I lay on the sofa and soak into the cushions. I do not sleep; enough nightmares fill my waking vision. Once upon a time, my worst blood had been my mother's, then Mason's, then that of the person in the field. I am building a hierarchy of deaths and near deaths. I put my own at the bottom. I still can't kick myself out of my complacency. I don't try to flee while the men in the house sleep, though I could get away and stop building this pyramid of traumas. Are they even mine if I'm still kicking? How small my mountain of 'bad' experiences is; I should compress it into a molehill.
The sofa jolts. My gaze drifts toward the disturbance, slow like a lizard's blink. Masky leers down at me.
"As much I'm enjoying you wax poetic," he sneers, "it's time to get ready to go, sunshine."
Was I muttering aloud? Embarrassing. Not feeling that embarrassment, even more embarrassing.
"Which friend?" I ask through a dry throat and around a swollen tongue.
The mocking curl to his lips drops. "Does it matter?"
I stare up at him dumbly, waiting for an answer to my question without bothering to answer his. Does it matter? I don't know. I'm waiting for one name to rip out my throat, the other to stab my gut. Does it matter? I suck in a deep breath and hold it until the room begins to swim and the edges go from hazy and colorful to solid black. Masky shakes his head.
"I don't know their fucking names." He huffs and rolls his eyes. "I don't know. Tiny. Latina?"
Sadie. I don't say her name aloud. He doesn't deserve it. Instead, I curl my upper lip into my mouth and chew her name against the loose skin.
Masky is walking away by the time I gather the guts to ask, "Are you going to kill her?"
He pauses, shoulders tensing, hiking up. The body language is in direct contrast to the rumbling, short laughter that spills from him.
"Nah," he says in a tone that does not relax me. He waits a beat for dramatic effect before finishing, "Toby has dibs."
I spring to my feet, the rage sudden and red through the entire room. Cold as stone because I will not associate this feeling with those fires. Unfortunately, all I can do is stand there tight and shaking as my veins are flooded. My anger and hate run so deep that they are made in my bones alongside my erythrocytes.
I blink and moments disappear. The room changes, people rearrange. They get ready while I am a statue. At some point my clothes change, thicker, heavier, body shape obscuring. I don't recall doing it, but I am numb from the eyes down. Below me is hardly me right now. It's just the anger with no brain to guide it. It is just the numbness I cannot enjoy. I blink and I am outside. It's dark and cold, too late in the year for the space filling calls of cicadas or crickets, so it is also empty. I blink and I am in the car. Hoodie and Toby on either side of me.
Toby is giddy. Toby is buzzing. I see the shiny, sticky sheen of blood across his palms already, a premonition or memory. He reaches out to knot his fingers with mine and the leather feels slick and warm. I jerk back, but it's too late, my own palm is scarlet. My lips peel back in disgust. I am sick. I am frozen.
I want to continue to drift. Hoodie sets an arm around me. Heavy and warm, soft fabric against the back of my neck. It forces me down into my body and the scratchy seat. It limits my contact with the man who is going to try to kill my friend. Try. I won't let him.
Realization hits hard, just how much of a game Hoodie's offer had been the night of the run. I get them out that night and they get to live, but not forever. It wasn't immunity, it was an extension. A way to build up hope and complacency. Hoodie's arm feels heavier the more I think about it. The energy in the back of the car is sickening. Toby bounces and chatters. Hoodie relaxes into the seat, but he squeezes and releases and re-squeezes my shoulder in anticipation. Thick like cough syrup. I picture the air a dark green, glossy and hard to see through.
Outside the car is no better. Shadows-not-shadows, wrong-light swirl and swell and surge. They slide across the windows like ink until I cannot see past them. Bodies knot and curl.
I stare at my lap because it is mine. I stare at my lap and it isn't mine. Coarse jeans, worn enough to be soft against my legs but not enough to be soft against my hands, thick and heavy against my skin. Rolled, bunched, and pinched to fit, they poke and squeeze at me.
Toby's fingers graze my cheek. I don't pull away in time, and I can feel the damp streak already cooling, already starting to dry. I recoil into Hoodie's side, the trap of soft fabric, the firmness of his body slightly tensed, a little damp. My eyes flicker to the review mirror. The blood I feel on my skin isn't there, the windows are clear, and I can see the hazy yellow light of a world viewable only under old streetlights. I strain my eyes to match up realities. A shadow-not-shadow crosses the reflection or through the back of my eyes; I'm not sure.
