Summer of the Lake House

Summer of the Lake House


Chapter 8: Yea, though I walk....


A/N: I know I haven't updated in a looong time. I had a huge writers block. I know what I'm planning for future chapters but I was lost on this one. But I'm over it now ^____^
Oh, and for those who don't know, the chapter title is a part of that famous prayer, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” It seemed appropriate.


Dion's POV:


Confusion is a funny thing, sometimes it can be a good thing...most times it's a bad thing. At that moment it was a good thing. I sensed vaguely that I was laying down on something hard and that I was freezing cold and completely drenched and that by all logical reasoning I probably didn't end up that way by choice. It wasn't really such a bad thing but for the life of me I couldn't figure out how I had gotten that way.

Very, very slowly I came back to reality and the blissful confusion left me. I sat up quickly, ignoring the sick, dizzy feeling in my head and staggered to my feet, slipping on the slick wood floor as I did.

I blinked in the bright sunlight. It was such a drastic change from the storm, and not what I would call a happy one. The sun shone warmly through the now absent roof and the water droplets glittered like small diamonds...mocking me with it's beauty. The whole thing seemed surreal and fake, like fresh paint over blood stained walls. It was a pretty cover up but it didn't change anything. It didn't change what had happened.

I took an unsteady step forward and nearly jumped out of my skin when my foot hit something solid.

“D-Dion?”

“Jamie!” I gasped, kneeling down and pulling him into a sitting position. He looked at me strangely, like he had never seen me before. “Are you alright?”

“Uh...yeah, I think so.”

“Good. Just stay here, alright, I've got to find Tyler. I'll be right back.”

“NO,” he cried, digging his nails into my arm like a demented squirrel, “I'm coming!”

I winced and Jamie dug his nails deeper into my flesh. He had a crazed, wild look in his eyes, like he would kill me if I didn't do what he wanted. I didn't doubt for a second that he would either so I grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled him to his feet, not willing to waste any time. He didn't release his hold and actually clung tighter when I began to move. Thankfully he didn't stumble and slow me down so I let him be as we made our way down the hall. I couldn't believe I had fainted, anything could have happened between then and now. I had to hurry.

Everything looked so different in the sun. Darren would be pissed, if he ever decided to show his face, that is. The hall was a disaster, walls caved in, debris everywhere, and the wood floor was completely ruined with puddles of water making it bubble and sag. Raven had really done a number on the place.

And Jamie was like a barnacle at my side and refused to look at the caved in portion of the hall where I had found him. He looked severely traumatized but I think it was more because Darren and Dominick had abandon him than anything else and somehow, in all the confusion, I had become his knight in shining armor.

Oh well, worse things have happened and I wasn't willing to correct him at the moment.

We reached the area where I had last seen Tyler and, like the rest of the house, it was almost unrecognizable. Most of the walls had fallen down and there was almost no distinction between the living room and kitchen.

I scanned the area warily, searching for any sign of Tyler.

I didn't have to look far.

“Oh god.” I felt my stomach lurch violently and gagged. Not more than ten meters away was Tyler, laying oddly on the floor like he had just fallen. “Tyler, oh god.”

I slowly made my way over to Tyler's limp body and felt bile rising in my throat.

Jamie took a sharp breath and let go of my arm, staying a good distance away. “Is...is that Tyler?”

I couldn't answer because I didn't want it to be true. His thin, lanky body was splayed carelessly across the floor, one leg twisted underneath him awkwardly. He was soaked to the bone and looked unnaturally stiff and bloated.

What was once pale, nearly unblemished skin was gray and covered in green bruised patches. I had never seen a dead body before, the closest I had ever come to death was what I had seen in movies....it didn't come close to the real thing. You couldn't smell the death in the air.

Tyler's mouth had fallen open and looked black on the inside. Something horribly foul smelling was coming from his mouth and nose and had puddled in a sick greenish mess around his head, staining the floor irreversibly. But what pushed me over the edge was his eyes. I couldn't see his eyes, those once gentle, concerned eye's, all I could see was a writhing, swarming mass of black flies.

Next thing I knew I was on my knees, retching violently. The horrible combination of throwing up and crying and shaking made it hard to breath but with every breath I took I inhaled the disgusting smell of Tyler's sad, rotting body. A horrible, invasive smell that seeped oily into my pores and mouth, smothering me. Tainting me with death.

It was to much. I scrambled up with a loud cry and ran. I didn't know how I did it but I found my way across the ruined house, running purely on instinct, and managed to get outside where I collapsed, falling to my knees and burying my head in my ams.

