The Unraveler
by Chloe Michael
“Tired of always reading the bad news, where the hell is the good news?” A man muttered, setting down the newspaper. He was older, balding, white hair and a thick moustache. A girl sat two tables away, mulling over her stale coffee. Her name is Hunter Whitt. They are in Bub’s Diner, one of the few attractions found along a stretch of country road in Kenning, Iowa, a rural town with an estimated population of around 4080.
He arose stiffly from his table, leaving a used napkin, a dirty plate that once had a Reuben on it and a pile of change in his wake. Once he left the diner, the girl two tables down glanced over, out of curiosity, walked over and took the newspaper from its original place. She went back to her own table, sat down and scanned the paper. Hunter is fairly young looking still. She sports a $13 haircut, round face, black hair, short frame, wearing a striped short-sleeved shirt. She’s been in Kenning a little over four years, from about 30 miles north where she previously lived with her chain smoking mother and stepfather, who was a heavy drinker and a carpenter. With few friends and fewer long- term aspirations, she found a clerical job filing paperwork at the Kenning county sheriff’s office and got her own place in a dingy little apartment next to a convenience store on Hazel Creek County Road.
The headline story in the local paper on that day was disturbing; nine friends who rented a lake house about fifteen miles south of Kenning arrived and, they believe overnight, were tied, tortured, dismembered and eventually killed all by a violent assailant, who killed herself with a kitchen knife when the police arrived. The picture in the paper showed the image of a girl in probably her mid- twenties, glasses, narrow lips and face, and shoulder length brown hair. No one has been able to determine what caused her to commit such a heinous crime, then take her own life. Everyone who knew her thought she was quiet, unassuming, and placid. Such a sudden and sickening turn of events has the whole community in fear, even though no one has hardly mentioned it since it happened. An internalizing event, the townsfolk respond by locking their doors, making sure their kids come home early, and staying within the safe walls of their individual homes. Eventually, the thing passes as any dark cloud does, and eventually people go back to their old ways. But for the time being, people are uneasy.
Hunter looked outside the window at Bub’s Diner. Dusk was setting in over the large fields spanning either side of the road. Further down, she could faintly see a house and a barn, and a water tower off in the distance. The occasional car passed down the road, headlights creating a dim path that slowly disappeared into the distance. Hunter had paid for her coffee a while ago, and finally headed out towards her own car, which was still running after a solid fifteen years of wear and tear. She pulled into the small lot behind her sixteen-unit apartment building, ascending the small flight of stairs outside the building and turning the key to the door. Once inside, she sighed in agitation as she could immediately hear the couple next door arguing. The walls are thin, and any move the neighbors make she can hear. More yelling, then a sound that made her think someone had broken something, then a door slam. A baby was crying. Someone hastily stomped down the stairs, then nothing. She stood for a second longer, then started cleaning up. She works every morning six days a week, and uses her spare time to straighten up things and check her email. She had just left the bathroom when she heard another slam. This didn’t sound like it came from next door; it was too close. She looked around her bedroom slowly, not seeing anything out of place. She was about to sit down when she heard another slam, louder this time. She looked around. Nothing. Then a knock on the door.
She sat motionless. She was expecting no one. And the door leads directly outside so she always worried about robbery. She eyed the door. Another knock. Slowly she approached the door and looked through the eyehole. The eyehole was filthy on the other side but she could faintly see a figure, hunched over. She was fairly sure who this was and opened the door.
Her elderly neighbor stood outside. She was feeble, small, with advanced Parkinson’s. She lived alone with her cat, an old long haired tabby with matted fur.
“You heard... Heard that?” She asked, shaking violently, struggling through the words. “They was... They was fixing to kill each other.”
“Yeah, I heard. I call every time but the police don’t seem to care.” Hunter said. “I don’t get any sleep and they’re obviously not working it out themselves.”
“I’m going to call... Call… The landlord tomorrow,” Her neighbor spat, shaking even more with the added emotion. “I can’t stand it. They need to… To go somewhere else. They are just...” She wrenched her face into an emphatic snarl, “Assholes! That’s what they are.”
“I’m with you there,” Hunter laughed. “Well listen get some rest alright, Jay?”
“OK Honey.” The old woman deflated a little, spent. “I gotta take Rocky to the vet tomorrow. He is… Is losing patches of fur. This cat…” Hunter watched her to make sure she didn’t fall on her way back inside, then closed the door.
