Page 6 of For the Strange and Surprising

I’ve been having the strangest dream about being on an island full of cannibals. They’ve just decided that my left kidney will be best served sauteed in garlic butter with broccoli and carrots for tonight’s dinner. And though I can’t feel a thing, I sit back and watch, grimacing as the wrinkly older man cuts into my torso with a sharp but rusty kitchen knife.

I should definitely wake up and get out of the sun.

Something pokes my ribs again, but it’s not the older man. He’s salivating over the organ in his hand as a middle-aged woman stitches me back together.

My eyes fly open when I feel my arm lifted and dropped.

The monsters around me scramble back like I’ve scared them.

And I freak the fuck out.

A shriek leaves my mouth that is so high-pitched it makes my ears ring. I flip over and crouch as quickly as I can, but my body is aching and stiff, so I’m not really moving fast at all.

The things before me are more than my imagination could ever come up with.

From knees to neck, they look human...ish. They don’t have feet. A stark line of matted fur cuts off the image of regular legs and shows a beast. There are huge black claws on the ends of their toes.

When I glance up, I get light-headed from the sight.

Empty eye sockets as deep and dark as a diving cave are void of eyeballs. Not that I can see. Their faces are covered in the same fur as their legs. Some of these beastly monsters have tusks sticking out of their mouths, while others have gigantic canines.

I dry heave as one beast-man steps up.

“Who sent you?” His voice is darker than his eye sockets.

My body trembles as I try to speak evenly. “No-No one. A waterspout—”

“Get up,” another of the group demands.

It sounds exactly like the first one that spoke, but I know it’s the one who was jabbing at me earlier because he uses the end of a… spear? He pokes me with the blunt end of his weapon, acting like some kind of primitive monster.

I’m pretty sure someone is messing with me.

This isn’t real.

I smack the end of the spear away from my body. And I’m jerked into a standing position by my hair. I wince and grit my teeth through the unexpected pain. When I try to pull away, I’m shoved forward on unsteady legs.

The beast-men surround me, two in front and two behind. They lead me away from the beach, and I bite my tongue.

My intuition is never wrong. I always trust my gut. And it says that these four are more dangerous than wherever they’re taking me. I need to keep my mouth shut until we reach our destination. Instead of fussing at them about my rough treatment, I start looking around for cameras because this is utter bullshit.

Branches hide the trail, and they part the foliage as they push me through. The difference between the sunny beach and the tenebrous forest is mind-boggling. The thick canopy overhead gives the sun little room to shine. The trees grow taller the farther we walk ahead.

I don’t see cameras or wires or a production team of any sort. The forest floor looks undisturbed, with no visible foot trails in the decaying leaves on the ground.

I hear unfamiliar birds, but I can’t see them. Peculiar scents swarm around me. Sweet, spicy, musky; their origins are unknown.

After a few quiet minutes, the overhead canopy thins, and flowers come into view.

They look beautiful. Though the closer I get to them, the more I realize something isn’t quite right about them. They get bigger with each step I take. Not that they grow because I’m walking; no, these flowers look like daisies... Only they’re the size of a beach ball. They sway gently in a breeze that I can’t feel, almost as if they’re dancing.

The well-traveled trails become clear to me once we slip by the flowers, and soon enough, I can hear voices and clattering sounds.

We pass a handful of people building a stone wall, and they stop working to gawk at us. Their hands stay frozen until the beast-men around me tip their heads.

I don’t know what kind of cult gathering I’ve just been ushered into, but I am not blindly following some man named Clarence down a path to self-sacrifice and spiritual enlightenment.

Fuck that.