by Hazel Holmes
Finally, he backed away and then reached into his pockets, a light jingle sounding, no doubt from the keys he carried around, and she wondered how many times the creep had been into her room.
“You found something that you weren’t supposed to see,” Dennis said. “If you had just done your job and kept your nose out of business that doesn’t concern you, then you could have had a little more freedom before the ceremony, but now I’ll have to keep you down here.”
Sarah pinched her eyebrows together, unsure what “ceremony” meant to the cretin staring down at her.
“I’ll bring you food and water,” Dennis said, addressing Sarah like a mongrel dog. “And try not to mess yourself until I can figure out an arrangement for you to go to the bathroom. But don’t worry.” He smiled and ran his fingers through her hair. “It won’t be much longer now.”
Dennis slammed the door shut and locked it behind him, his footsteps fading.
Sarah shivered, pulling her body inward and keeping her legs squeezed shut tight. She glanced down at the crushed paper balls, goose bumps spreading over her bare arms and legs, and she cried.
The sobs were muffled by the gag, and her falling tears reignited the residue of the pepper spray on her cheeks, but the chemical had dulled, and the reaction was only a mild burn.
She had gotten so far and survived for so long, but it all crumbled with the dull sound of paper balls spilling onto concrete. Her hope was dashed, and all that was left was to wait for the inevitable death by whatever ceremony Dennis had planned. After everything she’d done, she was still going to be killed by a man she’d angered.
With all her fight gone, Sarah sat motionless, her head hanging lazily to the side. She had stopped shivering from the cold, which meant that hypothermia was starting to set in, which explained the cloudy, foggy nature of her thoughts.
She faded in and out of consciousness, and each time she came to, it took her a minute to remember where she was. Her lips had turned a light shade of blue, and her skin had transformed from porcelain to almost translucent.
“Help us.”
The words were whispered in Sarah’s ear, and she jolted awake, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up as she expected to find Dennis had returned.
But when she scanned the darkened corners of the room, she was alone. She shook her head, trying to shake off the madness that was creeping into her mind.
“Help us.”
The whisper lingered in her ear and echoed in her head. She shut her eyes, trying to force it to be quiet, but it wouldn’t obey.
“Stop it,” Sarah said, her words rolling off a numb and lazy tongue. She twitched in random spasms. “Leave me alone.”
“It will kill you.”
Sarah lifted her head, and the shivers returned as she found herself staring at a woman dressed in a maid uniform. But this time she had her hair pulled back, exposing what she’d been hiding.
The left side of the girl’s face was completely smashed, half of her skull flattened, which crammed what features remained on the left side into unproportioned clumps. Brain matter and blood dripped freely down the mangled portion of her face, and one unblinking eye stared down at Sarah.
Sarah’s lips trembled, but she forced the word out of her mouth. “Maggie.”
Maggie nodded, the woman’s one good eye staring at Sarah. And the longer they maintained eye contact, the colder Sarah became.
“You must save us,” Maggie said, her voice a crackling whisper. “He feeds on us every day.” The first signs of fear broke along Maggie’s battered face, and the one good eye produced a single tear that quickly froze to her cheek like an icicle.
“I-I can’t,” Sarah said, desperation clinging to her voice like the sweat and grime that covered her skin. But then she remembered the deputy. “The police. I told the police.” The fact that there was someone on the outside that could help fanned the flames of hope.
“The police can’t save us.” Maggie stared at Sarah then pointed at her.
Sarah’s frustration bubbled to the surface. “I told you I can’t—” And just when Sarah was about to scream more, the restraints around her wrists and ankles dropped to the floor. Her back and knees popped as she stood. She rubbed the red marks the rope had burned into her skin, frowning in disbelief. “How did you—”
Maggie was suddenly in front of her again, teleporting in the blink of an eye. Sarah turned away, unable to stomach the gore and the stench of the woman who had granted her freedom. But Maggie grabbed Sarah by the shoulders and spun her around, sending a shock like fire and ice speeding through her veins.
