by Amy Cross
Before she could get more than a couple of feet, however, someone grabbed her neck from behind and pulled her back, slamming her head into the wall before shoving her into the hallway. Landing hard against the floor, she rolled onto her back just as Cole stepped over to her and placed his right foot against her bloodied chest, pushing down with enough force to keep her pinned to the ground. When she tried to push back, he pressed his foot down even harder until she felt several ribs starting to break. With his back to the pile of burning bodies, Cole kept the camera aimed at her face as he continued to crush her chest, twisting the heel of his boot as Anna's breastbone began to crack.
“Do you want me to scream?” she tried to ask, but only a few pained gasps came out as she stared up at the camera's unblinking red light. She tried again, but she felt as if her chest was about to collapse.
Still the red light burned, and the camera's dark lens watched every moment of suffering.
“Do it,” she tried to whisper, but no words emerged from her lips.
She was just waiting to die.
Suddenly she saw movement behind Cole, as a figure emerged from the flames and grabbed his arm. Cole turned, just as Marit's face appeared over his shoulder. Realizing that she wouldn't get another chance, Anna lunged at him, grabbing him by the waist and dragging him down to the floor. He dropped the camera and Anna, spotting a knife next to the pile of burning bodies, grabbed the handle. The metal surface was too hot to touch, but she tightened her grip anyway and turned back to face Cole as he tried to get to his feet. For the first time, she saw his small, beady eyes and the lines and wrinkles criss-crossing his flesh. She stared for a moment, until he opened his mouth to say something.
“You could never do it,” she heard Jennifer's taunting voice whisper in her thoughts. “You're not broken enough. You don't even have the guts to defend yourself.”
“Run!” Marit's voice screamed. “Anna, just run!”
She lunged forward, driving the knife into Cole's chest and then pulling down hard on the handle, carving the blade straight through his heart and down into one of his lungs.
“Stop!” Marit shouted. “Anna, please, you don't need to do this! You just have to run!”
Anna refused to let go, even as the red-hot handle burned her skin, even as Cole began to cough blood into her face. Screaming, she began to twist the knife, bringing a fresh eruption of blood from his mouth. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the camera resting on the floor where it had fallen, and she realized that the lens was still pointing at her, recording every moment.
“No!” she screamed, filled with a sudden sense of pure hatred. “No, you -”
Before she could finish, there was a loud crashing sound from above. She looked up just in time to see the ceiling collapsing, bringing burning timber smashing down all around her as she continued to scream. She tried to let go of the knife in Cole's chest, but the red-hot surface had melted her flesh to the bone. As she turned away from the flames that were falling all around her, she saw the camera still filming every second, its dark lens aimed straight toward her even as the cabin's groaning walls crashed inward.
With the camera still watching, she began to stab Cole's lifeless body over and over. Finally, as the heat became too much, she closed her eyes and screamed.
Chapter Twenty
When she opened her eyes, a cool morning breeze was blowing across the clearing and the sun had risen high into the sky, bringing light and warmth to the scene.
Anna blinked a couple of times, her mind filled with vague memories of fire and pain. Finally she turned her head slightly and saw the remains of the cabin, smoldering in the center of the clearing Almost nothing was left of the building itself, save for some sections of burned timber poking up like charred ribs from the rubble. The rest was just ash, although after a moment she spotted something white poking out from the mess and she realized it was part of a human skull. She had no idea who it had belonged to, but as she got to her feet she realized she could see a few other bones in the rubble as well.
For a fraction of a second, she remembered being in the middle of the blaze. She remembered slipping away, letting the flames take her, and then...
And then someone had reached down and picked her up, carrying her through the smoke.
She looked around, but there was no sign of anyone.
Still, she had a vague memory of being carried out of the burning cabin and into the clearing.
Taking a few stumbling steps forward, she spotted what appeared to be footprints in the muddy ground, heading straight toward the spot where she'd fallen and then away toward the forest. Turning, she realized there were actually two sets of prints, disappearing between the trees. She glanced back toward the burned cabin, still convinced that at any moment Cole or one of the others would rise up from the ash, but there was nothing. She remained completely still for a few minutes, trembling with pain, before looking down at her ravaged body and seeing that barely an inch of her flesh had been left unhurt. She'd been burned, cut, drilled, sliced, scalded and even electrocuted. Whole sections of skin were missing, some of which had been crudely cauterized to keep her from bleeding to death too soon. One entire breast was gone, and strips of flesh had been peeled away from her belly, and when she looked at her hands she remembered that several fingers had been cut off one by one.
Finally she let out a faint, wailing moan.
“This is going to hurt, bitch,” she remembered Jennifer hissing, with the pincers around the index finger of her left hand. She remembered the feeling of the flesh and bone being cut, and she remembered Jennifer's squeal of delight as the finger had dropped to the floor.