Never, ever had I felt any emotion that came close to the tearing agony I felt at that moment. He was dead. I had seen him only a few hours ago and he had been alive and well, it was inconceivable that he could be dead. He was to gentle to die, to nice, how could he be the one to die when I, a far less deserving person, lived? He didn't eat meat, he didn't tease and bully people at school, he volunteered at homeless shelters....didn't that count for anything? How was that fair? I was a much worse person.

All I could think was that I had failed him. I was supposed to protect him, I was supposed to be the strong one but I failed and now he was dead. That happy, geeky boy was rotting away under the sun like a piece of roadkill...and I knew his parents would never know what had happened. He wouldn't have a proper burial...he was heading straight for the missing persons wall, one anonymous face among hundreds. He was worth so much more than a picture and a plea that would remain unanswered. He shouldn't have died like that. I should have done more. I could have done more.

“Oh god...I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Tyler, I'm sorry,” I sobbed to myself.

“Dion,” Jamie mumbled from behind me, sounding terrified and out of breath. I felt a small weight resting on my back and hands grabbing at my shirt. I didn't bother to acknowledge him, what could I possible have to say to him that would make anything better? “Don't do this,” he cried, burying his face in my back.

I knew what he wanted but I couldn't. He was to much like Tyler, asking for my help...my strength, wanting me to be the rock he could cling to.

Didn't he understand that I couldn't be strong for him? Hell, I could barely be strong for myself now, not after seeing Tyler like that. Why did it have to be me they both went to? I wasn't any braver or any stronger than either Darren or Dominick so why did they choose me? And why couldn't I ignore Jamie's pitiful cries when all I wanted was to punch him in the face for disturbing me.

But no matter how hard I tried I couldn't be like the other two and run away. They did it so easily but I couldn't leave Jamie, little prick that he was, he still deserved to live, didn't he? Didn't I owe it to Tyler, to his memory, to not fail again because I knew it would always haunt me that I could have done more, I could have tried harder. Maybe Jamie was my second chance? Tyler wouldn't have wanted me to turn my back on him, I knew that. I just had to get Jamie away from this place.

I sat up and turned to face him. The freckled face was splotchy and wet and despite the warmth of the sun he was shivering in his wet clothes. He made a sorry sight with his eyes red rimmed and his bottom lip trembling.

“It's alright, Jamie, we're gonna get out of here,” I promised.

“S-somethings wrong.”

“I know. Just don't think about it, alright.”

Shaking his head furiously, Jamie said, “No, somethings wrong here. Look.”

Wondering what could be as bad as all that I turned my head to look towards the forest and the lake. It took a few seconds before I saw what was so wrong and when I did it felt like a rock had settled in my stomach.

Everything was dead.

“Oh my god,” I gasped, standing up. All I could see in front of me was dead birds and squirrels, and even a raccoon laying randomly across the dirt clearing completely stiff and lifeless and strangely animated in mid-motion. The birds in mid-flap, the squirrels in a leaping position, it was gruesome. In the lake, as far as I could see, were fish floating belly up in the water and some bigger shapes in the distance that could have been anything. Even the forest was dead. The trees brown and half rotted, the leaves were all gone and the bare branches rattled strangely in the wind.

The only living creatures I could see were the flies that buzzed around the hundreds of corpses...but as I watched I realized that even the flies weren't immune and I watched them drop in patches, landing sickly on the dirt. There was no warning for it, they just...DIED.

I felt the urge to scream welling up in the pit of my stomach and had to fight my desire to run. I didn't know where I could possibly run to escape all the death but I knew I couldn't stay there. Something was terribly wrong. It may seem like an understatement but this went beyond Raven. I knew, somehow, that this wasn't his doing. Raven was...something different, he wasn't a plague, he wasn't death.

I couldn't escape the smell of death and rot, it was maddening. I felt trapped.

“Jamie, we have to go, do you know where Darren put the car keys?” I asked in a calm, low voice that surprised me with it's steadiness.

“N-n-no. But I think they were in the kitchen somewh-”

I blinked at his sudden stop and the strange expression crossing his face. He was looking behind me with an almost awed expression and I turned quickly, expecting the worst.

Far from being the terrible, oozing monster I had been expecting I was instead faced with....well, I guess you could call it a deer, but not quite. It looked mostly like a deer, it had all the deer-like proportions and the shy, graceful look of one, but it wasn't. I had never seen a deer yet that was pitch black like this one was. I got a better view as the thing stepped daintily out of the forest on tiny gold, cloven hooves. It was small, much smaller than a normal deer. I'd say it was the size of a large dog, maybe a German Shepard.

The tiny creature flowed like water across the ground, thin legs carrying it's much larger body effortlessly and the closer it got the stranger it appeared. For one thing, it's tail was more like a lions than a deers, held high in the air with long golden hair trailing behind it, and a short, bristly mane ran from the base of it's neck to it's ears, also gold, as was the enormous eyes that took up half it's face, eye's that held far more intelligence and emotion I had seen in any animal before.

