Burning Man

A young woman wakes up in an unfamiliar place, hunted by an inhuman stalker.

Hour 1

 

Alex was shocked awake by the sound of her alarm, it's harsh screeching bringing her back from an otherwise peaceful slumber. She fumbled in the darkness for it, sweeping aside her sheets in search of the snooze button. After a few seconds of desperate searching, her fingers snagged against the smooth plastic of her phone cover. Her thumb came down on the iPhone menu button. The light broadcast the time: 00:00. Sighing audibly, she hit snooze and turned to pull the covers over herself. It was then that she realized something was wrong- the sheets felt ... stiff, like they'd recently been starched. The mattress also seemed different, not the soft and yielding feel of her orthopaedic mattress. Slowly, she rose and picked up her phone again: the time was now 00:01, her confused face reflected off the new screensaver which showed a piece of paper with the words "read your Notes." She swiped the screen aside and opened her Notes app, finding a single entry titled "Read me." In the darkness she sat up and opened it.

"Good morning Alexandra

You are probably wondering where you are right now, to find out you must get up and find the light switch. Use the phone light if you must. The note on the switch will explain the rest."

She reread it three more times to see if she had made a mistake. She wasn't in her room. Where was she? Why was she in a bed? How did she get here? She closed the note and opted to look through her contact list, someone would help her. Scrolling down she found her mother's number and pressed the green button. After a second, the no area signal noise played. She tried again. The same. Five times she called, five times she was rewarded with that same tone. She moved the phone away from her ear, she had no choice now.

Turning the phone light on she was greeted by the sight of several people standing around her bed. Screaming in surprise she jumped back, hitting her elbow against the bed post. The pain did nothing to stop her racing heart as she stared at their stiff bodies. Before long, her curiosity got the better of her and she picked the phone light up again to scan her surroundings. Department store dolls in various poses greeted her back. Her heart hammered against her chest as she swept the duvet aside and placed her bare feet on the cold tiled floor. She moved aside the first dummy and made her way into the darkness, sweeping the light as she went. After fumbling for what felt like hours she eventually found a panel with many switches on it. Shining her light on it revealed a switch labelled "let there be light." When she flicked it, every light above her slowly flickered on. Their dull white light revealed her location: a Home and Decor, one she recognized immediately. This was where she bought her mother a kitchen set for her second fake 50th Birthday.

 After taking it all in she noticed a piece of paper stuck to the wall with PresTik. Her hand grabbed it off the wall and opened it to the following words:

"Hi again Alex, do you mind if I call you Alex? I know it's familiar, but we've met and spoken so many times it feels right. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I can't tell you my name (not my real one anyway), but I can give you name the media has so cleverly bequeathed upon me: The Matchbox Killer"

Her breath caught in her chest as she read on:

"As you can no doubt see I've spirited you away to your favourite Home Decor. I hope your mother enjoyed the Le Creuset set you bought. But there I go again, being so familiar... let me get to it. I have locked you away inside this mall complex. Do not attempt to open the doors leading outside, they are locked with more than steel. What you must do instead is simply survive. This mall will only open its doors again in five hours. If I do not catch you within that time limit, you may leave. If I do however, well... I'm sure you have seen my work. To make your time here more interesting for me I have taped a handgun to the underside of a piano on the first floor. I have also taken the liberty of charging your phone to 100% so your light doesn't go out too soon. Other than that, you have the entire mall to hide in. Oh, and do not bother hiding in this place, if you do I will come down and end our little game prematurely.

Good luck."

Panic seized her tightly as she dropped the note. It floated gently to the floor as she moved quickly towards the exit. Her bare feet slapped loudly against the floor, sending extra chills up her legs. Coming to the door she put her sweaty palms against the handle and turned with panicked speed. A loud creak echoed in the dimly lit halls of Cavendish Mall, the second floor empty and oddly cold. As her eyes adjusted once more to the relative darkness she moved quickly toward the escalator. The empty corridor was replete with reverb, making every rhythmic step a heartbeat. Coming to the stilled escalator steps she began to descend at a rapid pace. She needed to get to the gun as quickly as possible, she had seen what had happened to the girls he caught. Once on the first floor she took off in the direction of the CNA where the piano was located. It had been setup for a solo classical pianist who had come here every day for the past week. She felt heat returning to her body as she jogged towards the large piano. Fishing out her phone she turned the light back on and began to fervently search the black behemoth. Underneath it she found nothing, a scan of the top revealed the same. It was only when her gaze returned to the notes themselves that she noted a single sheaf of paper with various notes scribbled on it by hand. The title above read "Apollo Comes to the Aid of Paris." She placed the light on the page to better read the notes and placed herself heavily on the stool. It was four bars of music in the key of A Major with notations on dynamics and tempo. As she read through the piece, memories of her days in high school learning to play the piano returned. She had never liked it, but mother loved her Chopin and always wanted a musical child to play his pieces for her. But she was never a musician, one of the many ways in which she had failed her mother.

