The Hunters - Chapter Two

I scrabbled in my pocket for my car keys. I had completely forgotten that the full moon was coming up. I clumsily unlocked the car and scrabbled in. I had the keys in the ignition in record time and the engine rumbled lazily to life.
The car rocketed down the driveway, gravel spitting from beneath its tyres. I lurched round the corner and out onto the main road. I sped into town, only slowing when I reached traffic. My mind was reeling; I couldn’t believe how stupid I had been.
The traffic lights ahead of me flickered to red and I growled under my breath. Leaning across the console, I opened the glove box and dug around inside for my phone. Come on, it was there, I put it there earlier. Yes! I found it and quickly punched in the number from memory.
Ryan picked up on the third ring. He sounded out of breath and I knew I didn’t want to know why.
‘What do you want, Pip? I’m a little busy.’ Ryan complained, and I could hear a girl giggling in the background.
‘Look out the window. It’s the full moon, idiot!’ I spat angrily.
I wasn’t really angry at Ryan for being with a woman, I was angry at myself for forgetting.
‘Crap! I’m on my way.’ Ryan hung up and I threw the phone down onto the passenger’s seat.
The lights turned green and I sped down the quiet streets. Traffic had petered out so I didn’t feel so bad for breaking as many traffic violations as I did.
A few minutes later I arrived at home, the car skidding as I swung it into the driveway. I sprinted up the steps and through the front door. The house was silent when I flicked the lights on. I stumbled through the house to the back bedroom, bursting through the door and to the wardrobe on the wall opposite the door.
To anyone who didn’t know, this wardrobe looked perfectly normal. If you looked inside, it was full the usual paraphernalia: out of season clothes, boxes of old papers and various other pieces of clutter. If you ran your hand along the carpeted floor of the wardrobe though, you would find something out of the ordinary: a door handle.
I found the handle and yanked it upwards, pulling the hidden door open and upending the boxes. Papers flew through the air around me but I ignored them, already digging around in the pit the secret door had hidden.
It was full of an assortment of weapons – all dangerous, all vital to our survival tonight. Tools of the trade, Uncle Cam called them. I pulled from the pit two double-barrel shotguns and a box of ammo. I was closing the door and rearranging the wardrobe when I heard my brother’s truck pull up outside the house. I ran to the hallway to meet him.
He hurried through the front door, his eyes darting back and forth nervously. He caught the shotgun I threw to him and we moved wordlessly into the living room. I sat cross-legged on the carpet and tipped out half the box of ammo onto the floor in front of me. I threw the half-empty box to Ryan and loaded my shotgun.
I stuffed the rest of the bullets into my pocket, in reach for when I needed them. These bullets weren’t normal, because they weren’t for shooting normal creatures. They were silver bullets – our weapon against the supernatural. Ryan did the same as I had and then we both stood. We stared at each other for a moment in total silence before he spoke.
‘You got your necklace?’ he asked, pulling his out from beneath his shirt.
‘I never take it off.’ I answered, also pulling mine into view.
The necklaces were one of our biggest weapons apart from the silver bullets. They contained wolfsbane, another repellent of the supernatural.
‘Let’s get hunting, then.’ Ryan announced, grinning at me quickly before heading for the back door.
That’s what we did, my family and me - we hunted. We hunted the supernatural, mostly werewolves. Our parents had been hunters too, and Uncle Cam had fought alongside them until the day they died.
Cam often disappeared off on hunches, finding the next town where werewolves lived. That was how we had come to be here, in this quiet town.
On the outside, this town looked perfectly innocent, but the residents kept a big secret. There was a large werewolf pack living here, and we had just been waiting for a full moon so we could smoke them. Werewolves couldn’t be killed unless they were in wolf form, so we had had to bide our time until now.
As we made our way through the house, the sound of scrabbling paws could just be heard from outside. They had found us, they always did. See, if I was a normal human and not a hunter, the fact that werewolves were attracted to me would have been a real inconvenience. Being a hunter though, it came in handy.
For some reason we had yet to figure out, I was different to most people when it came to werewolves. I could track them from miles off, and they could find me no matter where I hid. My parents had figured this out a few years after I was born, and now we used it to our advantage. It was like I was linked to the wolves – an idea I was not totally fond of.
Uncle Cam called it my blessing, I called it my curse.
Ryan flicked on the back porch light before swinging open the door. The bulb flickered before bursting to life, spilling white light onto the yellowing grass.
