1. Trigger

  1. Trigger

Footsteps, crunching dead leaves somewhere behind her. A cabin door slamming closed. A scream, then silence. Another scream. Then Erika was surrounded by it. Screaming, from all directions. The great wide woods suddenly became small and she was choking on the darkness of it all.

Erika watched as Matt opened the door to their cabin, groggy, still a little drunk from the beers they’d shared around the campfire. She watched as Matt turned to his right and a shadow took him. He was engulfed by the black mass and both figures crashed to the forest floor. The larger figure raised a massive arm and that’s when she saw it--glinting in the moonlight, paused there up over his head.

The knife came down with force and precision and all it took was one swing. The black mass held Matt in one hand by the collar of his shirt. Limp, head lolled back and hanging on by a thread of neck meat. Dead. Matt was dead. Erika exhaled, instinctively took a small step back.

A branch snapped beneath her.

It wasn’t loud, it wasn’t much. But he heard it. He turned and looked at her. Right at her. He saw her.

And then she fucking ran.

Her brain lit up, a bolt of heat ran the course of her body and she ran. Forever into the woods until she ran into something. Anything.

A door. A step back. A shed. Don’t be locked. It wasn’t. Tools inside, turpentine mixed with gasoline. Canisters to her right. A hammer on the wall to her left.

From her hiding spot, shaking hands wrapped around that hammer, Erika watched through a slit in the door. The bad thing was happening outside. She was inside. By some small miracle, she had service on her cell. She called 911 and was doing what they told her.

Stay inside, stay away. Shelter in place. Let the police handle it.

When they got there, that is. But when would that be? She was doing what they told her. The thought kept her calm, kept her hopeful. Allowed her to stay. In the shed, on the inside, away from the danger.

All she thought about was what it would be like. She kept imagining that giant black mass of a human flinging open the flimsy wooden door, his wide frame blocking the moon, the woods, the world. There would be no escape. Not here. And there was nowhere to hide inside the shed. It was too small, too neatly organized. Would he do it quickly, like he did to Matt? Matt. God Jesus fuck Matt. He’s dead. He’s really fucking--a noise, outside.

Footsteps. Big breaths, impossibly loud. But short, quick gulps of air. In the madness of it all, Erika thought of the time a buck had wandered underneath her bedroom window. It sounded like a monster, pushing out air and making the comfortable reality of home seem like anything but. Another sound. A grunt, animal-like, and Erika snapped back to her present reality. Then sirens. In the distance, but coming closer. The heavy breaths also drew nearer.

Erika was frozen. In fear, in anticipation.

He was standing in front of the closed door. She could feel him there. She could hear the strange fast rhythm of his breath. And then scratching. On the door. He was doing something to the door. It jolted halfway open once, then an enormous hand reached in, pulled it closed. Giant fingers remained wrapped around the cheap thin wood. Moonlight peeking in, Erika got a good look at those fingers. Nails filthy and broken and some long and some gone altogether. The hand smelled. Like dirt. Like blood. Like a dead thing. Still, the hand held the door and the scratching continued.

For a moment--for one insane moment--Erika contemplated smashing those fingers with the hammer. And then the scratching stopped. And the fingers disappeared. The breathing became distant, and she felt the weight of the world lift from her.

Erika dropped down to the floor. For the first time, she realized, she was sitting, resting. She was exhausted. Her whole body was a rope knot of tension.

And then the door cracked open, slammed once against the outer wall of the shed and hung there. The outside world flooded in. And then a giant black mass of a human appeared, standing in that doorway, blocking the rest of the world.

Again, Erika choked on the darkness of it all. No scream came from her open mouth.

He took one lumbering step into the shed, raised his right hand. A glint of silver in the diminishing moonlight. Erika looked down, fixated on his boot. Filthy, like the rest of him. She waited for the end, for the blade. Instead, that big, filthy boot crashed into her stomach, breaking ribs and spinning her around. On her hands and knees now, she fought for air. Behind her, the black mass again raised his right hand.

There was an explosion, then, behind Erika’s eyes. The world went orange and red and when she looked down, the tip of the knife was sticking out of her chest. It disappeared just as quickly and there was another lightning bolt of pain.

She heard a single footstep and then the long low creaking of the shed door closing.

Still, there were sirens.

Time passed. Minutes? An hour?

Finally, calls of “Police!” So many footsteps, frantic.

Eventually, she found her voice and she screamed. A young, tall uniformed officer opened the door. She was on the floor, a pool of dark all around her. The officer reached down, touched her neck, said something that was meant to be reassuring. In his arms now, Erika’s face pressed gently against his cold metal badge as he carried her out of the shed.

The world went fuzzy around the edges as he led her away. But before everything went black altogether, the shed door swung closed and Erika saw what the monster had been doing. Not scratching. Carving.

One word, misspelled.

RMEMBR

Next Chapter: 2. Final Girls