by Kim Faulks
Text copyright © Kim Faulks 2014
All rights reserved.
www.hauntingfiction.com/
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.
Cover by Steph’s Cover Design
www.stephscoverdesign.com/
Model: Heather Claycamp
Formatting by Inkstain Interior Book Designing
Contains mature content and themes
ISBN: 978-0-9871841-9-1
Dedication:
I dedicate this book to the readers, to the ones who are ready to face the truth and not let a few demons stand in their way…
Acknowledgements
There are so many people that I want to thank for supporting me when I needed it. Thank you to my family, Anthony, Ryan, Bec and Tiff for your constant love and support. Thank you to my friend and editor, Eden, for always being there when I needed it the most and never flinching, even in the scary parts…lol. To my friends, Rob, Nikki L. Nikki C, Aynia, Joanne, Nicky, Penny, Carole, Kelly, Luke, Stacey, Helen, Phoenix for giving me the motivation to keep on going. To all my beta readers, and all my readers out there, I’d be lost without you:
DARKNESS DWELLED IN MORGAN. SHE swam in the empty space that occupied her mind, fighting to get to the surface and to the light, only to be dragged back under once more.
The murky undertow held her down. She kicked and clawed until a crisp, clear, conscious thought pulled her free. Wake up. She inhaled, and felt the back of her throat kick like a mule. Morgan coughed and spluttered. Her stomach clenched in warning, but held fast. Jesus… Her heavy eyelids refused to budge, but she forced them open. White light washed in, overwhelming her senses, taking her breath. She raised her hand to shield her eyes and then froze—where the hell am I?
Hot spikes of pain drove into her neck and brain, hammered home with each pounding beat her heart made. Morgan whimpered and dared not move. Through the cracks between her fingers, she stared at the snowed-out room. Her eyes burned and blurred. She blinked away the hot tears and closed them. Bright sparks of light flashed behind her eyelids. Morgan moaned, yearning for the soothing darkness, but now pain was here, and she knew sleep was long gone.
Every inch of her body ached, but her ass felt the worst. She dropped her hand and touched the floor before pressing her hand to what seemed to be a wooden wall at her back. She pushed, shifting her body, trying to find some relief, but there was none. The barrier at her back felt confining more than comforting.
Did I pass out? She tried to remember how she got here, but her memories were nothing more than debris scattered along the highway of her mind, like the remnants of a truck wreck.
She tried to gather what she could and reconstruct the images of her past, but the dead were there, waiting for her. They lay under a blue tarpaulin that flapped in the wind, threatening to expose her for what she was. She edged away from the sickening recollections, skirting the boundaries of her thoughts, gathering what she could.
Come on, get it together.
Using the wall as a brace, she pushed herself up, one slow, painful inch at a time. The glare of the room was blinding. She pressed her head against the wood, trying to find respite from the sun. Morgan tried to think of the last thing she remembered.
The bar…. She was locking up the bar. But had that been last night, last week or last month? The stench of old blood and rotting egg, or something, reminded her of a forgotten bin, left too long in the sun making her heave. She wracked her memory until the white-hot pain flared inside her head and she gave up. She couldn’t tell if that was recent memory or not. Every night for her was the same. She worked and went home—alone.
Why can’t I remember anything? Her mind was one big blur. Just start with the basics… She inhaled and calmed her racing thoughts. Yeah, okay… I live in that one-bedroom dump on Boundary Street. I work at the Night Callers bar, which I fucking hate, and… and I’m a goddamn junkie.
The last memory made her flinch as though this was a secret she should hide, even from herself. Morgan swallowed and tried to get back on track, collecting more of her strewn thoughts, searching for the last thing she could remember. But trying to force the recollection was useless. There was nothing there, nothing but one big black hole and a growing sense of unease.
She focused on the scarred wood. The marks seemed strange. They cut across the panels, rather than running with the grain. Morgan pulled away slightly, her gaze following the furrows. They kinda look like….