Maggie distorted her face with mixed expressions of fear and anger. “It’s always hungry! It always wants to eat!”
“What are you talking—”
“Find the orb! Break the curse! Set us free!”
A breeze blasted Sarah’s back, and she clamped her hands over her ears as Maggie screamed. The eardrum-shattering cry brought Sarah to her knees. She shivered on the concrete floor, and the side of her face ached, the pain transforming into a splitting headache. Just when she didn’t think she could take any more, the noise and the wind ended just as quickly as they had started.
Sarah slowly lifted her head, breathing heavily, and lowered her hands from her ears. Something warm formed on her upper lip, and she swiped at it with the back of her hand. A red blood smear appeared when she examined the liquid. She stared at it for a moment and then checked to see if her nose was still bleeding but found it had stopped.
She scanned the room, searching for Maggie, but found that she was gone.
So what had Sarah seen? A ghost? She knew she hadn’t imagined it, but if what she had seen was real, she thought she might be losing her mind.
Slowly, Sarah got her feet under her and then hobbled toward the door. The knob was as cold as ice, but she barely felt the difference since her own skin was nearly frozen over.
The door buckled as she tugged on the knob, but any attempt at turning it left or right only ended with stiff resistance. It was locked.
Sarah was one step closer to escape but somehow just as far away as she had been when she was tied to that chair. She knew she didn’t have the build to knock the door down. She’d break her arm before that happened. She turned around, pressing her back against the door, knowing it was just a matter of time before Dennis returned, making the help she had received pointless.
Tears in her eyes, Sarah lifted her head, finding the crumpled-up balls of paper that Dennis had dumped from the box. But then she looked toward the wall near the door, finding more junk in the corner.
Sarah crawled over to the piles of junk like a desert wanderer stumbling upon an oasis. She ripped open the top of the first box she came across, thrusting her hands inside and finding nothing but old rags. She dumped them out onto the floor and moved onto the next box.
Rusted silverware and a few old pots rattled inside. Sarah set aside one of the rusted forks, thinking it could come in handy. She considered trying to smash the doorknob with one of the pots, but she knew that breaking it would just keep her locked inside, though it’d make it harder for Dennis to get back in.
Every box that she came across was an opportunity for escape, but as she neared the end of her search, that hope again started to dwindle. But as she searched her last box, she heard the heavy clank of metal inside. And when she opened the top, her heart beat faster.
Sarah grabbed the rusted handle of the toolbox inside and flipped the latch, the hinges squeaking as she opened the top. A hammer, nails, wrench, and screwdriver rested inside. The tools were old, and when Sarah picked up the screwdriver, she found the handle to be smooth old wood. She gently ran her fingers over the sharp tip and then looked to the exit.
The door was built to swing inward, the hinges on her side of the room. Sarah hurried to the door and jammed the rusted screwdriver into the bottom of the bolt in the hinges, trying to work them out.
Like the movement in her chair, the pro
gress was slow, and it was noisier. Every whack of the rusted metal spear sparked a thud that ran through the room and most likely out into whatever hall or part of the house she was trapped inside.
But when no one came down the hallway and burst down the door, she kept going, slowly working the brass pegs from their holes to create a crack big enough for her to squeeze through. It wouldn’t need to be big. She was small. And as that plug worked its way through the halfway mark, Sarah forwent the screw driver and pulled on the rusted brass.
The pegs were stubborn, and Sarah picked and prodded until her fingers bled, the red streaks crawling down her forearm as she finally removed the first hinge from its holder.
Hands shaking, she dropped it to the floor and then moved to the next. She fell into a rhythm, ignoring the pain and focusing on the task.
Sarah pried the middle peg from its hinge and then tried to wedge the door open. The crack to her freedom had widened another two inches, but it still wasn’t wide enough to squeeze through. She pulled back, getting scratches along her stomach, back, and shoulder as her shirt ripped.
