Baked Scribe Flashback : Left For
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“Bruno, I can’t believe you dragged me down there with you, I’ve never been that embarrassed.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? You entered a writing contest for children!”
“The entry form said nothing about an age limit, it isn’t my fault that the facilitators of the contest created loopholes.”
“Don’t give me that shit. How could you, in any good conscience enter that contest? How could you possibly think it was okay?”
“Serves the little bastards right. Enough coddling! Let’s be honest, we are talking about children whose only claim to a accomplishment is in barely emerging from their whore mother’s womb, barely ahead of the afterbirth that probably—”
“Bruno!”
“Would the both of you please shut the fuck up?” Eugene swiveled around in his chair to snap at them. He felt somewhat sympathetic for the girl, who seemed like she was trying to shut up her companion, but he had run out of patience. He watched the tubby one’s face go bright red and was surprised that it wasn’t accompanied by the sound of a teakettle whistling. The guy was starting to sputter a reply, but Eugene turned his back before he could say anything. The restaurant broke out into a brief round of as he did so.
He didn’t understand what the world was coming to anymore, it was like drowning in assholes and psychopaths. Just a few months ago he had read about some guy who had been found in front of an abandoned house with his one of his hands chopped off. He was actually laughing and ranting about some kind of demon that had trapped him inside the house.
Fucking crazies.
He needed to get away from it all, off on his own somewhere. A few months out in the middle of nowhere would be perfect. He could conveniently forget the phone, throw his books into his bag, hop on the bike and the rest of world could just fuck off
The cabin was perfect. Sitting right in the middle of dense, upstate forest, right next to a huge lake. He had looked it up on GPS and couldn’t even find a town within 100 miles. And the rental price was lower than some of the shittiest motels he had ever stayed in.
It was going to be perfect.
He turned the motorcycle around another curve and glanced up into the trees as they clustered overhead. It already felt like a secret escape tunnel as the thick canopy of branches and leaves obscured him from the world. The sunlight in the clearing was blinding as he emerged from the woods and his eyes watered, even behind the tinted visor of his helmet.
There was someone standing on the porch.
He only seen a person for moment. It stood up from what looked like a wicket rocking chair, so tall that that the wide brimmed hat it wore looked like he was about to brush against the ceiling. There wasn’t time to react or try and signal the person before they walked back into the cabin.
Eugene gunned the bike and pulled up to the house. He had been expecting someone to just leave the key for him, but maybe they had decided to meet him anyway.
“Hello?” he yelled out as he stepped off the bike, arching his back and stretching the cramps out of his upper legs. He didn’t feel like just walking in, even though he had paid to rent the place. He was about to call out again when he saw the shadow of someone in the house, moving past the screen door. He walked up onto the porch and tapped lightly on the screen door before letting himself in.
The room he walked into was empty. It looked like it had been originally furnished about hundred years ago. There was a couch and easy chair that were competing to see which could contain the most dirt, grime and possibly bugs. He was clearly getting what he paid for.
“Hello?” he called out again but heard no response, nor movement from within the house.
There was a doorway to his left which led into a large, but spartan looking kitchen. He moved to the stairs and took a tentative step up, looking up towards the second floor as he reached the first landing and turned to face a long hallway with rooms on each side.
The entire second floor was empty, four bedrooms and a bathroom at the end of the hall, all equally vacant. It couldn’t be empty though, he had seen someone walk inside.
It left only one option. He returned to the kitchen and opened the tiny, hobbit sized door that lead down to the basement. As he peered down the darkened stairs, an icy breeze, like breath, washed over him. The draft was so sudden and loud that it actually sounded like a great, discordant scream.
“Fuck this.” He turned and exited about as quickly as his dignity would allow.
He came out onto the porch to see his motorcycle racing off, back towards the road he had come from. As he watched it diminish off into the distance, he shook his head and blinked to verify what he couldn’t be really seeing.
There was no rider.
Eugene reached for his phone and took it from the inside jacket pocket. No signal. Of course that would be the price he would pay for this isolation.
As the phone went back into sleep mode, he lowered it but not before seeing a reflection in the glass of the person again on the porch.
“Thank Christ,” he said as he turned. The guy had been in the basement. The bike must have malfunctioned and they would probably find it wrapped around a tree somewhere.
The porch was empty.
“Son of a fucking…” Whoever it was, the guy was clearly having a great time screwing around with Eugene like this. Just one long, epic comedy reel for the locals.
There would have to be a phone inside. In the back of his mind, he was noticing the lack of wires going to the cabin, but maybe they were buried. Maybe there was a giant wireless hub somewhere, sending out a signal.
The pitched screams that erupted as he entered the house sounded barely human. It was a cacophony of many voices, cries of people in the worst kind of physical agony. And underneath all of that, he heard the sound of laughter.
On the floor in front of him was a battered straw hat. As the the volume of the screaming increased, and the pain in his head brought him to his knees, his hand was drawn towards it, inching forward until he was crushing it to his chest like some kind of talisman.
The screaming stopped and immediately the pressure on his head ceased, causing him to cry out and collapse against the nearby couch.
As he let out a slow breath, he closed his eyes and bore witness to the death that this house had seen. He saw children, killed by a faceless monster. He saw a woman, about his age, driven to madness about by what ever resided in this place. These images joined so many others with a new pain that ripped through him like a knife.
Someone was breathing heavily, leaning over him from behind. Eugene rolled around onto his back and began trying to crawl away.
A tall figure towered over him. He looked up into the things face, which had no features, was just a visage of scarred flesh. It reached down and snatched the hat from his hands, placing it gently atop its own head. Eugene scrambled to get away, but was lifted up off the floor and hurled against the wall. He heard the sound of wood cracking and splintering as he struck it and bounced off onto the floor.
He didn’t see where the cutting stroke came from, but he was suddenly clutching at his own throat, trying to take a breath that would never come. As his head began to spin, he struggled to stand and again saw all the people from his vision, all who had died here were lined up against the wall, staring at him and waiting.
It was only after feeling the blade cut across him again, and in his waning moments of consciousness that he realized that they were all waiting for him to join their ranks.
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