The Horror Emporium: A Horror Anthology

by K. A Knight

  “Well, shit, when you say it like that…” He grins and then sobers. “What do you love doing?”

  Something about this man has me wanting to tell him everything, mixed with my fear and mortality, I find myself spilling words I normally keep locked inside. Sighing then, looking away, turning in deep, I tell him, “Honestly, I don’t even know anymore. I look in the mirror and see a stranger, I stumble from random beds feeling satisfied but also disgusted, never stopping. Never letting anyone in so they can see how messed up I really am…” I suck in a breath then, admitting something I never wanted to. “When I was younger, I always wanted to be an artist. I would paint for hours upon end, with anything I could get my hands on. It doesn’t pay well, though, and my foster father once told me that only people who can’t do anything else turn to art, and I guess that stuck.”

  “That’s not true.” Lucien frowns, those lush lips thinning.

  “I know that now, but back then I would have done anything to get him to love me. To keep me in the safety and warmth of his family. He wasn’t a bad or a good man, but he fed me, clothed me, and kept me safe. More than I can say for most, so if it made him happy for me to stop drawing and painting…I did it. It didn’t work though. He tossed me away anyway when his wife fell pregnant.”

  “Shit, Natashia, I’m so sorry,” he consoles, reaching over and squeezing my arm. I find myself craving that intimacy, that contact, and reassurance in this bleak place. “If you made it through all of that, you will make it through this. We can do this, let’s stick together, and when we get out, you can paint me a picture. I’ll be your first client,” he offers with a charming grin, making my heart race and a genuine smile curl my lips.

  “Deal, only if you promise to operate on my brain if the time ever comes.” I grin and he laughs.

  “Deal,” he agrees, and we share another grin.

  We whisper long after everyone else falls asleep. I know what we’re doing, keeping each other distracted from reality, hoping if we don’t look at the dead men then we can pretend we are somewhere else, and it works for a while—our stories, sharing our pasts, presents, and dreams. Along the way, I realise that I’m not only starting to trust this man, but like him. Maybe that’s dangerous down here but it means I’m not alone for once…and I don’t want to be. Look at where my lifestyle brought me. I don’t believe in fate or destiny, choices led me here, and maybe if I never gave up art I wouldn’t be down here, hidden below. Maybe if I’d followed my dreams, settled down with a good man, then I would be at home in bed now.

  But that’s another life, another me, and I promise myself if I get out of here, I will try harder. I’ll stop blocking everyone out and I’ll let them in even if it means getting hurt, after all, it’s not as bad as death.

  Death is so final, so permanent, but pain is passing. It’s time I started to live again, pain and all…firstly, I have to survive this sick man’s games. I send up a wish that I can do that, and if I can’t, that it won’t hurt at the end and I won’t be alone like I was in life.

  Chapter 5

  “Time to wake up! I want to play a game, are you ready?” comes his voice, rousing me from my dreams of blood and gunshots and screams. I lift my heavy head, blinking open dry, aching eyes. I couldn’t have been asleep long, but I must have used Lucien’s shoulder as a pillow. I wince at that as he lifts his head from the wall, his eyes opening also as he gets to his feet before reaching back and helping me to mine.

  Dorris doesn’t move, just starts crying again, and Valerie stays leaning against the other wall with Kadian and Lewis, while the druggie is still in the corner of the room, shaking. We all share a look, waiting with bated breath for whatever hell he’s going to put us through now.

  “For this game…it’s not physical, but mental. Even the strongest of you may topple here. How strong are you mentally? Can you withstand fear…can you face down your own demons?” He laughs then. “One by one you will admit out loud your worst sins, your deepest, darkest secrets that you want no one else to know. No lying, I will know, and if you do, you die. You have five minutes. Can you expose your darkness to a room full of strangers, or will you die hoarding them? Relieve your sins, for you may be forgiven, your time starts now.”

