by A. R. Braun
… “The Lord didn’t take me to heaven,” the dead said in that gangster-like, high-pitched voice that sounded so much like a schoolgirl’s. “I was a hypocrite. That’s why I drove you crazy with my man-hating, man-eating ways. But Satan has decided to allow me to bring all the torment you put me through back on your own head, thanks to your failure in Mexico.”
Speechless, Tyler didn’t understand. She’d gone to church every Sunday. And how did she know about Mexico?
The tunnel morphed into a steel torture chamber, and before he knew it, he lay on an operating table, strapped and stripped—face-down. Whoever or whatever had ripped his clothes off and forced him onto the table and into the straps was only able to be seen out of the corner of his eye; he suspected the dark, morphing shapes were demons. Quivering, Tyler turned his head. On the walls were a multitude of torture devices, as well as on platforms: a chainsaw, a double-headed hatchet, a bayonet, a hunting knife, a machine gun, a shotgun, a Japanese sword, nunchucks, a nail-spiked bat, the rack, the iron maiden, a stockade and, next to Morgan, a steel table holding surgical instruments.
“Welcome to Hell, Tyler,” Morgan said with a demonic smile. “It’s your turn to be mutilated, you beast.”
She walked over to one of the platforms and retrieved—no, it couldn’t be!—a medieval head crusher. Trembling so badly he thought he’d have a seizure, he hid his face in the metal of the table, willing himself to disappear. Then she walked his way—her stilettos clicking like a female Nazi’s—and put her hands on his head, which she turned onto its side. That done, she inserted it into the instrument of death.
Tyler shrieked like the damned—which he was—but Satan no longer heard his cries as his teeth broke and shattered, his head reduced to pulp, crushed like so much garbage.
Yet he lived … on and on and on and on!
A. R. Braun is the author of the novels, Autonomy, The Not and Only Women in Hell, as well as the short-story collections, Insanity and Horrorbook: Twenty-two Tales of Terror. He became interested in horror when he read “The Telltale Heart” as an assignment in high school. By the time he was eighteen, he had the whole Stephen King collection and started writing short stories for friends and family. His main goal was to put together a heavy metal band, and he spent many years working blue-collar jobs and seeking out musicians, but never fell in with the right kind of guys. He learned how to type and use a computer in college.
A. R. has numerous publication credits, including “NREM Sleep” in the D.O.A. anthology; “Freaks” in Downstate Story magazine; “The Unwanted Visitors” in the Vermin anthology; “Coven” in the Heavy Metal Horror anthology; “Remember Me?” in Horror Bound magazine; and “Shades of Gray (the Symbiosis of Light and Dark)” in Micro Horror magazine. “The Interloper” won story of the month in 2009’s June Full Moon in Bloom issue of SNM Horror Magazine, and the piece was included in the SNM Horror anthology, Bonded by Blood 2: a Romance in Red. Weightlifting and mixed martial arts are a couple of his interests. He completed Bram Stoker Award nominee Jeremy Shipp’s Writer Boot Camp, and A. R. blogs on his website at http://arbraun.com.