Genre: Thriller Action: An initiation ceremony Character: A servant Word Limit: 2000 words Please state your name for the record.
Bailie Jones. Everyone calls me BJ. Bailie, could you provide your verbal statement. From the beginning? Yes please. It started with my brother, CJ. Chris. He was the success story. Good grades, good degree, good job. Working towards the impossible dream of home ownership. Everyone hoped I’d follow in his footsteps, but I never did. He got all the work ethic and I got all the unrealised potential. It’s something teachers say when they’re surprised how far I’ll go to avoid work. Then he met someone, and disappeared. Went off the grid, disowned the family via email. No further contact. We called the police of course, but boy meets girl, emails to say what he’s doing, then does it. Police were not interested. No need to pause, we’ll ask questions at the end. So I started doing what everyone wanted. Just not the footsteps they’d imagined. I broke into his apartment in the middle of the night. Breaking is a stretch. The lock on the bathroom window never worked, so it was already broken. I’d be leaving it the same as I found it. It looked different to when I was last there. Things out of place. For starters, all of the pot plants were in the bathtub, with a trickle of water from the showerhead dripping into a shallow pool to feed them. Chris loved his plants. Clearly he thought he’d be gone a while, but planned on coming back. It made it hard getting down from the window without knocking any plants over, but I’m pretty nimble. I did gymnastics in school, until everyone started taking it too seriously. I joined Circus Club instead. I’m not sure what I was looking for, but I hoped something would point me in the right direction. A note, his computer, maybe even his phone. Anything. They were all missing too. His desk was bare. Even his document safe. It was locked, but he always uses Reginald’s birthday for important things. Reg was our first dog. I was glaring at the empty safe when I heard the front door open. So I did what any sane person would do. I hid. There aren’t many places to hide in a studio apartment. I found myself laying in a puddle of week-old dirty plant water, squished into a bathtub full of pots, alternating between trying not to breathe and breathing as quietly as possible, which is not an easy task at the best of times. That was when she called out. “I know you’re…” Let me try that again, she’s got that upper crust accent. “I know you’re in here. I’ve been watching the apartment. It’s okay. I’m police. You aren’t in any trouble. I’d just like to talk.” My foot slipped off the ceramic and splashed into the water, and a moment later she burst into the bathroom like a murderer in a horror film, only without the dramatic music and murder weapons. I screamed, tried to get up and slipped a couple of times before I could keep a grip on the windowsill. “Whoa, easy there Bailie. No need to be afraid.” This is her. “I’m just trying to help, and I know you are too.” She had both her hands up as if I was some cornered beast ready to lash out, which wasn’t far from the truth. I finally worked my way back to words, “Who are you and how do you know who I am and what are you doing here?” I didn’t mean to shout, but I definitely was. “I’m Inspector Michaela Cannon, and I’m investigating your brother’s disappearance, amongst others.” She held out a police ID for me. It had words on it, I’m sure, so I trusted her and untangled myself from the budget tropical rainforest. She told me what she knew, and I told her what I did (which was substantially less). Apparently he wasn’t the only young, well-placed, recent law graduate to cut family ties and disappear in the last month. She’d tracked a couple of them to an old estate out of town bordering the woodlands. Her request for a search warrant had been rejected. Tried entering the estate anyway, but she wasn’t let in and it was too well secured. Fences and cameras all the way round. What she had found was an advertisement looking to hire servants for the estate - a way in. Unfortunately, she was known to the estate after her attempts to enter, on top of being a police inspector. She needed somebody else. I’d like to say she made waggly eyebrows at me, but the hint wasn’t so blatant. Of course I point out that if they had my brother, wouldn’t they know about me too? We share the same surname. She just shrugged and said it was still worth a try. It worked. I got the job. I’ve worked in the service industry before, waiting at events and cafes, so maybe that helped. I was picked up from an arranged point. I took public transport there as a precaution. The estate was Big. The house wouldn’t be visible from the road even without the trees, and it was 3 stories plus an attic. More castle than mansion. Probably an inherited hangover from a family whose glory days were at the height of slavery. Now forced to pay wages and deal with unions. On arrival they gave me a uniform and took all my stuff away, including my phone. Meaning no way to contact Michaela. I figured I’d think of something. The job was… simple. Weird though. The night was some sort of initiation ceremony for a group of people new to the estate - the inspector suspected they’d be the missing people, and I felt she was right on the money there. They were holding a masquerade