A MoD-Can't-Keep-Track-of-Time Birthday fic for Tune4Toons' birthday. I don't write much anymore but hey, it's better than the shit I tried to pass last year for a birthday gift. So hopefully this doesn't suck.
Tried to make a scary story that didn't suck. I think the story itself doesn't suck. Whether or not it's scary is up to you. I just took advantage of the Gone Girl movie to break out some old and new Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross soundtracks, which are basically my storytelling blood at this rate, and shoot up on it to capture an essence I could use for a story.
Moderate death and gore, lots of tension, not sure if this shoulda been M, but if horror movies that are gruesome as fuck can market themselves to Teens, I can too. Consider it the Halloween Spirit.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, regret nothing, and let them forget nothing. (I say that now, but oy vey)
Have fun?
"I can't believe we still get customers."
"No joke."
As their car passed through the forest at a deceptively mediocre pace, Frank watched the trees they passed. They were planted with the haphazard, disorganized manner that someone who valued speed over efficiency would have done, centuries ago. He could swear that the trees were barely saplings when he was a child, but maybe the changing colors of their leaves on this October evening were deceiving him into musing on the unstoppable force of time they could barely catch up with and had spent far too long consuming.
His thoughts were broken by Paige, who tapped on the dashboard to get his attention, steering with her other hand. "Got the map?" she asked.
"No need," he said, not looking away from his window. "I know this place by heart."
Paige shook her head, but smiled. "So sayeth you now, but I have a feeling you'll be regretting that."
"Trust me. I never forget a place like this."
"A place like this? Seems unremarkable to me."
Frank shook his head. He could see how she'd feel that way; it was nice enough on the surface but unremarkable wouldn't be an incorrect way to describe it to anyone except for him. He'd love to have taken her on a walk through there on an off-day, as he felt that level of trust now, but today was business, not pleasure. "It's anything but, m'dear. It seems so ordinary on the surface, but it's practically a snowglobe for the nature of life. Left here, by the way."
Paige took a hard left onto a dirt road. "So would death be the shaking of the snowglobe?"
"Indeed it would. Death is merely a disruption in the cycle of life. Much like a child picking up a snowglobe and tossing it around. The cycle of life resumes when it is set down once more, resettling to a slightly altered version of its original state."
"It's also why I'd much rather die than have kids."
Frank laughed, thankful that he married someone who could at least agree with him on that.
The road ahead was as rudimentary as you could imagine, but it was effective, with a clear path ahead through the trees, that changed so slightly from tree to tree like a flipbook, growing and changing just a tad each second through the path.
"So what happens when the snowglobe cracks?" Paige asked abruptly, shattering Frank's peaceful thoughts. He frowned, thinking it over as he kept his mind and his eyes on the trees that covered them like a familiar blanket.
He then turned back to Paige, who returned his look out of the corner of a green eye that shone through strands of raven black hair. The eyes of someone who could at once be so innocent yet so weathered characterized someone who managed to keep a light in her heart despite plunging into a world of darkness. Frank longed to have a spirit like that, but sometimes he wondered if his snowglobe was ever intact, so he found it fit to let it into his life instead, to have someone ask him the questions even he didn't know the answers for.
Finally, he answered. "I dare not inquire what would happen were that the case. I don't think reality has an answer for an event like that."
Paige dug through the trunk for their supplies. No briefcases for their business, although there was a manila folder labeled with Memento Mori Incorporated, their codenames Dr. M and P. Mortem, and their quaint slogan: We all have to go someday. Make sure you go out right. Choose Memento Mori Inc. Sometimes when she saw their slogan, she wished that she'd let Frank write it, and wished to handle words with the art that he did. Even then, through their marriage she'd heard more than enough of those words for her, and- on rare occasions- against her.
Thoughts of their ongoing macabre honeymoon phase ran through her head as she prepared the guns and hiking material. As she handed Frank a rifle, she reflected on the intimacy she never expected to experience until she met Frank. Death was still her true passion, but he'd shown her how lovely life could be while they had it. At one time, death was almost the lover she forever embraced, but instead it was a friend she talked to on the weekends, one she couldn't help feel wanted her back. Regardless, she was no longer on the ledge, and it was because of Frank. She hated that she couldn't have saved herself, but she was glad someone did.
