He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe he can’t breathe god please not like this-
The gun swivels towards the woods, only for a second, but he takes advantage to sprint around the side of the house, out of range. If he can double back to the road…but Kitty doesn’t know the way back…
The door flies open and he darts to the other side
Can’t help her if you’re dead, idiot!
and peers around the corner. The man’s halfway between the house and the woods, head tilted like he’s trying to smell the air. Jonathan pauses, weighing his chances on reaching the main road without being shot,
Not good too much open ground where the hell is she?
and lunges up the porch and into the house. The slam of the door gets the man’s attention, but this old place has a sturdy bar in addition to the lock. Okay, okay, window, attic ladder…
He sinks to the floor under the window and takes deep breaths. Okay. Okay, there’s no shouting or screaming or gunfire, so Kitty’s probably fine. She may not know where she’s going, but neither does the gunman, more than likely.
Okay. Okay, new plan. Find Kitty (she can’t have gotten that far), and leave and never, ever, ever speak of this again. Maybe not even go home. He’s never hotwired a car, but how hard can it really be, idiots do it all the time-
He takes three deep breaths and forces himself to stand up and look outside. Nothing. That’s good, he reminds himself, that means he can leave the house and that Kitty’s (probably) not dead.
He pushes the door open, wincing at the creak, and pokes his head out. Nothing. It’s gotten eerily quiet, save for the wind. Well, he’ll probably hear if anyone tries to sneak up on him. Hopefully.
Nothing. He makes his way off the porch, freezing at every small sound. Where the hell is she?
Thunder rumbles in the distance. Okay. Woods. If Kitty’s got any sense, she’ll have stuck close to the edge rather than risk getting lost. (Though, they are here to begin with, so…)
He’ll go with that, because it’s a place to start.
Now, in the dark, he takes back every uncharitable, ‘those aren’t real woods’ thought he’s ever had and replaces them with new uncharitable, ‘great, woods’ thoughts. There’s more trees than he realized and up close, they’re nowhere near as spindly as they look from the road. He hates nature, he decides, and if he survives this and Granny doesn’t kill him before he’s eighteen, he’s going somewhere with no nature whatsoever. ‘Cept maybe a park, because those are unavoidable, now where is she she can’t be dead there was no gunshot-
He’s maybe ten feet in-the house is just visible, anyway-when a clump of leaves falls on his head. He looks up, expecting a bird, and is mistaken.
“Kitty?” She holds a finger to her lips and he lowers his voice. “Where’d he go?”
She points and gestures frantically for him to come up. He’s about to argue-maybe they can make it if they run-when the whistling reaches his ears and you know, never mind, no they can’t.
He feels horribly exposed up here-these trees are sparse-but it’s dark and it’s not like they’re at eye level or anything.
Kitty’s fine-a little scratched up, probably from getting up here in the first place-but she’s pale and, as he finds out when she reaches over to grab his arm, shaking like a leaf.
“You’re okay.” she breathes. “I wasn’t sure if he’d caught you-”
The whistling moves a little closer and she shuts up, fingers gripping his sleeve. It stops abruptly, but Jonathan has no idea if they’ve been spotted or not.
“I know you’re around here somewhere.” a voice sing-songs from…somewhere over there. Too close, that’s all he knows. “Come on out, we need to have a talk.” There’s a flash of lightning and they both try to melt into the tree trunk. “Just a talk, that’s all. Don’t be frightened, I won’t hurt you.”
Maybe death hurts, you don’t know.
He can’t see down there any more than the man (presumably) can see up here, but the footsteps sound close. This is worse than anything Granny’s ever done, worse by far-
The man steps into view, head shiny as Granny’s prized silver. Kitty’s fingers tighten to a near-painful degree.
Don’t look up, don’t look up…
One of them is born cursed. The man stops, looks from side to side, and then looks up.
Everything goes numb and clear and loud and no no he’s imagining this he always did have a vivid imagination-
“Come down here, please.”
He’s going to be sick maybe that’d get him to go away nobody wants to be puked on do they-
“Don’t make me ask you again.”
