Ancil“Aim for the head,” Sara said, shoving a couple rounds in the chamber.
“You’re alive?”
“No thanks to you and your little girlfriend.” Sara said angrily, cocking the gun.
“We did what we had to do,” I said.
“What you had to do?” Sara said, stressing on each word, clearly insulted. “You leave me for dead like if I didn’t even matter. If it wasn’t for Anansi I would have been burnt alive.”
“I was doing what you told me to do. To do what I need to do to survive.”
“When I had said that we were strangers Jed, but now I realize that we still are.”
My mouth hung wide open. I was so confused and before I could make any further sense of what she had said she was already gone, kicking open the door in the process.
I ran after her, meeting her outside and exclaimed, “What is wrong with you? Why do you always have to be such a bitch? ABOUT EVERYTHING!!” However, she didn’t respond to me. She just kept looking up at the sky which was now blanketed with black smoke. The forest was so red with fire that I was surprised the flames hadn’t already engulfed Anansi’s house which was yet untouched. Seeing Anansi put out the fire with the web made me assume that he did something to prevent the fires from reaching his house. A couple white patches of web randomly spread throughout the front of the house strengthened my assumption.
Besides the crackling sound of burning wood, I could hear the sound of falling trees. It sounded like a bunch of them were falling one after the other.
Sara kept her eye out into the forest, waiting patiently on something. Suddenly out from the fiery forest a ball of fire came shooting directly towards us at such a speed that we weren’t able to get out of the way in time. Luckily the ball of fire, which was Anansi drenched in flames, didn’t crash into us but straight at the house busting a crater in the strong webbed wall. He was extremely beat up, his charred body smoking like a Barbeque grill. His eight eyes were pummeled to the point of closure and some of his legs were broken with spasms.
The earth then began shaking in jolts. The trees were being thrown to the ground like dominos. HE was coming and Anansi was out for the count. I thought he was dead but the spasmodic movements of his broken limbs meant that he was still alive….undead. He couldn’t help himself if the Lagahoo was tied up. I knew that the Lagahoo was coming and I felt like a wimp. Sara was astute and seemed fearless while I was shaking in my boots ready to shit myself. I had stared the beast in the eye and I saw it. I recalled his size and his scary dark features that had me sweating more than I should have. I was ready to run but Sara remained militant steadying her aim. Her ability to use a shotgun seemed like it was backed up by years of experience. Her legs were vertically spread apart firmly grounded. With her gun locked and loaded she seemed ready. There was a fearless gaze in her eyes that I couldn’t match. Why should she be afraid? She was born in Mas Camp raised among beasts like Lagahoo. Fear must have become so embedded in her soul that she mastered the control of it. I could barely stand properly and there was Sara, fearless. I tried to pretend that I was all together just like her but the ugly face of the Lagahoo made that almost impossible. HE was running towards Anansi at full speed without even noticing us.
“Ready?!” Sara shouted. “Aim!! Fire!!”
Shaking, I steadied my grip. It was a big target. I fired. The force of the shot was too much for me to bare. I was flung back against the wall of the house right next to where Anansi was. Was. He wasn’t there anymore, the crater empty. I didn’t form a crater when I crashed into the wall but it still hurt. Did I hit the Lagahoo? I wasn’t sure. Sara had fired shortly after I did and she was flung back by the force of the gun as well but not as much I was.
A gust of wind and dust blinded me for a second but only for a second. The Lagahoo fell on top of a couple of trees completely crushing them down to the ground. The forest was all but destroyed at that point. The fire seemed to ease and I breathed a sigh of relief thinking that the shot knocked the Lagahoo out for the count. It didn’t. It just slowed him down. HE laid down on the ground shaking his head like HE was trying to catch himself. The shot to HIS face must have disoriented HIM in some way and it gave Anansi enough time to crawl inside and revive himself.
Sara made sure that the Lagahoo was still down before entering into the house after Anansi. I followed her.
Anansi was on the floor of his house still beat up and charred. He was crawling away as fast as he could but his movements could have been compared to that of a tree sloth. He wasn’t going anywhere fast, but at least he was still living. He leaned back against a chair when we got in.
“Good shot. Straight at the head. That should keep HIM down for a couple seconds. I wouldn’t expect anything less from the daughter of Suraj Singh,” Anansi said.
