Undead Dilemma
Chapter 5: A Ghostly Twist

Sometime later I lurched up in my bed, the dagger I always kept in between my mattresses clutched tightly and held at the ready in my fist. I quickly scanned my room not noticing anything out of place and no errant shadows that shouldn’t be there. I didn’t hear anything but knew I that I never woke up in the middle of the night so something had to be off. I quietly slipped out of my bed and crept to my door. I pulled it open slowly so as not to make a sound and scanned the hallway. Seeing nothing there either I moved out into the hall creeping slowly so that I could keep my eyes and ears peeled. I made my way down, peeking into Cake’s room. I stopped for a moment noticing that I couldn’t see her in the bed. Scanning the rest of her room quickly I didn’t see her anywhere else in there. I made my way back out and went quickly. I didn’t see her in the bathroom, living room or in my comp room. I moved even faster then, making my way into the kitchen. I sighed when I noticed her standing near the table. ” Jesus Cake you scared the life out of me!” I exclaimed. I reached out to her, saying ” Are you okay....do you need anything?” About that time my hand reached her arm and I noticed her skin was kind of chilly. I tried to turn her around but she wouldn’t budge so I walked around to face her. I felt a chill creep into me as I saw her eyes staring blankly into nothing. Her fire and sparkle wasn’t there.

“Cake...wake up!” I yelled at her. I shook her just a little but she continued to stand there staring at nothing. I was beginning to freak out a little and wonder what I should do next when I felt a small tremor go through her. She straightened up just a little bit more and turned her eyes toward me. “I have a message from the leader for you...boy.” she said tonelessly. “I told you that when I was ready for her, she would come to me willingly. Now would be the time for you to wise up and understand that in this fight, you don’t have a chance.” ” My advice to you... go somewhere far away and enjoy what little life might be left for you.” She then started to walk past me. I pulled on her arm trying to get her to stop. She swung out with her other hand and smacked me across the face. I pivoted myself around and pulled her to the ground. We then started struggling around on the floor. I tried to get her in an arm bar thinking that if I could make her pass out it might be enough to break whatever spell had a hold on her. I got one arm up over her shoulder and was trying for the other when she swung down with her elbow and caught me in the ribs. I was just trying to reach up with my other arm again when she suddenly rolled herself over so that she was facing me. I changed my tactic into trying to pin her arms against her side so that I could gain the upper hand. We were struggling like this for a moment when she caught me completely unaware with a quick and vicious knee to my manhood.

My breath caught and a wave a pain rolled through me. Of course my arms loosened and through the pain I could feel her slither away from me. Nothing I could do about it for a moment though. I quickly tried to get a couple of complete breaths in so that I could fight my way through the pain and go after her. I sucked in and made myself get up. I stumbled as fast as I could after her. I caught her just as she reached the door. I slammed it closed as I rammed myself into her and the door. I grabbed her around the waist and swung her into the kitchen as far from the door as I could. She slid into one of the chairs. I started to make my way to her. Suddenly she lifted the chair up and threw it towards me. I swung my arm out to knock it somewhere else. As it clattered to the floor I dodged to the right and tried to leap and pin her down again. She side stepped back and I had to catch my forward movement before I fell to the floor. She sprinted to the other side of the table and I started to shove the table and back her up against the fridge. She dodged back, swung open one of the cabinets and started throwing bowls, plates and cups at me. I ducked down and waited until she stopped throwing, then I swiftly moved myself up and to the left. I guess she had caught onto my tactics though because suddenly a searing pain flared in the side of my head and everything went black.

“Wit...you have to wake up for me buddy.” “You have to open those pretty eyes man.” I heard somebody say close by. I tried to open my eyes and groaned as a flash of pain went through my head. I squinted for a second and then tried to open them a little slower this time. I could only get them about half way open before the pain struck again so I just kept them there and didn’t try to open them any wider. It was wide enough though to make out the worried face of my best friend James. “Pity man, I need some blockers.” I croaked out. He got up and I saw him dash down the hall. He made his way back in, moved over to the fridge and pulled out a Coke. He opened the cap and set the bottle and medicine on the floor. Then he moved over, put his hand under my neck, around my shoulders and with extreme care helped me to get into an upright position. As soon as I could sit up relatively still he handed over the medicine and drink. I swallowed them down gratefully and looked over at James. I could tell he had dressed his best to meet Cake because he was wearing one of his Superman tees and he only pulled those out when he was going to be meeting a girl. I held my hand out to him and he clasped it a moment before standing up and helping to pull me up with him. We moved out to the living room and I sank onto to the couch.