"It will b-b-be o-ok," Toby says.
He tries to speak softly, but in tandem with the hearts beating and breathing in the car, it sounds like a murmuration, a mass of writhing starlings screaming and beating their wings in time. The amplified sounds buffet against my skin like wind against cliffs. I cower. I coil. I pull my body in by little strings because that is the only way it will listen to me. I am not rabbit. I choose to be snake.
The car stops. Has been stopped? The engine is silent, the interior just starting to cool. My eyes find Masky's, ghostly in the dim and sallow glow of distant streetlamps, in the rearview mirror. His cheek is slightly pulled in so he can chew on it. Still in his human face.
"I'm going to take her instead of Hoodie," he says, voice thick with pity and annoyance.
"I can go with Toby," my voice spills out.
Toby's face splits into a toothy smile and he shoots up straight in his seat. Hoodie is nodding, like I've made the choice he'd make for me. Regret is a snake eating me whole. No, I am the snake eating myself. My eyes find Masky's again, now narrowed. I follow the folds in his face from his soured expression. He will save me. It isn't an intended rescue.
"Abso-fucking-lutely not," Masky says with a slight growl. "You two can't be alone in the best of situations, as we've established."
I don't have to bite my tongue to hold back a retort about my 'best' of situations; my jaw is already heavy and numb. Toby is bouncing in the seat.
"She li-li-likes me-me more," he squawks. "It'll be fu-fun. It will b-be pe-pe-perfe-fect. Sh-she'll le-le-learn a lo-lot and be d-d-d-desensit-tized soo-sooner. And-and--"
Masky cuts him off with a raised hand. "No, and that's final."
"You'll be too easy on her," Hoodie pitches into the conversation.
"She is here because she can't be left alone, not because she is becoming one of us. You two need to get it through your thick fucking skulls that this is temporary. Stop getting attached to a glorified net," Masky snaps, slamming his hand against the dash to punctuate his point. "Now, she is coming with me, and it's time to go."
Toby snorts, in laughter or to hold in his own response. I can't read his expression in my periphery, and I don't want to turn back towards him. A gleam streaks off his orange goggles, over his eyes. Fire crackles in my memory, drying my skin and popping in my ears. Soot will make me blind. I have to look away.
Hoodie is the first to truly settle post the disagreement. He swings open his door and slides out, making no noise. I can hardly feel him move, though a brush of cold fills his space. His door shuts as silently. Toby is next. Mad and muttering. His shoulders crack, neck jerks. He moves much more aggressively, throwing himself out of the car, trying to make it shake with his departure, but he closes the door gently. My gaze moves back up front. The cold, false face stares back at me now. I hear him inhale sharply, like he is bracing to say something. The moment lasts too long. I wonder if the remains of those words taste bitter against his tongue.
All he says is, "behave," short and snappy.
He exits the car before me. Another snap of cold grazes my skin. He isn't gone long, yanking open the back door, then just as violently tugging me out of the vehicle. I don't complain. I can hardly move on my own. The cold becomes more permanent company as I step outside. It sews itself into my clothes to stay close to my body. Goosebumps and shivering define our relationship. Its touch is almost a comfort. I come back to myself more than I have been the past day. There is ground beneath my feet, uneven and damp, and a breeze pressing into my back. No longer is there phantom blood on my hand, my cheek, where Toby had touched me. My lap still isn't my own, but it is just the clothes now that don't fit, not the skin underneath.
"Are you finally here?" Masky asks.
My departure had been obvious, or he had been watching closely. I nod because I don't trust myself to speak. He huffs and mutters something like 'good' or 'finally', words I can't hear but make the most sense. He doesn't grab my wrist or tell me to follow. He just starts walking. I trail after him. Lost or bracing to strike?
We're on the edges of a marsh. A few gnarled trees, thin and twisting to hold their place in the soft soil, and a lot of beige reeds, rattling and creaking the night away. Every time they scrape against each other, emitting a papery scratching sound, I jump a little. The ground sucks and pulls at my shoes, never too hard. Masky skillfully leads us around puddles and pits of muddy silt. The ground is clay rich in places; it already knows red. I can see the streaks of orange and rusty shades even in the dark. The streetlamp light becomes duller as we go.
