1 | Liam #2
We close in on her, walking slowly as we approach her form standing in front of what she thinks will save her.
She turns to me and declares, “I have reached the scarecrow!” I laugh and look at Nathan.
She turns her gaze to him and repeats herself, as if we hadn’t heard her clearly.
“That was your stupid rule! I have reached it. I am safe!”
She is angry now, and with good reason. The deceit of our game has finally caught up with her delusion. And now she knows: there was never a chance of freedom. She was never meant to survive.
“Looks like you indeed made it to the scarecrow,” Nate points out in a cold voice.
It’s not meant to comfort her, but through her fear, that’s exactly what his words accomplish.
It’s a confirmation of her victory. She looks at him for a moment, her eyes taking in every feature of his face as he smiles at her.
I can see her body relax. She thinks she has found a friend among us.
Surely he will let her live. He is the one calling the shots, or at least it seems like he is.
Nathan has always appeared to be the leader of our murderous little group.
We know, though, that he is not the one in charge.
We all have our roles, but Mike is the one making the rules of the game—the one who needs it more than the rest of us.
Nate and I are in this for the hunt, for what it offers us.
Mike feeds a need for revenge that will never be satisfied.
He has demons living inside him, demanding cruelty every night he remains breathing.
It has been this way since he was a child, and it will continue this way until he draws his last breath.
Some monsters are born, but he was created by the cruelty of the people who were supposed to protect him.
“Time’s up, bitch,” Mike taunts as a gunshot echoes through the night.
It’s not often that he chooses a gun to take a life.
We all prefer a more hands-on approach, but sometimes Mike gets restless.
Every game satisfies him a little less. I am afraid that soon enough these won’t do anything for him, and I dread the night we have to learn what will take their place.
The woman’s lifeless body lies on the hay, and the night is silent again.
I stare at her blood pooling underneath her still form, turning the hay crimson red.
It’s a beautiful sight. I have always loved the way blood looks.
The deep red. The metallic smell. It’s one of those weird things that you shouldn’t be attracted to, yet I am.
Told you Nate isn’t the one calling the shots; his crazy boyfriend is.
Anyone looking closely enough could have guessed it.
We all have our roles, but we still remain pawns in a game Mike conjured to calm his demons.
We like to think it takes all three of us to play it, but in reality, he would go hunting without us if given the chance.
He knows it’s safer if we are by his side, but cautiousness has never been his best trait.
“That was a fun night,” Mike says with excitement, and I ignore him.
There is a sense of guilt that washes over me after the hunt is done—fragments of sadness after a life has been claimed. We are playing with fire. Taking lives like some psychotic gods.
I lift her lifeless body and place it over my motorcycle. She is heavier now. I have always found it amazing how our weight changes once the soul leaves our bodies. It’s as if, in a way, being dead brings a weight of its own to the frame.
Nate approaches slowly from behind. “We are going for food and then back to the house,” he lets me know.
Even though their routine is always the same—hunt, eat, fuck, sleep—and it’s not hard to guess what they are going to do, he still feels the need to tell me.
It’s not hard to guess my next steps, either.
I like routine, and the boys do too; it keeps us safe.
It keeps us undetected. It helps us appear ordinary while in a new town.
No one suspects the three young men who just moved in when women first start disappearing, which is ridiculous, if you ask me.
I would have thought the new people would be blamed the moment the first woman went missing, yet we never are.
And on the rare occasion someone decides to suspect us, we are already gone.
Mike is already reaching the edge of the maze, and Nate gets on his motorcycle to follow him as I take the dead woman on her final journey.
‘Time to go, little one. I am sorry this was your ending,’ I say the words inside my head.
A silent apology. I wonder if her spirit remains close.
If they are able to hear us after they die, maybe they can hear our thoughts.
Does she know I am truly sorry for her demise?
Does she know the regret of every hunt eats me alive when the thrill of it passes?
I wonder what life would have been like if I hadn't followed this path sometimes, yet I have, and those thoughts never last too long.
I drive toward the edge of the maze, where the two men are waiting for me before we part ways.
We always make sure we leave at the same time and separate on the road.
It will make it easier to flee if all three of us are at a crime scene in the rare case we get caught.
It hasn’t happened so far—maybe it never will, but I doubt that.
I make sure to plan every detail. That has always been my role in this: making sure we remain free, no matter what. I must be doing a good job, since we are still walking around killing women like it's nothing. As if their deaths are of no significance, just like their lives.
I reach the edge, where the white van we use to kidnap the women and transport them to the maze is parked. I have the keys in my pocket, and it’s mine to drive for the rest of the night. While the boys are busy with their routine, I have a freedom of my own to dispose of her body.
I put the woman in the plastic bag we keep in the back of the van for that exact reason—ready and waiting for her, essentially a body bag.
I quickly zip her up, closing her eyes before I do.
“Rest in peace, sweetie,” I whisper, not loud enough for anyone to hear but myself.
But maybe if spirits do linger after death, she heard me.
She knows I regret it. But if she does, she also knows I enjoyed it just as much, and that’s the problem.
I load my motorcycle next to her and secure it with the chains we have installed for this purpose, without losing much time contemplating the possibilities of the afterlife. It doesn’t matter if there is one, anyway. It’s not like it would change anything.
“Ready!” I announce as I walk to the front of the vehicle.
The boys rev their engines in response. I get into the driver’s seat and start the van.
I see them through the mirror, following close behind, until we get to the crossroads.
We practiced this route a few times when we first arrived in town.
We always do it before we start hunting.
It’s one of the rules: always make sure you know how to escape.
They continue straight ahead, taking the road that leads back to town, and I take a left turn to get onto the highway.
The trip to the next town is about three hours.
It will give me enough time to calm down from the adrenaline of the hunt, which is crucial for the next step.
I need to be in full control of my senses for the task at hand, because if I let regret and panic take over, I will soon get us caught, and I refuse to be the reason for that.
There is no doubt it will happen eventually, but it won’t happen because I failed to dispose of a body.
And that’s exactly what my task is now: to dispose of her body.
Getting rid of her rotting corpse is what I need to do first; returning to her house and making sure we didn’t leave a mess when we took her is next.
The last step is something I am glad to skip today.
We had enough time to check the location of her house before we kidnapped her.
Her house is on an empty road—the last one up a hill—and the nearest neighbor is at least five minutes away.
She lived there alone, and it will take months before anyone even notices she is missing.
I can’t keep myself from feeling sad for her.
In a twisted way, judging by how her life was, we might have done her a favor.
Ending her life doesn’t seem like the worst thing that happened to her, but at the same time, I admire the way she fought—even if there was nothing worth fighting for in her life.