Binky Bear wasn’t finished with Severed Achilles yet, and raised his arm for another strike when the bald witch hunter swung the axe down and lopped off Binky’s left arm. The axe sank into Severed Achilles’ back with a dull thwack, stilling the man. “Demon,” the remaining witch hunter yelled.
White stuffing bloomed from Binky’s shoulder where his arm had been, the appendage now a few feet away on the ground. He spun around, undeterred, and growled at the witch hunter who yanked the axe free with a sickening sucking sound.
“Devil spawn of hellion wrath,” the man said, spittle flying from his lips. “I’ll send you back to where you came and kill the one who summoned you.”
The witch hunter swung the axe again, but Binky was ready this time. The bear lunged forward ahead of the axe as it plunged into the corpse’s spine. Binky sailed toward the man’s crotch, but instead of inflicting some kind of clawed action, the bear’s mouth widened, opening to the size of a Frisbee and closed on the man’s reproductive organs. Binky bit through everything, coming away with a mouthful of clothing and flesh, leaving the man with a gaping hole between his legs. Blood exploded over Binky in a shower of glistening cherry red. The hunter howled and grabbed at the area, finding nothing to hold.
Binky chewed, his cheeks full, as the man fell backward, dead. The bear swallowed, then let loose a thunderous burp.
The movie cut back to the witch’s daughter’s bedroom. She was fast asleep, but woke when Binky climbed up the covers and nuzzled against her chin.
“Thanks, Binky,” she said, and a moment later, the bear looked like a cute plush toy again, the life that had been flowing through it gone. The girl smiled and her eyes turned black and then the credits rolled.
Kaley hadn’t realized the harm she’d done to herself until the movie had ended and she was alone in her all too quiet room. During some nights, she could hear the television from down the hall in her parents’ bedroom. But not tonight. They were still downstairs in the living room, so far away.
She thought about getting out of bed and telling her parents what she had done and that she was scared to be alone, but she didn’t want to get in trouble for watching the movie. It was too early to say she’d had a nightmare.
So Kaley did the only thing she could do and pulled the covers over her head and drew her feet in close, keeping them away from the end of the bed.
She knew monsters weren’t real, but no matter how much she tried convincing herself of that fact, she couldn’t help but wonder if one was under her bed or in her closet or standing over her at that very moment.
She lay there shivering and hoping to fall asleep, but tiredness never came. It seemed like hours had passed. She listened to her breathing and felt her heart thump hard every time she thought she heard movement in her room.
Then, she had to pee.
Besides not daring to lower the covers, she wasn’t about to risk placing a foot on the floor next to the bed. Crap, she was in a terrible place and wanted nothing more than to tell Mindy what a great big jerk she was.
Mindy was smaller and weaker than her, so how had she not been afraid after watching the movie? Kaley wondered if she was wrong and that maybe her friend was scared after all. Home in bed and under the covers like she was—just as frightened. Mindy could be devious at times. Get people to do things they didn’t want to do, like the time she got Dawn Fairly to put a worm in Belinda Daniels’ lunchbox. Both girls were her friends. Then there was the time she tricked Kaley out of her lunch, trading her for her peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but it turned out Mindy’s sandwich had been made with strawberry jelly not grape. Kaley hated strawberry jelly and Mindy had known that. Kaley went hungry that afternoon, unable to eat the main part of her meal.
Kaley grew heated as she lay in bed thinking about her supposed friend. Mindy had tricked her again. Mindy knew the movie was scary and knew Kaley didn’t like such things. Kaley nodded to herself and for the second time since they’d become friends, wondered if Mindy was really a friend.
Still scared but angry too, Kaley decided she’d suffered enough. She’d spent how many nights in her room and had never been attacked by a monster? All of them. Watching a movie wasn’t going to change that fact. She’d also gotten up multiple times to pee with nothing bad happening, except for the time she tripped over one of her toys, but that didn’t count. She realized how silly she was being and threw the covers off and bolted upright. Her head swiveled from side to side as her eyes scanned the room, including her rows of stuffed animals. Relief flooded through her when she saw there were no monsters or boogeymen waiting to snatch her, and that all her plush toys were present and in their correct places.
Without wasting another second, she sprang from bed, making sure to get a good push-off so she’d land a decent distance from the underneath of it—just in case the boogeyman was hiding there. Why take a chance, she thought.
Halfway across her room, her spirits rising, she heard the familiar sound of a window sliding open. She froze, her heart leaping into her throat, and glanced at the window next to her bed.
A small figure, silhouetted in darkness, crouched on the windowsill. It jumped down with cat-like grace mere feet from Kaley. She wanted to scream, but found herself unable and unsure as to why. Moonlight struck the figure’s front, revealing a hideous creature with dark green mottled flesh, bulbous black eyes, pointy ears and a wide mouth that easily took up the lower half of its face. She went to scream again, but then the figure shimmered as if surrounded by twinkling mist. She blinked and the nightmare was gone, the figure now a boy, a boy she knew from school. It was Jacob Brown, the kid who had gone missing and whose parents had been killed.
“Hello,” Jacob said, his eyes unblinking and wide. His skin was smeared with dirt. He wore only a pair of raggedy brown pants.
