16.

The first day of June 1970 and a whole new world opens up for a boy three months away from turning fourteen years of age. Yeah, a cabin in a heavily wooded forest so very far away from anywhere he has been before, is as much a brand-new world compared to anything he has ever experienced before, still the past comes too. It shall not be forgotten.

The suggestion is made to spend the first night outside together and that suggestion is pushed with it being said that sleeping out on the cabin porch is not good enough, it just doesn't really count as being outside and within feet of the cabin is also something that has a feel of being all too easy so to indeed push things, to roll off a challenge of sorts ... the idea to sleep outside on this warm dry night is set to occur at a minimal distance of being beyond the first line of forest trees. This to be an adventure and not a task.

Odd it is that the adult shows more concern with safety and whatnot than what he who is classed as a child does. The younger took the suggestion and made it more into a challenge and less of an adventure.

The togetherness of June first into June second would go on to last all of ten days with the following nights all spent indoors. The first full separation of the two came when the elder went on a grocery run. They had caught rabbit and quite the number of fish in those first ten days and there was no major rush to stock up a fridge or cupboards but the brief break from one another would do each a power of good.

A return from that store run saw dusk arrive such is the distance to the nearest town. Darkness quickly descending all around with no porch light switched on at the cabin. Surprisingly, the inside of the cabin has sunk into darkness. Curtains have been pulled and no lighting has been switched on.

No matter how a guardian calls out, there is np reply returning. Something that has become evident over those previous ten days is that a certain boy has an unusual relationship with darkness. The boy indeed is more at home in quiet darkness, or perhaps in not so quiet darkness, than in any other setting.

Apart from he who has returned, the cabin is lifeless. Sitting impatiently, he awaits another return, a return that does not come during what is left of the evening. Perhaps regret has already slipped in with choosing to become a guardian. Believing he was doing the right thing with becoming a guardian and coming out to spend time together in such a secluded place ... well any of it or all of it may not be the right thing or the right way to go at all.

First daylight and a search gets underway. A small circular clearing is soon discovered. The boy has certainly been here though he is not here in the moment of discovery. In the center of the clearing, there is obvious evidence that a fire had been burning. In fact, there is still some smouldering, and that certain amount of smouldering suggests that the boy was still here not all so long ago.

The fact that a thirteen-year-old spent the night, a second night out in a wooded area a fair distance away from the cabin he had been sharing, this particular night on his own, is not the most worrying current thing neither is the fact that he was unsupervised with an open fire. What it is that gives cause for serious worry is the amount of dead wildlife hanging from the trees circling this particular opening.

Some of the critters have been skinned and that in itself looks professional to the point that it would not appear out of position hanging within a butcher's shop. It has been known that the boy is troubled, indeed this is nothing new but this activity ... this certainly is new.

The revealed flesh of so many critters ... where and how did this boy learn all this and how did he get through it in such a short amount of time? And where has he got himself to? Why is he going out of his way to be apart from the only person in recent times to truly care for him?

***

The clanking sound of a metal lock opening echoes out and Gary considers as to if this sound is what he thinks it is. Has it been ten hours? Nah, surely ten hours would appear to take forever to pass, ten hours in a situation the likes he has come to be in would feel like it would never come to pass but it does sound as if some sort of heavy bolt has been unlocked.

The sound passes so quickly as is not followed by any other kind of sound that Gary questions as to if it occurred at all. If the door has been unlocked, then why hasn't it physically opened. No one has come inside to check on him or to tell him his time is up.

If he has survived the challenge, then would someone bring the money promised with successfully completing the challenge? In all likelihood there will be no money, no financial reward ...

But then again, none of it seemed to be what originally been thought to be. Keith's grandfather appearing and making an announcement, the possibilities that he may be a not so friendly character known as The Butcher. The circus people who came to him after he had been locked in this room. Had that really happened. Of course, it had, hadn't it? How did they get in? and how did they leave? Trapeze artists doing their thing, how could that have happened? And then the Ringmaster?

And the choice Gary had been forced to make. Choose a friend to die, don't choose a friend to die then they all will die? He watched it happen. He seen the video. If that door really is open, if this ordeal really is over, then how is he to move on? How can he go on living knowing what he has done? He did not directly kill anyone, but he did make a choice.

He had been sitting with his back against the wall when he heard what he thought was the door being unlocked. Unsure as to what he should do, he does move to that door, and it is ... unlocked. So, what is he to do other than open the door and per outside of the room and see whatever there is to see? He does just that.

