Chapter 11 Babe's Vigil

Midnight comes slowly for Lucky and his siblings and the ride to Creek Dams River outside of Darteret is smooth, as usual. No one is really listening to the radio. They know what is ahead of them. Another moment of silence representing the sad and remorseful hole that continues to be unfilled in their lives of respectfulness for the loss of their little sister.

All of the years had gone by without anything happening that caused questions to arise in the spirit of acceptance. Lucky took it hard. They all did. Each of them knew that their actions of disobedience had changed their lives forever. They could never ask Babe to forgive them personally. They could never seek the willingness to achieve acceptable forgiveness in their own lives because Babe was dead and looking for something that they knew they would never find was something they learned to live and grow with early in life. It didn't work for everybody. Candace went away, married, and babysat Max from afar while establishing herself as a prominent member of her husband's neighborhood. She loved it but there was always the little sister, whose hair she'd never get to run her fingers through after washing it, that was not there to laugh with.

Max lived with Candace checking in on him and his medical experiences. His second mom. Life away from Darteret wasn't life in Darteret. Nightmares and daydreams about that night plagued him. His psychologists recognized him in the first person. He didn't care for it however, it did beat being a statistic inside of the incarceration industry. His petty run ins with the law were boiled down to childhood depression that followed him into adulthood. With Candace and Lucky telling him to shut up more often than not, he knew that his life would be another deep and overbearing memory that would be hard to forget and so he listened, most of the time.

Lucky changed the radio station. Candace looked at him, wondering why.

"We are almost there. You might as well have let that play." She said.

Lucky was quiet. He never liked Creek Dams much. It wasn't the coast even though it had water. It's water was solely the river whereas Darteret was a beach with a lot of sand and sun. It was bright and energetic and people wore shorts because the mosquito population wasn't a nuisance compared to being in shady Creek Dams, where the tree cover made the perfect habitat for insects to thrive in the warm season and the roads treacherous during the cold months. Lucky hated it but it was close to home and he never left home. Creek Dams was better than traveling to Lertsville for the vigil. It was close. That's about all the rural place had going for it.

"Do you think we'll ever switch locations?" Max asked from the back seat.

"Why?" Candace whined, trying to look at him in the dimness of the dashboard lights.

"Is there something wrong with Creek Dams, Max?" She asked.

Lucky looked at her. She caught on to to his "really" gaze, quick.

"What?" She asked him, pressing her back into the seat as she adjusted the seatbelt playfully.

"He hates Creek Dams." Max squealed.

"Never did like this place." Lucky confessed. "Too many trees. Not enough sand." He said, eyes on the road.

"Sand?" Max questioned, looking into the darkness through the window.

"It doesn't have any." He grunted.

"Ok, you two. That's it. We've been coming here this long. Why change it?" Candace asked, looking ahead.

"Because it's Creek Dams." Lucky chimed.

Max grinned aloud, accepting his brother's comment.

"Whatever. I like Creek Dams." Candace said.

"It's quiet. Not a lot of people. I don't know, there's something about it that makes me say that it's nice. Home," Candace began.

Lucky looked at his sister again, reading her face in the harsh glow of the dashboard. The word home. The keyword home made a significant difference in his demeanor behind the wheel. Even though Candace and Max had just come back to Darteret from other places, the three of them had just come from home.

"Creek Dams is close enough." Lucky said, putting his eyes back on the road.

"But it's a little too close to Darteret." He said.

"Yeah." Max said, "That's true. I haven't forgotten that night." He said, bringing his sight to the inside of the vehicle.

Lucky looked in the rear view mirror. He could hardly see his little brother in the black dimness of the dashboard lights.

"Memory fades." Lucky said to Max.

He nodded. "No it doesn't. And if it does, it isn't fast enough for me." He said.

"Give it time, Max." Candace said.

"Time." Max replied, leaning forward as far as the backseat belt would allow.

