Growing Trouble

Barb slammed the mouse-like girl roughly up against the brick wall in the crumbly alley and spit in her face. “Give it back rat, I know you took my lucky stone.” Barb hissed. “Don’t make me punish you.”

“I...I didn’t take your lucky stone Barb. Please put me down.”

Barb stared at the girl, acting thoughtful for a moment. The girl had raven black hair cut to her shoulder, creamy skin, and hazel eyes. Nothing about her matched, she was the type who everyone ignored. She was perfect bait for what Barb had coming for the girl.

“What did you say?” Barb asked, coming to look thoughtful.

“P-p-please?”

“Oh did you want me to put you down so you could go running to your mommy?”

“Y-yes.”

“NO,” Dropping the act, Barb roared, spit flying. The girl whimpered and raised her hands over her head. “SINCE YOU WON’T GIVE ME MY LUCKY STONE I WILL HAVE TO PUNISH YOU!” Barb slapped the girl in the side and threw her to the ground. Her goonies quickly tied her hands behind her back and picked her up, carrying her down the alley and towards the woods as she screamed. Barb quickly followed.

They dashed through the woods, the girl bouncing roughly as Barb’s goonies josled her around, and headed towards Fate’s hill.

The hill had been named Fate’s hill for one reason and one reason only. It was where a wooden house once stood, surrounded by trees, but one night in the late spring a girl went to visit her father there and never came back. Her fate was sealed in the wood, claimed an elder and since the house had been burnt down, the one who started the fire was never found. It was a hill where multiple deaths had happened, and the person who caused them was never found. Children were warned not to go there, they always listened, Barb on the other hand, loved the old hill, it was perfect for torturing people who had gotten on her bad side, no one ever came there.

The girl’s eyes noticeably widened when she saw the hill and she struggled more but didn’t get anywhere. Barb had plans and those plans weren’t going to be ruined by fear.

Barb’s brother had been annoying her with him claiming dragons were real, doing projects on them and leaving toy dragons all over the floor where she would hurt her feet on them. She was going to prove to him dragons weren’t real, by using the girl as dragon bait.

Barb would watch the hill through the night, after covering the girl in barbecue sauce, and wait for nothing to happen. It was a fool proof plan even though it was dumb, her brother wouldn’t know the difference when she told him she had proof they weren’t real and he would probably break out in tears, getting Barb grounded for a week by her parents. At least the dragon feet pains would be gone and he would stop annoying her.

...

Faint crying came from the raven haired girl as she sat on the top of Fate’s hill, staring off into the darkness, but otherwise the night was silent. The full moon glowed brightly, illuminating the moist grass, but not Barb’s face, which had been covered in mud.

Just after eight, she had sent her goonies home and settled down in the bushes, a couple feet away from the girl, She was planning on getting her proof alone, if something did happen, which it wouldn’t, her goonies couldn’t go against her. She had smeared mud across her face because she had read that in the army, if you did that, your face wouldn’t glow by moonlight. She didn’t want anyone or anything to see anything but the bait that was sitting on the hill top.

Around midnight, the moon was at its highest point, Barb knew from reading more army books, there was the sound of something landing in the grass and shifting from something moving, it woke Barb up and she chastised herself for falling asleep on duty.

She peered around in the darkness but saw nothing right away then she caught the glint of the moon shining off of something... scaley. She gasped in fear. The fear was overpowering, it was sucking her in, she couldn’t move, and could barely think, that was when a face appeared in the darkness.