Foxes

Suspense Stories | Jun 18, 2014 | 10 min read
32 Votes, average: 4 out of 5
"Bardo Thodol?" I say, passing the joint to my girlfriend in the passenger's seat beside me. "That sounds like some Buddhist type shit."
Sarah takes a hit, holds it in for a moment and then exhales. The thick, milky smoke slowly pours out of her mouth and escapes through the sunroof into the night.
"Well, yeah, it's Tibetan." she says, half smirking. "People in the west refer to it as the Tibetan Book of the Dead."
"Sounds creepy."
"Actually it's really quite beautiful. Basically the book explains that when you die, your consciousness leaves your body and you go to a place with a lot of white light."
"You mean like purgatory?"
"Not exactly." Sarah taps the joint over our little makeshift ashtray in the cup holder. "You start to re-experience certain moments from your life, some beautiful and some terrifying. Sometimes your soul even stays among the living for a while and just floats around, watching people go about their business. Then when it's had enough of that, it gets reborn."
"...So it's basically reincarnation."
"Yeah, basically. They read the book to the dying to help them prepare for the afterlife."
"Are you gonna read it to me when I'm dying?"
She laughs and hands me what's left of the joint. I take a couple of puffs then dispose of the butt out the window. The wind takes it, blowing it in front of the car somewhere out of sight. I gaze out at the row of McMansions lining the street on either side of the car. The grey clouds above float in contrast with the surrounding black sky, giving the illusion of smoke billowing up from the backyards of the identical-looking homes. Foliating trees sway in unison on each and every one of the neatly manicured lawns. It's so quiet. So eerily peaceful. I like it here.
"You know, I don't think I've seen a single car drive by since we've parked." I say, my eyes still fixated out the window. "Your neighborhood is the perfect place to smoke weed".
She reclines the seat all the way back and gazes out the sunroof.
"Yeah I guess so. All my neighbors mostly keep to themselves, when they're not out golfing or cruising around in their little 30 foot yachts. And there's never any crime here so this area is rarely patrolled."
"That's good." I say, reclining my seat back to join her.
We lay there in silence and stare up at the little rectangle of sky. I try to make out the broken constellations of stars.
"So who would you come back as?"
"What?"
"If you had the chance to be reborn as anyone you wanted, alive or dead, who would you come back as?"
She laughs. "Jeff that's not how it works. You can't just choose who you want to come back as. And you can't come back as a dead person either."
"I know but hypothetically, if you had to choose one per-"
"2Pac." We both burst out laughing.
"C'mon, really? 2Pac?"
"Yeah yo, he was inspirational as fuck for a gangster."
"Yeah but normally you don't choose the thug life, the thug life chooses you."
More laughter. "Ahh you're right."
I close my eyes and lay my head back on the headrest; the lingering smell of marijuana still wafting around in the air. This is so peaceful. Everything is silent apart from the faint sound of the wind beating against the exterior of the car.
We don't hear them coming.
Sarah's door is the first to open. Two men dressed in all black grab her and rip her out of the car. Before I can grasp what's happening, my door swings open and I'm being ushered out of my seat with a hand over my mouth and a large knife to my throat. The light from a far street lamp glimmers off the knife and reveals it for what it really is: a katana. He's holding a fucking katana. What kind of car jackers are these? I catch a glimpse of my girlfriend on the other side of the car struggling to break free from the two men, both whom are brandishing katanas of their own.
Full panic sets in and I -- momentarily forgetting about the large blade pressed tightly against my neck -- start to thrash my body around, trying to gain an inch, a centimetre...of freedom. This ends as quickly as it begins; the man smashes my head into the car door with inhuman speed, putting a stop to my lashing out. My vision blurs and I'm down for the count. I can just barely hear Sarah's muffled pleas for help, swept away by the wind like bits of old newspaper and trash. Drops of blood trickle down my forehead.
Fuck. My head is killing me. Ughh. Why can't I move?
I try to lift my arms but they're being held together, lassoed behind my back by some kind of thick rope. I yell but nothing comes out; someone has stretched a piece of duct tape over my lips while I was down. My vision begins to focus. I attempt to get a look into the face of the black silhouette floating above me.
His face is concealed by what appears to be an orange fox mask; an elongated snout and pointed ears peaking out through the hood of his sweatshirt. He ominously tilts his head to the side and stares at me through the two little black (empty) holes that the mask affords for vision. My breath gets caught in my throat. I can't exactly see into his eyes but I can feel him looking down on me; a look of cruel curiosity, like a mad scientist looking down on a tortured experiment subject.
After what seems like an eternity -but is probably only a few seconds- he quickly cocks his head straight, lifts his leg up and drops a boot down on my chest, hard. A sharp pain shoots all through my body as I roll over and start choking for air. Jesus Christ. I can't. Fucking. BREATHE. My heart is pounding against my chest, each beat sending miniature ripples of pain all over.
I lay on my side, defeated and still. A hand reaches down for my collar and suddenly I am being dragged along the pavement to an area in front of the car; my arms and legs trailing behind me like a ragdoll. I can't see anything, everything is masked in shadows. A loud, steady hum rings in my ears and behind that, a little fainter, I can hear a deep gurgling.
"RUUNGHLLRRGLURPPRR"
I'm dropped down in front of the car; my chin hits the concrete with a crack. The metallic taste of blood starts to fill my mouth. I stay down.
"URGHLLRRRPPUUUUUHGR"
My eyes begin to adjust and a dark outline starts to form on the ground a few feet away, human in shape.
"RURGHGGGGHURRP"
Someone clicks on the ignition of my car, painting the road around me with yellow light.
"URGHRLLLRGG"
Sarah is lying there; her eyes gaping with fear, her mouth overflowing with blood that has begun to pool in a small puddle on the road. Little red spatters trace the way along the pavement to her severed tongue laying abandoned a couple of feet away, bloody and motionless.