Shaking the memory off she tentatively began to practice the piece. It was deceptively simple, the flourishes in the triplet lines of the third bar were particularly beautiful to her ear as she went through them. After what felt like an eternity of trial and error, she was able to play the piece slowly from start to finish. On the last note, a click from inside the piano made her jump. She rose and opened the top to reveal the tuning pegs, beneath which was a small box. Her hand snaked between the taught strings and found the box, a soft varnished wood greeted her glistening fingers. Once it was out, her trembling hands opened it to reveal a small revolver with six rounds in small indents. She took them out and loaded them one by one, remembering how her father would do it every day before work. Once inside she clicked the chamber closed and thumbed back the hammer. She raised up the cold steel and tried to focus on the crosshairs but felt her hands waver. Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself that every shot had to count, she only had six of them. After a time, she pocketed the firearm and picked up her phone. Almost an hour had passed since she had picked up the gun, she needed to get moving.

Hour 2

Alex had moved from the first floor to the separate area were the movie theatre was. As she moved up the escalator towards the ticket section, her mind played scenes from her previous time here. She had come with a boy to see the latest Marvel movie. He was attractive in that model way, perfectly chiselled cheekbones with abs to match. She had met him on a shoot for some magazine long ago. Amazingly, he didn't seem interested in getting in her pants. Not right away at least. He asked for her number and a week later they were watching some flashy film about people in spandex fighting a purple man. She had never been into comics, but she wanted him enough to sit through two hours of garish colours and explosions. Afterwards as they sat in Tin Roof, he talked her ear off about secret wars and other nerdy nonsense. He shut up when she kissed him. The music was absurdly loud she recalled, her eardrums vibrated in a sign she mistook for ecstasy. Five minutes later he had her bent over a bathroom stall, breathing heavily into her ear as he thrust ineptly in the dark. His moisturized hands groped through the cotton of her blouse with a grip like iron. She remembered how he had pulled at her auburn hair, flinching at the memory of the five red welts he left on each breast and how quickly they bruised the day after. That and the bite marks on her right ear, back and neck. As she crossed the stalls to enter the theatre proper she realized she had forgotten his name. She deleted his number shortly after their encounter. To think that was only a month ago...

Brought back to reality by the sight of the cinema, Alex quickly pushed through the doors and into the third room. Down the winding corridor she was greeted by more than a hundred seats. In the darkness she found her way to a seat in the middle and fell into it. Without realizing she had been running most of the way and her breath was ragged now. The urge to smoke gripped her before she realized where she was. The momentary thought caused a laugh to come out. That one laugh turned into another as she struggled to grasp onto the reality of her situation, hunted by a crazed killer in the middle of a mall with no way out until five o'clock, the butt of a service revolver gently nudging against her thigh.

"Absurd, f*****g absurd" she breathlessly announced to the empty cinema.

Her words came back to her in the seemingly cavernous room, repeating innumerably like the thoughts racing through her mind. At least she could rest here for now, the killer had not mentioned the cinema in his note. She could hide here safely for an hour, Hell, maybe the entire night. Leaning back into the soft chair, she felt her eyes closing slowly. She tried to resist it, blinked several times to force her mind into awareness. But eventually she was taken by a thick cloud of blackness, thinking of that unknown model as her eyes closed.

*

She was awoken by a click as the screen opened. Her misted over eyes rapidly blinked in confusion at the sudden sound. "F**k" she softly muttered at the realization that she had fallen asleep. Raising herself up to leave, she noticed the pictures moving on the screen: a small child blowing out candles, her hair tied up in pigtails and her small frame dressed in a loose green dress. Around her stood several people, the largest was a man with dirty blond hair and a clean-shaven face. He was beside a slight woman with a thin countenance, a martini hanging lazily in her manicured hands. There was no sound, but she knew what their mouths were saying as she watched. This was her tenth birthday. Shock prevented her from rising as the film continued to play out. Alex watched her younger self blow out the candles as the crowd of people cheered her on. The man lifted her up and planted a kiss on her check before taking her for a piggyback ride. This was roughly three years before her parents split up, she remembered thinking how happy she was that day. Her reminiscing was interrupted by a deep voice coming out of the speakers.