They were never the pina-coladas-caught-in-the-rain type of lovers, not that the newlywed owners of an assisted suicide company would be expected as such. Their love was that of late-night trysts and endless days away from the world, passionate unravelings of their shells and a generous mixing of all of their passion, love, and beings together, in a way she'd prior dismissed to things beneath or beyond her. That's what attracted her to Frank: he was dangerous in the best possible way. No other lover she could imagine would plan a company like this with her, but she found the one man who would suggest it. She liked that. Such passion was still so new and novel to her, and at times she felt overwhelmed by it, but she couldn't imagine finding a flaw in bliss just yet. It was a nagging feeling, one she didn't understand or care for, because she liked the exhilaration more than she dared admit.
Still, in some areas he was sloppy, and she was worried this scenario was one of those instances of shoddy company policies.
"So," she began. "Why does our customer want us out here?"
Frank shrugged. "Privacy, I'm assuming. I also don't know why he forewent the cyanide and wanted to go old-school, but who am I to question the future dead?"
"The current living, I'd say."
Frank hmmed. "I'm assuming our customer would want us at his cabin for the sake of dramatics. Make himself look more important than he is."
"I thought the goal was less drama."
"Nothing is more dramatic than suicide. Even masking it in murder."
Paige contemplated his point with awkward silence. Frank decided not to let it rest.
"I doubt anyone would challenge two people with rifles like ours. If they do, clearly they did not think something through."
Paige slammed the trunk shut, not noticing the keychain stuck in the crack of the trunk as she reached in her pocket for her phone. "Lemme just shut this thing off," she clarified, before finding a message. Rolling her eyes, she clicked it. It read:
"From: Mommie Dearest
To: Me
When are you and yours coming for dinner? Thought we were expecting you tonight."
"Christ Almighty." She began punching in a reply, as she felt Frank watch her with amusement. The last thing she needed was some pestering from the woman who kept holding onto the blonde angel in the pink dresses she'd long let go of.
She wrote: "It's 4 in the afternoon. We'll be there after work. Love you."
She shoved her phone down in her pocket. As she did, Frank said "I'm surprised you still have service out here."
"Yeah, well…" she mumbled as they walked down the dirt road towards a nearby trail leading into the forest. "I'm pretty sure Mom built phone towers just to keep her eye on me."
"You needn't waste your time pandering if it frustrates you."
"I don't wanna press my luck with the family," she responded. "They're very particular. You know how she responded when I said we were getting married. If something as simple as age difference can set her off, she'd have a heart attack if she realized we kill people for a living. She'd be as red as her hair."
"Quite frankly I'd consider that another successful job."
Paige snickered at Frank's retort, but not without a dash of pain. She knew of Frank's distrust of parental units despite being old enough to be hers, but she was barely 22. She wasn't disillusioned with life quite enough to have that same apathy that he did towards some things. If she didn't consider family important, she'd never have invited him into it.
The sunset illuminated their path in explosive rays of scarlet and purple, but as it dimmed, she dug a headlamp out of her jacket pocket and placed it on her head, following the trail. She noticed that Frank didn't do the same, and elbowed him. He jolted from the impact, and she saw his gaze move away from the skyline and towards his personal being. He, too, put on his headlamp.
"What do you see in these trees?" she asked him. This place hadn't come up in their conversations; hell, she'd never known that it was important to him until now. There was still so much more time to learn, and so much to teach.
Frank shrugged. "It's a good place to contemplate life. I come here often for that reason. Silence, natural beauty, the company of beings one can only hope to understand. It's the closest thing to spirituality that one can hope for."
"So this is kind of like your church."
"I wouldn't say anybody here respects me any more than any god does. Neither one is particularly happy to have me meddling in their affairs."
She shrugged. "The devil's more fun anyway." As she said it, she felt that she didn't mean it, but that it'd sound snazzy anyways.
