I glanced to my left, where Pixie was surveying the lonely scene before us with obvious contempt.
“Yeah?” Josh, half asked, half stated, not seeming to get why she wasn’t absolutely thrilled.
“So what, are you like some desperate religious nut, trying to convert us all to your faith or something?” Pixie scoffed.
“No-o.” Josh emphasized the word slowly, like he was talking to a young child. “This place has been abandoned for years. I only know about it because a friend of mine used to go here for the short time it was in use.”
“So you’re sure no one ever comes here anymore?” I asked, dubious of the validity of his words.
“Yes, I’m sure. Geez, will you guys just relax?” Josh huffed in exasperation. “Think about it. If I’d wanted to turn you into the government, why would I have even interfered in the first place? Judging by the sirens, I’d say it would’ve been mere minutes before they’d found you had I not come along.”
“Which brings up the question why?” Lion spoke up, staring directly at Josh. “Why did you help us? Why not let the government take us, when it was obviously the most logical explanation. Why go out of your way to help people you don’t even know?” His voice was flat, but it felt as if he was accusing Josh of something, and I could feel the tension in the atmosphere building.
“Because it was the right thing to do,” Josh replied simply, staring back at Lion with a determined gaze.
“Do explain,” Lion continued, his eyes never leaving Josh’s.
“The government panics the second something comes up they can’t control and I’m sick and tired of answering to such a corrupt system. Their answer for everything is shoot now, ask questions later, and I don’t agree with that. They fear you and so want to round you up and study you like animals. They don’t care that you have feelings and can think for yourselves, all they want is answers.
I’ve known Chess for a while and I had no clue he was. . . not human. I practically had a conniption fit just thinking about how they would destroy you. As soon as I saw your pics on the news, I grabbed the van and headed your way.”
Lion raised an eyebrow.
“You don’t have to believe me, but that’s the truth,” Josh added, finally breaking eye contact with our fierce leader.
“Exactly, we don’t have to believe you, but why shouldn’t we?” Chess backed Josh up, eying the rest of us. “Key, name one reason why we shouldn’t believe Josh,” he pressed.
I flinched as he said my name; why was he picking on me? And since when did he start acting so bossy and possessive? Josh didn’t need Chess to stand up for him. He was a big boy, he was old enough to stand on his own two feet and if he couldn’t, that was just too bad for him.
Irritation nagged at me, but I pushed it down. The last thing I wanted was to make Chess even madder at me right now.
Swallowing my pride, I reluctantly answered. “For the time being, there isn’t one.”
“Bravo, give the girl a prize.” Josh clapped.
My eyes bugged. That little piece of . .
.
“Key?”
The concern, border lining fear in Chess’s voice brought me out of my rage and I looked up to meet his eyes.
“What?” I snapped.
“I thought. . . never mind. It was nothing.” Chess shook his head, as if trying to dislodge something from his brain.
My rage evaporated and was immediately replaced by fear. What had just happened? Chess wasn’t one to scare easily and something I’d been doing had done just that. But what?
“Chess. What happened?” I needed to know.
“Nothing, Key, just forget it.”
Surprisingly I did what he asked. I very nearly continued arguing further, but decided to drop it. I felt drained and, seriously, who wouldn’t, considering the torture ride I’d just endured, I had no energy for fighting back. Man, was I becoming submissive or what?
“Well, now that we’ve established the fact that we’re all on the same side and what not, who’s up for the grand tour?” Josh piped up, once more his perky self.
“Why not?” Who sighed, seemingly bored with the whole exchange, as he leaned dejectedly on one arm rest, head in hand.
“That’s the spirit!” Josh encouraged, turning on his heels to face the church.
Whoopee, not. His hyper energy was enough to make a kid cry and was only adding to my exhaustion. It would be a miracle if I even survived the day. How I was supposed to deal with this guy on a who-knew-how-long basis, was beyond me. I guess I was just going to have to wait and see.
*
Standing in the spacious doorway, the large wooden doors gaping wide on either side of me, I stared in something akin to awe at the scene before me.
High ceilings arched overhead, and beautiful glass windows paneled the length of the walls. The light seeping through the grimy glass filled the empty chapel with exotic colored patterns that rippled as the slight wind outside moved the branches of the nearby trees, distorting the light. I had to admit it was rather beautiful, and I know it sounds cliché but it was also very peaceful. Even with the sound of hidden creatures scuffling in the shadows through the thick layer of dust that covered everything, I felt calmer than I had in days.
“Achoo!”
