AN: 'Fear of loneliness'.
Abigail's ultimate fate can be found in Phobias, under 'Crawler'.
McStaken-Don't you dare. Keep Edward. Take Todd. Take Bruce Wayne for all I care, just leave me out of it. They are overgrown, murderous children and I don't know how that happened. I didn't raise This Type of child.
Forbidden Moons-It's Gotham, she would have turned out wretched in the end.
Abigail Miggs is expecting to wake up in a dark room, or at least in a room with one single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Isn't that how it goes? Strange men invade your house and knock out, you end up somewhere…unpleasant.
She is wrong. She wakes, instead, in her own bedroom. She's not that badly hurt-her nails are broken, and there's a bump on her head, but there's no other bruises or scratches or fluids. She doesn't even feel that bad-frightened, and a little woozy, but that's all. What the hell happened?
She remembers snatches-she'd been ready to leave, had opened the door and been bowled over by a big man. She'd…she'd clawed, she remembered, gone for the eyes, and then had turned to run. He'd grabbed her-her nails had broken trying to grab something to hit with-and then there'd been pain.
What did he want?
She gets out of bed and goes, first, to the window. It's been nailed shut and no amount of effort will get it open. The door, however, is unlocked.
That ugly thing from Star Wars sounds in her mind, it's a trap!, but she pokes her head into the hall anyway. Nothing happens and she risks putting a foot out.
Still nothing. She ducks back in, crams her feet into her slippers, and scurries down the hall. Maybe she'll be lucky, maybe this is some sloppy criminal-
The door's barricaded off with a wardrobe she had to hire people to move. Okay. Okay, she can work around this. She'll check the windows, and then she'll try to topple it. She's got this. Nobody else seems to be here, she's gonna be fine.
Something crackles above her and she tilts her head up to see a black box with a cord running down. Speaker?
"Good morning, Abigail." She shudders. That voice sounds like dead leaves. "You'll find a ready-made ice pack for that lump on your head."
"I don't have any money-"
"I know you don't." the voice says shortly. "I know everything. Abigail Miggs, thirty-two, lives alone, few friends, no close family, works from home." No. No, no. "Vegetarian, spends most of her evenings club-hopping to avoid having to sit in an empty house-"
"Stop it!"
The voice does, indeed, stop. For a moment.
"I'd go put that ice on, Abigail. That bump looks painful."
She ignores the voice and instead strides to the living room-only to see several large nails sticking out of the front window. She turns, frantically, and sees the same nails protruding from the little window.
Okay. Okay, surely not all the windows are nailed shut. That's just silly. These are the obvious ones, that's all, there's…the bathroom! This house is old, that's why there's a window in there-most people are surprised to find it, especially since she crammed a shelf in front of it. Creeped her out, frosted glass or no.
"The ice, Abigail." The voice sounds irked now. "In the kitchen."
Fuck that. She's getting out of here.
She locks the bathroom door behind her and pulls the shelving unit to the side, knocking down lotion and baby powder on the way. Okay, it'll be a tight squeeze, but she can do it.
She clambers on top of the toilet, feels the lid wobble a little, and looks down to make sure she won't fall and die.
When she looks up, it's to the same long nails sticking out like grinning teeth.
"No!" She rips at the nails and only ends up gouging her hands. "No! No!"
The white walls loom in around her and the lid wobbles again. She nearly loses her footing this time and half-falls to the ground, gripping the sink with her gouged hands.
Get up.
The wardrobe. She can bring that down, she has to bring that down.
She bursts from the bathroom, heart thrumming in her ears, and marches towards it. She's gotta get outta here, she's gonna get outta here.
"What are you doing, Abigail." the voice hisses from the speaker. "You're not leaving."
Fuck you, buddy.
She cracks her knuckles, which hurts but too bad, and gets her hands between the wardrobe and the door. The wardrobe wobbles, a little, but it does move.
"It is mounted to the wall, Abigail." the speakers inform her exasperatedly. "Now stop acting like a child."
She looks up. It is indeed attached, the canvas strap held firmly in place with a thick screw.
She breaks down sobbing and finally shuffles to the kitchen for the ice.
The speakers have been silent for two days. She's spent those two days wandering around the house, tugging at the wardrobe and the nails and considering shattering the windows. She found her phone and her tablet shattered in the bathtub that first day, and when she tried to turn on the TV, it wouldn't go and wouldn't go and she finally found that the innards had been removed.
She'd cried again then.
"What do you want?" she screams at the speaker. "What do you want with me?"
