Random Rough Draft #3

  Hardly anything stirred as a freckled, red-haired girl wearing a plain black tank top and ripped denim jeans trudged through the forest. She carried a flashlight in her left hand, a swiss army knife in her front right pocket, and a school backpack full of assorted supplies on her back. All of these things she had taken from her house without her father’s knowledge. With luck, he would remain unaware of their absence for at least eight hours. Twelve, if he had been drinking right before he went to bed. Which meant it would take at least twelve hours.

“Sam!” the girl called out, careful not to attract the attention of anything other than her friend, who had promised to meet her there with hardly any advanced notice. She hoped she hadn’t kept them waiting for too long. She knew how much the woods creeped them out.

“Quiet down a little, will you, Heidi?” a voice replied from her right, their form obscured by shadow for a brief moment before they came out into the moonlight, wearing a hoodie and matching athletic pants. Heidi’s eyes lit up in relief at the sight of her friend, whose brown skin and short brown hair with blonde highlights stood in sharp contrast to Heidi’s peach-like skin and long flowing hair. “I don’t want either of us ending up like Old Wil,” Sam said, the apprehension evident in their voice.

Heidi shuddered, recalling the local news report a couple days ago. “Sorry,” she said almost instinctively, to Sam’s annoyance. They were starting to get a little tired of how often she apologized for things. “I like your hair,” she said, to which Sam scoffed.

“Girl, you did not drag me all the way to these creepy-ass woods at fucking midnight just to compliment me on my new look. What’s going on?”

Heidi took a deep breath before she laid everything out in one single sentence.

“I need you to help me leave,” she said, taking a step forward so that Sam could vaguely see the bruises which lined her face, mostly healed and fading after days of being left alone, totally exposed. They nodded immediately.

“Okay,” they said, already thinking ahead. “I’ll do what I can, but I don’t have many good favors left, and I’ll need all of them to get you out of here tonight. I don’t have a license or a car, and you know how it’d look for you to suddenly wind up in the back of some dude’s van.”

“I know,” she replied simply, fully aware of the risks. “If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. I’m okay with that.”

Sam paused, looking at Heidi as if she had lost her mind. “Hang on...you’re not saying you were gonna go through the woods,” they said, phrasing it as a statement rather than a question.

Heidi nodded firmly. “If I needed to.”

“Are you insane?! These woods go on for miles, with bobcats and wolves and freezing temperatures at night! What were you thinking, that you were just gonna take a casual two-day hike into Canada?!”

“Worth a shot. Best case scenario, they see a freezing, unaccompanied minor trying to cross their border, figure out her horrible living situation, take pity on her, and make an exception. Worst case scenario, they keep her in a freezing cold detention center where her dad can’t reach her.”

“Worst case scenario, they send her back to America after having her wrestled to the ground by two guys twice her size and led to that detention center in handcuffs for her troubles,” Sam countered. “You can’t trust the government, Heidi. Any government. We’ve already established that.”

“We’ve established that we can’t trust the American government. Maybe Canada’s government still has some regard for human dignity.”

“From what I’ve read, the Indigenous people living there would beg to differ,” Sam said. “If the United States were the racist old grandpa at Thanksgiving, Canada would be the liberal host who agrees with him more often than not, changes the subject whenever conversations with him get too ‘political,’ and just wants everyone to shut up and enjoy her turkey.”

Heidi grumbled, placing a hand to the bridge of her nose. “Look, Sam, will your favors work out or not? I need to be out of this godforsaken town ASAP.”

Sam groaned, trying to work everything out in their head.

“This late at night? Like I said, it’d take everything. Maybe even a few new favors. If you hid out at my place until morning, I could-”

“Nuh uh, no, not happening,” Heidi cut in immediately. “Your place is the first he’d think to look. You know what happened last time.”

Sam scoffed. “Last time was a bluff, he’s not going to-”

“This time he’ll fucking use it!”

The terror in Heidi’s voice stopped Sam in their tracks, and they looked on with concern while their friend began shaking uncontrollably, tears beginning to flow freely from her eyes. They swiftly closed the distance between them and wrapped their arms around her.

