When enough people tell you you’re crazy, you begin to question your own mind. You pick apart your memories, bit by bit, unraveling them until they’re disjointed and stained, rearranged, every second doubted. The story I’d told so many times — to rescuers, to police, to my mother, my brother, over and over with increasing desperation — was woven throughout my mind, stitching together who I was back then…and whoever I’d become now.
Most people have fantasized about danger: how they would escape, how they would fight, how they’d be too smart to be hurt. But those fantasies are nothing compared to the moment it happens. Sometimes, you can watch danger coming at you like a freight train, and all you can do is stand there. All you can do is let it overtake you.
Sometimes, there’s no running, no fighting. Sometimes, bad shit happens.
The bad shit changes you. You can’t look at the world the same. You realize that manners, morals, culture, society, friends, and family are all fake. They’re ideas we cling to, to make existence bearable. When that’s ripped away — the fake optimistic bullshit — the only thing you have left is survival.
Survival is messy. Survival has no morals or kindness. Survival isn’t black and white, good versus evil. Survival is shades of red; it’s blood taken and blood lost.
My survival was a gun, liquor was my sustenance, and rough sex was my painkiller.
The dingy bar was the closest thing to a club I could find that night. Neon signs hung on the bare wood walls, old license plates were nailed to the ceiling, and pool tables took up the majority of the floor space. I hadn’t seen a town for miles on the road, but there must have been one close by because the bar was crowded.
It was late, and the Misfits tribute band playing on stage was almost too drunk to keep singing. I stuck out, about a decade younger than most of the people in there. But I had a gun at my hip and I could whip their asses at pool, so no one had messed with me. Winning those bets on my games was the only way I’d have the money to get gas in the morning, so I was playing a little underhanded to make it happen.
Lie, steal, run. Survive. Survival didn’t care about morals.
I lined up my shot, the pool cue perched against my finger. Someone pressed up against my ass, their hot breath on the back of my neck. A rough hand slid down my arm to rest thick, dirty fingers against my wrist.
“Third game in a row, girl,” he said. It was the guy I’d been playing against for the last hour, Will. Big guy, farmworker, bald head and a trimmed beard. “You know I don’t take kindly to giving my money over to a cheater.”
I tried to straighten up; his body bent over mine didn’t allow it. I sighed heavily, and said, “I’m not a cheater, Will. You’re just a sore loser.”
He yanked me up, gripping my denim jacket tight as he forced me to face him and pressed me back against the table. His friends chuckled, and as my eyes scanned the bar, I saw people looking, but not a single person getting up.
Figured. I’d find no help here.
“Don’t you try reaching for that gun, bitch,” he said, his breath reeking of liquor and chewing tobacco as he noticed my hand edging for the pistol. “This can go down nice and easy, understand? You can keep all that money, but you’re gonna earn it. Hell, my friends and I would love to have you earn a little from all of us.” Still gripping my jacket, he pressed his fingers against my lips, hard, forcing them into my mouth.
Dumbass. Did he actually think I wouldn’t bite?
He jerked his hand back with a yelp, and I spat his blood on the floorboards as I grinned at him. But the hand I’d bit came back with a vengeance, his bare knuckles striking hard against my cheekbone and sending me crumpling to the floor.
Perfect.
“Fucking bitch!” he huffed, wiping his bloody fingers on his jacket. “I’ll teach you to fucking bite me —”
I pulled out the gun, aimed, and pulled the trigger.
The back of his head burst open like a watermelon, and chaos erupted around us.
His friends came for me, people ran for the door, and the drunk-as-hell band kept playing as if someone hadn’t just been murdered in front of them. But Will was only the first to go down. A pool cue swung at my head, and I fired again, hitting my mark in the shoulder before my second shot hit between the eyes. I dodged a punch from another, kneed him in the balls, and as he doubled over in front of me, my bullet found its home in the back of his skull.
It didn’t matter who died. It didn’t matter how much blood was spilled. There was only ever one thing on my mind: survive, in whatever fucked up ways I needed to.
One bar fight had a way of inspiring others. I was surrounded by mayhem, broken bottles, gunshots, screaming, and cursing. The perfect opportunity to make a quick escape. I rummaged through the pockets of the men I’d shot down, found another hundred-dollar bill and a twenty, and stuffed them in my pockets before I hugged the wall to make my way toward the door.
I’d nearly reached the exit when I was shoved hard from behind — hard enough to knock the wind out of my lungs and send me to the floor. I tried to crawl away, but a hand grasped my ankle and dragged me back.
“You think you’re going to get out of this so easily, you fucking —”
The voice choked off into frantic screams, and the hand that had been gripping my ankle suddenly released — only to drop down beside my head, severed, leaking blood across the stained floorboards.
What…what the fuck?
I turned. The man who’d grabbed me was gripping his arm, screaming at the stump that remained where his hand had been, but his screams cut off with a gurgle. His throat was slit, leaking blood down onto his white shirt. I stared, wide-eyed, as he dropped to the floor, and the man responsible gave him a little nudge with his foot.
