The brick shambles towered over her, casting crooked shadows along the path she cautiously traveled. The skies were dark and a gloomy shade of blue, making the foreign area seem all the more mysterious and creepy. Every now and then a crow would be startled by Meg as she walked by, cawing in a high pitch which in turn only helped to raise the girl's blood pressure. She hoped that the scariest thing she faced were a few mere birds in this freaky place she'd been transported to- something that Meg was still trying to wrap her head around as she meandered across the foreign land.
Up ahead seemed to be a looming structure, which of course caught her attention. Meg figured she would check it out as maybe the others were taking refuge inside given that they were also amongst the ruins with her. It was the biggest landmark that she noticed up until that point so her hopes were high that at least there would be someone or even something inside that could help her out.
She drew nearer and nearer, soon realizing it was a decrepit warehouse that she was tentatively approaching. Based on the shattered windows, crumbling brick siding and the rusted over metal galvanized roof- it was safe to say it looked long since abandoned. It certainly was far from inviting, yet Meg sucked it up and continued forward, finding that there was an open bay door she could tip toe through.
As soon as she crossed the threshold, the atmosphere changed. A loud and long creaking groan resounded across the entire warehouse, echoing like crazy. Despite probably just being the structure settling, it was frightening enough of a sound to make her jump out of her skin.
Just like that, Meg's heart began to beat faster- fear taking hold of her so much that she panicked and impulsively decided to slip into a little cranny within a towering rusted shelf nearby. She squeezed in behind a wooden crate, sneakered feet bumping up against what looked like a car battery laying beside it. It scraped against the metal shelf loudly as she accidentally nudged it, making Meg freeze.
It felt as though she sat there for ages, foot still extended and her hands behind her from when she was scooting toward the back wall of the shelf. Slowly, she brought her limbs inward, huddling amongst the abandoned goods. Then all she could do was sit on her ass and strategize her next steps.
Meg still wasn't hungry, so worrying about those types of resources were not of any concern. The next thought was possibly arming herself, however she saw nothing in sight that would be of aid in that regard. Everything was too big and clunky as far as she could tell, which made her hum, the girl scouring the shelf she was hidden in for anything at all useful.
I mean... she thought while staring at the heavy battery unit beside her. It could work in a last ditch effort. The girl reached out and tried to pick it up but found it was heavier than she expected. She huffed out and crossed that off the list, figuring lugging that thing around would only slow her efforts. What was she supposed to do?
Crunch... crunch... crunch...
The hairs on the back of her neck stood straight up. The sound of someone entering the warehouse could be heard. Their steps echoed ever so slightly, helping her to easily tell they were drawing closer to her position. She sucked in a shuddered breath and held it.
Crunch... crunch... crunch...
They came closer. Her heart could've burst out of her chest. She felt it beating in her ears, pulsating across her entire body. There was so much adrenaline coursing through her that Meg momentarily considered making a dash for the door and escaping before she was found in a vulnerable position. There wasn't much she would be able to do for herself crammed in a tight corner with no way out but into harm's way.
Crunch... crunch... crunch...
Meg reached over and gripped the battery, eyes trained viciously on the sliver of the warehouse aisle that she could see between the wood crate and the bottom of the shelf above. She was going to have to fight now. Whoever it was, was right around the corner and if they found her... Meg would have no other choice but to defend her life.
The crack she was staring through suddenly became obscured by a figure.
Crunch...
It paused in front of the shelf Meg was hiding in.
Crunch...
She could tell that the figure turned, looking into the section above Meg's.
Crunch...
Then it started kneeling down.
Her muscles grew stiff. Meg tightened her grasp on the battery. It could've weighed a thousand pounds and she still would have swung the thing with an impossible might- her body was ready to survive.
"Aghhhhhh!" Meg cried, leaping out of the bottom shelf, launching the battery out toward the figure.
"No wait-!" It shouted. The battery flew and slammed against the wall, narrowly missing... Claudette?
Meg immediately recoiled apologetically, gasping at how close she just came to seriously hurting the other girl.
"I- I'm so sorry Claudette, I-"
Claudette put a hand to her chest, caressing the skin over her heart slightly with quivering fingertips. "It's okay," she said, shaking off the fact that the battery almost was one with her head. She then extended her other hand out, showing Meg what she held. It was a dingy, red med-kit.
"Where'd you get this?" Meg asked.
She shrugged. "It was just in some chest that I found outside..." She then looked around. "Where are we?"
It was a great question, really. Meg wished she could give an accommodating answer.
"I have no clue. I just know the fog brought us here. And also I..." Meg grimaced "... I saw this bear trap where I ended up. It wasn't open but I'd still watch your step. I don't know why they're here or if there are more."
