Born in Blood

Victoria Jane Spinner awoke groggily to a dull ache in her shoulders and the smell of cows. They were the first thing she heard. Large, gentle bodies adjusted quietly in their pens or thudded slowly over to a salt lick where the sound of rubbing sandpaper followed. Every so often one would pause its chewing to let out a low noise of content and give its head a shake.

Sunlight streaming in from a square window at the top of a soaring barn ceiling caught her waking eye. For such a small opening it filled the huge area with orange light that made the many stacks of hay look as though they were ablaze. They were piled everywhere and filled almost the entire upper section, saturating the air with their sweet smell. Ladders stood on either side of the piles, reaching all the way up. Birds chattered and swooped above, tending to their nests in the rafters while a pair of barn cats eyed them balefully from the straw-strewn floor.

For such a peaceful scene, to Victoria it was anything but.

Consciousness began to grip her in ever-tightening fingers. She realized she was gagged with cloth. Rough twine secured her arms tightly to a wooden post behind her back and her ankles were duct-taped together. A deep ache in her shoulders told her she had been in this position for a while.

Panic rolled through her body like a wave of nausea and she understood that she was in serious trouble.

Oh my god.

Uttering a frightened moan she struggled against her bonds. Fear and adrenaline made the pain seem distant and unreal. The odor of the cows and hay stung her nostrils but they hardly seemed to exist. All that mattered was getting out. She tried to reason where she could be was but it was difficult to think; she had a wicked headache that felt like an ice pick had been driven into her brain.

Something more troubling was the blankness in her memory and the grogginess that pressed heavily on her shoulders, making her escape attempts feeble. She had been at a bar; that much she knew. The events of the night were a void fragmented with hazy images and feelings that felt more than being simply intoxicated; she was beginning to suspect that she had been drugged.

A flash of her friends dancing under purple neon lights surfaced in her mind along with doing back-to-back shots. She could still feel the burn in her throat. The rawness reminded her of why she had been there as another cry of fear fled her lips, muffled by the gag. Mid-terms had finally ended and they were celebrating by doing what any wholesome college students would be doing – getting trashed.

Faces swam before her in a sea of faint pounding music, mostly of her friends but the rest were strangers. What had happened…?

The sound of a sliding door being opened made her balk and tears of fear almost blinded her. Her heart struck up a hard rhythm inside her chest and sweat pinpricked her temples. A man in a large jacket hurried into the barn, carrying a bucket full of something. He seemed to be muttering to himself. More sunlight flooded into the area and covered her in its warmth, making the man’s form no more detailed than a silhouette’s. She only had moments to enjoy it before he slid the door shut again and turned towards her.

Terror rose like bile. Thinking that this man was quite possibly about to murder her, Victoria began struggling again as the tears rolled down her face. She was never going to see her friends or family again, not her little brother or her dad or their sweet shepherd Daisy with the bad back leg –

Without hesitation the man walked up in several large strides and she barely got a glimpse of his determined face and plaid jacket before he doused her with the contents of the bucket. Victoria gasped in shock as the warm liquid coated her. It smelled metallic and tangy like copper and her stomach plummeted as she realized that it was blood. It dripped down her face and over her eyes and seeped through her clothes. The disgusted, horrified scream she issued was kept quiet by the gag.

“I-I didn’t mean to let them escape,” he stammered, tossing the bucket aside. His voice was high and shaky. “I thought if I brought them here no one would know. But I was wrong…they’re much stronger than I th- ”

A banging sounded from the other side of the barn, coming from outside. It made them jump and through the dripping blood Victoria saw that he had paled and his eyes had gone wide, showing the whites all the way around.

“I’m sorry,” he said, although he didn’t look at her. “I never meant for this to go so far…but they won’t go after cows. All of it’s going to be my fault,” he whispered, reaching up and grasping fistfuls of hair. A sob burst from his throat and his face twisted into one of grief and panic. He backed up slowly towards the barn door while tears of his own tracked down gaunt cheeks and Victoria realized he was terrified. “All my fault.”

As he reached the door he turned and threw it open, once again letting the light inside. Victoria, shaking and blinded by both the blood and the sun, saw him turn in the entranceway and look at something outside. He froze.

Startled, she followed his gaze. The wooden slats of the barn let in sunlight from outside in intervals and something was blocking the light just a few yards from the door. For one brief moment she was illuminated with hope; it was someone else! Maybe they could help her!

Her kidnapper jolted to his senses and fled in the opposite direction without another word. He didn’t close the door behind him.

An uncertainty that rivaled fear took the place of relief as the figure outside let out a strange moan that wavered in the air like the call of a wounded animal. It bled into her bones and made her feel something she had never felt before. Small and helpless, like prey.

A scream built in her lungs as it began to move towards the barn door with slow, dragging steps.