Asylum
by Karen Pellett
October 2015
The sun tucked
behind the distant mountains, hiding her escape but also making it impossible
to see where it was safe to run. Cindy’s skin prickled with the kiss of bitter
smoke on the wind and the sudden drop in temperature. She grabbed hold of a nearby
tree to steady her weakened knees, but the coarse bark cut into her palm until
it bled. The rain-soaked ground undulated beneath her feet, resembling the body
of a serpent slithering below her in the fading light. The pain and numbness
from the drugs’ lasting effects only intensified the hallucinogenic feeling.
Clawing her way up
the tree-blanketed hill side, her hair fell in shriveled threads out of its
ponytail, creating temporary cracks in her vision. She brushed the errant strands
out of her eyes looking for a path through the forest brush. As she stepped
over a fallen branch, her foot sunk into a puddle of mud, leaves, and slime. Cindy
tugged her foot hard until it pulled free with a slurp and a pop. The frayed
pink strap on her sandal snapped and sank silently into an oozy grave.
Her heart pounded
like a jackhammer on steroids, but she had to think. How long had it been? Ten,
fifteen minutes? They must have discovered her absence by now. The marks on her
wrists from the ropes that once bound her felt tender. Memories rampaged
through her head. The people hidden behind surgical masks. The experiments. The
pain. The screaming. The smell of burnt
nylon and skin so real she nearly gagged.
The crickets ceased
their chirping. Cindy bit down on her cheek to quiet the pending sob until
blood seeped through her lips. As she slid down the trunk of a nearby tree, the
bark tore at the fabric of her stained shift and tearing at her back. What were
a few more scratches to the tally she’d already earned that night?
The crisp leaves
crunched under her weight as she shifted, startling a garden snake from the
safety of its hole. She gasped. A low guttural sound rumbled the woods from down
the hill in answer, sending a feral echo through the night. A flock of birds escaped
into the safety of the blackened sky. Cindy closed her eyes, wishing that she
could sprout wings and fly with them to the safety of the stars—away from the Hunters.
She peeked out at
the forest around her. The white of the quaking aspen trunks looked like
skeleton fingers digging their way out of the ground, grasping for air, for
life. She shivered and rubbed her arms to erase the feeling, leaving a single bloody
trail on her skin; she looked down at her feet—the one pink sandal still
holding tightly on her right foot, blue nail polish worn and scratched. Wrapping
her arms around her knees she rocked to and fro, the sandal coming in and out
of view.
Pink. Forest floor. Pink. Forest
floor.
The rhythm soothed
her aching heart as she counted along to the time of her rocking. But something
tickled at her conscience. Something felt off.
You mean more wrong than being hunted as
prey, she thought to herself.
Pink. That inkling
tugged at her pained skull. Something about the color.
What’s wrong with pink?
She stopped
rocking, staring down at her feet. The pink glared at her against the darkness,
a beacon in the night. She fumbled with the strap; her fingers numbly tugging
at the metal until the leather strap broke lose. Ripping the sandal free from her foot she
clawed at the moist soil until the dirt broke away in chunks.
No. No. No.
She shoved the
shoe into the hole and desperately dragged the crushed leaves, twigs and dirt
to hide the signs of its existence.
A few moments
later, the muffled sound of the Hunter’s young voice reached through the
darkness. “I think I saw something over this direction . . . It’s one of her
shoes. We’re close.”
Not yet. Please.
The trees to her
left thinned too much for Cindy to escape into; to the right, a mesh of long
forgotten shrubbery which just might lead to safety. Moving to her hands and
knees, she crawled in the direction of the hedge.
“Shhh, I think I
heard something,” said the young male hunter.
Cindy inched
further toward the bushes. Rounding their worn edge inch by inch, her arms
trembled, her body worn out, until she spied the framed of a cabin. Her heart
pounded as she debated the still slow crawl or a mad dash to safety. The bushes
behind Cindy rustled. She leapt to her feet and ran—the safety of the porch
mere feet away.
“Gotcha!”
Two heavy bodies
plowed into Cindy, knocking her to the ground. Her hair knotted with the debris
from the pile of leaves she landed in.
“No!” she
screamed.
An animal jumped
around the edge of her vision, growling and barking. As her attackers struggled
to subdue her, the bang of the cabin door opening was a gunshot in the night.
Cindy’s attackers froze giving her a clear view of the doorway. A man towered
in the doorway, his shoulders blocked out the majority of the door, his head
nearly touching the frame, but his bearded face clouded over as he looked down
on them.
“Please!” Cindy
yelled. “Help me.”
The Hunters’ weight on her chest made it impossible to say more.
The man rushed to
her aid with a roar.
“You’re home!” The
Hunters squealed as they leapt off of her tired frame.
The family cocker spaniel
no longer growled his feral rumble from the hunt but yipped around the children’s
feet as they rushed into their father’s arms. Cindy collapsed back onto the
pile of leaves she and the Hunters had raked up earlier that morning, her
muscles aching with the strain of the day. She wanted to run into the safety of
her husband’s arms as quickly as her children had, but she could barely move.
The crunch of
heavy boots on the scattered leaves grew louder. After a few moments of silence
her husband took her by the hand and helped Cindy to her feet. “Need a break?”
She shook her head,
and then stopped. The pain wasn’t a part of the costume. “And miss out on Trick
or Treating?”
He rolled his eyes
at her. Hand in hand, they walked toward the cabin; the sounds of their children
inside vibrated the walls.
Cindy sighed at
the noise, stopped to look into the murky woods that outlined their home, and
bit her lip. She had to do it. Standing on her tiptoes she kissed her husband’s
scratchy beard.
“I forgot my shoe.”
She ran toward the hedge border, calling over her shoulder, and said, “Every
Cinderella must have her slipper.”
Her haunting
laughter echoed through the forest as the darkness enveloped her into its quiet
arms.
Happy Halloween Everyone!!!!!!!