I've never been to Sadie's house. We traveled so much for the runs, she hardly ever lived here. The benefit of getting paid to coordinate the group events, though I think she saw it as a downside, always being on the road. Sometimes, I wished I could trade places with her, though I know the job would have been too much for me. We drove only a few hours and opposite the direction from when we left for their cabin. I had assumed Sadie lived a lot closer to me than two days and then some of driving. I had assumed she lived in a little apartment in a populated area to escape the isolation the runs could have. Then again, only I was ever so alone during runs. Those three had people to watch and care for, people who cared and watched back in thanks.
Masky holds his arm out, hand pressed firmly in my chest to stop me. The contact brings no warmth, but also isn't blood drenched, which is still a relief. His head is turned slightly to the side, not quite towards me. In the sliver of space between the mask and his face, a mispositioning I'm half convinced is intentional, I can make out his irises turned towards me, the slightly lift to his cheeks. Mild approval. I have to step back from the warmth of it, breaking the contact of his hand. Even a minor increase in distance is enough to disrupt the visual. The heavy shadow of his mask, the darkness of night, moonlight barely reaching between the reeds and sucked up by the inky waters of the marsh. I shouldn't have been able to see in the first place, but I had. He reaches up with his other hand and readjust the mask, so it sits nearly flush against his face. Does it rub his cheeks or cling with sweat? Does it grow damp every time he breathes?
He steps forward, hunching down. He gestures for me to do the same. I follow him. We wrap around the reeds. Tall and beige swap out for the cream-colored puffs of cattails ready to disperse their seeds. Smaller plants who are more thinly packed so that we have to really crouch to hide behind them. Distantly, I spot a flash of orange to the left. Further right and heading toward the house, I catch the briefest glint of moonlight striking metal. They're rounding towards the sides and back of the little house before us. I suck in a sharp breath. Masky tilts his head towards me again, makes a small sound of annoyance or approval. It's difficult to tell with him. He nods at me, and again warmth blooms. I have to look at the house.
Two floors and yellow as frozen lemonade, it seems to almost glow against its dark surroundings. It could be described as cookie cutter, if it wasn't dropped at the edge of a marsh with only reeds, trees, and a lone osprey to keep it company. The bird is perched on the roof, against the smoking chimney, eyes closed, and head pulled down, asleep. The white of its head and chest catch the moonlight, while the deep brown streaks wrapping around its eyes and down into its body become even more mask-like in the dark, like it is wearing something instead of the coloration being its pattern. Deep purple light pulses in one window upstairs. Downstairs, a curtain barely holds in the soft yellow glow of another light. The porch is small and concrete, just enough space for a single plastic chair without blocking the door. It's uncovered and the concrete is speckled like it had rained lightly only a short while ago. There is no garage, no driveway, no cars. Sadie can't drive anyways. She'd have to run to escape. That's fine. She's good at that.
"Six people inside," Masky whispers. "Two men a bit over middle aged, a third barely in his twenties. Three women, one middled aged, one early twenties, one mid-twenties."
That's Sadie, the last person he lists. My nose scrunches at the other people. I thought she'd live alone, especially seeing her place now. Masky notices.
"Dad, aunt and uncle, brother and his wife," he explains rather smugly. "Thought you'd know. As her friend."
I kick him on the back of his leg. Short and simple, can't pull my leg back while kicking, so I throw my loss of balance into it. He snickers at me, catching me by my shoulder before I can fall. His grip is bruising. He's found the perfect space between my bones to dig his thumb in.
"Behave," he repeats a little harsher than before, amused and annoyed all at once.
Another glint of moonlight on metal, much more obvious this time, strikes from the back right corner of the house. Masky turns towards it. A signal, or a request for one. He waits a moment longer, swinging his head the other way. If he spots Hoodie, I'm amazed. I can't see him at all despite his size and the flashy color he wears. His grips leaves my shoulder to grab my wrist. It's tight. My bones feel like they scrape and groan under the pressure. He stands suddenly and starts stalking towards the front door.
