Lost: Casa Perdida [Completed]

Everything Went Black

Timothy McAllister

I was panting as I placed my hand on the rough bark of a dying tree after three hours of running from one end of the forest to another. I had thrown away my only weapon after I exhausted its magazine. It was a pistol I'd discovered inside Shifaly's bag when I'd been near that house before I started fleeing. The bag had seemed untouched, just thrown into the thicket by the side of a large bear trap. Probably, that monster hadn't found the bag of a girl it had beheaded interesting. 

I didn't know what caught me then, but I was angry and began screaming as I fired the gun in the air. I wanted to fight that monster. But then when it appeared at the door, I ran away like a child scared by a clown. 

It had been a few hours or maybe a day before that day when we all had decided to go like idiots into that home when Shifaly had discovered that gun; A sad thing that she hadn't been able to use it. I remembered Kirt and I talking over that gun, the name of its original owner inscribed on its grip, and its slide emblazoned on both sides by a monochromatic insignia of the Bolivian Police. 

I flinched as I heard a peal of thunder, thinking it was something else. Thinking it was it. I had been running for a long time, and at every spot, where I'd hidden, that monster never failed to appear after a few minutes.

I looked around that hillock I stood on, amid the downpour impeding my visibility, to catch the slightest glimpse of a silhouette of that thing chasing me. I could not go running around any longer. I had not eaten for a day and my stomach was rumbling.

I wondered what might have happened to Hernanda and Jackson. It had been a lot — I didn't know how many — days since I had left them in the jungle. They were a stupid lot. I hated staying with them, bickering about a pathetic plan that wouldn't work. But, at that moment, as I stood exhausted and about to faint, by that tree, I hoped that nothing bad would come their way. I wished I could've stayed with them because I'd be safer with them. How stupid I had been to break away from them!

My legs had been screaming, squirming for me to stop when I ran. But I had to force them to run; for their own good. It's no good for them if I died, isn't it? 

It walked slowly when it pursued me, only interspersing its meandering with sudden bolts. But that scared me. It seemed like it was hunting me for pleasure like it knew that wherever I tried to hide, it wouldn't lose me because it knew that part of the forest too well. 

I only wished that I hadn't wasted all those rounds in that pistol before having to throw it off. I should have waited till it closed in before firing at it. What could have helped save my life — those precious seventeen bullets — were wasted in hitting trees after they missed the monster. 

If this was the woods back in Wyoming, it would've been easy for me to run through; but this wasn't the woods. This was the jungle where the trees were denser, where sometimes the forest floor was impassable. Where there was a deadly creature at every nook and corner. While I'd been fleeing that thing an hour earlier, I'd nearly stepped on a snake. It had almost bitten my feet.

I gulped and tried to drink some of that rainwater to refresh me.

That was when I heard the sound of twigs crunching. I heard that clearly. Amid the crackles of thunder. Amid the sound of the wind breaking twigs. Amid the white-noise of gallons of downpour being dumped on the rainforest.

"Oh, boy," I squealed. My bladder gave away and I wet my pants. 

I heard footsteps.

I froze. I wanted to move but my legs weren't cooperating.

Fight. Flee. Fight. Flee.

I shuddered as my feet suddenly gained strength. Gasping, I darted down the hillock, took a U-Turn, and went back into the thicket from where I had debouched when I had climbed up that little hill a few hours earlier. That monster ran this time. It was sprinting and I wondered how could it run so fast with that cloak on. 

I could feel the cold steel of its knife closing in on my back

I darted to the right before the knife could sink deeper. 

There was a mild laceration on my back. I nearly missed my arm getting caught by its hands.

There was some space between the two of us after a few minutes. I wished that my legs wouldn't trip over the branches and the rocks on my way. It wasn't easy sprinting in that part of the jungle. My lips were still bleeding because of smacking into a rock when I had tripped seventy minutes ago. I couldn't risk falling again. Not when it was so close.  

I kept running for a few more minutes. Maybe ten. Maybe twenty. I kept running, screaming as I did. When I had assured myself that I had run for a long while, I stopped and turned back. It was gone. 

My gasping and panting were louder than ever before. My chest started to hurt, so I put my hand on it. My wheezing gave into a painful burst of coughs. My nose started to bleed. I noticed that when I wiped my nostrils with the back of my hand to get rid of what I thought was boogers

My legs were sore, almost like stone. I couldn't run any longer. Looking around me,  I searched for a place to hide; running was out of the equation. I made up my mind to only hide from then on. I took a few steps to my left, scanning my surroundings to verify that it wasn't hiding. I was on flat land surrounded by trees, not on a hillock then. So, even if that being was hiding in the thickets, I couldn't see it.

I stifled the next round of coughs that followed and gently placed my feet on the ground as I moved. I searched under the trees for any large burrows to fit me. I found none: either they were not there, or they were too small. I kept walking, slowly. I searched once again but found no place. 

I continued pushing myself through bushes and shrubs, squeezing myself between trees as I trudged through the forest floor. Every time I searched for a place to hide, I was disappointed.

I had reached a spot close to a hill then. Wondering, it might hold some places to hide, I hopped to it. 

There was a cave.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed aside the ferns covering it and sat inside. 

That was when I heard that noise. Those noises.

Hisses they were.

A chill ran down my spine. Taking a gulp, I turned to my right, only to recoil at a ball of snakes.

I screamed and threw myself out of that cave, hitting myself, trying to swat what I thought were snakes that might have climbed inside my shirt and pants. 

When I got up and turned to my left. Slink!

I stared in horror as that monster pushed its blade into my lower abdomen, between my two hips. I stared in disbelief at the knife sticking out, feeling the awkward sensation of the cold, razor-sharp blade sawing through my insides. 

I then looked at that monster's dreadful face. Its eyes unnerved me. Soon everything became blurry and I could feel blood coming up my throat. My legs and arms failed and I slumped. Everything went black.