“Hey, hey, you’re okay. You’re okay, I’m here. I’m here, everything’s going to be okay.” As Heidi tried her best to stop crying, Sam glanced at the bruises they could see on her face. They noticed the shape of one of them, on the side of her head, and dared to make an assumption. “He used the butt of the-”

“He used the butt of the rifle this time,” she finished, still shaking and slightly breathless from crying. Sam’s eyes widened as they realized the full gravity of the situation.

“There’s only one-”

“There’s only one thing he hasn’t done with it yet,” she finished again, threatening to burst into tears once more. Sam’s grip around Heidi tightened instinctively, as if their embrace could form a shield to protect them both from the world.

“I’m getting you out of here,” they said firmly. “I don’t care how many favors I need to cash in or how long I’ll have to work them off. You’re leaving, tonight.”

Heidi nodded wordlessly, the two of them remaining there together in silence for a moment before she finally pulled away, the two of them still having their arms wrapped around each other. They looked into each other’s eyes for a moment, both of them beginning to blush as they contemplated something new. Something dangerous. 

But, then again, these were dangerous times, were they not?

They had just started to lean in a little closer when a loud, monstrous roar startled them both.

The two instinctively closed the gap, seeking protection. Sam was the one who spoke up first.

“Was that a bobcat?” they asked nervously, to which Heidi shook her head.

“I’ve heard bobcats on the Internet,” she replied, terrified. “That...was not a bobcat.”

Sam had just prepared themselves for the task of getting both of them out of the woods as soon as possible when a cry of pain could be heard fairly nearby, followed closely by the sight of a humanoid figure crashing into the ground at the base of a tree trunk.

“Holy shit!”

“Heidi, we need to get the fuck out of-Heidi!”

Before Sam could say anything else, Heidi immediately separated from them and ran to the side of the figure who had been thrown up against the tree, having to carefully navigate the foot-deep crater which had formed in the ground around him. Although it was difficult to make out clear details in the darkness, she could tell that the unconscious figure was a person who looked to be in his early thirties. He seemed to be wearing a long brown trench coat, tan khakis, and hiking boots, all of which showed signs of not having been washed or repaired in quite some time. The stubble around his face made it clear that he hadn’t shaved in days, and both him and his tattered clothing smelled of mud and grime, suggesting that opportunities for a shower or a change of clothes were equally hard to come by. Heidi quickly made out a weapon in a holster at his right side, what looked like a long, curved blade. She also thought she saw two guns peeking out from the pockets of his trench coat, both painted silver. One appeared to be an ordinary M1911 pistol at first glance, of a model which she knew hadn’t been produced for quite some time. The other was of a make and model which Heidi didn’t recognize at all. Without a doubt, however, the most confusing aspect of the person’s appearance was one she noticed only after extended inspection:

He was completely unharmed.

She could see no bruises or blood anywhere, either on his body or on the surrounding ground. Considering that he appeared to have been thrown into a tree hard enough to crack the trunk, his skull definitely should’ve been fractured, and bits of brain and bone should’ve been scattered throughout the area. The evident force of his impact with the ground would definitely have broken most of, if not all, of the bones in his body, and yet she could see nothing poking out of his skin. For all intents and purposes, it looked as if he’d simply decided to take a nap in a small, human-sized hole which had always been there. A nap which soon ended as the figure rubbed at his eyes before his vision cleared, and he realized just who had come to check on him.

“Oh shit,” he muttered.

“Excuse me? Excuse me, are you-?” Heidi began before the stranger immediately moved to climb out of the hole, startling her and causing her to instinctively move back a pace. In a second, he was free, and he swiftly approached Heidi, noticing Sam in the corner of his eye as he did so.

“You kids shouldn’t be here,” he said sternly, in a tone which suggested the imminent presence of mortal danger. “Get out of here! Now!”

Both of the teenagers could readily admit to apprehension regarding the strange man, but Heidi was the first to respond, both confused and growing increasingly worried.

“I-I don’t get it,” she said, and the man looked into her eyes briefly. He seemed to realize just what she was confused about, and he hesitated for a split second before replying.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I tried to explain it to you, and even if I did, we don’t have the time. You need to leave.” 

“But why-?” Heidi began, but before she could say anything else, that same monstrous roar could be heard, closer this time.