"So you say," he replied, "although I'd caution you away from taking on such risky business."
Paige rolled her eyes. She already had two parents constantly nagging her about questionable decisions. She didn't need one of those decisions to become the third voice. "There's a 38 year old man with a gun right behind me. I married him and now we run a business about killing people. If anyone has no right to remark on my risk-taking, it's the man I let in my pants."
Frank cracked a grin. "Your wit is as beautiful as your eyes."
"And you're the only one who could turn me on by talking about snowglobes."
The two stopped hiking and exchanged a brief kiss. Paige loved the feeling of the quick spark between them, but as soon as she pulled away she felt something was amiss, like a sailor who'd been at sea for too long. She continued to walk through the forest, enjoying the silence more than she enjoyed the words, because it brought her down to Earth in a way she hadn't felt in so long. She closed her eyes, feeling the earth beneath her feet, certain she knew where she was going. She just wanted to focus on the job, and drown herself later.
Her tranquility was interrupted by a branch, causing her to trip for a moment before finding her way back to her feet. Before Frank could ask, she said "I'm all good." Reluctantly, she kept her eyes open in order to be in control of her own fate, even if it came with a trip back to reality. This wasn't the time to be Paige Manson. Right now, it was time for them to be Dr. Mario and Peach Mortem, administrators of death.
The silence was relaxing to Frank, and it reminded him of all the times this place had given such peace to him. Silence molded Frank into who he was; silence during the explosive family fights, silence in response to the names and insults used against him, silence to the diagnoses he never paid much attention to, silence at the funeral of the father who had torn him apart harder than the rope tore his neck, silence until the day one of the biology students opened him up in a way he'd never expected. He'd been teaching at the college for ten years but at this point he'd lost track of who the student and teacher was between the two of them. Nothing was stable or reliable between them other than an undercurrent of romance. Nothing at all seemed stable in his life except for the blissful silence in this haven he considered a second home.
"Son of a fucker!"
Even before Frank could open his eyes, he felt a dull thrashing near his feet. He readied his rifle by instinct, only stopping when he looked at the situation and saw the injured woman. He looked at an astonished Paige, who pointed at the arrow in her neck and in the tree nearby.
"Gruesome," he murmured.
The woman thrashed in response, screaming silently. It was clear that her breath was halted by her wound, and all the thrashing in the world couldn't rip her away from the tree she was pinned to. Blood loosely spattered her camo jacket and snow pants, and her ski cap was clenched between her fingers.
Paige covered her hand with her mouth, her eyes blazing with fascination and disgust. Frank felt an intense need to comfort her, but he knew that now wasn't the time. He hoped that she could handle herself fine without him. Indeed, even now she took a deep breath and bent down by the woman, tenderly trying to observe the wound. This only caused more thrashing.
"Yo hon, can I get a second opinion?"
"On what?"
"On whether or not she's fucked?"
Frank already knew the answer before he kneeled down by the injured party, but granted Paige a closer inspection. The arrow pierced right through her throat and tore her windpipe, and it was amazing that she had not died yet. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her gaze- helpless, pleading with words she could not say anymore, desperate. He dared not return her gaze lest he become weak, because the second he removed the arrow all it would accomplish was allowing her to stumble around for a minute's time, gasping for breath that she'd never hold.
He shook his head, and walked away.
Paige jerked her head as her husband left the women alone, taking his gun with him. She closed her eyes, knowing it was futile to convince him otherwise. She let him walk, and looked at the lady straight in the eye. The desperation had blown to static panic, and Paige knew that she knew.
"How did this happen?" Paige asked, before remembering that the woman couldn't speak. "Fuck, I…"
She couldn't finish her thought, feeling utterly useless. She closed her eyes, and when she was sure that Frank wasn't watching, she performed the sign of the cross over the woman, nodding softly like her mother would do. The woman responded by shaking her head frantically, scaring Paige as she knew the inevitable was happening. She took her rifle and ran.
"I'm sorry," Frank told her as she approached him. Paige shrugged it off, readying her rifle.
