I Am Chosen

Diorama

Los Angeles, one year before the Chosen Killings

Kacey awoke to absolute darkness.

A pile driver of pain hammered her skull. She went to bring her right hand to her head but it was stopped abruptly at the wrist. Cold metal bit at her skin accompanied by a metallic clink.

She was cuffed.

It was chilly in here, but luckily whoever had clocked her had left her jacket on. Feeling around with her left hand, she discovered that she was still fully clothed. Further exploration revealed, however, that her badge, radio, wallet, gun and backup gun were all gone. As were her handcuffs... because those cuffs were now securing her to... what?

She was in a seated position; her right side was partially in some kind of void. Reaching under her knees with her left hand, Kacey felt a baseboard. Reaching over her knees, however, she came across empty space. Then, pushing her hand further, her fingers struck the ragged edge of a wall. Moving her left hand down to meet the right, she felt the cuffs. They were affixed to a cold metal pipe. She then felt around some more, along the broken periphery of a large hole. She realized that the wall she was seated at had been knocked away, opened up so her attacker could get to the pipes inside; so he could cuff her there.

Outside, she could hear street noise but the sounds were very muffled. The walls of this building were brick. She yelled for help, several times as loud as she could manage, but she doubted anyone could hear her.

There were sounds inside the room: the buzzing drone of flies. How many, she couldn't tell. They seemed to be preoccupied in one area of the room, several feet away.

She spent several minutes probing every inch of her immediate surroundings... for a weak point in the pipe, for a weapon or tool within reach. But there was nothing. Finally she sat, listening to the electric hum of the flies, calling out every few minutes until she had no voice left.

Time passed.

Eventually she heard noises; what sounded like a door being opened and shut. Then another. Then, a rectangle of light appeared across the room and a silhouette filled the doorway. The man was large; heavyset.

The light spilling in gave Kacey a sense of the room's size—a few hundred square feet at least—and barely illuminated a series of shapes to her left, against the far wall. She squinted to see but the big man was moving toward her, breathing heavily as he walked.

When he drew close the man took one knee and said "Well, that took forever. I'm assuming you guys have tracking systems in your vehicles. So I drove your SUV to Crenshaw. Along with your radio and other stuff."

The man pulled gloves off of his hands, huffing as he did so. "Had to take a bus back." He turned his head and the doorway light shined on glasses.

"Listen carefully," Kacey said. "I'm a police officer. My name's Kacey and—"

"Call me Piggy," the man said.

"O-okay. Piggy, you need to listen: people are gonna come looking for me."

Piggy shook his head. "I don't think so," he said. "They won't find you here, anyway. You didn't bring nobody with you, and if people knew where you were they'd have come already."

Piggy got up, lumbered over to the doorway and shut the door, leaving the two of them in darkness.

For a moment all she could hear was his wheezing breath across the room. Then, his low, chanting voice: "Kill the pig cut her throat spill her blood..."

"Piggy, whatever you're thinking..."

"Kill the pig cut her throat bash her in..."

"It's not too late for you to make a good choice here," Kacey said, struggling to keep her rising voice even; to not betray the terror that seized her core.

Heavy footfalls reached her ears, but Piggy wasn't approaching her. He was moving across the room. There was a click; overhead track lights illuminated Piggy, and next to him, occupying the entirety of the corner, a scene:

There was sand spread in a wide radius on the floor; in the center were logs arranged to resemble a bonfire. The logs were under-lit with a bright red light, apparently activated by the switch. Also powered up was a hidden fan—Kacey could hear the whirring of its motor—that blew plastic strips cut to points; the red light reflecting on the plastic made it appear as an undulating flame. On the two walls that formed the corner, dancing forms, silhouettes of men— or maybe boys, apparently naked except for ragged shorts, had been painted in some crude crimson medium. The figures only covered the one wall and part of the other, where the depiction ended in unfinished strokes. Around the campfire, anchored in the sand, seven wooden staves stood upright. Two of them simply ended in carved points. Atop the others, however, were objects that didn't immediately register in Kacey's mind. A handful of flies buzzed around one. Kacey looked closer and felt her stomach twist. Her chest tightened and bile rose in her throat.

The objects spiked onto the wooden stakes were human heads.

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I nearly forgot to update this week! Had a lot going on. At any rate, I hope this update finds you all well. Stay out of trouble and I'll see you all in one week!