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FEMA.
Now? They had to come now?
So much has happened the past few days that you haven’t prepared for another visit from these jackasses. The only adults you trust in the world are behind you. The kids are behind you. There is no one else in the house you can offer them.
That’s not quite true.
You ready your shotgun. “If you want to take any of them, you’ll have to get through me, you sons of bitches.”
“Very well. We’re flexible. You want to sacrifice yourself? Doesn’t matter to us. As long as we get people.”
The door is forced open. Oven-hot air rushes in and disorients you just long enough for you to make a mistake. You finger the trigger, but at this close range, someone grabs the barrel and forces it to the ceiling just as you fire.
In hindsight that was one of the worst self-defense ideas for the situation.
You don’t get a chance to brace yourself. A blow lands in your stomach and you double over. Your gun clatters from your hands and gets kicked aside in the scuffle. While you’re down, someone whacks you in the back of the head and you collapse the rest of the way to your knees. The agent in front of you takes a few steps back so your face smashes onto the porch instead of his boots.
You lift your bloodied face enough to spit at his feet. He bends down and grips you by the chin. Your equally furious eyes meet.
“Cut the bullshit,” the agent says. “You wanted to be a hero, so suck it up.”
You try and fail to jerk your head from his touch. “Fuck off.”
The agent pats your cheek. “As eloquent as always.” He laughs coldly. “I’m going to escort you personally to HQ. Do you know, I’ve kept tabs on you since our first encounter. You’re such a special case. A VIP.” He leans close. The warm plastic of his mask touches your ear. “We’ll spare no expense nor pleasure in testing you.”
Other agents flank you. Your hands are cuffed behind your back and you’re hauled rapidly towards your feet with rough, strong hands on your forearms. Without ceremony or hesitation, the agents begin the chore of dragging you to your fate.
You wouldn’t stay upright if they didn’t hold you. Even if your whole body wasn’t exploding with pain, the too-quick change between horizontal and vertical has your mind spinning with spots in your eyes. Your knees sag and take no weight, and your head hangs low. Your ears rush with your pulse and the whining ring of what’s probably a concussion. Your feet and shins drag limply on the ground as you’re hauled towards the waiting black van.
A ripple in the shadows. The faintest movement of air in the sweltering night.
Someone screams.
Someone yells at the guy for screaming and then yells out orders that die midsentence in a gurgle. A single shot fires. A barrel snaps. More screaming.
Something yanks the agents off you and you collapse to the ground for a second time tonight. You taste blood in the back of your throat from your nose. Even though it’s after one in the morning, the pavement is uncomfortable hot where it bites into your cheek and forehead. You’ll have red marks if you live long enough for your skin to burn.
You can’t lift your head, but you know exactly what is here. Who is here. You force yourself to roll over onto your back and behold.
The Pale One looms over you. In each oversized hand he squeezes a FEMA agent’s throat. When they stop moving, he tosses them to the ground, into a makeshift pile with other hazmat-suited bodies, their masks smashed, their necks bent at unnatural angles.
The night is quiet once more, save the calls of crickets and the moans of distant fires.
“We simply must stop meeting like this,” the Pale One croons with no small amount of amusement.
You never fathomed how tall he was until you were like this, on the ground at his feet. Your body bound and injured. Entirely at his mercy.
Something ancient and animal overrides your pain and confusion. You try to scramble backwards but your limbs don’t coordinate. Either way, he’s faster.
The Pale One seizes you by the collar and lifts you like you weigh no more than a doll.
Not by the neck. By the collar. Your pulse thrums against the back of his fingers. Hot blood bubbles from your nose, trickles down your chin, and pools in his hand.
Your feet kick uselessly in the air. How far are you off the ground? The handcuffs are a blessing in a way; they spare you the indignity of instinctively gripping onto his wrists in a futile attempt not to fall.
His laugh is like the crack of frost underfoot. Will you ever hear frost again?
“What’s a fine young man like you doing outside on a night like this? All by your lonesome? Someone could take advantage of you if you aren’t careful.”
He might as well have you by the throat for all the words you can push out. Adrenaline chokes you on his behalf.
“Not in the mood to talk? That’s nothing new. You only need to listen. Can you do that?”