She reached for the screwdriver, jamming it up at the highest hinge. Even with her arm all the way extended, she couldn’t reach. She quickly brought the chair over, using it to reach all the way to the top hinge.
Exhaustion skewed her aim, and Sarah only hit the bottom of the hinge every third try. The blood from her fingers crawled down her forearm in veiny lines. The pain in her body was screaming for her to stop, but the urge to survive, the spark of finding freedom, pushed her past the pain.
Sarah repeatedly smacked the end of the screwdriver with her palm, the cold accentuating the pain with every hit.
She hammered out the last few inches of the brass peg. Finally, it sprang from the hinge, and Sarah had her hands in the crack of open space before the brass peg even hit the floor.
Sarah pushed the door open as far as it would go, then thrust her head through the tight space.
Sarah harnessed her remaining strength and jumped, her legs smacking against the door and the frame as she landed hard on the hallway floor.
“You have to hurry.” Maggie stood over her in the hallway, pointing toward a door that Sarah prayed was to freedom. “He’ll be back soon.”
Sarah pushed herself to her feet and was consumed by the thought of freedom, but as she stared down at her nearly naked body, she thought of her backpack, and her clothes, and then she remembered her photograph.
Sarah spun around, staring at the mangled woman in the hall. “My bag. Where is my bag?”
Maggie pointed up. “The fifth floor in the room I showed you.”
“Shit.” Sarah wiped the snot dripping from her nose, smearing some blood from her hand and onto her upper lip. She couldn’t stop shaking. She saw the screwdriver that she’d dropped to the floor. She picked it up then headed for the door at the end of the hall.
With the mixture of cold and adrenaline, Sarah wasn’t sure how much noise she was making on her ascent, but she made it to the fifth floor without incident.
She burst through the door, running toward the room at the end of the hall, the door open like it had been before, and then found her backpack on the bed. Still gripping the screwdriver, Sarah slung the pack over her shoulders, and then pivoted toward the exit.
The door slammed shut, and Sarah flung her body against it, tugging at the doorknob that refused to open.
And then the room darkened, as if all light had been sucked from inside. The temperature plummeted, and her entire body broke out in gooseflesh from the frigid, painful cold. Her bones ached, and her muscles seized up.
“Sarah.”
Slowly, she turned toward the voice, which spoke her name in a throaty hiss, that originated from the darkest corner on the opposite side of the room.
The figure had no shape, no physical form, but Sarah knew it was there. She thought of the spirit that Maggie had spoken of, and how it was hungry.
The darkness spread across the room, the voice reaching deep into her thoughts. She examined the screwdriver in her hand, and she suddenly remembered all of the pain from her time in the foster care system.
The lonely nights in foster homes, the abuse from foster parents, the pranks from other kids, the loss, the fear, the pain, all of it assimilated into one motivating thought that was front and center in her mind, and the only way to get it out was to ram the screwdriver in and fish it out.
Sarah smiled. It would be easy. One quick thrust through the eye and it would all be over.
No more cold. No more pain. No more nightmares.
She gripped the wooden handle with both hands and positioned it over her eye, aiming it directly over all of those bad thoughts. Her smiled widened.
“Sarah, no!”
Sarah’s paralysis broke. She turned away from the screwdriver, and she saw Maggie paralyzed in the darkness, her skin slowly icing over.
“Go,” Maggie whispered. Then her voice jumped in pitchy screams, the ice continuing to crawl over her entire body. “GO!”
The shrill cry triggered Sarah into action, and she crammed the screwdriver into the hinge. Maggie’s shrieks and cries of pain grew louder, and the room shook.
She turned around and screamed as she found Maggie had turned to nothing but ice—and then her frozen figure dropped to the floor, shattering into a thousand shards that spread over the floorboards.
The door opened, but Sarah only made it one step before a hot pain struck her heel, and she turned to find the dark void wrapped around her ankle. Color drained from her porcelain skin, which then turned an icy blue.
