Page 11 of Muted

My shoulders drop, deflating when Thad snaps out my name. “Vance!Are we going to do this shit or not?”

Nodding, I wait for him to turn the pages back to the beginning of our warmup. I start the piece again and hide my wince when Thad plays, pounding out the notes heavily when they should feel like waves rising and falling in the ocean, rather than breaking against rocks with a loud crash.

Susu is so much better.

Nightmare 1

“Aunt Elaine? Uncle Ronnie?”

I look around the empty house, trying to find them, but there’s no sign they’re here. Strange. They’re always in the kitchen when I come down from my room before school. Peering out the window, I see both of their vehicles in the driveway. A sense of unease slithers up my spine, making the hair at the back of my neck stand on end.

Glancing at the clock, I squint in an attempt to read it. Why are the numbers so blurry? I move closer to the clock and then screech when it begins to chime loudly. Louder than it normally is, forcing me to cover my ears.

Each hour chiming thunders through my eardrums, sounding like bombs exploding. Why is the clock so fucking loud? I race out of the kitchen to get away from the noise and begin looking through all the rooms. My aunt and uncle are nowhere to be found inside the house.

Finally, the clock stops its incessant noise. That was way more than the five or six hours it should be this morning. Wrenching the front door open, I ignore the fact that I’m barefoot and fly through the door to check for them outside.

Looking around the yard, I’m shocked when I find myself staring at my backyard instead of the street our house resides on. Stepping down the steps into the lawn, I allow my toes to curl over the dew-covered grass as I slowly spin in a circle, looking around for my family.

When I face my house, I suck in a gasp to find it gone. There’s just an endless field covered with shrubs and trees. Massive oak and elm trees hiding the stars from my vision. Freezing in my spot, I squint up at the sky, then remember the number of times the clock chimed.

It isn’t morning, it’s the middle of the night. Eleven or twelve. Why the hell am I awake? Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Elaine weren’t in their bed. Their covers had looked untouched when I was searching for them.

My breaths become shallow as my chest heaves, worry and terror overtaking me. I let out a small scream when I feel large hands grip my biceps from behind and I’m spun around so quickly, I can’t focus on the person now standing in front of me.

“Susanna, listen to me.”

Uncle Ronnie… he’s here. My shoulders sag and I go to lean against his chest in relief.

“Thank God, I thought—”

He cuts me off with a violent shake, fingers digging into my skin. “I need you to stop talking and listen.” My eyes widen when they focus on his face, and I’m frozen by what I see. There’s a river of deep red flowing from his temple and he’s covered from head to toe in mud. But it’s the look of fear in his eyes that has me snapping my mouth shut to listen.

“He’s here, Susanna. He’s fucking here.”

I open my mouth, whispering, “Who?” but I know the answer before Uncle Ronnie grinds his jaw in frustration.

“You know who. We need you to run. I’m going to follow you, give you a head start. Elaine is trying to guide him in the other direction. Do you understand? We need to run. NOW!”

I take a step away from him, tears welling with worry over Aunt Elaine. “Why… Why would you let her go off by herself?”

Uncle Ronnie moves forward again and grabs me once more. “It was her idea. She wants me to make sure you get away. Susanna, we’ve got to go now. He’s almost—”

A blood-curdling scream tears through the stagnant air, both of us spinning to peer through the darkness, holding our breaths to listen again. I can feel Uncle Ronnie’s heat against my back but can’t smell his breath, even though he’s breathing down my neck.

We both jerk our heads to our right when we hear the cracking of a branch, and my uncle moves closer to me. Leaning down, he presses his mouth against the side of my ear and whispers, “We need to run now, Susanna. He’s coming for you.”

Sucking in a breath, I nod once and then turn to run away from the second snapping of a branch. Although I’m barefoot, I don’t feel the pain of the ever-growing foliage covering the ground as my uncle and I sprint through the thickening trees.

I hear a hallowed cackle behind us, and then Uncle Ronnie screams, “RUN SUSANNA!”

Tears start to pour from my eyes, distorting the trees ahead of me, but I manage to avoid all of them. He moves alongside of me to grab my arm and jerk me forward as we run faster than I ever thought possible.

It’s only a few moments before we stumble into a clearing, and I see the tallest tree I’ve ever seen standing in the center of a field. But it’s not the tree that makes me pause. It’s the hundreds of ropes hanging from the branches, sweeping in loops between branches that stretch above my head over twenty feet high. There’s a netting hanging from the lowest branch that looks like a spider web, touching the ground.

Uncle Ronnie pauses for only a moment before he turns to me. “I’m going to lure him up there. You keep going. Hopefully, you’ll have enough time to get away.”

Choking on a sob, I beg, “Please, PLEASE come with me.”

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