Kaley could only stare at him, unsure where to begin. She wanted to call out to her parents, maybe even run to them, but remained frozen. Then an awful, putrid smell wafted over her, reminding her of the time her and her friends went by the dumpsters behind the Stop & Shop. The smell there had made Kaley want to puke.
“Hello,” Jacob said again.
Kaley pinched her nostrils closed and breathed through her mouth, the air seemingly coated in grime. She felt sick to her stomach, but realized the boy needed help. She had to get her parents.
“Hello,” Jacob said.
“Jacob,” she asked, “what are you doing here?”
The boy took a step forward. He was only a foot away from her now. Her fingers loosened a bit, allowing the horrendous odor in. Her eyes watered and she gagged. She quickly pinched her nose closed again and apologized. She didn’t want him to think she was making fun of him. She had no idea what he’d been through and wondered if he had indeed been living in a dumpster, the same dumpster she’d smelled behind the Stop & Shop.
“Hello,” Jacob said again.
A chill fell over Kaley. She’d been surprised to see him, but now she was growing nervous. Something about him wasn’t right. Then again, why would the kid be all right. He must’ve been through hell, and if he’d heard about his parents…
“Jacob, are you okay?” she asked, wanting to let him know she cared about him. She’d get her parents soon enough.
“Okay,” he said, flatly, still not blinking.
“Um, everyone’s been looking for you.”
“Okay.”
Kaley felt her heart swell with pity. He was definitely not okay. As much as she wanted to help him, she knew this was adult business. “I’m going to get my—” Kaley’s words died as if they were struck through the heart with an arrow. Jacob’s entire body shimmered and she saw parts of that hideous green-skinned creature again, but it was only for a few moments and then Jacob was himself again.
Kaley swallowed hard and shook her head, ready to run.
Jacob’s eyes went black. The shimmer
ing mist wafted in front of him again and disappeared, leaving the monster where Jacob had stood.
Kaley screamed this time and took off for the door.
The thing growled and she knew it was after her. Then, it was on her. One of its clawed hands covered her mouth. The two of them fell to the floor and the wind was knocked out of her lungs, further preventing her from using her voice.
She heard her mother call to her. Good, she thought, help was coming. Her mom had heard her.
The creature shoved itself off Kaley and flipped her onto her back so she was looking up at it. Green slime fell from its mouth as it snarled. She saw death in its onyx eyes, the things void of compassion. And though the monster managed to keep its hand over her mouth, she let loose a muffled scream. If this was a nightmare, induced by the movie, she was going to scream her ass off and hopefully wake up, because there was no way this could be real.
The creature grinned as if reading her mind and shook its head. Kaley guessed she was about to die, the thing ready to eat her. Instead, it hefted her off the floor and tossed her over its bony shoulder. Then, in a single leap, it flew out the window and ran away into the night.
Chapter Nine
Kaley awoke in a cage.
The bars were human bone—tibias, femurs and humeri—and held together by severed human hands, the hands and bones hardened by goblin magic. The floor was a patchwork of human flesh that had been sewn together with human hair and treated with boiled tongue oils and vaginal secretions. .
The air was warm and rank with the smell of death. The pungent odor of rotting meat and waste was thick. For a moment, Kaley thought she was going to throw up. Then, she saw the cage’s bars and what they were constructed of. Vise-like terror gripped her entire body—and despite the warmth, she shivered in fear.
She pushed herself up and stood on wobbly legs. She was in some kind of cave. Flames licked the walls from sconces in the shape of human heads, the detail incredible. Life-like. The mouths held a large piece of coal that held the flame. An eye from one of the heads rotated in her direction. She screamed for a moment before covering her mouth. She looked from one to the next, seeing men, women and children, their bodies melded into the walls, their heads the only part with human color to it. Now, she saw that their eyes were all focused on her, the peepers the only things that moved. They were frozen in place, yet very much alive.
Kaley continued to tremble as tears escaped her ducts. She felt sick to her stomach and bent over, but nothing came up. She told herself what she was seeing wasn’t real. She was having a nightmare, her mind punishing her for watching Binky Bear and the Witch Hunters.
Not knowing what else to do, she screamed as loud as she could, hoping it would wake her. When she ran out of air, she took another deep breath, and belted out another wail. Finally, her throat grew sore and she stopped. She remembered the monster grabbing her and leaping out her window. It was all starting to come back to her, becoming too real. She looked around again. All the head sconces’ eyes were still watching her. She looked away, but still felt their gaze and it made her skin crawl.
She needed to remember what happened after the monster had taken her. She’d blacked out numerous times. She remembered the forest. Tree branches poking her. Being jostled and bounced as the thing carried her. None of this was making sense. Monsters weren’t real.
Feeling her knees wanting to buckle and her mind unraveling, Kaley sat and curled into a ball. She told herself the nightmare couldn’t last forever and she’d soon wake up safe in her room.
Chapter Ten
The Jacob goblin stood before the king and watched as the huge demon scoured the underside of its wrist with one of its fiery talons. Liquid flame seeped from the wound into an upside down human skull that rested on the end of the goblin king’s chair arm. The demon then told the Jacob goblin to take the offering to the girl.
