Carnival: Listen

“Run! Ruuuuun!” a distant voice called out. Amy ran as fast as she could into a forest. She tripped over a tree root and tumbled down into a small river. She coughed up some of the water. Looking uphill, she saw a figure run the path she was previously on. She got to her feet and carefully went alongside the river until she came upon a small town. She kept hearing a distant voice encouraging her to keep going. She eventually waved down a car. Luckily for her, it was a police car that took her to the hospital.

At the hospital, her statement was taken. She and a friend were supposed to be meeting up with the photographer her boyfriend recommended. But once they got to the studio, the photographer suggested that they could only get good pictures at their trailer nearby. She agreed if they both could go. The photographer agreed and seemed to be ok with it. They took pictures in the woods. They changed their wardrobe many times. Everything seemed fine. Suddenly she heard a voice outside the trailer telling her to leave. It was a female voice repeatedly telling her to get out of the trailer. She ignored it at first. The photographer convinced Amy and her friend to check out their red room and watch the pictures develop in real-time. Once in the room, the photographer locked the door and said, “There was only supposed to be one of you.”

Amy began to cry as she tried to avoid detailing the photographer killing her best friend. The officer told her she didn’t have to continue. He assured her that he would go check on things. She commented how she couldn’t take any more death. First her mom, then her brother, and now her best friend. As she began to fear that she could be next she heard the female voice from earlier right in her ear, “He’s going to die.”

The cop drove up to the trailer in question. It was a lone white trailer next to a small hunt in the middle of an opening in the forest. The cop got out of his car and began talking over the radio. As he approached the trailer, a light green mist began to become visible from the trailer. The cop readied his gun as he went to open the door. Only for a distant female voice to warn him, “You should run.” The cop turned around looking for the source of the voice. He took a step away from the trailer and was blasted in the back by a shotgun. The photographer kicks off the remains of the destroyed door. The cop tried to crawl to his car. The photographer walks past the cop and squats down in front of him.

“Hey bud, you know where my prize is?”

“The cop spat blood in her face.

“Classy.” She said after she shot him in the face.

“He’s dead. She’s looking for you.” Amy hears being told right in her ear. She immediately ran out of the hospital. She got a block away before realizing that she didn’t have her phone. Her heart sank as she realized that she left it in the trailer. She didn’t know this area. She didn’t know anyone there. She didn’t know who she could trust. But the female voice in her ear said, “Hurry.”

Amy made her way towards the nearby forest she traveled through to get away from the photographer. Just as a car with the photographer got into town. Amy slowly retraced her steps. The car stopped at the hospital. Amy slid down to the river from before. The photographer walked into the hospital. Amy climbed up and found the path, the trailer was in view and so was the cop car. The photographer asked about Amy, the nurse told her that Amy had just left. Amy walked up and threw up at the site of the cop. The photographer walked out of the hospital and threw the trash can. Amy cried as she made her way into the hut. The photographer got a phone call. Amy went down the steps, trying not to throw up as she saw the blood trail. The photographer picked up the phone, “You said there would only be one!” Amy just couldn’t take seeing the mutilated body of her best friend, dropping to her knees she let out a heart-wrenching wail. A car pulls up to the trailer, “Yeah I know.”

“Your girlfriend got away. So she either is on the road back home or she was stupid enough to go back to the trailer.”

“Yeah, I just got here. You could have cleaned up the cop at least.”

“Didn’t exactly have time.”

“Could have spent even just a little bit.”

“How about you look around and see if she made it back?”

Seeing the vomit in the blood, the boyfriend tried not to throw up, “Uh, let me call you back, I think she came back.”

The photographer got in a taxi and started her way back. Amy felt two strong hands starting to massage her shoulders. Her grief slowly faded but her fear began to rise. The photographer looked at her Find-A-Friend app to monitor the boyfriend’s movements. as she got out of the taxi, she told the driver to keep the change. She began to walk the trail. A whistling sound could be heard in the distance. The photographer looked around confused. The boyfriend came out looking at her, “She’s in the red room. If we hurry we can…” the photographer shushed him. She told him that there was something in the trees. He called her crazy and told her she should have finished the job in the first place. Just before they could actually start arguing, they both took notice of the whistling noise in the air. They looked around seeing things zooming from tree to tree. Getting faster and faster. The boyfriend felt something pass the back of his neck. Touching it, he realized he was bleeding. The photographer saw something whip past her face, slicing through her cheeks. The boyfriend yelled at her, thinking this was one of her sick games. She punched him in the face. Something else whipped by and cut her hand and thighs. A female voice that sounded like it was from something standing in between them laughed, “You two are going to be fun.” The boyfriend felt something moving against his back at the same time that something stabbed into the photographer’s back. They both discovered that the culprits were black feathers. More black feathers appeared to come from the trees and slowly swirl around them. The photographer looked around, “What the…” the feather stopped and swarmed them.

Amy’s tears finally stopped. She wiped her eyes. She tried to pull herself together. She heard her boyfriend yell, attempting to look back, but a hand stopped her and continued to massage her shoulders and neck. A soft and distant female voice shushed her, “Relax Amy, you have more important matters to focus on. You want to get home right? Letting your mind slip into those dark corners of grief and loss sounds nice but really wouldn’t help you get home right?”

“... Right.”

“Good. Don’t pay attention to anything you hear outside. Just the sound of my voice. Find your phone. Sneak away into the forest. And never look back.”

Amy nodded and looked around for her phone amongst the blood and brutalized remains. She looked through tears. A light green mist became very dense. The female voice inhaled and sighed in delight. In the mirror, Amy noticed a massive black bird with human hands in place of feet. The same soft human hands that were massaging her shoulders.