“They got her man.” I started. “I don’t know how but she went willingly just like he said she would.” I laughed just a bit darkly. ” Hell dude, she fought me to leave. And I can’t explain but I know it wasn’t her.” “Holy hell you wouldn’t believe how freaked I got when I used my key, just to walk in and see the kitchen all torn up and you laying there with this big gash on your head.” “I couldn’t rouse you at first.” He explained. “So I patched you up before I tried again.” “What you want to do my friend?” He asked. “There is no choice, she is one of us now. We have to go after her.” He scoffed at me. “And just how in the 7 rings of hell you think we going to accomplish that.” “When I first spotted her in the kitchen I noticed that she had my mom’s leather jacket on.” I quipped back at him. “That is going to help us how?” “My pops was just a little over protective when it came to me and my mom. So in the lining of our jackets are small tracking bugs.” I explained. “I used to think that he was just a little crazy to do it but it is definitely going to be our saving grace now.” I stood myself up and we made our way to my baby.

“You have upgraded some since I been here last.” He said while gazing around. “Yeah well you know have to keep it top notch for all the work stuff as well as being able to kill it when I play my games.” I stated. I booted Beautiful up and dug into my tracking program. I input the number from my mom’s jacket. We waited silently as the tracking zeroed into Cake’s position. Finally, though it stopped, both James and I leaned in. “Fern Arkansas, I don’t know where that is man.” James said. “I do, I have it as part of my circuit because it is so close to Fort Smith and you know how the mons love the woods.” “Well alright then, show me the weapons and let’s get outfitted.” We walked back into the living room and I pushed on a section of the wall next to the bookcase. The whole wall revolved around to show all my gadgets and gear for protecting and hunting. We each grabbed some of my all-purpose tool belts and then started to load up on a good portion of my other goodies. Stakes, daggers, guns, globes, grenades and ready-made spells. We were going to get her back no matter what it took. As soon as we got what we wanted I swung the wall back and went to power down my comp. I snagged my laptop on the way out so that James could keep an eye on the tracker and let me know if they started to move Cake.

We piled ourselves into my car and took off. I drove as fast as I dared, skirting the law as much as possible. Still it took me a good hour and a half just to make it to Fern. Then I started to have James direct me, using the tracker. We travelled on paved roads for a while but I knew we must be getting closer when he directed me to turn off on a dirt road. We drove as far as we could until I noticed a bump in the road that my car wouldn’t make it over. I reversed it just a bit until I noticed a spot that I could pull the car into where it wouldn’t be seen by anybody else that happened to be travelling on this road. We got out and gathered up all our gear. I transferred the tracking to my wrist unit. We took off further down the lane, making sure to stay far enough into the woods where we wouldn’t be seen from the road. We walked on for a while, checking my unit and turning every now and then. After a while though I stopped and cocked my head to listen better. I could just faintly make out what sounded like drum beats. I turned and looked at James to confirm that he could hear it as well. He shook his head yes. I turned off my wrist unit and pulled out one of my daggers and one of my smoke grenades. I looked back over at James, he smiled and saluted me with his stake. Then we turned in the direction we heard the drumming and prepared to get our new comrade back.

We crept slowly toward the sound of the beating drums. We each tried to keep to the shadows since it was the middle of the day. I wasn’t used to the big bad monsters gathering in daylight. Which now that I think about it makes it a really good idea if you have something extra evil planned. As we made our way and the beating got louder I prayed that we would arrive in time to help Cake. I didn’t particularly care if we were in time to stop the spell just as long as we could get there in time for her. I know I had only met and helped her out several nights ago but I liked her. She had that fire inside that would help her to survive almost anything. And I really hoped that James and her could get along it would be nice to officially add another too our team. We paused for a moment as the beating of the drums picked up tempo, that could not be a good sign. I gestured to James and we picked up the speed, darting our eyes here and there. We had to be getting close.

My heart started to echo the beat of the drums. Please let us be in time. I checked to my left and right, gestured to James and stopped. There off to my left I saw a couple of Were-cats sitting up on a tree limb. Their backs were to us and I guess with the beating drum they hadn’t heard our approach through the woods. I gripped my dagger tighter in my hand and noticed James shifting his into a better grip as well. We synced our steps together and approached just a little bit closer. We both pulled back our arms and let the daggers fly. Mine flew straight into one of the Were’s neck and it fell to the ground. James’ dagger missed by a good half an inch though and that Were jumped from the tree and shifted in a fighting stance towards us. I saw him shift his gaze back and forth between us deciding which of us to attack first. I knew which one he would fly at though, James and I might both be on the tall, lanky side but between the two of us I was just a little more beefed up. So when he crouched back to spring his way at James, I pulled another dagger out of my belt and prepared to intercept.

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