"C'mon, This way!"
Aisha was grabbing Kellen's hand as they ran through the twists and turns of the hedge maze. They were laughing all the way, stumbling over rocks, turning around corners, and cracking jokes about The Shining.
Aisha and Kellen had been dating for a year now. It was the first full week of summer vacation. They'd be graduating next year, and they wanted to make the most of this summer. They had concerts, shopping trips, and many other thing to occupy their time together. Today, they were driving along a country road when they came upon a hedge maze. They stopped, paid for their tickets, and went in. They were having the time of their lives, the summer sun high in the sky overhead.
But just around the bend, a dark figure was walking. Eight feet tall and wrapped in a black jacket, it stalked between the curves. Aisha and Kellen, laughing, were running towards the bend, where the figure was speeding with it's head down. They turned the corner and....
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Ted Southwick stood in his fifty-fifth floor office, staring out his huge wall-to-wall windows at the cars and people scuttling about their pathetic little lives like ants in a huge colony. In a way, a city was like a colony. He was only thirty and already an millionaire. Ted owned a major brokerage firm, and he made millions every year. Just last month, he had bought his third yacht.
Of course, he had not gotten this money through honest means. That was too hard and took too long. Ted had swindled thousands of people out of millions of dollars. And all his victims couldn't prove a thing, as he had destroyed all the evidence of the embezzlements and stealing as clean as a Mafia janitor. He was President of this company. The old President had gone mysteriously missing five years ago, and Ted, Vice President at the time, had become the real President.
Only Ted himself knew that the old president was floating at the bottom of the city harbor, a cement block chained to his Gucci shoes and a hunting knife in his ribs.
"Mr. Southwick?" his secretary, Debbie, buzzed in. "A man wants to see you." "Send him in." Ted said without looking away from the window. He heard the heavy wooden doors open and close and turned to greet his guest.. and stopped in his tracks. It was man, shabbily dressed and holding a tranquilizer gun. "Hey there, Mr. Southwick." He whispered in a quiet voice. "Remember me?"
Before he could respond, Ted was shot in the right shoulder by a dart. He screamed and tried to run towards the office door, but a second dart hit his back and a third hit his left thigh. His head swam. Groaning, his vision got blurry and he collapsed to the plush carpet. The last thing he saw was a dirty sneaker. "Boy." The voice said right before he passed out. "We're going to have some fun..."
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The roaring of the crowds drowned out the girl's cries for help.
If any of the parade watchers had bothered to look away from the procession, they would have seen a girl in a red dress and black jacket with smudged mascara from crying, running through the spectators, shoving people out of the way and looking back at the huge, muscular man in the white tee shirt following her. Her long red hair flipped in the wind as she ran. Her beautiful face had bruises all over it.
The girl screamed for help, but no one could hear her over the cheering spectators and the blasting music from the floats. Someone popped a party popper and the girl was engulfed in a shower of streamers and confetti. She screamed and batted them away as the ran towards the main street, full of drunks stumbling around, prostitutes leaning on lampposts, and tourist trap shops. She looked back and saw the man was caught up in the crowd. Despite his swinging arms and shoves, no one seemed to want to move for him.
She looked up the street and saw a small shop, tucked away in between a convince store and a bar. Gulping, she sprinted down the street towards the shop, shoving a drunk out of the way. He fell and collapsed on the cobblestones of the street. She threw open the door to the shop and found herself in a long room light by soft wall sconces. It was dark in here and smelled of foreign spices, incense, and smoke. A counter ran the length of the room, ending in a door. There appeared to be no one in the shop.
Panting and out of breath, the girl was about to leave when an old man with a white mustache, black suit, and hat stepped into the room. He saw her and smiled. "I know what you need." Was all he said. He walked towards her from behind the counter until he was facing her. "I know what you need." He said again, quietly. The girl put her hand out, and the man reached into the pocket of his coat and put something in her hand.
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The small caravan was nothing much, really. Just a small booth with a crystal ball, a deck of Tarot cards, and burning incense sticks in a tall, thin glass jar on it. The old woman wrapped in tartan and bright colors had her head in a kerchief. She seemed to be humming. Chanting, even. A small candle on the table provided the only light in the small space.
She heard a knock at the door. Smiling, she got up and opened it. In the wet grass, with the the starry sky behind him, stood a young man, about twenty, with a blonde beard and mustache. He was wearing a blue t-shirt, jeans, and blue-and-white sneakers. "Ah, first customer of the night. Do come in." The woman said in a deep, smoky voice. Shrugging, the young man walked up the steps and entered the cramped inside of the caravan. The old woman closed the door.
The man sat on the right side, the old woman on the left. "So, why do you Seek Madame Suspiria?" the woman asked. The young man shrugged again. "I dunno. I came to this fair with my girlfriend, but she kinda ran away, so I thought, why not come here?" he said wildly. Madame Suspiria looked at him with suspicious eyes. "You are hurt. I can tell." She said simply. "But, no matter. I will tell you your fortune all the same."
She fanned out the Tarot cards. "Chose one, and only one." She instructed. The young man pulled one and, without looking at it, handed it to Madame Suspiria. She looked at it and frowned. "Oh. That is not good." She whispered. She put it face down and asked the young man to pull another one. He did so. She looked at it and frowned much harder this time. "Oh, that's even worse." He pulled six more times, each time looking more and more worried and afraid. At the last card, she was weeping and burying her face in her hands. The young man frowned. "What's the matter?" he asked.