Just as she began to aim, the woman began shaking so violently that it caught her off guard, and she set her rifle down again. Paige looked over at Frank and said, with a hint of spite, "this is your deal."
She could tell that the tone wasn't lost on Frank, who seemed slightly bamboozled, but he began to ready his rifle as well. Just as he was about to shoot, a violent rip was heard as the woman jerked so hard she ripped the arrow right out of her throat, slicing through her neck and leaving her stumbling along the ground.
"Oh fuck."
Spooked, Paige launched away from the woman. Holding her rifle, she followed just behind him. A part of her hated the fact that she was cowering behind her man, but she excused it, because a lifetime facing the judgment of others left her skilled at playing defense. Her eyes didn't leave the woman who was flailing for life, transfixed by the ugliness of the situation. Paige had always been fascinated by death, but disgusted by murder.
"Dude, just let her go," Paige insisted as Frank locked onto his target. He didn't respond, or even act like he heard her, to her chagrin.
"Excuse me," she continued with more force. Still no response.
"Frank, stop."
Frank responded by readying the shot. Paige sighed and turned away, listening to the erratic thumps on the ground as they faded abruptly with a single, thunderous gunshot. Not bothering to look back, she began to walk away.
"Watch out for flying arrows," she cautioned Frank, hoping the quip would divert attention from her behavior. She heard his footsteps behind him, crunching the dirt and leaves with more force than hers, feeling back in sync as if nothing had happened. As they went on, she couldn't help but feel like a set of eyes were scrutinizing her, as if unsure of if she was like she said she was. As she went through the forest, she wondered if those eyes were her own.
She closed them, bathing in the silence, baptizing herself in the neutral realm of blind silence. She broke it before she could trip and fall on her face, but she would have been happy to stay there forever. Perhaps that's what interested her about death- no matter who you were, what you were like, what your life was, death would take you with no bias whatsoever. Such absolute neutrality was something Paige felt was the only fair thing in the world.
Frank had his fill of silence about fifteen minutes of walking the trail. At this point, he wasn't sure if Paige knew where she was going anymore, or if she cared. He hadn't expected her to react as bitterly as she did to something they did on a daily basis. Death was death, and he thought she knew that. His concern for her was starting to become overshadowed by his annoyance at her shift in behavior, but he remained silent up until this point. There was a job to do, a mission bigger than either of them. This was the mission his family needed after his father offed himself, and he wasn't going to let them down now.
"I'm pretty sure we're supposed to have found a cabin by now," he called to her. She stopped, and let Frank catch up to him. "Are you sure we've taken the right path?"
"Only one way to find out," she replied with a smirk. Frank just shrugged, and let her lead the way. The tension still remained in the space between them, and Frank could feel it resonating through his bones. He cleared the distance and took a stand next to her. To his relief, she let him.
He knew asking if she was okay was never the way to go about it. She'd talk about something if she felt like it, not if you pressed her. The best way was to talk about something else and see if it'd lead into things.
"How are you liking this forest?"
Paige just shrugged. Playing hard to get, as usual. Frank was up for a challenge anyways.
"You would never believe how many important decisions I've made here. Teaching Biology, striking out from home, coping after my father passed, deciding to marry you, starting this business here. I've done a lot in this forest, for both of us."
"And am I just another decision?" She spat back, walking away from him. Frank couldn't help but wonder what he said. He tried to catch up again, but she quickened her pace.
Frank slapped his forehead in frustration. "Don't act like a child!"
She stopped cold. Frank's relief was short-lived. "I will seriously shoot your nuts off if you call me that again," she warned him.
Frank threw his hands up as if she actually had taken aim on him. "My apologies."
Paige sighed, and turned away again. To his surprise, she began to speak. "I thought you were smart enough to take the hint, doc. Give me some space."
Now Frank was really concerned. "You haven't called me doc since the first paper you turned in," he told her, adding in a faux-professional tone. "Please, Miss Johansson, call me Frank."
