Riser (Teen Horror/Science Fiction) (Book #1 in The Riser Saga) ((Volume 1)) (45 page)

“Every second of my life, I wished you were dead instead of your father. Maybe now I can get my wish.” She laughed again.

And then she started to dance. It was grotesque and humiliating.

Roberta stepped forward simply thrilled with the events taking place. “I can make her dance some more.” She grinned, looking like the cat she was.

That’s when I noticed Roberta’s eyes were bright solid green.

“Chelsan, she’s not your mother! Your mother died! Don’t listen to her!” Ryan screamed.

And I suddenly realized he had been screaming this whole time.

I had blocked him out, I was so focused on my mom and Roberta.

I was starting to break out of the spell.

Roberta made my mother dance and jerk and slam herself against the wall. How long had she been torturing my mother’s body like this? How long had she gotten her kicks out of degrading her and beating her up? Roberta used her corpse as a form a therapy to satisfy her thirst for vengeance on my family.

My mom started to scratch and tear flesh off her arms, laughing manically the entire time, continuing to slam herself into the wall.

It was making me enraged beyond anything I had ever felt before. All I could see was red. How dare she? How dare she?

I closed my eyes from the fury. In the depths of my soul a scream started to rumble from the very core of my being. A scream so powerful, I could feel my whole body arch backwards from the force. It poured out of my mouth and filled the room with deafening impact.

I could see then.

Even with my eyes closed, I could see everything.

All the things that Roberta kept hidden.

All the corpses roaming the hallways of this giant mansion.

All of their black raging chasms, welcoming me like their true master.

No more.

I connected to each and every one of them.

I felt their last force of life left to them in this world.

And I obliterated it.

BOOM!!!

The whole house shook from the force.

I opened my eyes and I was covered in blood and chunks of flesh.

What had I done?

Rather than see my mother tortured, I had annihilated her entire body. There was nothing left of her. Nothing. Just blood and pieces of rotted flesh splattered everywhere. I didn’t know if I could live with myself after that. It felt like I killed her, even though I knew that wasn’t the truth, it felt true and it was consuming me like a wave of guilt I had no way of surviving.

That’s when I realized the guards had also exploded.

No more black holes.

No more bodies.

I had destroyed them all.

Roberta’s eyes were clear as they stared into mine. She was shocked and scared at first, but when she recognized the shame I felt, it was like I had given her the best prize of all. She started to laugh in triumph again, even covered in her own guards’ blood, even knowing she was completely alone against me.

She had won.

And I couldn’t take it.

I couldn’t take that look of victory in her eyes.

I wanted to rip them out myself.

I wanted her to die.

“See how you like this!” I screamed at her.

I connected to the hundreds of dead bees in their fumigated hive and made them fly through an opened window.

Ryan and Bill were now standing next to me, holding each of my arms.

“Chelsan. Let’s get out of here,” Ryan pleaded.

But I didn’t want to listen to him.

I wanted to see Roberta suffer.

We heard the buzzing before we saw them.

Roberta’s face fell slightly as she recognized the sound.

“Let’s see how you handles bees, Grams!” I smiled myself.

The swarm of dead bees entered the room like the cavalry. I made them sting her over and over, just to wipe that triumphant smirk off her face. She screamed in anguish and tried to cover her feline face from the bee blitz.

At that point, Ryan and Bill physically dragged me away.

“Chelsan, come on.” Bill’s voice was laced with concern.

I followed willingly, but I kept the bees attacking Roberta while we headed toward the front door. With each sting it took away some of my guilt and hatred of myself. It felt like the more I hurt her, the better I would be.

I knew it was wrong.

And yet I didn’t stop.

We slipped and slid our way through the blood soaked house. Every servant, guard and maid all appeared to have been dead people that couldn’t escape my attack. It made me sick to my stomach. I, literally, made all of these people blow up into a million pieces and now Ryan, Bill and me were covered in it and slipping on all that was left of them. What was I?

The more my head spun with the terror of who I was the more I wanted to punish Roberta. It was her fault! Her fault I was the way I was! They performed the ritual to kill me! They had been trying to kill me non-stop for the last two weeks! They had murdered my mother and my neighbors! They had tried to kill my friends! Neither one of them deserved to breathe! Making each bee sting every part of her I could reach was a small penance to pay for what she’d done.

That woman made the last image of my mother a nightmare! She knew I’d never be able to erase that from my mind. And that’s precisely why she did it. She wanted me to remember the rotted, beaten, puppet of my mom forever. And I would. And I hated her for it.

She had fallen to the floor now, the bees too much for her.

I didn’t care.

Jill’s father.

He had exploded like the rest of them.

