There was a cough then a sputter, and the noise stopped. My body instantly relaxed of its own accord, and the hot air that had been trapped in my lungs expelled in a loud huff. I sucked in a breath and fell back on the grass, panting as the tension left my body.
Brand new pains began reporting in to my central nervous system. However, these were all very real and surprisingly, almost welcome. At first, I didn’t even want to move. I just wanted to relax and take in the cool night air. But, my brain was starting to clear, and I heard myself mutter the name, Felicity.
All at once, I remembered where I was, who I was, what I was doing, and even why. Also in that instant, the only thing that mattered to me was getting to my wife. I scrambled up to my feet and started back across the yard, heading toward the lighted path.
Ahead of me was the back of the house. In the shadows of the screened-in porch was a slanted bulkhead. I hadn’t noticed it earlier, but from this angle it was an obvious protrusion extending out from the foundation. I could see light seeping out between the crack where the doors split, and I wondered to myself if it was an entrance to the basement.
I didn’t have to wonder for very long.
I’d made it all of five steps across the lawn when the left hand door of the bulkhead pushed upward then fell to the side with a heavy thump. Light poured out of the opening, and a second later, the right hand door flopped over. Finally, the silhouette of a head popped up. It was slowly followed by a shadowy pair of shoulders and then a torso, as what appeared to be a potentially very large man came up from the depths of the cellar.
In my single-minded quest to shut down the generator, I hadn’t given any thought to what would happen once I did, other than bringing an end to the torture. I didn’t even consider that the monster that was doing this would come to investigate. I suppose in the back of my mind I was counting on Ben to have subdued him by now, but the truth was, I didn’t know how much time had actually elapsed. Ben might not have made it into the cellar yet, and in fact, there might not even be an interior entrance at all.
My first thought was to run in the opposite direction and hope that I could skirt around the large shed, avoiding him altogether. Unfortunately, my body wasn’t taking orders from my rational brain.
My gut, however, was a different story. It was back in full control, and it issued its own set of commands. Fear and anger joined forces, requesting an immediate adrenalin dump from my nervous system. Free of ethereal influences for the moment, it complied post-haste. As the hormone injected itself into my bloodstream, I let out a bloodcurdling scream and rushed forward as fast as I could.
The man looked up, obviously startled as he saw me barreling toward him. He hadn’t quite reached the top of the stairs when I took my final step, launching myself into the air for the last few feet. He let out a surprised yelp followed by a heavy groan as I slammed full force into him.
He stumbled backward down the stairs, flailing his arms and grabbing at the stone wall. I glanced off of him, ramming my shoulder into the opposite wall and then fell to the second stair with a heavy thud. I was stunned, but then so was he, or so I thought. As he continued stumbling backwards, I pulled myself upward then pushed off against the wall, throwing myself into him again.
This time, he was much more prepared and threw a large arm up to block my attack. He managed to regain his balance just as I struck and pressed his huge forearm out against my chest. Upon impact, the air was forced from my lungs in a violent huff. With an almost animal-like growl, he thrust his arm to the side, flinging me down the stairs to the slab floor.
I hit hard, rolling across the rough concrete and landing in a heap. I was fighting to catch my breath, and a few more new pains were added to the smorgasbord of aches my body was experiencing. I rolled to the side and looked up, seeing that the man had fully regained his balance and was coming back down the stairs. I’m not sure if it was the angle at which I was seeing him, the damage he had just inflicted, the situation, or all of the above, but he looked huge. He was certainly taller than Ben, and I was sure half again as broad. Suddenly, my original thought about running the opposite direction was looking far better than the option I had chosen.
I pushed myself up to my hands and knees as he lumbered down the last stair. As my head came up, I looked across the dim cellar and saw a nude woman bound in a chair. Her feet were positioned in buckets, and she was covered in bleeding wounds. There was a set of what appeared to be jumper cables clamped to her, one lead attached to her left hand, the other biting into the flesh of her right, upper arm. Her head was lolled to the side, but I couldn’t tell if she was dead or merely unconscious.
The giant wasn’t interested in letting me find out. Before I could pull myself to my feet, a massive hand clamped around the back of my neck. I swear I could feel his thumb and fingers almost meeting one another as they wrapped around to press into my throat. I felt myself lifting upward, and before I knew it, I was completely suspended several inches above the floor.
I couldn’t see him, but I was kicking as I hung there, swinging my legs in an attempt to inflict any kind of damage I could, which considering the situation was probably none. With a hard thrust, he tossed me forward, and I smashed against a metal storage unit.
Rusted coffee cans, jars, and countless other unidentifiable items scattered across the floor with a horrendous crash as the unit toppled. I came down hard on top of it, taking a sharp blow to the ribs as well as hammering my forehead against the edge of one of the shelves.
I was disoriented from the blow to my head, and I was tangled into the now twisted braces of the shelving unit. I struggled to pull free, but I felt like I was going to pass out at any moment. I suddenly had a very bad feeling that I was going to die. There were no two ways about it. I didn’t stand a chance against his hulking size.
I heard a grunt and the sound of shuffling feet behind me. Panic issued its own demand for adrenalin, and I started frantically trying to extricate myself from the tangle of bent metal. My left arm was free, and I sent my hand searching for a weapon, anything at all that I could use to defend myself. It brushed against something that felt like a handle, and I automatically wrapped my fingers tight around it.
A moment later, I felt the large hand against the back of my neck once again. Before he could clamp on, I twisted, flailing my left arm out and swinging along with it whatever it was I had managed to grasp. I had no way to aim, so I simply stretched out as far as I could when I swung. As I rolled, I saw the jagged end of a broken soda bottle raking across his face.
He let out a pained roar and stumbled back a half step. I let out my own yelp as I yanked my right arm free, feeling flesh scrape against broken glass and jagged metal. I continued to twist and tried to pull myself back to my feet. I only managed to make it to a squatting position before he came at me again.
I swung the bottle, but he made a lumbering sidestep, and I barely grazed his arm. He grabbed my left wrist and squeezed as he pulled me up by my arm. My hand opened, and the bottle fell from it, clattering to the floor. His other hand slammed hard into my chest, and I felt myself once again lifted off the floor, literally swinging from my arm as he used it to pivot me around. At the last moment, he let go, and I flew several feet.
Somehow, my feet touched first, and I tried to backpedal but to no avail. I stumbled and continued with the momentum, slamming my back into the door of an upright freezer. I hit hard, rocking it back and falling to the floor in front of it. The door swung open, and a good portion of the contents spilled out on top of me. Abject horror welled up from the pit of my stomach, as amid packages wrapped in butcher paper, was a woman’s severed head, her clouded, dead eyes staring coldly back at me.