Going down there has a slightly higher chance of Not Dying but he doesn’t want to he doesn’t want to-
Breathe. Don’t lose your head, that’s how you die.
He takes a steadying breath and makes his way back down, Kitty right behind him. He has no ideas, none whatsoever apart from no sudden movements.
“Come on. Run, and I’ll shoot you.”
Yeah. He gathered. Nice to have confirmation.
He’s expecting them to be marched deeper into the woods, but instead they go back to the house. Makes sense, he supposes. Grave’s already there, just widen it a little.
“Inside. Don’t do anything silly.”
The door shuts behind them like a coffin lid closing and the walls seem to close in around them. The man glances at the trunk, raises an eyebrow, and says, “Sit down.”
When neither of them move-for his part, the words just haven’t registered-he shoots a bullet into the floor and shouts, “Now!”
Words registered. Sitting down now.
Once they’re down, the man props the shotgun against the wall and sits down on the bed, looking from one to the other.
“Nosey little shits, huh?”
“Small town.” Jonathan shoots back, regrets it immediately. Fortunately, the man just thinks that’s funny. Or pretends to.
“Yeah, y’know, I was a nosey kid, too. ‘Til I walked in on my parents.” He’d been happy without that knowledge, thanks. “You got any smart remarks, honey?”
For once in your life, SAY NO.
Kitty swallows and forces a paper-thin smile.
“We didn’t see anything.” she continues, and it’s an effort to look like he agrees with this. “We just came out here for, um…y’know…” She shrugs. “My parents are home and his parents are home and-”
“Why were you up by the house, then?”
“It’s supposedly haunted.” Jonathan mumbles. “She dared me to come up and touch it, that’s all.”
“You two are awful liars.”
“Mm-hm, and my name’s Plenty o’Toole.” Huh? “You were nosing around before.”
“Told you. It’s haunted. We were ghost-hunting.”
“Your bad luck, guys.” He leans forward. “Now. You’re from around here, aren’t you?”
“Bullshit. You small towns always know everybody.” Damn near, but not this time! “So where’s his money?”
“The money, kiddo.” Don’t call me kiddo. “Wicker’s buried gold, where is it?”
Seriously? They’re in this predicament because of imaginary gold? He is going to be murdered and left for the crows because of imaginary gold?
“There isn’t any, look at this place!” Kitty’s fingers, icy cold, grip his. “S’just a story, that’s all! If you were dumb enough to believe it-”
“Shut up!” He silences. The man leans over and picks up the gun. “Look. This sucks for you, I get it. Should’ve thought about that before you got nosey.”
He’s got a half-formed idea of DUCK ‘N RUN when the gun comes up in front of his head. He can almost feel the warmth radiating off it and his idea promptly turns to no no please no.
“Wait!” Kitty shut up now. “Wait, wait-we’ll help you look. Yeah? We’ll help you look for it.”
The man raises an eyebrow and for a second Jonathan thinks he’ll be shot out of spite, but then the gun lowers. A little. It’s not aimed directly at his head, anyway. Not that being shot in the chest is any better. Might be worse. That might lead to him choking to death on blood and bits of his ribs.
Kitty keeps talking, the words becoming nearly unintelligible in her rush to get them out.
“S’better to have more eyes, innit? It’s a big lot, could be anywhere, and killing us means you have to hope no one comes looking-” Don’t go there, he doesn’t need any ideas. “-so really making us help is the safer choice-”
“Shut up.” She stops talking. “I don’t want your help. You’ll make a run for it.”
He’d love to chime in and say no, but he’s still stuck on ‘open mouth, get shot’.
“We won’t.” she says. “Promise we won’t, just please-”
The gun doesn’t waver and he starts mentally counting his breaths, knowing damn well they’ll be cut off any second-
There’s a flash of lightning outside and the thunder rolls up, building before crashing. The man flinches and why is he holding a gun when he’s jumpy that’s how accidents happen.
Is that smoke? He risks a glance upwards. Maybe…it’s a little hazy, but that could be fear.
Fires don’t start that fast-
-but with all the lightning, who knows how long it’s been going. And this little shack…they’re sitting in kindling.
