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The group moved as one, their flashlights casting feeble beams in the dark as they retraced their path back to the factory’s entrance. Each step felt like an admission of guilt, a confirmation they’d given up on their friends. They told themselves that maybe, just maybe, getting out of there and back to town was the best thing they could do for them now—but it didn’t feel that way.
“Hurry up, guys,” Brandon said, his muscular frame tensed as he led the way. “We need to get back to town and tell everyone what happened.” Just then a large, metallic groan echoed through the factory, as if some massive piece of the building was ready to give way.
Christine shivered and pulled her sweater tighter around her. “This place gives me the creeps,” she whispered, her eyes darting.
“Tell me about it,” Betsy said, her face pale as she clung to Eric’s arm. “We probably got an infection just being here.”
“We’ll be out soon,” Stu said hopefully, although he didn’t want to be there when they told Nancy’s parents what had happened to her. He shuddered, remembering the image of the girl hanging from a tree like a hunting trophy. He tried to remember the last time he spoke to her in school, to conjure up a better image to remember her by, but he came up blank. He hoped he’d been nice to her.
They continued through the second floor of the factory, stepping over debris. Thick layers of dust coated everything, including by this time their lungs, and they did their best to stifle their coughs. A loud bang echoed through the cavernous space, making them all jump at once.
“What was that?” Christine asked, voice shaking.
“This place is falling apart,” Stu reassured her. “I’m sure it makes noises all the time.”
“Quiet, you guys,” Brandon hissed, straining to listen. “I think I heard footsteps.”
Eric’s eyes widened behind his glasses. “What kind of footsteps?”
“Maybe it’s Jen and Keith,” Betsy whispered. “They could have heard us and-”
“Listen,” Roxy interrupted, raising a hand for silence. As they strained to hear, the sound of footsteps grew louder in the factory, echoing through the building’s metallic skeleton.
“They sound pretty big,” Eric whispered.
As the footsteps drew closer, the friends exchanged glances, each silently praying that whatever was lurking in the shadows wouldn’t find them. They had lost enough lives for one night, and couldn’t bear the thought of losing any more—especially their own. Eventually the footsteps faded, and they each had to wonder if they’d simply imagined the sounds, their minds conjuring up ghosts out of the dark.
Either way, they had to keep moving. They continued past several rooms, each one darker and more decayed than the last, until they reached a metal catwalk suspended over a darkness so thick they couldn’t see the ground. Stepping onto it, the catwalk’s rusted metal groaned under their weight, and so they moved single file as to not push their luck.
As they reached the halfway point, Brandon at the front, the catwalk suddenly cried and shifted beneath his feet. It pitched to one side, then the other before going still. Everyone froze, fearing the worst. The seconds stretched, and they could barely stand the tension.
Brandon, his body stiff and his arms stretched out at his sides, looked back at the others. “Go,” he whispered, his eyes as big as footballs. Just as the word left his lips, the metal walkway beneath him finally had too much. With a great, wrenching squeal the metal gave way, collapsing out from under him.
He tried to reach out, to grab a railing or a hand, anything to keep him from tumbling into the abyss. He was faintly aware of someone shouting his name, but he wasn’t sure who. Then he was gone, gone, slipped down into the patient shadows.
Roxy stared at the place where Brandon had been standing just moments earlier. In his place was a cloud of dust rising up from the dark, then the echoing cacophony of metal hitting the ground somewhere far below.
Everyone stood in shock. It was as if they’d seen a magic trick of the worst kind. One second their friend was there, alive and strong, and the next he’d simply disappeared. It was enough to make them go numb.
“Is he—?” Betsy ventured.
“I don’t know,” Roxy said, a mixture of emotions hitting her. Brandon was a jerk sometimes, but he wasn’t all bad. She’d known him half of her life, and had shared just as many arguments as laughs with him when they were younger. But whatever she thought of him, she didn’t think he deserved to get hurt—or worse.
“We have to help him,” Stu said, searching the faces of the others. He didn’t want to be in charge, in fact he hated the idea, but he knew if Brandon was alive, he’d be relying on Stu to take charge and lead the group to find him as fast as possible. “He could be alive. We have to find a way down.”
Agreeing, the five of them checked the area for a ladder or some other way to descend, but came up empty.
“Maybe we can make the jump across,” Eric offered, motioning to the other side of the catwalk. “There has to be a way down on the other side, right?”
“Yeah,” Roxy said, “and maybe that part collapses the second we jump onto it. No way I’m doing that. We have to turn back and find another way.”
“But that’s where the footsteps were coming from,” Betsy said, glancing over her shoulder.