Nodding, Claudette acknowledged the warning before walking past her and further exploring the warehouse. Meg followed closely behind. There wasn't much of anything besides wire spools, random hardware and an oddly high amount of empty red lockers lining the walls- not really giving the girls any such hope for the resourcefulness of the building. There was just a bunch of useless shit, Meg concluded on one last glance around the place.
That is until Claudette exclaimed, "Look! Another chest."
Coming up behind her, Meg looked over the girl's shoulder and saw that indeed there was a wooden chest with a metal framing sitting in the corner of the warehouse. They both wandered up to it, Claudette being the one to kneel down and shimmy the lock around until she finally got the lid to pop open. Inside was full of miscellaneous junk: wood chips, planks, screws and other scraps. And on top of the garbage laid a little metal toolbox. They sort of looked at it strangely, neither understanding what they could use it for.
"You know what," Claudette said before scooping the toolbox up and handing it off to Meg. "It may come in handy."
"True," she quipped back, grabbing it from her. Claudette was about to stand up when something else caught her eye, prompting her to return to scavenging through the chest. She reached back in and pulled out a very intricate looking piece of cloth decorated with ivory tassels and created with a gorgeous violet fabric. It stood out against the blandness of the monochrome warehouse, something about it intriguing Claudette as she decided to stuff it into her back pocket before standing and tipping the lid shut.
"This also may come in handy." She noted while backing away, gesturing for Meg to follow her toward the exit.
They leave the warehouse and are unfortunately outside once more, each feeling very vulnerable. It had remained bleak and cold, however there was a slight breeze that carried with it the smell of smoke. Meg perked up as soon as it hit her nose.
"Do you smell that? It smells like smoke- like a fire," she told Claudette.
"Maybe another campfire," the girl replied.
Well, it turned out that the source was simply a barrel with a fire blazing inside of it, situated in the center of some more crumbling walls. These walls had windows in them, making Meg wonder what sort of buildings these were before. Maybe more warehouses? But why were these nearly totaled in comparison to the one they were just at? Not that it really mattered, she was more worried about getting out of there than imagining what once stood on the land.
"Maybe one of the guys started the fire." Claudette proposed, doing her best to give a positive meaning to it. Sure, it wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility but at the same time Meg figured Dwight and Jake would've been there waiting had they made it themselves.
The pair made their way past the fire and eventually discovered something peculiar by another set of walls.
"Is that a generator?" Meg questioned as they approached the thing, some of its pistons pumping in and out and causing it to make a loud, mechanical rhythm. Of all things, she was not expecting for there to be a generator running randomly in the middle of nowhere. She looked around. What was it powering?
"Guys?" Quivers a hesitant voice from behind the wall that the generator sat against. Meg turned back and spotted two hands grasping the wall's edge and a peeking pair of timid eyes staring at them. Immediately she recognized that it was Dwight cowering just out of sight.
Surprisingly, Meg flashed him a half smile and ran up to him. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," he said in a breathy way, moving out from behind the wall. "What have you guys got?"
"There are chests that have supplies in them. We found a med-kit and a toolbox," Claudette told him, which made Dwight have a lightbulb moment.
"Toolbox?" He said before snatching the thing right from Meg's hand. He knelt down beside the generator while searching through the toolbox, grabbing a few minuscule pieces of hardware from inside.
Both the girls watched him, dumbfounded as to what he was doing.
Dwight just worked, picking up things that Meg couldn't even name, watching as he reached within the generator and started inputting the items inside the machinery. The speed of the pistons grew faster and faster with each passing moment.
"Do you know what this is powering?" Asked Claudette. She stood there, arms crossed while staring up at the tall light extension above the generator. It flickered on and off, casting a strobing glow onto them.
"Hopefully something helpful!" He exclaimed sheepishly.
"Can we help at all?" Meg said, walking to stand behind him and inspect what exactly he was doing inside the main chamber.
He sat there and shyly explained to both girls what he had figured out with repairing the generators. Apparently there were blockages causing the pistons to be at a standstill- which meant no power. So they had to reach into the generator and manually remove and reassign different parts, while occasionally pulling on a lever system to see if they had correctly aligned this, that and the other thing. While it was difficult to understand, Meg and Claudette both got the hang of it and skipped over to the other sides of the generator- all working in unison to try and get the damn thing powered.
"Show me what you can do!" Dwight said enthusiastically as the girls reached in and started copying what he'd just demonstrated.
