Half an hour ago, the phone of Jessica Elisabeth Ekhart—aka Wilma Flintstone—lit up beside her bed. Her reaction had been quick and purposeful, as she had been trained to do.
Now she watches from behind a car how that puny boy, dressed in a posh dark blue blazer with brass buttons, sneaks into an unassuming house. A minute later a light turns on. Ten minutes later it switches off again. He must have gone to bed. It’s still night.
Her instructions were clear: bring the boy back to school—by force, if necessary. Excitement tingles beneath her skin. This will be easy. But when she moves the beam of her flashlight over the bed for the second time, she realizes something is wrong. The bed is empty.
Without even touching it, she opens the window by just concentrating on the handle, swings her legs over the ledge and lands softly inside. The distinct lukewarm odor of a poorly ventilated bedroom makes one thing clear, someone is here.
She sinks to her knees, holds her breath, and listens intently. The room seems silent, but of course, it isn’t. The ticking of the alarm, the soft hum of a laptop fan, the hiss of the central heating, and... the barely audible sound of breathing. Of course—under the bed. Where else? A smile twists her metal-wire face. Come out, come out, wherever you are, she hums to herself, rubbing her bony hands together in sadistic anticipation.
Prepared to counter any last desperate move, she sinks to her knees—but still nothing happens. The boy must be paralyzed with fear by now. It’s time to put him out of his misery. Fast as lightning, she reaches under the bed and with a cry of pain, she jerks it back again. A loud hiss erupts from beneath the bed. Two yellow eyes flash, and before she can react, a big, fat cat shoots through the open window. Blood drips from four fresh scratches on her hand. Shit! This is not good—not good at all!
Reflexively, she rolls to the side—only just in time. A wooden chair misses her by a hair and shatters into a thousand pieces on the edge of the bed. It takes her less than a second to regain her balance, but it’s enough for someone to slip past her and escape through the door. She scolds herself. Stupid, stupid, stupid! This won’t happen again and now she knows where he is, she moves quickly, opening the door with just a thought, turning on the hall lights by merely concentrating on the switches. In time, she’ll be able to move large objects and even people without breaking a sweat—just like her father. Not yet, though. Doesn’t matter. She won’t need it now. She’s taller than that boy and stronger than she looks.
The hall is empty. There’s only one door he could have reached in such a short time: the toilet. And indeed... the little red dot under the door handle indicates that it’s 'occupied.' She snickers. He has no idea how little protection that flimsy door will give him.
For a second she listens to check if nothing’s moving upstairs, but everything is silent. Then, with malicious intent, she focuses on the lock. The red dot changes to white. The boy inside probably hasn’t even noticed. Slowly, she presses the handle down, opening the door just a crack.
Strange, she thinks, no attempt to push the door shut again. He must be sitting on the closed toilet seat, probably wetting his pants, paralyzed with fear. Her hand reaches inside and finds his shoulder. A wave of triumph washes over her. This will be short and sweet. She pulls the door open fully, and there he is—but... he doesn’t look afraid at all. He looks angry. Furious
It’s so unexpected that she hesitates for a moment, just a moment too long and before she knows it, a hellish pain shoots through her body, as if each of her fingers has been thrust into an electrical socket. In horror, she sees smoke curling up from her arm and then... nothing.
–
Wayne W. de Roufelaere III feels excited. He always does right before he strikes, especially now the situation is especially challenging. The only light comes from a single orange streetlamp, filtering through stained curtains. It’s so dark that he can barely make out the shapes of the people, tucked away in their bunk beds arranged in long, rigid rows. But he can hear them—restless tossing, snoring, and mumbling in their sleep. The possibility that any one of them could wake up and expose him at any moment only heightens his exhilaration. Not that he’s afraid. Failure is not something he seriously considers. Success flows through his family like blood in their veins. As the last of a legendary aristocratic line, his only ambition is to surpass all who came before him—especially his father. One day, his father will bow to him, whether out of admiration or fear—preferably both. It might take time, but he’ll get there.
