Stay Where You Are, We Will Find You

A Halloween thriller for you.

* * * * * * *

There were a lot of cars in the field. Some school buses, too. It was the sort of place where bad things could happen. I wondered who was watching and where the cameras were.

The voice behind me said, “Go ahead, it’ll be fun. We’ll meet you at the graveyard, then get something to eat.”

I looked over at the graves. There was a pile of dirt next to one that had something sticking out of it.

I ducked into the entrance. Something dry and crinkly scraped my neck. There weren’t any signs, you could go either way. I started down the corridor to my right. Something black lurched into the passage, and I could see the glint of a knife.

I ran the other way and around a corner. I tripped and fell into some kind of web. The strands sagged and bobbed like big hairy rubber bands. I screamed and clawed my way free.

I almost fell into the pit. It was filled with green bile that roiled and bubbled. A bloody hand bobbed on the surface. One of the fingers was missing.

I leaped over the pit, and ran down the passage. An arm with a meat cleaver crashed through the wall and missed me by inches. Left, right, left again. I turned the corner and almost ran into a wall. Dead end. I stood there, trying to catch my breath.

I heard a noise behind me. The wall crackled and hissed, and a body fell into the passage. There was a hatchet buried in its back.

I ran back the way I came. I lost track of all the turns. I slipped in some orange slime and felt the world go black.

My head was pounding and I felt cold. Above me the sky was black and I could see stars. I felt something slide across my face. I sat up with a scream and brushed it away. A slimy, sticky seed. I was covered with them.

I heard a voice that seemed to come from all over. “We have closed the facility. Do not panic. Stay where you are. We will find you…”

I heard sirens and the crackle of a radio. Above me, the thudding of helicopter blades. A searing white light penetrated the walls and was gone.

I broke through the wall. It whispered and hissed and pulled at my clothes. I crashed through a second wall, then another, and another. Finally I was outside. Suddenly, everything was louder. I could hear dogs barking and running feet coming closer and closer. “Do not move. We will find you…”

I crawled through a drainage ditch filled with brackish water. A rat scurried over my hand. “There he goes!” cried a garbled, electronic voice. “He’s headed for the orchard!”

I charged across the field and into the trees. Branches raked my face, then I was slipping and sliding on rotten apples. The rotor blades thudded and pounded into my brain. Then I was trapped in a bright white light.