Robert strolled into the bar on a quiet Tuesday night, just two weeks before people started disappearing all over town. He ordered a craft beer I didn’t even know we sold (it was a real hipster joint) and told me to keep the change.
“Are you allergic to brands people have heard of?” I asked, then grabbed a bottle from beneath the counter.
He smirked. “How long have you been working here?”
“Three months.”
“You enjoy it?”
“Eh, it’s okay.” I set his drink on a little place mat and popped off the cap. “Gotta put up with the occasional hipster, though.”
After a long, satisfied gulp, he wiped stray foam away from his beard. “No way.”
“Yes way. You know the type: tons of facial hair, wears vintage tees everywhere…probably owns a longboard.”
That drew another smirk.
For the next few hours, we chatted about music and films. Casual stuff. Despite being a big guy, Robert came across all soft-spoken and good-humoured—a welcome change from the usual creeps ‘propositioning’ me twelve times a shift. At one point, I demonstrated a little flair bartending by tossing a bottle of tequila into the air and catching it behind my back.
He told me he was new in town and needed somebody to show him around. “How about giving me your number? We’ll go for coffee sometime.”
I did.
Over the next few weeks, we flirted through WhatsApp. He put off our date several times, although he always had a good excuse. Hey, sorry, have to help my aunt tonight. She can’t get her own food, so I’ve got to pick up some groceries.
Around this time, the first victim—a 22-year-old lady, same age as me—disappeared while out jogging. When Mom heard about my upcoming rendezvous with a stranger from the bar, it nearly gave her a stroke. “Call me before you leave. And after so I know you got home safe. And during so I know he’s not a creep.”
Robert turned up to the coffee shop in a denim jacket, which gave him a real lumberjack vibe. His beard looked a little scraggly, plus there were now bags beneath his eyes, but he still looked super handsome.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
He stared into his cappuccino. “Just been having trouble sleeping is all.”
Those soulful, blue eyes now seemed distant and bothered. I wondered what could be troubling him so much, maybe his aunt?
As I teased him and told stories about the bar, he decompressed and gradually morphed into his former, charming self. We chatted about nothing in particular until the staff started turning chairs up onto the tables around us, then he walked me to my car where we made out. He was a real good kisser.
Afterward, Mom called for an official inquisition. I told her Robert recently moved into town, had no brothers or sisters, and promised he’d take me out to dinner soon.
“Where does he live?” she asked.
“Down by the wharf, I think.”
Through the receiver, there was an audible sound of her mouth compressing itself into a little ‘O’ shape. “Well, be careful.”
Turns out, that was excellent advice. Shame I didn’t listen…
Over the next few months, our relationship became very stop-start. We’d have a run of seeing each other every day, then go cold turkey for a fortnight.
Sorry, my aunt again. It’s bad.
Meanwhile, the tally of missing people crept up to four: three women and a guy. The latest victim, Michelle Stewart, vanished on her way home from spin class, which meant Mom pitched a fit since my schedule was jam-packed with yoga and Pilates. “No more walking home after dark, Ciara. Promise me.”
The chief of police, now under insane pressure to solve this case, put extra cars on patrol and stationed undercover officers around clubs and bars; they even held woodland searches aided by sniffer dogs. Unfortunately, there was nothing left of the victims to recover, which meant the investigation was doomed from the start.
With things growing steadily more tense, I found work as a receptionist and switched my Instagram to private. Meanwhile, my dates with Robert became less frequent. They never stopped completely, though.
“Sorry I’ve been so distant lately,” he said, as we sat down to dinner at my favorite restaurant one evening. His collared shirt had deep wrinkles and more than a few dark stains.
By the time dessert arrived, he couldn’t have said any more than five words. Then, during the awkward drive over to my apartment, he shrugged off all attempts at a conversation.
But then, just as I climbed out of his car, certain our relationship had finally fizzled out, his hand found mine, then our fingers laced together. “I’m sorry I—” he stammered, all choked up with emotion. “It’s just — “
“More problems with you aunt?” I asked, softly.