Paige shook her head, but she was snickering. "I also recall that I spent a good chunk of that paper correcting your fuck-ups. Also, right now, it's Doctor and Mrs. Mortem."
Frank caught the hint. "Right. Talk later?"
Paige responded by walking away again, shrugging. Frank let her, rolling his eyes. It wasn't until her pace quickened that he started to see something through the forest. He ran after her, allowing it to come into focus through the blur of motion and rain. Finally, he could make out a rudimentary log cabin, straight out of a Kinkade painting. He half-expected an All-American family to greet him, but there was no one there except for his wife, fair as could be through three layers of clothing. He figured he was no sight himself, with enough bulk to justify one less layer of clothing and enough hair to light a fire, but between the two of them it'd be the perfect family portrait- two childless lovers, one student one teacher, standing in front of the place of their next self-afflicted hit, smirks all around.
Paige knocked at the door, but there was no response. "Rude," she huffed. As Frank joined her, she knocked again, louder and with less grace. One hard hit was enough to creak the door open, where it slid with an eerie creak.
Frank shot Paige an apprehensive look. Paige rolled her eyes, and walked in without a word. Embarrassed at her lack of patience, he compensated. "Uhm, we're coming through. It's Doctor Mortem, from… Memento Mori. Pardon us, the door was… open."
He carefully creaked the door shut, listening to Paige's footsteps echo through what seemed to be a perfectly empty cabin. When they stopped, he noticed, trying to follow the sounds that had disappeared. Another thud was enough to make him run. A sharp, brief shriek nearly had him bounding through the walls.
"Paige!" he called, her code name a distant memory. He ran into a room with a fireplace, scanning frantically for her. He felt a sharp slap on his arm, and nearly jumped through the ceiling. He noticed it was her, and sighed in relief.
"Glad you're-"
She slapped him again. "Fucking. Look."
She pointed above the fireplace, near the top of the chimney. Frank followed her gaze to the sight in question. He dropped his gun right next to hers with a shout.
"It's her."
Paige felt like she was going to vomit, or shoot herself in the gut, whichever instinct came first. She had no clue what she'd gotten herself into, but she wanted out. Now.
"Frank, let's just leave," she pleaded frantically. "Let's just go, I wanna go, come on." He didn't budge, so she slapped him again. "Frank, for the love of god, let's get out of here, we're gonna get killed out here, what the fuck is wrong with you?"
Frank reacted to the slap like he'd been shot out of a daze, and recoiled dramatically across the room, landing on a half-broken wooden table. It crack under his weight with a loud snap. Paige reacted with horror as a nail dug itself into Frank's leg. He winced, but managed not to scream. Of course he'd try and keep it quiet now that their cover was blown.
She pulled him up to his feet, where he stood unevenly. "Drama queen," she snapped.
"Says the woman who nearly yelled the house down."
Paige had to grab her slap hand with her other one to keep herself from pummeling her pain-in-the-ass husband. She instead pointed to the head pinned and mounted on the wall, staring with a blank version of the desperation that Paige couldn't get out of her mind for the last twenty minutes. "That isn't enough fucking reason to be scared shitless? We just killed her. Or, rather, you just killed her, and now she's here."
Frank scoffed. "That very well may have been our job."
"I didn't sign up to be someone's taxidermist!" she hissed. "I saw the look on her face. She may have been dying, but she didn't want to die."
"Our job is-"
"Our job is to let people who want to go ahead and die do that," she said. "To provide suicide without shame, right? Not to provide murder without reprieve. And if you'd listen to me then you'd know why I'd been so apprehensive about this shit. Now we're about to get our heads right up next to that wall, so let's get the hell out of here."
Frank shrugged. "If we just lost out on a thousand dollars, then I'm blaming late rent on you."
"That's fine. I'll blame being victims of a serial killer on you."
Part of Paige wanted to stick around so she could watch Frank's smug, condescending attitude be smeared all over the floor in his blood, but she knew such anger would pass. It always did. The two began to walk out, Paige faster than the others, when she tripped over something else.
"What the fuck now?" she moaned, pulling herself up. Before she could turn around, Frank shoved her out of the way, saying "Go!"