Our house backed onto the town forest, which was mighty handy for us. It made werewolves more accessible to us – or us to them really. The end of the small garden melted into the forest, pale, cut grass turning into wild, unruly weeds and wildflowers.
I could sense the movement of the pack to the left side of the trees. I cocked my gun and nodded at Ryan to do the same. It was strange; my ‘blessing’ meant I could sort of feel the werewolves’ minds. I couldn’t hear thoughts exactly, but I could sense their presence and know their moods.
This pack was a jumble of excitement, anger and bloodlust. They were coming for me, not that they knew why. They seemed to feel...obligated to find me. I couldn’t explain, and I’m sure they couldn’t either.
The pounding of paws on the soggy forest floor grew closer, as did their presence. I took a deep breath to centre myself. I had learnt to compartmentalise my personality when I hunted, discarding my usual self and replacing it with an angry, empty hunter. I was the hunt, and nothing more.
I glanced at Ryan out of the corner of my eye and assessed his mood in a second. His body seemed to be vibrating, his eyes gleaming. He was elated, like a small child on Christmas. This was his Christmas. That was kind of sad, I guess, but it was who we were.
Finally, the werewolves burst through the line of trees and into the clearing. They stopped when they got there, sizing us up I assumed. I could only see around ten wolves, but I could sense more in the darkness of the trees.
Werewolves would look like any normal wolf to an inexperience person. The differences were subtle, but we could see them. They were bigger than normal wolves by a couple of inches, their bodies more muscular. Their eyes shone eerily as though they gave off their own light, and they were a brilliantly bright yellow-green. Their claws were long and permanently extended. They were more hooked than usual claws, digging down into the dirt beneath them, and they were yellowish.
The wolf closest to us pulled up its top lip in a snarl, exposing extended canines stained red. They had already fed tonight then, which would make them stronger. This front wolf was obviously the leader. The others crowded behind it but would make no move forward until he did.
For a long moment, the werewolves stared at us and we stared back. Let’s do this. I thought and fired a shot at the leader’s chest. He dodged and leapt at us. The pack was on us in a heartbeat.
A sandy brown werewolf sailed through the air towards me, claws reaching out for my face. I pointed the gun up and shot it down before it hit me. Its movement interrupted, it crashed to the floor by my feet. I heard Ryan fire off a shot into the back of one of the others.
They advanced quickly, but we were quick too. Another two were crumpled on the ground in front of me before they could even advance. I could sense that one of the wolves was coming up behind me to catch me unawares, but I spun before it struck. I thrust the butt of the gun into the wolf’s snout, spinning the gun and shooting the creature in the neck as it reeled back from the shot. It yelped and collapsed sideways onto the porch deck in a heap.
Four, five, six. The creatures were going down like flies by our hands. Tonight was a good hunting night. As I said though, good luck didn’t like us too much, and it soon abandoned us. I had been right about the wolves hiding behind the line of trees, I realised as the group around us increased in number.
As I was firing a shot into the muzzle of an ash grey wolf, another advanced on me from the right. I could feel the presence of one behind me, and another to my left. Damn it, they were getting organised.
I assessed the situation as fast as I could and turned to the wolf on my right, having realised that this one was the strongest of the three and would need to be taken down first. It growled at me and I glared back. I ducked as it leapt for me, and I heard it skid to a halt a few feet behind me.
I wasn’t quick enough to my feet though, and the werewolf behind me snapped its teeth at me. Its jaw locked around my left wrist for long enough to draw blood, but then it was releasing me and jumping backwards. It fell onto its side and howled in pain. I could see steam rolling from its mouth into the air around its head. Never underestimate wolfsbane. That wolf would’ve been using my arm as a toothpick if it wasn’t for my necklace and my daily doses of wolfsbane tea.
I hissed at the pain in my arm but had no time to pause. The wolf to my left had kept its distance after the sudden collapse of its companion, but not for long. It swiped its paw at my chest but I bounded backwards before the blow connected. I fired a shot into its side.
There weren’t many left I realised, relief filling me. The werewolf that had leapt over me was now advancing on my brother, as well as two more. A final wolf was heading my way. It was the leader I realised. He had stayed away from the main battle after his initial attack, but now he was tired of watching his pack fall like dominoes.
He stalked me slowly, not rushing at me like his minions had. He appeared to study me as he approached, his strange eyes boring holes in my skin. I lifted my gun and aimed for his head. He still didn’t attack. I slowly pulled the trigger and heard that heart-breaking empty click. I was out of ammo. I dug my hands into my deep pockets and found I had none left.
