by Mark Lukens
She wiped at her eyes.
Maybe he was getting through to her.
He took a few more steps closer. He attempted a hug. She tried to pull away at first, but then she surrendered to him, crying harder.
He understood. He had wanted to cry when he’d seen the paper in the window at that plaza all those weeks ago, when he understood the truth. He gently took the paper from her hand and unfolded it, staring down at the words and the photo of Winston. Missing dog, the title declared. Reward for return.
“Everyone didn’t disappear,” Stephanie said as she cried into his shoulder. “It was only us. Everyone else is going along just fine in some kind of . . . alternate world or reality or whatever. And to them, we just disappeared.”
“I know,” Jeff whispered.
“Oh God, my kids and husband probably think I left them.”
Jeff was crying now.
“No one’s coming to find us,” she whispered. “We’re all alone here.”
“There might be others,” Jeff told her as he held her. “There’s us and Winston. And there’s that cat I saw. There might still be others.”
This was an idea that had fascinated me for some time. For a while it was just that, just an idea: a man wakes up and everybody, and every living thing, seems to have disappeared. I tried starting the story several times, but then I’d put it on the back burner over and over again. I had wrestled with the idea of turning this story into a book, but in the end I felt it was more suited as a story—a pretty long story. Much like the previous tale, this one kind of grew and grew on its own as I kept writing. But sometimes those are the most fun to write.
DOWNLOADED TO HELL
My name is Adam Romberg, and I’m going to send a man to Hell.
You may have heard of me—a tech geek who started a software company in his college dorm room. You probably don’t know much about my software or how it works. All you probably know about me is that I was a billionaire by the age of twenty-four. Most might say I have led a charmed life. I met the woman of my dreams not too long after my company IPO’d, and a year and a half later we had a baby girl together. Yes, it was a charmed life . . . a blessed life. And then four years after my daughter was born, six months ago now, it was all taken away from me.
I was gone from the house a lot by then, flying around the world and attending meetings. When my wife told me that she thought someone was stalking her, I didn’t pay much attention to it. We had the best security system in our house that money could buy. I even joked that I could hire an around-the-clock bodyguard for her if it would make her feel better. She told me not to be silly.
Two months after that conversation the man who had been stalking her, a man named Darren Lee Hodges, gunned my wife and daughter down while they were shopping. Darren Hodges was never caught, never even identified . . . a big mystery on the news. But I found him three months ago. It’s amazing what kind of information five million dollars will buy. I instructed my three-man team to catch Darren Hodges; I didn’t want him killed, or even hurt. I wanted him brought here to this warehouse that I had rented and then buried under a paper trail of shell corporations that could never be traced back to me.
Everything was set up in the warehouse for the procedure: the hospital bed, the restraints, the computer equipment, the surgical equipment. My men brought an unconscious Darren Lee Hodges in and transferred him to the hospital bed and strapped him down. It cost me over five hundred thousand dollars for these three men to abduct Darren and deliver him here unharmed, but I didn’t care what the cost was . . . I would’ve paid even more. The thought of revenge for what this man had done to my family consumed me: I couldn’t work, couldn’t eat, couldn’t think straight. I needed to do this; I needed to put this behind me so I could find some kind of way to move on.
An hour after Darren was delivered he woke up, and he was clearly agitated. He struggled against the leather cuffs and straps for a while but soon realized that there was no hope of escape for him. I let him struggle and scream for thirty minutes, and then I walked out of the shadows to stand beside his bed.
When he saw my face he understood why he was here. He stared at me with hatred, a defiant expression that showed me he was going to be able to handle anything I planned to do to him.
The surgical team assembled behind me. Darren’s eyes widened in surprise when he saw them. Maybe he had expected to be tortured, but seeing the surgeons was an obvious surprise to him. I gestured to the team to wait a moment—I had a question for Darren that I wanted answered. “I want to know why you killed my wife and daughter.”
Darren stared up at me as I stood next to his bed, and after a moment I knew he wasn’t going to answer my question. His final infliction of pain would be to deny me the reasons for his actions.
I sighed and turned to the surgical team. I nodded at them and they went to work, pushing a gigantic computer attached to a cart behind him, getting it into position.
“What are they doing?” Darren asked. He turned his head as far as he could to watch them, and then he looked at me.
I felt a sudden mean streak. I wanted to deny him information like he was denying it to me. He waited for my answer. Darren Hodges was a killer, but he wasn’t a stupid man. The police hadn’t caught him for his crimes because he hadn’t left any evidence behind (well, not much anyway, but just enough for my men to find him). No, he wasn’t a stupid man, and he knew he wasn’t going to get an answer to his question until I got an answer to mine.
“I hated you,” Darren finally said as the surgeons and technicians worked behind him. “I hated you and every other billionaire out there. You one percenters live in opulence while the rest of us struggle. You make more and more obscene amounts of money while more and more is taken from us.”
“I give away a lot of money.”
“Yeah, right. I know how the game works. Money is funneled through fake charities that are more like slush funds and money laundering schemes. You wash hands and scratch backs while the same is done to you, and the power and money stay at the top with the elites. But your days are numbered, I’ll tell you that. This is only the first warning to share your wealth or face the consequences.”