“No more questions,” the stranger said in that same serious tone. “You pick a direction away from me, and you run, do you understand me? Run like your life depends on it, and whatever you do, don’t look back!”

Heidi hesitated for a moment, her head still swimming with unanswered questions, but Sam was much quicker on the uptake. They grabbed her hand, dragging her along as they ran away from the stranger as fast as their legs could carry them. After running for about a minute, they heard a third roar, coming from around where they had previously been. Seconds later, they heard the stranger cry out in pain, followed by a horrible cracking sound which they assumed was a tree trunk being broken into bits from the force of an intense impact.

Heidi moved to turn her head to look, but Sam turned around just long enough to coax her gaze back towards where they were going.

“‘Don’t look back,’ remember?” they called out over their shoulder, continuing to run as fast as they could with Heidi in tow.

Before Heidi could respond, they both heard the sound of something sharp tearing into a human body, and soon saw the stranger sailing a good four feet above their heads at great speed before hitting the dirt directly in their path, causing them both to stop. As they did so, they heard a faint, ethereal humming sound coming from the stranger, and saw that the parts of his body which should have been damaged were obscured by a glow of bright white light for a split second. As before, no evidence of any damage could be seen on either the stranger’s body or the area surrounding where he had landed. The stranger got up from the crater without missing a beat, and gave the two teenagers an urgent look.

“Keep running!” he hissed.

They would have obeyed this instruction had they not been momentarily frozen in place by yet another monstrous roar. This hesitation would prove costly, as this time the roar was accompanied by the sound of loud, rapidly approaching footfalls, like those of a massive and agile predator. Heidi and Sam had just enough time to break away from each other and leap to either side before a six-legged creature with black fur, powerful limbs, and serrated claws barreled past them, intent upon the stranger.

“Oh, shit,” he said in a tired, deadpan tone right before the creature shoved him into its mouth.

“OH SHIT!” the teenagers cried out at once as they saw the creature’s jaws clamp down onto the stranger’s skull, seemingly tearing him apart with a sickening crunching sound. Almost immediately, the white light could be seen emanating from the creature’s mouth, causing it to rear up its head slightly in confusion before biting down once more. When the stranger’s head remained undevoured, the creature grew frustrated, biting down repeatedly in an effort to eventually kill this strange human who refused to provide it sustenance. Heidi and Sam found themselves in shock, backing up in horror yet unable to turn themselves away from the grisly sight. After about five more of the creature’s attempts to eat the stranger, the creature let out a sharp cry of pain as the stranger appeared to slice at something important with his blade. Black blood was violently released from the creature’s mouth, followed by a dark pink fleshy object which looked like part of the creature’s tongue. The teenagers covered their mouths at the sight, trying their best not to hurl as the stranger was finally tossed aside, having been declared unappetizing. The stranger flew through the air once more, one of his guns slipping from his trench coat and landing on the ground to the creature’s left before he slammed into another tree and fell with a groan of pain. 

Having turned away from the stranger, the creature now turned its attention onto Sam, who began to back away more rapidly while still eyeing the creature. Its features were more visible now, and Sam could adequately perceive both the rows of teeth lining its mouth, as well as its four eyes, all of which were bright blue with black pupils and evidently adapted for hunting prey in pitch black darkness. The stranger worked to push himself up off the ground, his eyes widening once he perceived Sam’s situation.

“Shit, shit-don’t look into its eyes!” the stranger called out, but it was too late: the creature’s eyes began to glow with an even brighter blue light, causing Sam’s eyes to start glowing blue as well. Their expression shifted away from simple shock and fear into pure, indescribable horror, as their mind was suddenly transported elsewhere.

Pain. A constant, nagging pain, as if every part of their body had rejected them, had given up trying to keep them going. With effort, they manage to move their head such that they can see around most of the room as they lay on their hospital bed. They’re alone. They glance out the open door into a long hallway, but nobody is walking past it. They turn towards the window, bolted shut, but see no one milling about in the street. They’re totally alone.

“Please,” they mutter weakly, desperately trying to make their voice carry. “Somebody...please...”

Nobody comes for them.

