From Beginning to End

Day 78. It’s not many of us left.

What was once several tens of rows of hopeful writers was now only four, five to each row.

Diligently I work through the sounds of slaughter in the distance, or maybe just down the hall.

It had begun as a writers’ retreat, an ad on Instagram inviting adult writers of all ages, genres and backgrounds to a week-long retreat that doubled as a workshop. They’d come to a compound tucked away in the forest to meet their mentors and fellow writers, as well as find their rooms for the week.

The first day was meant for settling, making friends. Linda from Wisconsin, who held creative writing club at her local library. Jaxon from Memphis who’d just had a breakthrough in his career and wanted a break just before he dove into the work. Melody from Vegas who had a knack for oral storytelling and was learning to translate it to the page.

The second day, they’d get used to the overall schedule, the different locations for writing, what each mentor specialized in, as well as the retreat aspect. The sauna, the library, the garden, the lake.

Day three the attendees had begun to question things here and there. Why they never smelled the food when it was cooking. Why they couldn’t hear the water lapping at the bank from the sleeping grounds when it was within view. Why the sounds of the forest seemed to play on a very distinct loop.

The fourth day was decidedly the final day of playing the part. The Things, that which were responsible for the slaughter, seemingly had no desire to hide anymore. The main investigators of the attendees were snatched up first. Those who commented on the lake vanished, literally before the eyes of everyone else, their bodies soaring up, or maybe to the left, a light drizzle of red rain all that could be made sense of. If the remaining writers didn’t get it then, they’d surely learned immediately afterwards when a couple made a fast break for the entrance gate and were burnt to a crisp. The three who went to look for the grounds staff have yet to come out of the single room building.

I flinch at the distant sound of a scream, fingers never stopping over my keyboard. The woman beside me, not Linda or Melody, cries as she has every day for the last several weeks, her typewriter, sniffles, and fear meshing into the familiar ambiance of this time of day.

The man in front of me keeps glancing up at the rolling whiteboard as if the lone word “Light” would change, maybe rearrange itself into his saving grace in the form of personal inspiration. At this point in our experience, our only obstacle was the daily writers’ quota.

Before we arrived, we’d all set a word quota to meet by the end of the day. If you didn’t meet it, then you were held to the fate of the curious. I’d made my own one thousand words a day and decided to use this time as a documentary period. That was my specialty, so why not? In my own personal journal, I’d written down each gruesome detail and kept it tucked away in my things.

It was only a month in that I’d accepted my fate here. Of course, we had questions and concerns. When people would see their families, if we’d ever be let out. If what was keeping us here was even human, being as we never quite saw them clearly. We’d rudely discovered that the mentors, while not exactly a Thing, were far more than they let on. Their shadows would give them away at noon and midnight, growing to grotesque shapes and projecting horrors on the walls they walked by.

There’s a loud crunch in one of the chairs behind me, but no one turns around. The woman with the typewriter flinches but keeps writing. I believe her quota is three thousand words a day, and there’s less than a paragraph on her paper, but I’m sure she’ll make it just as she has these last several weeks.

The ground shakes, and at this everyone freezes. That’s never happened before and based on the momentary silence from the surrounding Things, it wasn’t them either. They all seem to move at once, shattering glass, busting through doors and walls to head outside, and we all immediately refocus on our writing. I can hear the shouting of other people, ones not at all like the screams or pleas we’d grown accustomed to. We can hear gunfire and more slaughter.

The man in front of me turns to look and my breath catches in anticipation of more red rain, but it doesn’t come. The sounds of the typewriter slow as the commanding voices, distinct to that of soldiers grow closer and the man dashes towards the windows shouting, but he’s cut down, shouts replaced by the screams of the woman beside me, her sobbing continuing alongside the sounds of her typewriter. This goes on for hours, the rest of us writing, only stopping when we’d met our quota and not daring to move in these new circumstances. The voices had never dwindled, it was like there were hundreds of them, the gunfire leading the chorus into the afternoon, evening, and next day.

We’d stayed in the group room the whole evening, some able to sleep, others alert through the night with hope of what we didn’t dare say out loud. The 9 ‘o'clock morning chime sounds for breakfast, no one moves. The prompt had hadn’t changed either, so we do what makes sense and begin once again on “Light”. As soon as we began it had come to a swift end.

People in camouflage with guns and helmets swarm the room, yelling questions, doing physical checkups and securing the perimeter. They were telling us to follow them, but few could part from their writing, myself included. When they started dragging us from the seats there were shouting and protests, pleading with the soldiers to leave them be. A few they had to render unconscious, all they’d moved into a transport truck.

After the hospital visit, a verbal recounting of the event, the signing of papers, witness protection and government provided therapy, there wasn’t to be any mention of the retreat, or they’d face legal repercussions. There was public outcry for the other missing writers, demands for someone to do something. There were still writing retreats being held by that same organization and promoted on multiple platforms. Still naïve and hopeful writers booking the trip while the created survivors continue to meet quotas.