During the night, Hunter heard another knock on the door. She opened the door quickly, worried it was her elderly neighbor needing help. But the figure standing in her doorway was not her neighbor. He was a tall man, with shadowy skin, barely visible against the darkness of the outside. “I’ve come here to see you.”
Hunter quickly made to slam the door shut, but he took a step inside and closed the door before she could do that. She made to hit him but her blow seemed to glance off of him with no damage whatsoever.
“Just hear me out. I just want to talk please.” He had an almost pleading tone. She felt strange, as if she could somehow feel what he was feeling. She seemed to sense he did not intend to harm her, and he seemed not angry but sad, almost in pain. She looked in his eyes; they were opaque. “You need to go to the lake house, where that group of people died. They were not supposed to die that way. The continuum is blocked. They are being fed upon by Others unless they are freed. These are beings that place obstacles in the continuum by corrupting the living. Once they have their victims, they feed off of them forever in their vulnerable state, trapping them between the living and the dead. We can stop these events from occurring, but there is only one chance. And we have to move quickly. The more victims the Others trap, the stronger they get.” He took a bus ticket out from his pocket and handed it to Hunter. “This leaves at 3:40 PM tomorrow. Take it and go to this place and we can stop them from completing their plan.” He looked at her in a serious gaze. “I know you think this is crazy, but it’s the only chance.” Hunter looked down at the bus ticket, then looked up. He was gone.
She woke up in the morning back in her bed. Assuming it was just a dream, she walked into the bathroom and began brushing her teeth, her hand shaking slightly. If it was a dream, it scared her badly. And also filled her with a strange sadness; as if she had known this man personally. She got dressed, made coffee and was just about to head out the door when she spotted it.
The bus ticket.
She looked at it. It said it left at 3:40 PM Thursday. Even if this was for real, there’s no way because it’s Tuesday, five days after the date on the ticket. Either way, she still was beginning to question her sanity. Maybe she had bought a bus ticket to go to her mother’s house, but it was the wrong location. Then she forgot about purchasing it altogether.
But she wasn’t convinced. So she put the bus ticket in her bag and headed out the door. Hunter got in her car and realized the old contraption had finally taken the ghost. Try as she might it would not start. With a little extra time on her hands, but naturally not enough to deal with her car, she decided to walk to work.
She works normally 8:30 AM until 3:00 PM. She completed everything ahead of time to keep herself distracted, and when she left at 3:05 PM, she was eyeing the bus ticket. There was a bus stop right near the county sheriff’s office, between it and a barber shop. She was on her way out the door when she glanced at the calendar. It was only marked until Thursday. Wasn’t it Tuesday? She approached a security officer and asked him what day it was. “August 23rd, ma’am,” he answered. He gave her a quizzical look, then laughed. “You must be getting your days mixed up!”
“Yeah I must be,” she muttered, walking out the door quickly. That’s it, she’s losing her mind. Or just working too much. A lot of things haven’t made sense lately, now that she thinks about it.
Hunter was almost past the bus stop when she saw him again. A man sitting at the bus stop, with his back towards her. She was sure it was him, and tapped the man’s shoulder. He turned around, an unfamiliar face meeting hers. “Can I help you?”
“Oh… No. Sorry.” She sat down quickly, looking worriedly down the road. “Sorry, but where does the next bus go?”
“Eyresville,” he said, leaning back. “Green Arrow Lake.”
She felt a wave of shock. The scene of the mass murder. There was no way this was a part of her imagination. She knew then she had to go to the lake. “Thank you sir.”
She waited on the bench, a feeling of dread beginning to fill her from the inside out. If this turns out to be her imagination running wild, she could easily just go back home. On the other hand…
If it’s real, what will she do? Square off face to face with a murderer? If what the mysterious man said is true, this assailant won’t be a natural killer either; no, just an ordinary human being at the whim of some terrible, life sucking, supernatural beings who will probably place her next in line on their hit list.
She shuddered. What exactly would that entail? They would trap her, take over her mind, and make her kill people? Everything she is would be replaced with some cold-hearted, lifeless killing machine? Or maybe they would use her life force as fuel in the struggles between the world of the living and the dead. She almost snort-laughed at the thought, probably her craziest yet today. At the very least she could relax at the lake and decompress.