They can feel themselves slipping away, piece by piece. Somehow they know they don’t have very long now. Their vision is getting blurry. They’re finding it harder to move, harder to speak, harder to breathe. The pain feels like it’s fading, getting further and further away from them. Soon it will be gone. They should be happy about that, at least. They hate the pain. They want the pain to go away, but...not like this. Never like this. They’d rather live with the pain forever than lose it like this.

“No,” they gasp, barely able to even form sound anymore as they’re forced to sit, waiting for the end to come. “No no no no no-”

A drawn-out roar of pain, coming from just inches in front of them, accompanied them suddenly falling out of their trance with a start, as if they’d just woken up from a nightmare. With their ears ringing from the terrible noise, they quickly reoriented themselves to the situation at hand and looked around until their eyes fell onto Heidi, gritting her teeth in agony. Her right thumb was pressed onto the handle of the stranger’s unusual handgun, while her left hand was wrapped firmly around her right, both of them shaking. She was barely managing to maintain her grip on the gun, its barrel now blown out, charred, and smoking from the intensity of the gunshot. She looked like she was about to die.

“Oh, no,” Sam muttered, knowing full well the significance of what she had just done, but having no time to unpack any of it as the creature turned around towards their friend, black blood dripping from where the bullet had torn into the left side of its upper back. The stranger was quicker to react, getting to his feet and firing off several rounds from his ordinary handgun at the side of the creature’s head. He missed most of them, but as his right wrist glowed and recovered from the strain of repeated gunshots, he managed to attract its attention with a well-aimed shot which swelled its top left eye shut. With every shot, Heidi flinched, her grip on the now-useless gun becoming more and more precarious, which only Sam had the luxury to notice.

“Give the gun to me!” the stranger called out, returning the handgun to his coat pocket once the magazine had been emptied. For her part, Heidi was slow to process what the man told her, even as he came running towards her position with his left hand outstretched. When the creature let out another roar before charging at the pair of them, Heidi’s trembling fingers finally gave way, and she dropped the gun before trying to scramble away from the rampaging beast as much as she could. The stranger just barely managed to get the gun after diving forward to grab it, rolling onto his back and placing the gun in his other coat pocket right before the creature’s massive jaws snapped him in half.

Both Heidi and Sam screamed, the latter once more grabbing her hand and attempting to lead her away from the area as fast as they could run. Ignoring its additional prey for the moment, the creature had grown wise to the stranger’s unusual properties. The stranger’s severed torso glowed bright white as it disappeared, just as a new torso and head shimmered into existence to fill the void the old torso had left. Before the stranger could attempt to avoid it, the creature’s claws pierced through his chest, blood spilling out briefly before vanishing just as the severed torso had. Heidi turned back to look just in time to see the creature lift the stranger up into the air and look deep into his eyes before he could shut them, leaving him subdued. This accomplished, the creature adjusted its grip on the stranger’s body such that it could look towards the fleeing teenagers and keep the troublesome stranger spellbound at the same time.

“Shit!” Sam exclaimed as the creature roared and began picking up speed towards them. They promptly let go of Heidi’s hand and lightly pushed her towards the woods to their left. “Keep running, go, go, go!” Heidi obliged, but to Sam’s dismay, rather than pursuing Sam, the creature barrelled past them to pursue Heidi, leaving them frantically chasing after it with newfound vigor and a hastily recovered tree branch as their only available weapon. 

With effort, they managed to barely keep pace with the creature, but they weren’t fast enough to intercept it before it slowed down and slammed into Heidi, knocking her down before its eyes locked onto her along with the stranger. Looking up at it instinctively, Heidi soon found herself trapped.

“You fucking bitch!”

A gunshot rattles the bottles and miscellaneous objects assembled on the shelves above the washer and dryer. As she tries to escape, her face already bloodied, bruised, and stained with fresh tears, she falls to the ground with a cry of pain as a bullet pierces her left knee. Bleeding and now unable to stand, she desperately tries to crawl away. She hears him load another round into his rifle.

“Still think you’re tough shit now?! Do you?!”

A second gunshot follows the first, causing one of the bottles to teeter over the edge of the shelf, threatening to fall and shatter into a million pieces on the floor. The second bullet pierces her right knee, making things even more difficult. Even with her head spinning from intense pain, she keeps trying to escape anyway. She can see the door to the side yard, maybe five feet away from where she fell. She just has to get to the side yard. Then she has to get over the fence somehow. Then she has to get to the Crenshaws and hope that their selflessness outweighs their instincts of self-preservation. Instincts which had prevented them from interceding all the previous times a gunshot rang out from their house. Still, the first hurdle was the side door, and she was almost there. Just a few more feet and-

She feels the rifle press right into the back of her skull just as she reaches the foot of the door.

