Dammit, it’s in that damn lockbox.
A scream howled through the darkness. Kayden tensed up but forced himself to relax.
“This place is crazy,” Ken said, shaking his head emphatically. “Crazy, not cool.”
4
“You think we’re any closer to the end, Flo?” Oscar dared ask, knowing he probably sounded like a kid asking for the millionth time if they’d arrived yet.
“I think so. I mean, it’s not like I know the layout, but I don’t think we’ve got turned around again this time.” Florence crept around another corner, ready just in case some ghost or spider might pop out around the corner. It didn’t. “It can’t be too much longer; it’s not exactly the biggest maze. My family used to always do the corn mazes up in Peoria and we usually made it out within an hour. It was always a big thing back home.”
She kept talking. It helped calm Oscar’s nerves and she felt sort of bad for dragging him in here after assuring him it was just some pathetic little maze in some hick town. She had been wrong on the first count, and Oscar wasn’t the scary movie type. He’d prefer a good thriller or sci-fi flick where the most blood you see is a gunshot wound or a skinned knee. Plus, Pumpkinface had genuinely scared the hell out of her earlier.
“There were a couple around town,” she continued, walking next to Oscar as they came to the end of another corridor, eying their choices. “We always tried them all. I was pretty good at it usu…”
She stopped talking as they made the curve, letting the last syllable slip off her tongue after she caught her breath. “al.”
It, he, was standing in the middle of the corridor. Pumpkinface.
Florence shook her head and grinned, looking over to her husband with an amused smile.
“Well, it looks like we meet again.” She let her eyes go back to the stoic, mask-clad figure. His chest moved slowly, his oversized pumpkin head tilted to the right and then back to the left as if he was judging his prey. He held the same toy knife in his right hand. “We’re not scared of you this time. You already got us earlier. Good job, by the way. You scared the shit out of me.”
“Yeah,” Oscar echoed her, winking as congratulations for addling his wife’s nerves. “Good job, by the way, it takes a lot.”
Florence squinted at her husband’s attempt to sound big and bad.
“All right, well, we need to go that way.” She pointed past Pumpkinface. “So, uh, we’re just going to pass on by.”
He didn’t say a word, he didn’t move, he just tilted his head from side to side. The electric green pulses of energy behind the massive eye sockets and blackened teeth sent chills down Florence’s back. It was a creepy mask.
“Uh, okay,” Florence stuttered again and pulled on Oscar’s hand, motioning him to come on. She wasn’t going to stand there in an eternal staring competition while the clock to get out in one hour was ticking away. By her watch they had passed the half hour mark and were quickly approaching the three-quarter hour mark.
They moved forward. Pumpkinface stood still, a stone atop concrete. Florence gulped, forcing herself not be so stupid. It was just someone dressed up trying to scare them, probably Jasper from out front, he was tall enough.
In the overcast shades of red and orange, the mask seemed to pulse, the deep beat of the creepy music keeping tune with Florence’s heart. Pumpkinface wasn’t moving, but she refused to act like a little girl.
Then his shoulders dropped and Pumpkinface bore down on the concrete and sprinted forward, arms swinging, knife glinting red and orange in the flashing lights. He closed the yard that separated them in less than a second, stabbing the knife forward into Oscar’s stomach.
Oscar grunted, a look of terror glazing over his eyes.
“Oh, stop it!” Florence griped, slapping him on the shoulder as Pumpkinface enveloped Oscar in his big arms, pulling him close into a bear hug, holding the toy knife at his stomach. “I know it’s fake, he got me earlier, you douchebag.”
Goosebumps speckled her arms and she had to slow her breathing. It was fake, but everything combined scared the shit out of her in the second between Pumpkinface standing still, sprinting forward and acting like he was stabbing her husband.
“I…” Oscar tried.
“Oh, come on, Oscar, really?” Florence insisted. “I know it’s fake, it’s a damn Halloween maze. He got me, too, remember?”
Pumpkinface twisted his hand under Oscar’s gut, shifting his head to look into Oscar’s eyes. Oscar groaned and shuddered.
