Briar Blackwood's Grimmest of Fairytales Page 3

  “Hey,” Leon mumbled. He raked a hand through his perfectly disheveled sandy locks. His biceps flexed beneath his tight white sweatshirt.

  “Oh. Uh. Hi,” Briar said. She stared at his arms and noticed that his shoulders were nearly as wide as a doorway. Why was he standing, incredibly, just a few feet away from her? She looked at Dax, who just shrugged. Not knowing what more she could say, Briar stuffed her earphones into her ears and tried to force Dax out the door. But he stepped in Briar’s path, arms crossed, shaking his head. Briar knew Dax would not miss an opportunity to be seen with Leon Squire actually talking to them, even if just for a moment.

  She turned back to face Leon and with a tug, she pulled both earphones out. He gave his trademark half-smile that Briar had heard other girls, Luckier Girls than she, whisper about in the locker room showers.

  “Hey aren’t you that Hurl Gurl?” he ventured. Oh come on, Briar thought. Who in their right mind could ever forget that stomach-churning hallway horror show? She was thankful for this little courtesy just the same.

  “Oh. Yeah. Something must have made me sick,” Briar said. She tried to look in any direction except directly at his blinding beauty.

  “Well, you’re sure not sick today. Are you?” He laughed and casually gripped her shoulder with his wide, warm hand. It felt like summer at the beach, and she suddenly forgot how to breathe for a moment.

  Dax saw her drowning and secretly, he motioned for Briar to at least put on a smile.

  “Not yet,” Briar said to Leon. She pasted on a stiff smile. “But the day’s still young.” She felt like she was sounding odd now, but she wasn’t sure how to pull out of her small-talk nose dive.

  “So, where did all of that talent come from?” he asked. He glanced over his shoulder at his friends, who were making motions at their necks to cut off the conversation.

  Briar reached nervously for her necklace and spun the dangling black key between her fingers. “That was crazy, right?” She laughed and hid her trembling hand by running it through her hair.

  From the shadows behind Leon came a dark, velvety, voice. “Well, take out your garlic and your wooden stakes—if it isn’t Beelza-Briar, Queen of Darkness. And what a surprise, she brought her flying monkey.”

  It was Megan, Briar’s shapely blonde foster-sister. Briar could always count on her to make any bad situation worse. And close behind, as always, was Megan’s sycophantic sister Marnie. They must have been hiding among the other students in the auditorium, waiting for a chance to strike. And here it was.

  “Flying monkey,” Marnie echoed. She laughed and stared vacantly into the air. “What does that even mean?”

  Dax couldn’t help himself. “Wow, I’ve been practicing my fake laugh all night. Should I drag it out now?”

  Megan smirked at Dax. “Well, I don’t know. It seems to me that you’d be the drag expert.” Then she squared off with Briar.

  “Hi Megan,” Leon said. “Hi, Marnie,” he added as an after-thought. He didn’t even glance at her. “Oh, I almost forgot—” He pulled out a small black leather-bound book from his backpack. Briar recognized it was her diary. “Here’s that book you loaned me.” He handed it to Megan and Briar snapped it away.

  “My diary?” Briar said. And it felt like someone had socked her in the stomach.

  “What?” Leon said. “Oh jeez. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “Is that what that was?” Megan asked. “I thought I brought you the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe.” She flipped her silky hair with satisfaction. “Oh well. I’m sure it was just as disturbing.”

  Leon looked at Briar, horrified. “What? No. I didn’t even read it.”

  Briar felt as though she was sinking into the floor. It was common knowledge that Megan had her eye on Leon. And it was a high crime that Briar had even made eye contact with him.

  Megan turned to Briar. “We heard that you were trying out for the play, and we had to see for ourselves.”

  Leon squared his jaw with a patient smile. “Wasn’t she awesome?”

  “What a shocker, huh?” Megan said. “Maybe she’s finally found her niche. Anything would be better than this phase she’s been going through. I mean really. With those boots and a corset, I can’t tell if she’s an army recruit or going to the Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

  Marnie laughed. “Yeah, now that she’s getting a life, I guess we can take her off suicide watch.”