Slowly, he has built a reputation at school, perfecting his unique brand of stealthy terror—spreading fear without ever being caught or even suspected. It had been a flawless run until that incident with the small piece of trash outside the vice-principal's office. But he's buried that memory so deeply in the vault of his subconscious that he hardly thinks about it anymore–an itch, he only sometimes needs to scratch—thanks to another hallmark of the aristocracy: denial.
As he slowly navigates the narrow path between the long rows of bunk beds, a flicker of pity briefly stirs within him for the restless sleepers—an unusual impulse of compassion. Poor fools. They came all this way, hoping for a better life, only to end up in this container village, living like prisoners. Let’s see what they think of the 'promised land' now. And then it’s gone again. He’s on a mission, and for once, it’s more meaningful than tormenting weak little students at school. This has real stakes, and he has finally been given a free hand. He isn’t allowed to kill the girl, but beyond that, anything goes.
He thins the air in front of each sleeping face he passes, just enough to make them lose consciousness. The trick is to keep them alive, just enough not to cause any brain damage. They want the girl, not a scandal.
Bed after bed falls silent, and by the time he reaches the last two bunk beds, you can hear a pin drop. He despises the blunt violence and excessive force that Antonio favors, even though it's been effective. He prefers a more subtle, refined approach—one that requires precision. He likes to take his time. It's not just because he enjoys watching as his victims' eyes roll back in their sockets, in a desperate attempt to stay conscious; it's also because he needs them to know it’s him.
He takes a deep breath and sits down on the edge of one of the lower beds, savoring the excitement building inside him. For a moment, he imagines his father sinking to his knees, begging for mercy, and he knows that day is drawing closer with each passing moment.
Everything is eerily silent. Even from the last bed, there’s no sound. The girl must be hiding under her blanket, drenched in cold sweat by now. He slowly pulls himself up, but when he finally looks at the bed, a surge of panic pierces his chest. Something’s wrong. The bed is empty.
For a moment he’s dumbstruck. His eyes search the bed again. She is not here? She couldn’t have slipped past him without him seeing her. He turns back to the door at the other side of the dorm. It’s still closed, the small window above her bed can only be opened to a small slit. She must still be here. Quickly he walks back to the door and switches on the light. The single lamp in the middle of the room lights up. For a moment he sees the girl, standing at the other side of the pathway, dressed in her washed out pink princess night gown, looking at him with big penetrating eyes before they move to the light bulb. He doesn’t believe his own eyes. The lamp slowly extinguishes and when the light coming from the street, also gets devoured by impenetrable darkness, he finally starts to panic.
Everything is black. He strains his ears to hear something, anything, to locate the girl, but he hears nothing, until with a dry ‘click’, the door behind him locks. His hands quickly reach behind him in an attempt to try to catch the person who did it, they find nothing.
The darkness is almost malleable like plasticine. It’s embracing him with hundred arms. He loses all sense of orientation, and an old, deeply rooted, panic gets hold of him. He hates the dark. It’s where his demons live. The only thing he’s able to see in the blackness is himself... as a toddler, sitting on his knees in the hallway closet, locked and taped down light tight. He hears his own desperate cries, his calling for his mother. He hears his father commanding him through the door that he will only be let out when he acts like an adult. He knows that crying doesn’t help, but he just can’t stop. He only stops crying much later, when his father is long gone and he’s exhausted. That’s the moment the darkness opens up and the monsters start circling around him.
Barney starts screaming. Louder and louder and there’s absolutely no-one that can help him.
–
Antonio Pugno is smart enough to know he’s not the most intelligent of their gang. He’s their undisputed leader, not because of his brains, but because of his physical strength and ruthless mentality. He always gets what he wants, even if it takes violence. He can’t help it—it’s just who he is. Anyone who crosses him pays the price, and that’s exactly why he’s here now. He has unfinished business with the fat kid who humiliated him in front of dozens of students. It had been pure luck, of course, but still, he can’t afford even the slightest crack in his reputation. This had to be corrected.
