5 Minute Reads - Anthology

Alive

Stacy has lost Shaw.

She stops on her track, hands on her knees, panting hard. Her shoulders heaving with each long exhale, heart bursting in her ribcage. The early morning chill does nothing to sooth her body. Her muscles are aflame, hot and coil tightly underneath her skin, pulsing to the heat. But she doesn't complain. She likes this feeling. Like to feel strong and wired and ready for a new day.

Stacy slows her breath and straightens up, her spine pops. The wind rushes by, rustling the trees and bushes. She looks down at the path she has taken, scanning the edge for Shaw. He has always been slower than her in running, and a part of her feels guilty again for leaving him behind.

Stacy has been training everyday build up her body since high school, being a champion athlete, Shaw tags along as a moral support. Although, most of the time Shaw keeps whining and wheezing at his hefty stomach, Stacy likes to have him by her side.

"Shaw, hurry up." She says, although she doesn't expect any response.

Kicking the dirt with her shoes, she backtracks. She already knows Shaw would be slumping against a fallen tree trunk that he has taken as a natural bench, huffing and puffing, with rivers of sweat streaming down his faces and neck and back, forming odd shapes on his fade, wrinkle T-shirt.

Stacy smiles, knows exactly that she would say "The rabbit is supposed to be the one who rests and loses the race," and how Shaw would scowl, reluctantly standing up.

Yet, today, upon reaching the log, Shaw is nowhere in sight.

Stacy looks around, frowning. "Shaw, baby." She calls, slowly continues down the track. She knows he should be here by now. When she takes off, they are only a few hundred metres from this spot. There's no way he doesn't make it.

"Shaw, this isn't funny." Stacy says.

She wonders for a second if Shaw has decided he's fed up with her and goes back.

The possibility stings.

"Shaw, I'm sorry," Stacy spins to face the forest. Worry and tears pricks her eyes. "

"Come on, I'm sorry. I won't leave you again."

Silence mocks her.

"Shawn." Stacy cries.

She fumbles for her phone, her fingers tripping over each other. The phone slides out of her grasp, hitting the ground with a sicken crack.

Cursing, Stacy bends to sweep it up.

"Miss?" A voice piques up from above. Two pair of black doll shoes appears in front of her.

Stacy jumps back, alerted.

The blonde girl stares up at her with sparkling blue eyes, pouting. She's in a traditional English-school uniform, with somber brown skirt and straps, knee-high socks and a crisp white blouse with a bow tie neatly at the base of her throat.

Despite her angelic features, her skin is an ashy, pale gray of burnt paper. The girl's hollowed-in cheeks and bruises bags underneath her eye socket jump out.

"Are you looking for a man?" She says in an Russian accent.

"You seen him?"

"He's in my cabin." The girl says, turning and walking down a narrow pathway, paved with smooth, small pebbles.

Something in Stacy's head blares warning. But she pulls her shoulders back, chiding herself.

The cabin perches near the edge of a ledge, hides in the shadow of a great almond tree. She swears this section of the forest never exist. There's no mountain in the middle of a downtown park.

Stacy looks back, yet the pathway has disappeared. She almost runs back to the tree line to make sure her eyes didn't screw up, but the girl throws an odd glance over her shoulders, forcing Stacy to remain a mature.

The stepping stairs creak under Stacy's weight. The girl before opening the door, beckoning Stacy.

Stacy scans the cabin exterior again. Her eyes linger at the dusty gray windows before finally comes inside.

"Shaw? You here?" Her voice cracks at the edge.

The antique smell of ashy incense hits her nostrils first, then come the freezing temperature and the soaking darkness. Stacy unconsciously flinches away from a shard of light penetrating through the screen veil. Goosebumps broke out on her skin.

She feels eyes watching her, the sensation amplifies as she ventures deeper inside this cabin, like million cockroaches wriggling over and devouring her.

"This way, Miss."

Stacy lets the door hangs open, and silently uses the tip of her sneakers to pushes a footrest over as a stopper. She notices the wooden floor has a lot of scratches and hollowed channels like someone has drags nails across.

The girl disappears inside a room.

Stacy follows.

She halts in front of the doorframe, a scream rips out of her throat.

Shaw sprawls upon the floor, saliva foams his lips, dripping onto the floor. His arms reaching out as if he was crawling away, his knees and ankles bent at weird angles. His flesh is decomposing into dirt.

Little children, dozens of them, swarm around his corpse, stomp on each other's head, digging something.

They all pause and look up at Stacy, all at once like one single creature. Their mouths hang open, worms and larvae wiggling out.

The blonde girl stands amongst them.

"It's another living."

"Sasha, you're very good at hunting."

"Yes, yes,"

"How would she taste?"

"Better than this fat ass, I'd wagger."

Stacy gasps, scrambling to get out. The short hallway seems to stretch out to eternity. Her legs pump faster, frantic.

The front door slams close, shutting out the light.

"No!"

Black blinds her eyes. Stacy almost runs into a wall.

A brass bolt slots into place, the hard finalty thunders in Stacy's ears. She trips and stumbles, feet skidding across the floor.

Then hands are on her body. Giggling drowns over her panic.

She pitches, hitting her jaws hard on the floor. She writhes, pushing and digging her fingers into the melting floor, struggling to get up. However, tentacles and liquefied life-like creeps over her. She opens her mouth, but flurry moth wings and spindly arachnid legs flew into her oral and nasal cavity, filling up her pleas. Her eyes rolled far back.

When she blinks up for the last time, she sees numerous faces of children grinning downward, teeth as white as bone.