Season 2 - Blogisode 5

CHAPTER FIVE



JUNE 27TH 1998

The van cuts hard round the corner into the suburban cul-de-sac. The door slides open to a rough THUNK as the vehicle skids a one eighty round the top of the street without a break.

Christian’s body sails through the air, tossed hard from the passenger side door onto the lawn of 76 Bourbon Court.

His body lies without life, sprawled on the grass in an odd contortion as the van speeds away as fast as it had come, back up the street then out of sight.

The street hums silent with the hush of a Sunday afternoon, not even a chirp to fill the air until...

“Get the fuck off me!”

The life is in him in an instant as he springs to a sitting position, arms out in defence.

A loud hack from his lungs as the fresh air hits him; the sun stings his eyes.

Christian twists his body back to a position of relative comfort, then lifts his fatigued frame to its feet with a visual amount of effort.

“Where the fuck…” He sways to and fro under the weight of weeks spent on back, head to hand he turns a half circle barefoot in the grass.

A squint through the midday at sight of the house now to his front.

“What the fuck?”

The white trim, green door, half finished front porch with untended garden, recognition, he was home.




DECEMBER 3RD 2014

James pushes through the thick brush and bramble some feet ahead of the women. No path to follow, these past few days they had been making one of their own in a haphazard cross cut through the near impassable jungle.

The thought to take to the canopy had crossed mind a few days past but fear of the effects that the blistering heat might have on Christina in her present condition had turned them to the lower regions of this often harsh and uninviting environment.

Luck so far they had fortune to avoid any of the truly lethal predators that make up a proper percentage of the life within the wood. James had developed a keen sense for things unkind and on more than one occasion they had opted to take a left as apposed to right in response to his guts assertion.

Persia half stumbles some feet to James’s rear, Christina on her shoulder, now showing to the tune of some nine months if not ten. The child is ready but the world is not, the mantra she has been repeating to herself for the better part of a week.

“You know, apart from the venomous plants, giant insects and man eating reptile people the jungle can be a pretty beautiful place, you know, if you ignore all that other stuff.”

Christina looks to Persia with a smile. “Right, and don’t forget the rodents of unusual size.”

Persia chuckles, an honest laugh. “That’s cute.”

Christina touches a hand to her stomach in response to a sudden slight discomfort.

“Are you okay babe?”

“No yeah I’m fine I just…”

Christina grips her belly, groans; her frame contorts slightly into itself in an effort to fight the awkward pain, teeth grit.

“Jesus Christina what is it?”

“I…ahhhhhhh fuck!” She lets go of Persia’s side, both arms curl round her midsection.

“Here sit, sit down. James!” Persia escorts Christina to the ground gently. Sits her in a patch of moss, back to a large tree.

“James! James come here, we need to stop!”

James’s head spins round at the sound of his wife’s plea, body follows. He rushes back down the fresh made path full speed, stops on a dime at their side and drops to his knees with the urgency and care of a medic first on scene.

“What’s happening, Christina what is it?”

She speaks through labored breaths; sweat beads down her brow and chin. ‘I… I, ah, I don’t… I think it’s… Jesus fuck James I don’t know.”

“I think she’s having the baby.” Persia looks to James, tries to mask the fear and concern in her expression.

Christina looks up from her spot in the dirt, her head pivots from companion to companion in search of an answer to a question need not be asked to be understood.

“What do we do?”

Their voices carry through the breeze, back down the path and through the thick wall of vine and petal.




“Mother fucking, fuck! AhhhhohmyGod!” Christina’s voice echoes out into the forest that surrounds them.

It carries down the path skirting off of the petals as it passes, moving birds from perch and sending small mammals to a scuttle.

“Faaaaahhhhhk!”

Tucked hidden amidst the interweaving mess of green and blue and purple are a pair of deeply set eyes. Eyes that belong to neither man nor common beast; they glow a dim red, like bulbs from a tree during holiday, hidden in shadow.

To their right and left sit the ears that until a moment ago had been quite complacent and unengaged. Now they perk to a tip, bent slight toward the ruckus, filled with an eager lust known only to creatures of pure instinct born of nature.

The beast steps forward out of the shadow, through the leaf. It doesn’t make a sound.

The screams that had pulled it from its drowsed state grow louder to its front.

“Jesus fucking…ahhhhhh!”

“Come on Christina, you can do this it’s going to be fine.”

“Just push hun, just push and…”

“I am pushing! What the fuck is wrong with you! Jesuaaaaahhhhh!”

“You’re gonna be fine.”

The scent of sweat and blood blending together in an orgy of sensation fills the creatures nostrils as it makes its slow methodical advance.




SAME TIME, DIFFERENT PLACE

Christian does his best to adjust his eyes to the light of the small concrete room he now finds himself captive to, or rather the absence of.

There are no windows and the only illumination comes from a small crack between the bottom of the door and the floor beneath it.

He shifts around on the floor sliding himself from wall to wall in order to gauge the dimension of his surroundings, six by six feet if that.

They had drugged him before moving him from his comfortable bed to this place. He was sure of it seeing as the last memory he holds before this one is of her face, beautiful, but what was her name again?

“This is bullshit." He stands and steps to the door.

"Hey! What the fuck? Let me out of here!” He hollers, his fists bang against the thick steel echoing about the miniature dungeon.

“They’re not going to listen to you, they never listen to me.”

Christian turns round abrupt at the sound of another man's voice, he squints into the darkness with little success.

"Hello?"

"Hello Christian, it's been some time hasn't it?"

The flick and fizzle of a match as the room illuminates in an eerie dancing glow.

Christian's eyes go wide. "I..."