Jack's Diary - Ann - Day 82

*Morning*

            I’m getting closer. Soon I’ll have her by the throat and strangle the hellish life out of her. I had another dream. A few in fact, but this one in particular drives me to find her. I found myself standing on level ground. The area around me was clear for about 15 to 20 feet in all directions, perfect for setting up camp, then tall trees from that point on in all directions. It was getting dark out. The sky was cloudy. It looked like a storm was to occur. It was then I saw her standing by the tree.

            “This is it. This is where it all ends. Find your way here.”

            She walked slowly to me. I wanted to draw my gun on her, but although I didn’t know it was a dream, I felt it would do no good.

            “Your death will be the highlight of my life. I don’t believe I’ll find another like you.”

            “I won’t die without taking you with me,” I said. I meant it. Even if I die in the process, I won’t allow her to go on.

            She stopped in front of me and smiled.

            “Children have such dreams for themselves, wild fantasies they have no way of reaching. I hope you won’t be disappointed.”

            She put her hand to my right cheek and I pushed it away. Just then, I felt something strange where she touched me. I put my hand to the spot and first thought my cheek was wet, perhaps sweat or blood, I thought. I pressed in a little and my fingers went through it as if it were soft clay. The skin of my cheek began falling off my face, splattering on the ground like wax from a candle. I tried to hold it on my face, but it was futile. A great fear took hold of me as I felt like a child, trapped in a situation I had no power to control. My entire body felt odd. I felt all over and even more of my body left me as my hair fell out in clumps. The skin of my arms, legs, and chest was all sliding off me like over ripened cheese. The sensation was odd. It wasn’t painful at all though I did feel weak. It felt like I was soaked in water and I was drip-drying and each time a drop fell, it was as if a part of me disappeared. Pain was not necessary to induce to terror when your very body falls apart before your eyes. Before long, the bare muscles of my hands and arms were visible. Then the muscles turned into thread and “unraveled”, becoming a pile of red wet string. Without my muscles, I was unable to hold myself up and fell face first to the ground. Even my teeth fell out, all the while Ann giggled in demented delight. Her touch. Her very touch tainted my body, turned it sour. My very life separated from me piece by piece until it was no more than a bare skeleton lying in a pool of ghastly goop. The last things to go were my eyes. The irises deteriorated and, with nothing to keep the light out anymore, a blazing sunray pierced through the clouds above and overwhelmed my pupils and purged my eyes of sight. Even writing this makes my flesh crawl.

            We’re heading out soon. I don’t know how, but I can feel it. I can feel us getting closer to that spot. It’s like there’s a compass in me. I want to end this, whether it be my end or her. At least I won’t have to suffer by her hand any longer, no matter which ends comes.

*Noon*

            Her “followers” have been getting more vicious. Some will fire from a distance while others choose to rather sneak around and jump out from behind trees with knives and clubs (and worst, they’re actual starting to do more damage than just a few scratches). One bullet almost got me in the chest. Luckily, it hit one of my knives (the knife’s ruined, but I’m alive). One bullet made its way inside the barrel of Mike’s uzi and clogged it (he replaced it with one of the men’s MP5s). The bullets had been grazing our skin yesterday, now their tearing it away, but they’re still not hitting us in vital spots. The only good thing to report is that the number of men is decreasing. At first, it was groups of 5 or 6 that attack. Yesterday, 4 or 5. Today, it’s down to 2 or 3. We must be slowly swindling their numbers. The ammo and weapons they keeping leaving behind allow us to constantly replace ours. I’ve been gathering a large amount of ammo and guns (more than I’d usually carry) from the corpses. We’re going to need it.

*Afternoon*

            We’re here. The exact spot I saw in my dreams. I couldn’t believe it when I found it. Mike and Julie were giving me strange looks for getting excited over a plot of land. I told them to get prepared because Ann’s going to show up. It didn’t matter if they thought I was insane. It’s time to lay this matter to rest.