Turning away from the cabin, she felt a shiver pass through her body. She saw the footprints again, and this time she began to stumble after them, hoping against hope that she might find whoever had saved her. She wanted to believe that somehow the police officer had survived, but the more she thought back to the person who'd carried her out of the burning cabin, the more she began to realize that it had been someone female, someone familiar. Staggering between the trees, she followed the prints for several minutes before spotting the lake glittering in the distance, and she kept going until she reached the shore and saw that both sets of prints simply led into the calm, pristine water.
“You'll be okay,” she remembered a voice whispering into her ear, after she'd been carried out of the cabin and set down on the ground. “I promise.”
Marit.
It had been Marit's voice, and somehow Marit had come back to save her.
As she looked out across the lake, she realized she'd seen two bloodied, naked figures heading away from the cabin during the night. She wasn't certain, but she felt it had been Marit and Karen Lund. Making her way to the lakeshore, she crouched down and dipped her right hand into the water, feeling the coolness against her skin. She could see the reflection of her own face, and for a moment she could only stare in shock as she saw the damage. Most of her hair was gone, and her nose had been sliced away to leave nothing but two small holes above her split and torn mouth. Feeling that she looked more like a corpse than a survivor, she pulled back from the lake and felt for a moment that her only option was to follow the other footsteps and walk into the water, never to walk out again.
Deep down, however, she knew she wasn't broken. She wasn't ready to die.
Slowly she turned and began to walk back through the forest, stumbling toward the road that she hoped would lead her to civilization. She had no idea whether she had a chance, or whether she'd just end up collapsing after a few paces and dying among the trees. Her thoughts were scarred and confused, as if vast pain had cleared a space in her mind that now lay empty. All she could do was stagger onward, and try to remember what the world had been like before she'd ever set foot in the cabin.
Epilogue
Four weeks later
“Okay,” the doctor said, glancing back down at his notes for a moment, “I think that's the basics cover
ed. What I want to do next is run a series of tests in order to determine how you're dealing with your situation.” He kept looking at the notes for a few more seconds, before glancing at her. A faint flicker of discomfort crossed his face. “Does that sound good?”
Sitting on the other side of the table, in her hospital gown, Anna stared at him. She knew he was trying his best, but she also knew that like everyone else on the ward he found it difficult to meet her gaze. They all talked about plastic surgery and reconstruction work and skin grafts, and it was clear that they wanted to get her back under the knife as soon as possible, to make her look a little more normal again. For now though, she wouldn't be surprised if they asked her to wear a mask.
“Do whatever you want,” she said finally. “I don't care.”
“We just need to understand your state of mind,” he continued. “Then we'll have a better idea of the treatment regimen you need. Does that -”
“You don't have to explain it to me,” she replied, still staring at him. “Just do whatever you think is necessary.”
She waited for a reply, but after a moment she glanced over at the camera in the corner, which had been recording all her sessions.
“It's important for you to understand why we do what we do,” the doctor told her. “That way, you can work with us rather than against us. After all, we all want the same thing, Anna. We want you to get well again, so that you're eventually able to leave this facility and resume a normal life.” He paused, as if he was expecting her to offer profuse thanks. “You will lead a normal life, you know,” he added. “You're only twenty-one years old, you have so much still ahead of you. This kind of ordeal, while horrific, doesn't have to change who you are at your core. You can and you will recover from everything that has happened, and soon you'll be back to your usual -”
“It's fine,” she said, interrupting him again but still staring at the camera's dark lens. A moment later, her attention shifted to the little red light that indicated the camera was still running. “I'm more than happy to sit here for as long as you want, doing any kind of tests that you think are important.” She thought for a moment that she could almost see her reflection in the lens, but she told herself she was imagining that part. “I'll sit here all day if you like,” she added, “and even all night.”
“Is the camera bothering you?” he asked. “It's not essential, I can -”
“No.”
“I can turn it off.”
“No!” she said firmly, almost shouting as she turned to him. She paused, regathering her composure. “I mean... I think it's probably best to keep it on. So you can refer back, you know?”
“As long as it's not upsetting you.”
“It's not.”
“I need to fetch some documents,” he continued, getting to his feet and heading over to the door. “I'll just be a few minutes.”
“Did you hear back from Norway yet?” she asked.
He opened the door before glancing at her. “I'm sorry?”
“About the video,” she replied. “You said... You said you'd contact the detectives running the case and ask if they'd located the video in the ruins of the cabin.”
“I spoke to the gentleman in charge of the investigation, but he said they hadn't been able to salvage anything. It sounds like all the equipment was destroyed in the fire. Don't worry, Anna, the video is long gone. It will have burned with the rest of the place, so you don't need to worry about it ever resurfacing, because that's simply impossible. He assured me that they would have found it by now.”
She stared at him for a moment, as a faint twitch flickered across the right side of her face.
