Scavenger Hunt

Halloween: Her bare feet looked vulnerable as she maneuvered through the treacherous forest; every step entangled them in spider webs and thorny weeds, and with each carefully placed foot, blood oozed from the earth and settled between her toes. The dilapidated feed sack she clutched, the word Organs painted across the front, smelled of mold and some other indistinguishable odor, perhaps rotting meat. Inside was the only item she’d thus far collected—a decaying rat—and a list: two human skulls, a wolf’s tooth, bat’s eggs and more. Just how would she locate all these items? At this rate she’d never complete the hunt by the cutoff at midnight. But with so much riding on her success, she couldn’t fail.

Through an opening in the trees, like a parted curtain, the sweltering sun mercilessly beat down on her, and transfixed by a field of flickering, scowling jack-o-lanterns, she used the sleeve of her threadbare dress, which hung loosely, like a death shroud, to blot sweat from her forehead before she scurried through the woods, hardly knowing if she were woman or animal as she proceeded on all fours, alongside wolves and rabbits. When had the scavenger hunt started? She no longer knew and had only a vague memory of having once been called Nancy. Without that bit of knowledge, her life might have started on this day, in this forest.

Panting, with no concept of direction, she pushed on, searching in vain for a cool waterfall or freshwater creek amongst thick brush abundant with spiders and furry rodents that scampered across her feet. When a sheet of undulating black swooped down on her, she shielded her face with her arms, but not before a particularly vicious bat sank its fangs into her neck, leaving her to whimper as a trickle of warm fluid ran down her back. The caldron disappeared as she sought shelter under a large maple, their high-pitched screeches echoing in the wind.

In the distance, an old building caused her heart to pound with hope. Maybe someone there would at least give her a drink of water and bandage her neck. A human voice, and then music, rose from a small chapel that came into view and reminded her of tiny churches from years ago, on isolated country roads. She and her older sister, dressed in flowered hats and dresses, had once marched into their familiar hometown church every Sunday. This one tilted to the left and looked as if it might topple as she crept up to a cloudy window and peered inside. A gasp caught in her throat.  

Decaying corpses sat upright and filled rows and rows of pews. All wore tattered clothes covered in dirt, as if they’d just been dug up. At the pulpit, an elderly minister warmly recited scriptures: Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

Behind him, a hooded man played “Amazing Grace” on an old-fashioned pipe organ, and when one of the corpses turned to stare straight at Nancy, two milky orbits sat where his eyes had once been. Garbled language fell from the empty space under his nose holes.

Nancy ducked and pressed her hand against her mouth to muffle a scream. No way would she go inside there for help. On all fours, she crawled far from the hellish congregation, toward a hunchbacked grave digger inside a wrought-iron gate.

His heavily calloused hands were covered in fresh sores from too many years of digging, but a row of skulls had been lined up next to him. He cast aside one shovelful of dirt after another and then began tossing the skulls into the hole he had dug.

“Excuse me. I need skulls for the scavenger hunt.”

Stiff as a robot, he didn’t speak or even look at her, so she helped herself by dropping two into her sack, and then raced away. When she looked back, he was mindlessly tossing more skulls into the hole.

Whose skulls were they anyway? Maybe homeless people? Or perhaps unclaimed cadavers whose bodies had been donated to science? Better to not know.

Under a Weeping Willow she sat to collect her thoughts and to give her blistered feet a break. Now another vague memory floated up, that of a judge telling her that she’d suffer harsh penalties if she failed to collect all of the items on her list. Or had she dreamt it? The sensation of needing to complete the task was strong, though she couldn’t say with certainty why. As she scrutinized the area, a sign at the end of a trail caught her attention. Animal Parts, painted on a piece of wood, with an arrow pointing toward a warehouse in the distance.  

With renewed hope, and a strange feeling of familiarity, she took quick strides toward the massive metal building, which looked like the industrial tractor supply shops back in the Midwest. But how would she know that? Had she once lived there? Animal sounds, squeals and shrieking, escaped from it, and the heavy air now had a foul, overpowering odor.   

A lone man in a blue uniform was flushing a steady stream of bloody fluids into a floor drain with a power hose when Nancy approached him.

