Killer Instincts
Mark Phillips
William McBride couldn’t remember what he was doing. Well, he was driving that was true enough and he could do that. In fact he thought of himself as quite a good driver. The thing that he was having a problem with was exactly where he was going. He supposed that it was home but it suddenly occurred to him that he didn’t know where home was. He looked around trying to figure out what he could remember.
Outside of the car was a macabre sight. He was driving through a forest. The trees were knarled, twisted and leafless. They looked as if they might reach out and grab hold of his car. He could imagine himself being pulled into the gapping maw that would appear in the center of the tree and it made him shudder.
It was night that much was clear. Yet the forest seemed to be illuminated by a strange glow that William couldn’t chalk up to moonlight. Although he couldn’t remember where he was going he supposed that it would be obvious when he got there for the dirt road that he was traveling on was only big enough to occupy one car and must surely be some sort of private drive.
Or cabin, he thought.
That thought something sparked in his mind. He was on to something but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. It was the same feeling that he would get when he smelled some odor, a perfume or some food that he couldn’t quite place. It was familiar and he would almost be able to do it and then his mind would throw him off in a different direction entirely.
That’s it, I’m going to a cabin. But whose?
He couldn’t answer that. In fact, he couldn’t answer many questions other than his name. He didn’t know what he had been doing right before he’d gotten in the car. He didn’t remember buying the car. He only knew he was William McBride and he needed to keep driving on this road.
His eyes rose to the rearview mirror, looking to see if there happened to be any cars behind him so he could stop and ask where he was.
When his eyes fell upon the rearview mirror he didn’t see a car. He didn’t even see the road. The entire mirror was taken up by the visage of a man, or what appeared to be a man. He wore a knit black ski cap. The thing that William focused his attention on was the large blade that the man held raised.
Thoughts ceased and he just reacted. He jerked the wheel to the left and heard the thud as the man struck the back passenger door. The car struck one of the trees hard, so hard in fact that the tree fell over.
William jumped out of the car and began to run in the direction that he had been traveling. He looked back over his shoulder and saw that the man with the ski mask was exiting the car and steadfastly walking in his direction. William had hoped that he’d been at least dazed by the crash but it appeared as if he was in good condition.
“Damn!” He cursed.
He ran off the road and into the forest. His hope was that he would be able to lose the man in the foliage. Behind him came the steady crunch of leaves under foot and William knew that he’d been followed.
He didn’t understand how the man was able to keep up with him when he was walking and William was just about falling over running.
He kept taking furtive glances behind him paranoid that the man in the ski mask would be right behind him ready to run him through with his knife.
There was a break in the trees ahead and not fifty yards away was a large log cabin. That’s where I was headed. I bet there’s people there that can help me.
His feet pendulumed up and down with rapidity that he never would have credited them with. All the while he strained his ears but could no longer hear the man’s progress behind him. It appeared as if he was able to outrun him after all. Still he didn’t slow down as he entered the clearing and crossed the gravel driveway to the house.
The cabin was large standing against the night. On the second floor a dim yellow light shown out the front window. There was a yellow convertible in the driveway. The car seemed to jog something in William’s mind as well but he dismissed it. He ran to the front door praying that it wouldn’t be locked and by some miracle it wasn’t.
The first thing he did after plunging into the cabin was slam the door behind him. The darkness was immediate and complete. His eyes had been so focused on the light in the upper room so he hadn’t noticed that the downstairs was completely dark. He turned around and fumbled with the lock. For an agonizing moment he thought that he wasn’t going to be able to get it in the blackness and then his fingers slid over the rounded knob of the latch and he turned it. The pleasing sound of the bolt sliding into place set his mind at ease.
He looked around the room but was barely able to make out much more than shapes. He walked blindly forward with his hands stretched out in front of him towards a squat rectangular shape that he hoped was a table. On it was a long slender shape that he further hoped was a table lamp. When he got there he wasn’t disappointed.
He ran his hand slowly up the cool metal, when he reached the top he found a hard plastic circle. He turned it and suddenly the room was illuminated.
It was a rather large but otherwise perfectly ordinary room. The lamp that he had turned on sat on a small brown coffee table. Parallel with the table was a fireplace with a few burnt logs sitting on top of the gray ash. Above the fireplace was the head of a large buck. William couldn’t remember if he was a hunter or not but he knew that the buck was a twelve point.
“Must have been a big one,” he muttered to himself.