“Gesundheit,” I repeated for what felt like the millionth time.
Pixie seemed to be taking it the worst, the dust that is, as she kept sneezing like crazy.
“Thanks,” Pixie muttered miserably around her sleeve that she was using to futilely try and keep the dirt particles out of her system.
“Home sweet home, right?” Josh queried, breaking the solemn atmosphere that hung over our rag tag band of outcasts.
“Well, can’t complain about the view, but the housekeeping could stand to be improved,” Who offered, as he surveyed our surroundings with mild enthusiasm.
“Yeah, I know it’s kinda of dusty, but at least it confirms that I’m not lying about the church being deserted,” Josh replied in triumph, from where he was leaning against one of the walls.
“Never doubted you, brother,” Chess spoke up, indicating he had nothing to do with the guilty people over there.
I glared at his back with contempt. He was acting so weird, this whole him and Josh buddy buddy thing was a Chess I didn’t know, one that I wasn’t sure I cared for.
“It’ll do, for now,” Lion stated, his emotions unreadable as he stood next to me in the doorway.
“For now? What’s that supposed to mean?” Josh asked, turning to face us.
“Just what is sounds like,” Lion replied shortly. If nothing else, it was obvious Lion was wary of Josh and still didn’t trust him.
Josh shrugged. “Whatever.”
Grr, would it kill him to show a little more respect for those he interacted with? I mentally strangled him and purposely ignoring the annoying duo to my right, meandered my way to the center of the chapel for further investigation.
To tell the truth, I’d never been in a church before, not that that’s a surprise or anything, but I’d seen several pictures of them. The one I was currently standing in, seemed pretty standard, or at least it had been when in use.
Obviously, at some point in time, there had been several rows of pews on either side of a central aisle, filling the now vacant church. The tell tale sign; the discernible scars on the wood floor where the pew feet had been. I also noted there were several places where it looked as if someone had drug the benches across the floor with little care or concern as to the condition of the building. I assumed this had occurred when the seats had been removed.
At the end of the aisle seemed to be where all the action had taken place. A raised platform, where there had probably been a podium and other such things you’d find at the head of a church at one time, I guessed. Along the back wall was a large space where there was no longer a picture, and to the right of that a broken window.
I sighed. Pretty, ordinary, mundane and, without a doubt, deserted. At least Josh really hadn’t been lying, that was somewhat of a comfort.
It still didn’t emulsify our life threatening situation though, only slightly buried it under a heaping mound of dust and gave us a little more time to fret over our impending doom. No matter how much I wanted it to be, this wasn’t an answer. Sooner or later we would have to come up with something, before something else caught up with us.
I shuddered involuntarily just thinking about the insane humans and their government. I couldn’t imagine what would happen if they found us. Well, actually I could and it wasn’t pretty.
“Hey, Josh,” a muffled nasally voice called out.
I gladly pushed thoughts of our mangled and tortured bodies aside and turned to where Pixie was standing at the back of the chapel.
“Yeah, what’s up?” Josh answered, breaking off from the muted conversation he’d been having with Chess.
“I was wondering what this is?”
Curious as to what Pixie had discovered, the rest of us made our way over to where she stood.
“What, what is?” Josh asked, as we all gathered around.
“That.” Pixie pointed with her unoccupied hand at the wall. I was immediately confused, and I don’t think I was the only one. What she was pointing at, was an intricate wall painting, there were several of them all over the place and I couldn’t figure our why Pixie was asking about this one in particular. It portrayed a man, surrounded by sheep. Nothing fancy or in need of an explanation.
“A mural?” Josh asked perplexedly, obviously not grasping what she meant either.
Pixie gave him a look of complete disgust and exasperation. “I know it’s a painting idiot, I was wondering what that was on the man’s face though.”
Reaching up she traced a dusty line around the man’s chin that was covered in hair.
“I’ve seen them on lots of humans, I just don’t get what they’re for.”
“You mean his beard?” Josh asked in disbelief.
“You tell me, is that what it’s called?” Pixie stated, sounding slightly peeved with how slow Josh was catching on.
I felt a little bad for him, but not much, it wasn’t his fault we knew so little about his kind but it was his fault that he was here. As for Pix, I couldn’t blame her for asking. I’d wondered the same thing before but I’d looked it up on the internet.
“You’re serious?” Josh asked, still not grasping that she didn’t know what a beard was.
“Yes,” Pixie huffed rolling her eyes.