            The night I told Mike the truth about Ann, I didn’t sleep at all. I spent all that time training. I sat Indian style in an open area (smaller in size than this one) with my eyes closed, attempting to meditate or “sense” what was around me through whatever the other senses could pick up. My dreams and day to day life have taught me that I can’t see Ann unless she wants to be seen and even then, I still doubt if all that’s been presented in the dreams were her or only nightmares that I manifested in fear of her or she created to torment me. I sat there for what must had been hours, listening to the various creatures of the night: a bug bounce from one leaf to another, the sound of crickets echoing off the trees, a small animal trotting passed me, and gentle breezes pushing the trees, shrubs, and grass. I wasn’t making a documentary; I was trying to distinguish sounds created by life verses sounds created by nature alone. She may have been there watching me, but could she really have known what I was doing? After that, I finished the blade I’d been making with the flat piece of metal. Then, I practiced with my knives, drawing my guns (didn’t fire them. Didn’t want to wake the neighbors). In a few minutes when I’m done writing this, I plan to meditate again. Mike asked me what our plan was. I told him to keep his eyes and ears open. There’s no doubt she’ll have the upper hand in the environment since she picked it out, but we have no choice. Either we play by her rules or we’ll probably keep getting “invitations” for eternity (or until she kills us in our sleep). Besides, I can’t take another dream. If I don’t continue writing this after this post, then it probably means we failed.

*Night*

            I don’t know where I am right now. It’s really dark and quiet (inside a building maybe). I don’t remember how I got here. I do however remember the battle.

            By the time I’d open my eyes, the sky had turned darker due to the approaching evening, but no clouds. From then on, I took the watch while Mike and Julie relaxed. Some time passed. It was peaceful, yet who could really relax knowing what I know? Then, in the distance, I heard something moving. The sound grew closer and louder until I could see what appeared to be shadows marching toward us. From all directions, they came. There was no need to alert Mike and Julie. They saw them soon after I did. We readied our weapons to shoot and stab when the enemy showed its face. I wasn’t expecting soulless. I certainly never expected to see soulless calmly walking toward us.

            “Climb a tree. Hurry!” I told them.

            We didn’t climb up the same tree (sticking together might have saved us some injuries). Mike and Julie were together in the tree across the open area from me. The branches we stood upon were about 20 feet off the ground. The soulless marched passed our perches yet all stopped before reaching the very center of the open area where our small fire and equipment stood. We didn’t want to alert them to our presence (if they hadn’t seen us before) so we didn’t move and neither did they. It was the most uncomfortable silence I’d ever experienced. Then, in one unified motion, all the soulless raised their heads, turned their necks, turned around, all the motions needed to have every single dead eye locked on me. If you’ve never looked one in the eye before, I’ll tell you the eyes are never the same: some are red, some are bleeding, some are gone, some are completely white or grey, and others still contain some form of iris and pupil, but very hard to see. They wouldn’t look away. Along with my shotgun and handguns, I brought with me two additional guns into the tree: an AK-47 and a MP5 of my own. Opening fire and killing five of the soulless didn’t faze them at all. Mike and Julie couldn’t believe their eyes either. This wasn’t a dream because the very question of it being one never crosses my mind when I’m dreaming. This is unnatural. It’s Ann.

            “Ann! Show yourself,” I yelled. It had to be her doing.

            The very moment after I’d spoken, I felt hot breathe on the back of my neck with the words accompanying it, “Hey.”

            It was her. I drew a knife and twisted around to try and stab her. She ducked and kicked me in the stomach, knocking me off the branch, but I managed to grab hold of it before getting out of reach and good thing, because the soulless below were reaching for me. As I was pulling myself up, Mike fired on Ann with his MP5, but she’d moved behind the tree we were in for cover.

            “Surprised to see me?” she asked kiddingly.

            She didn’t come out from her cover, not even when I regained my footing. I readied my handgun.

            “Before we go too far into this, you mind if I ask some questions? After all, I won’t be alive to tell anyone, now will I?” I said in a sarcastic manner. I hoped to distract her to get the upper hand (and I was curious).

            I checked behind the tree only to find she was gone. There was no noise to indicate that she’d moved. Mike and Julie were already making their way to me by climbing from tree to tree. A voice echoed through the woods.

            “Ask away,” said the voice.

            “You have the ability to mess with my dreams and control soulless, correct? How?”