Her breath caught. With her gaze riveted to the scars, her insides quivered. They looked like they were made by fingernails. Her heart kicked like a shotgun and the room around her swayed. She reached for the wall, steadying herself, determined not to faint. Her breaths impaled her chest and tore free with each jagged draw. She stared at the gouges. She could feel the frenzied marks under her hands. Someone had tried to claw their way out of here—tried and… failed? Ice filled Morgan’s gut. The frigid feeling swept away all but one thought while she stood bathed in the blinding light. Jesus, what kind of place is this?
Morgan thrust away from the wall. The motion flayed the sensitized nerves in her head. This time, she controlled the pain by taking slow, measured breaths. She focused on the rise and fall of her chest and not the blinding light, the room, or the fetid stench that came with each inhale.
A moan to her left made her jerk. Agony lashed inside her head like a merciless whip. She whimpered. She turned her head slowly and searched the floor. Feet, legs, and then the body of a man came into view. He lay flat on his back. The bottom of his T-shirt had escaped from the waistband of his jeans, exposing a soft stomach and a trail of dark hair. Morgan turned her attention to his face, searching for any recognition. There was none. Her stomach dropped like a weight.
Great! Just fucking great. Six months of rehab, to end up whoring myself again….
She dropped her head, the inward sigh turned into a sob. She thought she was doing okay. She thought she was finally getting past the constant, goddamn need. But this proved she was obviously fucking wrong.
Morgan brought the crook of her arm into view. She searched her flesh for the telltale sign of her failing, while her future fell apart. There was no way out of this. She’d have to go back to the clinic, back to the pain, and the perpetual hell. She dug her thumbs into her skin, searching for the track to her vein. There were no marks, not here anyway. Morgan glanced at her boots, envisioning the needle marks between her toes.
She didn’t want to look, for fear of what she’d find. Instead, Morgan focused on the walls, squinting to lessen the pain from the searing light. She had to find a way out of here. The light was so sharp, so bright, so utterly overwhelming that it seemed to take a long time for her vision to reveal that the man wasn’t the only person in the room. But slowly, her eyes began to work with the relentless light and the brilliance didn’t seem as harsh as it had moments ago.
There were others.
Many others.
They lay there either dead or passed out. If they’re sleeping why aren’t they snoring, and why the fuck aren’t they waking up? She yanked her head to her right and then her left, desperately searching for movement of any kind.
This can’t be happening to me… this can’t be… the sound of a breath caught her attention. She shuffled forward one small step, and then another, and another. She licked her cracked lips while she tried to wet the desert in her throat. “Hey?”
The body next to her didn’t move. She crept forward until her boot hit the side of his stomach.
“Hey, are you awake?” Jesus, please be asleep, please don’t
be fucking dead.
The man grabbed her ankle. “Help me.”
Her reaction was instant, honed from living on the streets. She wrenched her leg back, breaking his hold, while her heart hammered against her chest.
“Get the fuck off me.”
She jumped when he reached for her again and dropped her gaze. I can't help you. I can't even help my fucking self. Morgan scuttled back toward the wall. Fear sharpened her vision. People surrounded her, their unmoving bodies spread on the floor.
A woman moaned to her left and Morgan searched the bodies, trying to pinpoint the source. As if some unseen hand stirred them, the others began to scream and groan. Someone to her right moved.
The stench was almost unbearable, and combined with the heat radiating through the cracks in the walls, made her feel sick. The pain took its sweet-ass time retreating. Step-by-agonizing step, Morgan moved around the room, bypassing splayed arms and legs. She didn’t want to touch the fucking walls ever again, but she wanted to get the hell out of here. One need overcame the other, and she searched the knots and panels for a door.
The sound of retching filled the air. Morgan glanced to her left and then back as she made her way along the wall. A woman to her right was pushing up from the floor. Dirty-blonde hair draped to each side, covering her face. The sound of her heaving called to Morgan’s own weak stomach. She closed her eyes again to steady herself and groaned.
