Excerpts and Such

Seven Days
By: Megan Butler

Seven days. She couldn’t believe it. Only seven days to go. Of course, the past twenty three days weren’t so easily survived either, but the final days served as the end. The unmistakable, surreal conclusion that it would all be over soon.

            Sarah could finally go home.

            “Now Sarah, it wasn’t that bad, was it?” Aunt Millie chirped from the driver’s seat of the 1986 station wagon. It jostled them around after rolling past every chip in the dusty lane.

            Sarah inconspicuously tapped the frame of her Aviators up the bridge of her nose to hide her disgust. “Of course not, Aunt Millie. That four hour walk through the farmer’s market should really do wonders for my calf muscles,” she mumbled, crossing her arms and kicking her legs up on the dashboard to keep them from sticking to the leather seat. It sure was a muggy mess in ninety-degree “Hickville”.

            Why are parents cruel enough to send their kid to the whacko relative’s house in No Man’s Land? Why did Sarah have to listen to a toothless man sputter about the real production of honey, bee vomit and all, while her aunt hounded her about picking out the right bell peppers? Like the stupid vegetable had the God-given power to motivate a change in Sarah's kitchen apathy.

            She knew she'd be washing the seeds out of that pepper anyway, because her parents had a life separate from her own. That life didn’t involve taking their kid with them to the Bahamas over summer break, so Sarah had to endure the redneck lifestyle of the country-loving hillbillies known as her isolated family. The outcasts.

            Sarah groaned. Those seven days couldn’t get here quick enough.

(http://writingsofmeganbutler.blogspot.com/2013/12/seven-days.html)

Poseidon 
By: Megan Butler    

               The lake always threatens to seep past its boundaries, further than any lake should ever go.

               Mom warns us not to get too close, since mini tributaries trickle through the drowning grass and threaten to muddy up our shoes. Even during the merciless peaks of summer, the lake only drops half a centimeter, three quarters at the most. Sparkles of sunlight wink at us from a safe distance, beckoning to cleanse us of our sweat stains and the exhaust fumes of Dad’s old push-mower.

               Because those things build character, apparently.

               There's something otherworldly about the lake and its boundaries, something I'd noticed ever since I was a kid. It has a mind of its own, whether in the heavy tresses of summer or in the dead of winter. 

               Tonight the sun doesn’t blanket us with its suffocating heat. Bouts of seasonal rainfall have replenished what little supply the lake lacked and nudged it ever so closer to our neglected swing set with the broken straps. I eye spurts of moonlight as they twinkle on a steady chain of ripples, growing steadier by the minute. The same breeze reaches our wind chimes intertwined with a birdhouse. I hug my arms closer to my chest. No, summer definitely does not reside in our backyard anymore, at least not for another half-year.

               It’s enough to urge me back around and force the whole stupid idea out of my mind.

               I guess it’s technically my fault that Molly’s bike ended up in that bottomless pit of dirt and water. If it weren’t for the rusted handlebar poking out of the surface with its curly and miserable tassle, Molly would have been convinced that Nessy had a midnight snack. But since the Loch Ness Monster decided she didn’t like little girls' bicycles, I’m now obligated to rescue the useless thing. Without Mom knowing, of course. Something about the lake sets her Mamameter on high alert.

               The porch steps rattle underfoot and squeal after me as I bend my knees to carry wistfully down the hill. It’s not uncommon for a twig to jump up and bite you when you least expect it. A plume of visible air envelopes my face and I walk through the breaths, their irregular rhythm emphasized by the chill in the air. Each step jams my shivering fingers together in the pockets of my sweatshirt. I haven’t exactly conjured up a plan to retrieve the scrappy bike yet, but I won’t be able to know the extent of the damage anyway until I reach the shore-not-shore.

               A clump of moist earth catches my heel and propels me further than I anticipate. It squishes up the sides of my shoes with a sucking noise and throws me off balance. Before the mud can take me as its next victim, my palms splatter against the ground and interrupt the fall. The piercing smell of mud and damp grass lingers on my skin as I flick off the residue, an efficient yet angry attempt to pretend it never happened.