With what remained of her strength, Sarah yanked her leg free and then scrambled on all fours until she gained enough momentum to push herself up and into a sprint.
Sarah turned around, finding that pitch black creeping toward her, turning the walls and the floor and the ceiling black, void of any light. She hurried down the stairs, the floorboards creaking and groaning with every step.
Moonlight guided her path, and while she still felt cold and sick, she didn’t stop running.
At the bottom of the staircase, Sarah shoulder-checked the door open and ran down the first-floor hallway and toward the foyer. Toward freedom.
Still gripping the screwdriver, she hobbled forward, exhaustion creeping its cold fingers around her body.
The exaltation and relief of escape was so close that Sarah started to sob. But when she turned the corner, she froze, quickly hiding the screwdriver behind her leg so Dennis couldn’t see it.
Dennis stood in front of the double doors, the features of his face darkened, though Sarah could still tell that he wasn’t smiling. “He was hungry tonight.” He stepped to the side, exposing the glass in the doors and the freedom that rested on the other side.
Sarah watched him strike a match and then light a candle on the table. The flame flickered, illuminating the grimace on his face. He turned toward her, the light shifting the shadows beneath his eyes, nose, and mouth. The fire made him look hollow, as if he was only a skull.
“You’re one of the more willful people we’ve had come through,” Dennis said, and then he smiled. “I’ve always liked a woman who made it hard.”
“People will find out what you did,” Sarah said, unable to keep her voice from trembling. “You can’t keep killing people.”
“I don’t kill people,” Dennis said, taking slow steps toward Sarah, the candle still in his hand. “Surely you saw it.”
Sarah didn’t retreat, and she readjusted her grip on the screwdriver behind her back. She shook her head. “I don’t know what the hell I saw.”
“You saw the face of a god,” Dennis said, his voice an awed whisper. “You saw an eternal being that will take human form again, and when he does, he will reshape this world in his image, and those that have been faithful to him will be rewarded.”
“Count me out,” Sarah said.
Dennis erased the amusement from his face. “I can’t let you leave.”
Dennis stopped, only a few feet separating the two of them in the foyer. Nothing but the flickering flame moved, illuminating their stoic silence. Sarah had to be quick whenever Dennis made his move. She’d only get one shot at getting out of this alive, and she intended to do it any way she could.
Dennis finally lunged, his massive fist reaching for her throat, but Sarah darted left then launched forward herself, leading with the rusted screwdriver, and jammed it into Dennis’s arm.
“GAAH!”
The candle crashed to the floor as Dennis reached for the wound and the rusted tool standing straight up on its own. But Sarah never turned around to see what happened next.
She slammed into the double doors, finding them locked, then sprinted up the grand staircase. Dennis’s scream followed her up the stairs, but she never stopped moving her feet.
The moment she reached the second floor, she pivoted toward the closest door, which she slammed shut and jammed with a nearby chair. Dennis’s footsteps grew louder outside in the hall as Sarah scanned the room, looking for an exit and finding only windows.
Dennis pounded on the other side of the door. “Open up, Sarah!” And then there was the jangling of the keys that he always had on his person. “There isn’t anywhere for you to go.”
A second chair sat in the middle of the room, and Sarah picked it up. Once she had it in her hands, she hurried toward the window, heaving all of the weight and strength that she had left into the chair.
One of the legs cracked into the glass just as the lock on the door broke. She ripped the chair free and then heaved it again, this time shattering the window panes and sending the chair through the open window.
Sarah approached the exit, turning briefly to look behind her to find Dennis heaving his weight behind the door in his attempt to break down the barricade that Sarah had erected.
Toes sticking over the window ledge, Sarah glanced down at the concrete below. She inched toward the outer walls, looking for any grips or crevices that could help guide her path down, but they were few and far between.
The door broke, and Dennis burst inside, stomping toward Sarah. She quickly lowered herself from the window, fingers hanging off the edge as she tried to lower herself to another ledge.