Dennis prided himself on being thorough. This was something he and Patricia and some of the others had planned for months, although they hadn't been set on one particular girl in mind. Dennis was really the one who chose the girl for the privilege of what they needed to do, and this girl, Casey, she ended up being the perfect choice (in his eyes at least).

Getting her out of the car while she was still unconscious and under the sedative effects of the chloroform spray proved easy. He'd simply went over to her side, unbuckled her seat belt, and had picked the girl up into his arms. The girl was light as a feather, hardly weighing anything, he thought. He left the keys in the car and left it running where it was, a few meters away from the area where he was intending to have her live with them until He arrived. That way, even if the car was found, it wouldn't be easy to lead it back to his whereabouts and where the girl was taken.

Once he reached the gates, he shifted the girl a little in his left arm while pulling his yellow handkerchief out of his pocket with his free hand. He wiped the gate thoroughly before unlocking it with his keys, the girl's head lolling around on his shoulder. Fortunately, it was deserted outside and dark. No one would dare catch them and, even if they did, Dennis was fairly confident he'd be able to take care of it easily.

As the gate creaked open, he looked around quickly, making sure it was in fact completely deserted, his surroundings. No cars went past down the street and there were no people in sight. Adjusting the girl into his arms again, he slipped through the gate then grabbed his handkerchief again, using it over his palm and fingers in order to swing the gate shut instead of having to use his hands and risk the chance of catching any unpleasant bacteria.

One swift turn of the key and the gate was locked, and it was then Dennis felt a sudden thrill, a sudden surge of excitement filter through him. It wasn't often he felt something such as excitement lately, but there was huge sense of accomplishment there, of fulfillment.

He'd done it. He'd actually done it.

He'd gotten an Impure, a pretty piece of sacred food, for His homecoming. And there she was, in his arms, utterly still and not screaming, passed out and breathing heavily from the sedative effects of the chloroform gas. Important of all, was that soon... soon...

Soon no one would doubt them and what they were capable of.

Soon He would be arriving and no one would make fun of them ever again.

Once he got inside with the girl, he laid her down on the cool linoleum flooring that covered the ground. Her head lolled again, as if she was slowly regaining her conscious bit by bit, but that didn't matter. There would be nowhere for her to go now, nowhere for her to run.

Sighing loudly, he straightened the bottom of his dress shirt while he stood beside the girl sprawled out on the ground, marveling at his work. Patricia would be pleased. Or, well, at least he hoped she would be, with his accomplishment. The girls arms were hanging limply at her sides, her hair a dark net spread out around her as she slept off the gas. She looked almost angelic, he thought, as he cocked his head, watching her.

He'd seen quite a few pretty girls in his time, but her... this Casey, she definitely took the cake. She was the prettiest of all, and if they hadn't- No. He stopped himself from finishing that thought as an uncomfortable pickling heat of shame hit his cheeks. He shouldn't be thinking this way, particularly not when Patricia or any of the others could overhear him.

They had a purpose for her. No matter how pretty he found her, they had a purpose.

Dennis adjusted his glasses with a sigh, giving his arms and shoulders a little shake, readying his muscles for what he had to do next.

Then he bent down, grasping the girls hands. He began dragging her along slowly down the corridor. The beams of light above the walls flickered incessantly. He tried to keep his eyesight away from the girl as he dragged and slid her down the long corridor towards the room he'd built strictly for the ones of them that had her exact purpose.

No looking at her prettiness. No touching.

...

Casey felt so tired, so heavy. As if it took all of her energy to even simply open her eyes- energy that she couldn't even muster up right then.

She could feel both the material of her sweater and her singlet riding up over her back, her skin greeting cold hard floor below her. She felt the sense of moving slowly, of being dragged. Faintly, in the distance, it seemed, she could hear an electrical pulse, like the sizzling of a light flickering on and off. And footsteps. She could hear footsteps from someone near her head too.

When she finally managed to muster up that energy, she forced her eyelids to pop open, her eyes catching a dank hard surface above her from the ceiling. Dull concrete with plain white paint. A bright beam of luminescence from what she had correctly assumed was a flickering light caught at the corner of her eyes, making them start to weep. Little black dots formed her vision.