            “I was born with them.”

            “I’m pretty sure there weren’t soulless when you were a baby.”

            She laughed. What’s more disturbing is the soulless laughed as well. Every single one of them. It was a disturbing laugh, sounded like that was a blender stuck inside their throats.. Even with her talking, I couldn’t determine where she was. The echo alone should’ve given her position away. I decided to make my way to Mike and Julie to cut the time in half. No telling what she’ll do next.

            “Your view of birth is very narrow. Before there was Ann, there was Carol Holinder.”

            “So your real name is Ann?”

            “My name is whatever you believe it is.”

            “This makes no sense,” I yelled. The soulless began pushing the trees we were in, making it harder for us to move without falling.

            “Then I’ll explain. Carol came from a rich family. Tired of living under her strict and neglective parents, she moved out when she reached the legal age, refusing to accept the inheritance from her parents. When life turned out to be harder than she expected and a job harder to hold when you have no experience, only two options were left. Since she was too proud to be a prostitute, she chose to be a lab rat. The company that hired her told her that they were working on DNA recoding. More specifically, they were accentually trying to reassign the jobs of the white blood cells of the body from eliminating alien bodies to engineers. They hoped they would not only rebuild damaged tissue as well as clean it, but they’d be able to make it construct more muscle, repair diseased organs, and even regulate mental problems like depression and seizures,” she explained as Mike, Julie, and I continued to make our way to each other.

            “They’d inject Carol with stuff and study her reaction. The results were promising, but not always as what the research had predicted. Then came the outbreak. Carol was bitten. Instead of turning into a mindless walking flesh pile, she became me.”

            We were only a few branches from each other when Ann jumped down, landed behind me, and put a bowie knife to my throat. Mike and Julie pointed their guns, but didn’t shoot.

            “Mike, shoot!” I yelled. “Your bullets will pass through both of us. End this now!”

            “Yes. Go ahead. Kill your friend,” she said mockingly. “Finish him for me.” She slowly began pulling the knife across my throat, but without pressing too hard as to only draw a light trickle of blood. With the MP5 aimed at me, he looked ready to fire.

            “Mike, don’t!” yelled Julie.

            “Too late,” exclaimed Ann casually. She moved the knife across my throat in one swift motion, and somehow managed to push me so hard, I flew toward Mike and Julie. Julie ducked and Mike was knocked off the branch, but was able to not only grab hold of a branch, he grabbed the back of my shirt to prevent me from falling. Julie put her gun away and tried to pull us up when Ann kicked her off and stepped on Mike’s hand, making him fall. From there, I thought it was over. The soulless below would rip us to shreds. However, instead of chewing our flesh off, they handed us off or in other words, made us participate in soulless crowd surfing. They threw us into the open circle where our equipment was (I know this sounds impossible, but I’m not making this up).

            Although Ann really did try and slice my throat open. However, at the last moment, I bended my neck back, stretching the muscles and thereby making it tougher to cut through. My neck was injured, but it wasn’t fatal. The soulless stood facing us, not moving or blinking for that matter.

            “Are there any more questions before we begin?” asked Ann, no longer in sight.

            “What is this suppose to be?” asked Mike.

            “Your end. More specifically Jack’s end, but since you insisted on coming along, you’ll share in this dramatic conclusion.”

            “Why not do this before instead of leading us here or sending your followers after us?” I asked. Mike and I started unpacking all our weapons.

            “You mean the men. They were only experiments to me. Target practice for you to sharpen your senses.”

            “You’re fucking insane!” yelled Julie.

            In the instant after Julie’s yell, the soulless began charging. Mike and I unloaded our MP5’s on them, each of us taking half the circle. This not only killed the first and second ones in line, they’re bodies temporarily blocked the rest from reaching us. This gave us an opening. I opened my bag and took out the grenades I made a long time ago (I’ve yet to make any more) while at the same time, Mike took out five molotov cocktails he brought with him from the tree base.