But the real eye catcher, and the crowning glory of all bucks, was it's massive rack of antlers. And when I say massive, I mean massive! They grew like small tree's from either side of it's head, branching out into countless points ranging from wrist thick to needle thin. Actually, the more I looked the more I realized that they were tree's, not in the literal sense, of course, but that's what they looked like.

It didn't occur to me to wonder how this thing, when everything else was dead, had survived. My mind had gone still, a peaceful, dream-like state that only increased as the deer got closer.

Jamie leaned forward as the black deer-like creature came forward, stretching out his hand as it came within arms reach. I let him go and he fell to his knees before the creature, staring at it as if he was faced with God himself and placing his hand on it's soft nose. The creature didn't seem to mind and nibbled curiously at his fingers, bringing a faint smile to Jamie's pale face. It was so odd, I felt like I was living a dream, but it was probably more likely a state of shock...everything just felt so surreal.

I studied the deer absently, taking in everything about it when I noticed something odd about it's antlers. Something had been carved into them. It wasn't crude designs like swirls or pentagrams either, not something a random person or dumb teenager would do, the person who carved these images had skill and a story to tell. The pictures represented reminded me of ancient carvings, Egyptian or Mayan, and they showed countless hundreds of images, from the base of the antlers to the smallest tip. Images of humans in everyday life, the sun and moon and stars, gods and the sacrifices to them, demons killing people. The images seemed random to me as they branched off into so many parts but I got the general idea of the story at the base of the antlers.

Stupidly, I knelt down and placed my hand on the deer for balance as I examined the carvings.

It depicted creation. I saw the gods being born from flowers and two giants watching over them, a man and a woman. I saw humans created from the four elements and being guided by the Sun to find our way to Earth. I went further up to where to gods taught humans and, ironically enough, Raven seemed to be a key feature in teaching us, but not only him, I saw several gods who took the humans under their wing (literally as well as figuratively) and taught us everything from farming to architecture.

But soon after the base split into several branches and I couldn't follow it anymore so I turned away. I felt strange knowing I had just seen something that was probably never meant for human eyes. I felt as if I should be experiencing some sort of enlightenment, a transcendence or something...but all I felt was emptiness and calm.

I was snapped out of my thoughts by a loud giggle from Jamie. “Look, Dion, he likes me!”

“Uh...that's nice,” I said, giving Jamie an odd look. He didn't sound like himself at all and the way he was smiling at me didn't sit right at all. Jamie was never this cheerful, and especially after all that had happened, he should have been scared and miserable, not giggling his ass off. Something was wrong with him, seriously wrong. The calm feeling seemed to recede slightly and I had the feeling of waking.

It didn't take long to see what was wrong and when I did it brought me sharply to reality. With a gasp I met Jamie's gaze, that bright, fever maddened gaze. His cheeks were very red and a thin sheen of sweat make his pale, freckled skin glisten in the sunlight and small tremors ran throughout his body and continuous waves. His eyes were really, really bad, though, wide and unfocused, gleaming cheerily at me through a thick white film that made him look blind and was a scary contrast to the raw, red edges of his eye's.

“Oh my god,” I whispered, feeling sick to my stomach as Jamie continued smiling at me with chapped, peeling lips, petting the deer creature as if nothing was wrong. “Jamie, you need a doctor.”

He laughed. “What are you talking about? I feel fine. Don't worry, you'll be fine to, just give it time.” He smiled encouragingly at me and patted my shoulder.

With that cryptic statement Jamie went back to petting the deer creature, completely ignoring me. I didn't get it. How could this have happened so fast? How did I not notice Jamie dying right in front of my eyes? All I knew for certain was that we had to get out of there and fast, he needed help and I needed to get out of the graveyard that the lake house had become. I had to get Jamie to safety.

I knelt down to Jamie's level and watched him pet the deer. He seemed happy, talking softly to the deer and petting it's face, the deer didn't seem to mind and had it's eye's closed, leaning into Jamie's touch.

It was purely by chance that I saw it. A gold chain around the deer creatures neck, barely visible among the thick fur, and attached to the chain was a locket. A very familiar gold locket, a simple oval affair with no defining features , nothing special or eye catching, but I would know it anywhere...after all, how often do you see a boy wearing a locket.

A/N: As you probably noticed, this was rushed but I haven't updated in a while and wanted to get it out while the idea was still fresh in my head. I'm going to come back to the events in this chapter and answer a lot of questions, though, since this is the turning point in the story and events are going to stem from it. And I know this is a cliffhanger but now that I'm over the writers block I can write easier now with a clearer idea of where the plot is heading, so that's good. 'Till next time. ^^