 "You looked so happy then Alex. Mommy and daddy still together, a nice house and lots of friends" it said

"Not one of those girls in the video are your friends anymore." Her head swivelled to source of the sound, the adrenaline returning once more.

"What was it that changed you I wonder? Was it the divorce? Your father's infidelity? Your mother's alcoholism?" the voice asked with a hint of amusement                                   "Maybe it was all of the above. But I know it put you on the path to me. Tell me Alex, when you got knocked up, did you do it to spite your parents?"                                                      Her body froze up as he continued "I mean yeah, the boy was handsome. Dangerous and empty-headed, but I know you like 'em dumb. I suppose it made it easier when you said he raped you."                                                                                                                              

She jolted at the words and began to leave the seat as the voice went on "How did it feel to put an innocent man in jail? Barely eighteen but the judge didn't care, you had connections and a daddy on the force." Her foot barely reached the last step when she turned around to see images of a young man, brutally beaten. Blood crusted his nose and lips, it leaked from deep gashes in his stomach.

"You didn't interest me until I saw the pictures Alex" the voice began to rise in pitch now "You looked like just another giggling party girl to me. But providence brought this to me!" he concluded with a booming voice on the edge of breaking. She could almost hear the joy in his quivering voice as he said

"It gave me a reason to seek you out."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hour 3

The sound of naked feet echoed followed Alex as she ran blindly down a corridor. Her heart leapt in her chest, almost threatening to burst out and scream the fear in her mind. How did he know, where did he get that tape? It was impossible, the case had been handled in a closed court session. Someone must have said something. But who? These thoughts raced along with her as she tried to get as far away from the Nu Metro cinema as possible. Nowhere was safe here, every floor only offered a temporary hiding place. Even the heaviness of the gun was not enough to quall her fears. Her father had the photos of the bodies that the Matchbox Killer left. Their burnt corpses singed to the bone, skin blackened and peeling off their scorched muscles. And with every kill he left his calling sign: a single match propped up inside a box. She could not become another victim, not two hours away from the malls opening.

Eventually she found herself on the basement floor. Taking a running jump towards a stall, she landed behind a clear display case with various Twisp brand e-cigarettes. Her breath came out heavy, her muscles were screaming in agony, threatening a dangerous cramp. Struggling to compose herself, she took a quick look at her phone to check the time. The clock read 3:06, only an hour and fifty-four minutes away until the mall reopened, and she could make her escape. It was all she could do from screaming as she put the phone away and took several cleansing breaths.

"It's okay" she reassured herself "He probably won't be able to follow me here as quickly."

He didn't seem to be in a rush, even when he had her in the cinema. The voice that came from the surround sound speaker made him seem so big, an otherworldly force in her irrational predicament. Shaking off the thoughts, she leaned out of the booth to scan the surrounding area. Close by were several businesses, a coffee shop attached to a book store, an optometrist, TV equipment emporium and a men's high-end tie boutique. Assuming he followed the path, she took she would have plenty of time to run should he cross the book store’s threshold. Falling back into the stall she looked around for something else that could serve as a weapon if he got too close. A cursory examination revealed nothing but smoking paraphernalia. As she squinted into the glass case she found a small canister of flavouring fluid. Her sweaty face was reflected almost too clearly in the reflection of the glass, but soon misted over as her breath puffed away. If she could get the container within, an extra projectile would await her. At the very least it would serve as a distraction should he find her. Taking a step back, she took off her jersey and wrapped it around her fist and aimed carefully. She knew from experience that the weakest point of any window or glass was in the middle. With her full strength she lunged through the display. The glass shattered easily as her arm ploughed through. Grabbing the fluid, she hurriedly pulled her arm and received a small cut for her trouble. A brief shot of pain went through her and she winced in response. Luckily it was just her shoulder, the cut was superficial at worst. She licked her thumb and placed it on the cut to clean it and encourage clotting. Once the cut stopped bleeding, she ripped off a section of the sleeve and wrapped it around her upper arm. It wasn't tidy, but it would do for now. Pocketing the canister, she took off in a new direction, an idea forming in her mind. 

*

A shadow was cast over the dimly lit first floor section of the mall as a figure stepped in. His hand found a small cotton jersey on one of the seats. Lifting it up, he noticed a torn sleeve and a thin sheen of perspiration on the back. He raised it up and inhaled deeply, as if to catch his prey's essence. A thin and wicked grin spread across his face.

