CHAPTER ONE
2807 Words
CHAPTER ONE
Kristine's eyelids fluttered and felt like sandpaper. She groaned, the sound creaking through dry and chapped lips. Her tongue dabbed out as her vision slowly returned... She tasted something salty, dried along the edge of her mouth, and it took her a moment to realize what it was.
Her eyes suddenly flared along with a pounding headache. Another ache competed with the pain in her head: her wrists. Still blinking, still wincing, she glanced down at her hands folded in her lap as if they were locked in prayer. A sleek, black rope, like from climbing gear, wrapped around her hands. She stared, not quite comprehending.
The last she could remember... Rock-climbing in Olympic National Park. She'd slipped but caught herself. She frowned, groaning as she tried to recollect... Scrambling on the side of the cliff-face, the grating and scraping of small rocks knocked loose. Then... over an outcropping shelf of stone, a face had appeared. A face with a knife—the man had started cutting her rope.
At the memory, another lance of pain shot through her skull; she stared down at her hands again, shifting in the dark, trying to place where she was...
Muddy walls, slanted and slick. Above her, a glimmer of light, like the mouth of a well. Branches and thick sticks covered the well, visible like the shielding canopy of some treetop. And, next to her, in the side of the mud pit... a metal grate. The thing looked like it had been stolen from some city sewer and then brought to the mountains...
As she shifted for a better look through the grate, her back scraped against the muddy wall. It was then Kristine realized she was n***d. A chill erupted up her spine, only partly due to the cold. Her heart hammered, a small yelp caught in her throat as she twisted some more, trying to look for her clothing.
A small whimper of sheer terror croaked from her throat, and she found her bound hands were now trembling horribly in her mud-streaked lap.
As horror welled up within her, along with the prickling sensation across her skin, she finally winced, glimpsing through the metal grate. On the other side of the bars, she spotted a small, wooden bench, as if made in some home carpentry shop like her father had. But unlike her father, whoever had made this bench didn't seem to care for craftsmanship: no varnish, just screws and janky lumber.
But what really attracted her attention were the bottles on the bench. As she read the labels, the trembling in her hands got so bad, she leaned forward to try and stop the involuntary shaking.
Terror was now replaced with a slicing, agonizing sense of horror, which started in the pit of her stomach like a fist of ice or a knot and then spread throughout her whole body.
“Dear God...,” she murmured beneath her breath. “Jesus, no... please...” Her voice whimpered, the quiet little prayer offered up with no obvious response.
One of the bottles was body lotion. Another was distilled water. And others were unmarked, save a single masking tape label that read, in messy writing, “detoxifying solution.”
As the spiders on the wall across from her continued to skitter, her own eyes darted up, crawling past the bottles to examine the rest of the cavern system through the metal grate.
Mannequins filled the room.
She frowned, wincing and leaning forward, her hands still shaking, her breath coming in wild puffs. Her bare body stretched across the muddy ground, and her heart hammered wildly as she peered between the bars, staring into the room on the other side of the pit.
She realized her mistake.
Not mannequins.
Bodies. Human bodies, frozen in place, like stuffed, taxidermy animals. Two women leaned against a wall, stiff as cardboard cutouts, small tea kettles glued to their cold fingers. A woman lay on the ground by a small stuffed dog, as if the woman were playing tug-of-war with a toy in the animal's mouth. Other bodies, difficult to make out from her position, were frozen around the adjoining room.
Now, she did scream. It started as a low, humming groan of terror, but then it burst from her lips in a high-pitched shriek that Kristine didn't even recognize as her own voice. She kicked, scrambling back, slipping on mud, and banging her agonized head against the back wall. As she moved, she yelped in pain, dragging her thigh across a protruding rock embedded in the ground. She felt the new gash welling with blood now, trickling down her leg and mixing with the dirt.
“Oh honey, oh sweetie-pie,” a voice suddenly called out in the dark.
Another scream died on her lips. Not because the fear was gone—in fact, she was now more afraid than before. Her whole body shook. But the terror itself seemed to have stoppered her throat. Questions pinged her mind like pinballs: Who was that? Was he speaking to her?
“H-help?” she said, her voice shaking uncontrollably. “Help me, p-please!”
But the voice ignored her. Through the metal grate in the side of the muddy hole, she spotted a figure moving now, amidst the stuffed corpses. She couldn't make out features.
But she did notice one thing...
The figure was n***d too but unbound. He walked breezily, with no decorum or sense of modesty, strutting around the stuffed figures. He was speaking now, an ornate, folded fan clutched in one hand which he fluttered. His face was cast in shadow.
