John Everson - NightWhere

Rabbit in a Cage

Travis had a feeling that something was wrong. Deadly wrong. He remembered tending bar. And then there had been someone coming in and asking him to go to a club…a place where he’d be comfortable…

And the next thing he knew he was waking up in a dark, cold place. His back was stiff. He couldn’t feel his legs.

And then he heard the voice speaking somewhere nearby.

“Now,” the voice said. “Make him wake up.”

The pain was almost instant. It cut across his belly like a steel ruler slapped down hard. He felt cold and then fire in the same breath. Travis opened his eyes.

Wide.

“What the fuck?” he cried out, and around him he heard a dozen people begin to laugh.

“What the…” he echoed, but nobody responded.

The pain came again.

Travis saw something glow in the far corner of the room. Then another light grew closer. And another.

It looked as if a dozen candles had been lit, and little by little, they moved in tighter.

Travis could see the faces behind the candles now. Faces with dark eyes and creased brows and smiles that looked more hungry than amused.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Just your pain,” someone answered.

And that’s when the hurt began.

When he woke up, they were still there. Waiting to begin again.

The ugliest one spoke.

“Here’s what we need from you,” the Watcher said. “We need pain. You need to bring it. You need to feed us. And in return…”

“What?”

“We know what you want,” the voice whispered.

Travis felt a stir. If they would just tie him up and make the world change in his head… All he wanted was someone to make him feel used.

“Think harder,” the voice laughed. “We will make you feel more than used. We will make you feel dead.”

“Pass?” Travis said, growing more and more afraid as the pale lights closed in, illuminating faces that did not smile.

“Too late” a voice said. “Once you’re in NightWhere, there are no passes. Or safe words. Everything is dangerous.”

Going It Alone

The doorbell rang, but by the time Rae made it downstairs, whoever had come had already gone.

But there was something left behind. A red envelope.

Her heart began beating faster. She knew what it was without picking it up. An invitation to NightWhere. She pulled it from the mailbox and let the door slam behind her as she ripped the seal open. Inside, an ornate script read:

It’s time for a rabbit hunt.

And there can only be one hunter.

Come alone to NightWhere tonight at 7 p.m.

Beneath that was a handwritten address. Rae didn’t recognize it, and so she crumpled the envelope, dropped it on the table and walked upstairs to the computer in the den to map it. As she did so, she knew in her heart that she had to leave the house before Mark came home. The invitation said to come alone. It didn’t specify which of them was to come, but she knew.

This time was not for him.

NightWhere was for her, and her alone.

As for the rabbit hunt…she had no idea…but she could feel her teeth ache at the words. Her stomach shifted at the possibilities. A rabbit was soft and defenseless…a hunt meant someone would be trapped…maybe hurt in the course of the chase. The more she pondered the words, the more she was dying to know.

She stripped and pulled open her underwear drawer. In the mirror, she noted that the bleached ends of her hair looked even lighter against the tan of her bare shoulders. Her breasts were creamy in the evening light, luminous. Rae made a face at herself and then laughed. She looked good. And she knew it. She loved that confidence…and would use that tonight with someone. Maybe Kharon? The lash marks from her last time at NightWhere had nearly faded completely, she noted, turning halfway around to see her back in the mirror. Some of the places where she’d been whipped still told the story in pale-pink lines across her skin. She suspected that, after tonight, she would have new scars on the brown of her back.

She selected a red silk bra that was nearly see-through and matching panties from the drawer and pulled them on. Then she found a red silk dress rimmed in black lace-more of a slip than a dress, really-and shrugged that over her head. It was tight at the waist and dipped low down her chest, exposing both cleavage and a hint of her bra. She checked it in the mirror, and nodded at the low swell of tantalizing flesh against and beyond the black lace.

Grabbing a pair of black-and-red heels, she hurried downstairs and snatched the car keys from the kitchen counter. A moment later she was pulling out onto their subdivision street and checking behind her to make sure the garage door had begun to close.

She didn’t notice the slate-grey Sonata that did a U-turn and began to follow her down the main street a few seconds later.

If he had turned the corner any later, he would have missed her. It was a Wednesday night, and Mark had been thinking that he was coming home after a shitty hump day to a quiet, relaxing dinner. Alternately, he’d thought, since he was getting home a little early for the first time in a week, maybe they might head out to dinner. But both of those plans hit the sewer just before he reached their subdivision, when he saw Rae’s little silver Mazda sitting at the light across from him. Heading in the opposite direction.

At first he wasn’t sure it was Rae. But then the car in front of him moved up a few feet and he could see the FU at the end of the Mazda’s license plate. Rae’s little in-joke at dirty personalization. The plate read LUV FU . To most it looked like a drunken Love You . Mark knew it stood for Love (to) Fuck You .

He wondered if she was heading up to the store to get something for dinner, and on a lark, he decided to follow her. He figured he would pull up in the parking lot right next to her at the grocery to freak her out. Make her laugh.

When the light changed, Mark crossed the intersection, but a block away did a U-turn. Then he worked his way back through traffic until he was just a couple cars behind the silver Mazda. He didn’t think she’d seen him. He couldn’t wait to see her face when he pulled up right next to her at the Meyers.

But Rae didn’t drive to the supermarket.

She drove right past the Meyers they always went to.

Where was she going then?

At the next light, Mark picked up the cell phone and dialed her number. She was just a car ahead of him now, and before the light changed, he saw her reach away from the steering wheel and then look at something in her hand. But she didn’t put it to her ear. After a couple more rings, Mark heard his wife’s recorded voice ask him to leave a message.

He clicked the END button on his phone and considered. She was going somewhere, and didn’t want to talk to him right now. That did not bode well for a romantic dinner. Something was up.

Rae had been acting weird lately. Taciturn. She insisted that nothing was wrong, but she never wanted to talk. And now she had just refused to take his call?

Mark sighed and squinted against the sun as he tried to keep her car in sight. She headed west, and then after a while turned north on Route 45, heading through Orland and towards Countryside and LaGrange.

He felt a little guilty for doing this, invading her privacy…but not enough to stop. He needed to know.

What the hell was she doing here? Mark asked himself, trying to hold his car far enough back that she wouldn’t see and identify him, but also anxious to pull up and see where she was going.

He followed her until she pulled off the main highway and into a cluster of buildings. Mark didn’t enter the parking lot, but instead pulled to the side of the road, hoping he could keep her in sight.