Now that she was being told what to do, she felt a need to not do it. "I'll go when I'm good and ready," she snapped.
"Just trust me!" he ordered. "You want to be safe, right?"
The reminder of safety was enough to overrule her stubbornness, and she complied, busting out of the door of the cabin and running outside. She hid behind the wall, not willing to leave without her partner. She took deep breaths, trying to pace herself, desperate for sanity. She closed her eyes and took in the silence of the forest, desperate for the neutral comfort of knowing she was just as capable as anyone.
The silence was torn into pieces by another gunshot. "Frank?" she called, feeling the knotted heat of panic deep in her gut. She moved around the back of the cabin, fumbling for a window to see through. She swallowed, terrified to see what was in there, expecting to find the dead body of her husband in there, gone before she could apologize for being so bitchy and violent, even if he did kind of deserve it in that moment.
She looked through to see him running out, rifle in hand. She sighed in relief, performing the sign of the cross over her chest, just like her mother always taught her. Out of morbid curiosity, she looked down at the floor of the cabin to see a gruesome sight- mangled, torn limbs, one with a gun in their hand, and a formless pile of red- red skin, red blood, and red hair-
"Oh. Oh no."
She couldn't find the voice to scream, to panic, to beg God for mercy or understanding like she'd always done behind closed doors, where she could at least try to act like the normal girl her mother wanted. She was as helpless as the woman on the wall, and as desperate for salvation, the salvation the dead woman on the ground said was the only way out of life. For once in her life, she believed her mother.
By instinct and nothing more, she ran out from behind the cabin and met Frank in front of it, a look of horror in her eyes. All she could do was stare at Frank, silently pleading for an answer.
Frank placed a hand on her shoulder. "She had a gun. She was almost dead. There was nothing I could do."
That voice. That patronizing voice, that attempt to comfort a child. A voice that judged her just like the rest, had made a preconceived notion of her and assigned her to it. She hated it, she hated what it had done, and what it was capable of. She let out a bloodcurdling shriek that was enough to scare the leaves off of their branches, one of rage that drowned out the sorrow.
She shoved him aside and ran away down the path from where she came, feeling the ground beneath every step, fleeing like it was about to disappear from underneath her. When her feet hit another branch, she did, falling flat on her face.
As she picked herself up, she saw her husband trying to catch up, but hobbling due to the injury in his leg. Even from there, she could see the gash in his pants, the blood seeping through. It seemed worse than ever before. She let him catch up slowly to his side, still staring him down as if her looks could in fact kill.
"I hate you," she hissed. "I fucking hate you."
"Don't…" Frank insisted, struggling for breath. "Just… know that I never wanted this."
"Then why couldn't we just have fucking stopped when I asked you to? This is all your doing. We're dead because of you. She's dead because of you!"
As if on cue, more shots rang through the air, in the distance away from them.
"You see?!"
"Run." He ordered.
"I can't!" she replied back as she followed his hobbling steps. "I'm not just going to leave you like this."
"I thought you hated me."
More shots rang through the air, followed by a dangerously close whizzing. Before Paige could react, an arrow buried itself in a nearby tree. The mud started to cave through her boots, and she ran again, slowly to keep time with him.
"Not the fucking time for a marital dispute!"
Frank tried to keep up, but to little avail. "Don't panic," he told her. "Remember not to panic."
Paige felt her heart break a little more. "Stop it, just stop it. I'm going to be okay."
Frank pressed on. "You are going to be okay. I'm here. We're in this together."
Another gunshot. Paige picked up the pace, forcing Frank to push harder.
"I'm not the broken bird anymore," she told him. "I'm perfectly capable of getting us out of here, but that starts with you getting your act together and stop getting so introspective."
"Don't lose your cool now, hon," he insisted, his footsteps shaky.
"I'm not your fucking daughter!" She began to pull at his jacket, losing patience with him. Another arrow hit just behind where their feet once were, and another where their feet were about to go. Paige and Frank stopped, finally understanding fear.