               The sopping noises don’t stop until the toes of my shoes tease the border of the lake. There’s Molly’s every happiness, bobbing closer to the surface of the barren lake like a lifeless body. Awesome. It would take a daring swim and a taste of pneumonia to pull it safely back to shore, if not a dance with the sea monster herself.

               The porch light casts a tunnel of dim light across the stilling waters. It hadn’t been on before. Dad probably got up for a glass of water and noticed the door unlocked, peeking out to see who the perpetrator might be. That would explain the gap in the blinds. But he didn’t come out, which means he probably hurried upstairs to put on three layers of clothes.

               So I had, oh, one minute or so to figure out how not to end up like a wet cat.

               A blanket of silence settles the tide, but it falls away when I refocus my attention and reveals an unsettling tremor across the glistening surface. Crescents of water resonate from the opposite shoreline, emanating from a featureless blob that moves back when I gasp. 

               That can’t be normal. Since when do people control large bodies of water like that?

               The arcs reach Molly’s bike and tug on the tassels, which seem to drag the bike in return, throwing it up and down in restless beats. It hits the glistening bank amidst lapping water and one side of the handlebar lodges into the mud. The waters recede and the bike stays put. The blob, however, doesn't. As the commotion dies, its creator grows and extends like the stem of a plant that’s fed by energy.

               It takes the shape of a body. Aware and full of purpose. 

               Watching me.

               I stare at the bike a beat longer before panic seizes my limbs and wraps them around the wet frame without my permission. The wheel bounces against my heels as I stumble toward the house, afraid to glance back. If I did, who’s to say Poseidon wouldn’t just walk on water and have a little fun swallowing me with his lake?

               The door opens ahead and Dad steps out, yelling something in raging tones that can’t break the blinding fear driving me closer, closer, closer. Anywhere nearer the house and further from the unexplained. I prop Molly’s bike along the railing and it clatters onto its side. I leave it--it's not like it can get any worse.

               “What did you think you were doing, anyway?” he asked hotly.

               I kicked my shoes off, nearly tripping. “Trying not to drown.”

               It’s pretty close to the truth.

               “You’re not wet.” Dad stops short, his hand floating around the doorknob. “How do you get a bike out of the middle of a lake and not get wet?”

               “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I murmur.

               I didn’t believe it myself.

    That’s pretty close to the truth, too.

(http://writingsofmeganbutler.blogspot.com/2013/12/poseidon.html)

Shadows Cast by Stars

By: Megan Butler

        Stars never idle near places teeming with life. They fear their spectral radiance won’t amount to the blinding sheen of the city or the heat of the city’s pulsing glow. Each thrum of that glow feeds off of the tens of thousands of car lights, neon lights, street lights. Each example of fabricated light strives to cut through the inevitable darkness that surrounds the boundaries of the city before creeping into the crevices of our alleyways, beneath our childrens’ beds when they’re fighting for sleep. We, as human beings, will do everything in our power to keep the lights on and to chase the stars away because wherever there are stars, night follows close behind.

            And wherever there’s night, there’s that spontaneous darkness that can bring all sorts of potential, dastardly trouble.

            At least, that’s what most people think. I trudge the last few paces up the grassy hill and eye the ground carefully as my legs work through the tangles of knee-high grass. Darkness may be intimidating to most, but the only thing that strikes fear in my heart is the imminent possibility that I could trip over a lurking snake before making my nightly visit with the stars.

            Oh, and with Sawyer. My visits with Sawyer were definitely something the darkness and its horde of snakes could never keep me from.

            As the top of the hill flattens out beneath my feet, I strain against the inky darkness in search of the one dent, the one disturbed patch of land that’s been cleared for our viewing purposes. It took forever to chip away each coil of dead grass from its roots, but the hidden nook amongst the sea of vegetation served as a perfect getaway beneath the mystical performance the stars put on above night after night.

            I’ve never missed a monthly trip amongst the stars and neither has Sawyer¾not since he dragged me out here on our first date several months ago.