For a moment, he looked slightly taken aback. “Oh…yeah. I’m just so sick of the way she expects me to drop everything just because…” He shook his head, suddenly aware of himself. “Sorry. That probably sounds selfish.”
I gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Don’t worry about it. Why don’t you give me a call when things are looking up?”
He managed a half-smile.
A week later, I messaged ‘How’s it going?’
‘Don’t ask ☹’
A month sped by without anyone else disappearing. My friends and I attended a candlelit vigil for the missing people, where the bereaved families of the missing people took turns speaking. Afterwards, as the crowd filtered out, a guy with long, dark hair stormed the stage and snatched the microphone.
“My name is Jacob.” A horrible feedback whine startled the audience. Jacob held the mic away from his mouth. “There’s more to this story than they’re telling you. Someone was forced to abduct those people, it’s a conspiracy. The same thing happened to my sister, she—”
A chorus of boos went up, drowning out his little speech. Plastic bottles and loose change sailed onto the stage, and one man shouted, “Shut the fuck up you stupid prick!”
As several officers rushed toward the platform, Jacob stood by the edge and shouted, “Theresa-used-herself-as-bait-to—”
From behind, three officers tackled him to the ground. This drew an enthusiastic cheer, which only swelled as Jacob got carted off with his hands cuffed behind his back, screaming the whole time.
The only words I could make out were, ‘sacrifice’ and ‘boyfriend’.
A week later, Robert called out of the blue. “I need to see you. Tonight.”
It sounded ominous—like he planned on officially dumping me. “Should I be worried?”
“Not, it’s my aunt. She’s gone. And…I need to go clear out her stuff but I don’t wanna do it alone. Plus, I could really use someone to talk to. I’m sorry to even ask after being so flaky.”
After sundown, he picked me up and drove West out of the city, his eyes all bloodshot and puffed out.
“So where’s her house?” I asked, after offering my sympathies.
He stared dead ahead, his hands clutching the steering wheel tight. We sped along a darkened highway.
“Where are we going?”
After a few seconds of suffocating silence, I said, “Robert, you’re scaring the shit out of me. Tell me where we’re going. Now.”
“Did you ever have to do something you knew was wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, it’s just…okay, so I’ve got this…problem.”
“Problem?”
“Yeah. A bad one. And I tried to run from it, but I’ve had to do these…things. Horrible things I didn’t wanna do.”
Was this what a nervous breakdown looked like? That was a deal-breaker for me.
“Take me home,” I said, sternly.
“But it’s not like I’m a bad person,” he continued. “I didn’t have a choice.”
At that moment, I became painfully aware of the fact my family and friends didn’t know much about Robert. He now seemed huge in the cabin, as though he’d somehow inflated himself. “Take me home. Now.”
“I suppose I did have a choice, I just wasn’t brave enough to make the right one.”
“ROBERT!” He finally looked over at me. “Stop the car.”
We pulled off the highway, alongside a wall of skeletal trees.
As the sidedoor refused to open, hairs along the back of my neck stood to attention. My eyes travelled from the handle to Robert, who sighed deeply and said, “I’m so sorry.”
Before I could reach into my handbag and fish out my phone, Robert’s hand shot out and snatched my wrist. Images of another candlelight vigil, one in which my family got invited up to speak, flashed before my eyes.
I lashed out, punching, kicking—anything to keep the bastard away. At one point my finger jabbed into his left eye, disappearing right up to the knuckle, and I managed to split his bottom open.
My assailant climbed across the seat and pinned me down, the tremendous pressure against my diaphragm forcing the air out of my lungs.
Robert opened the glove compartment using his free hand. Inside lay a rag, a pair of handcuffs, and a brown bottle.
He poured a clear liquid—the smell of which made me think of a hospital ward—over the rag and then held it against my mouth and nose. White spots danced before my eyes for a few seconds before everything faded to black.
Next thing I knew there were stars overhead. I thought they were part of some drug-induced haze until I shook away the brain fog, then I realized I was lying inside an abandoned church, one with a partially collapsed roof.
Most of the windows were either shattered or boarded up. Dead leaves and trash lay scattered about. To my left, there was a gaping hole in the floor. And past that, a graffiti-covered altar.