She suddenly looked up at him with scared eyes. "Run. They are coming." She murmured. "WHAT?" the young man yelled. "Nothing can stop them now. They're on their way here as we speak." She said quietly, then buried her face again "Who are? Who's coming? What do they..." the young man started.
He was interrupted by a scratching sound at the caravan door.
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Laura was cat sitting for her best friend Tabitha. Tabby was traveling to Miami for business reasons for five days, and she couldn't leave her cat Blizzard alone for more than a day. He got scared easily. He was a beautiful cat, with smooth, soft white fur and a sleek, lithe body. He could catch prey like nobody's business.
Tabby had spent Monday morning telling Laura how to take care of Blizzard, feeding him once in the morning and once at night. She also instructed her to play with him often, and pet him a lot. He was a very social cat. An hour later, Laura stood on the stone front porch and watched Tabby get in her car and honk the horn as she drove down the hill her neighborhood was situated on. Smiling, Laura had then picked up Blizzard in her arms and scratched him as she went back in the house.
It was Thursday night now. Tabby would be back from the airport tomorrow afternoon. The first four days had gone really smoothly, with Blizzard not acting out at all. Laura had stayed in her friend's house overnight so she didn't have to worry about burglars.
Laura was watching TV when her stomach rumbled. She decided to get herself a bowl of ice cream. She got up and started walking towards the kitchen. Blizzard, who had been lying her lap, jumped off it and weaved between her legs as she walked, purring. "Awww, aren't you just the sweetest thing..." Laura cooed, picking up Blizzard in her arms. Blizzard purred again and rubbed against Laura's chest. She set him down and opened the freezer. She was taking the ice cream out when her hand slipped and it fell to the floor. "Shit!" she yelled. She picked it up and was about to get it out again when she heard a loud yowling noise.
Startled, she dropped the ice cream container back into the freezer and closed it, looking up. The door to the large bathroom on the ground floor was ajar and light was seeping out of it. 'That's funny..." Laura thought. 'I don't remember going in there...' she walked gingerly towards the door, being careful not to make any noise. She peeked in and saw the huge window in the bathroom open, letting the night breeze in. Blizzard was sitting in the middle of the bathroom floor, yowling loudly as if in pain.
Laura was about to go in when she looked up at the window and saw another cat, a black one, appear at the sill and leap onto the bathroom floor. This happened six more times with other cats until there were eight (including Blizzard) sitting on the bathroom floor. Laura was puzzled. Suddenly, the cats began to glow. Their bodies were engulfed in light until they were just dark shapes in the burst of light, and the shaped contorted and lengthens, until there were eight young men standing in the bathroom, each one having the hair color of their fur color.
Laura clapped a hand to her mouth to stop herself from screaming. She must be hallucinating all this, right? Suddenly, the young man that used to be Blizzard spoke. "Welcome, brothers. I now call the 12th annual meeting of Cat's Eye into order. Our first order of business is..." Laura heard a crackling noise behind her. She looked down and saw, to her horror, that she had stepped on a dead leaf. A young man with grey-and-black tabby colored hair started walking towards the door to investigate the noise.
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Sara leaned against the hood of her red convertible. She was wearing a black leather jacket and mirrored sunglasses. Every now and then, she would pull her phone out of her pocket and check the time. Then, she would look up and down the dark road lit with moonlight for the figure carrying the briefcase. When she saw no one, she would shake her head and put it back in her pocket.
Finally, she thought she heard distant footfalls on the dark road lined with trees. She squinted her eyes down the road to the left and saw, barely seeable in the distance, a figure walking quickly towards her. Smiling, Sara got off the hood and started walking down the road towards the figure. As she got closer and closer, the figure's features were revealed: a young girl of about seventeen with shoulder length brown hair and a very pretty face. She was wearing a blue sweater and jeans. She looked radically different from Sara, who with her short black pixie cut and average (at best) face.
The two met. "Sabrina. Nice to see you." Sara said, holding out her hand. Sabrina looked at it and said in a quivering voice, "Look, I got your money. Let's cut the professional bullshit and get this over with." Sara frowned and snatched the briefcase fem her hands. "Fine. I just thought you'd appreciate a little kindness." She started walking back to the convertible, Sabrina following meekly behind her.
Sara opened the left rear passenger door and threw the briefcase in. Then she opened the driver door and got in as Sabrina got in on the passenger side. Sara started the car and reversed. The driveway she was parked on had a huge iron gate, which opened as she inched near it. She drove in reverse through the gate turned the car, then continued down the drive while the gate closed behind them.
The huge mansion came into view as they turned the bend. "Is this the place where it is?" Sabrina asked in wonder. "Yeah. I told you I'd hold up my end of the deal." Sara replied, sound ever so slightly annoyed. She parked the car in front of the long, tall front steps. The mansion rose above them in the night sky like a monolith. Sabrina started eagerly up the steps toward she huge oak front doors, while Sara went up slowly with her hands in her jacket pockets, shaking her head. This girl had no idea what she was getting herself into.
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