“Flo…” he tried. “R... Run!”
“What?” Florence took an involuntary step back, her brow crinkling, genuine worry starting to set in. “What?”
“Run!” Oscar screamed as Pumpkinface withdrew the knife. The solid metallic blade was drenched in warm, wet blood. Oscar’s blood.
He kept his other arm grasped around Oscar but glanced down at the blade and then at Florence. It was like he wanted her to see what he’d done, like he was proud of it.
Florence backed up, her back colliding with the rough wooden wall.
“What the fuck?” she screamed, her mind spinning, tears held back by the confusion and panic.
“Run Fl—” Oscar tried, but a swift stab to the gut cut off his words and he bent forward in agony. The blade sunk into taut flesh and twisted. Pumpkinface wrenched the steel blade to the left, tearing open a wide tract of Oscar’s flesh and stomach. Blood spilled between the rip in his white and blue polo.
With lightning speed, Pumpkinface retracted the blade and brought it about again, wedging it deep between Oscar’s shoulder blade and collarbone. Oscar yelled as the knife twisted inside his shoulder, driving him to his knees.
The man withdrew the knife and turned to face Florence again. She was frozen in place, hands up, cupping her mouth in shock. She shook, tears already streaming down her cheeks.
“Run, Florence,” Pumpkinface mimicked her husband who laid crumpled on the floor, his chest rising and falling in quick bursts. The man’s voice was deep and menacing. “Make it a little challenging. Come on! Run, bitch!”
The wicked scream brought Florence back to reality and she spun to her left and raced down the open space. She didn’t want to leave Oscar behind. She couldn’t, but she kept running, something inside, beyond the now insignificant scares of the building and rushing music overhead, something wouldn’t let her feet stop moving.
She hadn’t made it a full ten steps before three quiet pffts echoed past her, followed by the searing pain of something long and hard piercing into her calf and the edge of her waist followed by the clang of metal against concrete. She went down hard, smashing her hands and face onto the concrete. The air rushed out of her lungs, and her side screamed as whatever was lodged in her skin hit the ground and twisted inside her body.
Florence screamed, the shriek piercing through the darkness and overwhelming the music with which it competed. Regaining some semblance of composure, she propped herself up on her side and dared a glance down at the wounded skin. Sticking out was the sharp point of a thick long nail, bloodied and dripping. About a foot south was the head of another nail embedded into the thick meat of her exposed calf, pushing the skin inward around the head.
“Well, that’s love for you.” The voice boomed over the music, a monotonous but gleeful cry from behind Pumpkinface’s mask. He stood a few steps away from Oscar, tilting his head again like he was observing something interesting. “You think you know them. You marry them, and what do they do when someone stabs you in the fucking gut? They run like scared little bitches and leave you for the dogs.”
Pain rushed up her side, nearly eclipsed by the anger that flared in Florence’s chest. She wasn’t a runner, she couldn’t leave him. Placing her hands on the concrete, she pushed herself up, but the moment she let her weight fall on her injured leg, her body fell out from under her, sending her back to the cold concrete.
Pumpkinface stepped confidently forward, the nail gun casually slung over his shoulder in his ri
ght hand. Florence searched for the knife that had been in his hand, but she couldn't find it. She was about to move when a red glint caught her eye. Her gaze shot toward Oscar. His eyes met hers, scared and worried about her at the same moment. The knife was gouged through the palm of his left hand and stuck in the wall, pinning him in place with its blade along with a few long nails.
“Run, Flo!” he screamed weakly.
Florence gritted her teeth and tried to get to her feet again, but the pain was too much as the nail dug deeper into her calf, tearing away at the meat and tendon. She dropped to the floor again, but threw her arms out and began to drag herself forward.
“Well, I’m no dog, honey.” Pumpkinface ignored Oscar’s screams. Then his voice became quiet as his footsteps became quicker, reaching closer. He stood dangling his large eyes over her. Florence refused to look, but she knew he was there. He growled. “I’m the fucking devil.”
