Page 52 of Fed By Fear

There’s always a cute camp counselor. Someone the girls can’t help giggling over. The counselor that’s good at all the camp sports and activities. The cool guy.

I don’t remember his name, but he was there that night. One of the first few to find me on the bank.

He waves out the window, cheering once more before speeding down the street.

My surroundings blur as I’m shot forward in space and time. The road I land beside is empty of cars. Only one pair of headlights moves closer. The silver truck and the man from the party.

If something is about to happen, it can’t be by me. Surely I have an alibi for New Year’s Eve.

I wrack my brain to remember what I was doing that night. This specific year…

My memory is turning up blank. I blacked out that night. Just as I have so many other nights.

So. Many. Nights.

My thoughts drift back to all the doors waiting for me in that dark room.

I would know if I had done something terrible all those nights. Wouldn’t I?

My throat becomes unbearably tight. Movement rustles the brush as a small herd of deer break from the tree line and race past the truck.

He slams on his brakes. The screech of tires on pavement tears through the silence of the night.

The deer pass by, disappearing into the forest on the other side.

The fireworks have quieted. The only sound is the faint crunching of hooves against the forest floor and the muffled music coming from inside the truck.

The back of my neck prickles. While the man stares after the deer, my gaze drifts to the place where the herd emerged from.

They were running from something.

That all-too-familiar horror that’s been lingering in my stomach since I arrived in the room of doors morphs into a biting, gnashing thing in my gut. Am I sensing…it? Her. That thing that lives within me.

Is she the reason it feels like a storm of jagged teeth is trying to gnash out of my chest?

The feeling intensifies when she steps out of the trees.

The man remains oblivious.

“Drive!”I shout.“Get out of here! She’s coming!”

I’m coming. It’s my body, my face, just twisted and dark.

“He cannot hear you,”Madness reminds me.

“You’re still here?”I pull my gaze away from the monstrous me to seek him out.

“You will always find me in the dark.”A shadow presses against the top of my shoulder.

“I don’t want to watch.”

“It is necessary that you do.”

The thing cracks her neck again. My voice pitches.“Why? Why make me watch them suffer?”

“You won’t be able to let go until you know every truth.”

Without warning, the thing sprints forward, leaping with animalistic grace before landing in a crouch on the hood of the truck. The metal bucks and dips beneath her.