by Brian Hodge
Simon killed Mina’s murderer, a young doctor by the name of Ryan Harker. He broke into Harker’s residence; the baby clutched protectively in his arm, and crept into the bedroom. The last thing that Harker saw as the blood spurted from his torn throat was a wide-eyed infant standing in the candlelight, an eerie grin illuminating her chubby face.
That night, Simon stood over her crib. “I did it for you, my love.”
“I know, Simon,” Mina whispered, her tiny fingers curling around his thumb. “Now we can live our life in peace. Someday I will be back at the point that I was when you lost me.”
Simon gently shook her finger. “I know, Mina. And I will wait for you patiently. I will never leave your side. I will take care of you. I would wait forever if need be.”
Many of the townspeople found the couple strangely disturbing. One look into the baby’s eyes and they would practically back up and flee. There was something too disconcerting in her gaze—something too infiltrating. Simon was often spotted around town and in the local park, pushing the black, veil-covered stroller around, conversing with the baby like she was his adult companion—sometimes laughing as they argued playfully.
Even years later, when Mina was about ten, townsfolk found the father and daughter frightening. They were convinced that the couple was up to unspeakable acts of evil. Simon and Mina kept to themselves and did not often mingle with any of their neighbors.
Simon waited patiently for Mina to grow older, his love strengthening with each year. He awaited a better world, a life with a woman he had once lost.
As he walked down the rain-soaked cobbled street, Mina’s pint-size warm hand clutched firmly to his own, he smiled. He felt the stares of the townspeople stab into them as they walked, but he said nothing, only smiling enigmatically. He knew that they could never have what he had.
A love that would return from the dead to be reunited with her soul mate was a rare one, and Simon knew that. He didn’t mind the wait. Time was meaningless when you loved someone.
A Momentary Thing
Ben was studying the back of her neck, fantasizing about caressing her smooth skin, when the elevator stopped abruptly between the seventh and sixth floor. The feeling of déjà vu was incredible, but he shrugged it off, realizing that he went to work at this time every morning.
For a moment they froze, both of them waiting uncomfortably for the elevator to continue on its way.
She sighed and turned to face him, smiling sheepishly. “Let’s pray that this is only a momentary thing.”
Ben nodded, returning her smile, feeling himself practically melt before her gaze until she turned back to face the door. To be trapped in an elevator with a woman as beautiful as the one before him would hardly be a chore. He studied her face from the side as she kept her eyes glued to the numbers just above the elevator door. Her blonde hair was cut short in a style that emphasized her long, aristocratic nose and high cheekbones dramatically.
They waited in silence for almost a minute, but the elevator did not move. She laughed when she caught him studying her, stepped to the side unconsciously and began pushing her delicate finger onto the number seven repetitively.
He couldn’t help but smile at her nervousness. The thought that she even found him remotely frightening was very amusing. Thin, bespectacled office drones like Ben did not often elicit fear in women—in fact he was usually invisible to women like the one who stood so close to him he could smell her flowery perfume.
She looked at him nervously and offered a fake smile, her index finger still hitting the numbered button. “I can’t believe this. I’m already late for the job appointment.”
Ben leaned back against the wall. “If we actually get stuck here for a long time, I will vouch for you if you need it. I work in this building. It’s not like it’s your fault.”
She seemed to relax slightly once she heard his decidedly soft-spoken voice. “Well, hopefully it won’t come to that.” She finally stopped pressing the button. “Besides, how long could it take to fix a damn elevator.” She held her hand out shyly. “My name is Wynter. Spelled with a ‘Y’.”
Ben took her hand; it felt warm and soft. “That’s an absolutely beautiful name. I’m the mundanely named Ben.”
She laughed slightly at his joke and let go of his hand. “Ben is a fine name. It just so happens to be my father’s.”
They both looked up at the numbers, shifting about in the uncomfortable silence. It was as if neither of them wanted to cross a line into friendlier territory just in case the elevator started up again. A minute later, and they still had not moved.
Wynter groaned and moved toward the back of the elevator car, resting her back against the wall. “It’s kind of funny really, I’ve always had a fear of elevators. Maybe I have a bit of psychic in me.”
Ben sat down to the side, being careful not to violate her space in the small area. “Well it hasn’t turned into a disastrous experience yet, has it?” He grinned and rubbed his eyes underneath his wire-rimmed glasses. “What’s to be scared of anyway? Are you claustrophobic?”
Wynter nodded. “A little. My fear isn’t being trapped in one though. I always had this irrational fear that the elevator cable would snap and send me plummeting several floors to my death.”
“What a lovely thought,” Ben said wryly. “Thanks so much for that image. Appreciate it so much.”
Wynter laughed throatily, a sound that sounded so heavenly that Ben felt that she was an angel. He was not used to making women laugh—usually they just looked at him in the uneasy silence that often followed his wry observations. Dry humor was often misinterpreted as either arrogance or ignorance.
She instantly seemed to relax as she offered him an easy smirk. “I’m sorry for laughing at you. It’s just that you said that so deadpan, I couldn’t help it.”
Ben found himself wishing he could spend the rest of his life with her. She had a certain twinkle in her eyes that he had never seen. “It was supposed to be funny.”