            “Julie, light them!” he said while he shot any soulless that managed to jump over the wall of dead bodies. I picked up a burning stick from the fire and lit the fuses on my grenades. Mike shot a few coming at me, but with Mike busy with his own half of the circle and both my hands preoccupied, I maneuvered, kicked, and elbowed to avoid the ones getting through. I chucked four of the grenades far into the back and the last three about 10 feet out to get rid of the ones trying to break through. Mike threw three of his cocktails close up much like I did with the last grenades when I yelled to him to throw the last two in the back in hopes the fire would spread and catch more of the soulless on fire. The idea was partially right. More caught on fire yet so did the nearby trees and as the battle raged on, more trees caught fire and so did more soulless. I didn’t notice this until much later though when I saw the last of the soulless were either burnt badly or still on fire partially. We were too busy with the soulless up front.

            Julie reloaded and threw us guns while Mike and I shot, stabbed, and clubbed with whatever was at hand. I have to admit; this was all so invigorating despite the danger. I felt so alive with every kick, punch, stab, and shot. A small victory after every kill. I’d kick one back, stab one in the eye, push it back into another, shotgun blast a group, shoot two with the handgun: one in the head and the other in the chest, whip out the Double Sledge and knocked a few heads. It went on and on and the adrenaline fueling it never ceased. That is, until my arm was bitten. There was a momentary pause in realizing that this was the end for me (there was no time to amputate the arm unless I wanted to get bit somewhere else or worse, have every last piece of flesh ripped from me). I made the mission to myself to kill Ann even if it resulted in my own death so I continued in the hope that I could hold onto my humanity long enough take her with me. It got a little easier when I found my machete lying on the ground with other stuff from my bag (I suspect that Julie dumped out my bag looking for ammo and guns). I’d forgotten to take it out before this started. Stabbing soulless straight through the chest, spine, and head was easier (and fun).

            We would’ve no doubt been overtaken if it weren’t for the MP5s cutting through the masses, giving us the time to take out the overwhelming numbers that were already too close for comfort. There was a large pile of bodies (victims of the MP5) surrounding us that the soulless now had to climb over (the pile was like a sandbags cover). It also became harder for ourselves to navigate and dodge with the dead bodies lying around us, but we continued to fight on. Mike seemed to be fairing well. It was hard to look back and check on him in all this chaos, but from what I saw, he forced the soulless back at times with pure strength alone, lifting and throwing them with one arm (it was awesome). After what seemed like an hour, their numbers began to dwindle. The trees around us were on fire and were dropping burning branches upon dead bodies and dry grass. It was a great shock, after a constant barrage of savage soulless charging at you for who knows how long, to find yourself looking into an open space, expecting to stab or shoot something (I was glad Mike and Julie didn’t step in front of me). The soulless were all dead. I’d been bitten and scratch at least five times, and I was breathing heavy. I turned around to Mike and Julie to find Julie crying into Mike’s chest. They too were bitten and scratched. The sad and desolate look on their faces told me they thought the same: it was all over for us.

            “I’m sorry,” was all I could say.

            “Bravo! The best show ever!” came Ann’s voice, “You killed every last one of them. Tell me, how does it feel to kill your own kind?” she asked mockingly.

            “What the hell is that suppose to mean?” asked Mike.

            “Look closer and see for yourself,” she said.

            Mike and I did and do you know what we found? All the people we just killed weren’t soulless: they were humans covered in mud, clay, and blood to make them look the part. What’s worse, I recognized a few of them though I couldn’t put my finger on who they were. Mike realizing their identities, jumped up in rage, “These are our friends! Our comrades from back at base!”

            Ann laughed. “Only a few. After you left, I snuck in and “borrowed” some. It only takes one drop of my blood to make them my puppets and I can make them do or act however I please.”

            “But why?!” asked Mike, almost hysterically.

            “Oh, for fun. I guess you could say it’s a lesson for you: you’ll kill anything and anyone to protect yourselves, no matter who they are to you.”

            To me, the fact that she would do this wasn’t a shocker, but us not noticing was what bothered me. I know I deceived you by calling them soulless, but from their actions, they might as well been soulless. Besides, I don’t know if I could bare acknowledging the horrible fact myself.

            “But the red eyes,” I asked, “None of them had red irises.”

            “The others only had red irises because I wanted them to. It’s only proper for a puppet master to have complete control over his or her puppets.”