ball, and each initiant, is that a word? Each initiant would be paired with a servant wearing a matching mask. Theirs gold, ours black. We were to cater to their every whim, with no one allowed to speak. It was a silent ball. They were exceedingly strict about this - the masks had a mouthpiece you bit to hold in place. If you spoke, the mask would fall off. I had a black jackal mask. Fortunately, there was a series of servant’s hallways, separate from the main area, where we could take off the mask to drink, or use the servant’s bathroom if needed. I found my gold jackal easily. It was a large open hall, lots of gold masks milling around. But there were also people without masks. I assume they were running the night. The gold masks had their mouths free, but no one spoke. They could eat and drink, which kept me busy selecting drinks and finger food based on pointing and hand waving. It was oddly easy to interpret. An unmasked man gave a speech I half listened to. “Tonight, we welcome you to your new family, your new home. Riches and wealth, glory and vice for whatever your desire.” Or something like that. He was putting on a deep voice, and the speech went way longer. “Now comes the time to cut away your old lives to embrace the new. Take your key.” This was our queue. Each servant approached the long table at the front to collect a key. The jackal. “It will lock away your past to unlock your future. I will see you all on the other side! Do not fear, for your new family will protect you, and we know no fear.” 19 was engraved on the key. I led down the hallway to the room, opened it, and followed my initiant inside. A large box lay on the bed. He held out his hand, and I gave him the key. He picked up a note from the box. Read it. Carefully placed it down. Strangely familiar, I thought, the way it was done just so. He reached inside the box, and as he did I heard the first scream break the silence. I instinctively stepped back, and it probably saved my life. He spun and lashed out at exactly where I had been standing, slashing with a butcher’s knife in an arc where my throat would have been. I should have run, I would have run, but suspicion kicked the ‘L’ out of my flight response. I struck fast and hard. Balls first. Then throat. He swung the blade again, this time I was too close. I got an arm up to protect myself, and it cut in. Slicing a gash and a splattering of blood. I returned to step one with a vengeance. He collapsed, the blade skittering across the floorboards. I was in two minds between going for the knife and continuing kicking my way to traumatic castration, when his impact with the floor knocked his mask off. “What the f…” My mask hit the floor. “CJ?” He looked awful. Bloodshot eyes with enormous pupils. Like he hadn’t slept in days and had tried every drug known to man. It was slow to dawn, but a look of surprise and recognition rose. “Bee?” His nickname for me. I grabbed the knife, pointed it at him, my own blood dripping from the tip. “Don’t try any shit.” He didn’t. “I’m getting us out of here.” I waved the blade around the room. “Take some stuff. You know, evidence.” We left. Blood dripping down my fingers, butcher’s knife in one hand, CJ’s in the other running through a dim narrow hallway. I wanted to send a signal to Michaela, and the best idea I had was the kitchen. The servant hallways connected to them without passing through the main living area. Food service had stopped, so it was empty. Oil, electrical and wood fires are a difficult combination to stop, and old buildings were built before fire codes. That old building burning in the woods was probably quite beautiful, but we didn’t look back. All we saw was the light of the flames dancing across the leaves, shadows lengthened beyond. Michaela said she’d be waiting for me. Just beyond sight of the east fence. It was tough climbing with an injured arm and a semi-catatonic brother, but luckily no one came for us. Cameras dotted the fenceline, but with the fire I doubt anyone was watching. Michaela was there, by her car on the nearest dirt road through the woods. She was holding something that seemed wrong. CJ spoke first. “Angela?” That’s when the shit all clicked. “I’m so disappointed in you CJ. We had such high hopes for us.” Michaela/Angela’s voice was no longer polite. She was the mystery girl, the new family. I was the old. She’d orchestrated this whole thing. At least our part in it. It wasn’t until I heard the bang that I recognised the gun in her hand. She had aimed for CJ, and I had aimed for her. My adrenaline was flying, and with it the butcher’s knife. It was a good throw. At the circus I’d aim to miss, hitting is much easier. Right into the meat of her dominant shoulder. She dropped the gun and I tackled her into the car. Her head cracked hard against the bonnet. Bounced unnaturally. I dropped her to the ground, took the gun and keys, and helped CJ into the car. It looked like he was shot in the leg. Lots of blood. We left her there. I didn’t take the knife out. We drove with the headlights off, just in case, until the highway. I took CJ to the hospital, and then came here. That’s it. Can I go see him now? Is he okay? You aren’t going anywhere right now. It’s safest for you here. You’ve had a rough night. Don’t worry, your brother is being looked after.
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