“A long day, in fact,” he was saying. “And yes, Martha, I do intend on returning on time. Haven't you learned to trust me yet?”
Kristine swallowed, her head pounding. Who was he talking to?
“No, no, Olga,” said the man's voice, in a rich, soothing tone, like the voice of some talented stage actor. “I just don't have time for that. Texas Hold'em is all I'll play, in fact.” A pause, then as if he was on the phone and answering someone she couldn't hear, he called, “Of course not! Of course! Right away, Olga.” He patted one of the stuffed bodies on the shoulder, emitting a gregarious laugh, before skipping, in the nude, towards the woman and the hound playing tug-of-war with a sock.
Kristine just stared in horror. As the man spoke, interacting with the taxidermy corpses, she heard something in the distance. A background noise she'd taken for the wind, but now, she realized was too loud, too echoing.
The sound of running water... Her nose wrinkled as she listened to it. Another horrible thought struck her. If they were near a river or something in the national park, no one would hear her screams.
Perhaps that's why she wasn't gagged.
“I suppose later tonight,” the man was saying, still waving his fan beneath his chin. “I—hang on,” he said, suddenly. The man's pacing form, visible through the bars, stopped in the back of the room. His tone shifted slowly. “Hear that?” he murmured, whispering in the ear of the corpse drinking tea. “Something is outside. A friend? A new plaything? I'll be right back.” He suddenly scurried off, stopping long enough to grab something long and metallic which had been resting against the wall.
He disappeared into the darkness, up another tunnel.
Once he was gone, Kristine started to sob, tears loosed unbidden but tumbling down her cheeks, quivering on her chin before dripping to the ground and darkening the dirt.
She needed to get out of here. That psycho would be back any moment. Was he the one who'd cut her climbing rope? Was he the one who'd put her down here?
The sound of running water grew louder now, from down the tunnel where the horrible man had disappeared.
Kristine liked rock-climbing on her own. She knew this national park—knew the area. Her father, the woodworker, had often taken her camping as a girl. They'd spent hours in the woods, fishing, sometimes hunting, tying knots. Sometimes even training in survival skills.
She was an outdoors girl, through and through.
And while this was all horrifying, and terror still pulsed through her...
Kristine swallowed, glancing in the dark towards her leg. Her thigh still throbbed with pain where it had dragged against the rock.
The rock.
A small, little gray nub jutting from the muddy floor.
Hyperventilating, she shifted now, groaning from the pain of movement but pressing her wrists with the rope to the rock. She began to rub her wrists now, though they were still trembling badly, up-down, up-down.
Little fibers of rope began to fall away, small pockets of dust puffed from the motion. Dirt scattered, her hands ached, but she continued to rub against the rock.
The psycho was gone for now—but he'd return eventually. She only had this brief window.
Still, confusion hounded her. Where was she? Why had he brought her here? Her eyes darted to the bottles on the bench, and she swallowed. Perhaps some questions were best left unanswered for now.
The ropes were fraying, a small, burgeoning sense of hope now flamed in her chest. She needed to hurry, to hurry, to—
The rope snapped, and with it a small sob of relief escaped her throat.
But she wasn't free yet. She glanced up, towards the tangled branches and wooden planks blocking the top of the hole. She couldn't reach it from where she stood; it was ten feet high.
She needed something to stand on, to push off.
Her eyes were drawn to the bench by the grate.
Did she have time?
No choice. She had to hurry.
She raced to the grate, pushing and shoving at it. The metal bars were embedded in the mud, but not secured in concrete. It took a few moments but, her fingers scraping and gouging at the mud, she was able to shove the grate, tipping it on the floor of the adjoining room.
Just then, she heard a noise from deeper in.
She bit back a scream and hastily shimmied out from the small, muddy hole once blocked by the grate. The metal bars angled off to the side, with thick chunks of dirt and earth still attached to them.
She reached for the bench, but then realized her mistake.
It was only a few feet wide. Even placed on end, it would never reach the hole.
Panic now flooded her. She heard whistling coming from down the hall... he was returning. The only other exit was in the direction of that noise. But she needed a way to reach the top of the hole!
“s**t,” she cursed beneath her breath, her voice barely audible even to her own ears. The sound of running water swished around her, echoing in the strange cavern system.
No choice. She had to move. Sometimes, as her father had often taught her, survival required a willingness to get squeamish.
