Mikhaela rubbed her eyes. That didn’t just happen, she was still dreaming. She had to still be dreaming. Struggling to fully command her body, she pushed herself off the bed. Slowly, and gingerly she rose to her feet. Her legs barely holding her up. Her entire body trembling. She moved. First one leg, then the next. Each step robbed her of what little strength she could muster. She staggered forwards, fighting with an invisible wall of dread. A wall that only grew stronger every inch closer she got to her sister’s bed. The sight of the empty mattress brought her to her knees. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and her head fell, soaking the covers her despair. It had been real. Katie was gone.
In the garden below a small tornado silently ripped its way through overgrown grass, towards the iron gate. Devastation followed in its wake as it carved a path through the tangled undergrowth. Plants were torn from the ground, mud splattered across the already soiled walls of the rundown house. Yet the sun, as it poked its head over the horizon, didn’t hear a sound.
As suddenly and unexplainably as it had started, the tiny hurricane dissipated. From the eye of the vanishing storm stepped the short, squat figure of Ashley Boras. His left hand gripped tightly over the mouth of the teenage girl whilst the right pinned both arms behind her back. The hold was more out of habit than anything else. Given the supernatural silence that hung heavily over them he wasn’t worried about her trying to scream. He was more focused on keeping her still. She was stronger than she looked. An unexpected pain shot through his finger. Reflexes pulled his hand to his mouth. The tang of blood washed over his tongue. He should have stayed in the wind longer. Hurting the girl hadn’t been in his plans, but if she was going to bite. Silence muted any satisfaction the slap would otherwise have given him. The clap of skin on skin was part of the thrill, and without it he felt more than a little pathetic. But she needed to learn, aggression would be punished.
Mikhaela forced herself to the window, shuffling across the carpeted room in tears. Ignoring the friction burning the skin off her knees. Katie had been taken by a gust of wind. How? Why? She pulled herself up on the window frame and stared into the demolished wreckage of the garden. The sight took her by surprise. Her eyes followed the devastation out of the gate, and landed upon two men, standing either side of her sister. One of them was short and round, the other, tall, too tall. Surpassing even the van they stood behind. But his height wasn’t matched by the rest of his bleached white body. He looked like he hadn’t eaten for years. The string limbs poking out of his bony torso looked like they’d snap in a gentle breeze. His pale, gaunt figure was frightening enough, until she noticed his mouth. Shark like teeth, in a grin that would put a cheshire cat to shame. Terror was the only thing that came from that face. Anybody who saw it would run, and that’s exactly what Mikhaela did. She ran down the stairs and out the front door, grabbing her parents’ keys on the way past. She burst out of the house to see a black van dissolving into the distance, and the smoking wreck of her mother’s car sizzling under a blanket of lumpy acid.
Ash let out a deep sigh and relaxed into the back seat of the van. The girl was curled up in the corner, trembling. Poor kid must have had no idea what was going on. Not that it mattered, he wasn’t being paid to care. He pulled a pack of camels from the pocket of his black cargos and slipped one between his teeth. The bitter but welcome taste of tobacco mixed into his saliva. A silver zippo flicked lazily between his fingers, sparks biting the edge of the cigarette. With a sharp breath nicotine filled his lungs, all tenseness in his body evaporated, and smoke began to spill into the tiny space.
“Hey that stinks, cut it out.” Michael’s voice snapped from the driver’s seat. Ash rolled his eyes, stumped out his cigarette, and sucked in, hard. Every wisp of the grey haze withdrew back into his mouth. His cheeks and chest bulging from the air he pulled in Ash swallowed, and released. The smell had gone. The smoke had gone. But so had Ash’s tranquillity. “And I’ll thank you not to do it again.” Ash’s face contorted into an unsettling mixture of fear, confusion, and frustration.
“Wait, I heard that.” He growled. If the girl had looked up from her fortified bundle on the floor, she would have been able to see the gears grinding behind his eyes. “Sound. Why is there sound?” His eyes moved over to the girl. Fires of rage burned in the black pits of his pupils.
“How should I know? I’m not a bloody scientist.” Ash’s gaze didn’t move from the girl. His breath grew heavier, more strained. Every muscle in his body was trembling. Awash with fury he reached out and grabbed her hair, forcing her to look at him.
“We got the wrong person.”
The two men were terrifying. The short fat one was bad enough, but that big gangly skeleton guy. Katie would have his hideous smile burned onto her mind for the rest of her life. She didn’t think she’d ever sleep again. What could they possibly want with her? They wouldn’t get a ransom; her parents had no money. Surely, they could tell that from the state of the house. What use could she possibly be to them? She felt a rough tug at the back of her head. Her hair was almost ripped out of her scalp as she was lifted to her feet. She clamped her eyes together. Hot breath blew over her face, filling her nostrils with the foul stench of tar, smoke, and garlic. She gulped, forcing a tiny slit between her eyelids. Anger radiated from the short man. His demonic expression filled her with dread, eyes wide and wild, fuelled by insane rage. Red face strained and throbbing with fury. Veins popping out of his forehead. There was even steam pouring from his flared nostrils. His mouth was moving, the hairs on the back of her arm stood on end, but she was shaking too much to read his lips. Water seeped down the sides of her face, and salty tears nestled themselves into the corners of her mouth. She closed her eyes and screamed.