  The mic cuts off and we all look around at each other, none of us wanting to be the first person. When no one speaks, I swallow hard and step forward, determination racing through me. I have no illusions about who I am, I’m a cutthroat, cold bitch and undoubtedly have the most heinous sins in this room. “My worst sin is…when I was eighteen years old…” Taking a deep breath, I lock my eyes on the wall, and confess, “I was drunk and high at a party with celebrities, and when I stumbled into a bedroom looking for a place to get high, I saw my old agent fondling a young girl who was passed out. She was a new model, he got her high, and when she couldn’t protect herself he took advantage. He left when I entered and he couldn’t continue, but I never told her. I faced her the next day with the knowledge she had been violated as she slept and I didn’t do anything to help her. To this day, I regret never speaking up, never telling anyone. Never telling her. I was just so scared that he would destroy me, that no one would believe me, and I would be labelled a liar and an attention whore. I let that fear stop me and I will never forgive myself.” I step back then, bracing myself for their damnation, but instead, Kadian steps forward, nodding at me before looking at the ground.

  “The night my father died, I told my mother I was at work. Instead, I had broken into a neighbour’s house and stole their possessions while they slept, and when they woke up, I smacked the old man around his head and fled. They showed up to the funeral,” he whispers, before locking his lips and stepping away again.

  “Fuck this, this isn’t circle time,” Valerie spits. “You people are fucked up.” She shakes her head.

  “You have to, or you die, we know he’s serious now,” Lucien snaps before stepping forward. “When I was a new surgeon, a lot of us took enhancers to stay awake longer, I did too, and a routine surgery went wrong because of it. The patient died at my hands when he never should have. He was a kid, someone’s baby, and I had to look into his parents’ eyes and tell them how sorry I was. His name was Keith, he wanted to be a football player,” he admits, pain lacing his voice as it cracks at the end, and then he looks at Valerie. “Your turn, you have to.”

  She grits her teeth. “Fuck it, can’t be as bad as any of yours,” she mutters. “Last year, I slept with my sister’s fiancé the night before her wedding. I never told her,” she confesses, before looking away and stepping back.

  “Dorris?” Lucien calls softly, kneeling at her side to shake her, she curls further into herself. “I know, I’m sorry, we just need to hear it then we can leave you alone, please, please don’t let us watch anyone else die.”

  “Dorris, please,” I add, when she just moves further into the wall. We all share a panicked look then, and Kadian backs away, looking pale, all of us knowing the consequences.

  “Just fucking tell us!” Valerie shouts.

  The Indian man steps forward, blurting, “I once stole £300 from an old lady on the street.” Then he steps back just as suddenly, and I look at Lewis who is covered in sweat and pale, but he nods and steps forward, his eyes darting everywhere, but not meeting anyone’s gaze.

  “I used to hit my wife, never my daughter though, just my wife.” He nods before shaking and stepping back.

  The mic cuts through our panic then. “Little mouse, what did I say about lying? How about I tell them the real truth? You see, Lewis here not only used to hit his wife, he would beat her and nearly kill her before raping her and leaving her there for their little girl to find. When his little girl got older, he turned his attention to her. He raped her, again and again. When his little girl turned fourteen, she killed herself, leaving a letter explaining why. His wife found it and took her own life, no one ever knew what happened to them. Just a tragic life for such a tragic man,” he informs us, and then takes a
deep breath. “I told you the consequences of lying,”

  “No! No! I’m sorry, it’s true, I did!” Lewis screams, and I cringe away from the monster in disgust. Fuck, this man deserves whatever he gets.

  Just then, something swings from the ceiling so fast, we can’t even see it, never mind react. It’s only when we hear a gurgle and look to Lewis that we see him pinned halfway up the wall, with a row of spikes on a long bar sticking through his body. One through his heart, one through his eye, and one through his penis.

  Fuck.

  No one moves, and none of us speak, as blood drips down the wall from his twitching feet as he flaps his mouth uselessly, his other eye wide and darting around, begging for help.