            The grass thins, no longer tickling my bare shins. I kick through the last bit of uninhabited land beyond the city before finally nudging Sawyer’s ratty old blanket with the toe of my flip flops. It wrinkles beneath my weight as I kick my shoes off and lower myself onto my knees, placing my hands patiently in my lap. No Sawyer, but he’d be here. This is definitely his stuff: the Nike duffle bag with an extra blanket stuffed carelessly inside, his worn star chart set precisely to tonight’s date and time, even the blanket that covers the ground, according to the prominent hot chocolate stain from my accidental spill during last month’s trip.

            A burst of light snags my attention, pulling me from stray thoughts of the last trip. My cell phone signals an incoming call, though the caller reads “Unknown”. Lacking in priority compared to Sawyer’s absence, I ignore it. The light of the screen dies, sucking in the shadows it cast until an equal darkness settles around our meager campsite. I lean back on my elbows and glance up at the stars, keeping a keen ear out for any signs of Sawyer’s stealthy approach.

            But eventually Aquarius climbs the horizon, settling just high enough to where at least an hour has gone by with no sign of Sawyer. A pinch of uncertainty throbs in faint spurts against my temples in time with my quickened pulse. Sawyer wouldn’t be gone this long, would he? Let alone without giving me some form of a heads up.

            The darkness suddenly seems to engulf me and encase me in a vise too strong to shake. I roll my shoulders back, blink away the foreign fear that squeezes my heart. Sawyer is coming Anna, my mind chants to repel the pressing blackness. He’ll be here soon.

            The screen lights up once more, luring me toward the small printed message. I squint against the blaring light and reach a careful hand out to bring the small print into focus.

            “Unknown” flashes again across the screen, this time above the message icon.

            In a fit of unease, I swipe at the button and pray that maybe Sawyer got a new number, a new phone, anything that would give me a solid reason for him not being here. I scan the formation of the choppy words before actually registering their meaning. Broken sentences. Lazy word choice. Short, yet powerful in all caps. Not Sawyer’s style at all. I squeeze my eyelids shut before the white light of the phone blinds me permanently.

            When I open my eyes, the message is still unfamiliar. No one I know writes like this, like a teenager trying their best to keep their eyes on the road and convey an important message all at the same time. The text is unfamiliar, yet startlingly clear:

            “LEAVE NO. GO 4 HEP. -S”

            The phone falls from my sweaty grip, its light dancing across the untidy blades of grass. “Leave now. Go for help. Sawyer, Sawyer…,” I mumble to myself, trying to make sense of the hurried text. His hurried text.

            Another jab of uncertainty rings behind my ears, begging me to overlook the message or at the very least convince myself that I’m totally reading into something not so drastic. But the words wouldn’t match up any other way. Besides, Sawyer always signs his texts with “S”, so there’s no doubt he sent the frantic warning. The signal out here probably messed with the caller information, giving him the title of “Unknown”, but how does that explain his jarring absence?

The darkness continues to stab painfully at my chest, each thrust dodged by a racing heart. The message meant something, it meant he’s out here, not too far from me. Out here and in a state of trouble that couldn’t be defined.

            My hands shoot for his bag. I jostle it in my shaking palms to turn it face-down before violently dumping its contents and searching for a weapon of some sort. Like I’d actually run right now when he most likely couldn’t. An extra blanket stiff and cold from lack of use and a few sticks of gum mingle with other fragments of crumpled up trash. The mess bounces off my icy kneecaps.

            No phone, obviously.

            Crazy how the lack of his phone slams another wave of panic against my resolve.

            “Sawyer?” I croak out into the empty blackness. My feet stumble beneath me as I push myself up off the ground. “Sawyer, where the hell are you?”

            Go get help. Get out of there. Surely he didn’t expect his demands to faze my purest intentions of tracking him down and attempting to help him. Whether my attempt would do either of us any good is another thing entirely, but I could try at least. I glance down at the pile of stuff and decide that none of it’s going anywhere. As for Sawyer, where could he be? Obviously not near town, considering I just came from that direction. The tick of a nonexistent clock buried under the weight of anxiety pounds out the minutes, the seconds left to find him. All three directions tug me equally, vying for a spot inside my frantic brain.