Just as she was considering going home and forgetting any of this ever happened, the bus pulled up. The doors opened with a jerk and the next thing she knew she was on it, heading to Eyresville. Green Arrow Lake. She looked over her shoulder. Her bus stop companion was snoring in a seat on the opposite side of the bus. A few other people sat on the bus, quietly looking at their phones or off into the distance.
What if this was a mistake? Hunter thought to herself. If these creatures exist, they must know of what I’m about to do. With their superhuman powers, the bus will crash, everyone on will die, including me…
The minutes rolled by. She stared out the window, at any moment expecting a deer to jump out from the side of the road, or a car to swerve suddenly into their lane. None of that happened. Time continued to pass. She found herself getting drowsy.
She must have dozed off for a while, because when she woke up they were approaching the city. The next stop was Green Arrow Lake. She was minutes away from an unspeakable crime scene, with no reason to be there other than a vision.
When the bus finally came to a halt, she could tell there would be some walking involved before she reached the lake. Her joints felt a little stiff from the bus. The town she had arrived at was fairly small, a community center nearby and a boat rental shop. “Welcome to Green Arrow Lake!” Read a sign next to the community center. She figured if there would be some walking involved with this, she might as well buy a couple things from the rental shop.
Hunter stepped up a few plank-like stairs into the rental shop. It was warm and humid outside; maybe a couple bottles of water so she wouldn’t become dehydrated. She grabbed two bottles of water from a cold case and approached the register. On the other side was a mild looking man, sunburned to a tan, white shirt tucked into a pair of blue jeans. “Two dollars thirty cents, ma’am,” he said. She paid in cash and when she looked up, he smiled. “Better hurry on up now.”
She froze for a moment. “What?”
“If you’re gonna get to where you’re going, you better hurry up. Don’t want to be late, do you?” He was still smiling, almost vacantly.
Hunter nodded her head in response and hurried back out the door. This is weird, too weird. She shouldn’t have come out this far. What am I doing here? She questioned herself. Next to the shop she spotted a marked trail with a sign bearing a large green arrow: To Green Arrow Lake. With a resigned look, she began down the trail. She was aware it would be some time before the sun set, hopefully enough time to reach the lake before sundown. The occasional group or individual passed by her as she walked, sometimes carrying camping gear and sometimes not. She gazed at the trees, half expecting to see some crazed lunatic looking back at her. There was nothing but brush, as far as she could see.
She was not sure how long she walked, but eventually the sun’s heat began to fade and dusk settled over the forest. She began to wonder how far she had to go when she reached a fork in the path. The grass here was trimmed nicely, and there were flowers planted along the sides of the path. She had the feeling that something had happened here. She looked around for any signs; she saw only a trail marker, indicating towards one path with a blue arrow and the other with a red arrow. “To Green Arrow Lake” it said on the bottom.
Hunter cursed under her breath. Surely there had been maps piled up on the counter at that little rental shop, but in her haste she had forgotten to grab one. There had most likely been a large map at the entrance to the trail as well, another costly oversight. She worried now that if she went down the wrong path, she would not reach the house. Hell, who knows which house it will even be? She had a feeling there wouldn’t exactly be a big trail of blood leading her to the murder house. She needed a better sense of what to do next.
In her frustration, she sat down on the side of the trail, gazing into the brush, almost willing something to approach her and give her a clue, any clue.
It was at this point she began to hear footprints, faintly, further down the direction of the path she came from. Not wanting to be seen, not knowing who this might be, she hid behind a neatly trimmed hedge a little ways from the fork in the road. She crouched down, sure she was out of eyesight of whoever was heading her way. She waited, and after a period of minutes she heard laughing, talking. Then she saw a group of men and women, backpacks on their shoulders, chatting amongst themselves. She did a quick headcount: eight. Was that right?
They continued talking light-heartedly. One of them produced a map, and glancing at it for a moment, led the group down the blue marked path. So, she concluded, I will have to follow them, but I cannot be seen. The last thing she needed was someone to grow suspicious of her and call for park rangers or security. She felt in her heart the only way to save these people was not to be seen. She waited a good several minutes after they disappeared down the path, then followed after them. The sides of the path seemed to grow more ornate, with flowers planted every couple feet. Well kept. She knew she was getting close to the house.
She had not gone much further when all of a sudden she felt a tap on the shoulder; Hunter tried not to shriek, swiveling around. The same man from her vision was standing there.
