Honey-Comb [A Dead by Daylight Fic]

Chapter 2

Her whispers were rats chewing on wire, an incessant chittering of the amalgamation of madness that she was. Ever present, a looming shroud of spider legs and pointed teeth. He felt Her there, just as the others did and never didn't, watching from his own gaze like a red stain on the world. It was never a welcomed feeling, the shared space of a single person. Crowded by an Entity that was neither here nor there, but beyond and before, urging them on their endless march, whispering horrors into their ears.

She lived by their hand, fed by their sacrifices, growing in Her own realm on the screams of those survivors who suffered in her walks. And when all hope was lost, when the screams quieted to eye rolls and bored sighs, She'd reach her fog like tendrils out into the world and find another.

The Trapper felt Her calling, watched as She extended Her reach far beyond the world that had ironically trapped him. He had seen this before, many times in fact: Legion, the Hag, Ghostface, Myers. Monsters parading as people, fragments of things that could be, the darkest parts of ourselves lured in by Her command. He wondered what splinter of humanity had piqued Her interest tonight, what new bedlamite might join him there in Her realm of abject horror.

Last had been the Oni, a man who was far too old for temper tantrums, yet stomped his feet anyway. Hundreds of pounds of thick, fuck-you muscle and unresolved intimacies wrapped around a kanabō. The Trapper had watched him nearly turn a survivor to paste for calling him a "big red idiot," which was equal parts amusing and equal parts terrifying.

So it went without saying, that when the Trapper saw Honey, a petite woman of unrenown, duck onto his property, he was a little bit disappointed and wholly underwhelmed.

Honey was small, maybe even smaller than Susie, dark skinned, dark haired, and swathed in shadows. She was all sugar and Splenda, even from here he could feel her warmth, the inviting aura of an anyone-but-killer. Which wasn't to say she didn't have the capacity, or that she might not have committed any previous crimes, simply that she didn't LOOK or FEEL like she could. Even Myers, without a word, instilled fear in his stillness.

Honey exuded a very particular aura, a I-need-to-get-the-fuck-out-of-here kind that had her stumbling over all the loose bricks and bottles that littered his estate. Not even a wink of dark vision to her, just a bumbling fool groping blindly in the dark for her escape.

It wasn't his place to judge the Entity's choices, but following up the Oni's intensity with her was a little bit like opening up a bag of Oreos and finding out it's all tops. He scowled, as one was rightfully awarded to.

The trials would begin again soon and the Trapper resigned himself to her charge, unhappy that it had to be that way, hoping somewhere in the back of his mind it were a mistake and he could just throw her up on a hook and be done with it. He wasn't one for babysitting, but given the circumstances, he was probably the best for the job. Gods forbid they put her with The Shape. If she was this shit-scared of him already, he could only imagine what sticking her with a monster like Myers would be like. It made him chuckle - or maybe it was just a wheeze of indifference.

He lumbered off the porch, his footsteps a heavy, hollow sound, intensified by the clinking of bear traps fixed to his belt loop. Not too far from his home he heard Honey's low cursing as she walked directly into another generator and then the subsequent thunk! as she kicked her foot into it. The thing spluttered at her and sparked.

Not the quickest.

Not the quietest.

Not the most intimidating.

Just a whole lot of not.

His steps were measured, slow and intimidating, each one carrying with it the weight of a hundred-or-more-so dead. It was the kind of walk reserved for people like him, the balls-terrifyingly slow approach that made the heart beat faster with every closing inch. He wondered if she could hear it, the incriminating thump in her ears, louder and louder as he got closer and closer. Wondered too, many other things, but mostly, perhaps, maybe he WAS right. Maybe she wasn't a killer after all, but a misplaced survivor. Wouldn't that be funny? She certainly had the look. Whatever a survivor's look could be considered. Hers smelled of coconuts and peppermint, dressed in a deep purple coat with a plush eggshell lining.

He thought he recognized it.

The whispering came again, passing him in the shape of mangled hooks where rat like creatures peeked their heads out from a pock marked coiling muscle of Her design. They chanted in an upside down language, urging him onward but never once stoking the flames of his bloodlust. Quiet, in a loud way. Strange too. If this wasn't a chase, then it must be an initiation.

Honey whipped about and stuck a finger in his face, "Don't come any closer, asshole," in her other hand she brandished a cellphone, thumb over its screen ready to 'dial' even though they both knew it was dead, "one more step and I'll call the cops and have us both arrested for trespassing."

He closed the gap between them and snatched her wrist, peeling the phone from her fingers and throwing it out into the field. The piercing empty gaze of that mask stared down at her, challenging her to do something about it.

"Jokes on you," she said haughtily, "my phone was dead already."

There was a kind of indifferent resignation to her joking, she knew she was screwed. No amount of struggling would pry his grip from her and even if she managed to do so, she still had to flee across a landscape of garbage and generators, in complete darkness, to get away. Not to mention he had an extra foot and a half nightmare-fuel cleaver length of reach on her.

"Are you going to kill me?" she might as well have been asking about the weather. "I recognize the," and she made a gesture to her face with her free hand, "mask. You're the MacMillan guy, right?"

No answer.

"I honestly thought that was just something people made up to scare their kids. Which," she chuckled, "is stupid because that's the same thing that happened to my grandfather. Well, great-great grandfather. I'm not sure on how many greats."

What the Hell was she talking about?

"He ghost murdered a bunch of people back in the day. But," she glanced at his hand, "you do not feel like a ghost. Not that I have experience feeling up ghosts. I just figured they'd be a little less...solid."

He gave a violent jerk to her arm to shut her up.

"Sorry," she squeaked.

He released her from his grip, throwing her hand down in annoyance.

Honey quirked a brow at him, "This is a really weird murder," she admitted, "is it weird for you too? I'm making it weird aren't I? Sorry, It's my first time."

Somehow, the annoyance in the Trapper's face showed through the mask.

She was worse than Jed - and that was saying something.

"No," he finally spoke, a deep and ragged baritone that made her skin crawl in all the wrong ways. "I'm not going to kill you."

"Why?" it was a stupid question. Usually when murderers let you go, you don't ask why, you run.

"She brought you here for a reason."

"She?" Honey asked, "Who's she? No one brought me here?"

He tilted his chin up and Honey followed his gaze.

The sky was a volcanic black, pulsing with veins of fire gripped by the immense coiling of spider legs and crooked spines. Honey was pretty sure that wasn't right.

"Oh," she said.

The Trapper turned his back to her, and without asking, trudged back towards his home. Honey, not wishing to be alone beneath the spindly legs of a gigantic sky spider, decided to chase after him. Which was not particularly any more safe.