"We were kids. We were there. I see doctors for that shit." Max said, sitting back, breathing hard.

"Max." Lucky scolded.

Max looked into the rear view mirror and into his brother's eyes, taking the scolding. He settled down.

"I catch that shit for a living." Lucky reminded the occupants of the vehicle.

Max met his brother's eyes again, they were softer, relaxing.

"How many times have we had this conversation? Every year?" Candace asked.

"Actually, not that many times. But it would be nice to move further away from Darteret." Max said, checking the mirror for Lucky, who was eyes straight ahead as the brakes halted the vehicle to a skid on the road, making Max jerk forward and backwards.

"Do you see that?" Lucky asked.

Candace remained quiet.

"What?" Asked Max, unbuckling the seat belt and sliding forward between the seats to see what his brother and sister were looking at.

"What the?" Max asked, putting his hand into his jacket pocket and holding onto the object inside of it.

"We were almost there, to Babe's vigil." Candace said. "No matter what we do, we'll never get rid of those things. They follow us. I hate them." Candace said, becoming tearfully loud.

"Shhhh." Lucky said. "I think they can hear you, Candace."

"What are they? All powerful or something?" Max asked, gripping the object in his pocket tighter.

"They're a pack. That's what they are." Lucky said, staring at the beasts standing before them, "Trouble."

The midnight hour proved itself to be one that no one should be out on any road. The Rivals knew that they couldn't let their childhood experience get the best of their livelihood.

Creek Dams, a few minutes drive from where they were wasn't supposed to be a scary place. They knew the town knowledge of what lurked in the woods and to be a part of that private society made them different, no more aware of the locals in the neighborhood. They knew that the abandoned and decrepit buildings of Darteret not only told the fascinating stories of what could have possibly gone on inside of them but they also told the stories of what used them now.

The hurricane season was also a hit and miss situation and everything needed a place to be sheltered from the elements. Regular rainfall, even in high winds, was okay but the realism of the creatures living in the woods that could be imagined also as the body of the cities of every state, people were destined to encounter something every once in a while. Theirs just happened to be when they were children and now the siblings brother used that incident to make a living. It was something the family couldn't escape.

"They're fighting." Max said softly.

"And it's not a full moon." Said Lucky, gripping the wheel, white knuckling it.

"Does that make a difference?" Candace asked, her voice shaky.

"They're not even supposed to be out tonight." Max said, wide eyed and looking straight ahead, enthralled by the spectacle.

Lucky looked at Max, amazed that his little brother knew at least a tale or two.

"Put your seatbelt on." Lucky said attempting to not sound pleased.

"It is on." Max said, quickly dismissing his brothers command.

"Oh." Lucky wondered at why his brother had so much seatbelt length to almost be sitting between Candace and himself.

"Look!" Candace exclaimed.

Lucky turned around wasting no time putting the vehicle in reverse. The commotion distracted the pack whose attention was staring into headlamps and able to hear over a roaring engine at the people inside of the vehicle, the werewolves were moving, together, with caution and low to the ground. They found prey and it looked to be getting away.

The brief glimpse of the werewolf pack looking in their direction was terrifyingly breathtaking. The werewolves wouldn't bother the Rivals again, at least not tonight.

Lucky swung to vehicle around and accelerated away from the pack.

Maximilian looked into the blackness behind them but the dark was strong and the light in the starry sky revealed nothing.

Candace refused to steal glances from the passenger mirror.

"This is the last time we're coming to Creek Dams River." She said, squeezing her arms as she hugged herself.

"To Creek Dams!" Max blurted, agreeing with his sister.

Lucky said nothing about his sister's change of locales. He looked at her in the harsh lighting of the dash light. She appeared smaller than in daylight as she consoled herself, deeply shaken by the sight of werewolves.

With his eyes on the highway and the raging tires speeding along with the loud engine filling the inside of the vehicle and the radio being of no concern to any one, their brother hastily got them out of Creek Dams.