The elevator started up suddenly; lurching itself forward as it continued its stalled ascent. Ben felt so disappointed that he thought he would weep. She had just been warming up to him, and now he would probably never see her again.
“Thank god!” she exclaimed and moved toward the door. She turned to face him. “Thanks, Ben, for taking away my discomfort with such charming ease.”
Ben swallowed heavily and struggled to give himself the courage he needed to speak. “Listen. Are you doing anything this Friday?”
Just as he finished the sentence, the doors to the elevator opened. At first he mistook her expression of horror as being caused by his question, but he followed her gaze slowly to the opened doors.
About twenty feet away, a wiry, nude man stood calmly in a room full of carnage and blood puddles, a large machete-like knife clutched in his fist. Dozens of mutilated bodies were scattered around him, some of them so butchered it was nearly impossible to tell if they were human. Although his shaved head remained toward the ground, his eyes moved up slowly until they locked onto the open doors of the elevator. A slow, menacing smile lit up under his blood-splattered face like the skin blistering flame of a blowtorch. He began to swing the machete like a pendulum—the smile widening as he began to rock his head to the side casually like a snake. He began to whistle through his teeth softly at first, but within seconds it rose to an ear-shattering peak.
Ben was already slamming his fingers into the buttons as the man began to walk slowly toward them. The man broke out into a run, wailing shrilly as he ran.
The doors closed just as the blade of the machete came down between them. Ben watched the blood drenched blade rise to the ceiling in morbid fascination as they descended.
Ben and Wynter looked at each other, their pale faces devoid of all color in the sickly fluorescent lighting. The elevator continued to descend toward the first floor as they tried to think of something to say. The only sound was their labored and anxious breathing.
The ele
vator came to a halt on the bottom floor and the doors opened up slowly. Both of them waited momentarily, listening to the silence as if it held insidious secrets.
Standing in the lobby were Ben and Wynter, or exact duplicates of them, their entire bodies drenched with blood. The doubles stared at them silently, their eyes studying them fearfully. Their hair stood out at crazy angles, the blood providing a perverse kind of hair gel.
“Oh my god,” Ben’s blood drenched double said, staring toward the elevator door in horror.
“What the hell is going on?” Ben whispered, not wishing to leave the security of the elevator. “That’s…us.”
“Please wake me,” Wynter said, her voice quivering.
While they stood there in uncertainty, the metal doors softly closed, and the elevator began to ascend again.
“Oh fuck,” Ben hissed fearfully and launched his finger at the number pad. The car gently came to a stop and the doors slid open quietly.
The figure that stood before them had the appearance of a surreal, drug induced nightmare. He wore a wide brimmed hat, which rose up and down on his head like a toy sailboat above his closed, vein covered eyelids. A long, black trench coat undulated over his flesh, pulsating up and down around his obese body. His crimson cheeks were plump, almost as if he had stuffed a rag into his mouth. Thin, insect legs protruded painfully from his face, twitching around spasmodically as if they were struggling to explode from his flesh. Eight, hairy spider legs protruded over his upper lip like a living mustache, writhing slowly as they tickled at his mouth. He moved his fingers in snake like motions, almost as if he was playing a phantom piano and smiled widely, sending dozens of tiny spiders scurrying from his mouth.
The man’s eyes fluttered open, sounding not unlike the flickering of an insect’s wings and he stared at them with dimly lit green eyes. He studied them quietly for a moment; almost seeming to feed off of their silent fear like it was electrical. Ben and Wynter stood rigidly, their bodies still—perhaps feeling that movement would bring the man upon them.
Then, almost as if he found their fear amusing, he began to titter softly, his giggling escaping his lips alongside dozens of insects. The laughter increased rapidly, his corpulent body vibrating with every wave of glee. As he laughed, the flesh on his face began to rip apart softly, sending an army of spiders pouring from his torn face and onto the floor.
Ben began to jam his finger onto the number pad as Wynter retreated to the back of the elevator, shrieking so loudly that the noise cut into his eardrums like little tiny razor blades of sound. She put her back to the wall and began to kick at some of the scurrying spiders hysterically.
The man pulled his coat open, revealing his obscenely, massive stomach. Thousands of insect legs stuck out of his waving flesh like hair. As he continued to laugh, his body ruptured in a detonation of insects and flesh, sending a wave of them into the elevator car just before the doors closed. Rancid air filled the car like a physical presence, blasting into their nostrils like dirty, corrupting fingers.
They descended to the next floor, both of them shrieking in disgust as the hundreds of insects scrambled about their feet. A fat spider with black and yellow legs bit Ben’s forearm and he slapped it away with repulsion.
Ben pushed the emergency stop button and tried to get himself under control. Within minutes, he and Wynter had been able to stomp out most of the insects and now the hard floor was slippery with the remains. Ben felt his legs shaking underneath his weight in little tremors of fear. Winter was sobbing in the corner, her eyes never leaving the door. After a minute, they managed to get themselves under some form of control.
They stood in front of the numbered display and studied it like a book.