I began to back away from the wolf, finding no other option. He couldn’t bite me without dying, but his claws could still do a whole lot of damage and I wasn’t strong enough to fight him off unarmed. Finally, my calves connected with the porch step and I knew I could back away no longer. This was the moment the wolf chose to strike.
Time seemed to slow as he flew through the air. I chanced a look at Ryan but he was busy, still fighting off two of the other wolves. I watched him fire a shot off into the chest of one and stared in amazement as the droplets of blood scattered the air behind the creature.
Then, time sped up again and I was crashing down onto the deck underneath the werewolf. He growled down at me, his muzzle barely a centimetre from my nose. His lips were pulled back to expose his teeth and gobs of spit dripped onto my cheek.
Bleh, that was just gross. If I was going to die, did it really have to be like this: covered in supernatural dog-drool and drowning in wet-dog smell? It seemed I was going to die like this, as I had no way of fighting the wolf off. He swung his claws for my neck, bloodlust in his eyes.
I closed my eyes and waited for the impact, for the feel of blood gushing from my throat. But there was no impact, only a booming shot. Then, blood was spattered across my face. The wolf’s body crumpled on top of me and I gasped.
Ryan kicked the body off me and grabbed my hand to pull me up. I let him and stood shakily. We stared wordlessly at each other for a long while until finally, his lips turned up into a glorious grin. He looked behind us at the pile of bodies and actually began to laugh. After a second, I laughed too. Hell, if you don’t laugh, you’re going to cry and we didn’t cry. Crying wasn’t our thing.
When the laughter died down, I looked Ryan over. The majority of the blood on his clothing appeared to be that of the wolves, though he had a small nick just above his collar bone. He was assessing my injuries also. When he saw the state of my arm, he held it in his hands and examined it.
It was deep, but not dangerously so. It would stop bleeding with a bit of pressure and would need a couple of stitches, but nothing more. He seemed to have gotten the same impression as he dropped my arm and turned back to the scene behind us.
It looked like a battleground, and I suppose that was what it was. I counted my blessings that Cam had found us a place without any close neighbours, or this could get real hard to explain.
‘Sorry about all the noise last night, my brother and I were just hunting werewolves. It’s kind of our job, and I promise you we’ll have the corpses out of the garden before they start to stink up the neighbourhood.’ Yeah, I’m sure that would go down well.
I disappeared into the house for a minute, reappearing with drinks. I passed Ryan a beer and settled down on the porch step with a Coke for myself. I cracked open the can and took a long gulp. We needed to move the bodies, and I needed to get my arm stitched, but for now we could take a break and look over our situation.
‘What we gonna do with the bodies?’ I asked.
Normally, I would have been with Cam and Ryan while they tracked out the town, searching for safe spots to dump bodies. This time though, I had been at The Phoenix, too busy working to help them out.
‘There’s a road east of town, pretty empty. It’s lined by forest so we can dump the bodies without being seen.’ Ryan explained, still staring out into the forest.
I hummed in acknowledgment and we settled back into silence. When Ryan had finished his beer, he dropped the bottle onto the grass. I would’ve told him to pick it up, but the yard was hardly clean anyway.
He turned to me and smiled.
‘Alright, let’s get that arm fixed up so we can start hauling these things out of here.’ He decided, walking past me into the house.
I stood and followed. We strolled back to the living room and Ryan reached under the coffee table. He pulled out a large bag, the kind athletes used to carry their sportswear.
That bag was our first aid kit, and its size was actually necessary. Tonight’s injuries were minor, nothing compared to the sort of things we had been through in the past. A few years ago, Uncle Cam had gone down during a fight. He had been hurt so badly that I had been forced to hold his internal organs so they didn’t turn into external organs. Ryan had stitched him up as best he could, and Cam had, despite the odds, made it.
Ryan pulled from the bag a pack of dental floss and a needle. Despite our many years on the job, we still couldn’t get hold of anything more medical to stitch with than dental floss. It was crude but effective, we found.
Ryan sat on the couch and gestured to me to sit on the edge of the coffee table. I did, and rested my arm on my knee so Ryan could get to it easily. I watched as he threaded the needle and brought it close to my skin.
‘You ready?’ he asked.
Before I could answer, he had already jabbed the needle into my arm. I squeaked in shock but shut up after that. He made quick work of the wound and was cleaning up my arm with a wet wipe in barely five minutes. I thanked him and cleaned off the rest of the drying blood from my arm. I wasn’t sure how much of the blood was mine and how much was werewolf blood, but I didn’t like to speculate.