His other hand comes behind your head and forces you to nod yes. The slightest motion makes you see fresh stars.
“I could do so much to you like this. Completely helpless under my hand.” His eyes roll back and he inhales sharply with a too-wide grin. “The fear that roils off you is almost too much for me to resist. Utterly delectable.”
A fingernail traces the length of your spine as if searching for the perfect silken thread to peel your back open like a corn husk. You involuntarily shudder. The motion sends a wrench through the impact site on the back of your head.
“But... you are not outside by choice. That puts a damper on the fun, doesn’t it? Spoils our game. I don’t want you delivered to me in neatly-tied ribbons. I want to earn the claim to snuff out your precious little life.”
With two sharp, dexterous motions, he snaps the cuffs off your wrists, like the steel is made of paper. Your newly freed hands hang paralyzed with terror at your sides.
“Do you want some advice? There’s no difference between being a hero and being a fool. Stay in your old house. Leave the streets to the dogs. ...They don’t only dwell in my kind these days.”
The Pale One sets you on your feet. Grasps you around the full length of your shoulders with just one hand when you sway dangerously backwards. The "support" pins your arms in place and forces more air from your rib cage with each shuddering exhale. You try to breathe less and it only makes you breathe faster, shallower.
He doesn’t need cuffs to restrain you. He doesn't need a thing.
Your heart beats so fast you can’t feel it. Your head floats somewhere high overhead like a balloon. The Pale One extends two fingers towards your face—no, one. You screw up your eyes and make them focus as he gently taps under your chin to close your gaping jaw.
“That’s enough excitement for you tonight, young man. If your fragile body gave out now, it would be unbearably disappointing.”
He pauses, touch lingering against your jugular. How easy it would be for him to cut you open, to give your neck a split smile as wide as his—but instead, his grin sobers. He slightly tilts his head with a pensive, inscrutable frown.
“More fragile than other humans, I’ve noticed.” He traces a pattern in the mess from the ongoing nosebleed that drips down your neck. “All the more interesting.”
Your tongue feels too big for your mouth, but you splutter out a few nonsense syllables that are meant to spell out a curse.
The Pale One laughs and tightens his vice grip around your shoulders. The pressure radiates through your whole upper body. The back of your neck feels ready to pop open like an olive. “You could thank one of your houseguests for my being here to help you tonight. Or not.”
He squeezes a carefully measured touch harder, enough to tease out a whine that you can't bite back. Heat spills from your eyes but you refuse to close them, refuse to give up your defiant gaze, even as salt mingles with the taste of blood on your lips.
The Pale One's eyes flutter in delight at the sound, the sight, the scent of your agony. You stand before him, bloody, bruised, barely able to keep your head up without his help.
He could crush you. Why doesn't he?
Because it would be too easy.
The Pale One releases you with a slow, progressive gentlessness as calculated as his force. He licks your blood off his hands, sighs contentedly, and contorts his tall form to be at eye-level with you. His teeth are red.
“Run along home before I change my mind.” He spins you around—your cheek brushes against his wrinkled, bony chest—and shoves you squarely in the center of the back. “Run.”
The momentum sends you in a half-scurry, half-controlled-fall that carries you the ten-odd meters to your door. You make it over the threshold and manage to lock the door behind you before you collapse in a tangled heap of limbs for the third time tonight.
At least this time it’s on your own floor.
Your eyes slightly cross as you focus on your shotgun, fallen inches away from you. Fallen seconds or hours before you?
Adrenaline scrambles your memories. The time between leaving your house and returning is all a blur of disordered events with no clear cause or effect in your mind.
What matters is the gun looks undamaged. You twitch your fingers towards it and let the cold touch help you get control over your breathing.
When you lift your head and realize you’re not alone, you almost wish you were back on the pavement. Practically the whole household is crowded in the entryway.
A chorus assaults you.
“I’ll be damned.”
“We didn’t think we’d ever see you again.”
“No one comes back from FEMA.”
“How did you escape?”
“What in the hell—”
A commanding voice cuts above the rest. “Hey, easy there, easy. Don’t crowd the man. Doesn’t matter how he’s here. Matters that he is.” The hunter detaches from the crowd. “Come here, kid. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
He offers his hands and pulls you off the floor. You’re aware it’s the first time the two of you have touched. His hands are thick, calloused, and warm, as you’d expect. It’s a welcome contrast to the thin, slippery, cold fingers of the Pale One.
