stepping into the light. "Liam, what are you doing here?"
"Chems," he said. "Good group of people here. How did you find out about this?"
"Jacob."
"Oh." He looked surprised.
"Listen. I'm sorry for walking out on our lesson."
"Don't worry about it. Rain check, ok?." He winked. Then he went to the woman with red hair and led her by the arm. "Lacey, this is Alex. And that's Jacob, our certified sociopath." Jacob and the woman called Lacey reflected one another's catlike smirks.
"So what's tripping like for a sociopath?" Lacey asked.
Jacob shrugged. "Just... hilarious. Last time I convinced myself I was a wolf and I had this overwhelming urge to eat the moon."
"Alex," said Liam, "Do you want to try 2C-I?"
"I don't know," she said, looking away.
"Just one tab. I'll look out for you. You put it on the inside of your cheek."
He handed her a foil. Inside was a sheet of colorful paper. She reached in, ripped off a tab and stuck it in her mouth. The square tasted like battery acid. She spit it out and felt with her tongue the soft spot it had left behind. They lay down side by side beneath the big oak tree. Liam was humming something deep in his throat.
Jacob talked to the red haired girl Lacey, asking if he could show her his ability to make a girl orgasm just by caressing her knee. She agreed to letting him try. Liam took Alex's hand in his, but she pulled it away. It didn't feel right. None of this djd.
"I-I don't feel well," she stammered. "I should go home."
Alex started up the incline of the forest, ignoring Liam as he called after her. A part of her wanted to go home, but she kept dreading what her parents would think if they saw her looking pale and stinking of pot. She could feel the eyes of the forest on the back of her neck. She heard every rustle of leaves and caught every shift of movement in the brush. Her heart palpitated as she imagined a boney hand stroking the back of her head.
Anxiety washed over her and sent her head into a spin. She wanted to scream, but before she could even gasp for air she was buried in a world of fear. She could see the forest's dead leaves dancing around the mound of her fresh grave. Crickets chirped as loud as a foghorn and frogs croaked in the distance. She imagined the insects and frogs throwing themselves on the ball head pins and writhing as they died.
Her mind was going haywire. She had to run. So she did.
The twigs and brush tore the flesh on her ankles, but with each leap she escaped their grasp. The night seemed to follow her. She thought something was stalking her, a mountain lion or a coyote. It was too dark, and the creatures of the forest made noises all around. Hooting, rustling and deep growls reverberated in an evil symphonic.
The ground lurched upward like a camel's hump and Alex tumbled into a muddy patch. She planted herself against an oak. Please don't let the Jersey devil get me, she prayed. He lived in the trees. She couldn't bring herself to look up for fear of seeing the creature's pale, leathery wings.
There was a grunt behind her. Her breath became rapid and shallow. She knew she should be quiet, but a whimper escaped her lips as the trees opened their knots into eyes. And then Alex opened hers, realizing they had been closed the whole time. She was still on the ground beneath the pinhead tree, next to all the other witches. She hadn't moved an inch.
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Music: "Tunnel Song" Marilyn Manson