“Fucking try it, you piece of shit. I fucking dare you.”

Her outstretched hand falls back to the ground at her side. She hears a cruel, bemused chuckle.

“That’s right. That’s a good girl. Now turn around.”

He lifts up the rifle, allowing her to turn around and look him right in the eyes as best she can. She struggles to see him clearly between the tears blurring her vision and the ungodly pain in her legs and nose making everything worse.

“What’s the magic word?” he asks, just as he asked every time before. Every time she wanted him to stop.

“Please,” she replies promptly, fearfully, same as always. He turns the gun away from her, same as always. He begins to walk back to the living room, back to his television and his drink. Same as always.

Then he turns right back around and moves to fire.

A sharp crack of wood being broken into bits rang out just when Heidi screwed her eyes shut, expecting the final gunshot.

When it didn’t come, she opened her eyes again just in time to see Sam tossing away the now useless bits of broken branch remaining after their last ditch effort. Their attack didn’t do anything in the way of damage to the creature, but it annoyed it enough to where it instinctively turned its head to glare at them. That momentary lapse in concentration was all the stranger needed to break free, pulling out the unusual handgun from earlier, now undamaged. The creature heard the sound and turned around to respond just as the gun pressed right into the narrow space between all four of its eyes.

The sound of the shot and accompanying burst as the barrel blew out echoed through the forest, while the creature was killed instantly, collapsing under its own dead weight and spraying a moderate amount of black blood throughout the area.

As small drops of black blood landed on Heidi’s shoulder, the stranger blinked the creature’s blood out of his eyes, recoiling at the putrid stench of it on his face. He sighed, relieved that he’d finally managed to put the creature down at the very least. He began to speak after pausing to catch his breath.

“Thanks for the assist, I suppose. It was ridiculously dangerous and I explicitly told you two to run as far away as you possibly could, but-”

He soon realized that his words were being completely ignored. The two teenagers left hurling their guts out onto the dark, wet grass had more important things to worry about at the moment.

“Ah. Yes, that is a completely valid reaction,” he said plainly, without a hint of judgment. As they remained preoccupied, he cupped his hands against the dead creature’s extended right arm and pushed on it with all his strength, succeeding in slowly inching himself off and onto the ground, his right arm landing on it with an uncomfortable splashing noise. “...Dammit,” he muttered, annoyed at finally having no excuse not to change clothes. He slowly got up to his feet, his right sleeve still dripping as he gradually tore it off, leaving his right arm exposed to the cool night air. He’d rather be a little more chilly than walk around with a vomit-soaked sleeve. “Well, the first order of business is to get you kids safely back...hey, are you okay?”

As he spoke, he noticed Heidi on her knees, no longer vomiting but lying on the ground with her hands cupped together in front of her, trembling uncontrollably. Sam, who had likewise just managed to compose themselves, noticed their friend’s condition and was quick to say something, as weak as their voice was.

“Gunshots,” they said simply, their voice laden with concern. “It was the gunshots.”

“Gunshots...” the stranger began before his eyes widened. He understood. “Oh shit,” he muttered as he looked down at her. He had acted to kill that creature with no remorse whatsoever, but as Sam glanced over at him now, he appeared to be severely affected by what they had told him. “I am so sorry,” he said, the pain and earnestness in his voice surprising Sam. This side of the stranger was completely new to them. 

Heidi couldn’t quite make out what either of them were saying at the moment, and was only half-paying attention to the agonizing pain in her wrists. Her mind was still elsewhere, even though the creature was already dead.

The stranger took a deep breath to compose himself. “I’m going to assume from...that, and from the fact that I found you out in these woods near midnight, that neither of you have anywhere safe that I can return you to,” the stranger said, to which Sam nodded. Mulling it over for a minute, he made his decision. “Alright, come on. My RV isn’t too far from here. I have food, water, a queen sized bed, and a shower. From where I’m parked, I can get you two out of town in eight minutes.”