"She's hurt."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hour 4

 

The time for her escape was rapidly approaching now, only an hour separated her from freedom now. And if her plan went through reasonably well, she could perhaps hurt the killer in some way. She had made sure not to back herself into a dead-end, but reasonably close to one of the exits. As such, she had hidden herself around a corner close to the escalators near the McDonald’s ground floor entrance. Fear still gripped tightly at her heart, but a new feeling lessened it’s hold: hope. If he followed the clues she had left him, he had only to cross the threshold of her vision and she would fill him with lead. Compulsively she checked the revolver’s ammo count, slowly counting the six shots that lined the metallic cylinder. Each bullet had a small dot in back with a .38 stamped on it. With some vague nostalgia she recalled her father’s pedantic lecture on how the .38 designation referred to the bullets casing and not it’s calibre (which was .357 inches). The memory comforted her greatly. Her dad had always been unusually specific about a lot of things, but he never bored her when he spoke. Alex’s thumb gently brushed against the chamber, feeling the jacketed copper against her chilled hand.

“Stay grounded” she whispered to herself, shutting her eyes and exhaling slowly

“You’ll get through this. Remove the possibility of failure, success will come.” She confirmed the words and closed the chamber with a click.

 It might as well have been a prayer in the dark, but it helped to calm her fraying nerves. Thoughts of immolation were swept aside as she steeled her body and nerves for action. Whatever it took, whatever happened now, she would survive. In the relative dark behind a corner stall, she checked the revolver once more.

* 

Heavy feet feel upon the steel gridles of the stopped escalator steps, clanging like some ungodly machine in the dark. They fell deliberately, purposefully, as if to punctuate each second that passed with added dread. With those footfalls came a whistle of exaggerated casualness, going off key in a disturbing pantomime of the song “Happy Birthday” as the Matchbox Killer made his way closer to her hiding spot. Alex turned her head to catch the direction they were coming from. As she just about understood his position, the footsteps came to a halt on the tiled floor.

“You know I’ve enjoyed our little game tonight” he began “Second for second you’ve lasted the longest, I must commend you on that.” She could feel his eyes scanning the room as he spoke, prompting her to retreat further into the walls and bringing the revolver up with both hands. “The little clues you left to lure me here were quite entertaining, but if you plan on finishing me off, you’ll find me a hard target to hit” he continued, the sound of his shoes squeaked ever so slightly as he dragged his feet. Alex bowed her head slightly, putting her finger outside the trigger guard and tensing her legs as he came closer into her range. The final steps came ponderously, seeming to take days as Alex knelt forward on one knee and leaned forward, her shoulders relaxing as her arms fell slightly and bringing the gun towards the ground.

The tension in her legs exploded like loaded springs as she leapt forward into the open and raising the firearm. The first shot echoed shrilly as it flew from the barrel, sparks of ignited gunpowder briefly lighting the darkness and making her squint painfully. The bullet arched towards her target, but it struck open air as the killer’s form seemed to shift momentarily to the side. The shock of seeing his body seem to blink in-and-out of existence caused her to briefly lose track of his location, but again she attempted to fire off two other shots. Once more, the killer moved under the two wild shots and began to sprint towards her location.

Alex dug her feet in further, squaring off her stance and taking aim more carefully this time. She pulled back the hammer with her thumb as her eyes travelled over the iron sights, the sweat in her palm collecting against the suddenly hot grip. Steady hands extended a single finger across the trigger, seemingly in slow motion, as the electricity moved through her primed neurons. A loud bang punctuated the silent night air as two bodies hit the floor.

 

Hour 5

 

Confusion and pain shot through her as she looked up to see the figure pinning her to the cold tile. She tried to move her right arm and was rewarded with a shooting pain going up her wrist, briefly filling her vision with black spots. Alex’s broken wrist seemed to hang off the edge of her forearm as the killer’s hand held down her hand. Another hand began to grip tightly around her throat as she tried desperately to wriggle away from him.

The pain intensified as his hands pushed down on her broken hand and throat, making the black spots return with excruciating speed. A wave of dizziness hit her hard, causing the room to spin aggressively and making the spots in her sight spread further around the edges of her consciousness.

“You got close that time” he called out over her struggling noises, making sure to plant his knee in her stomach “but our game is nearly done, so if you would be so kind as to pass out...” Alex felt the darkness encroach on her vision, shutting out everything but the grinning face of her assailant. “Stay awake” she thought to herself as her free arm fumbled underneath the killer’s knee which pinned it to the ground for her pocket. In response to her continued resistance, he pressed down even harder with his entire body, prompting a strangled gargle from her lips. The swimming sensation in her brain spread painfully, leaving a small pinprick of light in the centre of her eyes as she began to drift off deeper and deeper into oblivion.

