Prologue
Run.
The word is written over and over in array of frenzied writing that arcs up the walls bordering the stairs.
Run.
She sees it.
She sees the words scratched deep into the paint, urging her away from this hell but she can’t. She can’t run. Not yet.
She can hear him upstairs. And she needs him.
Her hands are shaking as she grasps onto the railing, hoping it will aid her ascent. Her chest is heaving as her hair hangs in wet ringlets around her face. She can taste blood in her mouth but she’s not sure if it’s from her cut lip or from her broken nose. Each footstep is gentle, quiet, soft as she tries to ascend without making even a noise.
The words on the wall screams for her but she drowns out the noise in an attempt to reach him. Nausea has taken over her body and it feels like something heavy and dark is deep within her stomach, trying to drag it down and twist it out of her.
She takes another step and the floor board creaks out, like it’s tantalizing her and she holds back a sob. She stops moving; just listens in case her mistake is heard.
Silence.
She looks up and notices a girl at the top of the stairwell, looking down at her with unseeing eyes. Her body is colorless and her dress hangs lifeless on sagging shoulders. She stands completely still with one arm outstretched, a finger pointed straight down the stairs toward the door.
The woman turns her head to look back at the door, praying the answer will be there but it is without answers. She looks back but the girl is gone and again she is alone.
The house is quiet, unforgiving, as she steps up onto the next step. Suddenly the girl is before her, hand reaching out, pointing beyond her and she cries out and stumbles back. She clasps a hand over her mouth as she crouches down and listens.
Her hand is shaking as she reaches forward, gripping onto the wooden step as she pulls herself up, crawling past the girl.
There are only three more steps.
Just three more.
She peers down into the hallway that stretches out onto the second floor as she sees a body lying in the darkness of the night. The bathroom light is on, throwing shadows across the hallway floor as she recognizes the dark green jacket.
She crawls up onto the second floor before slowly rising to her shaking feet. She steps forward, pressing the ball of her foot down slowly as her heel comes to rest behind it and the floor groans as if laughing at her attempt at silence.
The figure on the floor begins to stir. The jacket rustles against the carpet as the man reaches out a hand and digs it into the floor. The man lifts his head up and she jerks back as a scream wells deep inside of her. Blood is running down his cheeks like tears as two black pits stare out at her. But her eyes fall down to where his jaw hung from his face by a sliver of skin. His tongue hangs out and saliva mixed with the blood as it dripped down onto his outstretched arm.
Her heart clenches as her mind screams. This was not how it was supposed to end. He was supposed to be there for her as he always had been. Not like this. Never like this.
Sobs tear through her, ripping out through her chest as her legs begin to give out, refusing to be caught in this nightmare for any longer.
He digs his bloody nails into the ground as he drags himself forward. Both of his legs have been severed and are leaving streaks of blood as he moves. He’s trying to say something but nothing emerges from him beyond guttural moans. He reaches out for her and she whimpers as she finds herself moving toward him. Reaching for him, grasping with all that was left in her. Maybe if she could just reach him, touch him, hold him, she would wake from this hell she’d found herself in.
Just escape.
Together.
A sob escapes her as she hears something behind the man. She snatches her hand back to her heaving chest as the door behind the man is swung open and light spills out into the hallway. It highlights the scene like a macabre display created just for her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers as she turns to the stairs and starts to run. The monster has seen her now, it knows she’s in the house, struggling to escape.
She is lunging down the stairs as she runs. Her foot slips off the edge of the step and she is thrown forward, slamming down onto the first floor on her hands and knees. She sacrifices a precious moment to look back as she sees the monster moving toward her. She thrusts forward, grabbing the handle of the door before flinging it open and rushing out into the night.
The girl is standing at the edge of the driveway as she finds herself thrown into a chorus of barking. The girl is pointing at the thicket that surrounds the woods but the woman’s eyes are past the girl, onto the vehicle sitting in the driveway. Beyond the car she can see the dog growling. It’s moving toward her but stops suddenly as it’s drug backwards into the ditch. The animal screams as she grabs the door handle of the vehicle and pulls.
Her mind is numb. All feelings seem to be caged deep inside of her, unreachable.
The door gives to her and she climbs inside as the sound of the dog draws quiet and she’s left with the sound of her thundering heart. She slams the door shut, locking it with one hand as her second reaches for the cup holder where her husband had left the keys just hours before. She reaches nothing but air before grabbing for the glove box. The light comes on as she begins to drag out everything inside. She knew he’d left the keys in the car, he always had. Why not now? Why not today?
She pulls the visor down, praying the keys would fall into her lap and stops as she realizes the interior light had never come on when she’d gotten in. Slowly her eyes reach up and catch onto the mirror as she sees two dark eyes staring back at her from the backseat of the car.
They were not the eyes of a man.
No.
They were cold. Dark. Emotionless.
She doesn’t even have time to scream as he grabs her.
The young girl stands outside of the car, still pointing into the woods as blood coats the car window. Her cold eyes stare straight into the darkest part of the island as the sound of the woman’s skull shattering cracks the window.
Everything is quiet now.
Even the wind is quiet.
As if the world outside the lone car has been thrown into an eternal silence.