The stranger already moved in the direction he knew his RV was parked, but Sam was quick to voice their objections as they tended to their friend.

“N-now hold on a minute!” they said, their hands firmly placed on Heidi’s shoulders, helping her to begin to calm down. “Heidi can’t just skip town at the drop of a hat! People would start looking for her!”

The stranger paused, noting that Sam hadn’t included themselves in that objection before chuckling. “This isn’t the first time you’ve gone out into these woods, is it?”

Sam paused for a moment, unwilling to confirm the stranger’s guess but at the same time finding the prospect of lying to him incredibly scary. “N-no,” they admitted.

“And you’re sure no one saw you heading towards the woods, at any point?”

Before Sam could reply, Heidi spoke up, surprising both of them.

“Someone saw me,” Heidi said simply before turning to look at Sam. “That’s another reason why I’m not going back this time.”

“What?! You couldn’t have mentioned that before?!” Sam asked, suddenly panicking. “This changes everything! Now-!”

“Now you’ll be able to vanish, so long as you keep your heads down,” the stranger interjected. “Do either of you know of a Wilfred Hitchcock? Older guy, lived alone, about 43 years old?”

The two teenagers exchanged a nervous glance before Sam answered. “Old Wil? Y-yeah. The local paper said he was mauled by...a bobcat, a couple days ago.” They looked at Heidi again. Neither of them were so sure about that any more.

“There aren’t any bobcats in these woods,” the stranger said, confirming their suspicions. “And I’d bet you five bucks that Hitchcock knew that going in. Maybe not consciously, but instinctively. Anyone who lives near a place like the Widow’s Woods for long enough knows that there are some things that don’t make sense out here. Things which you don’t want to mess with if you value your life.”

Both Heidi and Sam simply nodded along, unsure what else to do as they grappled with the implications of what the stranger was telling them. “You think that he...wanted to die?” Sam got out, horror in their voice. They never understood how anyone could get to such a point.

The stranger shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. All I know is that these woods extend up to the edge of the Canadian border, and that they’re home to some absolutely terrifying creatures. If people see you go into these woods, and they don’t see you come back out, they’re going to assume the worst. The only reason you come to a place like this is to escape...whichever way you think will work out for you.”

All three of them were silent for a moment, before Heidi spoke up hesitantly. “Is that why you came here? To escape?”

The stranger chuckled humorlessly. “I gave up every method of escape I could think of a long time ago, kid. I came here because I was in the area, heard about Hitchcock’s death, and had a good idea of what actually killed him. But more broadly than that...I came here for the same reason I go anywhere.”

“...And that is?” Sam ventured to ask.

“To kill something,” the stranger replied promptly, before becoming lost in his thoughts for a moment. Sam turned to Heidi, their apprehension about him written all over their face.

“Do you really think we can trust this person?” they whispered.

“They did save our lives,” Heidi replied. “And they seemed worried about our well-being.”

“They’re also very easily capable of murdering us!” they countered, trying to keep their voice down as much as they could. “We barely know anything about them except for that!”

With that, Heidi spoke up. “Could you tell us your name? Oh, and your pronouns, if you don’t mind?” Sam facepalmed as Heidi looked at the stranger hopefully.

The stranger paused before chuckling a little, genuinely this time. “Phoenix,” he said. “He/him/his.”

Sam looked at Phoenix nervously, still not sure what to make of him. “No last name, huh?” they asked, to which Phoenix simply shrugged.

“None I consider important,” he replied. “I don’t believe I caught either of your names. Or your pronouns, for that matter.”

The two teenagers looked at each other before nodding in agreement, Sam needing a moment of silent convincing before they did so.

“Heidi. She/her/hers.”

“Sam. Uh, they/them.”

Phoenix couldn’t help but smirk a little. “No last names?” he asked, a little amused. The two turned to each other again before Sam answered.

“None we consider important.”

Phoenix laughed, a laugh that sounded almost tired, like a muscle that hadn’t been used in a while. He took one last look at the two of them, part of him urging himself not to grow too attached while another part of him sized them up, wondering whether he could live with them sticking around for a while. When he reached his answer, he smiled just a bit. 

“For better or worse...you two are going to fit right in.”