Before it's too late

3

THEN

"What the hell-" Brandi started, but she was spun to the ground and beaten over the head with a loose piece of ply wood.

"Trevor Waters?" The man questioned. Trevor didn't move. He blinked over and over again, trying to see if this was real. He would blink and they would be gone. He would blink and he would wake up from this awful dream. Brandi was unconscious and bleeding, her head lulled back when the man released her. "I heard you introduced yourself to the officers," the man explained. Trevor still didn't move, didn't scream, now he watched Brandi lay defenseless. He blinked again, Brandi wouldn't be here, Saoirse would still be in love with him and he would be eating warm soup while watching a stupid reality show.

"Time to go Drake," the other man barked as he started to lift Brandi.

"Not her, Prudence won't like her." The man dropped Brandi but thought better of it and shoved her in the backseat.

"We can still have some fun, Prudence does not run this family." The man chuckled as he slammed the door shut. Brandi's hair got caught in the door and it pulled her head back further.

Trevor blinked again, he would be getting into bed alone and not here. Then the man had a thick hand on Trevor's shoulder.

"Time to go," he instructed as if it was as simple as going to the park. Within a moment Trevor was dazed, then he was shoved in the trunk. He heard them laughing, cackling really. Trevor pounded on the trunk, the realization of what was happening finally sunk in, but it was too late.

NOW- THEM

He took a hammer to her head. The chase was done with and he had caught his prey. It was as simple as that. He gave them all a chance to run, a chance to be free, but he always, always caught them. So he rammed that hammer into her head, behind and above her ear, it was just where the hammer had caught. The head of the hammer broke through the skin and bone sending shards into her brain. That moment before death, pain radiated around her head in searing pain as he tried to pull out the hammer, yanking back her head so viciously that he snapped her neck. She was dead by then, she didn't have a chance, she didn't know why they wanted her, she didn't what she did to them to make them do this but she knew that when that hammer hit her she was not going to see her family again, she was never going to see another day.

He took the locket that was around her neck, and yanked it off, breaking the chain as he dragged her back to his house, to the barn where he would string her up like dead meat ready for the slaughter. As he emerged through the barn doors blood soaked his skin and his already tattered clothes. He wasn't going to wash off he was going to string her up and take a smiling picture next to her dead body. He reached for the old polaroid and smiled. He held the necklace in his hand and gave the camera a crooked smile as she hung limp swaying slightly in breeze. He heard the cries and screams of the other animals as they watched him in horror. He just gave them the same hideous smile as he licked the blood off his heads painting his teeth red.

"How did it go?" His brother asked as Hector sauntered through the doors.

"How do you think?" He countered, a cocky smile plastered on his face. He was never known to leave his prey wandering.

"The bitch have anything worth keeping?" Their younger sister asked as she emerged through the kitchen walkway.

"For you, my lady," Hector said in a deep bow as he handed her the now blood soaked necklace. She examined it, the gold chain tainted with blood.

"It's beautiful, put it on me." She demanded, he didn't move to clean it, just to gently wrap it around her neck. She touched the chain and locket around her neck and smiled a yellow teethed smile.

The house smelled of rot, mold and iron, the iron stench of blood, they basked in it, the smell of the pain they caused others, it brought them so much joy. It brought them a sense of happiness, as though seeing a puppy run through the snow for the very first time. They heard the screams of their preys in the cages around them and it only made their smiles grow.

"Shut them up," Prudence barked looking up the old wood chipped stairs. "Their screams will wake her. She has been having nightmares, she doesn't need to be woken by those wicked people." Her brothers laughed as they walked off to silence the monsters.

But the hostages were not the monsters, the prey that these people killed and maimed, cut apart and ate for every meal, those people were not the monsters. The vicious hunters were the monsters, but they didn't see themselves that way, but most predators don't see themselves monsters, they see themselves as living, doing what they are doing to survive.