The man slams on the brakes, forcing the car to an abrupt stop. Jerking me awake in the inertia fueled lurch, the wheels finally stop spinning, leaving me now with the old man, who sits in his seat wiping the sweat off his brow, and an old, white house. Stepping out of the truck, I feel uneasy and fall against the rust laden door, clutching my head. Breathing in the air, it felt as if it were corroding the lining of my esophagus. Then there was the stench. Oh good God, the stench.

It reeked of gasoline, must, and death. On the left hand side of the estate was a small wooden barn. It's exterior painted red, with faded, stained white stripes running across the ragged red. The brunt of the odor seemed to emanate from that side.

He smiled at me once more, the gap in his teeth the only thing I could keep focus on. Still leaned against the door of his car am I, not too eager to move from this position.

"Hun?"

Oh, right. The old man. Coming around the side of the truck, he stops and takes a long look at me. I can't really tell what he's supposed to be doing, but all it looks like to me is that I'm being sized up. My legs can't support myself much longer, and I slump down to a sitting position, the skin on my back (now bare, as a result of being cut by the jagged, rusted bits) rests against the cold, rough door.

He kneels down next to me. Looking into my face, his next words come out slow. As if I was a mentally handicapped child, or something.

"Are. Ya. Okay?"

I'm sick. Not fucking special. I nod, hoping that any sense of responsiveness to his inquiries would speed up this process exponentially. He reaches out and grabs my hand, pulling me up to my feet in one fluid motion. My head droops momentarily, and lands on his shoulder. Sensing that however, I pull away with my eyes still closed and back up into the door of the car once more. A cold, thick trickle of what i assume to be blood drips down my lower back and seeps into the back of my jeans.

The man reaches out to me, his fingers thin and bony, contrasting with the rest of his body. His eyes look into mine once more, the glittering white hitting me before I catch a glimpse of his irises. Gray. A hint of blue, what had been. Slowly, albeit surely though, the color starts to...

Return to his eyes? Not just his eyes, either. At the same pace, his hair returns, covering up the massive bald patch on the top of his head with curly, dirty blonde locks. Even his face regresses in age. I blink...

And it's gone. He's back to normal, his outstretched hand and bony fingers right in my line of vision. I shake my head, trying to clear mind of the hallucination; which despite no longer happening lingers on. Lined up, almost as if they were placed on top of each other, were his face and the distortion.

The illusion, yeah. That's what it was. Maybe, if I close my eyes long enough, it'll be gone when I open them again. I close my eyes tightly, and on top of that cover them. His voice still resonates however, not letting me forget where I am, and whose company I'm in.

"Com'on! We gotta get'cha inside!"

He grabs my wrist and yanks it, pulling me up to a standing position and leaving a red stain on his rusted off white car door. I open my eyes to see us advancing toward his house, which for a brief, unsettling moment transforms before my very eyes. The faded white paint is swapped for a blackened exterior, stained by a shade of red that looks awfully similar to the stain on the truck. I try to pull away from him, but his grip tightens as he begins to force me into the house.

The stench from outside intensifies in the main room of the house, where the front door led. I look down at the hand that's still clenched on mine. It's scrawnier, the bones sticking out like they were for his fingers. What did I get myself into?

"Don't worry, little lady. How about I get you sssomething to eat? You look positively famished!"

The hick accent is no more, and while he held the s on something, sounding more like a hiss than a word, my blood began to run cold. Something forces me forward, and it isn't him pulling me. After letting go of my hand, he retreats around a corner to what I can only assume to be the kitchen. Curiosity, which is the very thing that did indeed kill the cat, gets the better of me. After some internal debate, I follow him. Moving as quietly as I can, I round the corner to see him walk through a door that led to a stairway on the left hand side of the small kitchen.

Still, I follow him. Why am I doing this? What will this gain me?

Stepping down the stairway, I see a series of long tables, lined with...

Chopped open human bodies, husks of their former selves. Blood stained the tables, some of it fresh, still wet on the dampened wood. Pushing further, I walk to the northernmost part of this room, this dungeon. A lone fridge sits, and I pull the door open.

The contents are listed and placed in separate areas of the refrigerator:

Kidneys.

Pancreas.

Assorted Muscle.

Livers.

Just then, a tap on my shoulder causes me to divert my attention. I look back, to see the old man looking at me, smirking at me, his twisted grin revealing broken and black teeth. No longer does a gap exist in his front teeth, but I wish it had. Clenched in his hand was a glass, the liquid within red and bubbly.

"It appearsss, you've learned my sssecret. No worriesss, Miss Diaz. I alwaysss have a backup..."

He grabs me chin in one hand and tilts my head back. Holding my mouth open, he pours a mouthful of the liquid in. He forces my mouth shut before I can spit it out, and struggles with me until I have no choice...

But to swallow.

I wobble for a moment, before falling face first into the man's chest. He steps back and I hit the ground. Hard. Laying with my cheek on the floor, I can see the world around me spin and slowly fade to black.

I'm knocking on Death's proverbial door now, aren't I?