  This was too much for Dax, who by now could feel his fists tightening. “You girls are such a delight,” he said. “You’re just sugar and spice and sociopathic tendencies. Shouldn’t you be at home treating your herpes?” He laid his arms around their shoulders. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to jostle your silicone.”

  Megan squirmed away and grabbed Leon by the arm. “Wow, look, Dicks,” she snapped.

  “It’s Dax,” he replied.

  “Of course it is. Well, first of all Dax, these are real, and I frequently lose my balance.”

  Marnie looked up from her texting. “Yeah…mine are made in Korea.”

  Megan squinted at Marnie. “…Anyway. If we want your input, we’ll be sure to contact you. You’re usually hanging out in the men’s room, right?”

  “That’s right, I’m in the stall next to you.”

  Megan’s face turned the color of a red-velvet cupcake. She faced Dax like someone who was going to start a fight, but Leon intervened by grabbing Megan around the waist. He led her to the auditorium doors, and once she was going through, she looked back to toss Briar a wicked grin. Mission accomplished.

  Dax stood for a second in stunned silence. “Wow. That bitch out-maneuvered me.” There was an awkward silence. “Well, that was uncomfortable,” he said.

  He waited for Briar’s response, but Briar was already marching flat footed in her grunge boots past the wall of misfits, headed for the emergency exit. In her haste, she must have pulled at her necklace, as the strand and the black key clattered to the linoleum floor near Dax’s feet.

  Chapter 3

  Some days simply bite.

  When you’re dead, it’s different. You don’t have to worry any more about Lucky Ones, missed chances, love never realized. Pain seems far, far away now. Distant: like some small desert island I can just make out on the horizon. It’s funny, ‘cause I expected angels or white light or some happy shit like that when I died. But it’s really just a whole lot of nothing.

  Well, that, and a bunch of re-runs of those last days that play themselves out over and over again. I see it now. And it all makes perfect sense.

  I should have stepped up and finally put Megan and Marnie in their place. I should have told Leon how I felt about him that day at the auditions. I should have done a lot of things.

  “One door, one use.” It still rings in my ears.

  One life, one use.

  Boo-friggin’-hoo, right?

  Briar stomped home along the most obscure side streets she could find with such fury that she thought she might crack the sidewalk. Striding down rows of tidy vintage houses and predictably manicured lawns, she buried her face, wet now with tears and black mascara streaks, beneath the covering of her hood. She had the volume from her player turned up so loudly that passing cars probably heard it.

  My diary. O.M.G. Those deranged pom-pom packers actually handed over my private thoughts for Leon and his buddies to peruse over post-football burgers and fries. Briar cooled off briefly, remembering that he said he hadn’t actually read the diary. Whether or not he didn’t was not the point any longer. She had lived under the regime of Megan, Marnie and Matilda, their mother, for ten tongue-chomping years.

  It’s not like her social worker was any help either. It wasn’t exactly her fault. She was busy keeping a roof over Briar’s head and wasn’t too interested in rocking whatever boat she could find.

  Ugh. Briar hated Megan, hated Marnie, hated Leon, and most of all hated herself.

  She got several blocks away from the campus before Leon drove up alongside her
in his tricked-out vintage American muscle car.

  He shouted out the passenger window, the car trailing her at her own pace, its twin tailpipes rumbling. “Hey, where are you going?”

  Briar wiped her eyes with her sleeves and flared a nose-ringed nostril. “Nice car. Does it come with alimony payments and a beer gut?” She sped up and Leon followed her.

  He pulled up alongside again and said, “Your friend said you dropped this.” He held out her skeleton key necklace.

  “Gee, thanks,” she said.

  “Look,” Leon shouted. “Would you just stop for a second?”

  “Why should I stop?” Briar said. She couldn’t even look at him.

  “You know what? Everyone back there sucked. I get it. But don’t let them ruin what you did today. You were really—I don’t know—special at that audition. I didn’t know you could light up like that. I was totally blown away.”