My eyes dart back and forth between the two displays. A buzzing feeling begins to emanate deep in my stomach. A feeling of fear, panic and most predominately, anger. So much fucking anger. How could they do this to us, to her? To waltz into our lives like this and begin torturing us. Who the fuck are these guys and what are they doing in a neighborhood like this? How is nobody hearing this? Where the fuck is our rescue?
The buzzing circulates through my entire body until every muscle fiber is vibrating in a blind rage. I start to thrash on the ground, hoping to somehow slip a hand loose of my restraints. I'm going to kill these guys. I'm going to fucking...
Someone drives a foot into my side, fracturing one of my ribs. I ignore it.
...paint the street with their blood. I swear to god, they're dead. They're all fucking dead. How could they get away with this? They're...
Another kick, followed by a third.
...not gonna get away with this. I won't let them. It's not fair. It's just...
A fourth and final kick.
...not fair.
I lay still, desperately trying to fill my lungs with air and failing. My eyes close. The kicking has stopped but I can still feel the foot reverberating up and down my body. My sides ache. Everything is buzzing and throbbing. It's all white. Is this what death is like? Sarah said you go to a place with all white light. Am I going to be reborn? Maybe I can come back as 2Pac or someone else. That'd be cool, right?
No, fuck that.
I force my eyes to open. Sarah is still lying there, wearing an expression of paralyzed shock. I can tell that she's still alive despite the fact that she's not moving: her mouth is making little lapping sounds as she pushes the blood out from her throat and onto the concrete. She needs medical attention NOW. She's either going to choke on her own blood soon or die from lack of it. I scan her body; her hands and legs are free, unrestrained by anything like mine are. Her deep state of shock must be the only thing keeping her fixated to the ground. That and fear. We're both scared shitless. If only I could snap her out of it...get her to wake up.
We lock eyes. Sarah, look at me. Run. You have to get up and run. NOW. Run up the street. Bang on someone's door until they come out. FUCKING RUN. My eyes are frantically darting to the empty street in front of us trying to signal her escape route but nothing is registering. She's just staring at me and quietly sobbing, barely any sounds are escaping from her blood-filled mouth. The men are huddled a few feet away from her now, each wearing an identical fox mask, each whispering to each other in some dead-sounding language that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. C'mon Sarah, read my face. Look at me. Run. Get up and...
Finally the gears click into motion and her eyes spring to life. She's going to do it. She's going to try to make a break for it. A small smile forms on my face, concealed by the duct tape. If she could just get up one of the lawns, if she could just make enough noise on someone's front porch, she would be okay. Even if they throw me in the car and drive off, she would be okay. I watch as she puts her hands flat on the concrete to push herself up and...
It all happens so fast.
Before Sarah has even gotten halfway up, one of the men jumps on top of her, causing her head to bounce off the concrete. Standing with one boot digging deep into the small of her back, he reaches down and grabs both of her arms, pulling them up and back at an ungodly angle. I see her wince in pain as he bends them to a full ninety degrees. Jesus christ, what...why are they...they're going to kill her, they're going to fucking KILL her. She tries to scream, to yell out in pain, but is unable to; only a series of short whimpers manage to escape past her lips. Kind of like a dog who has been fatally struck by a car. On one hand you want to put the dog out of his misery; to end the sad little whimpers of pain that evoke your deepest sense of sympathy and sorrow, emotions that are at their strongest only when the cries of the innocent are heard. But on the other hand you don't want to say goodbye.
I don't want to say goodbye.
My eyes well up with tears. I can't watch this. As I go to look away, one of the men steps on my head firmly, pancaking my left cheek to the road and forcing me to watch. The gravel cuts and scratches as I jerk my face up and down the road, trying to slide out from under the boot. I try to scream for help hoping that someone will hear me, but all my screams remain trapped in my mouth, barricaded behind the strip of duct tape. The third man approaches Sarah; his blade dragging on the road behind with a rattling noise almost exclusive to horror movies. Oh god, oh Jesus Christ. I should close my eyes. I know I should close my eyes but I can't. I can't leave her alone. He towers in front of her, blade raised in the air, peering down on her like a God on Judgment Day.
I look into her eyes. I think she's trying to say goodbye.
Without so much as a second thought, he brings the katana down and across in one swift slash and amputates both of her arms clean apart. She lets out one small cry as her now disfigured shoulder stubs rotate back into their neutral position, bringing with them a splash of blood that stains the road on either side of her. The three fox men hold her severed arms up to the light, studying them proudly, grins eerily spreading across their fixed, hard plastic masks. I notice the stub of the joint that we were smoking on the road a few feet away, its light having long gone out. I look into Sarah's eyes and watch as her light grow faint. It's fading. And fading. And fading. And just like that, it's out, too.
The men are gone now, vanished into the night with my car and their two trophies in tow. I stare at the gruesome scene that they've left on display for me, unable to move or look away. The perfectly manicured lawns are bare, no one having heard any noise from the events that just transpired out in from of their homes. I lay there, completely numb.
Not a single car drives by until morning.

Tags:

  
Report This Story
Notice (8): Undefined index: User [APP/View/stories/story.ctp, line 227]
Notice (8): Trying to access array offset on value of type null [APP/View/stories/story.ctp, line 227]

Recommendations

Reviews

Download the Short Story Lovers App

Read and write stories anytime, anywhere with the Short Story Lovers app