"I'm going to die," Paige moaned, her breath becoming more rapid.
"Paige, don't panic," Frank insisted. "This place is a haven for us. Enjoy the silence. Breathe it in. Close your eyes for just a moment. You can find the strength to do what you need to do."
Something in Paige snapped, and she wasn't sure if it was the right or wrong move, just the move she needed to make. She shot Frank a look that was both cold and warm at the same time, one of love and one of emotional separation. This forest was a place of impartiality and complete fairness. The silence was what she needed to decide that.
"Babe, you enjoy it too. Take it in."
Frank looked down at the ground, hobbed on one leg, barely breathing. Nothing left to hide, Paige performed the sign of the cross over his chest and kissed him on top of his head.
Before Frank could return it, she lifted her rifle and shot him point-blank in the head.
He fell to the ground, but not before she was bathed in his blood. She felt like vomiting for so many reasons, but now wasn't the time to give up. She ran without looking back, just as she'd done for her mother and the woman with the arrow. She heard another arrow whizzing behind her. It was followed by the sound of it hitting what Paige knew was flesh. The sound of death, the smell of death, the idea of death revisited her from the lecture she gave him in her first paper to Dr. Manson, and that was enough for her to let him go.
She broke off of the path silently, not wanting to lead the shooter on a path. She looked to her right to see another arrow shoot by, followed by three gunshots that were nowhere near her. She looked briefly in the direction of the arrows, but saw no one. Instead of panicking, she found relief in the absence of a villain. This was all about her.
As she pressed on through the foliage, it became thicker. Darkness crept in but her headlamp helped her through the bramble. She tripped again, but stayed upright. She wasn't going to fall again, not anymore. She trudged through, ripping ivy up with her boots, wiping her hair out of her eyes. She would enjoy the darkness and the silence later.
Another arrow came by, and again Paige turned to try and find a source. It wasn't there, but another body was. Suddenly, she felt like a scared little girl again. Barely moving and pinned to the tree, another set of eyes gazed down at her, arrows in his hands and feet, five feet off the ground. Paige wanted to vomit, but she simply performed the sign of the cross, and let the crucified victim find his own end.
Several more bodies were along the wall, barely moving or already dead. Many screamed silently, audible only by wheezing breath. Some of them met her gaze, as she couldn't take her eyes off of them. Others wouldn't look at her for help, acknowledging their fate. All of this was decorated by more arrows and gunshots to nowhere. Paige found it as fascinating as it was gruesome, her fear melting away into a state without emotion.
Her feet hit solid ground again, and she found that she was back on the dirt trail. She realized she was almost out of the forest, and would never have to return again. Like most of her life, it would change. She would never have to know who did this to her. She would never have to worry about the eyes of others, because the eyes of an unnamed angel of death was enough to make every human irrelevant. She kept thinking of that, chanting it to herself under her breath.
"Nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. Nothing else matters."
The clearing met her with the salvation of the car. She ran straight to the driver's seat, rifle still in hand, bundled clothes still buffering her from the world. She yanked the handle and dove in. She slammed the door only to realize she had no keys.
She swore again and looked behind her to see if she'd thrown them in the backseat. It was only until she saw the trunk that she realized what she'd done.
She let out a whimper of fear when she realized she'd have to go outside once more, but began to push the door open. Another arrow whizzed by, popping her back tire. She cringed, and leapt inside the car again.
The car wouldn't run, the radio wouldn't play, and Paige couldn't hear a single thought run through her head. She clutched her gun and let her raven black hair enclose her from the world, ready for whatever fight death threw at her. Taking her strength from blind silence, she cocked the gun and waited. Death didn't take sides, but that didn't mean she couldn't fight back. Her body shook for what she'd lost and what she knew was over, but she didn't care. She felt tears stream down her face and disappear into her jacket. She heard more gunshots and more barely-distant hissing of the arrows pass by the car, and then dissipate. She didn't know where she was going, where she was heading, but she didn't care. She'd let it all go and was as clear, transparent, and indifferent as death itself.
As far as she was concerned, there was never a snowglobe at all.