His hands are nothing like the other old man’s, either. It's the only thing that makes accepting this reluctantly needed care bearable.
You stagger to the kitchen, slump into one of the chairs, and rest your head in your arms on the table. The hunter dabs at your face with a warm cloth that smells like antiseptic.
Tomorrow you’ll have to wash the sweat and blood from your shirt. Tonight, you shake too badly to think about taking it off.
“That was either the bravest thing I saw a man do or the stupidest.” The hunter chuckles in spite of himself. “You got guts of steel or not a lick of self-preservation instincts. Heh. I’d reckon both.”
The hunter puts a paper towel in your hand and guides you to pinch your nose. He barely touches the back of your head and you flinch away. His hand doesn’t come back with red, at least, which must’ve been what he was checking for.
“Damned varmint,” he says and wipes his palms on his trousers.
“Wasn’t Visitors. Was FEMA.”
“Who did you think I meant, kid?”
The hunter lets you rest your head again while he gets other supplies. Your eyes slip shut and you get jostled to alertness by a gentle slap on your shoulder.
“Wasn’t sleepin’,” you mumble.
“Sure you wasn’t.” He shines a light in your eyes. “Your vision blurred?”
“No.”
He moves a finger and you track it.
“Good. You don’t look too bad. Could sure as hell be worse. You know, it’s a misconception that you can’t sleep with a concussion. Just need someone to keep an eye on you in the first few hours is all.” His smile is almost not forced. “When you live in the woods, you learn a thing or two about survival.”
You blink in response, in gratitude, in a desire for him to stop talking already. Or you think you blink. It takes a while for you to remember to open your eyes.
He pats your shoulder, easier this time. “Let’s get you to bed. Sound good?”
Nothing has sounded better.
“I’ll go make sure the crowd’s dispersed. Don’t take their fussing the wrong way. They just ain’t accustomed to our way of life.”
The hunter leaves. You hear hushed voices and retreating footsteps, and he comes back a moment later. You check your nose and it’s finally stopped bleeding.
“Up you get,” the hunter says.
You brace yourself on the table and manage to stand and walk all the way to the bedroom without help from anyone else, so long as you keep your hand on the wall.
“The little girl?” You mutter when you don’t see her on her side of the bed.
“All taken care of. Carried her to sleep in the room with the teacher so she wouldn’t wake alone when... Luck isn’t the word for you coming back, kid.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, I reckon she doesn’t even know you were gone.”
“Let’s keep it that way.”
The hunter lingers in the bedroom doorway. You sink into bed and face away from him.
“I’ll be back ‘round in a few hours. Jus to make sure you’re breathing and all. Don’t worry yourself. I don’t think it’s too serious, but... one missed little detail can spell disaster. Tonight’s had enough surprises. I don’t believe in luck but I believe in not testing the powers that be.”
Through your muddled and adrenaline-drenched thoughts, you recall his story. About the one little mistake that brought him to your doorstep.
You made dozens of mistakes tonight. Through a series of increasingly improbable events, you’re back safe in your bed, or as safe as you can be.
You don’t like it. It means something worse will happen later to even it out. Karma is a bitch, and it has it out for you specifically. You can only hope the fallout is directed on you alone and doesn’t rub off onto your people.
The doorframe creaks as the hunter leans on it. “I’m no fool. Those varmints have bellies as yellow as their rubber suits but you didn’t escape on your own tonight. My old acquaintance must’ve intervened. Tell me if I’m wrong.” You don’t. He sniffs thoughtfully. “You’ve got attention from forces ain’t no one understands, kid. Don’t know how in the hell you managed that.”
“Never asked for it,” you grumble into your pillow. “They can fuck right off.”
“None of us did.” He exhales heavily. “Can’t help feeling we’re not going to get a third chance.”
You don’t respond in hopes he’ll take the hint. He does.
“Well. Goodnight.”
He leaves you blessedly alone.
No. Not quite alone.
You can’t and won’t move the curtains in the bedroom, yet you sense a singular pair of eyes trained on you through the barrier.
Biding his time till he can take you on his terms.
You’ll never give him the pleasure.