            Mike went back to the supplies to reload the MP5.

            “I don’t know why you’re so upset. After all, you killed them. Speaking of your actions, it seems all that commotion brought the real monsters to play.”

            It was nearly night out, but the blazing fire that engulfed the woods around us allowed us to see clear as day. There were soulless coming toward us, some big, some small. The numbers certainly not of the magnitude that we just faced, but the battle had left us weak and our ammunition low. She didn’t say whether her “control” of the people could be spread by bites. At any moment, I feared I’d fall under her control. That meant I had to end this soon.

            “Ann! Your army’s gone. You’ve had others do the work for you and they failed. If you want to end this, get down here!” I yelled.

            “I intend to. I always knew I’d have to do this myself,” said Ann.

            She was nowhere in sight. I closed my eyes and tried to listen. Then came the bending of a branch behind me. I turned around to find her flying toward me, having jumped off the branch and making a strange screeching noise. I fired the three shots left in my handgun, but it wasn’t enough. She tackled me to the ground and instantly wrapped her hands around my throat and squeezed (ironic that I wrote down wanting to do the same to her). Her nails dug into the back of my neck like needles. Mike was about to shoot her when soulless on fire charged out of the woods at him and Julie (I surmise that the noise she made calls them or allows her to communicate with them). Mike dealt with the soulless attacking him and shot her with the MP5, knocking her away (and almost hitting me). She ran off into the woods and I gave chase. She was extremely fast, but I couldn’t let her out of my sights.

            “Jack! Wait!” I heard Mike and Julie calling out. We ran passed the burning section of the woods, jumping over flaming branches and fallen trees. The clothes she was wearing were the exact same ones I last saw her in. It was like she hadn’t changed at all yet to me, she was a completely different person. As much as I tried, she had gotten to far ahead and I could no longer see her. I ran into part of the woods the fire had not yet reached. It was dark. The only visible sights were great fire in the distance and the weak dancing lights it through toward me that were only strong enough to point out the trees. It was quiet. The crackling noise of the fire was far off and mattered not. There were no animals moving except the birds that flew off their birches with my approach, whistling for a mate or friend. I walked for some time and reloaded my handgun (last of two clips I had with me). It was the only gun I’d brought other than the shotgun (I did have a number of knives with me, the machete, the Double Sledge, and the long blade I made). I also had a flash grenade. I wished I’d brought more weapons and supplies, especially a flashlight.

            It wasn’t long before I heard footsteps in the darkness. The machete in my left hand, the handgun in my right, I prepared for the worst.

            “You promised you’d get me home safely…” said a voice in the dark. It was soft and scratchy sometimes. It sounded familiar.

            “Do you know how it feels to have your skin burned? At first, it’s incredibly painful, but then… nothing. You feel nothing where it started. But fire spreads and so does the pain.”

            I thought the voice to be Jane’s, but dismissed it. It could be trickery, I thought. It had to be. Jane’s dead. Besides, if Ann can mess with my dreams, then she could imitate someone.

            Not being able to see was putting me at a great disadvantage so I decided to remove the piece of flint from the flash grenade so I could use the lighter. Now, with a lighter in my left and a machete in my right, I listened for the disturbance. The footstep drew closer behind me; I waited then spun around, stabbed and lit the lighter to see. I couldn’t what I saw. The face was Jane’s. It was dirty, rotted, and smelled of flesh, but it was hers. I had just stabbed her through the chest.

            “It’s a shame you weren’t this aware before… when I was alive,” she said.

            It had to be trick, I thought. It had to be. Pulling the machete out, I ran away. Not more than 10 seconds into my run, I fell.

            “Need a hand… buddy…” said a voice. I lit the lighter and out of the darkness stepped a rotten and deformed Duke. “You were right. You should’ve left me in the backroom of that store. I’d probably be alive right now.”

            Their bodies looked like soulless, but it couldn’t be. Soulless can’t talk. I can’t describe the horror it was in seeing them once again. The memories seem so long ago, but in truth, they were no farther gone than a passing season, along with all the people who’ve died by my hand.

            “How does it feel to abandon friends? Were we even friends to you?” asked Jane voice. She came out behind a tree.