In the silence that followed his speaking he heard a distant noise. In his excitement to lock the door and then get the room lit he hadn’t noticed it. It sounded like a light rapping almost as if someone was tapping on a window in the back of the house. William slowly walked through the living room into the kitchen. There were a great many empty beer cans lining the sink in there. Potato chip bags and other snack wrappers littered the floor and counter.
Must have been some sort of party in here. Why the hell can’t I remember it?
He was trying to distract himself from the noise that was taking up all his attention.
At the end of the kitchen was a small hallway, which lead to a staircase. In front of the staircase was a glass door. The door was hanging wide open and banging against the wall.
William rushed forward and slammed the door shut turning its lock at the same time.
He feverishly calculated how long he’d been in the cabin, how fast the man in the ski mask had been going and how far ahead of him he had been.
He could have done it. He could have made it here and in the back door.
The sound of footsteps walking down the staircase came clearly to his ears. William’s eyes opened wide.
He turned around and saw a closed door he tried the knob, found it open and then darted in. He closed the door quietly behind him hoping that the man in the mask didn’t hear. The light was already on and William could see it was a bathroom.
Across from the toilet was a bathtub with the curtain drawn. William sprang over and drew the curtain.
When he looked down he saw the tub was filled with blood. Presumably the blood of the young lady who was lying face down in the muck.
William wanted to scream but he knew that would be a very bad idea. So he cupped his
hand over his mouth hoping to both suppress the scream and the vomit that wanted to rise.
Behind him he heard the footsteps and he knew there was only one thing to do. He climbed into the tub and threw the curtain back. He pressed his face against a relatively clean portion of the tub and closed his eyes. He heard the door open and though he wanted to look up to see who it was he kept himself as still as possible.
The footsteps moved forward slightly and William held his breath. Suddenly he didn’t want to be there at all, he felt completely trapped but it was the only thing he could think of to do at the time. He kept his eyes closed and his face pressed against the tub, smelling the sweet smell of the blood around him.
The footsteps stopped but William could feel the presence of someone in the room. He waited there for nearly twenty seconds. Seconds that, to William, felt like days. Then the footsteps turned and walked out of the room closing the door behind them.
William got up feeling awful. His entire lower half was covered in the sticky blood and he felt as if he wasn’t going to be able to control the vomit this time. He stood breathing in deeply trying to catch his breath after holding it for so long. He looked around the bathroom and saw a knife sitting on the edge of the sink. He couldn’t remember if it had been there when he entered the bathroom but he didn’t care. Nor did he care about the streaks of blood on the silver blade. He picked it up hoping that he wouldn’t need to use it.
He opened the door to the bathroom and crept out. The back door was open again and banging slightly with the wind. William walked over to it and peered out. He looked left then right but could see nothing it was too dark. He turned around to examine the inside of the house but when he did he was face to face with Ski Mask.
Ski Mask had his own knife raised high in the air about to bring it down into William’s flesh. William surprised the killer by lunging forward and plunging the knife deep into his stomach. Ski Mask stumbled backward and fell over.
William was on him in an instant and stabbed his chest over and over and over.
He stabbed until his arm was tired. Then he threw the knife aside and rolled off Ski Mask. He collapsed on the floor crying. After a half a minute he stood up warily. He began to walk in the direction of the living room to look for a phone so he could call 911 but that was when Ski Mask stood up again.
“You can’t be alive!” William shouted both shocked and scared. “I killed you!”
Ski Mask slowly shook his head and William ran.
He ran around the corner and up the staircase remembering the light and hoping that someone was still alive upstairs.
“Someone help me!” He screamed.
He got no answers.
The upstairs couldn’t have had a more simple lay out. It was one hallway with five doors. Two on each side of the hallway and one at the very end of it. All the doors but the one at the end of the hallway were open and they showed horrific signs of brutality.
As William ran past he could see blood smeared on the walls, people lying dead and body parts strewn about.
He hit the end of the hallway and turned the handle. He slammed the door closed and looked around for something to bar the door with, there was nothing. The room was bare; it didn’t contain a single piece of furniture. The only things in it were the door and an open window across from it.
William backed himself up keeping an eye on the door. The handle turned slowly and Ski Mask walked in slow as ever. He began to walk towards William and William moved backward at the same pace.
He was only eight feet away when William’s back hit the window. There was nowhere to go but down. He glanced out the window and quickly put his odds at surviving a jump at a thousand to one. He turned around and Ski Mask was only five feet away and closing.
