Myriad Istoria

Archfiend's Hood

Darkness, fear, screaming, yelling and laughter surrounded her swinging body.

Her entire world seemed to be upside down, in fact, it was. Tied by her feet to a hook in the wall Marylin tried to wiggle herself free from the rope. As her body swung lightly, she looked around her to find more swinging bodies covered in plastic, just like her. The only difference was, she was the only one alive. The dripping of the blood from the rotting human flesh made her nose sting and her eyes water. But, her mind was filled with other thoughts at the moment, so she barely noticed it.

As she remembered the cart, the men and the chanting that surrounded her minutes before she was abducted. She fell deep into her thoughts.

Marylin used her car GPS for directions, she had never been to this part of the countryside before. The vegetation here was unlike any she had seen in her town. It was different. As she drove by and observed the roads, there was dead silence, very less lighting and strange red grass growing in the fields. Her new friend Roger had invited her for a weekend over. He seemed rich, tall and wore a matching bracelet at all times. She met him at the arcade she worked at when he came in to play some pool with a couple of his friends. Roger came up to her while she was helping a customer and interrupted her conversation with the lady with a child. He shook her hand and introduced himself. She wanted to tell him to wait for a minute since she was busy but felt an eerie attraction to him, ignored the customer and spoke to him. Over the course of a week or two, they became close, at least that's what she thought. Roger wasn't one to speak about himself much, he asked a lot of personal information about Marylin and seemed to listen to every detail. All she knew about him was that he came from a richer neighbourhood excluded from the rest of the town. A neighbourhood called Archfiend's hood. When she asked more about his family, he usually changed the topic.

Last week, Roger asked Marylin if she wanted to go up to his neighbourhood and stay the weekend. He described the place as a beautiful 2 story house with the view of the moon over the vast ocean at night. He explained that the neighbourhood was a secure one with high security, so, when she would enter, there would be a drive-in check-up of her identity and car. Marylin accepted his offer since she had a little nack for Roger and liked him very much.

While she drove, she kept a lookout for any signs or boards directing her to the neighbourhood but found it strange to see all the boards and signs spray painted black with a red circle in the middle. She thought it must be vandals who covered the signs. Still, she had a weird feeling in her gut that told her to go back home, but she ignored it since she didn't want to cancel on Roger last minute.

She had been driving for around 3 hours and still saw no sign of an ocean or beach. She thought she would have to drive for longer toward the coast. But, in the next half an hour she glanced at her GPS and came to a stop. Staring into the phone screen realised that the GPS didn't recognise any of the roads anymore and stopped, indicating a dead-end, She sighed and closed google maps and rang Roger.

"Hello? Roger" she said, with an enthusiastic tone. "H.. hey Marylin, where are you? We've all been waiting for the past hour." She heard some sort of background noise at his end and said, "We? I thought it was just you and me" "Haha of course it's just you and me. I was just messing with you," he said with a slight nervousness in his tone "okay? Anyways, my GPS stopped working and I don't know the way. Could you help me out?" she said, annoyed by his humour. "Oh yes, that means you're here. Just take a left at the fork in the road and you will see a gate. Ten minutes into the road" "okay. Be there soon!" she hung up with relief, she thought she was lost. She took the left and continued down the road, She realised that the neighbourhood must be very securely hidden so that even the GPS couldn't place the location. She started questioning the secret neighbourhood. Why was it hidden, why was the vegetation different and why was there no one on the road. If it were a neighbourhood, there should have been people leaving and entering just like her.