Page 29 of His to Fear
As if on cue, shrieking sirens resound far away in the distance, but I’m too stunned to comprehend anything. My gaze is glued to the sight of the gooey liquid covering the hay beside me, my body shivering in the coldness of the night. I scramble to get my panties and tights on, all the while feeling as if the very blood inside my bones has been set on fire. An excruciating pain and desire coursing through me, mixed with absolute terror.
The axe the stranger had lay buried in hay further ahead on the barn floor, and I recall how he held it against me, what I thought was fake blood covering its hilt all night. Had it been real all along?
Mouth running dry, I hear the sounds of multiple footsteps coming closer, fast and heavy.
“Freeze!” an authoritative voice shouts at me, and I do exactly that: freeze on the spot.
“Put your hands up in the air.” My heart is beating against my ribcage, threatening to make it collapse as I do what the police man says.
He and a few others approach me, weapons drawn. Uneasedraws through me.
“Nadia! Hey, that’s my best friend.” A shrill and panicked voice comes from behind the cops, and then I finally see Eveline, eyes wild and clothes rustling as she rushes toward me.
The cops have no chance of stopping her before she barrels into me, throwing her arms over my shoulders and burying her head in my neck.
“Thank fuck you’re alive.” Relief sprouts over her, and she grabs me by my shoulders and pushes away so she can get a good look at me. “You’re okay?”
I nod, unable to find my words in the chaos.
“I was so worried. I couldn’t find you when the cops showed up right after we had entered the slaughterhouse.”
Confusion knits my eyebrows together.
“W-what do you mean?”
“That’s when they closed down the entire park. I thought you’d have been killed. There’s a lunatic raving about.”
Every puzzle piece falls in its right place, clicking together like something mechanical. Bile fills my mouth, making me retch at the truth of the situation. My suspicions about wondering if he was a real scare-actor all night…
I can’t even think of it.
“Ma’am, we will need to take your statement,” a female cop says, coming up to me.
One pharmaceutical hands me a blanket, draping it over my shoulders and helping me sit down on a bench outside the barn. The barn doors have all been burst open, wood splintering apart at the seams, now wide-open and revealing the tractor beyond. I can’t stop staring at it.
“What were you doing at the tractor? We’ve been looking for it all night.”
I shudder, and Eveline lays my head on my shoulder.
“The tractor?” Eveline questions.
The female cop nods, holding a pen and paper in her hand, while her colleagues are searching the bar for any evidence. “Where the first murder took place. We found the body, couldn’t find the tractor, but that’s as much as I can disclose during an ongoing investigation.” She looks back at her colleagues before turning her gaze to me. “So what were you doing there?”
My world tilts on its axis.
“H-he took me to it.”
She writes furiously in her notepad, but I saw the moment she froze in place, shock settling into her features, which she quickly masked. “He? Who was he?”
I hug my stomach in an attempt to prevent the nausea. “I-I thought he was leading me to safety. I never saw his features. He w-wore a mask.”
The lie flows naturally out of me. I can’t even tell why I’m lying for his sake. I should have suspected it all along… yet I didn’t. Never once did I suspect he could be akiller.
Oh fuck, I’m going to puke.
“Agent Smith, we’ve found something over here.” A voice shouts for the female cop before us, and her gaze is directed at the slaughterhouse.
A crew of medics are wheeling out a stretcher, a white blanket quickly soaked in red covering a form lying underneath. The heavy wind causes the blanket to blow up, and before the medics have the chance to tightly secure it again, I manage to see the person underneath.
