Old Barns Do Lie

Bianca tried easing her leg into a mildly different position. She hoped this slight movement would limit the pain and stop any wailing. She knew she would make a noise but the jagged piece of old barn digging into her was making her nauseous. She desperately needed a physical shift to mash up the pain levels and stop the involuntary gasps she knew would come. She tried using that yoga breath she vaguely remembered from a previous life. What was it? Breathe in for 4, hold for 4 and then breathe out for 6 or was it 7 or 8? Gezuz I can't even remember how to breathe. Distracting herself for a millisecond she considered how much she had hated yoga. She had found two positions tolerable, Child's Pose and that Happy Baby one. She wished she could go into Child's Pose now. She held her breath. Had she heard something outside? Why had she run into the old barn? Now she was trapped having wedged herself in between a gun safe and an old barrel of manure.

She listened keenly, not game to move a millimetre. There it was again. A shuffling scraping sound. Good grief, why had she put herself in a position where escape was limited and the smell overwhelming. It had always irritated her the stupid decisions women made in horror films. She got distracted again fuzzily thinking of the times she used to pay for bad cinema, the excruciating yoga performances and the ridiculous hours worked. How had this all happened, and happened so quickly?

The barn door scraped open. In her panicked flight she had tried to wedge it closed but her hand eye co-ordination was completely useless. Shutting an old, creaking slider had been near impossible. Hiding and keeping quiet had seemed far more sensible. She could hear heavy feet creeping around and an occasional muffled grunt when something was bumped at shin level. Frozen in her movements Bianca tried to freeze her mind. But the bright light blinded her again and she stifled a gasp. Her inability to remember exactly what happened the day she changed was frustrating and she had a vague worry her old memories were becoming more and more clouded. In an effort to work on stilling her breath, she tried again to walk her mind through that day.

She remembered a muggy day exploring the countryside surrounding her newly purchased cottage. Working in a bank, her weeks had been tortuously long and her commute an exercise in wasted hours and personal-space theatre. Weekends in the country had helped balance her mind and soul. She had previously discovered caves near yet another abandoned property and with the suffocating heat had finally decided it a fine excuse to explore coolness underground. It had come as a shock the advantageous pricing of her cottage had not been a reflection on her negotiating skills but a reflection on the relentless human withdrawal from the area. The caves had given off an eery, compelling aura and not being feline inclined she had found herself curious enough to explore. She remembered a humming noise and a switchback descent that seemed to go on for a significant amount of time. The vibration had become more powerful as she went further into the caves and each heartbeat had synced with the pulsation of the walls. And then the white light had struck. That’s all she remembered...

Forcing herself back into the present she stifled a groan. The footsteps had gone silent. The dead air stretched but she felt with every fibre of her being she was still being pursued. How could he keep so quiet when her breath seemed to echo in the silence. She stilled her mind again with considerable effort. The light was dim enough to try and distract him from his area of focus. Would she have time to make it to the door if she could nudge something to the far side of the barn? The manure was beginning to cling to her nostrils but she still couldn’t move so the fleeting inspiration was as limiting as a B grade horror idea. All she could remember from the chase was how slow but steady he was. She had been with The Group and somehow had been singled out, and as her primitive responses kicked in, she had run. Through a number of fields and a sunless wood she had bolted, all the while with his ponderous plod not far behind. She had not seen the barbed wire fence and had dashed headlong through it, lacerating herself in the process. It had been painfully exhausting. And now she felt the end was near. Where was he dammit?

She bleated long and hard as a hand grabbed her wounds. Struggling, wriggling and convulsing, trying to force her body to illude his grasp he just held on tighter. If only he knew she was still human on the inside, but it was all the more terrifying as all she could do was bleat, writhe and jerk. She pleaded with her eyes for him to look, really look and recognise her intelligent comprehension of what was to come. It was far too dark for him to distinguish homo sapien life within her gaze and he snarled about her making life too difficult for The Company. She didn’t understand but came to the realisation she would have to give up for now or be killed then and there? She wracked her old brain and instinctively knew the better odds lay in encouraging him to take her back to The Group. She stilled her body and sought a complete lack of physical and mental resistance, feigning unconsciousness she was dragged out through the old Barn by her bleeding leg into clouded sunshine

She had discovered one thing through these horror hours and that was she was valued for something. This meant, if she could stay alive, then she could keep trying to let them know there was still a human inside. As long as the memories didn’t fade further. It was sometimes a struggle to remember what smashed avocado was, who sang Bianca Bitch or what her mum looked like. She knew the answers to this bizarre situation lay in her fading memory. She was still breathing and her next step was to work out a way of keeping her mind engaged, active and human. That was her way back.