Backwoods Dungeon

Chapter Twenty-Three

Dragged Below

Rio

I practically raced home, excited beyond words at Theo’s text. He must’ve been using his time off more productively than even the new job would account for because he’d somehow gone and finally met the neighbors.

We hadn’t exactly been the most extroverted people since moving to our mountain. That was by design, of course. No one bought thirty acres of woodland because they were fond of people. Still, it wasn't like we were complete hermits. Since moving away from the city, we’d both been somewhat people-starved.

I had a few work friends, but none that I would invite to drink with me at the house, and Theo had that Dane friend he’d made at Dowell’s, but they never spent much time together outside of work or playing games online. Finding out he had somehow made friends with and been invited to dinner with the Mins was a pleasant surprise.

I didn’t know much about them and felt a bit nervous as I drove. They were older than us, though I didn’t know how much. When I thought about it, I was surprised Theo knew who lived there. I took the route by their house to get home every time I returned from the University, but Theo mostly only drove to Boyerton.

Theo told me he “was already over there, and I needed to come over as soon as I got changed into something kind of, but not too nice, and, oh, by the way, could I feed Genji while I was there?”

Something about the text had me on edge. It wasn’t short or informal like usual. He spent the time to type out a full text explaining how he’d met Mister Min, and that Narae, his wife, had invited them both over. He told me explicitly that I should come directly there after work. Surely he didn't mean without stopping and getting ready at all though, right?

If anything, Theo was more of an introvert than me, and this was usually our date night before I went back to the university in the morning. For him to cancel private plans with me to have dinner with the neighbors? Unprecedented. Out of character for him, at least. Doubly so when I factored in the general command in the tone.

It wasn’t, “Do you want to come to the Mins' place tonight?” Instead, it was, “Come over here, honey.” Theo… didn’t really do that. I could count on one hand the number of times he’d told me to do something in our five years of marriage, and every instance involved him generally being worried for my safety.

Once, I’d been using a grinder saw on a cabinet door that we’d picked up from a thrift store. We were trying to make our own bar and we’d bought a bunch of cabinet doors for a few bucks at a resale shop. There was a set of them that was perfect, but the bevel inside the cabinet door was too big for the opening. I’d been grinding out the interior of the cabinet door on the porch outside to make it fit when Theo calmly but sharply told me to put the grinder down. He pointed specifically to my right and told me where to put it down.

His voice was so oddly still at the time that I’d obeyed without question. The second the saw blade spun to a stop, he grabbed me and pulled me back toward him, away from the cabinet door. I’d been about to get mad at him, only to realize that a fucking snake had slithered up right beside me, and he just didn’t want me to freak out while holding a power tool.

Something about the text had triggered that memory. Was Theo worried about my safety for some reason? It couldn’t be related to the school. I’d been driving there and back for nearly two years now. Could something bad have happened in the neighborhood? A wreck, maybe? A fallen tree?

I didn’t have any good idea, but whether I liked it or not it looked like I’d be meeting the Min family. Whether he liked it or not, I wasn't going over there in my damn work clothes.

It took me far too long to realize something was wrong after I walked inside. I’d charged into my bedroom, mentally putting on outfits before I’d even gotten there. I’d tried on at least three when the first inkling triggered.

Genji wasn’t jumping on me. She hadn’t even been inside.

‘Okay, that’s not too unusual. Theo must’ve locked her outside with the doggy door closed,’ I thought before trying on a gaudy shirt that I wasn’t fond of but knew Theo adored.

I wandered back out to the kitchen, hoping to grab a coke to drink while I kept trying clothes on when I noticed that the doggy door was, in fact, open. Genji wasn’t in either sidelight staring in.

“Son of a bitch, Theo, if you left Genji out of the fence…” I swore to myself as I walked out of the door.

I heard it then. A whimper. A small whine. My eyes widened in alarm. I was barefoot, though, and I couldn’t go running out into our rocky yard without shoes, no matter how worried I might be. I rushed inside and threw on the first pair of tennis shoes I could find before sailing out into the yard.

Our fence curved around the outside edge of our house, and that was where I’d heard the dog’s whimper come from. I sped around the house and saw Genji snarling, her back to the wall of the house.

I didn’t comprehend what was happening for a moment. All I saw was a group of short, red-skinned people circling my fucking dog.