Although Ben felt like weeping and sweat was burning into his eyes, he managed to chase the panic back down his throat. Wynter was rocking back and forth tensely, her eyes darting around the elevator for signs of movement. He could tell that she was about to give in once again to the panic and he certainly wouldn’t blame her, he was dangerously close to shrieking himself.
Ben sighed. “I think the best thing for us to remain sane is to take everything in stride and not think about how fantastic it is. It’s happening to us, and we need to accept it. That fucker upstairs looked real enough to me.”
Wynter nodded. “Okay, but if we get out of this, I’m going to scream and cry like a little girl.”
He smiled. “Me too. Now, let’s find a floor that might be a little safer.”
“Any preferences?”
Ben shook his head. “You pick it. I picked the last one and look where that left us.”
Wynter took Ben’s hand in her own and pushed the number eight, squeezing tightly as the elevator began to move upward. They held their breaths simultaneously as the car came to a halt.
The doors opened up leisurely, revealing a brightly-lit hallway. The floors, walls and ceiling were white and although the room was brilliantly lit, there was no discernible light source.
Ben narrowed his eyes and studied the hallway for signs of danger. “I don’t like the way this feels.”
Wynter pulled his arm slightly and led him from the car. “You work in this building, don’t you? Ever seen this hallway before?”
“I’ve worked in this building for five years and, no, I’ve never seen this hallway.” He grinned and squeezed her damp hand. “Can’t say I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with Spidey down there either, though.”
She laughed nervously. “Stop. Don’t make me laugh. Doing that now makes me feel like I’m laughing at a funeral.” She ran her hand over the smooth, clinically clean surface of the wall. “This place looks like the set of a Stanley Kubrick film.”
Ben sighed. “Oh, that’s got to be a great omen.”
They walked cautiously, their bodies ready to flee at the first signs of movement.
“By the way, yes,” Wynter whispered as they moved down the hallway.
They were now about thirty feet from the safety of the elevator.
He looked at her in confusion. “Yes, what?”
“We wake up from this nightmare alive and, yes, I’ll go out with you this Friday.” She smiled radiantly, her cheekbones rising up.
“But only if we get out of this alive,” Ben said dryly. “If I die, the date is off.”
They turned the corner only to find it was a dead end.
Wynter was running her hands over the smooth surface of the wall, feeling to see if they were missing something, when a hot bead of moisture hit the top of her hand. It was a blood droplet.
Ben saw it too, as more blood began to come from the surface of the wall. The red droplets stood out shockingly on the snowy surface. A faint roar was emanating from the wall and they looked into each other’s eyes, feeling the panic enter their bodies as if through osmosis.
Plaster began to fall to the floor as the building shook underneath them. The blood began to splash their shoes as the floor began to tremble, sending faint vibrations into their bodies. They both turned to flee in the other direction, their panic stricken eyes wide with alarm.
The wall detonated in a crimson explosion, blood erupting into the hallway. Ben risked one look back before they slid around the corner and saw that they would drown long before they could escape.
The crimson wall blasted into them, sending them down the hallway at a frightening speed. They sailed through the open doors of the elevator and slammed into the wall violently. Within seconds, they were underneath the surface, their mouths filling with the thick, iron taste of the blood.
Frantically, Ben searched through the dark liquid for the numbered buttons. He swam forward and belted his hand into the first surface he felt. His hand collided with the keypad and he jammed his fingers into the buttons.
The elevator began to move downwards, sending them floating to the ceiling, the pressure holding them to the top of the car as they descended. Ben screamed, sending a rush of hot blood down his throat. He felt Wynter grasp his arm t
ightly as they floated, their bodies held fast to the surface.
When the doors opened, they found themselves hurling from the emptying elevator, spinning around in the liquid as they went.
Coughing and sputtering weakly, they looked up to see dozens of office workers standing around them in the thick, red puddles. Ben wiped the blood from his eyes and stood up quickly, still feeling the effects of the adrenaline rush he had experienced.
He helped Wynter to her feet and couldn’t help but thinking that the blood made her look like the wounded survivor of a horror movie. Every part of her body was drenched in red, only her wide eyes stood out against the scarlet liquid.
“Ben, what the hell are you doing?” John Reynolds said. Reynolds was his boss.
“We’re back?” Ben asked, studying his boss as if there was a lit fuse on his head, backing up slowly as he spoke. He did not trust reality at the moment.
Reynolds looked confused. “What the hell are you talking about? You don’t just come walking into this office after being gone for a year and say ‘we’re back’. It doesn’t work like that in the real world, Ben. Everybody was worried sick about you.”
Ben laughed bitterly. “Do I look like I just came waltzing in? We’re covered in fucking blood for Christ’s sake.”
The other workers stood around uncomfortably, looking away every time Ben would meet their gaze. Wynter grabbed his hand and held it tightly.
“Ben, have you gone insane?” Reynolds asked. “I don’t see any blood. I think you better get back on that elevator and leave the building.”
Ben and Wynter turned to look at each other and immediately broke out into laughter, despite the fact the blood was congealing on their clothes and hair. The crowd just stood around uneasily and watched them like animals at a zoo. None of them realized they were standing around in puddles of hardening blood.