“Well, that’s a bit of a mess,” he said. He was tall, broad-shouldered, the front of his jacket stained deep red and his hood pulled up. Honey-brown eyes, strangely bright, peered at me from beneath his hood. There were snakebites in his lower lip, the silver rings shining in the light, and a barbell through his eyebrow. His throat, and I assumed the rest of him, was tattooed. He absent-mindedly scratched his bloody fingers on his cheek, before he extended them to help me up. “You good?”
Those eyes were familiar. It tugged at some old memory in me, something hazy and nearly forgotten. Had I met him before?
It didn’t matter. I leaped up, ignoring his hand, and sprinted out the door. I didn’t have time to exchange words with a hot-as-hell murderer. No, sir. It was time to fucking go.
The air outside was hazy with dust, as bar patrons took off from the dirt parking lot at high speed, their trucks tearing down the long, dark road. I ran for my Jeep, yanked open the door and cranked the engine, pumping the gas to get her going. I set my pistol on the seat, and as I threw the Jeep into reverse, I glanced back at the door…and saw the bar owner come outside in a rage, a shotgun in his hands.
Fuck. Fuck.
I slammed on the gas, the Jeep’s massive tires gaining traction on the dirt, and peeling out onto the road. The bar was in the middle of nowhere, but that meant there was a long, straight drive ahead where I could push the old girl as fast as she could handle.
The trees closed in as I drove, cypress and pine enclosing the road beneath their boughs. The cicadas’ song filled the night, and with no streetlights along the old road, only my yellow headlights lit the way. I put a mile between me and the bar, then three, then five. Only then did my heart stop pounding.
The only radio station that came through was playing Delta blues, and I let it play softly as I drove with the windows down, the cold air on my face. I planned to drive through the night; I’d try to make it until noon tomorrow before I stopped. Some people pursued exercise to ease their stress, but I pursued exhaustion. If I could tire myself out utterly and completely, my brain would be too tired to dream.
Too tired for the nightmares.
The jolt of something ramming into the side of the Jeep slammed my head against the door and sent me careening off the road. I slammed on the brakes, managing to bring the vehicle to a stop before I crashed into a tree. I’d hit my head hard enough to bleed, and my vision was spinning as I reached into the backseat, fumbling under the blanket until my fingers touched the cold, smooth barrel of my SPAS-12 shotgun.
Something told me the 9mm pistol wasn’t going to cut it for this.
I jumped out of the Jeep, leaving the headlights on so I’d have a little visibility in the dark. The radio was still playing, the slow sad strum of the blues sounding eerie in the darkness under the trees. I searched the shadows, resisting the urge to wipe at the blood slowly dripping down my face. There were too many noises in those trees. Everything creaked and groaned, the cicadas’ song forming a chorus with the crickets and the hoot of an owl.
Maybe what had hit me had only been a deer. I’d been driving fast and not paying attention. Maybe…
The forest went utterly silent. Only the creaking of the trees remained. The wind shifted, and with it came the smell of death, pungent and sour on the cold air.
I readied the gun, as a hulking, misshapen form lurched toward me in the dark.
The Eld looked different everywhere I went. In Abelaum, they resembled bizarre mutated wolves. In New York, they were like massive bloated rats. Here…here they looked like goddamn crocodiles.
The creature stepped into the beams of my headlights, its large maw gaping open, lined with rotten teeth. The smell of it was overpowering, like meat left out in the sun in the heat of summer. Its body was long, covered in thick scales but hunched, as if it wanted to walk upright. Its front legs were too long — bare bones and scaly, moldy flesh. Its back legs were thick, muscular; the thing could probably jump faster than I could shoot.
I had to shoot first.
The shot went off, ringing in my ears, and the beast jumped at me just as I anticipated. It gave a deep, guttural snarl as it skidded past me, only barely missing me as I threw myself back. I fired again, the slug striking the monster in the shoulder. I’d waste all my ammo sinking bullets into the beast’s body; I needed to hit the head.
I ran, trying to get some distance between us. I thought I was running for the road, but I’d gotten turned around and found myself running deeper into the trees. The Eldbeast was right on my heels.
I brought my weapon up as I turned, but I didn’t have enough time to aim. I pulled the trigger, and the beast jolted as the bullet hit home, tearing a huge hole in its side and sending gore splattering. It slammed into me and pinned me to the ground as it roared, its jaws snapping inches from my face.
I had to use the gun to hold it back, pressing it against the monster’s throat as I tried to get my legs up to kick. I’d underestimated it; these Eld were bigger than the ones I’d encountered before. Its noxious breath wafted around my face, putrid gray saliva dripping from its long, black tongue. My arms were beginning to shake. I couldn’t keep this up. I just — I just had to —
I managed to get my leg up, and kicked my boot as hard as I could against its wounded side. It stumbled away, giving a high-pitched shriek so loud it pierced straight into my eardrums. I scrambled up, but the beast was already lunging for me again.
I fired.