'Hello ...' he calls out, cautiously for who is to know what he might find? Nothing, that's what, not right away at least. Someone had unlocked that door, and whomever that someone was, they are no longer nearby. 'Hello ...' he calls out again, a little louder this time. Surely someone must be close enough to hear him, but his hello goes unanswered ... so out into the hallway outside of his room he goes.

The stench out here ... it is disgusting, it is the very same smell he could smell when he first entered the building, the same smell from within that large meat processing room, and from the hallways he had subsequently been taken through. A metallic blood burning stench, the smell of old and charred flesh. It makes him want to vomit so he does exactly that.

It takes him a moment or so before he can move on. This building is potentially enormous, why is he not being escourted out as he had been escourted in? Perhaps his captor, if such a thing can be said, does not want him to live, does not want him to survive, or to leave the building for that matter. If that is so, then why has he been allowed out of his room? There is something more to this moment, he is sure of it. That old bald fellow, Keith's grandfather, the guy who apparently calls himself The Butcher ... what if he is setting something more ... up?

Gary moves on but not at all so easily now. He still feels ill, like he could vomit some more if there were anything within him to actually vomit. He is nauseous, dizzy and is finding it more than a little difficult to walk straight. Still, on he goes.

He is in a slim corridor, about five feet wide and it appears to go on a heck of a distance. There are no windows but there is weak lighting, blinking in places. He uses the walls to help guide his movement. His left hand feels wet having been placed upon a wall. Inspecting his hand as well as he can, reveals the presence of blood ... there is blood on the wall and now on his hand? He vomits again ... liquid mucus only ...

There is a scream, it is female and coming from up ahead of him. He moves in that direction as best he can. If there is someone nearby who needs aid ... well Gary is not really in a position to offer aid though he doesn't think of that right away. There is a room up ahead and to the right, its door is open and the scream he heard most certainly has come from within that room.

'I'm coming ...' he tries to call out, but his words sound out ever so slowly as if he has some kind of speech impediment of as if he has been drugged to some degree and only realizing such a fact now. He forces himself to move as best he can, and he does manage to reach that room. What he sees cannot be possible ... this is horrible ... this is beyond horrible.

Within that room there is a woman strapped to a table, a naked woman, naked in more ways than one. It appears that every ounce of skin, the outer layer at least, has been removed from her and she is suffering immense pain. It has even been taken from her face ... how is she still alive? She is not alone in this room either. There is a man, an ageing man, wearing beige slacks, a white shirt and a full length dark brown leather apron, and it appears as if it were he who robbed this woman of her skin.

This man has his back turned towards Gary when Gary reached this room. He, this other fellow, turns and offers a sadistic smile, proud in his accomplishment, delighted with the art he has created, and somehow is sharing his satisfaction. No, this is sick, it is beyond sick. Gary can't stay here, he has to move on, he has to get out of this ... place.

On he goes again, determined to overcome whatever it is that is holding him back. Corridor after corridor, his dizziness worsening. The screams and torture occurring in multiples within this building, such a place must not exist ... he must be hallucinating. It looks real, it smells real, and it feels ever so real ...

Finally, there appears to be daylight, a way out ... daylight and a way out. Indeed, he gets there, he gets ... outside. Halle-friggen-lujah ... Once outside, Gary collapses and soon his friends have come to him. Keith, Alex and Trebor ... this is great ... this is fantastic ... they made it ... they survived ... and then he realizes.

'I'm sorry ...' he says.

'It's alright Gary, you are safe now.'

'I'm so, so sorry ... I had no choice ...'

'You're alright Gary, just take a breath ... in through the nose ... and out through the mouth ...'

'He made me choose ... he said if I didn't then you all would ... would ...'

'Would what?' asks Alisha.

Alisha? Really? Seriously? Oh, thank God!

'You're alive ... you can't be ...' Gary says. He is delighted that Alisha is alive though he is shocked too ... 'I watched you die ...'

His friend all speak to him, try to tell him that no such thing happened, that they all are alive and well, that they all are free, but Gary doesn't hear any of this, for he is distracted. There is an elephant passing by and it is only about twenty feet away. He looks to each of his friends who are all still trying to calm him, and it would appear that none of them are aware of the presence of this elephant.

This is it, for the moment at least, Gary is not able for anymore and he falls to the ground already unconscious before he completely reaches it.