“Excuse me, Sir.”

When he turned, the nametag sewn onto his uniform read Ed Sprague. Nancy’s mouth fell open. Now she remembered. Her dad had died years ago in a train accident, hadn’t he? She looked into the man’s face. “Dad?”

“Yes, daughter.”

“What is this place?”

“Salvation.”

“Salvation?”

“This is kind of a holding ground, an underworld where you coexist with nature.”

“But you’re dead. You were killed a decade ago.”

“Death is in the eye of the beholder. Look around, and you’ll soon see your sister and Grandma Lula.”

More memories slammed into her as she recalled how she had found her big sister, Alicia, lying in a pool of blood after a vicious home invasion five years earlier. Alicia had thrown a party in Nancy’s honor every Christmas that she had returned home from college for the holidays. And during every childhood illness, Alicia had stayed by her side, nursing her back to health. Nancy forced back the memories. “I’m afraid, Dad.”

“Don’t be. It’s not so bad. Tour the facility. I have to get back to work.” Before she could form her thoughts into words, he disappeared around a corner.

On unsteady legs, Nancy followed the signs to Animal Parts, hoping to find a wolf’s tooth and bat eggs somewhere far from the tortured cries in the distance.

Toward the rear of the building, a room filled with bins had a scarecrow and mummy display set up near the cash register in honor of Halloween. The front bin held pig’s snouts and ears. Cow tongues and dog teeth filled another bin. More animal sounds came from stacked cages in the back. Nancy was gazing toward them when someone walked up behind her.

She spun around and came face-to-face with Alicia, still bearing the black hole on her forehead where the bullet had lodged. No longer able to suppress the memories, Nancy slid into a nearby metal chair. “Alicia? My God! I never thought I’d see you again.”

“Hi, Sis.” Alicia’s flat voice held no emotion.

“How did you and dad end up here?”

“We couldn’t risk going to that other place. This was a safe choice.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Just stay here with us, Sis.”

“I can’t. It’s filled with animal suffering and foul odors. I have to make it to the other side.”

As if she understood, Alicia motioned to the rear of the store. “But first, Grandma Lula wants to see you.”  

Nancy’s body went numb with dread. She had to be dreaming, but however hard she tried, she couldn’t remember the day before she’d been plunged into this nightmare. What if her dad and Alicia and Grandma Lulu weren’t real people at all, but only facsimiles designed to lure her into this dark entity?  

Alicia took her hand and led her to the back, past more bins filled with bat wings and rabbits’ feet. Nancy showed Alicia some of the remaining items on the list, and Alicia stopped at a rickety shelf against the wall. There, Nancy found bat eggs, which she tossed into her sack, along with bat wings and a rabbit’s foot. Large glass jars filled with various concoctions and organs covered one whole side of the wall, and she turned away, sickened. At the back, Grandma Lula slumped in a lounge chair, holding a plate filled with roaches and a dead mouse. She showed no sign of recognizing her granddaughter.

Nancy pressed her hands to her mouth and exchanged glances with Alicia. “Grandma?”

Alicia pursed her lips. “She has good days and bad days.”

Nancy moved away from a hyena wailing over her dead baby. “Alicia, I’ve got to get out of here. This place isn’t right. I only have until midnight to complete the scavenger hunt. I have a chance to make it to the other side. Come with me.”

Alicia shook her head. “I can’t, Sis. I just can’t.”

Nancy searched her sister’s eyes for any clue of the secrets she held. She made one last plea. “But now that we’re finally together, I don’t want to lose you and dad again, not here, in this place. Think of all the fun we’ve had. We used to watch movies all weekend and do each other’s hair and makeup.”  Nancy squeezed her sister’s hand. “We could start all over on the other side.”

 “Sorry, but dad and I can’t leave. Go. Find your way.”

More alone than she’d ever felt, Nancy fled back into the forest in search of the remaining items on her list. Soon darkness would set in, and then how would she find her way? When she heard rushing water behind her, she followed the sound down a dirt path. A kaleidoscopic light, multi-colored and flashing, lit up an aquamarine creek ahead. As Nancy leaned down and gulped from it, tiny piglets, small enough to fit into her palm, paddled back and forth. She had the sensation of being one of them as she tossed two into the sack.