            “I go by the philosophy that those that fight together should die together, don’t you agree? Asked Duke, looking to Jane.

            “As do I. Come… Rest with us…” she said. Suddenly, both of them began snarling and opened their mouths wide. Jane lounged at me. I dodged and rammed my machete right through the back of her spine. Duke, the coward he was, went second. I threw the lighter toward him so I could see and quickly drew and shot twice. And just like that, I’d killed my friends for a second time. I sat down next to a tree, waiting to see if the bodies would move. They didn’t. The fire was catching up quick, making everything much easier to see (even the things I didn’t want to see). I went over and bent down to grab my lighter only to look up and see Ann. She punched me square in the face, knocking me on my back. I drew my gun, but she only kicked it any, causing it to fire off a round, and fell on me, pinning down all four of my limbs (good thing for her because I was reaching for the shotgun next).

            “So, did it feel nice meeting your old friends again? A little reunion?”

            “What did you do?”

            “I did you a favor. I gave them back their humanity. Well, part of it anyways. Why did you kill them?”

            “They were trying to kill me!”

            “Excuses, excuses. Like I said before, you’ll kill just about anyone who threatens you.”

            This whole time I was trying to wriggle my right arm free.

            “But how?”

            “You’ve seen what my blood can do to humans. Does this really surprise you? Now, shall I end this?” she said tauntingly. She took out the bowie knife from before and tried to stab me in the face, but I moved my head and she stabbed the ground. She pulled it out and this time aimed for my neck just when I got my arm out and caught her arm mid swing. She pressed and pressed with all her might while trying to loosen my grip on her arm with her other hand.
            “You’ve yet to see the full extent of my abilities.”

            Although I’m not quite certain, I could have sworn I saw her skin become paler and her eyes darken, just like in my first dream. The knife slowly got closer and closer to my neck. All this time, I tried to get my left arm free and just barely did so before the bowie knife cut my neck. I stabbed her in the arm, which made her stop for a moment, but she didn’t flinch and continued to push down. Just then, I heard four shots fired and a foot kicked Ann off me. It was Mike. I stood up.

            “Glad you showed up!” I said.

            We didn’t have time to talk as Ann had gotten back up and pushed us apart in different directions. Like a wild animal, she lunged at me. I moved to the side and stabbed her in the hip and she stabbed me in the leg with the bowie knife. I then twisted the knife and rammed her back before pulling the bowie knife out and throwing it to the side. Mike went in for a punch. Ann blocked it, punched him in the stomach and threw him away. I threw a knife at her head only to have her dodge it and Mike emptied his clip into her. She still didn’t fall and all the damage to her seemed to do nothing. I pulled out the shotgun and blasted her. She fell to the ground and ceased movement.

            “Is she finally dead?” asked Mike.

            “I don’t know, but I’m going to make sure.”

            I took out the Double Sledge and intended to pulverize her head. I swung, but she rolled, kicked me in the shin, causing me to fall to my knee and grabbed the other side of the Double Sledge and smacked it against my head. She ripped it from my grasps, stood up, swung, but I caught it and Mike hit her in the back with his hatchet. We all stood in silence for a few moments.

            “Your friend here is making this much more difficult than I anticipated,” Ann muttered, “All more the challenge.”

            She let go of the Double Sledge and kicked me in the chin, launching me partially into the air and making me hit my head against a tree, leaving me dazed. She grabbed Mike by the throat and slammed him to the ground with the ax still in her back and pressed her foot to his throat to choke him. It’s in these time, you need a miracle and she came just when you needed her. Julie jumped on top of Ann and put her arm around her throat to choke her. It wasn’t enough, but it was enough to distract her. Next to the tree I was laying against was my handgun. I shot at the leg pinning Mike, making her stumbled back. While I reloaded, she grabbed Julie’s arm, pulled her in front of her and yelled, “You one armed insect!” and threw her away. I unloaded the last clip into her left leg (I thought that if she had some sort of healing ability, that it would at least take a major amount of time to heal. Also, the bullets in her leg would make it hard to move). Drawing two knives and clutching them in my fists, I walked to her. Even with all the damaged she sustained, she walked (limps a better word) to me. I kicked her in the shin, grabbed her neck and stabbed her three times in the stomach before she grabbed my arm, and bent it back while pushing on my back with her leg, trying to rip off my arm. Mike ripped the hatchet out of her back and tried to split her head open, but like I did, she bent her head to the right and the hatchet struck the base of her neck. Mike’s attack made her loosen her grip and I swung my head back and head-butted her (or backwards head-butted). She didn't rip my arm off, but she did dislocate it (I couldn't move it without it hurting horribly). I spun around and tried to punch her, but she ducked. She grabbed the hatchet and started swinging it at us.