"No one is making it out," he tells me, "so we don't need to cover your face. It's probably still a good idea to not be seen, wouldn't want to break your friend's heart like that."
The mockery makes my blood boil. My cold hate and anger have been overwhelmed into heat. I can be the fire from that night if it insists on resurfacing. He is dragging me less now; my feet fall heavy and hard as I keep up. Loud. He doesn't complain about the sudden noise. I bet he wants her to see me, devastate us both at once. His shoulders are relaxed, walk casual. The only tension is in the hand threatening to break my wrist. He can break it. I'll take that to save Sadie. He says they can't trust me to be alone, but this is so much trust right now, walking with his back to me, with his body wide open, too much.
I lunge forward, elbow first, digging it hard into the top of his back. Bone hits bone as my pointy elbow collides with his vertebrae. He growls, spinning towards me, fist raised to probably knock me out. That's fine. I don't think, just do, and throat check him. Neither of us are expecting it, both recoiling at the same time. He is gasping, wheezing, free hand holding his throat. His body is shaking with rage, but his grip on my wrist doesn't loosen. So, I knee him in the groin. Too focused on his throat and reopening his windpipe, he doesn't notice until he is collapsing, hissing out in pain. He can't make much more noise. His grip slips. I never showed him that in our little training. I'm running along the slick, soft ground.
I slam into the door with my momentum, unable to stop myself beforehand. I press flush against it, beating hard against the wood with the butt of my hand.
"Sadie! Sadie," I screech.
The door jerks open. I'm tumbling into warm, soft arms, a short and narrow torso.
"(Y/n)," she gasps, catching me like she isn't so small.
I don't hear the gun over the ringing in my ears, but I feel the splintering of the wood, the small shards striking my skin. I force Sadie into the house, into the entrance hall lit by the warm glow spilling from the kitchen. I slam the door, heavy and thick. The click of the lock sliding into place fails to bring comfort.
Sadie is several steps back, dark eyes wide and small chest heaving. Tears have already started to swell.
"You're--" she starts to speak, choking on her words.
"We have to go. We have to get everyone and go right now," I whisper hiss, straining my ears for the men outside, for the men trying to get inside.
Sadie wipes her eyes swiftly, sharply saying, "I assumed after the gunshot."
I'm worried she is mad at me, but then she cracks a small smile. She surges forward, wrapping her arms around me for a second. Warm, soft, all encompassing. Sadie. Then she is off, like a little bee buzzing around the house. Questions about where I've been are for later, this is working Sadie, safety officer Sadie.
"How many are there? What are they?"
"Three men, same ones from the night of the run. One has hatchets," I say and Sadie shudders at the memory, her face hardening, "another has a gun and maybe knives. I don't... I actually don't know what the third has, but he can throw a scary punch."
She is in the kitchen, securing windows, drawing curtains. Under the sink, she pulls out a large flashlight. It's dark grey and heavy, cool metal I can barely wrap my fingers around when she drops it in my palm. Under the sink is also a button. Sadie pressed it with the back of her hand as she pulled out the flashlight, but it has taken a few seconds to have impact. All the lights in the house are on now, blue toned. A silent emergency system.
Soft footsteps start moving through the house. So quiet that they are like mice, quieter than mice who want to be known but not seen. We wait with baited breaths in the kitchen until the footsteps grow silent.
"Come on," Sadie says, lightly intertwining her fingers with mine. "We all have our own ways out, several through the house for ease of access. We can take my favorite."
"Why do you--?"
"Not all monsters stay put."
Sadie guides me along. She does not pull, patient with my stubborn legs and slow body. She is right, monsters don't stay put. I wonder how many of them which have plagued Sadie and her family had a choice. Monsters to monsters. Monsters to us. We are heading out of the kitchen, away from the front entrance and toward the back of the house. We stop along the way where Sadie digs out two medium duffels from the wall, each weighty but not too heavy, packed smooth and tight.
Around this way is their family room and the stairs leading up. Glossy portraits of smiling faces. I see Sadie between the wrinkled lines of an older woman's face. Her dark eyes peak out from the silvery curls. An old man sun speckled, a younger man equally marked, like their skin holds memories of the damage it is supposed to gain and passes that knowledge on. The woman who must be her brother's wife is pale, hair red and eyes a seafoam green. Like the person in the clearing. I jerk my head away from the wall of photos, take in the rest of the room No back door. The walls are all old wood paneling, a single brick square in the outside facing wall commemorates a fallen fireplace. Sadie is moving towards it.
