Once upon a time, not very long ago, it was a thriving theater. A local farmer had donated his barn and part of his property to the town. One of the local councilmen thought it was a brilliant idea to turn it into a theater. But when funds dried up, so did the shows.

Nowadays it was abandoned.

Lacy knew it was the perfect place to set up her operation.

It was isolated, a good eight miles away from the nearest dwelling, a ranch whose owner was not particularly fond of strangers. Nearby was a short cut through the woods onto the highway, which Lacy thought was a bonus. She could get on the highway expeditiously if things got messy.

The barn was once maroon, but the harsh weather had stripped the paint off. Now it was an upsetting shade of brown that reminded Lacy of cow dung.

She got all her equipment out of her SUV.

A foldable picnic table, which was her travelling desk. She set up her two laptops, side by side. Her tripod with her second phone set up on it was to the right of the makeshift desk.

The great thing about the barn was it had electrical outlets and someone had forgotten to shut off the power.

Brady wasn’t certain this was a good idea, yet he proceeded.

“Open wide!” He commanded.

Lacy did as she was told, terror glowing in her brown eyes. He shoved the dirty rolled up sock into her mouth. Now he had a sock on one foot and one without.

The force he used to shove was unnecessary and it made her tear up.

“You knew it would come to this, “ he spat out between clenched teeth, fuming like a rabid dog.

“I warned you, several times. You thought it was all a joke, didn’t you?”

“I can take down the posts.” Lacy pleaded but it came out in an incoherent mumble.

Lacy had a terrible backache. She chalked it up to lying down on the barn floor for hours, arms zip-tied behind her back. Soon, her bones felt like a gnawing hunger. Her muscles throbbed with rage. Her skin stretched, pores expanded, and hairs stood out long and tall.

“No, no, not here, not him,” she mumbled to herself.

But the creature that resided within her couldn’t be appeased.

It had remained dormant for a while, letting Lacy live a relatively normal life.

Now, both their lives were under threat.

It put Lacy to sleep, instantly, to make the transition easier for her.

Brady sat at the desk, typing away at Lacy’s laptops. Eyes darting from one to the other. Trying frantically to find the files he needed to erase. He had already deleted all her blog posts, but he still had to delete her files.

He heard a moan that made the hairs on his neck stand up. He slowly turned around.

Brady stared in stunned silence as Lacy’s skin began to sprout feathers. Her shirt ripped open and wings uncurled, slowly, dramatically, keeping him transfixed. He snapped out of it when he heard a crunching sound, and looked at the direction from whence it came. It was her fingers, growing into long crooked talons. The crunching continued, with her bare feet, now webbed, similar to that of a duck.

“What the…” he began.

But before he could finish his thought, Lacy’s head rapidly morphed into that of a giant bird. It spat the sock out, and stood up, towering over Brady.

In one swift motion, it opened its mouth wide and snapped Brady’s head clean off.