  Briar stopped and faced him. “So what? Now you suddenly want to get to know me?” she asked.

  “Yeah, why not?”

  “Oh please,” Briar said. “Like I haven’t seen a thousand tacky teen movies where the hot jock was dared by his buddies to talk to the sad, freaky girl.”

  “It’s not like that, really. Wait. Hot? Did you say I’m hot?”

  “What is it like then, Leon?” she asked. She stepped close to the car now and leaned into the window.

  Leon sat dumbfounded, his eyebrows raised.

  After an awkward silence, Briar continued, “Yeah, well thanks for bringing the necklace,” she said. Her words sounded like someone who had won a battle. But somehow she knew that she had lost one too.

  Briar reached in and snapped the necklace away from Leon. “Sorry you wasted your time,” she said and turned away.

  Seemingly from nowhere, two looming shadows swooshed behind Briar’s back. From the corners of her eyes, they looked like two enormous wolves. Impossible. But they were too swift for her to see for sure.

  When she turned all the way around, all she saw were tightly manicured bushes rustling in front of the nearby suburban-blah house. Briar felt the now familiar sensation of heat rushing up from her stomach. Her heart fluttered. She worried she might barf again.

  She quickly turned to Leon. He grinned at her with a look she had never seen on a boy’s face before. She would have found that comforting under normal circumstances. But right now she wondered if she would hear growling if Leon turned off his chugging, souped-up engine.

  “Did you just…? Didn’t you see…?” Briar asked. She pointed to the bushes but hesitated.

  Leon continued to grin. “Didn’t I see what?”

  Briar turned back toward the bushes and watched as two enormous, drooling wolves crept out on all fours into plain view. She had never seen creatures like this before. They seemed to be almost the size of humans. They bared their teeth, tucked back their ears, and hunched forward. The gray-brown fur on their backs raised with tense excitement.

  Briar’s eyes widened, and she wrenched the door handle several times trying to open it in a panic, but it wouldn’t open. “Let me in!” she said. She peered over her shoulder with wild eyes.

  “Let you in?” Leon cupped his hands to make a fake megaphone. “Paging Dr. Jekyll.”

  “Yeah. Cute. Let me in. I forgive you,” Briar said. The wolves were tracking her every move with their narrowed eyes, and they snarled.

  “You forgive me? For what?” Leon asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t care. Just let me in, hurry!” She wrenched the door handle again, and it broke off in her grip. She held it up and Leon looked with wide eyes.

  “How did you—? Never mind,” he said. He opened the door. Briar ducked in, slammed the door behind her, and rolled up the window. The two wolves loped forward at full speed and flanked the car.

  “What’s going on?” Leon asked. He craned his neck trying to look at whatever it was Briar seemed to be watching with dread.

  “Are you telling me you don’t you see them?”

  “See what?”

  Briar sank into the seat below window level. Why didn’t Leon see what was so obvious and so dangerous? It didn’t matter. All she knew was that she needed to get them away from there, and quickly.

  “Nothing. I made a mistake,” she said, and bit her lip.

  She popped her head up just in time to see one of the wolves scrambling up on top of the car. Her heart thumped into her throat.

  “Leon, please do as I say and drive away really fast.”

  “Okay—any special reason?”

  “You obviously have this car for a reason. Let’s see it peel out.” Briar tried to sound calm, but she was dizzy with fear.

  With a look of confusion, Leon shrugged. He pressed his foot solidly on the accelerator and screeched away from the curb. Briar sat up and looked out the back window. The wolf on top of the car slid down and tumbled to the asphalt. It rolled back up, but this time it stood erect on its crooked hind legs and extended its clawed front legs. What the hell is that? It loped along awkwardly like a…Briar dared not think it. It was impossible. But if she were ever to describe it, it seemed like it was a werewolf.

  “Can you go any faster?”

  Leon laughed. “Faster? Do you want me to get a ticket?”

  She looked out the back window and the creature was sprinting, clawing at the air, its eyes ferocious and crazed. It had reached the back bumper and crunched its jaws down into it.