What kind of fucking party had this been? She focused on the tender flesh between her legs, searching for any soreness or pain, and swiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Crusted flakes of dried blood came away. A goddamn gang-bang... someone must’ve slipped me something. There's no fucking way I would’ve…. Being drugged accounted for the blinding headache, at least.
I’ve gotta get out of here. Just find my shit and leave and pretend this little slip-up never happened. Morgan swallowed as she followed the wall. Something sharp bit her. She jerked back to find a shard of flaking paint piercing her finger. A drop of blood welled and slid along her palm. “Fuck.”
She tore the razor-sharp piece of enamel free, ignoring the pain, ignoring everything except the urgent need to flee. Morgan pressed against the panels, leaving blotches of her blood, like crumbs in her wake. Moans sounded behind her, but she kept going. She licked parched lips and her thirst became a live, dancing flame in her throat. Although the room wavered, Morgan pushed on. She wanted no part of this. The urge to get out of this fucking place made her move faster, until she stopped at an empty doorframe.
The opening was to another room, a smaller room a quarter of the length, but the same width as the one she stood in. She scanned the walls. Scurrying movement in the nearest corner caught her eye. She winced. Cockroaches? There was no way she was going in to find out. The room looked empty with no way out. Maybe it was there, a gap, a hinge something she couldn’t see from where she stood. Morgan stepped into the doorway and froze. Her chest tightened, squeezing, her heart racing until she felt she was choking. Her feet refused to move and a sickening feeling of dread froze her. She could feel a whimper fighting its way up her throat. She swallowed the sound back down.
There was something wrong here. Something she couldn’t put her finger on. The far wall disappeared into the glare as though the sun had swallowed half the room.
Her body trembled and she bit her lip to stop from making a sound. The walls were closing in, suffocating her like a pine box. She closed her eyes, willing her heart to slow and end the thrashing of her pulse.
“Where am I?”
Morgan cried out and spun toward the sound. A dark-skinned man stood behind her. He was too close, too fucking close and Morgan stumbled back into the doorway. The man grabbed her arm. “Do you know where I am?”
“Get off me.” She clenched her hand into a fist. “Just get away from me. Leave me alone!”
The man looked confused at first and then a flash of understanding lit his eyes. “I didn’t mean to scare you, love. The name’s Glib.”
He looked kind of harmless now. His sad eyes and pudgy face made her feel like shit for yelling at him. This wasn't the first party she'd fought her way out of, but she was determined, by the grace of God and the twelve-fucking-step program she'd followed for the past six months, this would be her last.
“Okay, Glib. Step back a bit, okay? So I can get past.”
“Sure. Sorry.” He shuffled backwards and Morgan slipped passed him and stopped. This man reminded her of a lonely old dog. Glib stared at her. His skin glistened with sweat and his grimy, torn clothes screamed “homeless.” Inside Morgan felt herself slide one step closer to despair.
“Do you know where we are?”
She shook her head. “No. All I know is that I wanna get out of here, wherever the fuck here is. Sorry for yelling at you before. My name’s Morgan.”
He turned to look at the others, some who were gripping the walls and standing as she had done only moments before. “Do you know who all these people are?”
Taking in one face after another as Morgan followed his gaze with her own, she answered. “No.”
A woman's scream filled the air. The hysterical sound curdled Morgan's blood. “Get the fuck off me. Get away from me!”
The screamer, a blonde, kicked and punched like she’d woken in the midst of a nightmare. Her gold dress rose high, exposing a long line of creamy thigh. She looked too perfect, from her eyes, to her nose, and seductive, full lips. The only thing out of place was her hair. As Morgan searched the floor near her, she realized the well-dressed woman was missing her shoes. Morgan had seen women like her many times before, but how the hell did a high-priced hooker end up here? The man beside the fancy whore moaned and grumbled as he pushed himself upright. He lashed out like a serpent, reaching for the woman and snagged her ankle.