Kitty’s started talking again and he wishes she’d shut up is she trying to get herself shot?
“…wouldn’t even have to dig, just tell us where to-”
There’s a creak-old house settling or old house burning? Whatever it is, it catches the man’s attention. He looks up, grip on the gun slackening.
It’s monumentally stupid, but he doesn’t have a better plan-he lunges forward and grabs hold of the gun, pulls hard.
To his utter shock, he’s successful. Nearly falls backwards, actually.
The gun’s heavy in his hands, heavy and hot and he doesn’t know what the hell to do with it now, but he gets a grip on it and points it forward, pretending it’s not shaking.
“Up against the wall.” Hell, everything is shaking tonight, from his voice to his knees.
“Kid, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”
He stands up, trying not to drop the gun, and takes a steadying breath. Kitty gets up and steps back.
He could, feasibly, shoot the man. No one knows he’s here. Hell, if there were ever ‘the world’s easiest murder’, he could commit it right now. He could even say it was an accident, if he ever did get caught. Say his finger twitched or something.
“Jonathan.” Kitty’s voice is nearly silent. “We need to go to the police.”
Like they’ll do anything. Like they care.
There’s another creak from upstairs. It’d be easy. Hell, if the place really is on fire, he’s got a ready-made body disposal.
Kitty tugs on the back of his shirt.
“He’ll be gone. By the time we get back, he’ll be gone.” He knows he’s speaking way too fast, but she needs to get this, they don’t have a choice. “They won’t find him, you know they won’t-”
“Don’t.” Her voice is still that borderline-silent, not-normal tone. “Just don’t, you…” She takes a shuddery breath. “Please.”
He doesn’t lower the gun.
“If you move, I will shoot you.” he says, forcing his voice not to shake. “Is that clear?”
He’ll follow. Jonathan knows he’ll follow, he should just-
“To keep him from running.”
There’s a clinking noise, followed by fabric-rubbing-on-fabric.
“Go sit in front of the bed with your hands behind you.”
If the man has a smart comment, he keeps it to himself and walks, slowly, to the bed. Kitty climbs on top of it and leans down, belt in hand.
Jonathan’s half-expecting the man to try to grab her (and has no idea what to do if he does), but apparently he’s not willing to risk being shot, because he sits still, shaking his head, while she ties his wrists together and knots the belt to the bedpost. He still breathes a little easier when she’s out of grabbing range, knots or no.
He keeps the gun up until they’re on the porch, and it’s not until they’re down the steps that he sets it down and nearly falls down after it. He’s spent-there’s no sleep coming for him for a while, he can just tell.
Kitty hugs him-or maybe just can’t stand on her own. He has no idea.
“I thought for a minute you were gonna shoot him.” she mumbles into his shirt. He laughs, a high, strangled noise.
“I thought for a minute I was gonna shoot him.”
They stand there for a minute-Jonathan, for his part, is trying to pull himself together enough to walk home without collapsing in the road.
“Come on.” he says at last, once his legs feel strong enough to take more than five steps. “We need to go.”
They’ve just climbed-slowly, shakily-over the fence, when there’s a splintering noise and a scream. They spin around, wobbling a little, and dear god.
The roof’s fallen in. There’s no heaping blaze, but there is smoke and a low, red glow.
“Oh my god.” Kitty whispers. “Jonathan-”
He’s not jumping the fence to pull the man out. It was a cloth belt, maybe he cut through it, or it burned through. Why should he go and see?
He wipes dust and streaks off his glasses and glances up again. There’s no sound, now, but the window’s blowin’ hard and the red glow seems to be getting brighter.
“I’m sure he’s fine.” he says softly. “The knot wasn’t that tight.”
He expects her to protest.
“I guess you’re right.” She steps back, pauses, and takes his sleeve. “It’s late. By the time the police get here, he’ll be gone.”
They walk in silence for a little while, and the road’s just starting to turn towards home when she stops.
“I can’t sleep, not after that.” Okay. “Want to see if there’s anything at the bridge?”
This time his laugh’s a little more normal.
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