A stout hand gripped around Florence’s neck and lifted her off the floor. Her feet dangled in the air as her body was thrust against the wall, her face taking the brunt of the impact. Florence’s eyes rolled back as her nose broke against the wooden plank, agony swept across her face as the blood began to pour from her nose and lip. She gasped for a breath to fill her empty lungs.
“No!” Oscar yelled. “Please don’t! I’ll do anything!”
The sound of the nail gun shooting another projectile didn’t have time to assault Florence’s ears before the nails began to shoot through her skin and pin her body to the wall. Pain jolted through her frame with each shot, starting at her left shoulder blade and running down her arm and then down her side and legs, until they finally worked their way back up to other shoulder blade.
Florence screamed with each piercing, as the skin and muscle was pulled taut against the wooden planks. Her body was suspended several inches off the ground, the nails holding her weight, tearing at her flesh and sinew beneath. She tried to scream again, but nothing would escape her lips. No noise could describe the pain. Her body shook as shock began to overtake her.
“Stop!” Oscar yelled again, trying to get Pumpkinface’s attention. The man ignored him. “Why? Why are you doing this?”
Pumpkinface didn’t bother to face Oscar, instead he stepped back and admired his art work, Florence tacked up against the wall, her skin splayed against the wood under each nail head. He admired the gentle curve of her neck, the way the nails pulled at her shoulders, the gaps between the nails and where they’d originally entered and the blood that seeped down her shirt. He let his eyes continue down, following the slope of her back, more nails, and then the curvature of her ass under those tiny shorts.
He stepped closer, hovering his right palm inches from Florence’s buttocks, and looked to Oscar.
“The question is, why not?” He chortled quietly and moved to the side, putting Florence between himself and Oscar. “She really is beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Get away from her, you freak!” Oscar moaned.
“Please, just let us go,” Florence finally found the words, her voice minuscule and horrified. “Please.”
“And ruin all the fun?” Pumpkinface mocked, clasping Florence’s ass with his bare hand, earning a slight yelp from the woman. His head bobbed to the right, staring down at her body as he allowed his hand to drift further south. “No.”
Florence sobbed, her body shaking uncontrollably. How was this happening? How had a simple trip to a maze turned into this? She shivered under the man's palm sliding against her backside, her eyes closed, but the tears still broke through the cracks.
His palm slid down her buttocks, but then he altered course and moved back up. He gripped tightly, moaning deeply under the mask before letting go.
“Too bad that’s not part of the game,” he lamented, letting his hand feel up her butt one more time. “Well, back to business.”
“Just stop!” Oscar screamed, fear drenching his voice.
Florence tried to turn her head to see what Oscar saw, but it was no use. She felt it, though. The blade was cold against the inside of her right calf when it first touched. The first slice was almost more than she could take. She screamed, her voice breaking.
“Please. Please!” She begged as the blade slid back and forth, slicing into her leg. The serrated edge grabbed at her outer thigh and ripped a whole chunk of sinew and skin from her leg. It dangled from the knife, bobbing to and fro, blood dripping like rain pellets to the ground as the blade jerked back and forth. “Please stop, please!”
The blade ground to a halt when it met bone, jerking her whole body against the nails, scraping her against the wooden planks she was nailed to. Florence grunted, then sent up a prayer that it was over, begging God to stop this monster.
“Hmm…” Pumpkinface grunted. “I really need to get a bone saw.”
Undeterred, he pulled the knife from the skin, earning a sickening suction from her wide-open thigh and a spit of crimson jumping into the growing pool below. Then he reared back and brought the knife back around with every ounce of strength in his thick body. It drove into her leg, past the torn flesh and wedged into the bone. He yanked it back again without wasting a single second and went back to work, cleaving skin and bone, ripping ribbons of flesh away from her leg with each blow. Blood and bits of muscle and tissue dislodged from the knife’s blade and tumbled to the floor, coating it red. With one last chop, the blade went all the way through the bone, only stopping once it hit the muscle on the other side of the leg.
“Fuck!” Florence groaned as the pain overwhelmed her.