It didn't take long before the pistons were moving so quickly that the end of the repair process seemed to be in their sights. Claudette went to work managing her allotted blockages, stealing from the toolbox every now and then while Meg worried about the wiring. It was something she consulted Dwight with, who frankly didn't know much more than her but did his best to use common sense and teamwork to make magic happen. Soon enough, the generator suddenly popped loudly, bursting with sparks and whirring harder than it had before. The light extension went from flickering to being completely on- signaling to them that they successfully powered the generator.
Any excitement they had ended pretty quickly considering their problems weren't solved now that they got the thing to work. It was a matter of figuring out what exactly the generator was meant for and seeing if that helped them in any way.
"Have either of you seen Jake?" Said Claudette as if she suddenly remembered he existed. They walked together in a close knit group, quietly traversing the ruins. Both Meg and Dwight shook their heads. "Well I hope he's okay."
SNAP!
A metallic echo came from nearby. The trio paused in their tracks, looking all around and then to one another. They shared the same fearful expression.
"Now what the fuck was that?" Meg whispered.
"You said you saw bear traps?" Claudette recalled.
"You saw what?" Dwight hissed.
"Maybe it's Jake, what if he's in trouble..." Claudette gestured in the direction of the sound worriedly. Meg was happy to see she cared about Jake but she wasn't sure if it was a good idea. What if it wasn't Jake and it was... something else?
"Look as long as we stick together," Dwight said, sighing nervously. "I think we can sneak over and see if it's Jake or not."
Claudette and Dwight both moved forward, making it a two to one decision, leaving Meg with no choice but to follow them. There was a growing sense of dread within her stomach as they proceeded toward the direction of the ominous snap.
It ended up being for a good reason.
Not twenty yards ahead of them, Dwight spotted something near a bunch of wooden crates all piled up together. He pointed. "Look."
It was Jake, rolling around on the ground, writhing in pain as a bear trap was gnawing through the flesh of his leg. He breathed heavily, spit flying from between his teeth and sweat rolling off of him in droves. Surprisingly, Jake remained extremely quiet through what seemed to be a thousand painful sensations coursing through him.
The trio began to run toward him to offer help but when Jake noticed he threw his hand up and shook it as if telling them to stop.
"Run..." He grunted. They didn't hear him at first.
"RUN!" He screamed louder. Appearing from nowhere, a shadow crossed over Jake's face, oozing along and becoming larger and larger, soon enveloping his entire body in darkness. It caused Jake to slowly turn his head to face whatever it was that towered right over him.
Meg skidded in her tracks. What the fuck was that?
A freakishly tall and menacing figure emerged from nearby. In its one hand was a ginormous, jagged and filthy looking cleaver- and a bear trap in the other. The skin on its body was either decomposing or burnt, Meg couldn't tell. Either way it was wretched and painful looking, cracked open and irritated. Over the figure's face was a white mask with a sharp and crooked grin cut into it, razor-like teeth lining the mouth's opening.
"Oh my God-" Meg said, a ball catching in her throat as she honed in on the thing standing there, unmoving yet extremely threatening. It radiated evil, sending sudden shockwaves through her.
"RUUUNNNN!" Jake howled at them.
The figure lunged toward Jake, striking him as quick as lighting with the cleaver, nailing it right in his abdomen. It sliced through his thick green jacket, audibly crushing bone and dicing his skin apart. Dark crimson blood sprayed absolutely everywhere in sight. It splattered all over the beast's overalls, all along the wooden crates and cascaded down Jake who groaned and cried as he tried crawling away with the bear trap still holding his leg hostage. His own blood leaked out of his mouth and dribbled down his face which coiled tightly in horror.
All Meg could see was red. She had never seen so much blood, so much terror and despair and violence ever in her life. It looked nothing like the movies- nothing could have ever prepared her to witness what she saw in that horrific moment. The mutilation, the lacerations, the malformed features on his face as he realized he was going to die-
Dwight thrashed at Meg, trying to pick her up and carry her away as she stood there frozen in shock by everything that had just happened. She could tell he was screaming at her but the girl couldn't hear anything. Her senses went dark. It was all too much to bear.
The beast, that murderous and psychotic monster, started turning slowly before looking directly at them.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Claudette make a run for it-
SNAP!
Just like that, Claudette toppled to the ground. Her mouth opened, face twisted horrifically in pain. The teeth of the bear trap were gone, so far deep within the girl's leg that they were no longer visible. It mauled her calf so terribly that her skin ripped and shredded apart like it was butter.
The monster was on the move, stalking toward them. There was dark crimson smeared on its mask. Jake's blood. She looked down. Claudette's own blood had splashed onto her shoe, a tiny little gleaming dribble of red that peered up at her. The world suddenly crashed. It all clicked in Meg's mind now. This was Hell.
Finally, Meg ran.