It remains silent. She climbs up there and hits it. That only makes it shake on the wall-no voice comes from it. She screams at it, a wordless screech that hurts her throat, and tries to rip it off the wall.
She only falls off the wobbly side table and bruises her tailbone.
"Really." The speaker sounds decidedly unamused, but it responded! "I am…disappointed, Abigail."
"Then let me out!"
"Absolutely not. You'll hurt yourself." She struggles up, grasps the wires, and yanks. There's a deep blip and then nothing.
For about ten seconds. Then there's a faint sigh from the other room and an irritated, "You're not helping your case, Abigail."
"Fuck you!"
She sprints into the other room, snatching a candlestick off the side table on the way, and stares at the black box sitting innocuously over the mantel.
"What do you want from me? What do you want? WHAT DO YOU WANT?"
Silence. She hurls the candlestick at it and yanks out the wires. Then, because fuck everything, she storms off to do the same to the others.
Come morning, Abigail is regretting destroying the speakers. She should have played along, maybe garnered enough sympathy to get out, or…or something.
She shuffles to the silent kitchen, eyes turned away from the ugly nails protruding from the window, and takes down the steadily-dwindling box of tea. Surely the postman will notice something weird, right? Eventually? Before she starves?
"Good morning, Abigail."
She screams and drops the box on the floor, paper packets skittering across the linoleum.
The kitchen speaker is exactly the same as it was yesterday morning. Is she snapping from the stress? She's gotta be snapping from the stress.
She reaches towards the wires. They're cold and unbroken, hanging innocuously against the wall.
"Break them again and there will be consequences."
"I'm sorry." she whispers. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"
Silence. Then, "Have your tea, Abigail."
She can't even cry anymore. Her head hurts and she just…what the hell is the point of this?
Fuck this. Fuck the speakers and the nails and her dwindling box of tea. She's not going to be a-a lab rat or whatever the hell is going on!
She yanks a drawer open and rummages around until she comes up with a cleaver*. The speakers radiate irritation.
"What are you doing, Abigail."
She ignores it and heads to the bathroom. The water still works, she knows because she finally plucked up the courage to take a shower the other night.
"Abigail. What are you doing."
She throws open the bathroom door, throws a middle finger towards the speaker in the hall, and parks her ass in the bathtub.
Her hand is just reaching for the knobs when the speaker crackles and the voice says, "Come to the basement, Abigail."
"Why."
"I think you're ready for answers. Are you not?"
She's got the cleaver. The basement door has been locked since the beginning, but it's not like she bothered too much-there's no way out of the house down there. Just spiders.
If this is some sort of survival game, she's here to win, as a Fuck You to the asshole who set it up.
"Fine."
She clambers back out of the tub, banging her shins against the porcelain on the way, and adjusts her grip on the cleaver. It's heavy, and she's only used it once or twice on Thanksgiving, but the blade feels snug in the wood and if it comes down to it…if she really needs to use it…
The basement door is cracked open now and for a minute she wonders if she's missed that this whole time, imagined it being closed, but no. No. She didn't crack that fast.
It's dark down there. She doesn't go down there if she can help it, but now…she can't help it. This could all be over soon.
She pushes at the door and it swings open with a soft creeaak. The light from the hall makes it down three stairs before being swallowed up.
Okay. Okay. She can do this.
She tightens her grip on the handle, puts her free hand out for the railing, and starts down. It's silent down here, same as it is upstairs, and maybe…maybe this is a mistake.
Click.
Her feet have just touched the dirt floor when the single light bulb turns on. It makes it so she can see the shadow of a man, just outside the circle of light.
How long has he been here.
He isn't alone. As her eyes adjust, she can make out other shadows, shifting and shuffling closer. Behind her, the basement door…shuts.
The first man, the tall, thin one, steps into the light. His face is burlap.
NO.
"Come here, Abigail."
She tries to run and one of the other shadows, a giant one, lunges for her. She slashes at it with the cleaver and it grabs her wrist with a meaty hand, squeezes and twists until the cleaver falls to the ground and is kicked away.
"No! Let go! Let go of me!"
"The table." the Scarecrow hisses, and she's hefted up and carried, still shrieking, away from the light.
"What do you want!"
"You'll see." The burlap face, barely visible, leans over her. "Deep breaths…it's time for stage two."
THE END
*I read, as a kid, a ghost story called Jade Green (if memory serves…), and the backstory for that ghost was that she lopped off her hand with a meat cleaver. On purpose. I recall being a little unsettled by that book, might be worth hunting up.