Thirsty. She was so unbearably thirsty, Casey realized. Her lips felt stuck together, dried together with no moisture. She used her tongue to part her lips, licking at them tentatively as a spasm of panic darted through her at the cold, dank unfamiliar surroundings they she had woken in.

But then her eyes. Her eyes began to grow heavy again, a fatigue unlike anything she had ever felt overcoming her again. Maybe a drink to moisten her mouth and hydrate her would have to wait. The follicles of her long hair pulled and snagged against the floor and beneath her shoulders as she continued to feel that peculiar sensation of floating, of being dragged.

And then she let her eyes fall shut again.

...

Dennis left her at the door as he opened it, getting the room ready.

It had taken a while to prepare everything for this moment to come. He'd spent hours in the room, preparing it, making sure it was ready and that there was no chance of the sacred food to escape. In his view, the room was the exact definition of faultless.

He'd had to put a bit of work in to make sure it was completely secure. Although he wasn't an expert at building or a carpenter of any sort, Dennis thought he'd worked well and resourcefully. He'd made sure the room was completely sealed, and had thought of various ways someone could attempt to escape. The room was virtually inescapable.

Wrenching his folded handkerchief out of his trouser pocket, he bent down towards the frame of the bed, running it along the edges to collect some of the dust that had gathered there. Everything had to be clean and presentable- especially the girl, and he knew that.

Satisfied, he turned back towards where he'd left the girl, grabbing her again. She couldn't have weighed more than 120 pounds, he estimated, and she was so easy. Reaching the bed, he bent down, scooping the girl up into his arms again, heaving and rolling her onto the bed with a grunt. She was so limp, so lifeless, but oh so warm.

He couldn't resist it one last time. Hastily, Dennis reached down with a shaking hand, curling his fingers into a fist. He let his knuckles scrape against the girl's cheekbone, admiring the softness, the warmth of her. She was puffing out small breathes through her lips as she slept off the sleeping gas.

It was the first time they'd had a girl alone, it occurred to him. He'd spent countless years throughout Kevin's childhood being the protector, the comforter. But all of them hadn't actually had a girl close to them before, a pretty young woman's company. Even when Kevin had started high school, even Barry, or Luke and Orwell- high school was spent getting through bullies and surviving.

Not ever having friends or having someone hang around them that was even remotely close to a 'girlfriend'. There was Dr. Fletcher, their psychiatrist, but she wasn't what Dennis would ever consider a girlfriend.

All their lives, it had been just them. A solitary life, a rather lonely one.

As Dennis stood back slowly while shoving both hands deep into his trouser pockets in case he began to feel tempted again, eyes fixated on the girl, an unfamiliar feeling swelled in his gut.

Maybe for once they all wouldn't be so lonely after all? Maybe this was their chance?

Pity. If only... if only she wasn't their chosen one, the food in the end that would sustain Him and start to rid the world of all filth.

...

Some countless hours or minutes later, Casey slowly regained consciousness.

The first thing that she became aware of was that she was lying on something spongy and soft, like a bed or cushion or something. She opened her eyes slowly, finding herself laying on her stomach, the side of her face pressed against a mattress.

Second thing she was aware of, was that horrible dry taste in her mouth. Water. She needed water or something to drink so badly.

Lifting her hands, she braced them on either side of her, pushing up slowly. All her limbs and muscles felt strangely weak and tired, as if she'd just used them energetically for hours and now she was suffering the pain of it. Pursing her lips, she forced her groggy eyes forward, surveying where she was.

It was a completely unfamiliar room. Old wooden planks and nails lined the wall furthest from her, where a door was with a single, small doorknob. Rolling slightly on her side, she glanced around, blinking heavily- her eyes and vision still oddly groggy and grainy. A bathroom came into view, all white tiled and immaculately clean. There was a sink with a white flower laid above it. A shower and bath with a see-through curtain. What she almost assumed was a toilet in there as well.