“You’re awake.” Robert’s voice echoed off the stone walls as he marched toward me, between two rows of pews hairy with weeds.
My arms were handcuffed behind my back, and there was a cloth gag stuffed inside my mouth. While I tried to wriggle free, Robert hunched down next to me and said, “Shuuusshhhh. This’ll all be over soon.”
His hand dropped onto my arm, caressing it. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up. I wanted you to know I wouldn’t have done this if I had any other choice. It’s just that lately things have been…tense. Theres police everywhere. Women have stopped walking home alone, and now even the guys are being careful.”
Did he mean the missing people? Was he the one responsible? What had Robert done with them? Hell, what did he plan to do with me…
The metal cuffs cut into the wrists as I tried shimmying my hands loose.
Robert brushed a tear off my cheek, letting his gaze wander around the church. “I never planned to get you mixed up in all this. I wanted to move someplace far away. I mean, if I hang around here it’s only a matter of time before somebody catches me, what with every officer in the city working overtime. Not to mention Theresa’s fucking brother crashing the vigil.”
Theresa’s brother. Jacob.
Strange chattering noises rang out from inside the hole. The church was waking up. Robert straightened up and peeked over me, his expression suddenly anxious. What was down there? Maybe he’d toss me over the edge and leave me to rot with his other victims. I pictured myself lying face to face with a decomposed corpse, slowly dying of a painful thirst.
“She wouldn’t let me leave,” Robert said, as he stepped over me and crouched beside the hole. “I swear, sometimes I think she does these things just to torture me.”
There was a knife tucked into the back of his belt. Bingo.
“I tried to find another way,” he said, more to himself than to me. “Honest I did. But I’m out of options.”
This was my only chance. I raised my thighs towards my chest and slipped both hands beneath the back of my knees, then, in one fluid motion, I rocked onto my shoulders and passed the chain under my feet like a seasoned escape artist.
A bouquet of roses would be landing in my yoga instructor’s studio sometime in the near future.
You know, assuming I survived…
As I spider-crawled toward Robert, he said, “It may not seem like it, but this is gonna hurt me a lot more than it’ll hurt—”
My fingertips were mere inches away from the knife when he glanced back. Shit.
On pure instinct, I threw my cuffs over his head and pulled the chain tight across his throat. This made him straighten up and shouldered my entire weight, pawing furiously at his neck.
We did a little mini waltz before Robert gave a choked rasp and staggered sideways. There was a moment of complete weightlessness. Then, as we collided with the cold, concrete floor, my ribs made a sound like a wishbone getting pulled apart at Thanksgiving dinner. This made my thoughts drift toward holidays with my family—towards Mom, and all that good advice I ignored.
Would she ever find out what happened to her only daughter? Somehow I doubted it.
Robert and I landed in a small puddle of moonlight, less than fifteen feet across, my cuffs still wrapped around the bastard’s throat. A steady trick of blood gushed from his left ear. Although he absorbed the brunt of the impact, I wouldn’t be running the New York marathon anytime soon.
Ignoring the jolts of pain stabbing my midsection, I slid the chain over his skull and rummaged through his pockets until I found a key. Then, with great difficulty, I angled it downward, awkwardly attempting to unlock the cuffs.
A loud chattering echoed all around, bouncing off one unseen wall to another. Unable to locate the source, I rose to my knees, my head whipping in every direction.
While I remained frozen in place, Robert sat up as though ordered to by a stage hypnotist. “I’m okay, I’m okay.” he muttered, his voice all groggy.
My eye happened across a huge silhouette close by—one which definitely hadn’t been there moments earlier. It circled the light like a passing shadow.
Pupils badly dilated, my ex-boyfriend looked from me to it then shouted, “What are you waiting for? She’s right there.”
Hands trembling, I unlocked the cuffs, slipped the gag beneath my chin, and then crawled away on my elbows.
“Do it already,” he screamed.
The shape kept still, chattering away. This prompted Robert to lunge forward and clamp his hands around my ankles. He slowly pulled himself along to my torso, his hands fumbling their way along my body until they could flip me onto my back.