The woman kicked, doing her best to dislodge his grip. “No, get off me. Get. Off. Me!”
Morgan felt the nerve near her eye twitch. She’d met men like him before—she’d fallen in love with men like him before. Cruel, callous men, who used force to get what they wanted. She wanted to look away as he slid toward the other woman. Morgan had her own shit to deal with, like getting out of this forsaken place. But there was something about this guy that made Morgan’s breath catch and her fists clench, something she didn’t like at all. He stilled, as though he could sense her watching, and let the blonde’s leg go. The woman used this opportunity to scramble away, her high-pitched tone bordered on hysteria.
“I said, get your filthy hands off me. Please someone help me!”
He shielded his eyes from the glare and turned, catching Morgan staring. The woman crawled toward the center of the room. Her sobs were loud enough for Morgan to hear.
“I've been raped. I. Please someone, someone help me. This man raped me!”
The urge to kick the bastard in the face was overwhelming. Experience had taught her to keep her nose out of other people’s business. She touched a small scar on the edge of her brow.
“Are you okay? Do you know that man?” Glib grabbed her arm, breaking her staring contest with the guy on the floor.
Her reaction was instant. She wrenched out of his grasp, her cruel words unintended, but vicious just the same. “Get your fucking hands off me!”
She staggered backward, out of his reach. Morgan didn't want to be touched. She didn't want to be here. She wanted to go home, or anywhere as long as it wasn't in this room with these people, but there was no fucking way out… there’s no fucking way out of here… I’m trapped… trapped.
Morgan stared at the harmless black man, her heart hammering, her mouth dry, fighting the rising waves of fear threatening to drag her under. She couldn’t allow this to happen. She couldn’t be out of control—not in here—not with these people. Just fucking breathe. I've been through worse than this. I'll find a way out, there’s got to be a way out of here, just think… just think. The panic inside her eased.
Morgan inhaled the hot, putrid air and smelled
her own perspiration, thick and pungent. She felt sickened, but better. The shine of compassion died in Glib’s eyes. She shouldn’t have snarled at him, he was only trying to help. She swallowed the foul air, wetting her throat.
“Sorry.”
He shrugged. “'S'alright, you don't know me, I get it. You can trust me though, I ain't no rapist.”
Trust. Trust and Morgan had issues—big fucking issues, but right now she was stuck in a room full of strangers, so the question remained, could she trust this guy not to hurt her? She glanced back at the piece-of-shit who was climbing slowly to his feet. She should’ve learned by now not to trust anyone, not even herself. She forced an awkward smile. “That's real good to know, Glib.”
High-pitched, whiny voices squealed, like a loose fan belt, repeating the same fucking questions no one had any answers for.
Where am I? How did I get here? Where’s my husband, where’s my wife, blah, blah, blah.
Morgan didn't want to stand here and listen while they rode the merry-go-round of fucked-up possibilities. She stumbled to where the light pierced the cracks in the walls, listening to the others. Their questions sounded pathetic in her head. She wanted to block them out, to scream and swear. To show them how useless they all were.
Where am I? How do we get out of here? Where is Jeremy my husband, has anybody seen my husband? Who are you?
Their fucking words seemed to worm their way into her thoughts all the same.
“I'm getting out of here.” Some guy called out behind her. She couldn't figure out who the voice belonged to. “Get the fuck outta my way, man.”
The words left her mouth before she realized she’d spoken. “There’s no way out.”
Glib turned on her, eyes wide. He lifted his hand. His thick, knobby fingers hovered in the air before he dropped it beside him. “What did you say?”
Fuck, keep your big mouth shut. She stared at the old man as the words rose in her mouth. She couldn’t stop herself. She would never, ever learn. “I said. It's no use. There's no way out.”