I pushed it from my brain. He was already dead. I didn’t kill him. But why did it feel like I killed everyone in there?! Roberta made me feel like I murdered my own mother! The hate that seethed through my blood was like an addictive poison I couldn’t get rid of and a part of me didn’t want to. The hate felt right.

It felt good.

The three of us ran out the front door and we stopped dead in our tracks.

Turner was there with a handful of his armed soldiers.

Turner raced up to me, already knowing what I was doing. “Please, take them off of her. Please!”

I shrugged away from him. “I warned you!” I wanted to set the bees on him as well, but something in his eyes made me pause.

“Please, she’s all I have left in this world. You took my son away from me, don’t take her away, too. I can’t stop them! I tried! Please!” Turner was desperate.

And instead of feeling good (like I thought I would) he was actually making me feel bad.

No.

She deserves it!

And so does he!

They killed my mother.

As if from nowhere an onslaught of Police-hovers and Press-hovers flooded the front of Turner’s house and started landing all over his property.

The hover-van nearest to us opened its doors. Jason and Nancy spilled out and hurried over to us.

Nancy’s eyes were wide with horror as she saw the three of us covered in blood and people bits. Her hand went to her mouth. “We need paramedics!!” she screamed.

“Nancy, it’s not our blood. We’re okay,” Bill reassured her.

One look at us and Jason approached Turner with a serious and condemning expression. “We have the footage of your exterminators killing Chelsan’s trailer park already on the air.”

A particularly burly policeman handcuffed Turner and started to drag him away toward his hover.

The press was screaming at Turner and screaming at us. I couldn’t concentrate, but I couldn’t stop making the bees attack Roberta either.

Turner kept his eyes on me, terrified. “Chelsan, please!”

I could feel that Roberta’s body wasn’t moving as I made the bees continue to sting her.

Ryan whispered in my ear. “Your father died to save you. He could have killed his parents instead, but he didn’t.”

My head froze up.

My knees gave way as Ryan caught me.

A wave of reality washed over me.

I dropped the bees.

What was wrong with me?

“Upstairs.” I grabbed the first policeman I could find. “Roberta Turner was attacked by bees. She needs medical help.”

Nancy embraced me tightly. “We thought you were dead. Again.” She pulled away smiling, although she groaned when she realized that she now had blood all over her as well. “Oh great.”

I tried to smile back, but it wasn’t in me. “Can we just go home?”

She picked up on the mood of the moment and figured out pretty quickly that the last thing anyone of us wanted to do was celebrate.

“Of course.” Nancy said and gave me another hug, stains be damned.

“My car is over one block,” Bill said and we started to walk through the throng of reporters and police officers, all asking us why we were blood-soaked.

None of us answered them. What would we say anyway? Jason would think of something, like he always did.

Roberta was taken out of the house by hover-gurney. She was alive. I was surprised at how relieved I was about that. With everything that had happened, I let my rage get the best of me. It made me hate myself all the more.

As Turner was being placed into the police-hover he nodded to me then turned away.

Maybe there could be a truce between us.

I doubted it.

I just hoped they’d be able to keep him in jail.

As we made our way back to Bill’s hover-car, Ryan held my hand and squeezed it. “You going to be okay?”

I shrugged.

I honestly didn’t know.

The ride back was silent. No one wanted to say anything that might cause anyone any pain.

George and Vianne were waiting for us in the front yard. They started freaking out when they saw all the blood, but as soon as they realized it wasn’t ours they were all hugs and smiles. Their house was back in order and aside from the front door everything looked like home again. George gave us all robes to change into while Vianne made us a quick meal. The only thing we washed was our hands, we were too tired and hungry to do a proper job. We all must have looked a fright with our hair and skin covered with dried blood, not to mention the cuts and bruises Ryan and Bill were sporting. I scarfed down my entire plate and even had seconds.

Nancy did most of the talking, telling us of her and Jason’s escapade to air the footage. They managed to sneak into the International News Building and through clever maneuvering, Jason snuck into the main server room and aired the footage on all stations across the globe. Nancy explained that Jason didn’t want to risk telling his producers about the chip for fear of them working for Turner. “You can’t trust anyone. Jason’s right about that.” Nancy’s eyes fluttered. I guess they had worked things out. But knowing them, that could last all of five minutes.

“Turn on the holo.” Jason walked into the kitchen and we all jumped slightly.

“You scared us to death.” Nancy stood up and grabbed his arm with a flirty smile. Yup. They were definitely on good terms again.

“Just turn it on.” Jason wasn’t happy and that made my stomach sink.

Vianne clicked the holo-tv on.

The news anchor was talking at his desk with footage of Turner behind him at a press conference.