The Jacob goblin eagerly carried the makeshift goblet with care, knowing to spill a drop meant certain death. He traveled down multiple corridors until he arrived at his destination—the cave where the girl was being held.
He’d heard her screaming from afar. The sound was intoxicatingly pleasant—a melody, if there was such a thing in the goblin king’s world. When he finally saw her again, she was curled into a ball. Using his goblin magic, he spoke a human word.
“Hello,” he said, not fully understanding the word, but knowing it was used when humans came into contact with one another.
The girl sat up, her face, for a split second, showed hope. But her expression quickly fell and was replaced by terror. She lost all color in her cheeks and yelled for him to stay away as she backed against the farthest part of the cage.
The human heads along the walls all closed their eyes, a common occurrence during the changing ritual, the ceremony that was about to befall Kaley. The Jacob goblin was newly born, but he was aware of old customs and of the time before his goblin existence. This was due to the goblin king’s blood that flowed through his veins, the king wanting his children to know all.
The goblin king was a soldier of the Great One, of Satan himself. The Great One supplied the goblin king with humans not meant to be turned into goblins, but to use as slaves to torture, kill and be eaten, their bones used as weapons and a power source for the goblin king. These were the humans who had sold their souls to the devil and his minions, then given flesh in the afterlife so they could serve in the goblin king’s world. In order to keep his own army strong and increase in number, the goblin king had to rely on the greed and misunderstanding of humans, both things humans excelled at. His army had to be obtained by his children, for he could not use the ones his master supplied him with. Those were to be kept human.
The Jacob goblin approached the cage and said something in its native tongue. A jailhouse door appeared where there was none, hinges and all.
“No,” the girl said. “Stay out there. Don’t come near me.”
The Jacob goblin didn’t understand her language, but understood her tone, her fear. She didn’t want him entering, he knew. He was enjoying it. Enjoying watching her suffer. She was feeding him, filling his damned soul with energy, and she didn’t know it.
With his free hand, the Jacob goblin opened the door and stepped in. The girl cried out as he approached. His arm shot out and gripped her around her throat. She struggled to get free, tried prying off his fingers, but he was too strong. He lifted her off the ground and squeezed tighter, lapping up the fear in her eyes. He tilted her head back and forth, studying her as if he was deciding whether to purchase her. He wanted to snap her neck and drink her blood. But to do so would be to shit in the face of the king. The Jacob goblin would be tortured to no end—skin flayed and left to burn for centuries.
Seeing her face reddening—the girl unable to breathe—he loosened his hold and lowered her to the ground. His hand then shot to her mouth, claws to each side of her lips. He squeezed, forcing her jaw down and mouth open. She cried out and kicked at him. He laughed and pressed her cheeks harder, all the while making sure not to spill a drop of the king’s blood.
The Jacob goblin forced the girl’s head back so that her mouth was at an upward angle and then pressed the skull goblet to her lips and poured. She coughed and gagged and tried to shake her head loose, but the goblin held her still.
He continued to feed the human, forcing her to swallow. It didn’t matter that some of the king’s blood dribbled down her chin and onto the floor, a mere drop would do. But continue to feed the human he did, smelling her fear and enjoying her angst.
The girl started choking as the goblin poured faster. Her throat muscles worked feverishly to keep up. Then finally, when the goblet was empty, the Jacob goblin released the girl and stepped back. She collapsed to the floor on her hands and knees, coughing and spitting. She clutched at her throat and curled into a ball. “It burns,” she cried, her voice like a three-pack-a-day smoker’s. �
�Hurts. Please, make it stop hurting.”
The Jacob goblin rubbed his hands together as tingles of pleasure ignited along his flesh. Watching a human in agony was wonderful, he thought, and looked forward to seeing more of them suffer.
Another goblin entered the cave. Then two more and so on and so on until the cave was teeming with the creatures. They always came when a new one was about to be born, watching with eager anticipation.
Kaley writhed on the cage floor, her eyes closed. Her entire body felt like it was on fire. Her insides were moving, grinding against each other and separating. Bones broke and reformed, elongated too. Her teeth narrowed to points and multiplied in number. Her fingernails became claws, painfully springing from her fingertips like knives, and her skin turned a dark olive green. The agony was worse than the time she’d burned her hand on the stove. She had wanted her mother and father then, and wanted them even more now. But if death came, she’d welcome it—anything to stop the pain.
She heard strange sounds, grunts and groans mixed with some kind of foreign language. They were coming from all around her and in unison, growing louder. They were voices and they were chanting something. The putrid odor of the place worsened. Needing to see what was going on, she opened her eyes. She was surrounded by more of the hideous creatures, with their mottled flesh and long claws. Breathing was more difficult, the air thick with rot and death. It was awful. But none of that compared to the torment going on within Kaley.
She didn’t understand why she was still alive. Her body had been destroyed, broken. She’d felt it. Maybe she was dead and in hell. Gary Orman, the ultra-religious kid in her class, always went around telling the other kids they were going to hell no matter how good they were unless they were saved. The boy’s mom had told him so.
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