Nothing about the room was familiar at all. How did she even come to get here?

Pushing herself up by her elbows, she sat up fully, sweeping a few strands of her long dark hair out of her eyes. It was so confusing. She had no idea where or why she was there at all. Until...

Fractured memories of the last few hours came to her. Her Uncle calling her asking where she was. Him coming to pick her up in his car. Then-

Then that man, the one who had watched her through the barbed-wire fence at school, commenting on his disgusting it was that she'd had a mark on her sleeve. Just like that, it all made sense and she remembered.

That guy... Dennis? He'd said his name was Dennis. He'd brought her here. He'd taken her and had placed her in this room.

Sitting up straighter, she brought her legs up towards her chest, hardly caring her Converse sneakers were on the bed. There was some sort of stone work near her bed, a stone wall with a few small lights that lit it up softly. She glanced around again. Still, no matter how many times she looked around, she still couldn't make much sense of it all.

So she understood now, that this 'Dennis' guy had taken her and put her here. She just wasn't entirely sure of what his intentions were with her.

He'd sprayed something on her- she'd recalled that much as well. Something that clearly had some sleeping effect on her. She couldn't exactly recall anything after that happening. He'd sprayed something on purpose at her to make her pass out because he'd gotten irritated by her questions.

And now, here she was, in a room, all by herself. Where was this 'Dennis' guy anyway? Was this his house?

Her eyes flew to the immaculate in-built bathroom again. The white tiles shone brightly, they were so clean. This obviously had to be his house. If her first impressions of the man were correct, he was obviously a clean freak. Maybe even bordering on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, judging by how freaked out and stressed he was at there mere sight of a small, smudged blood smeared stain on her jacket sleeve.

If so, then... what did he want with her? Her mind ran with so many questions as she held her knees in to her chest, rocking a little. And her Uncle John. He'd clearly hit her Uncle before jacking his car. Was her Uncle alive or was he... dead? Had he just knocked him out?

Disturbingly, Casey realized she didn't feel how she probably ought to have felt at the idea of her Uncle John being dead. If he was truly gone, if this 'Dennis' guy had in fact fatally hurt him... Was it terrible that she felt nothing but an almost odd sense of calm and relief at the thought? Uncle John had been the last living member of her family and yet... the idea of him potentially being dead, it hardly phased her at all. If anything, she felt utterly emotionless and almost apathetic to the fact. So what did that make her- a terrible human being?

Her confused and racing thoughts came to a sudden screeching crash when she heard the noise. The doorknob near the door jiggled.

He was coming back for her. To do what, exactly?

Swallowing against a dry lump in her throat, Casey rocked back closest against the stone wall behind her, feeling immediately tense and alert, like a gazelle being alerted to the sound of a lion approaching. The door knob jiggled once more, then it slowly creaked open. She held her breath, stomach tensing.

And him. He appeared suddenly, hand pushing the door open, fingers wrapped tightly around the door knob. The instance it opened and he appeared, his eyes went straight to her, staring at her through the black rimmed glasses. He was still wearing his odd 'military' all plain grey uniform. Only thing different now, Casey saw as she watching him warily, was that he held something wooden in his other arm. He was carrying something.

He did not speak as he stepped into the room that she was essentially caged in. He only opened up that wooden thing, unfolding it, which it occurred to her a second later was simply a fold-out chair. His eyes remained on her, unwavering and intense, even as he yanked that same yellow handkerchief she had seen him use before. He bent at the knees, wiping the chair several times, as if making it clean before he sat.

It confirmed Casey's initial suspicions. Yes, the man indeed was anal about cleanliness.

He stood in front of the chair, folding up that handkerchief into neat little squares before shoving it back inside his trouser pocket. Then, as if satisfied, he hitched up his grey trousers and sat down. Casey's stomach lurched with the unknown of what was to come next and, unconsciously, she pulled her knees in tighter to her chest, wrapping her arms protectively around her jean-clad legs nervously.