There is a groaning at the front door. A heavy thud rattles the walls. With a second hit comes a chorus of cracking. I stare toward the kitchen, though I cannot see the front door. My heart hammers and my lungs squeeze, the stress balls of my internal organs. Sadie pays it no mind. She begins to sing a lullaby under her breath as she presses into a defect in the wood paneling. A barely visible, basically hairline fracture in the wood, irregular and jagged. I wouldn't guess it to lead to a secret passageway even if I had known to look. Something clicks and whirs within the wall. I expect it to open in front of us. Instead, the ground opens up beneath our feet, just as the front door splinters and gives. We are swallowed by the hollow in the floor.
Just as fast, the hatch snaps shut with a loud bang above us. I flinch from the lack of subtlety. I wring my hands and draw my arms in close to my chest.
"That took him too long," I whisper the unease clogging my arteries.
Sadie hmms an agreement. "They could have regrouped when you warned us, but I don't like it either. We'll take a further exit just in case and not risk meeting with everyone else until we are in a public setting."
"I'm excited to meet your family," I say, though it feels like a formality slipping off my tongue.
I want to meet them to see they have survived, that I had succeeded in warning them. But I don't really want to get to know so many distinct people acting out their distinct lives so distant from the transient world I have entrenched myself in. Sadie giggles, bubbly and light and sweet. I can hear her hair move, slide against the back of her shirt as she shakes her head.
"You almost ran when we met Mason's sister," Sadie says, voice light with a smile. "I'm not sure you can handle meeting my entire family." Before I can protest, she adds, "It's ok, (Y/n), it's who you are. We all have things we avoid."
I gnaw on my lip to keep from denying her words or question what she avoids. Above us floorboards groan and bend under heavy feet. Sadie laces her fingers with my own. Her hands are incredibly soft. She's farmed callouses and scars elsewhere across her body.
As we start to walk, the dirt absorbs the sounds of our footsteps. We are blind the first several feet. Blue lines draw out the gaps in the floorboards, making large, blocky shapes. There is never enough light coming through to see by, just enough to know we are under the house. Sadie does not need the light to navigate the corridor. I guess I don't either. It's a smooth and narrow passage dug in the dirt. Cold, flat walls on either side so close I hold my arms out bent and graze either side. Dirt flakes off around my contact, scatters to the ground. It's damp down here, but not very wet despite the marsh nearby. I hike the duffel bag higher on my shoulder and pick up my pace to keep up with Sadie. Being buried in the earth somehow serves to sooth my nerves, and I can think clear enough to move with purpose and confidence.
Eventually the blue light stops. We travel a few more feet to be safe rather than sorry, then Sadie asks for the heavy flashlight. The metal has grown warm in my hand by the time I pass it off to here. A narrow but nearly blinding beam slices through the darkness. Little trenches flow with brown water on either side of the walkway and little tangles of white roots drip from the ceiling and walls like décor. I breath in deep. The air is heavy, thick with soil, and yet fresh as above.
I want to ask Sadie how her family managed to carve these burrows. I want to ask Sadie how we both ended up so lagomorph like, or maybe we are both shrews, pointy faced and blind. I ask Sadie nothing, afraid the roots will carry my voice to someone I do not wish to be heard by. I wish to be heard by no one but Sadie.
The trees cannot listen, but the fungi might. I know this because they whisper to me of above, tell me each worm and burrowed frog, and warn of the steps in the soft muck of the marsh. My ears are buzzing. It's irrational. I clamp my hands over my ears to block out the whispers which can't be true. Sadie does not notice my hunch or the awkwardness introduced into my gait as I shy away from the reach of the fungi, white and lacy. They know the trails and tell me which are empty. A map blurs into my mind, the odd bundle of paths winding around each other, some so deep in the earth they lay half collapsed and forgotten. I squeeze my eyes shut against the unwanted information. I hope Sadie's family is fine. I repeat that hope until it is a dull echo occupying ever corner of my thoughts, drowning out what the ground tries to tell me. I must be going crazy, thinking I can hear mushrooms. It has to be claustrophobia or my mind's defense against it.