Josh swept his gaze over the rest of us, and it finally seemed to sink in that we really weren’t human. He shook his head sadly, as if we were the ones lacking in the intelligence department and not the other way around.
“It’s just facial hair. . .”
“You mean that’s actually hair on their faces?” Pixie interrupted, seemingly appalled by such a notion.
“Well, yeah. What did you think it was?”
“I don’t know, I thought it was something like a hat except you wore it on your face.”
I absently mindedly nodded, I’d thought the exact same thing.
“Wait a second, you don’t know what a beard is, so what do you’re people not grow their hair out or something?” Josh asked, trying to figure out where she was coming from.
Ah, the moment of truth.
“We don’t have hair on our faces,” Pixie told him, still seeming grossed out about the whole fact of the matter. “The only place we have hair is on our heads, eye lashes, and eye brows. The only place hair should be.”
Josh looked at her funny.
I sighed, I could just see the wheels in his brain turning furiously trying to grasp what Pixie was saying. Oh well, I guess it was up to me to spell it out.
“Look at it this way Pix, humans evolved from monkeys, so they still have a lot of the same characteristics, the least being that they have hair covering their bodies. More worrisome is the fact that they have a similar brain capacity and function to their ancestors as well.”
“Oh, that explains so much,” Pixie grinned, giving me a knowing look filled with anything but good intent.
“Well then, where did you come from?” Josh shot back, looking a little hurt by my accusations.
“Don’t know, our race is too old to remember, but it sure as heck wasn’t monkeys.” I sneered, probably taking a little too much pleasure in degrading the specimen before me.
“Whatever.” Josh brushed it off. I had a feeling I was going to be hearing that word a lot for the next whoever knew how long.
“Ok, enough on the evolutionary crash course, we should be doing something,” Who spoke up from the back of the group.
“Agreed, but what?” I asked, not sure what our next move should be.
“Well, it’s nice to have shelter over head, but at the very least we should figure out supplies and sleeping arrangements,” Lion stated, matter of factually.
“There’s more rooms through that door over there,” Josh said, pointing towards a door in the far wall. “They’re all empty but dirty, if you clean a couple of them out they should be fine for sleeping in.
I was planning on heading back to my house, I can pick up some cots and other camping stuff. My dad and his friends won’t be camping anytime soon, they won’t notice if it’s gone.”
“Well, well if it isn’t Mr. Goody two shoes coming to the rescue again,” I growled sarcastically. He ignored me. I know I should’ve been grateful, but it just made me mad that we had to stoop so low as to rely on help from a human.
“That sounds fine Josh, but if you don’t mind I’d like it if Chess went with you,” Lion said, a warning tone in his voice.
“Sure, that’s fine. I still don’t see why you won’t trust me though, it’s not like I’m going to go running to the feds,” Josh complied, seeming tired of the lack of trust he’d gained.
“Chess, is that ok with you?” Lion asked, turning to where Chess was.
When Chess didn’t reply, I realized it’d been a while since he’d spoken which wasn’t too unusual, but still.
“Chess,” Lion repeated, louder this time.
“Huh? Yeah, I’ll do it.”
I turned sharply to look over where Chess was leaning against the wall. His voice was hoarse and filled with, if I was reading it correctly, pain. Taking in his tense figure, I knew immediately something was wrong.
All the anger I’d been feeling towards him vanished.
“Chess, what’s wrong?”
I hurriedly closed the distance between us.
Chess’s eyes flew open as I neared him.
“Nothing, Key I’m fine.” His voice was strained.
“No, you’re not Chess, it’s obvious something’s not right,” I pushed. I was seriously scared, I’d never seen Chess look like this before and I could tell everyone else was worried as they gathered behind me.
“Shut up, Key! Just stay off my case will you?” Chess exploded, pushing himself off of the wall to face me. I took a step back in astonishment. Chess had never talked to me like that before.
“Chess, don’t speak to Key like that. She was just worried about you,” Lion warned, “If you’re not feeling well just say so, don’t take it out on her.”
“Really Lion, I’m fine.” Chess muttered.
“Chess. . .”
The look of pure hatred that Chess threw me, stopped me mid sentence, making me numb inside. Is that really how he felt about me?
“Geez, why can’t you listen to someone other than yourself for once, Key? I don’t need you to look after me, so just leave me alone!” Chess raged.
I stood paralyzed with shock as Chess spun around and stormed out of the church, leaving a stunned audience in his wake.
Watching him go, I recognized that I could feel again as a pain like nothing I’d ever felt before engulfed me and I realized my heart had shattered.
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