Ryan threw the used wet wipes onto the coffee table behind me and packed the rest of the equipment away. I stood and went to pick up our guns from outside to hide them away again. Ryan stopped me.
‘Um, you have a little...Your face is...Go clean up.’ He murmured, his explanation weak.
I walked down the hall to the bathroom and checked my reflection in the mirror. Ryan had been right to stop me – I couldn’t leave the house looking like this. Flecks of blood covered the whole of my face. They looked like strange, intense freckles. My clothes were worse. The blood was more in pools on my shirt than in flecks. I would attract way too much attention like this.
I turned the hot tap on and filled the sink halfway before I turned the cold on too. Steam swirled from the sink and up into the air around me. I watched the mirror fog up slowly. When the sink was full, I turned the taps off and dropped a flannel into the water. I whirled it around under the water until it was truly soaked, then brought it up to my face.
I dabbed at the blood until I thought the worst of it was gone. I cleaned my hands and arms next. I soaked the flannel again, watched the blood swirl away from the cloth. It stained the water a pale pink. I picked up a towel and wiped away the condensation from the mirror enough to see my face. True enough, the blood was gone from my skin. I used the towel to dry my face, then my arms.
I emptied the sink and left the bathroom. I could hear Ryan moving about in the back bedroom and assumed he was returning the guns to their hiding place. I walked to my bedroom next and rummaged through the drawers to find fresh clothes. It was only when I had stepped out of my current clothes that I realised what I had been wearing: my uniform.
I scolded myself for not changing first. I needed the uniform for work again tomorrow and wasn’t sure I would be able to clean the stains off before then. Sighing, I set the uniform aside and changed into plain black jeans and a red and black checked long-sleeved shirt. I checked myself over in the mirror and decided I didn’t look too bad. I didn’t look like I’d just massacred a werewolf pack anyway, which was what I had been aiming for.
I head back to the living room, rolling up the sleeves on my shirt as I went. I found a clean, white bandage waiting on the coffee table for me. Ryan had left it for me obviously. I wrapped it awkwardly around my forearm. Just as I was looking around me for a safety pin to hold it in place, Ryan appeared in the doorway. He walked over to me and pulled a safety pin from his pocket. He secured the bandage and nodded approvingly.
I noticed that he too had changed. He wore dark blue jeans and a black tee. His longish pale brown hair was wet and slicked back from his face. Normally it was wavy, as opposed to my curls, and framed his face. He had presumably wetted it to remove blood stains from his hair. I touched my hair, realising that I probably should have done the same. Then again, my hair was darker than Ryan’s and probably wouldn’t show stains as easily as his would.
We trailed silently into the back yard and I saw that Ryan had already placed a large black tarp on the porch. Since there was no other way to get to the front of the house, we would have to carry the bodies through the house. We walked over the tarp and onto the grass.
I closed my eyes and sighed at the sight in front of me. The one thing that got to me about hunting was the bodies of the werewolves. Werewolf bodies didn’t stay in their wolf form when they died. Slowly, the bodies would take on their human form. So far, the bodies on the lawn had lost some of their fur. Some of them had lost their long snouts and pointed ears for more human face shapes. The transformation process was slow, but never slow enough for me. In an hour or two, the bodies would be completely human again. I hoped that we would be through with them by then.
Ryan bent down by the wolf that had fallen onto the porch deck. He lifted it into his strong arms and deposited it onto the tarp. He dropped another onto it before I finally caught up with the situation and began to help.
I was only a small person, barely five and a half feet, so compared to my brother I had a hard time of getting the bodies across the yard. I had to drag them rather than lift, but years of hunting had given me the physical strength to at least manage this.
There were sixteen wolves in total, I counted. We couldn’t fit them all onto the tarp at once, so we’d have to make more than one trip. This wasn’t ideal, but there was nothing we could do. Had Cam been here, we could’ve used his truck too and done it in one trip. He wasn’t here though, so we had to make do.
When we had half of the half-turned corpses on the tarp, Ryan and I folded the rest of the tarp over them. We managed to fold it into a secure, if completely awkward, bundle. Ryan grabbed one corner while I grabbed the other. We made sure we had a strong grip before we took an experimental tug. The tarp moved a few inches, which was good. It would be a slow haul, but it would happen.
We yanked the bundle across the deck and to the back door. We tugged and pulled until it eventually fit through the doorframe. I tried to ignore the cracks of dead bones, and the sickening squelch of the bodies moving against each other. Since the doorway was the hard part, it was pretty easy from then on to manoeuvre the tarp through the house. Finally, we reached the front door. We halted there and I opened the door. I checked the street outside. All clear.