Little offshoots start to come off the trail, paths that slowly begin to slope up. They are even more narrow and short, so we would have to crawl on our hands and knees along them. One dips before going up, letting a small puddle accumulate in the depth of it. I catch my reflection on the water, mildly dirt streaked and frazzled but ok. The image flickers when a clump of dirt breaks from the ceiling. When my face clears I see blood in splatters along my cheeks and clumping up my hair. I recoil, thudding into the dirt wall and tangles of fungi coated roots. A shower of dirt comes down from the ceiling and walls.
Sadie glances back. "Are you ok?"
"Fine, fine," I mutter but my voice cracks.
Sadie smiles pityingly. "Tight spaces aren't my favorite either. It's why I didn't go to the Spider Goose Falls run, too much of it was in caves."
She shakes her shoulders as if shimmying out of the tight space or simply shaking away the thought. She turns back around walking a little faster.
"I promise, we are almost there. Then we can go get help. I'm sure you've been through a lot."
I open my mouth to tell her it isn't the tight spaces and no I haven't been through too much, but no words come out. I am still a spattering of bruises, and the memory of drying blood keeps my skin perpetual hot and feeling too tight. So, I snap my jaw shut, nod, and squeeze Sadie's hand that is still tangled up with mine. I roll my fingers along her knuckles.
We twist and turn past several other smaller passages, several fully flooded. I wonder if the season impacts open escaped routes, how much each family member has to know to avoid drowning in their attempt to escape a monster. Our path drops then begins to rise again. Just as we turn a bend, a breeze drifts down, ruffling my hair and filling my lungs. Sadie picks up the pace, all but dragging me up the slope. I only catch the scent by chance, or more likely it is the fungi that warn me. Sadie's head breaks into the silvery moonlight. I barely reach around her to put myself between her and the hatchet in time. Toby barely stops the blade from embedding in my arm.
Silvery light slides down the blade smoothly, close enough to tickle the fine hairs lining my skin. My torso is pressed firmly to Sadie's back. Her breath has caught in her throat and she has crouched into the wall of my body, ready to throw us back into a trail of dead ends. The fungi tell me so.
"We knew about your fucking tunnels," Masky says from somewhere nearby. He chuckles quietly. "Though we weren't expecting you to herd them all in there so easily, (Y/n). Splitting them up and flushing them out like that made our jobs real easy."
I try to swallow my swollen tongue, try to choke on it. Dirt patters on the top of my head. My heart stutters along to the falling soil.
"Your family runs fast," he mockingly praises. "You should be proud, even if it killed them faster."
Toby begins to draw his hatchet back, whining, "Co-come on, (Y/n), I ca-called dibs. We're fr-friends, aren't w-we?"
"That was survival," I snap back, lurching forward.
Sadie presses harder into my chest, digs her feet into the dirt to keep me from lunging in danger's way.
"So you wa-want to d-die now?" Toby asks, his expression falling blank and an edge to his words.
"Don't fucking kill her, Rogers, just the target," Masky snaps.
His outline rounds the edge of the burrow. A large stone balances neatly overhead, thick curtains of moss swinging back into place as Masky stops holding them back. Moonlight flickers through the falling curtain. I press into the dirt and wind around Sadie before she can stop me, placing my body between her and the two men. I bare my teeth, widen my stance. I drop the duffel bag from my shoulder into my hand, let the weight tug against my muscles, ready to throw it as a weapon. I mentally apologize to Sadie and her family for whatever sentimental items or essentials may be lost.
"Stand down, (Y/n)," Masky says lowly. "If you hand her over, I can make sure she dies quickly. It won't be the ending you want, but it's the best one I can offer. We have to do this."
I slide a half step back, deeper into the little tunnel so I can block as much of it as possible with my body. I can feel the fungi shift behind me, twist and stretch their little roots. They tell me I am not prepared. They tell me something is near.
Masky and Toby are both so close. They are silhouettes against the limited light, nearly filling up my vision. I hold my breath like the air around them is toxic.
"I have to do this," Masky repeats.
I swivel my head left and right like if I look too long at one, the other will lunge. All around me is spinning and the dirt softly patters down. They are closing in. The tunnel is collapsing.
And Sadie begins to cough.