Roxy huffed. “I know it sucks, but it’s better than waiting here and falling to our certain deaths.” The moment the words left her lips, Roxy regretted saying them. Brandon had just fallen moments earlier, and if the fall meant certain death, that meant Brandon was really gone. The others felt the weight of her statement as well. Tears formed in Betsy’s eyes, and Stu’s shoulders slumped like the last bit of hope had drained from his body.
“He might be okay,” Christine said, trying to reassure Roxy. As much as Roxy could put on a brave front, Christine knew when she was struggling to hold it together. It didn’t help that she believed Roxy and Brandon had feelings for each other. It was never obvious to other people, but she could see it plain as day. “Listen, Brandon’s the strongest guy I know.”
“And the stupidest,” Roxy said with a sad smile. “At least he doesn’t have a brain to damage.”
Stu looked around, deciding the only way forward was back. “Alright, so we double back and look for a way down. If he’s alive, we’re not going to help him by just standing around. And if those really were footsteps we heard?” His eyes shook. “I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t want to be around when they get here.”
The darkness was all-consuming, swallowing the light in its cold embrace. The air smelled of old metal and fresh blood.
Brandon struggled to blink, realizing it was dust that had caked his eyes shut. He wiped them clean as best he could, coughing up a lungful of bitter-tasting spit. His body hurt all over, his head swam and swayed, and he couldn’t see a damn thing, but he knew this: he was alive.
When he eventually tried standing up, he found his left leg wouldn’t budge. Panic filled him for one horrible moment when he realized it might be broken or missing entirely. He groped in the dark to feel his leg, praying he wouldn’t feel wet bone sticking out from his pant leg, so he was relieved when he found what was holding him down: a piece of the metal catwalk lying across his leg, pinning him to the ground.
With all his strength, Brandon grabbed the length of metal with both hands and lifted. It was too heavy to raise completely, but he managed to bring it up just enough that he could pull his leg back a little at a time, shuffling backward, until he freed himself completely and hobbled to his feet.
He realized how badly his leg was injured when he tried putting weight on it. An electric shock of pain shot up his spine like he’d touched a live wire. He grimaced, pushing the pain down as deep as it would go. For the time being, it did him no good.
Brandon limped into the darkness, careful not to trip over any of the collapsed catwalk that lay in a crumpled heap in the shadows all around him. Eventually he saw a small light up ahead, realizing with a wash of relief that it was his flashlight, still turned on. He picked it up and, clutching it like the lifeline it was, stumbled his way out of the pitch-black belly of the factory.
The area he came to next, while much easier to see in, wasn’t much better. It appeared to be an assembly line, with huge, hulking machines sleeping in the shadows. He wished to be back with his friends, bickering and annoyed, sure, but not alone. His breaths came in ragged gasps, and every sound seemed amplified in the oppressive silence.
“Keep it together, man,” he whispered to himself. “You’ve got this.”
As he moved further into the darkness, an acrid smell hit him that made him gag. He shuddered at the thought of what could cause it, but forced himself to continue. His heart skipped when the shape of a man caught his eye. He swung his flashlight toward it, revealing nothing but a rusted machine.
“Idiot,” he muttered. He limped on, the flashlight’s beam dancing across machines that looked as if they hadn’t been touched in decades. Brandon tried not to think about falling or hurting himself again; he doubted his luck would hold out a second time.
Then, as he rounded another bend, he saw them: two people, lying on the ground. He knew who they were before he saw their faces.
Jennifer and Keith, their lifeless bodies sprawled on the ground in a thick pool of blood. Keith’s head was caved in, his face unrecognizable. Jennifer’s neck was little more than a gaping hole with stringy muscles holding her head onto her shoulders. Almost worse than that, her legs had been shattered to pieces, pulverized like butcher’s meat. It felt like a deliberate insult to her image as the perfect cheerleader. The sight left Brandon reeling, bile rising in his throat.
There was no need to check their pulses; no human could survive what had been done to them.
He choked, his legs shaking from the horror before him. “No. No, this can’t be real.” He wanted to look away from the sight of their broken bodies, to shield his eyes from their destruction, but he couldn’t do it.
Not until the sound of a door opening pulled his attention away. He watched the old metal door slowly swing open, its rusted hinges crying out like wounded animals. Adrenaline flooded through his body, legs stiff and eyes unblinking, as the silhouette of a massive man appeared in the open doorway.
His tattered clothes looked like those of a blacksmith, including a metallic, black mask that entirely covered his face. Eyes were barely visible through its two, deep eye slits, and yet Brandon felt the man’s stare on him just the same, like a cold needle at the base of his spine.
He knew who the man was the moment he saw him, before he could even make out the long-handled tool gripped in his filthy hand. It could only be him: The Bludgeoner, the one from the stories, the one who hunted and killed and hunted again. He had murdered Brandon’s friends. And by the looks of him, his work wasn’t finished.
The Bludgeoner took one step toward him. Then another.
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