“You’re going to need to enter through the back door. It’s unlocked. She’s waiting in there, and if she sees you, she’ll kill you right away.” Hunter nodded dumbly. This is ludicrous.
“This all happens very fast so you will need to be out of there in minutes. Move as quickly as you can,” he continued. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but one will already be dead by the time you get there. One of their friends got there about an hour ago to get the keys and have the electricity turned on. This was the only way to do it. I’m sorry.”
She felt her face go pale. There is a killer and a body in the house already. She felt nauseous. She stammered, “What the… Fuck’s sake why didn’t you send me earlier? I could have stopped her before she even got inside! Jesus…”
“Again, I’m sorry. These things are hard to arrange and one lost was the best I could do.” He touched her shoulder. She felt a brush of cool air. “This is the way it has to be.”
Before she could say anything else he was gone. Christ, she has to go now, and somehow outsmart this killer. And also not be seen by the living members of the group. It’s impossible. She is going to die.
Hunter fought another wave of nausea. She looked down the path. It was getting dark. The path was almost completely dark now. Everything is hard to see, why didn’t they install lights here? She felt herself starting to panic. She should just run away, just run and forget this whole thing ever happened….
Then she heard the scream. It came from further down the path. She stared wide eyed. There was silence. Then, another scream. She had to go, it was the only way.
She started jogging down the path. The jogging turned into a run, then she found her stumpy, out of shape frame sprinting towards the house. She knew she was not fit from her office job, but then again she did not foresee running in her future… Or death.
Seeing the faint outline of the lake house up ahead, she ran even faster. What happens if more than the one person dies? She hated herself already for losing a single person. In her mind, this was all one big preventable event. A misunderstanding. For a second she even entertained the notion of bargaining with the killer. Let them go and you can have my life, she thought in a momentary conversation with the assailant. Just let them go and my life is yours… She knew it wouldn’t work… But it was a thought.
The lake house was close by now. Just a few more steps and she would be there. No weapons, no gun, not even mace… What the hell was she thinking? “Hey, I’m gonna go stop a mass murder with not so much as a pocket knife! Just gonna use my god damned imagination once I get there!” Shit, she thought, I’m done for.
She made a wide arc around the front of the house, towards the bushes and circled towards the back. She was hypervigilant, looking for even the slightest trace of moment. The house was still, but at the same time she could feel some type of evil emanating from the house. Almost with tentacles, flailing, looking for more souls to grip on to. To the average passerby, the house looked perfectly average; but to her it was the very image of the Devil.
She at first could not see a back door. She approached the house to the point where she was up against the outer wall, the nicely polished wooden exterior, creeping sideways along so as not to cast even a shadow. Then, she realized, the door was right next to her; the same color as the wall itself but with a small gold handle. There was no window.
She felt another surge of fear and adrenaline course through her body. Her instincts fought against her desire to open the door, just slowly, hopefully with well-oiled hinges, so she doesn’t make a sound. Then, she’ll head in…
Another scream, muffled. This one sounded desperate. Like someone facing death. She didn’t have a choice now, it was time to go…
She reached towards the door knob, turning it slowly…
She began to open the door, very slowly at first, staying clear of the entrance…
She turned her head slowly, meeting eyes with the dark hallway…
She could see nothing other than darkness. At the end of that darkness was a small bar of light, implying there was a second door leading to a main room.
She willed herself to gain momentum and took her first steps into the hallway. The floor felt like hardwood, an otherwise plain hallway. She felt the rising panic and fought the desire to run. There was no sound coming from the other side of the door; ideally, no one on the other side at all. She was about halfway down the hallway now; still there was silence. She reached the end of the hallway and pressed her ear to the second door.
She could hear nothing. She pressed her ear a little closer then heard it: a slow drip.
That was it though.
She steeled herself a final time and reached to open the second door. She regretted at this point, not having called her parents before she left. She felt it was extremely possible there would be a revised obituary in tomorrow’s local paper with her name on it. She held back a tear.
She willed herself to turn the handle and pull the door inward, where she could see a fairly large kitchen, with a counter in the center, a couple chairs, a pantry, and a window above the sink.
Hunter actually entered the room fairly quickly, her eyes darting around for something to use as a weapon. She saw another hallway to her right leading to a living room. It was from here she could her muffled cries; it sounded as if the assailant had already bound and gagged the party, leaving them immobile. At least two were weeping. But she could not see them.
