Page 5 of The Executioners Three
It was toward this storied blacksmith’s hut that Freddie and Divya now aimed. They reached the stream that fed its forge, glittering, burbly, and dark with cold. The sign in front that readLe Forgeronhad a fresh streak of bird poop on it. So now it just readLe Forger(splat).
Freddie scowled at the poop. She should probably clean it before the fête.
She and Divya were just rounding the building so they could embark into the woods when footsteps stomped out. A figure barreled into view. “Hey,” he said.
And Freddie’s heart lurched into her throat. Luis Mendez, star athlete and fellow senior at Berm High, had just spoken to her. Even more bizarre, he wasn’t done speakingandhe was smiling. “Gellar,” he panted. “Nice to see you.”
Then he was past Freddie in a gust of sweaty air.
“Um…” Divya wiggled a pinkie in her ear. “Did Luis Mendez just say your name?”
“I think so.” Freddie was as fully stunned as Divya. Every day, the Berm High cross-country team ran the park’s paths. Sometimes they nodded her way, but 99.9999 percent of the time, they ignored her existence.
“Gellar!” cried a new voice. Then another and another, and suddenly an entire swarm (or was it anest?) of boys was charging past. Zach Gilroy and Darius Baker even slung out their hands for high fives.
Freddie complied, although she wasn’t entirely sure how. Her brain had basically disconnected from her body, and she could feel her jaw dangling low. In seconds, the entirety of the boys’ team had jogged past. Which meant that any second now, the girls would—
“Freddie!” shrieked Carly Zhang as she bounded by. “Nice job!”
“Nice job on what?” Freddie tried to ask, but Carly was already gone, and now cheers were rising up as a second stampede of bodies rushed closer.
“We have officially enteredThe X-Files,” Divya said as feet and ponytails thundered past, and Freddie could only nod in agreement. Even the blacksmith’s hut seemed faintly astonished, its wooden exterior creaking on the wind.
Then, as fast as the Berm High cross-country teams had appeared, they vanished again. Which wasn’t terribly surprising, given there were only seventeen runners across both teams. Last, because he was always last (except in the jack-o’-lantern contest of ’95), came poor Todd Raskin, ever determined to dominate his asthma through sheer perserverance.
“Do you need your inhaler?” Freddie asked as he heaved past.
“Nah,” he wheezed. “Thanks, Gellar. And good job!”
“I think,” Divya said, slipping her arm back through Freddie’s as theywatched Todd tromp away, “that you’repopularnow, Freddie. This is… well, monumental, certainly.”
“Or just weird.” Despite Freddie’s greatest belief in her own fortitude, her knees were quaking inside her jeans. “Why would everyone like me all of a sudden? I don’t think Carly has talked to me since seventh grade.”
“Erm.” Divya’s face scrunched into something almost pained. “I think this means they all know you got the Fortin kids arrested. Which means…” She paused to bite her lip. “Well, the Fortin Prep kids probably know too. After all, Fred, it’s a small town.”
Freddie sighed. “And people talk.”
Leaves rattled beneath Freddie’s boots as she trekked down one of the many sloping hills in the park that spread beyond the Village. Beneath the leaf litter, mud squicked, and every few steps, water had the audacity to splatter. Good thing Freddie always wore her duck boots in the fall.
Divya was not as well prepared. “Are you sure this path is a shortcut?” she asked, ten paces behind Freddie and lagging farther each second. Her feet, clad only in formerly-beige-but-now-mucky-brown Birkenstock clogs, were not faring well—and Divya had made sure to point this out almost every step of the way.
“Of course it’s a shortcut.” Freddie laughed as if to say Divya was ridiculous for suspecting otherwise. She did not mention thatthis pathwas really just an ephemeral stream that tended to fill with mosquitos in the summer.
“We’ve been out here five minutes—”
“Oh my god,five minutes.” Freddie made aHome Aloneface. “Div, you’re the toughest gal I know. You can handle this trek—I promise. And if your shoes get too muddy, I’ll carry you.”
“Oh yeah?” Divya snorted a laugh. Her face was now as rosy as the cross-country team’s. “You mean like that time you carried me to my room after I twisted my ankle? I remember how that ended.”
Freddie flipped her hair. “Imeantto fall down the stairs, Divya. It’s calledcomedy.”
“And this place is calledhorror.” Divya shivered. “I mean, we could die out here and no one would know! I don’t have cell service, which is always how slasher movies start—”
She broke off as wind burst through the trees. It carried leaves and dust. Freddie’s hair sprayed into her face.
Then the wind settled. One breath, two, before a loud creaking split the trees.
It was like groaning wood, but subtler. Higher pitched.