“Hey! What are you doing, there?!” I shouted, seeing red. My dog was injured. Limping and… holy shit, did those people have daggers?

Their gazes all snapped toward me simultaneously. Only then did I realize that they weren’t… people at all. They were monsters. Their faces were pocked with boils, and their clothes hung limply off skin that didn’t seem firmly attached to their spindly bones. They were all bald, though one of them seemed to have horns, while another wore a helmet.

“Wh-what the fuck?” I asked before they all turned and sprinted straight at me.

I turned and bolted back towards the house. Genji, loyal dog that she was, lashed out at one of the last ones, but I didn’t have time to see what it did.

I rushed up the porch onto the deck and slammed the door shut with all the force I could muster. It slammed into one of the little imps but didn’t fully close. I was already sprinting to the bedroom.

'What is happening!?' I thought, horrified, as I charged around the bed to the drawer where we kept… the…

The gun was gone.

Why was the fucking gun gone!?

In the two years since we’d moved here, the gun I kept at my bedside had never once been gone unless I’d specifically taken it on vacation. Theo didn’t ever touch it. I checked the drawer once, twice, to be sure, but no matter how hard I looked, it didn’t magically appear where it should’ve been.

I heard the front door creaking and the creatures talking in some Mordor-ass language before a sudden hiss filled the air. Like whirling noise of a fan being turned on, the hiss was followed by a howl of pain from out in the living room.

I had no idea what was happening. The monster was still yelling when another slice cut the air, and the room went silent.

Trembling but unsure of what else to do, I slowly opened the door. My only chance at this point was to get to the gun safe in the garage or at least to get a knife from the kitchen. Dammit, my phone was still in the car! I crept down the hallway when I heard one of the creatures squawk, and another slice cut the air.

They hadn’t followed me down the hallway. Was… something attacking them?

I peeked out from the hallway to look at the front door and saw what must’ve been a mountain of blue blood spilling out of the severed head of an imp lying in our doorway.

Another imp had flopped outside the door, holding onto its own bloody stump of an arm as it writhed in agony on the porch. Behind it, though, was one more imp, staring over the bodies of its brothers. Straight at me.

I ran out from the hallway at the same moment the imp lept over its fallen brothers. I dashed around the corner into the kitchen before barrelling towards the garage. I tried to grab my phone but was too panicked and dropped it. The imp was right on my tail but I slammed the garage door in its face as I stepped outside, the same as I’d done with the front door.

It caught the door, but I was already in the garage. I sprinted to the gun safe but realized I wouldn’t have the time to enter the code. It usually took me ten minutes to open this safe when I wasn’t running from goddamn fairy tails, so instead, I dashed right passed it and grabbed a shovel off the wall before barrelling out of the open garage.

The imp chased me down the driveway a few steps before I turned to face it. This thing had attacked my fucking dog!

I was about to charge it when a burning pain suddenly erupted in my back. I slammed forward into the gravel of the driveway, but the burning sensation persisted. I couldn’t breathe. I desperately tried to get back to my feet but only managed to get to my knees before the pommel of a dagger came smashing into my head.

I didn’t pass out or fall unconscious when the blow landed. I just stayed awake, completely dazed, with blinding pain searing through my skull.

I was dimly aware of my arms being bound behind my back. The rope they used might as well have been barbed wire, but through the probable concussion, I couldn’t tell. I knew that was for the best.

While action movies showed people getting knocked out left and right, I knew that actually falling unconscious from a blow to the head could be fatal. Passing out for more than a few minutes could cause permanent brain damage. I only felt a little woozy. Things could be worse.

That thought passed through my mind as they ran that sand-paper rope through my mouth like a horse bit. I screamed, but all that came out was a wry moan as the rope cut deep into my cheeks.

My back was… it wasn’t burning. It was freezing. It felt like winter when I stuck my hand on a frozen piece of metal outside, only the pain was searing through my dazed mind, even as I was hoisted up onto the arms of three of the little imps. What could do that? Had they hit me with a fire extinguisher?

How many were there? I was seeing double. My struggles were feeble, but I did try to move as they carried me somewhere. Into the woods?

Genji… Genji was barking somewhere, but they were all ignoring her.

“Save me, girl!” I thought frantically. I still didn’t know what they were doing with me. Where were they taking me?

'Oh god, what the fuck is happening!?' I thought frantically.

