Run

1



The moon is bright as I walk back towards my house. I decided to go for a walk to the meadow when I got home from my last evening class tonight. I do my best thinking out there, lying in the grass watching the sky. I’ve lived in these woods all my life, and I know our land by heart, so walking alone in the woods at night doesn’t faze me much. Nights like this make me want to stay outside as long as possible, but I am bound to fall asleep if I stay out here any longer, and the idea of actually sleeping outside makes me ache. Not to mention, I'd rather not wake up with some woodland creature trying to eat me. When I arrive at the house I struggle to find the hide-a-key in the shadows of my porch. I finally get the key in the lock only to find that my struggles have been in vain, the door was already unlocked. Which is strange, my father doesn't usually forget that kind of thing.

After putting the key away, I go inside and stumble around in the dark. Unfortunately my cell phone battery has died, so there will be no makeshift flashlight to guide me through my house tonight. Not ten feet through my hallway I trip over something big and fuzzy. "Sadey? What the heck are you doing here! Why aren't you in your bed?" I whisper, slightly baffled. But Saidy does not answer.

Every night I come home to find her sleeping in her bed. I always pat her on the head to say goodnight before going upstairs to go to sleep. In return she will thump her tail a couple of times on the floor as if saying "I love you too Becca, goodnight." then quickly go back to her dreams. Which is why I didn't expect to stumble over her in the hallway tonight. I give her a pat on the head, but she doesn't move. So I scratch the fur behind her ears "Come on Sadey let’s go to bed." That’s when I realize how cold she feels, and my hand comes away sticky and wet. I feel a sharp pain in the pit of my stomach and fear seizes my heart. "Sadey?" I whisper, still no answer. "Sadey!" I whimper franticly, trying to shake her. Her body is stiff, and she does not respond. I put my head to her chest. No breathing, no heart beat. Crying in the dark, I try to make my way over to the light switch. Terrified of what I'm going to see, I pause before I flick the switch.

In that moment I hear voices coming from my parents bedroom. I know I’m not ready to shine the light on what’s lying on the floor, so instead I begin to make my way to their room, crying and sobbing all over myself. It would be easier to handle this with my parents by my side. Even though I’m almost twenty. I know my mom will take me in her arms and hold me, like she did when I was a little kid. And my dad will promise to cause bodily harm to who ever did this; he’s going to be so pissed. But almost as soon as I began to walk towards their door, I stop myself. The reasoning in my brain kicks in. How can my parents not know that our dog is lying dead and bleeding in the middle of our hallway? Shouldn’t they have heard it? They should have called the cops, the vet, or done something, anything! Every thing feels so wrong. Trying to gain some composure I freeze, standing as still as possible I hold my breath, muffle my sobs, and listen. Now that I’m paying attention I can tell that the hushed voices I hear are not familiar. They sound like they are arguing, all gruff and angry, and they are definitely are not my parents.

Every nerve and sense in my body feels like it’s buzzing. My heart has either stopped all together, or is beating so fast that I can't tell one beat from another. I have no idea what’s going on, and I’m not planning on sticking around to find out. I need to find my parents and get the hell out of here.

Something in the dark makes me jump, and I race to the kitchen as quietly as I can. I sit as low as I can behind the island near the sink and listen to the footsteps heading in my direction. When the sound of movement stops directly on the other side of the island, my heart stops with it. I’m too afraid to move, to blink, to even breath. I sit and wait for something to happen, praying they will move on not realizing I’m here.

"Hello Rebecca" a strangers voice. Holy shit. I run. I sprint towards my parent’s bedroom. Two more strangers are standing over two lifeless bodies on the floor. This cannot be real. My heartbreaks, I can't look. Its as if I can't even comprehend what I see laying on the floor. I turn to run back in the other direction. Away from the two men, and the horror lying in front of me, but I don't get very far. I'm surrounded. I look at the faces of the men; they are the faces that killed my parents. They didn't even bother to hide behind masks, and I wonder if it’s because they didn’t expect anyone to live to tell the story. My thoughts are forced to an end when the two men on the right begin to close in on me.

“Don’t kill her yet.” says the man on my left, the one who spoke my name earlier. “I want her for myself, she looks like a keeper." The other two stop and stare for a moment. Looking a bit perplexed. “But that’s against the rules.” Says the guy from my right who has a large beard. I take that awkward pause as my queue to move. My only choice is up. I start for the stairs, too hysterical to worry about how cliché it is to be chased up the stairs. Mr. beard guy grabs me half way to the top. I shriek, kick, and squirm as he wraps his arms around my waist. I throw my head back, cracking it against his skull. His grip loosens and I shove free knocking him down the stairs, causing him to tumble into the intruder behind him. Giving me enough time to get to my room and lock my door.

I'm still seeing stars from hitting my head, but I'm focused enough to know I need to get help. The only problem is my house is in the middle of 20 acres of land, Literally In the middle of nowhere. Even if my phone wasn't dead and I could call the police, they would never get here in time. Especially if I stayed put in my room. I go to my window and crawl onto my roof. Definitely not my first choice of escape routs, but I'm out of options. Maybe if I can get to the other side of my house I can jump onto my deck and make it into the woods out of site. I scramble up the steep slope of my roof as quickly as I can. I can hear shouting in the room below me as I climb over the peak of my house and start stumbling down the other side. I'm going way too fast, when I reach the edge I can't slow the momentum. I leap, tuck, and roll, totally over shooting the deck and landing with a nasty thud on the ground. Luckily the ground was relatively soggy. So I'm pretty sure all of my bones are still in tact. But that doesn't mean it didn't hurt like hell. I struggle to focus. I roll onto my hands and knees, willing all my strength to get up, and run into the woods that I know by heart, even in the dark.