            The area around us was now on fire, just as it was in the open area where we’d set up camp. Mike looked like he’d pass out at any moment and that’s exactly how I felt. Ann’s clothes were dripping with blood yet she stood tall and even smiled at us. She kept an eye on what was going on, but mainly directly her swings at me. I tried throwing the last few of my knives, but she blocked the ones thrown to her face and let the others hit her. I was left with only my machete.

            “When will you understand? I’m beyond all of you. I decide your fates!”

            She went back and forth swinging between Mike and I. I had to pin her, like she pinned me so many times. She may have had more strength and power, but I had friends to save me. Seems strange looking back that without Mike and Julie there, I would have died. And yet, I didn’t want anyone to come along originally. On one of her downward swings, I stepped forward and to the side, caught the handle of the hatchet, and then elbowed her in the face. She left go of the hatchet and stumbled backwards. Mike punched her, sending her back my way. Looked like the fight was going our way, until I swung at her left leg and she jump, punched me twice in the face and twice in the stomach and once more to the side of my head. She grabbed the hatchet I dropped. She went to swing for the last time when I drew the blade I made and blocked the swing, kicked her in the stomach, causing her to bend over and then I stabbed her through the back with the blade. Mike came running up, ready to continue the fight when I stopped him.

            “Go check on Julie. I’ll handle it from here,” I told him. He was hesitant to leave, but I guess he believed I could handle it. I picked up the hatchet and threw it into the woods and pulled out the blade and threw it down as well.

            “You want a fight, Ann? You want me dead? Come on! Here’s your chance!”

            She came at me like the injuries before were nothing, but unlike before, I was doing good. I blocked her barrage of punches and kicks, caught one of her particularly high kicks and swung her into a tree like a baseball bat (which I think pushed one of the knives from before deeper into her body), kicked her in the head, she jumped at me, punched me a few times before I kicked her off and then I pinned her against a tree. With my last machete, I lined up her arms and rammed it through the opening of the radius and ulna bones, keeping her bound. From here on out, I took out my rage on her. All the rage, fear, frustration, and paranoia I’d felt since she came into my life. Punch after kick after punch after kick after punch I landed on her. I even pulled out the knives still stuck in her and stabbed her over and over and over again. She wasn’t superior; she was a bully who used her power only for self-gain and enjoyment at the expense of others. She wasn’t a soulless; she was worse. Those who feel delight in other’s torment have no place in this world. They should be dead!

            After my rage ran its course, I began to feel a little sorry for her. Not for her specifically, but Carol. I even began regretting laying one finger on Ann in the first place and even considered letting her live out of pity. It was a trick. Another one of her tricks. She was covered in blood, bruises, and was bleeding profusely. I pulled out the machete and grabbed her by the top of the neck. She smiled, spit up some blood and tried to say something, “You’re just like me…” was all she could say before I forced the machete through her throat and spine. I then proceeded to decapitate her. I didn’t want to take any chances of her surviving (a trophy would also be nice).

            I stumbled back to Mike and Julie, carrying Ann’s head by her hair. They were shocked to see I had decapitated her.

            “The beast is dead…” I said. Then I collapsed.

            I’m starting to get worried. All this time writing and no ones come to get me. Am I dead? I’m too weak to stand up and check the place out. Maybe this is the afterlife. Life did begin in darkness so why shouldn’t it end in it? It does not matter. I can rest for eternity in peace now. My dreams are free of torment and the world is now a little safer. Maybe even safer if I’m dead too.

- Jack’s Diary