She strode to the counter where she saw a knife block. Here she fully intended to grab the biggest knife she could find and attack the assailant head on. This was before she realized a chair on the other side of the counter had a person in it. They were motionless.
She felt a wave of sickness. She has to check if this person is dead or alive; her guess was dead, but there is always the possibility they could just be unconscious…
She moved closer to the chair and heard it again; the drip. As she rounded the corner, she realized the drip was coming from the figure in the chair. At the same moment she saw the pool of blood around the chair; the side of the face she gazed upon was lifeless, leaning back, with the neck sawed open, a constant trickle rolling down the bloodied shirt and on to the floor.
Hunter also realized in that instant this was the man in the dream. He was the sacrifice.
She reeled back, unable to control her violent reaction of repulsion. Her arm dragged limply across the kitchen counter, where she both cut her arm on a small vegetable knife and knocked over a small bottle of extra virgin olive oil. The bottle crashed onto the floor, oil and glass spilling onto the floor. She was wide eyed, stumbling, holding her bloody arm close to her.
This is when she heard the footsteps, not moving too quickly but definitely approaching from the hallway containing the bound victims.
She looked around desperately. There was no way she could escape then make it back in without likely losing the rest of the group to a terrible fate. No, she could not run. She grappled for the vegetable knife but her own fear had caused her muscles to go limp. She knew she could not fight. Then she did something she immediately hated herself for; she flew into the pantry and shut the door. Now there was no way to see the assailant. She could even be visible through the flimsy pantry door.
She has done herself in, along with everyone she had come here to rescue. Now she could not stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks, tears she felt from being so helpless and foolish. How could she do this? What had gone wrong for her to make a choice of such dire consequence?
She heard the footsteps coming closer. The killer was in the kitchen with her now. Hunter was sure she only had moments to live. She thought of all the things she should have done with her life. All the things her classmates have accomplished; marriage, successful careers, children…
She closed her eyes, and she did not pray. It was not in her nature. She never believed in God. Now she wasn’t sure what to believe in. She could hear the footsteps approaching the door, she heard some sickly breathing, as if this person was suffering from an alien infliction. The person coughed a wet cough. Then took another step.
A loud crash filled the room. Then a second crash. Hunter covered her face with her arms, expecting a death blow. A couple debilitating seconds passed, and she realized she was not mortally wounded. She was still alive.
She waited a few more seconds. Still she heard nothing. She opened her eyes and stared into the darkness of the pantry. Still lamely gripping the vegetable knife, she slowly, slowly opened the door and looked in the kitchen.
Hunter saw a couple things first. The counter in the middle of the kitchen looked disheveled. Also, the knife block had disappeared from the kitchen counter. She saw no one in the room. Breathing heavily, she took a step out into the kitchen. Then another. The dead shell of her dream visitor, the unknown man, lay lifeless in the wooden chair, garroted. She slowly rounded the corner to see what was on the other side of the counter.
She jumped when she saw a figure lying on the ground, face up. The face she recognized from the mug shot she’d seen approximately five days in the future. There was a growing pool of blood surrounding the killer, from a wound on the side of her head. Part of her brain was visible through her matted scalp and a bit of pink matter had spread on to the floor. The knives lay scattered around her, one embedded in her stomach. Another had presumably slashed her leg open. Clearly she had slipped on the oil slick caused by Hunter, bringing the knives down with her.
Hunter processed on some level what had happened, but only thought of what to do next. She knew for a fact she could not be seen by the victims she had just rescued. They did not know her, and there was no way of her knowing this was going to take place unless she was involved somehow. She would be seen as an accessory, or worse, a murderer.
She looked around, in a haze, and finally saw a cord phone attached to the wall. Going the other way so as to avoid the massive pool of blood, she grabbed a paper towel and used it to yank the phone off the receiver and dial 911. Leaving the phone hanging in this state, she backed up through the room, careful not to touch a single thing. Then she fled.
Three days after the event Hunter sat alone in her apartment, a burned CD playing in her DVD player. She browsed job listings on her computer while her neighbors screamed and threw things at each other. Next to her was the local paper. The page headline reads “Group Kidnapped at Green Arrow Lake, Two Dead.” Included in the article are two pictures: one a group of friends with their arms around each other, backpacks and hiking gear in tow, smiling. The other is a picture of a stern-faced girl, possibly an old yearbook photo. She is not smiling. Her lips are narrow.