A visceral sound punctuated the air as a shard of glass imbedded itself in the killer’s right side. Alex’s bloody hand gripped the sharp edge of the glass piece she had taken from the kiosk, painfully forcing it deeper and deeper into the killer’s body. Her head was pounding loudly and painfully, but she felt herself slowly able to push his body off herself. The heaviness of his body seemed to increase the more she pushed the glass into his right side, edging closer to the liver. The killer’s breathing had been laboured since the stabbing, but now he began to slowly and painfully moan as his mouth bled from the edges. Using her elbow as a fulcrum, she roared and knocked his body to the side. His body hit the floor with a wet thud, staining the tiles beneath him a bright red, creating ripples as he shivered in it. Alex rolled to one side, trying with great effort to raise herself up on one arm as her broken wrist flopped uselessly beside her. Her knee’s continued to shake beneath her, racked by a terrible cough as her body tried to forcefully fill her lungs with air. Finally, with aching effort she forced her fatigued body to stand, her head laying slightly back and her mouth hanging open as she sucked in deep mouthfuls of copper-stained air. She realised in that moment that she had bitten down on the inside of her cheek and it was bleeding quite handily.  

A cough from behind her caused her to turn suddenly. The killer lay on his back, his right side beneath his ribs continuing to send cascading streams of blood onto the floor. Alex was almost sure she had hit something vital, he should have been in huge amounts of pain. But aside from a loud cough, he seemed unconcerned by the glass jutting from his body. In fact, as she examined him, she noticed the red outline of a smile as he gently chuckled to himself. Turning away from him, Alex bent over briefly to pick up the revolver and stowing it in her waistband, taking stumbling steps towards the exit.

She didn’t get far when she heard a squeaking like shoes against freshly mopped floor behind her. “No” she thought, dread rushing back into her as the sound got louder. Carefully, she turned towards the sound, gun outstretched and breath catching at the sight before her: the killer was standing, albeit very shakily before her. The fall he had taken from their tussle had opened a cut above his right eye and it bled freely over his tightly closed eyelid, travelling around the corners of a cruel rictus grin. His oily hair fell in wet clumps, obscuring his face even further. Without breaking eye contact, he grabbed the dagger-like protrusion fiercely, wincing slightly as he pulled with all his might. The sound of the glass exiting his body was nothing compared to the sound that erupted from his lips. It was a wild beast in pain, chipping away at her sanity even further and causing her hands to involuntarily tighten around the grip even harder. His posture dipped as he struggled to remain upright, still looking into her eyes. Alex’s eyes stung lightly as a smell began to invade her nostrils, a smell that conjured up images of open, weeping sores, gutted sunburnt mackerel and township outhouses. She held back a terrible retch, her head lurching forward as the bile rose up. The smell was coming from his open wound, which besides blood was oozing a black, tar-like substance. It seemed to not bother him as he took another step forward and reached into his pocket. Her finger twitched reflexively, letting off a single shot at his hand. The bullet struck true, leaving a smoking hole in the killer’s hand as he stumbled at the sudden impact, his hand flying backwards in an almost exaggerated manner. His posture took another significant dip as he forced his body to remain upright. Still, the grin persisted as he brought the hole in his hand up to his left eye to look at her.

 

It was as if a proverbial penny had dropped in that instant, a perfect target for the exhausted woman presented itself. Exhaling one final time, Alex squeezed the trigger sharply. The fire arched neatly through the air, taking a straight line towards the blackened target. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, her eyes saw everything from the sparks of gunpowder ignition, the air that curved around the bullet, even the rapid temperature change around her hands.  The sound did not even seem that loud now, in fact it barely drowned out the dull roar of white noise in the back of her mind. Her eyes widened even more as she noted the curling of fingers as the projectile came closer to its intended target. All was silent as metal clashed with metal, skin flayed in the fraction of a second and wisps of bellicose smoke arose from an outstretched hand. A silence fell over the room once again as the killer moved his hand away from his eye and opened slowly, a small dented bullet falling from it and landing with an uncomfortable clang. The grin continued to widen as he took small, suddenly healthy steps towards her. Her trigger finger continued to pull fearfully at the now spent firearm as he closed in. The hammer fell, clicking desperately in time with her finger. And his grin continued to grow inhumanly, seeming to reach both ears as he came closer to her, but it was his eyes that filled her with greater fear. Behind them she saw nothing, a void that swallowed up all hope came closer and closer, chuckling all the while.