He began to saw again, the limb shaking and wobbling with each pull and shove of the blade, hanging only by a chord of muscle and skin. Finally, the muscle split in two and the skin snapped back, severed. Her right leg, from the knee down, dropped to the concrete irreverently. Blood poured like a spout from the stump under her calf and pooled around the severed limb.
“Now that you can’t get away,” Pumpkinface said, not an ounce of concern in his voice, “it’s time to deal with the hubby. We can’t let you have all the fun.”
“I’m so sorry, honey,” Oscar wept, reaching his free hand out to Florence. “I’m so sorry. I love you.”
She couldn’t form the words to say as the shock took over. It wasn’t his fault, but the pain that coursed through her body was too overwhelming to utter a noise and the loss of blood was making her lightheaded. She watched as Pumpkinface trotted away toward Oscar. He turned and looked at Florence once he was in place, like he wanted to be sure she was watching.
He sheathed the spare knife and pulled the nail gun back over his shoulder and got his grip right on the handle before angling it down at Oscar. The first shot pierced the top of Oscar’s foot. He shrieked, but the music was overbearing, masking his plea. The next two stuck into his knee and lower thigh.
“You sick fuck!” Oscar bellowed. “What do you want?”
The answer came as a nail to the groin. Oscar screamed.
Pumpkinface maneuvered the business end of the nail gun up and lined it up with palm of Oscar’s hand. He pulled the trigger and sent a volley of new nails into Oscar’s hand, and for good measure a few down his wrist and arm, pinning him tightly to the wall.
Oscar’s screams broke Florence’s heart even as the lack of blood began to sap away her energy. Her vision began to blur, but she quickly blinked away the haze.
The nail gun dropped to the floor with a heavy clatter and Pumpkinface grasped the knife in Oscar’s hand and reeled back, splaying open Oscar’s palm as the blade tore away from the wall. Blood poured over Oscar’s palm, over the ripped layers of skin that dangled flaccid toward the ground. Then the man crouched down and slammed the knife into the existing wound in Oscar’s stomach, but this time he cleaved open a gap up to Oscar’s ribcage. The blade stopped abruptly when it caught against the bone, jerking Oscar’s body off the ground at the impact and earning a grunt from the newlywed.
Pumpkinface drew back on the knife, freeing the blade fr
om his victim’s body and sending droplets of blood careening across the concrete and the opposite wall. Florence couldn’t see the man’s smile, but she could imagine it. In all the man’s abject need for pain, she could visualize a wicked grin across his lips. She hated him, wanted him dead.
He growled. It was a guttural, almost animalistic noise, before he drove his hands into the gap his knife had carved in Oscar’s chest. His fingers laced beneath the skin, fat, and sinew, gripping tightly, and tugged back. Skin peeled outward and muscle tore under his grasp. The blood gurgled up through Oscar’s open stomach and chest, his organs visible to anyone who might wander by.
“Plea… St… Stop,” Oscar tried as the man let go and then dove his hands back inside, enveloping a section of Oscar’s small intestine in his warm hands. They were slick and slimy, coated in blood and gelatinous material that gave way to the man’s strong hands. He reeled back, pulling the intestine away from Oscar’s body and out into the world. He kept pulling, wrapping a section of the meaty chord around his hand.
“Ug…” Oscar moaned and wretched, his body convulsing at the pain and sensation of his insides being torn from his body.
Pumpkinface stood erect again. He sighed before stepping forward and walking back across the corridor in Florence’s direction. Oscar’s intestines remained in hand, still stringing out from the man’s stomach, thick drops of blood dripping across the concrete. He stopped beside Florence and looked around her for a moment before settling on his objective. He jerked hard on the slippery meat in his hands, pulling out another few feet. The chord of muscle slapped against the floor. Then he reeled in the slack and threw the end of Oscar’s small intestine around Florence’s neck, stapling the end right next to her face.
“Stop,” Florence begged between stuttered breaths, finally managing to take control of her voice again.
“But I’m not done,” he told her just before he sunk the knife into her side and pulled up hard, splitting her side open. “I have to join you two together.”
The Maze Page 3