“Okay,” she said finally, trying to hide her disappointment. “Thank you for contacting them.”
“I'll be back in a few minutes,” he replied. “I'll bring some tea for you as well, and maybe something for you to eat. And remember, this terrible experience doesn't have to change you. You can go back to the person you were before.”
“No,” she whispered as he left the room and pulled the door shut, “I don't think I can.”
Sitting alone, Anna stared straight ahead for a moment, feeling a sense of absolute peace starting to settle throughout her body. Slowly, however, she began to become increasingly aware of the camera's faint hum, and finally she turned and stared straight at the lens. At first there was no expression on her face at all, and for a few minutes she simply watched the glassy circle as it, in turn, watched her. She felt her mind emptying, save for the occasional brief flashback to her ordeal in the basement of the cabin. She'd told the doctors that there had been no flashbacks at all, but she figured there was no need to worry them. After all, the flashbacks were completely unimportant, they were neither good nor bad, they just happened and there was no need to even think about them.
All that mattered was the red light on the camera. As long as the light was on, the camera was recording, and she felt sick to her stomach at the thought that the light might one day blink off. The idea of not being recorded every second of every day... It was almost too much to bear. The camera was her friend, her companion, even her lover. It had seen everything, shared every moment of agony and ecstasy, it had been in the basement with her and now it had followed her to the hospital. Sure, it wasn't the exact same camera, not physically, but on some other level she felt that its gaze was the same, and that it loved her truly. And the footage from the cabin? It was out there somewhere, it had to be, and she'd find it. She'd be able to watch herself eventually, she was certain. She'd be able to relive every moment over and over again. Other people had probably seen it by now, too. They'd seen her fighting and screaming and begging for mercy and sobbing and fucking and bleeding and killing Cole and so much more.
Gradually, as she continued to stare at the camera in the corner, a smile spread slowly across what was left of her face.
***
Thousands of miles away, a computer monitor showed a progress bar gradually reaching 100%. Finally, the bar was replaced by a dialog box containing a simple message:
File upload complete.
Also by Amy Cross
THE FARM
No-one ever remembers what happens to them when they go into the barn at Bondalen farm. Some never come out again, and the rest... Something about them is different.
In 1979, the farm is home to three young girls. As winter fades to spring, Elizabeth, Kari and Sara each come to face the secrets of the barn, and they each emerge with their own injuries. But someone else is lurking nearby, a man who claims to be Death incarnate, and for these three girls the spring of 1979 is set to end in tragedy.
In the modern day, meanwhile, Bondalen farm has finally been sold to a new family. Dragged from London by her widowed father, Paula Ridley hates the idea of rural life. Soon, however, she starts to realize that her new home retains hints of its horrific past, while the darkness of the barn still awaits anyone who dares venture inside.
Set over the course of several decades, The Farm is a horror novel about people who live with no idea of the terror in their midst, and about a girl who finally has a chance to confront a source of great evil that has been feeding on the farm for generations.
Also by Amy Cross
ANNIE'S ROOM
1945 and 2015. Seventy years apart, two girls named Annie move into the same room of the same remote house. Their stories are very different, but tragedy is about to bring them crashing together.
Annie Riley has just broken both her legs. Unable to leave bed, she's holed up in her new room and completely reliant upon her family for company. She's also the first to notice a series of strange noises in the house, but her parents and brother think she's just letting her imagination run overtime. And then, one night, dark forces start to make their presence more keenly felt, leading to a horrific discovery...
Seventy years ago, Annie Garrett lived in the same house with her parents. This Annie, however, was very different. Bitter and vindictive and hopelessly devoted to her father
, she developed a passionate hatred for her mother. History records that Annie eventually disappeared while her parents were executed for her murder, but what really happened to Annie Garrett, and is her ghost still haunting the house to this day?
Annie's Room is the story of two girls whose lives just happened to be thrown together by an unlikely set of circumstances, and of a potent evil that blossomed in one soul and then threatened to consume another.
Also by Amy Cross
ELI'S TOWN
“Someone really should go check on Eli...”
Every year, someone from the Denton family travels to the town of Tulepa, to check on weird old uncle Eli. This time around it's Holly's turn to make the journey, but when she arrives she discovers that not only is Eli missing, but the locals appear to be hiding something.
Meanwhile, a strange curse seems to have struck the town. Every day, at exactly noon, one resident drops dead. Is the string of sudden fatalities just a coincidence? If it's something more sinister, why does no-one seem to be trying to uncover the truth? And what do these deaths have to do with the disappearance of Eli Denton, a strange old man who has barely even left his house in more than a decade?
Eli's Town is a horror novel about an eccentric but seemingly harmless man who discovers a new way to live, and about his niece's desperate attempt to uncover the truth before she too succumbs to the town's mysteries.
Also by Amy Cross