William put his right leg on the ledge and was about to swing his left leg out when he heard a shout behind him.
“Cut!”
William turned around unable to comprehend what he’d just heard. When he did, Ski Mask was gone.
“What the hell is going on here?”
“Cut!” Someone shouted again and this time William saw something. It was a short man with a good-looking black beard coming towards him.
William moved closer to the ledge.
“Don’t jump,” the man said and his voice was both comical and alarmed.
William put both of his feet flatly on the ground.
“Where is the guy in the mask?”
“He’s gone,” the man said in a reassuring voice. Then he turned his head and yelled. “Will someone get Peter his shot!”
“Who the hell is Peter?”
“You are.”
“No my name is William.”
“Just take your shot and you’ll see.”
William wasn’t sure what the man was talking about until he saw a man in a white lab coat carrying a long syringe.
“Oh no,” William said raising his hands. “I’m not taking anything you shoot into my body.”
“Peter,” the short man began
“My name is William!”
“Let Dr. Bishop give you this shot and you’ll understand everything.”
“I will not!”
“PeÉI mean William if you don’t let him do it I’ll just call security to hold you down and he’ll do it anyway.”
William looked into this man’s eyes and saw that he was every bit of serious.
William lowered his head. “You’re going to kill me.” It wasn’t exactly a question.
“No,” the short man with the beard said, laughing. “Everything will be clear in a minute.”
For some reason William did believe him. He pulled up his sleeve and let Dr. Bishop stick his needle in.
The pain was sharp but short. He felt woozy at first and thought he was going to fall over and then all of a sudden his head hurt badly. It was as if he had suddenly contracted a huge headache. He shook his head and some of the pain went away but not enough of it. Then the most odd feeling came over him. It was like waking up again from a dream. Only this dream, he knew, had been part of reality. Suddenly he knew what his name was, it was Peter Stefan. He knew where he was born, where he went to high school, who his parents were, what he did for a living.
“Oh my God I’m an actor,” Peter said.
Doug nodded.
“And you’re Doug Sherman,” Peter said. “You’re my director.”
Doug nodded again. “Everything coming back to you.
“Yes it’s all there. We’re shooting a horror movie and you had an idea to make it more real. You gave me a drug so that I couldÉ” Peter broke off. “There I’m sort of hazy.”
“We gave you a drug that temporarily erased your memory while at the same time leaving you open to suggestion. It’s almost like a hypnosis drug. Dr. Bishop here invented it.”
Peter turned to Bishop who smiled and nodded.
“Yeah,” Peter said, with his hand on his chin. He was thinking hard to earlier that day.
“The way it was supposed to go was that Dr. Bishop here would shoot me with his needle and you would implant my character on my psyche. Then the entire thing would seem real to me. That way we could make the most real horror movie ever, completely devoid of those normal horror movie clichés.”
“Exactly,” Doug said. “How did the drug work? Did you remember anything about yourself?”
“No,” Peter said. “Actually I think it worked a little too well. I couldn’t really remember anything about my character except for my name.”
“Yes,” Dr. Bishop spoke up. “I thought that maybe we gave you a slightly large dose. Next time we’ll have to lower it slightly.”
“That could explain why you screwed up the scene so much,” Doug said.
“What do you mean? I thought I did okay.”
“You still did the same things that the victims do in every horror movie. You ran upstairs to try and get away when you know there’s no way to escape. You didn’t even check the back door. I mean hell; you almost fell in the woods. God would that have been a disaster.”
“Well I’ll do it better next time.”
“Yeah, I think we can get one more try in today if Dr. Bishop is ready with his formula.”
“I’ll just have to measure out a new batch it shouldn’t take but a minute.”
The three of them began to walk back downstairs towards the starting point of the scene at the beginning of the woods.
“This stuff is totally harmless isn’t it doc?”
“Of course,” Dr. Bishop said.
“Cause I’ve got,” Peter paused and realized that his headache was now completely gone. “Well I had a headache anyway but it’s gone now.”
“Just a minor thing,” Dr. Bishop said. “It’s from the rapid return of your memory. It’s nothing really and as you said it doesn’t last very long does it?”
“No I guess not.”
“Well you better get the dosage right this time doc,” Doug said. “I don’t want to be here all night.”
“How many times have we done this scene?”
“Ten.”
“And I haven’t gotten it right yet?”
“Nope but we’ll get there. Don’t worry this one will be cliché free I can feel it.”