It felt as if an eternity went past as this 'Dennis' stared at her while folding his arms against his chest. Casey never knew a man's stare could be so disturbing before, so intense. She fidgeted uncontrollably with her sleeves, yanking them over her knuckles with her fingers for something to do as his unnerving stare continued to bore into her. It was so silent in the room that Casey felt as if she couldn't even hear him- or herself- breathing.

Was he waiting for her to say something? Or... what? Was he finally going to explain what his intentions were?

He had that weird look on his face again, that jaw-set, sucking-on-something-unpalatable look, the corners of his lips pulled downward, eyebrows furrowed. Then Casey thought she saw his eyes drop to her sneakers for the briefest second from where they were, on the bed, as she held herself still. She tilted her head forward slightly, aware that strands of her hair were falling into the sides of her face, yet she didn't care on brushing it out of the way. If anything, it made her feel better, the hair covering her face. The less he could stare at, the better.

And then he cleared his throat, hoarsely and curtly. "Take your shoes off the bed," he finally spoke, breaking that disturbing silence between them where he'd just simply gawked at her. Casey noticed it was a hard order; His voice was demanding, yet it also was tinged with a sense of urgency.

It took her a moment to get her head straight. She blinked at him, mouth falling open. "Um, W-what?"

"Your shoes," he repeated, letting his arms fall to his sides. Casey watched numbly as he raised a hand, pointing it towards the place where her shoes were, on the mattress for emphasize. "Get them off the bed." His voice shook a little as he let his impatience show, and if Casey was not mistaken, she realized this was him freaking out again. First about the stain on her jacket and now... this.

"O-oh." Weakly, she uncrossed her ankles, pushing her feet slowly off the bed. The tips of her Converse sneakers fell on the floor heavily.

He crossed his arms over his chest again, lifting his chin and head slightly higher, as if satisfied, happy by her actions. Then, without warning he stood from the chair briskly and grabbed it, snapping it shut. Before Casey could manage to ask anything or scream out anymore questions to get some answers into his motives, 'Dennis' stiffly turned his back on her and strode briskly out of the room.

Not even bothering to glance back at her or say anything else, he slammed the door shut behind him. All Casey could do was sit as she was, staring blankly at the spot the man had just left, blinking heavily, dazed.

Nothing made sense to her at all.

...

Casey had no idea how long she sat there for, frozen, staring absently around the room.

She had no idea what the time currently was or what her Uncle John's state was. There was no window in the room to look out of, to judge the time. She didn't have her phone on her or anything to contact her Uncle with, not anything to call the police or raise the alarm for her with. Everything that she did have, before, had obviously been left behind, in her backpack, in her Uncle's car.

After a while, sitting around thinking became unbearable. She could really use a drink. Pushing up off her sneakers, she moved cautiously towards the clean bathroom, peeking in. For a moment there, Casey had almost expected another person to pop out. Or even something grotesque like a dead body be found in the bathtub. Her mind must have been playing tricks on her because there was nothing there.

Trying to be quiet as she didn't want to alert the man to her movement and the fact that she were now moving around, doing things, she reached the sink and pushed the tap on, running cold water.

She scooped her long hair back away from her neck with one hand as she bent down, her other hand going beneath the tap water, cupping it. As a decent amount of cool water streamed into her hand, she lifted it up towards her mouth, slurping it in and swallowing it down greedily.

The first mouthful of water soothed her dry mouth wonderfully and she sighed in relief before putting her hand under the stream again, slurping at and throwing some more of the cool water over her overheated face and panicked, tired eyes.

Once she felt done and no longer thirsty, she switched off the tap and went out of the bathroom while wiping her wet hands dry on the back of her jeans. It was then she heard it, in the silence in the room. Voices. Two voices. Casey felt her breath hitch in her throat, an immediate surge of hope filling up her chest as she paced towards the wooden door slowly- the one, sole exit out of the room.

She heard someone speak again- someone's voice that was not Dennis's and that hope grew even more profound as she flung herself up against the wood, craning her neck sideways and pressing her ear against the door.

A woman. There was that Dennis guy's voice, and then a woman's. A woman!

