redfirefaery

i just woke up from the worst nightmare i've had in a long time. i've got to get it out of my head.


spott, her sis ebeth, their friend jenny, and i were out for a drive in the middle of nowhere. wanting food, we stopped at a large country store, the kind with the store filling the first floor, and the 2nd floor is presumably where the shopkeeper lives. it was remarkably big, and set back from the road, behind a gravel parking lot.

walking into the store, we saw a woman whose whole demeanor was simply dark. she was, at the time, behind the counter talking to a young man. i assumed she was the manager or owner, felt wary of her, but figured we'd be done getting our stuff and gone soon enough. until she, that young man, and 3 other people i hadn't seen anywhere in the store grabbed us and bundled us off into the back room, that is.

we were forcibly taken upstairs. the living quarters upstairs were luxuriant. there was a nearly cavernous living room, open into the kitchen and dining room, and a hallway to what ended up being at least 6 or 8 bedrooms. everything was decorated in white and beige, with white marble accents and flower vases set on pedistals and tables everywhere you turn. we were forced through the barely-open-and-soon-closing door, rather startled to find ourselves in such rich surroundings. a thin, light-colored, jittery young man greeted us. the place was filled with people who seemed to be fairly healthy and happy, from older children to a couple of middle-aged men.

over the next few hours, we discovered from the young man that we could have everything we wanted, just never leave on our own. the door was not locked, but was guarded. all sides of the building were watched. the people who tried to leave were heard from, but only as they were yelling for help after they got out. he didn't mention the disappearances.

right away, i knew i had to get away. being confined was never something that agreed with me. that day, i noticed the hunters that didn't leave after shopping. i noticed the fence far in the back, buried in brush and trees as it was, tall and topped with razor wire and the occasional visible camera, turned in, and i noticed the woman letting the hunters inside the fence.

but why would hunters go inside that fence? was there something special in there they were trying to find?

the horrible thought dawned on me one day, when a new hunter pulled up early, and someone was missing come breakfast time. are we that something special?

i asked the young man. he wouldn't answer. he got even more jittery than usual, but wouldn't speak. i knew i was right. i told the girls.

we got lucky. a couple nights later, with all 4 of us still there, the young man jumped from a window. he hit the ground with a crack and a thump, screaming because he wasn't dead, and drew all the guards from around the building. we escaped the sumptuous prison, broke into a small delivery truck, and drove off...

a couple miles down the road, what seemed like a harmless bin of supplies in the back exploded in a fury of the dark woman, and a guard armed with a long serrated knife popped out of a lower storage bin. the woman took over, saying she was taking us to the man who ran "the lodge". i had horror movie visions, crazy hunter whose house is littered with blades. nothing pointed and sharp for piercing, but serrated, dull, strong for cutting bone and rough for torturing flesh.

we arrived at a simple urban house. it was well-kept, with the cookie-cutter lawn, blue paint and white shutters all pristine, the driveway had recently been sealed. we were led past another cruel-looking guard, and through a side door.

in the kitchen, all i could see was the rough wood paneling, the forearm long knife on the butcher-block table, the rusted bowie-knife leaning against the wall next to a pair of worn leather boots, the hook hanging in front of a fireplace. there were two doorways to toward the opposite side of the room. the left one led to what appeared to be a living room, with cheap brown paneling, an old brown shag carpet, well-used overstuffed blue furniture. i picked up the knife off the table before following the other girls into the living room.

there was an old woman sitting in a wooden rocker at the far end of the room, watching a fuzzy, barely color TV. she did not seem surprised by the knife in my hands. neither did the man i suddenly noticed was sitting in the couch to our left. in fact, he seemed to have expected it. and was pleased.

the man stood up. he seemed made of metal, of prosthetics that noone had even tried to make look like part of his body. his left leg from the knee down. his right foot looked like a hook, his right shoulder seemed solid steel, or titanium...

we stepped back. jenny ran. ebeth & spott fell into furniture. i raised the knife.

in a very calm, soothing voice, the man started talking about devastatingly terrifying things. he started to describe us, what we would look like, smell like, feel like - in pieces. as i brandished the knife at him, he laughed, a cold laugh, telling how, because of his previous injuries, he no longer had most of the weak points most of us do. all i could think was that this was the man who ran a business so people could hunt other people like animals, and he was going to kill us. i went for his neck.

i cut him, and cut him, slashing where there should have been veins, arteries, he should have died! he sat back down on the couch, grimacing a little at my hate and my spirit. he had broken so many others, he said, with the confinement at "the lodge", they just fell into his lap like sniveling piles of jello after failing to escape.

he was sitting, bleeding some but not nearly enough, not even enough to really incapacitate him. frustrated, i turned back to the kitchen - no, the rusted bowie wasn't good enough - i turned to the other doorway, saw jenny huddled in a corner near another knife, a foot-long 2-bladed thing. it looked like it had been fashioned from two hand-saw blades. i took it, hefted it, threw it down dissatisfied and picked up my other weapon. i HAD to get rid of him!

i stepped back into the living room. spott and ebeth were still where they had fallen, sitting on a loveseat, not seeming to believe what was there was real. the old woman, looking unruffled, was still in her chair in the other end of the room. she had to be crazy. the man was gone. not a drop of blood had gotten on the couch or the floor. i asked where he was. the old woman said he had gone up the stairs. unfamiliar ground, i was not going to follow.

i heard police sirens. looking out the kitchen door, i saw the guard was gone. so i ran outside. i ran down the driveway, hoping to see the cars pull up, lights flashing. they weren't there. i ran through the back yard, saw them up an alley, 4 cars with officers already jumping out. throwing down the bloody knife still in my hand, i ran to them, screaming "i did it! you want me!", praying they would go inside that house and make my girls come out...

the last thing i realized, as i was dragged back to the driveway, was that they were going in, talking to the man, but my girls were still sitting there dazed. i could see all of them through that outside door, spott and ebeth in the living room, lit by the living room lights and sitting on a faded blue loveseat, in shock and unaware that they should be screaming and running, jenny huddled next to a counter in a dim bathroom, eyes wide and that wicked looking 2-bladed saw gripped so hard her knuckles were white in the darkness. i could see her shake.

and the police were taking me toward a squad car, cuffed. i started to scream.




i woke myself up, then. took me long enough, i'll tell ya.