Chapter 5: The Crimson Baptism

Chapter 5: The Crimson Baptism

The world was a symphony of screams. Travis’s mind, shattered into a thousand jagged pieces by the initial slaughter, had reassembled around a single, primal command: run. He held Grace’s arm in a death grip, pulling her through the bedlam of the barn. Her feet slipped on straw that was no longer just damp but slick and viscous with the blood of their classmates.

Chaos reigned. He saw a flash of the pink-haired girl, her bright dye a stark slash of color against the grimy floor before she was gone. He saw the cold, empty eyes of a farmer, a woman with a heavy mallet, turning from her work to watch them pass, her expression one of mild, bovine disinterest. They weren’t prey to be chased with passion; they were livestock to be processed.

Travis’s bad knee screamed with every pounding step. The brace dug into his flesh, but the searing pain was a distant signal, drowned out by the flood of pure adrenaline. He pushed the pain down, channeling the ingrained discipline of years on the ice—play through the injury, get to the goal.

The small door on the far wall was their only goal.

“Grace, come on!” he yelled, his voice raw.

She was with him, no longer being dragged but running, her cheerleader’s agility finally kicking in. Her face was a frozen mask of horror, her green eyes wide and reflecting the grisly scene, but her legs were moving. She was surviving.

They crashed into the stack of rotting hay bales, the moldy scent a brief, earthy reprieve from the coppery fog of blood. The door was behind it, made of heavy, dark planks with a simple iron latch. Travis fumbled with it, his fingers slick and uncooperative. For a heart-stopping second, it wouldn’t budge. He threw his full weight against it, his shoulder screaming in protest.

With a groaning creak of rusty hinges, the door flew open.

They spilled out into the sickly yellow twilight, gasping for air that wasn't thick with death. They were in an open, muddy space behind the barn. For a single, fleeting moment, there was hope. Freedom.

Then came the sound. A soft, whistling thwip-thwip-thwip that seemed to come from everywhere at once.

To their left, a boy from their chemistry class who had also burst from the barn stumbled, a feathered shaft suddenly protruding from his throat. He clawed at it for a second, a look of pure confusion on his face, before collapsing into the mud. Another student, a girl who had been right behind them, cried out and fell, an arrow buried deep in her thigh.

Travis’s head snapped towards the source. The cornfields. The endless, rustling walls of corn that surrounded the farm were not a potential escape route. They were an ambush. Unseen archers were hidden within the stalks, picking off anyone who escaped the abattoir. The slaughterhouse had just expanded its walls. This wasn't a contained massacre. It was a hunt.

“Move!” he roared, shoving Grace forward. “Don’t stop!”

They ran, a desperate, zigzagging scramble across the killing field. The ground was uneven, pocked with mud and debris. Travis’s injured knee buckled, and a cry of agony escaped his lips. He caught himself, adrenaline surging again to fight off the blinding pain. They had to find cover.

Ahead, he saw it—a shallow depression in the earth, a line of shadow that promised shelter. A ditch.

“There!” he gasped, pointing. “To the ditch!”

They lunged for it, a final, desperate burst of speed. The ground beneath their feet suddenly felt soft, wrong. It wasn't solid earth. With a sickening lurch, the ground gave way completely.

They tumbled forward, not into a shallow ditch, but into a deep, hidden pit. The fall was short, ending not with a hard impact but with a thick, cold, viscous splash.

The shock of the cold was total, stealing their breath. The fluid was heavy, clinging to their skin and clothes like oil. Travis flailed, his hands sinking into something soft and yielding below the surface. He got his head above the liquid, spitting out a mouthful of the foul, metallic-tasting fluid.

It was blood.

They had fallen into a pit of blood.

Grace surfaced beside him, coughing and sputtering, her blonde hair now a dark, dripping mat. Her eyes, wide with a new dimension of horror, met his. The pit was perhaps ten feet deep, an open grave filled halfway with the leavings of past harvests. And beneath the surface, bumping against their legs, were the soft, lumpy forms of corpses in various states of decay.

This was their baptism. A full immersion into the truth of Mercy Hollows.

Panic, stark and absolute, seized Grace. She began to thrash, trying to climb the slick, muddy walls of the pit. “No, no, no, get me out!” she sobbed, her fingers scrabbling uselessly at the dirt.

“Grace, stop! Be quiet!” Travis hissed, grabbing her arm. His voice was a harsh whisper. “They’ll hear you!”

As if summoned by his words, they heard footsteps approaching the edge of the pit. Heavy boots crunching on the muddy ground. A familiar, raspy voice drifted down to them.

“Got a couple of runners,” Jebediah said calmly. “Check the ditch.”

Terror, cold and absolute, eclipsed everything else. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. They were trapped.

Then Travis saw it. A new shape being rolled towards the edge of the pit above them. A figure in a floral-print dress. With a wet, unceremonious splash, the body of Mrs. ClearField landed in the blood beside them, her serene, dead eyes staring up at the yellow sky. In death, she wore the same placid expression she had as she’d led them into the barn.

The ultimate betrayal was now their only chance.

“Down,” Travis commanded, his voice tight with desperation and revulsion. “We have to go under. Now.”

Grace stared at him, her mind unable to process the command. He didn’t wait for her to agree. He grabbed the back of her hoodie and pulled her down, shoving her beneath the surface of the blood. Then he took hold of Mrs. ClearField’s body. The fabric of her dress was waterlogged and heavy, her limbs cold and unnervingly pliable.

With a final, desperate gasp of air, he pulled their dead teacher’s corpse over them like a gruesome, floating shield.

He held Grace tight, submerged in the cold, thick gore. The world went dark and red. The pressure of the blood filled his ears, the coppery taste flooding his senses. Through the crimson fluid, he could feel the dead weight of the woman who had condemned them all, her body now protecting them from the monsters she served. He held his breath until his lungs burned, listening to the muffled footsteps of the killers walking the edge of their grave.