  He doesn’t die quickly, no, it takes a while, and when he finally stops twitching like a fish on a hook, I look away, sick to the bottom of my stomach.

  “I can’t do this, I won’t die like that!” the Indian man screams and before we can stop him, he grabs the gun, puts it to his head, and pulls the trigger, splattering brain and blood all over as his dead body drops to the floor.

  “Interesting,” our captor comments over the mic.

  “Oh fuck,” I whisper, staring at their mangled bodies before looking at everyone else.

  “Still two sins to go, little mice,” the man reminds us, laughing mockingly.

  “Dorris,” I urge with dawning horror, and swing my eyes to her, but Lucien is already rushing across the room to her side, all of us almost crying with the knowledge of what’s going to happen if she doesn’t play.

  “Dorris, can you look at me? I know this is hard, but please, you have to,” Lucien begs, laying a hand on her shoulder, but she lets out a scream, so he removes it and looks at me helplessly.

  She carries on crying, despite our insistent prodding, all of us getting more and more panicked until his voice comes again. “Times up,” is all he says, and we freeze, our eyes swinging to her, but when nothing happens, we let out our breaths and slump back into the wall.

  Lucien heads my way and we sit back down again, both watching her as the room goes quiet. Kadian joins my other side and I must drift off again, because the next thing I hear is screams. I sit bolt upright, my eyes swinging around wildly until they meet Lucien’s where he’s standing near me. Kadian is near Dorris and it was Valerie who screamed.

  “She’s dead,” he whispers, looking up at us. “I went to check on her and found her like this, I didn’t even see how…” He trails off and my eyes drop to her pale, cold, dead face.

  Her throat is slashed open, blood drenching her blood and skirt.

  How the fuck?

  I jump to my feet and look around. How did he get in here without us seeing?

  “I told you what would happen, in life you must always pay the price,” he declares over the mic, almost sounding sad. Valerie screams at him before Kadian gathers her in his arms and tries to comfort her. She accepts it for a moment before slipping free and walking away, talking to herself.

  My eyes go back to Dorris, and before I realise it, I have gone to her side. I spot her necklace with a broken chain on the floor next to her and pick I up. Opening the etched, bronze, oval locket, I spot the faces of a young man in black and white on the left, and then three children crammed together to the right. I look up at Lucien then. “She had a family, they deserve to know, we can’t leave this here,” I whisper hoarsely, and he nods. He grabs it from me and places it carefully into his suit pocket.

  “We will give it to them when we get out.” Then he leans down and closes her eyelids, before guiding me away from her body and back to our corner. I’m too wired to sit, so I kick off my heels and start to pace, counting the steps as I veer around the room. I don’t want to sleep again, despite how tired I am, not when he can get in here at any time, so I keep myself awake as best as I can, ignoring the burning in my eyes.

  His voice doesn’t come again, and I watch Kadian and Valerie go to sleep. Lucien watches me with tired eyes, and I stop before him. “I think one of us should be awake at all times.”

  He nods. “You get some sleep, I’ll stay awake first. I’m used to long hours and no sleep,” he jokes.

  I hesitate but concede, sitting down next to him and finally drifting off, wondering who Dorris was before all of this.

  The need to pee wakes me, hitting me out of nowhere, the squeeze of my bladder shooting my eyes open. Lucien is still awake next to me, but the others are sleeping. I get up and head to the hole in the floor before looking back at him.

  “Look away, will you?” I ask. I don’t have a lot of modesty, men and women have seen my body and dressed me, but it’s the principle. He nods and looks away as I squat over the hole, pull the dress up my thighs, and relieve myself. Once I’m done, I have to drip dry, making me grimace at the wet feeling between my thighs as I head back over to Lucien. “How long was I asleep?” I inquire, crinkling my noise at the stench the bodies are starting to omit. Mixed with blood and now urine, it’s not a pretty smell.

  “Not long, maybe two hours, nothing happened,” he whispers.

