Chapter 18 #3
And I realize, more than ever, that this island isn’t just showing us our fears. It’s fucking feeding on them and us.
“We need to get out of here!” Sarah yells as she hyperventilates whilst hugging herself.
“Lena…” Lotty weeps falling to her knees, head in her hands.
Mattie’s trembling hand finds my arm, gripping hard enough to bruise.
“We have to go,” she whispers, tone quivering. “Now, before it comes back. Maybe there’s another way out of this store.”
I nod numbly before we head toward the back, our feet slipping and sliding in the spreading pool of Lena’s blood.
Once we reach a fire exit, we push through the door, stepping out into the rain once again. Moving low and fast along the side of the building, every breath I take tastes like blood and failure.
But when we reach the street, I freeze mid-step, my arm tearing from Mattie’s hand as she continues forward.
There, in the middle of the cracked road ahead, stands that white, mangled tree. Bone-pale bark twisted into unnatural angles, branches reaching out like broken fingers.
It looks diseased, and it certainly doesn’t belong there.
A chill ripples up my spine, as a whisper slithers over my ear, soft at first. But then they come louder, overlapping into screams, broken pleas, children crying, and women begging.
Suddenly, my vision warps into something dark and cruel. The outlines of lifeless bodies hanging from each branch by thick, rotting ropes takes form.
Their hollow eyes stare straight at me as the wind makes them sway gently, like macabre ornaments.
The whispers turn into my name, over and over, spoken in voices I thought I’d never hear again. The tree pulses, as if it’s starving for one more body to hang among the rest. Mattie tugs at my arm, but I barely feel it.
The tree is waiting in the middle of the street, patiently offering me a place among the deceased.
I start to walk forward, one bare foot at a time, in a daze, pulling toward the serenity of death.
A sudden loud, high-pitched, unhinged, squeal slices through the whispers, yanking me away from the odd feeling, and my head snaps around.
The pig-headed butcher rounds the corner of the building, massive and hulking, rolls of fat jiggling under the blood-crusted apron.
His cleaver drags across the cracked pavement behind him, leaving a fresh trail of sparks and dark fluid. The ugly pig snout twitches, black eyes locked forward as if it already smells my fright.
Terror detonates through me, my gut knotting, and without warning, I tear my arm free from Mattie’s grasp with a strength I didn’t know I still had.
She calls my name, but her voice is already distant, swallowed by the rain and the pounding of my own heart.
I run in the opposite direction from the others, away from the tree, away from the group, away from everything, my legs burning as I sprint blindly down the ruined street, feet slapping through puddles and rubble.
The rain lashes my face, stinging my lips, and behind me, the pig lets out another shriek, but it’s closer now, excited and almost ecstatic in its craving.
Taunting whispers rise from the dark between the buildings as I pass them, slipping out of cracked windows and alley mouths, calling my name in voices that sound like my father’s, like the men who hurt me, like every version of me that never escaped.
Suddenly, I trip on a broken piece of pavement, and my body slams into the ground with brutal force, my forehead cracking against the concrete with a thump.
Warm blood pours instantly from the gash in my scalp, mixing with the cold rain and streaming down my face.
With my sight swimming, I turn onto my back with a groan. But then, a gigantic shadow falls over me, and the pig-head comes into view.
He is a mountain of rancid flesh and old violence, rain and blood dripping from the decaying snout, his black eyes gleaming with something personal.
Raising the massive cleaver high above his head, it feels like time has slowed around me, its sharp edge catching the grey light like a promise carved in steel.
“Here, little piggy piggy,” it screeches, its voice slicing through the rain.
My hands scrabble uselessly across the slick pavement, my nails catching and snapping against it as I desperately try to push myself backward.
Water streams down my face, mixing with tears I don’t even realize are falling, while my heels dig into the ground in a frantic attempt to escape.
But there’s nowhere to go, nowhere fast enough.
This is it. I’m going to die right here, sprawled in the middle of this messed-up town, beneath the living embodiment of everything my father left behind inside me.
Just as it’s about to bring the cleaver down, I release a muffled screech through my stitched mouth, the sound tearing from somewhere deep inside me before echoing through the empty streets.
With my eyes squeezed shut, I wait for the impact.
But seconds seem to pass.
One.
Two.
Three.
And nothing happens.
My eyes flutter open, and through the curtain of rain, I glance up at the monster still towering over me.
Black veins begin crawling across it’s cleaver, thin as cracks in ice. They spread over the metal in twitching, branching patterns, wrapping around the blade and holding it suspended above me.
The pig man’s arm trembles, a throaty squeal tearing from it as the veins continue their ascent, slithering down his wrist and winding up his arm like roots burrowing beneath flesh.
When I realize he can’t bring the cleaver down to chop me into pieces, because this thing is stopping it, I kick myself further backward.
My eyes dart around frantically as the town around me changes.
Darkness pours through the street like spilled ink, creeping across the ground in thick waves. A pitch-black smog coils around my ankles, snaking up the sides of the buildings, swallowing brick and stone beneath its touch.
Then the vines appear, erupting from the darkness itself, long black vines unfurling across walls and rooftops. They spread with frightening speed, splitting and multiplying as they scatter over every surface they can reach.
The air grows colder and thicker, and while I pant, little puff clouds escape my nostrils, chest rising and falling in desperate gasps.
What the fuck is happening now?
My broad gaze flicks back to the pig just in time to see its torso is now entirely ensnared by those writhing, eerie creepers, pinning it in place.
Knowing this is my only chance to get away, I stagger to my feet, legs trembling, and turn to bolt.
But the moment I move, something huge and black hurtles from the dark sky and slams into the pavement ahead of me with bone-shattering power.
The ground shatters beneath the impact, spiderwebbing outward as the shockwave nearly knocks me off my feet. A thick cloud of black smoke explodes outward, pouring over the street, swallowing the dim light.