I picked up my corner again and we manhandled the tarp through the front door and down the steps to the driveway. Ryan had had the sense to reverse into the driveway so that the bed of his truck was closest to the door. We lifted the heavy bundle carefully and dropped it with a loud ‘thud’ onto the bed.
I ran to the front of the truck and scrambled into the passenger seat. Ryan followed suit and slid into the driver’s seat beside me. He turned the keys in the ignition and the truck rumbled to life. He swung the car out of the driveway and soon we were speeding down the road into town. Within five minutes we were rumbling through the town. I glanced nervously out the windows, hoping that no one was around to notice the strange bundle weighing down the truck. Fortunately, there didn’t seem to be many people out tonight. It was late on a week night so I hadn’t really expected anyone anyway. Those who weren’t already at home would still be at work or, as was the case for many of the town’s men, at The Phoenix drowning their bad day away with booze.
We had reached the outskirts of the town quickly. The town was small, holding perhaps three-hundred citizens at most. The town held perhaps two stores and The Phoenix was the only bar. About thirty minutes west of the town was a Wal-Mart, but that was it.
We were travelling down a dusty road now. It was lined with trees like Ryan had said and was empty of traffic. I noticed a small gap in the line of trees, and when Ryan turned the truck towards it I realised it was a small road. It wasn’t paved, just the mud of the forest floor. It had rained earlier today so the mud was wet and tried to pull down the truck. Fortunately, the truck was strong and we made it through with little trouble. We travelled down this short path just far enough that we wouldn’t be seen from the road.
Ryan hit the brakes and slid from the truck, leaving the keys in the ignition. The headlights spilled light into the clearing, but the trees were so thick that the light didn’t go far. I followed Ryan to the back of the truck. He reached up past the enormous bundle and pulled out two shovels, passing one to me. I took it and he nodded to the left of the clearing. I looked to where he was pointing and noticed a large mound of freshly dug earth.
Cam and Ryan had come out here last week and dug the pit we would deposit the bodies into. They had filled it in again enough that it wouldn’t be noticed by anyone stupid enough to wander the forest. We trekked across the clearing, shovels over our shoulders. When we reached the filled-in pit, I dug my shovel into the mound and threw a shovel-full of the dirt over my shoulder. Thanks to them already digging the pit, the dirt was easy to move. The pit was once again empty after around ten minutes.
Ryan and I head back to the truck and grabbed a corner of the bundle each. We tugged and pulled until the bundle fell from the bed and onto the mud with a loud ‘thwap’. Mud sprayed through the air from the impact, settling itself all over the truck, my clothes and Ryan’s jeans. I looked down at my outfit and sighed at the mud splatters.
As annoying as the muddy floor was, it made dragging our load a lot easier. When we reached the pit, we were breathing heavily and my arms ached. We pulled the bundle to the lip of the pit, then walked around it and shoved it in with all the force we had. The tarp split and its contents tumbled into the pit. The bodies made a sloppy noise that churned my stomach as they hit the floor. Ryan shoved the bundle again and the rest fell into the pit. He chucked the tarp in after them and it fluttered down. It landed on top of them, half-covering the carnage.
I tried to avoid looking down there, knowing the sight would creep me out. The bodies would be almost human by now, and they’d be broken and bruised and their bodies would be split open from the shotgun wounds. I closed my eyes and when I opened them, Ryan was leaning over the pit. He didn’t have as much of a problem with seeing them as I did. He was checking to see if any of the bodies were sticking out, but none were.
Without a word, he picked up our shovels and head back to the truck. He dumped the shovels in the back and climbed into the driver’s seat. Slowly, I followed him. When we were both in the truck, Ryan started the engine and we head back into town to get the rest of the werewolves. Ryan could sense my mood and looked at me out the corner of his eye.
‘You can’t let this get to you, Pip.’ He comforted me.
I groaned inwardly at the use of the childhood nickname. My real name was Piper – not Kate, like the rest of this town thought, because hunters remain anonymous, no matter what – but my family had always called me ‘Pip’. I knew Ryan was using it to distract me from the situation.
‘They’re not human; they’re not worth you feeling bad. Don’t let this get you down.’ He explained, matter-of-factly.
This was almost exactly what Eddie had told me earlier about the drunks. Now, Ryan was using it on the werewolves and he sounded just as casual saying it as Eddie had. I sighed and stared out the window.
