Short Stories

Beast

My legs pound the floor, I have to escape! It has no face, no mouth, nothing. Yet noise is being made by it. It's a horrible scream. It echoes through my mind, confusing me momentarily. I keep veering off track and into the trees surrounding me. Along my run, I keep finding notes, spread up and down on the trees and floor. Every single one of them spelled incorrectly, but every single one of them screaming the same thing "get away from here". I understand I have to get away. What do you think I'm trying to do? I have a feeling I shouldn't be following the notes, considering they're telling me to go, but I can't exactly back track, and either side of me the trees get denser. It's impossible to move through them. Impossible to move through them!

I veer off course as soon as the trees part slightly and I run as fast as I can over the bulging roots which trip me over every five seconds. I can't look over my shoulder to check where the faceless man is anymore. If my eyes are taken off of the path I fall over, making myself more vulnerable. I keep my eyes peeled for a real pathway out of the trees, but it never comes, the trees getting closer and closer with every step I take, truly slowing me down, I hope it slows the man down too. Randomly, out of nowhere, hands wrap around my torso and mouth, and they drag me backwards. I can't see my assailant, but they're very quiet and soon someone else comes along to pick up my feet to stop them from dragging. I still cant see who it is though. Neither of them are revealing their faces, both dressed in greens and blacks and browns. Both of them are able to quickly maneuver through the dense forest like area, neither trip.

Eventually, I'm put down in a hut. It's got a table and chairs and a small cooler bag.

"We knew you'd be in here, running." One of them says.

"Yeah, but we thought you'd catch on sooner - the notes surely would have helped." One jokes, the other one hits them.

"You left the notes?" I question.

"Well, yeah, Marie." The one who hit the male replies.

"You... you know my name." I stutter.

"Yep, you know ours too." The girls pulls her mask off. "Oh my God! Shannon!"