A few weeks ago, the four of them had tried to “correct” the situation during lunch break——something they usually handled between two bites of a sandwich. This time, however, everything went horribly wrong. Despite giving it his all and making the floor shake and splash like never before, the fat kid and his friends still managed to escape into the science classroom, leaving the corridor in ruins and him utterly exhausted.
Normally, that wouldn’t have been the end of it, but just as they were about to wrench the classroom door off the wall, they were ordered to stand down… indefinitely. Since then, his frustration had been building and building with no way to release it—until tonight, when his phone finally buzzed. The fat kid would finally pay.
He moves faster through the small hallway of the modest family home than his monumental size would suggest. The small porcelain animals on the cupboard rattle violently with each step. The little paintings of birds and flowers on the walls quiver. Stealth has never been his virtue—nor has it ever needed to be.
He sniffs the air, thick with the scent of cheap air freshener and the forced fragrance of good intentions and substitute love. Foster parents, he thinks, disgusted. It’s all a scam.
No matter; he only wants the boy. He had already checked upstairs, so the boy must be somewhere downstairs. He smiles. The toilet—it's always the toilet. It's amazing how many people seek refuge in the only space they can't truly escape from. It must be the lock and its illusion of safety. The fat kid is likely no exception.
He places his hand on the handle, pulls the door open, but finds it empty. He’s only perplexed for a moment. Good, he thinks, a bit of resistance only adds to the gratification. The front door is locked from the inside, so that lump of meat must be hiding in the kitchen—the second most common place people tend to seek refuge. It must be the abundance of potential weapons, as if anyone would actually have the nerve to use them. He knows better. The truth is, most people would rather be beaten than plunge a kitchen knife into their attacker.
At first, he sees nothing in the dimly lit kitchen, but then he hears movement behind the dining table. Finally he will have his revenge! And as his excitement grows, the pots and pans in the sink, the cups and glasses in the cupboards, and the forks and knives in the drawers begin to rattle with increasing urgency, creating a foreboding soundtrack, like swelling violins in a horror movie. A frying pan teeters on the edge before crashing to the ground. "Ouch… that hurts!"
Fred takes two large strides around the table, and there he is—his gigantic butt sticking out of a cupboard, where he apparently tried to hide. As always, the fat kid seems to move in slow motion. This is going to be even easier than he thought.
"Ahem, need help?"
What? Uh... no..." The chubby kid slowly scurries backward, looking thoroughly frightened. His wide, startled eyes look even bigger, magnified by his enormous glasses.
Fred savors the moment.
"It's payday, loser," he grunts, and immediately, everything in the kitchen begins to shake more violently. Lighter objects are already balancing on the edge of the kitchen table and counters.
"I don’t know what you mean... I mean... I..."
"You don't, huh? Three weeks of people laughing behind my back, and you still don’t know what I mean?" With a loud crash, the orange juicer hits the floor, followed by the entire cutlery drawer and a set of frying pans. Cracks are forming in the walls and ceiling at an alarming rate.
The whole kitchen is shaking so violently now that it’s becoming dangerous, even for him, but he needs his revenge. With all his strength, he swings the large frying pan he grabbed from the floor, aiming for the boy’s head.
It feels glorious… he can almost… but wait… something’s wrong. Everything slows down. His arm barely makes any progress anymore. The boy he was aiming for crawls out from.
“Believe me, I didn’t want to… I don’t even know how I’m doing this. It’s the stress, I swear. I don’t mean to.” The boy’s words come faster and faster, his voice rising higher and higher until it’s no longer audible.
His movements blur, becoming nothing more than flashes, streaks of light. The only thing that remains recognizable is the kitchen, frozen in time. A web of cracks in the ceiling split the room apart, chunks of plaster float in midair, cupboards hang precariously from the walls. Cutlery, plates, cups, pots, pans, even an electric orange squeezer—all suspended, halfway to the floor.
Fred Flintstone starts to sweat. What will happen when everything snaps back into motion? And just as that thought crosses his mind, like a hypnotist snapping his fingers, the whole kitchen crashes in on him.