Darren stopped talking. He seemed smug, satisfied that his message had been delivered. I imagined that he would’ve eventually turned himself in for the murder of my wife and daughter just so he could bask in his newfound fame.
“I wanted to hurt you,” Darren said in a low voice. That look of satisfaction was still on his face. He looked like a man who could die in peace now.
“You did,” I told him.
“And now you’re going to hurt me, is that it?”
I shrugged. “Yes, in a way. But the operation these surgeons are about to perform will be painless. An anesthetic will be used.”
Darren didn’t say anything—he just watched me.
“No one knows you’re here,” I told him. “No one knows that I found you. No one will ever know what you did to my wife and daughter. You will never be remembered.”
He tried to hide his horror, but he couldn’t.
“At one of my companies we’ve been working on a new software,” I told him. “It’s cutting edge stuff; a brain/computer sync. There will be many uses for it in the future. One exciting development is that a person’s consciousness can be uploaded into a virtual world, a simulated universe. One day, when people are near death, they can have their consciousness, their essence, everything that makes them human, uploaded into a paradise of their choosing. They might even be there with loved ones. We’ve already worked on some prototypes. We’ve already had some success with animal testing, and we will begin human trials soon.”
I paused for a moment, building up to what I really wanted to tell him. “But I also had my team develop a special simulated universe just for you. It’s a version of Hell thought up by the best horror writers and game designers I could hire.”
Darren didn’t seem like he understood exactly what I was
saying. Maybe that was my fault. Maybe I wasn’t being clear enough.
The head surgeon directed his team into place as two technicians attached the wires to the computer. These wires would be inserted into Darren’s brain soon.
“Your consciousness,” I told him, “your mind . . . you, essentially . . . will be downloaded into this software program where you will live on and on forever. Once you’re in the program, you will wake up in a world that is truly a hell. You will never have a moment’s peace as you run and run from horror after horror. You will be aware of everything at every moment with no possible hope of escape. And from now on, that world will be the only world you will ever know. Your memories will all still be intact. You will remember this . . . your former life, everything you’ve done. Maybe you will have regrets. Maybe you will be sorry for the things you’ve done, for killing my wife and daughter. Maybe you will beg for forgiveness. But no one will ever hear you.”
A nurse placed an oxygen mask over Darren’s mouth and nose before he could scream. He’d been given a sedative, but he was still trying to struggle. He was already hyperventilating, his eyes wide as he stared up at me. I was happy that I would be the last thing he ever saw before he woke up in that world.
*
Darren woke up in Hell.
He stood up in a dark hallway made of stone. The ceiling arched two stories above him in the darkness. Torches lined the walls, the flickering firelight creating shadows that danced at the edges of the light. The air was cold and damp . . . he could feel it on his skin.
Darren looked down at his body. He wore the same clothes that he’d had on in the hospital bed. He realized that everything Adam Romberg had told him was true. He was here . . . he was trapped in this software now, in this hell.
“No,” he whispered. “This can’t be real. This has to be some kind of . . . some kind of dream.”
Something growled from the darkness down the hall . . . some kind of large beast.
Darren turned and ran the other way down the hall until it led to another hallway, and then to two more halls. It seemed like he was in some kind of an old castle, but it was more like a maze. Screams drifted from down the hall to the right . . . so he went left.
He ran blindly. He passed by rooms with open doors. He stopped in one doorway and saw a crazed surgeon pulling a string of intestines out of a mutilated person strapped down to a chair. The tormentor was dressed in a blood-stained surgical gown, rubber gloves, and a cloth mask that was splattered with bright red blood. His eyes were wide and insane above the mask, and he was suddenly curious at Darren out in the hall. He held a large pair of pliers in one hand and a scalpel in the other.
The surgeon started coming Darren’s way.
Darren ran farther down the hall, looking back over his shoulder. The surgeon was impossibly fast, catching up so quickly. Darren turned back around and collided with a huge masked man who seemed like something right out of a slasher film. The monster of a man held an ax, swinging it up high. He brought the ax right down on Darren’s shoulder, knocking him down to the stone floor. Darren screamed. He could feel the pain of his bones separating. His arm was useless now. The pain was so intense . . . he could think of nothing else as he curled up into a ball. The last thing he saw was the man swinging the ax down right towards his face . . .
. . . and then Darren woke up strapped to a wood chair. He was alive again. Awake and in pain. The masked surgeon moved into his field of vision, holding the pliers and the scalpel. Darren screamed as the surgeon cut away his clothes . . .
*
Four hours later the brain surgery was a success. Darren’s consciousness had been downloaded to the software program, and he had already spent an hour in his new world now—a world of torture and horror that would go on forever.
Darren’s body was still alive for the moment—machines kept his lungs and heart working—but he was essentially braindead now as he lay on the hospital bed. I had a team of men coming to dispose of his body. Another two hundred thousand dollars would make sure his remains would never be found.