            A sharp cry echoes from the forest on the opposite side of the hill. The ticking ceases. Ice runs through my veins.

            Sawyer.

            While my shoes skid down the hill in the direction of the cry, the light of the stars flicker overhead either as a warning of the danger only yards away or as a call for encouragement, urging on my borderline-suicidal actions.

            What could possibly be out there?

            The faint moonlight casts long shadows from the towering line of trees. Straggling limbs reach out and pick at my shirt and scrap my bare skin, pulling me away from Sawyer. I nudge through the limbs as they yank harder, gorge themselves further into my clammy flesh. Hair clings to my neck. Sweat drips down the small of my back. The moonlight dies away once the trees get thicker and the undergrowth gets unruly.

            A twisted tree root curls around my ankle and snags my feet out from under me. Something solid falls out of my pocket and patters against the powdered dirt before coming to a standstill. My cell phone, now lit up and settled beneath the nook of a prominent tree. I scramble for the device before the coveted light fades, my fingers clinching the cracked surface just before I’m thrust into another limiting darkness.

            A howl carries on the uncomfortably warm breeze. Twigs snap not too far ahead and something crawls across my arm. It takes ever taut fiber and muscle of my being to keep from yelping. The darkness conceals every threat, every clue as to Sawyer’s whereabouts. It tethers me to this tree, grappling for a way out.

            A guttural howl drags closer before sounding off in twos and threes. A pack, hunting for their midnight snack. Maybe Sawyer meant it when he warned me to steer clear and run.

            Blackness heightens my senses and forces me to rely on sound alone to pull myself away from the tree. Savage sniffling brushes against the earth just as the ground vibrates underfoot. A rotten smell of wet fur and blood smacks me in the face and forces me against the tree until the bark tears into my back.

            Something warm and calloused grasps my wrist while simultaneously sealing the cries of terror behind my chapped lips. The calloused thumb rubs up and down my wrist in a consistent motion, a familiar sign of comfort. My shallow breaths even out enough to remove the gag over my mouth.

            When my paralyzed lips decide to move, I say, ”Sawyer that’d better be you.”

            “What part of ‘you leave now’ did you not get?” he growls, the grip around my wrist tightening in response to his anger. “These wolves will tear us apart if they catch our scent.”

            The weight of relief sent slivers of warmth into my chilled fingers and toes. Definitely Sawyer. “You’re text was illegible.” I wave his fury off with the flick of my wrist, adding, “Plus, we’ve never missed our monthly date with the stars. At least now we can’t break the streak.”

            He snorts. “Can you see stars? I can’t see stars. All I see is the imminent possibility of a wolf eating your face off since you didn’t leave.”

            Okay, so maybe this is a more agitated version of Sawyer. He definitely didn’t like me doing the opposite of what he expected of me. But at least I have the peace of mind knowing he isn’t dead yet, knowing that whatever happens, that heavy burden of not knowing wouldn’t go by unresolved.

            We would either satisfy the hunger pains of the wolves surrounding us or we’d get another glance at the stars that have pulled us through month after month. Both possibilities involve me, whether Sawyer likes it or not, and I personally had my sights set on the latter.

            The patter of paws hitting dry earth grows distant just as the wind dances in the treetops above, allowing flickers of moonlight to illuminate patches of the unmarked dirt path. Just to be on the safe side, I brush my palms over the dirt and dig my fingertips deeper, caking my fingers in mud and grime and trapping tiny pebbles underneath my nails. I swipe the residue across my neck, up and down my arms, anywhere where bare skin lies exposed to the wandering noses of the animals that lurk dangerously close.

            A patch of moonlight emphasizes the slight reflective nature of Sawyer’s dark eyes. They watch in curiosity after scanning the areas of me now slathered in mud. “I didn’t know you had some sort of mud fetish,” he teases, a dash of laughter cracking the stricken panic in his expression.

            “I do when it means smothering my highly appealing scent.” I flirtatiously flip my lank hair in Sawyer’s face, hoping it doesn’t smell as greasy as it feels.

