“I can hear you in there,” the man’s voice blasted through the rotted wood of the two sliding doors. “I’ll get ya. Oh, this time you’re mine!” The voice was a strange mix of pleasure and anger. Bradley teased them with his laughter. Billy looked at him with terrified eyes that were filled with tears. Mark pressed his index finger against his lips, hoping that his brother wouldn’t give in to crying. Maybe if they kept silent, the man would just turn around and go away.
He slowly hoisted his body upward. Billy grabbed him by the ankle and shot a terrified look up at him. “I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered as softly as he could. His eyes scanned the barn quickly. If there was nowhere to hide, then there had to be something he could use as a weapon against that man. He searched through the darkness as best as he could. He saw nothing but hundreds of those bones scattered amongst the old rotting hay on the ground. There were holes in the walls of the barn, though none of them big enough for either of them to fit through.
More hay, more dirt, more darkness.
And more bones.
There was no way out. No weapons. The only escape route was through those two sliding doors, behind which the man undoubtedly waited for them. If they tried to run past him, he’d kill them for sure.
A loud bang echoed all around them, followed by a deep, hearty laugh. The man kicked at the door again, playing with their fears, trying to torment them as much as he could before he killed them.
Billy’s body shifted on the floor at his feet. His brother’s finger tightened around his ankle, digging deep into his skin.
“Get up.”
“Mark, I—”
“Get up!”
Reluctantly, his brother followed the order and stood on his two shaky legs.
“When the man opens the door, I’ll distract him and you run. Don’t stop running until you get home and tell mom and dad what happened. Tell them to call the police.”
“I can’t, Mark...”
“No time to be a shithead, Billy.” Shithead was the name his brother hated the most, the worst insult anyone could think of calling him. Something sparked in his eyes. For a second or so, his legs stopped wobbling and something resembling bravery illuminated his entire face.
“But he’ll get you!”
“I can take care of myself. You just run as fast as you can. You stop for nothing. Nothing. Understood?”
Billy slowly nodded his head. Mark hoped his brother would do as he was told. That frightened little boy was his only hope.
They both stood in the center of the barn, amongst the bones and the crawling shadows, waiting for the man to open the doors and join them.
He kicked at the doors again and laughed, hoping he was scaring them good. When they were in a group, they were as vicious as a pack of wolves. But there were only two of them in that barn. And he had his gun. They wouldn’t escape him this time.
He pumped the shotgun and heard the bullet enter the chamber. He smiled, feeling the heat of the metal against his skin. The gun almost seemed to throb in his hands, begging to be allowed to fire again.
He listened to the silence for a brief moment more before placing one hand on the handle. He had to do it right this time. There was no room for mistakes.
The doors slid open very easily. As he stepped into the barn, he thought for a brief moment that he’d somehow been blinded, as everything around him turned pitch black. But eventually, the shadows began to move and the darkness parted, creating a pathway for him to walk through. He laughed again as he stepped further into the darkness.
Mark and Billy stood at opposite ends of the building, each of them trembling with fright.
The man took a few more steps, stopping only when he reached the center of the room. In his head, Mark prayed everything would go as planned.
Mark coughed, giving the signal for Billy to get ready to run. As expected, the man turned to face the direction of the noise.
To face him.
Mark coughed again, just as the man drew his shotgun and pointed it toward him. The man never saw Billy run out behind him and escape through the opened sliding doors. The man’s eyes were fixated on Mark, a horrible grin of pleasure drawing on his lips.
There was little he could do. At least Billy had escaped. And maybe, by some twist of fate, he’d reach his parents in time for them to save him.
He took one long look at the shotgun’s barrel facing him. Hoping to be saved was wishful thinking. He could see the man’s thirst for blood in his eyes. And he could see the menacing barrel of the shotgun grinning back at him through the night as Bradley pushed it even closer to his face.
“You little bastard,” the man said through gritted teeth. “Got you this time.”
He wanted to plead and beg, ask for the man’s mercy. The words wouldn’t reach his lips. Like every other part of his body, his throat was frozen shut. He couldn’t take his eyes away from the barrel that winked back at him.
He couldn’t take his eyes away from his eventual death.
Bradley would savor this moment for a very long time. He could see the fear in the thing’s large oval eyes. He could see its pencil-thin arms and three long fingers trembling with fear. The thing was facing death and it knew it.
It was payback time.
He’d need to get closer if he wanted to shoot straight. His eyes weren’t as good as they used to be and he couldn’t afford to miss this one. And when he was done with it, he’d start looking for that other one and finish it off.
“I’ll teach ya a lesson ya’ll never forget, you little bastard.”
He took another step forward. All of a sudden, the world around him turned upside down as his body flew up in the air. He had just enough time to look down and see two small bones rolling on the ground where his feet had been seconds before. His whole body collided hard against the floor, sending a long, arrowing rebound of pain throughout his body.
Old man Bradley slipped on the small bones Mark had gathered and placed on the ground a few feet away from where he was standing. The man’s fat body went flying wildly in the air. His shotgun soon followed, pirouetting in the air above him and landing only a few feet away from the man’s body.
The panic that had seized his body quickly dissipated as this new glimmer of hope registered in his mind.
To his left were the doors, though in order to reach them, he’d have to step over Bradley’s fat body, something he wasn’t too keen on doing. To his right was the shotgun, which now rested on the ground with the bones and the rotting hay.
It only took one look at the man lying at his feet for Mark to make up his mind.
That little thing ran toward his shotgun, its gaunt little legs scurrying quickly away from him. It couldn’t end like this. He couldn’t let that thing win. Not again.
He willed the pain out of his mind and pulled his body upward, clawing at the ground beneath him as he tried to regain his balance. The world around him lurched. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, trying once again to drive the pain as far away as he could.
When he reopened his eyes, he found himself standing, searching the darkness for that damn thing which had made his life miserable for much too long. Soon enough, he’d make it join its friends. He’d kill it and leave it there for a few days. Then he’d boil it to make sure it was really dead, just like he had with the others. Then he’d bring the remains here and throw them with the others where it would remain forever.
No, that thing couldn’t live. Not if it was going to keep on tormenting him the way it had for so long now.