Up close, I could see one of his cheekbones was fractured, and his left eye was already an ugly, purple bruise. His hands closed tight around my throat and squeezed.
Whatever remorse or guilt Robert had been harboring had now dissolved. He squeezed so tight my eyeballs felt ready to launch from their sockets.
He grabbed the knife from his belt and then went to stab me in the face, but a split-second—less, even—before the blade connected, I grabbed his wrist and held it.
The point hovered six inches above my cheek. Robert clenched his jaw and growled. Two inches. One. This was the end. The bastard was way too strong.
Just then, Robert’s eyelids fluttered and his wrist slackened. He was battling some kind of dizzy spell.
Seizing the opportunity, I made a desperate gasp for air and then forced his arm sideways and jammed the crown of my skull into his nose. Crunch. A stifled groan slid up his throat, at which point I headbutted him again.
A jelly waterfall spewed from his nostrils and into my mouth, disgustingly warm. The chewy texture made my guts squirm.
I spat the blood out, ripped the knife from Robert’s hand, and plunged it into his neck. When I let go, the handle stood out all by itself.
Robert probed it with his fingertips as though deeply confused, and for a moment I thought it wasn’t over—that he’d simply rip the blade out and stab me right back, leaving us both to die from exposure.
But instead, he fell forward and collapsed on top of me. He gurgled, rasped, groaned, and finally vomited phlegmy threads of sticky blood, quietly groaning.
The chattering sound echoed around once again. I craned my neck to look over as the strange shape extended up and up, almost touching the ceiling.
Exhausted and breathless, I wormed my way out from beneath Robert, at which point a pale blur, bristled like a sea urchin, whipped out of the darkness and snatched him away.
Robert screamed, but not for long. His cries were quickly drowned out by chews and crunching bones.
Holding onto my burning ribs, I clambered to my feet and staggered away.
“Please don’t.” The harsh, feminine voice lacked emotion. I froze as the dull sound resonated all around. Whatever spoke had lungs the size of a fridge.
I made another desperate break for it but had taken no more than three steps when the silhouette soundlessly cut in front of me.
“Who’s there?” I shouted into the darkness.
No response.
“What did you do with Robert?”
A severed head rolled forward like a bowling ball, colliding with my feet. My legs wobbled as I bit down on a scream.
After several minutes of listening to those horrible chews, I worked up the courage to say, “Are you going to kill me?”
“That depends.”
“…On what?”
“On whether you agree to certain…conditions.”
“What sort of,” I gulped, “conditions?”
As it spoke, the voice circled my position. “Your little boyfriend brought me fresh food. In exchange, I spared his life. But now he’s dead. And someone has to take his place.”
Fresh food? The missing people.
That bastard fed me a sob story about his sick aunt to lure me in…
I whirled around, in an attempt to not expose my back to whatever was out there. “If Robert brought me here as food, why not just eat me as soon as we fell into the hole?”
That awful chattering returned, louder than before. “Fun.”
The shape drew closer. Now I could taste a thick, rancid swamp breath. “Agree to take his place, and I’ll let you go. But if you refuse…” Robert’s head got snatched away in a heartbeat, startling me so much I tripped backwards and fell down, hard.
Yeah, no problem. I’ll agree to take his place. And the first thing I’ll do once I leave is book myself a one-way flight to—
“And don’t run,” it said, as if in response to my thoughts. “Your boyfriend tried it, just like the lady who brought him, and the man who brought her.” The creature took a deep inhale, sucking my blood-clotted hair towards it like a vacuum.
“I can taste you and everybody you ever cared about. There’s no escape.”
In a weak voice, I said, “Why do you even need me? Why not hunt by yourself?”
More chattering. “Games.”
“I can’t,” I stammered. “Robert, he…he abducted women. I weigh 100lbs. How do you expect me to—”
The creature circled around me and leaned so close a warm breath engulfed my right ear. I felt the presence of something huge hover over my right shoulder but didn’t dare look around.
There was a brief pause. And then, almost cheerfully, the creature whispered, “Bring me a meal in the next thirty days, or I’ll eat you instead.”