She soon found herself back outside the ghostly church. She looked inside once more, and this time, she wailed. Her dad and Alicia sat in a nearby pew, pasty white and headless, their clothing and her dad’s nametag their only identifiers. A spider scampered down her dad’s arm.

Nancy slid to the ground, still clutching the moldy feed sack, now saturated in blood. With trembling hands, she opened it and looked inside. Her dad’s and Alicia’s severed heads stared up at her, looking as if they been decapitated with a hacksaw.

She flung the sack aside and crawled to her feet. As she raced away, the minister’s words echoed in her ears.

The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.

She hobbled on her bloodied feet and stumbled straight onto a funeral under a towering pine. Nancy struggled to piece together elusive memories of the slaughterhouse, its sounds and smells.

***

With no concept of how she had gotten there, Nancy lay inside an old-fashioned pine box and stared up at the ceiling where a mosaic of Jesus, in a welcoming gesture, held open his arms. She couldn’t move or even close her eyes. The minister leaned over her.

“Sorry, Sister, but you didn’t make it. You were given a task, a scavenger hunt with ten items, and you didn’t return with any.”  He placed his hand over hers. “You were to return with your father’s and sister’s souls, so they could inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Sorry, but you’ll have to be processed.”

“But how do you find one’s soul?”

Before he could respond, Nancy’s coffin moved, as if on a conveyor belt, through the woods where the flickering jack-o-lanterns lit up the forest. Screeching and screams assailed her eardrums as she approached the earlier warehouse sign, Animal Parts. Once again, the putrid stench filled her nostrils. She moved past her dad and Alicia standing near the animal bins.

“Dad! Alicia! Help me.”

And then the coffin slid through a tarpaper flap to the other side where it landed with a thud. A large sign read Sprague’s Slaughter House.

Sprague’s Slaughter House? Gripped by a hazy memory, it all came together—how she’d run the family business after her dad had been killed. Nancy Sprague. She was Nancy Sprague.

A man with a goat’s head shouted, “Trick or Treat,” and handed her a ticket he’d yanked from a machine, similar to the ones at the bakery. “Your wait time written on the slip was a single word. Eternity.

She now found herself in a long line of farm animals—cattle, pigs, coyotes, and wolves—all waiting their turns. In the distance, she recognized the familiar squeal of the pulley that yanked each animal’s feet off the platform, leaving its head to dangle near the floor. Then, the unspeakable would happen. She’d witnessed it a thousand times. Was this her punishment for running the family business, heartlessly killing whatever appeared, or had she committed some graver sin that had been erased from her memory?

She opened her mouth to scream, but produced instead the shrill neigh of a terrified horse. Had she ever been a woman, or had she lived her entire existence inside this house of torture? She eyed the entrance, determined to stay with her dad and Alicia, but a large sign read, No Exit. The goat-headed man stood in the back, holding an axe.

The execution line up ahead went on for as far as she could see. All manner of animals hung upside down from hooks, awaiting processing. Hours later, she took her turn at the blood-splattered platform near the faceless hangman. He clutched a machete and shouted, “Next.” A second faceless man yanked on the rope around her neck, and her hooves scratched against the concrete steps as she stumbled to the stage with metal pulleys attached to her rear legs.

Out of nowhere, the kindly minister appeared, clutching a Bible.

“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

Her dad stood at the rear, just on the other side of the tarpaper flap, clutching the industrial hose to clean up her mess afterwards. Was she being sacrificed so that he and Alicia would be spared?

Nancy blinked her milky brown eyes. So this was hell. Once the hangman had delivered her fate, would she find herself right back at the end of the line, forced to do it all over again? Is this what they meant by Eternity?   

Kelly Piner

Kelly Piner is a Clinical Psychologist who in her free time, tends to feral cats and searches for Bigfoot in nearby forests. Her writing is inspired by Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone and Night Gallery. Ms. Piner’s short stories have appeared in Litro Magazine, Scarlet Leaf Review, The Chamber Magazine, Drunken Pen Writing, Storgy Magazine, The Literary Hatchet, Weirdbook, Written Tales and others. Her stories have also appeared in multiple anthologies.