"Dennis, admit what you've done." There. Casey leaned closer, trying to hear everything she could through the door. The woman had an accent, her voice a lilting English. There was something weirdly comforting about her voice; It was barely above a whisper, yet clear enough that Casey could hear every word she spoke from her place eavesdropping through the door in the room.

"Don't get upset." Dennis. Dennis spoke this time, and Casey thought he sounded irritated. Irritated and impatient, as if the woman were overreacting. "This is for all of us."

"For all of us? For Him, you mean?"

"Yes, I mean for Him as well. Just don't get upset."

"Don't tell me, I'm getting frightened. I could hear you- just the slightest, faintest snippet of what's going on in your mind." The English woman again. Whatever they were speaking in reference to, Casey could hear the hint of panic in her voice, laced with a genuine-sounding amount of concern. "I thought you'd had this all under control, this little thing of yours?"

"Well, the food is waiting."

"Do you mean to tell me that she is in that room? Already?" Casey faintly heard the sound of high heels clicking against the floor. It sounded as if the English woman was approaching the door, about to open it, to see her.

Casey reared back immediately on the balls of her feet, swiftly backing away from the door as the clacking of heels grew even louder and closer. He lived with a woman, a woman who clearly was not expecting her to be in the room. Would she help her get out? Would she show Casey some pity and help her?

The doorknob rattled and then the door swung open as the clacking of a pair of shiny black stilettos stopped as the woman paused at the entrance of the room to look at Casey where she stood, mouth agape, heart in her throat.

The woman. The English woman who she assumed was another person in the house- a person completely unlike this 'Dennis' who had done this to her in the first place was-

'Dennis' stood there, although he was clearly not 'Dennis'. He was wearing a ruffled, knee-length purple skirt and a tight maroon sweater, with a necklace. "Not to worry," he spoke reassuringly, only it was not 'Dennis's' voice but the English woman's voice, as she half-smiled at Casey consolingly, "I'll talk to him, he listens to me."

All Casey could seem to do was stare.

"He's not well, you see," they continued, and the more they spoke, the more Casey could actually notice how unlike they actually were from the previous man that she had met. There was no sour-look, no austere stiffness to this person. "He knows what you're here for. What you're really, really, here for, and it's not for him. He knows your purpose."

It was as if they were trying to make Casey feel better, as if they believed all that they were saying should offer her a sense of relief or consolation. She felt anything but relieved or comforted. All she felt was confused, slightly scared, and... as if she were dreaming. It all suddenly felt so surreal.

"He's just always had a weakness for pretty things, you see," they added gently. "But he knows not to touch you and that you are not for him. He knows he's not allowed."

Not for him? Just who was she for then?

Before another word was exchanged or before Casey could even begin to make sense of it all, Dennis?- or the English woman?- strode out of the room with a sway to her hips as she walked, stilettos clacking loudly as the door was slammed shut again.

Casey stood there, feeling unable to move. She could hardly feel her legs, or anything below the neck. What the hell was going on? It occurred to her a belated second later that her hands were balled up into tight fists and that they were trembling. Just when she thought she couldn't get anymore confused about the circumstances she found herself in, there she was.

It didn't make any sense at all. And the fact that it didn't, it made this whole entire thing feel all the more frustrating and scary. And how she was 'not for him'? How he apparently had a 'weakness for pretty things'?

That door knob suddenly went at it again with its jiggling and Casey jumped, startled. She had no idea who was going to be coming in next but... when it opened, Dennis appeared, not the 'English woman Dennis'.

He was back in his grey military style attire, glasses on, only there was a bucket in his hand this time that had what appeared to be a few bottles of cleaning products in them. Casey felt her shoulders slump from their tense position as he broke their stare while he turned to shut the door completely closed on them both in the room.

Then, she watched, vigilant and on-guard, as he strode towards the bathroom briskly without a further word. A moment later, she heard a gruff noise, a panicked loud outburst that echoed and bounced around the tiles.