  “Never mind,” she said. Impulsively, she lifted her leg over Leon’s.

  “Wow. Okay. You’re a fast worker,” he laughed.

  Briar rolled her eyes. “Flatter yourself much?” she asked. Then she slammed her foot on the brakes. The car squealed with a cloud smoke and the burn of rubber billowing out from behind. The wolf rolled away, but righted itself, nothing but madness and hunger in its eyes. It lunged at full speed.

  Between Briar and Leon together controlling the vehicle, the car fishtailed and spun wildly in a half circle. It came to stop, directly facing the wolf. In its wild chase, the creature did not account for the stalling of the car, and it slammed into the front of it, flipped over the hood and landed in the street. The animal twitched and convulsed for a moment and then dissolved into a thick cloud of black smoke. It trailed along the surface of the street like a low London haze until it eventually found its way to a gutter, and then it slipped down into it with the other street filth.

  Briar blinked and stared, eyes wide with disbelief, feeling a deep throb in her throat and stomach. She flipped back in her seat to face the front. She pressed against the dashboard and looked in all directions through the windshield, searching for the second wolf. But the neighborhoods looked empty of any movement whatsoever.

  “Damn girl. You’re a wild one,” Leon said, letting out a whoop.

  Just then, Briar saw the second wolf stand up on Leon’s side of the car. It held its long jagged front claws out to strike, its amber eyes seemed to glow, and it juddered with a deep, dangerous sound.

  Briar screamed. She slammed her foot on top of his once more and punched the accelerator to the floor with all her might.

  “What the—?” Leon shouted, throwing his head back laughing hysterically.

  “Oh my God! Oh my God!” Briar muttered over and over.

  The wolf ran alongside the speeding car and began biting at Leon’s door handle.

  Briar stomped on the brakes again and the two of them lurched into the dashboard. The wolf tumbled for a moment, but then stood up. Unexpectedly, the car engine sputtered, and conked out.

  “Jeez, not again,” Leon said. He shoved his door open and stepped out of the car.

  “Leon no! What are you doing?” Briar shouted.

  “Relax. This happens all the time. I’ll be right back.”

  “Are you crazy? Get back in here!” But he heard nothing, as the car door slammed shut.

  Briar watched Leon stride up to the hood and pop it open. The wolf loped up from behind, grew to a stand
on its back legs, and towered over him with its carnivorous mouth wide open.

  A silver comet, the size of a baseball flew up from the south, with a trail of glittering dust. It swooshed over the car, and slammed into the creature’s chest. A second later, it emerged from the animal’s back. The wolf arched backward and cried in livid agony. It writhed and strained as it crumbled to the pavement.

  Briar slid across the front seats, and spilled out onto the street. The animal lay close enough by that she could see the red of its gums, and its long sharp teeth, protruding through its foaming saliva. The monster convulsed and scraped at the ground with its eyes rolled back.

  “You are hilarious!” Leon laughed. He came around to Briar and helped her to her feet. But she was still in shock and unable to stand independently. She wobbled, and slumped. Leon caught her quickly and ushered her to the passenger seat with his arm caught around her waist. “I’ve never met a girl who liked these kind of stunts. Awesome!”

  “No. Leon. You don’t understand,” Briar said feebly. She was going in and out of a hazy awareness, and wasn’t sure if she was actually saying anything, or if what she wanted to say was still in her head. Leon slammed the passenger door and strode past the creature, which seemed to be regaining its bearings. Briar gasped and clutched the dashboard. “Hurry, get in here,” she shouted.

  Leon slid into his seat and closed the door. “Take it easy.” He laughed with his nose crinkled. “What are you so riled up about? Wait. Is this more of your acting?”

  Briar’s eyes were glued to the wolf that stood again, its ears tucked and its muzzle curled into the most repulsive snarl, seeming more determined than ever to destroy.

  She reached over and twisted the key in the ignition. The engine just chugged once and then ticked like a metronome. The wolf caught its claws into the top of Leon’s window and started to drag it down. Leon looked amazed by the window that seemed to be opening by itself. “How are you doing that?” He laughed.