I was in a dimly lit barn, lying on an old wool blanket, and there were three others with me.
“Welcome to your nightmare,” muttered one of the women, who was sitting a few feet away. She looked to be around my mother’s age, had short dark hair, and a painful-looking shiner under her right eye.
“What’s going on?” I asked, getting to my feet. I brushed away some straw from my knees and straightened up. “Where am I?”
The woman with the bruise smiled grimly. “You’re in the Land of Oz. Don’t you remember riding the tornado here?”
I stared at her in confusion. “I…”
Then it all came back to me.
The stranger.
Our fight.
Running and then being grabbed from behind.
The weight of the situation hit me like a sledgehammer. “Oh, God…someone kidnapped me?”
“Oh yeah,” said a girl, walking over. She was not much older than me, with short blond hair and glasses. “Obviously, you’re not the only one. I’m Amy, by the way.”
“I’m Emily,” I answered in a hollow voice. I looked around the barn, which held no animals or livestock.
Just us.
“I don’t understand, who’s doing this and why?” I asked.
“Do you remember the guy who took you?” asked Amy.
I thought about the man by the pool. Obviously he was involved. “Yeah. I’m sure it was this guy with dark hair and pale skin. He approached me by my apartment building and we fought.”
“He’s one strong son-of-a-bitch,” muttered a dark-skinned girl who was lying down on another blanket, staring up at the roof of the barn. “Something’s not right about him.”
“That’s Tara,” said Amy. “She actually stabbed him with a switchblade.”
Tara turned her face to look at me. “He didn’t even flinch. Stabbed the bastard in the hand and it was as if nothing happened. It was some freaky shit.”
“Uh, did he kidnap all of you?” I asked, not recalling the guy having any kind of wound on his hand when he assaulted me.
“No,” replied Amy, lowering her voice. “There are more of them.” She looked towards the roof of the barn. “They’re probably watching us right now.”
I felt like I was in some kind of twisted horror movie, only this was real. I stared up at the dark shadows of the barn and shivered. “Why are they doing this?”
“I don’t know,” said Amy. “We were all brought in here within the last twenty-four hours.”
“Have you tried to escape?” I said, lowering my voice as I eyed the barn door.
Tara snorted. “Hell no, genius. That didn’t cross any of our minds.”
“Be nice,” said the woman with the bruise. “She’s just as confused as the rest of us and doesn’t deserve any more abuse.”
Tara closed her eyes and sighed. “Yeah, I know. Sorry. I’m just not in the mood for this shit anymore.”
“We’ve tried getting out of here,” said Amy. “But they’ve locked us in from the outside. And…” her lips began to tremble. “Another woman tried climbing up to the loft right after I arrived. But, something killed her up there.”
“What?” I asked, horrified. I looked up towards the loft, which seemed so dark and menacing.
“There’s something up there,” she whispered in an ominous voice, stepping closer to me. “Gloria, the gal who climbed the ladder, she screamed bloody murder when she reached the top. Tried climbing back down, but something pulled her back and dragged her away from the edge. We couldn’t see exactly what was happening.” She grimaced. “But, we all heard it.”
I swallowed. “Something?”
She nodded. “We heard it growling and then it sounded like Gloria was wrestling with it.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I’ll never forget the sounds coming from up there – her cries and something that sounded like hissing. I was so scared, I almost peed my pants.”
“We were all scared,” said the older woman, shaking her head.
“What happened next?” I asked.
Amy wiped a couple of tears from her cheek. “Um, I think she tried crawling back towards the ladder, but never made it.”
“I take it you guys were too scared to do much?” I asked bluntly. “I mean, I’m sure I’d have been scared to death myself.”
“Well, I was going to try and help,” said Tara. “But then I saw all of the blood.”
I shivered. “Blood?”
Amy pointed towards the top of the ladder. “Yeah, if you stand back far enough and get on your tippy-toes, you can kind of see Gloria’s shoulder. There’s blood there. Lots of it.”