"N-no!" he yelped, immediately backing away out of the bathroom to look at her. She caught the tension around his eyes and forehead, that anal stressed-out look having returned that Casey now had quickly learned in the short measure of time in his company was due to his standards of cleanliness being broken. "Please, remember to keep all of your area neat," he insisted, that edge of impatience there in his voice. "The bathroom is unacceptable and there's water all over the floor." He raised a hand to wave it at the bathroom area irritably.

Casey felt her cheeks color a little at realizing she must have spilled water on the floor when cupping frantic mouthfuls of it into her mouth with her hand to drink it down.

He turned his attention to the contents inside the bucket hurriedly. "To make it easy, I've color-coded these. Use the blue bottle for the floor"- there, he picked it out of the bucket, showing it to her as if he was demonstrating what to do- "and this pink bottle here for the ceramic surfaces." He pulled the last bottle out, which contained some sort of pink cleaning liquid.

Just like before in the past few instances in his company earlier, he appeared so frazzled and stressed-out. Casey had never seen someone get so tense and frustrated over what she deemed something so trivial before. She noticed he was even trembling slightly and breathing heavily through his mouth as he gestured twice with a swing of his arm for her to come closer towards the bathroom.

She figured he surely was no harm to her right now, given how stressed he was, though she still hesitated before inching forward on the tiptoes of her Converses warily. She kept her eyes on his and he stared back in that unnerving, unwavering way, his blue eyes shining with what appeared apprehension and something else Casey could not quite identify.

He held the handle of the bucket out to her the further she approached and as she reached down to grasp her hand around it, she noticed he quickly let it go and stepped back towards the wall furthest from her, as if being near her alone was dangerous for him. Absently, she noted that she only just barely reached his shoulders- he was so tall. Why she let herself acknowledge that when it wasn't particularly a comforting observation to her, she had no idea.

As she went into the bathroom, under the light Casey could, indeed, see the splotches of water she had left on the floor messily. As she let the bucket drop to the tiles and sank down to kneel on the cool surface, she tilted her head, glancing up at him again apprehensively. He stepped forward, swooping in and blocking access out of the bathroom as he stood completely in the doorway. If the man so happened to get it inside his head to attack her right then inappropriately, in the small confines of the bathroom, Casey didn't like her chances of escaping.

Casey swallowed inaudibly as she lifted her chin, keeping her eyes on nothing else but his as he stared down at her from where he stood, blocking the access out. She remembered many years ago, during her childhood, how her father had expressed to her that it was important to never show your fear, your weakness, when it comes to looking and maintaining eye-contact with your competitor. So much as break eye-contact, flinch, make any movement whatsoever and you show your weakness, your fear. Keeping that in mind, she kept her eyes resolutely on the man as he stood there, eyeing her somewhat seriously.

He plunged both hands slowly into his trouser pockets before he began, in a low but empathetic voice, as if dying for her to understand and be reassured, "Patricia has just reminded me that I was sent to get you for a reason, and that... you are sacred food." He paused for a moment, brows crinkling oddly as if he was struggling with coming to terms with what he had to say. Casey kept her gaze on nothing else but his as he glanced away towards the clear shower curtain for a brief moment, a sharp exasperated sigh coming from his mouth. "I-I'm to promise not to bother you again."

Bother her again? Again? What?

He shook his head several times,that sour look overcoming his face like even the idea alone of not bothering her was unpalatable and disappointing to him. Then he lowered his gaze to his shoes, which Casey took in were squeaky clean, shiny black loafers, with no stains or marks on them in sight. Head still hanging low like a depressed dog with its tail between its legs, Dennis turned and made his way out of the bathroom towards the other door with another heaved sigh.

She heard a bunch of keys clanging together, then the door opening again. As he shut her in, she heard the foreboding sound of a key going into a lock. And then, for the first time since fully being in the house, Casey was completely locked in, with no way out and nowhere else to go. For the first time since waking up in that room, Casey began to feel caged. Caged, trapped, and suffocated.

WOW, thank you all so much for your comments and the alerts I've received on this, I've just done this for my own weird fun and pretty much wanted to switch the story a bit to give it a more Casey/Dennis feel (no matter how creepy it's going to be haha). Thanks so much and I hope you please let me know your thoughts :)