  I nod. “Get some sleep, I’ll keep watch.”

  He must be tired, because he simply smiles and closes his eyes, leans back against the wall, and is asleep instantly. I guess being a doctor has taught him to sleep whenever and wherever he can. With nothing else to do, I study him, noting the clear wedding finger, without even a shadow from where a band used to be, so I’m betting I’m right.

  His hands are smooth with long, tapered fingers, leading to slightly hairy forearms and big, wide shoulders hidden in his shirt. His legs are long and thick. He clearly takes care of his body. In another world, he could be the model, and I’m betting he uses his good looks just like I do.

  Feeling strange for just staring at him, I examine the room further, wondering again where we must be. We can’t be in the city, because someone would have heard our screams. So outside the city, depending on how long the drug lasted. I’m betting no more than eight hours, which means we could be as far as the next county. I wonder if anyone has been reported missing yet. Don’t they have to wait twenty-four hours? Is anyone looking for us?

  I’m betting they are…but they won’t find us, no, this man is too meticulous. If we are found, it’s because he wants us to be found. My eyes clash with those of the drugged up, skinny man shivering in the corner of the room. He’s pale and sweaty and obviously suffering from withdrawal.

  “What’s your name?” I find myself asking, with nothing left to do.

  “Cameron,” he replies, his short brown hair sticking up from running his hands through it, his brown eyes dead and flat, his nose a little too long for his face. His lips are plump and big, his chin square, and his head looks too big for his lanky, tall body—probably a side effect of the drugs he’s on.

  “Nice to meet you,” I respond and he looks away, biting down on his chapped lips as his shivering increases.

  We started with so many people, and now look at us. It couldn’t have been longer than a day and he’s already working his way through our ranks. Before long, we will all be dead if he carries on like this. I can’t seem to figure out his motive. Does he just want to see us suffer? His first speech sounded like he was interested in how far he could push a person before they broke and gave into their baser instincts, but then he seemed to swing about, laughing and enjoying our pain and suffering. He clearly isn’t mentally stable, but has the means to murder us all, so we need to give in to his games and demands for now. Save ourselves.

  “Who’s ready for another game?” comes his gleeful voice, waking everyone else up as they all turn terror filled eyes up to the ceiling, waiting for whatever horrors he will wreak now.

  Chapter 6

  I climb to my feet, Lucien copies me to my right, and Kadian and Valerie do the same opposite us. Cameron stays wrapped around himself, as if trying to block this all out or maybe he simply didn’t hear, lost to the delirium of withdrawal.

  “Are we ready to play?
Feeling rested?” Then he sniggers, all of us sharing pissed off looks, but we tamp it down once we remember what he did to everyone else. He can get to us at any time, do anything he wants to us, so we need to play by his rules if we want to survive.

  “Good, your next game is simple. Who has the will to survive in the face of extreme pain, and who will crumble and die? The choice is yours.” Just then, a wheel cranks and the floor opens slightly, omitting a strange contraption. “Inside the chamber is food, you have already been here for more than a day, and soon your body will start to break down your own fat and waste away. To survive this, you will need the food held in my device…but it won’t be as easy as you expect. Begin!” he yells, and we all look at each other and back to the device.

  It looks like an old-fashioned oven, with a grate opening on the front and long steel pipes behind it, with two openings on each side…for two people? Each pipe has a grate, and when Lucien steps closer, he opens one of them to see a dark passage leading to the middle where we can see what looks like some nutrient bars waiting. We all share a look.

  “It’s too easy. He said pain?” I muse, and Lucien nods and steps back.

  “We have to play though, what should we do—” He cuts off as the opposite chamber is opened and Cameron sticks his hand in deep, reaching for the food. “Wait!” Lucien shouts, but it’s too late, the young man starts screaming.

  Crouching, I look through the open chamber to see what looks like a pressure device he must have triggered when he put his arm in. This side is opening farther, while the other side is clamping down on his arm.