We were back at home soon and Ryan bounded down from the truck and into the house. I wondered where he got his energy from. His excitement was less now – no one liked depositing of the bodies as much as they enjoyed the fight. He was still happy though, which kind of annoyed me. I accepted that I was a hunter, it was my job. Ryan, on the other hand, truly took pleasure in the hunt.
I shuffled after him to the back yard. I had been right about the state of the bodies. They were nearly human now, though they still had some extra hair and their hands and feet were still paw-like. Their faces were basically human though, which would make this hard for me. Ryan looked up at me as he lay another tarp on the deck. He saw the expression on my face – one I was sure was full of sadness, guilt and doubt – and he walked to me. He placed a hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes.
‘Go lie down, Pip. You’ve had a long day. I’ve got this.’ He soothed.
I folded my arms across my chest and shook my head.
‘No, I can’t leave you to do this on your own. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine.’ I insisted.
I wasn’t fine though. I had had a long day, I realised. I’d gotten up at five, while Ryan was still snoring down the hall. I had driven down to the store and bought some groceries. I know what you’re thinking – that’s a pretty mundane job for a werewolf hunter. It was, but it still needed to be done. I had then driven an hour outside town to the post office in the next town over. There, I had picked up a package Uncle Cam had sent us. It was full of wolfsbane and silver bullets, so we wouldn’t run out. In other, bigger towns, we had sometimes been able to find a black magic shop specialising in hunting tools. This town though, was small and the inhabitants weren’t the type to open a black magic shop.
I had driven home after that and gotten in at about eight. I had unpacked the groceries and then woken up my brother from what appeared to be the sleep of the dead. I had spent the next three hours in the back bedroom, meticulously scanning the weapons. I had then used my laptop to search for strange happenings in any of the towns nearby. Mysterious animal attacks and the like usually signalled werewolves nearby. My shift at The Phoenix had started at one, so I had changed and driven down there next.
Then I’d come home to a werewolf massacre. So yeah, a pretty long day. I realised how tired I was then. My head ached and my eyelids were heavy with tiredness. I needed a glass of water and a long nap. But still, I couldn’t leave Ryan in the lurch.
‘I’m fine.’ I insisted again, when Ryan gave me a reproachful look.
‘Fine,’ Ryan sighed, ‘you can help me get them to the truck, but I can get it from there. You stay back at the house.’
I didn’t answer and Ryan took that as an agreement. I hated that I didn’t have the strength Ryan did when it came to this, it made me feel weak. I was seen as weak by other hunters anyway. I was a small woman, and that signalled weak to most. I had worked my entire life to beat that stereotype, kicking the asses of any and all that got in my way. I could knock out a middle-aged man, and had more skills than the oldest hunter. I was strong and determined, but sometimes I still wasn’t up to scratch.
Ryan began loading the corpses onto the tarp again and I helped out. When they were all on there, we dragged it through the house like last time. We loaded it into the truck and then Ryan waved as I watched him drive away. I waved back weakly and dragged myself back into the house.
There was plenty of mess to clean up in the living room. The bloody wipes from my arm still sat on the table, and there was a stain on the pale couch. I didn’t have the energy though, and the mess would still be there tomorrow.
I walked to the kitchen and grabbed a glass from the top cupboard. I stuck it under the tap and filled it with water. I gulped it down quickly and refilled it. I shuffled to my bedroom next. I left the glass on the bedside table while I picked up my blood-stained clothes. I put them on the end of the bed and stripped out of my current clothes, adding them to the pile. I shrugged on a large t-shirt that had once been my father’s. It was tatty and had once been white. It was now a greyish colour and there were a few holes in the sleeves. Due to my size, the shirt was more like a dress and the short sleeves came down to my elbows. My father had been a tall man, like Ryan. I was short like my mother.
I forced myself to walk to the kitchen, scuffing my feet on the floor as I did. I shoved my clothes into the washer. I head to Ryan’s room and found his messy clothes on the floor at the end of the bed and carried them to the washer too. I closed the washer door and turned it on.
I shuffled back to my room and collapsed onto the bed. I pulled the covers up to my neck and curled up on my side facing the door. I sighed contentedly and let my mind wander. In a fleeting thought, I remembered that Cam was supposed to have called us tonight. I discarded the worry that tried to bubble inside me, telling myself that he’d probably just forgotten. He often got carried away with his research and forgot to keep us updated.
Satisfied, I scrunched my eyes closed and felt consciousness float away.