My stomach lurched as they began climbing down the hill, with my head facing downward. My struggles ceased as nausea rose to fill the void. If they dropped me, I might roll all the way down the mountain with my arms bound like this!

Coherent thought returned slowly as they walked. They were being directed by a slightly larger imp holding a staff. My wrists and ankles were burning, as was my mouth. Every movement cut into my cheeks, and I began to curse them for failing to properly carry me instead of kidnapping me.

‘How hard did they hit me?’ I thought, tense and horrified, as the ground finally leveled out. Blood was rushing to my head.

A few minutes after the terrain leveled out, we came upon an absolutely terrifying scene. There was blood everywhere. Broken bodies of other imps littered the ground. The trees were stained blue, and the stench overpowered even the pain in my cheeks and back. I squirmed and wriggled, new life returning to me as I saw that they seemed to be taking me toward a small cave.

Without warning, I heard one of those slices like something impossibly fast was cutting through the air. The imp holding my shoulders suddenly screamed before it dropped me entirely, and I toppled despite the efforts of the other two. The pain in my back snapped me back to full consciousness just in time for me to see the leader imp smash his staff into one of his subordinate's faces, knocking them forward, but nothing else happened. There were no more slices, though thankfully, the rope in my mouth seemed to have been severed. Sheer dumb luck? How close had that blade been?

I had landed on the ground hard but felt something beneath my back. It cut my hand, thankfully, a bit lower than the frozen pain on my upper back, and it took a moment for me to realize what I’d landed on.

A dagger. I wriggled my arms, grasping the hilt despite the sharp tears it dug into my ruined shirt and skin. I placed the blade against the small of my back, unnoticed by the creatures as I spat the cut rope out of my mouth.

The smaller imp glared at the leader before they all knelt and picked me back up, ignoring the dead front runner, none the wiser about the weapon I’d acquired.

Something in the house had been fighting them. I’d seen two of them hurt as they tried to enter. It had killed them, though. Cut them like butter, just like this newest blade had. One had been bleeding out right in the doorway, while the other had lost an arm. It had looked the same as whatever had killed them here.

Could someone be out there even now, trying to save me? Was this really happening? I was being kidnapped by imps right out of my own house! It sounded like a bad movie, but it was happening.

My panic increased with each step toward that dark cave.

“Het Ee Go!” I screamed through the cuts on my mouth, but the leader just smashed its staff straight into my stomach, knocking the wind – and the fight – right back out of me. I almost dropped the dagger.

The middle imp was holding me up by the small of my back. It could look up and see the blade at any moment. Worse, any slight shift and it might cut itself on the weapon, alerting them. I hatched a plan in my head. I’d wait until we were in the dark. I didn’t have much leverage, but I thought I could stab the imp once there was no light. Then I could cut my legs in the confusion and flee.

The sheer carnage around the cave’s entrance both horrified me and gave me hope. Someone knew about these monsters, and they were clearly fighting them.

“So where were they?” I thought as the trio of imps holding me passed into the dark.

The darkness became absolute with blistering speed, and I knew it was now or never.

I rotated the blade away from my side, holding it firmly in both my bound hands before making the most awkward stab of my life straight out from my back.

The imp screamed and yelped before the sound was abruptly cut off. Had I got it in the throat?

My grip on the knife slipped when a sudden gong sounded in my ears. I didn’t have time to focus on that as my weight suddenly became too much for the two imps still holding me, and we all tumbled to the cave floor yet again.

Their tiny bodies broke my fall as we hit the ground, and this time, the pain was bearable. I rolled off the imps to the side of the cave as best I could, but without the dagger, I couldn’t hope to free my legs.

I desperately rolled myself back toward the creatures and, to my shock, found the fallen imp almost instantly, the dagger still sticking out from it. The light from the cave mouth was already dim, but I could barely see enough to turn my back to the dagger and grab it.

The other imps weren’t idle, though, and they saw what I was doing. Grabbing the dagger out of the dead imp was nearly impossible with my hands bound behind my back, but it was my only chance. I grabbed the hilt once more and pulled it out of the imp’s body with a sickening squelch just before the leader’s staff smashed into my face.

The hit wasn’t as hard as the one that had knocked me senseless in my driveway, but it was more than enough to send me back to the floor.

When I looked up, I saw a strange glowing light swirling around the imp’s staff.

Magic?

I only had time for that one coherent thought before a sudden sleepiness swallowed my senses. I knew no more.