            He chuckles before following my example and smearing clumps of dirt across his flesh. Once we both assess our scent-masking handiwork for any life threatening flaws, Sawyer warns me to stay behind him as he crawls out on hands and feet to survey the area.

            The moon continues to slice through the thick darkness whenever a brush of wind swishes in the treetops and the wolves remain distant, nowhere to be found, as if the piercing light scared them off. A few rustling leaves signal a scampering muskrat or some other nocturnal creature that fears us more than we could possibly fear them. If they have the guts to be out, then surely the danger is no longer present.

            Yet the rustling stops. The silence settles so thick around us that a constant ringing rattles against my ears and jostles my sanity. My heart rate quickens. I continue to claw the dirt until my hands bleed, just in case my attempts at disguising my scent aren’t nearly good enough.

            Then I realize, blood is scent.

            The barking shatters the silence, followed by the guttural growls of the pack’s famished response.

            Sawyer calls my name only inches ahead and catches my hand, smearing my blood across his own dirty flesh. The night air kisses my damp cheeks as we stumble through the woods in what could barely be called a run, smashing through undergrowth and succumbing to the tendrils of the earth’s grappling roots.

            Drops of viscous saliva splatter against my ankles. Sharp teeth graze my calf and the pain shoves screams up my throat and into open air. Sawyer impossibly speeds up, clinging to my hand despite its slippery residue.

            The tree line thins up ahead and the light gets brighter and brighter as the growth above us surrenders its darkening power to the twinkling starlight. We break through the trees and continue to bolt uphill, refusing to glance back at what might be trailing not too far behind. The dry blades of grass scratch against my shallow wound, yet I push through the burning, further up the hill, until something tangles around my feet and yanks me to the ground. Sawyer, still clinging to my hand, topples over my legs with a startled cry.

            Our breaths are heavy, our heartbeats deafening. But the barks have ceased and so have the pulse of a rumbling pack.

            I prop myself up on my elbows and whirl my head toward the direction of the trees, only to find flattened grass from where we scrambled uphill. The wolves were gone once more, even though their disappointed howls rang out from behind the pitch black tree line.

            We were afraid of the dark, but the wolves must fear the light.

            “Anna,” Sawyer lets out a trembling breath, “why do I have blood on my jeans?”

            Both sets of eyes glance toward my calf, now puffy and swollen from the infected animal bite. I fall back and suck in a deep breath, thankful that that’s the only injury I managed to receive along the way.

            Sawyer, though, isn't pleased. “We should probably go get that checked out before you turn into a werewolf or something.”

            I roll my eyes and snatch at the unused blanket by his feet, then carefully wrap it around the shallow cut on my calf until the pressure seems strong enough to staunch the dribble of blood flow.

            “There, all better,” I sigh, falling back on my hands placed gently behind my head.

            Sawyer narrows his brow. “Thanks for bloodying up my blanket,” he grumbles, slowly lowering himself beside me. “Are you sure you don’t want to go get that checked out?”

            “Well, we just ran for our lives through blinding darkness in a state of ultimate, exhausting terror, and you’re asking me if I want to move from this very spot after I've already laid down? Read my mind. You tell me what we should do.” The stars glow brighter overhead, pulling me away from Sawyer and capturing my attention. A small smile creeps across my face despite the faint throbbing in my leg.

            The stars are ever constant, always there no matter what form of darkness tried to defy their celestial light. How’s that for a Friday night stargazing?

            “I’ll call an ambulance, that’s what I’ll do,” he says, letting his muscles unclench just enough for his gaze to wander upward. “We’ll stay for a little while. We owe them that much.”

            So we we're on the same page.

            The darkness could give us moments of uncertainty, moments where fear has its chance to slither from hiding. That’s usually when I find my solace in the stars, in their spectral glow that assures me the darkness won’t linger for long. Yet a final, chilling call of the wild tempts us off the blanket and down the hill, away from the shadow wolves gifted with the ability to challenge the secure ambiance of said precious stars and gifted with the ability to make me question my previous stance on the darkness.

           "By the way," I say, throwing one final, nervous glance over my shoulder, "Remind me again. What, exactly, were you doing out there in the first place?"