She lurched forward, nearly tripping over the bench and grabbed the cold arm of one of the frozen male corpses. There were only two men... most of the bodies, by the looks, belonged to women. Glinting, glass eyes stared sightlessly at her. The body was thick, solid and she grunted in exertion as she dragged it back towards the hole in the muddy wall. She shuddered in revulsion, feeling the stiff, cold skin beneath her fingers—almost synthetic... Preserved? Her father hadn't just been an outdoors-man; he'd spent time with friends who'd dabbled in taxidermy.
“Just one moment, my friends!” called a rich, thespian voice from down the other hall. “I found another little buddy.”
Tears of fear were streaming down her cheeks, but she couldn't stop now.
She shoved and pushed, angling the taxidermy man through the same gap in the hole she'd shimmied through. She shoved the rigid corpse into her muddy prison pit, wincing as part of his elbow broke off.
Hyperventilating again, shoving with a final grunt of exertion, she pushed the body into the muddy hole.
The sound of footsteps had now reached the main room.
“What in the world...,” a voice echoed behind her.
She glanced back, sparing nothing more than a second’s attention. The dark figure of the nude psycho was in the mouth of the tunnel, carrying a shotgun in one hand and a dead little, red fox dangling by the tail in the other.
The figure, still in darkness just gaped for a moment, his eyes glinting like fireflies. Then, he began to yell. “Stop!” he screamed. “Don’t do it, Daphne! Come back here!”
Kristine had no clue who Daphne was, but she also didn’t want to stay and find out. She dove back through the muddy hole, scraping a wrist against the metal grate.
She heard thumping footsteps, heavy breathing. Panic put her in motion.
She yanked the taxidermy body up, leaning it against the wall. Behind her, she spotted a hand, then a head probing into the mud pit as well. Two, blazing eyes fixated on her. A deep, growling voice flooded the space. “Stop, Daphne—or I’ll have to punish you!”
She squeaked, leaning the body against the edge of the mud pit. The figure behind her was struggling to fit through the grate—and she heard huffing and growling, like from some sort of animal.
With the body leaning against the muddy wall, she took a quick hopping step, then jumped, gasping, her spine tingling, her back prickling with horror.
She clambered up the corpse, desperately. Pushing off its shoulders, climbing past its arms. She shoved off the same elbow and the arm snapped off completely.
With a yell, she nearly tumbled, but her hand shot out, latching onto a thick root protruding from the wall, beneath the top of the hole.
She heard a loud bang! And the muddy wall to her right exploded with dust and debris.
“Get down!” the voice screamed behind her.
But she knew if she stayed, she'd end up like the poor fellow she was now using for a ladder. She'd grown up rock-climbing, grown up scaling the unscalable. Her fingers scrambled against mud, one hand still gripping the root. Her feet pushed off the man's shoulders now and, gasping, shaking, she lunged up.
Her fingers caught the branches on the top of the pit. A strangled sob of sheer joy pulsed from her lips.
She heard another loud bang! And felt sudden pain along her left side, scraping her ribs. Her eyes fluttered as she dangled, hanging from the branches. With a herculean effort, she pulled herself up, scrambling with gasping breaths over the top of the pit.
Branches shifted from her shoulders, leaves fell away, fluttering back into the hole. No sunlight—she'd been mistaken. The moon now stared down at her.
Nighttime.
She heard more cursing behind her. Her eyes widened, and, gasping, in pain, her ribs on fire, she rolled to the side fast.
Another bang. It missed her.
Gasping, head pounding, she struggled to her feet, whimpering as she did. Sharp stones gouged into her feet, and blood dripped down her leg and ribs.
“Come back, Daphne!” the voice screamed, forlorn. “Please, I'm sorry!”
She didn't reply, limping rapidly now, hurrying towards the trees. Ahead of her, she spotted a creek meandering through the trees, parting around a thick boulder. At the same time, she heard thumping footsteps behind her. A long pause, and then a distant echoing sound of hands against metal.
A ladder?
Her heart jolted. He was coming for her still.
She yelped, trying to sprint, but collapsing from the pain. Her feet were scraped up, her side on fire, her head pounding so hard she thought she might throw up.
She needed to hide. To hide! But where?
The trees? No...
Too dark to see. Too much pain to think. She did the only thing she could think of and took two stumbling steps and flung herself in the creek.
It was like she'd suddenly embraced ice.
Freezing cold surrounded her, washed over her. Her wounds pulsed in agony; her eyes sealed shut in the cold. The streaming, frigid liquid caressed her, caught her hair, dabbed at her nose and mouth, looking for some sly way to sneak into her lungs.
The overwhelming cold pressed in on her, dark spots dancing across her eyes. The sway of the water began to carry her like driftwood as her consciousness threatened to fade.
- Writer