I walked over to a desktop computer and sat down in front of it. I logged on and sat there for a long moment just staring at the screen. I thought I heard a sound from my computer; the sound was so low I almost didn’t think it was real for a moment. But then I heard it again, and I smiled . . . it was a scream.
This idea came to me quickly, and I wrote this story maybe in a day or two. I had heard of scientists wanting to find a way to download a person’s consciousness into a computer program and it fascinated me; it would most likely seem to that person that they are still alive in their new “Matrix-like” world (and there’s always that theory that our whole universe is some kind of computer simulation and we don’t even realize it). But of course my mind turned to the darker possibilities: what if someone created a hell and sent someone’s consciousness there?
I watched the series “Black Mirror” on Netflix a few months after writing this story and I was intrigued by one of the episodes in Season 3 called “San Junipero.” I thought it was such a cool idea of creating a heaven-on-earth kind of place where someone’s consciousness could be downloaded at the time of death. But with a light side to an idea, there always seems to be a dark side . . . and this was my take on the dark side of that idea.
This story was first published in Halloweenpalooza which I’ve participated in during the last two years (and hopefully will again). You can find it on Facebook starting around October 1st of every year. I hope you’ll check it out, and hopefully I’ll be invited again to share another story and some giveaways there.
SPRING CLEANING
Paula Evans had no idea the misery and horror that would come just from hiring the old couple to do a few odd jobs around her house. Lou and Edna Kravitz had come highly recommended from her friends Diana and Ronnie Crager. “Yes, they’re pretty old,” Diana had told Paula on the phone. “But you won’t believe the amount of work they can get done. They can do just about anything. They’re honest and trustworthy . . . and they’re cheap.”
That had all sounded great to Paula. Now that she had begun working as a real estate agent full time, and with Scott’s software company really taking off, God knew they could use some help around the house.
Paula made a list of things she wanted done, and she called the number Diana had given her. Looking back now, Paula realized that she should’ve been able to hear the fear and nervousness in Diana’s voice—she should’ve been able to sense that something was wrong. But she didn’t, and Lou and Edna seemed very eager to stop by and talk to her.
Two hours after Paula called Lou and Edna, they pulled up to her gated driveway in a beat-up RV, waiting for her to open the gate. Paula’s yellow Labrador, Sadie, was going nuts, barking and running back and forth in front of the iron gates.
For just a moment as Paula walked down the driveway with the remote control in her hand, she felt a wave of fear wash over her. She didn’t usually meet strangers here while Scott was still at work, but this was just an elderly couple—an elderly couple that Diana had vouched for. Paula pushed away the momentary feeling of fear, but later she would wish to God that she had listened to her gut instincts at that moment and kept those gates closed.
After Paula opened the gates, the elderly man behind the wheel drove the RV down her long driveway and parked. The old couple got out of the rusted and stained vehicle. They both moved slowly like their bodies were already aching. Paula hoped that the condition of their RV wasn’t a sign of their cleaning skills (or lack thereof), because that beast of a vehicle could really use a good scrubbing and probably some repairs. She hoped it wasn’t leaking oil on her driveway.
Lou and Edna were opposites: Edna was short and round where Lou was tall and thin. Edna had a big head of bleached blond hair, and her husband had hardly any hair left—the top of his head shined in the Florida sun that leaned down hard on this part of the world with relentless heat. But they were both smiling as they approa
ched, and neither one of them seemed to be bothered by Sadie’s constant barking and growling.
“Sadie!” Paula snapped at her dog. “Go over there!” She pointed back at the house.
Sadie seemed hurt; she lowered her head and slinked away. Paula felt bad, but she didn’t want Lou and Edna to be scared of her dog. “Sorry, she’s not usually like this.”
“What a beautiful home!” Edna squealed as she shuffled forward slowly, not at all afraid of Sadie, ignoring her altogether. Her husband walked right beside her, matching her snail’s pace.
These two are fast and dependable?
Paula smiled at them. “Thank you.”
“You must have at least five or six acres here,” Lou said, looking around appreciatively and taking the entire property in. “And no neighbors close by.”
“And right by the lake,” Edna cooed.
“Bet there’s some gators in that lake,” Lou said with a wicked smile.
Paula didn’t respond to Lou about the gators—it wasn’t something she liked to think about, and she felt that his remark was just small talk anyway. She knew there were gators in the lake. She’d seen them before—most ponds and lakes in Florida had them. “Diana told me you did a great job for her,” she said, changing the subject.
“Oh yes,” Edna beamed, her cheeks turning a little red. “Diana is a wonderful woman.”
Paula nodded and smiled. She felt at ease with this elderly couple right away. “Well, I made a list if you guys want to look at it.” She pulled out the piece of paper she had printed from her computer last night. “Just tell me what you can do and what you can’t do . . . or don’t want to do.”
“We can do anything you want us to,” Lou said as Edna took the list from Paula. She barely glanced at the list and then passed it to her husband who had produced a pair of reading glasses from somewhere in his clothes like a magician performing a slight of hand trick. He held the paper at arm’s length, studying it. “We can do all of this for you,” he said after barely studying the list.