He said it like there was no alternative, as if it was a moral imperative that he completes his task. Despite the pain, Florence angled her head away from the wall and squinted at the man, confused and disgusted.
As her vision began to darken, she felt something large and foreign invade her side where the knife had cleaved her open. She screamed as pain bloomed from the presence of Pumpkinface’s hands expanding in her side, grasping for something, fingers stretching and contracting between her guts. The feeling rushed into her brain and nearly overloaded her senses. Then the pain changed as he pulled out his hand, tugging her insides out through the hole he’d created. She dared to glance down as he lifted something round and bloody up to meet her baby blue eyes. It was her own small intestine. She considered it, eyes drawn tight, her lips trembling.
“Almost done,” he said, like it was nothing big, only a job to be completed.
He stepped away and her body seized up as her longest organ began to tighten inside her and then wiggled through her side and out into the open air. Her body convulsed under the unnatural sensation of her insides exiting her flesh. She caught glimpses through dimmed eyes as he pulled her intestines away and stood next to Oscar. She couldn’t look that far down, but she knew that if she could, she’d see the other end of the long mass that Pumpkinface had strewn from her depths to where he now stood.
“Ah, dammit. He’s already dead.” Pumpkinface shrugged, like it was no worse than a dead ant or roach.
“No!” Florence screamed, ignoring the pain in her side. She struggled, trying to get loose, but the pain was overwhelming and the nails only ripped at her skin. Her body was wracked in pain and emotional agony. He was gone. “No!”
Pumpkinface retrieved the nail gun again from his shoulder, ignoring her screams. He yanked another couple feet of intestine from Florence’s body, earning a deep groan and a splattering of blood on the concrete, and placed the other end against Oscar’s temple.
“’Til death do you part,” Pumpkinface mocked and shoved the edge of the nail gun against Oscar’s head and pulled the trigger, pinning Florence’s intestine to Oscar’s forehead and sending a nail straight into Oscar’s brain. Oscar’s head jerked back with a splatter of red.
Pumpkinface chortled deeply as Florence screamed, and almost pranced over to her. He shoved the squishy wet end of Oscar’s intestine against her forehead. “Now it’s your turn, darling. ‘Til death do you part.”
The last thing she saw was the tip of the nail gun followed by the tiny sound of rushing air.
5
“Are we turned around again?” Ken frowned cynically. “I swear I’ve seen this spot before.”
“I don’t think so, hon,” Tammy tried to console him.
Ken was beginning to feel claustrophobic, trapped. Each time they found themselves headed down another familiar hall, the more Ken fretted. This one was a familiar hall, the one they had started at in fact, but Tammy felt it best to withhold that tidbit of information, for her husband’s benefit.
“Yeah, we are,” Kayden disagreed. He couldn’t see his mother’s pursed lips and glare, trying to tell him to shut up in the dark red glow of the hall. “This is literally where we started.”
“Are you serious?” Ken almost shouted. His voice carried over the music and well past Kayden’s ears. Kayden winced, finally realizing what his mom had been trying to communicate.
Sorry, he mouthed.
Tammy rolled her eyes and put a consoling hand on Ken’s shoulder, pressing him forward, down a different hall than they had originally chosen.
“We’ll just try this path this time. Maybe we’ll have better luck,” she tried. “Just calm down, hon.”
Ken gulped in a deep breath and Kayden followed along for a moment before whipping around them to take the lead. His dad might not like it, but Kayden thought it was great. The creepy music, the old cheap animatronics, precisely placed motion detectors ready to spring some scare around the corner. That’s not to say that it didn’t make his heart race when some skeleton came popping out of the shadows a corridor or two back, though.
“Don’t wander off now, Kayden. We don’t need to get split up.” Tammy admonished the boy, waving with her free hand for him to come back.
He slowed his trot but kept a few feet ahead. He scanned the room, considering each wooden slat that formed a set of parallel walls, the corners where they met the cold concrete below, the dark rafters that hung above him. Kayden had caught on to the setup. At various locations, motion cameras had been cut into small holes in the wood to catch the maze walkers. Setting one off always sprung some well-placed scare just in time for the passerby to garner the full effect. So far, nothing.
They turned down another hall, splitting off to the left after Ken and Tammy argued for a good two minutes over which direction made the most sense, as if either of them had a clue which was really right. Kayden leaned back against the wall, eyebrow raised, watching. Finally, they took the left. Less than halfway down the new corridor, Kayden stopped them and pointed to an indention in the wall.
“Look,” he directed them, showing them the location of one of motion cameras. “There must be another trap up here.”
His parents were silent as they followed close behind Kayden. He stalked carefully forward, examining the walls and floor nearby. Apart from the natural imperfections in the wood, red paint splatters and the occasional fake strand of vine and spider web, the walls were unscathed. No telltale lines, other marks or indentations.
Kayden huffed, confused. Might as well test it.
He stepped forward, through the camera’s field of view. At first there was nothing, then a whooshing noise rushed in from overhead. He craned his neck back as a massive spider, with at least a two-foot leg span, careened down over their heads only to stop a foot above them. He jerked, closing his eyes and sighing. He hated spiders.
Dammit, he exclaimed inside his head, pulling his eyes away from the spider and finding his parents grinning at him.
“Just a spider,” Tammy said.
“I know,” Kayden almost bit back, but he caught himself just in time and softened his tone.
“All right, let’s move on,” Ken instructed and passed under the dangling arthropod. He slipped by Kayden as the boy turned around, and passed him on down the hallway, making the next turn. “Let’s get...“
Kayden cocked his head to the side, watching the horrified expression on his dad’s frozen face. He exchanged glances with his mom, and they quickened their steps.
“No! Stay back,” Ken tried, but it was too late.
Tammy screamed when she made the corner, a shrill piercing noise, louder than any that had yet broken through the music. Everything in his parents’ reaction to what lie around the corner told Kayden to stay rooted where he was, but curiosity drove him to move. Confused and worried, Kayden stepped past the bend and his eyes immediately met the source of his parents’ horror.
It was the newlywed couple. Tammy dropped behind Kayden and covered his eyes, but he brushed her hand away. His eyes had already taken in enough to know what horrified them. He knew that even if he was blinded for life, the sight would still be seared into his mind.
The first thing his eye caught was the severed leg. It laid carelessly on the concrete, bisected just above the knee, a rag of tattered flesh at the stump, lying in a pool of the girl’s blood. Then his eyes found the girl, her body nailed like some sign against the wall, her remaining leg dangling inches above the ground. Blood still fell from the stump under her thigh, the cut fresh.
Kayden stumbled back, letting his weight fall against his mom. His mind was blaring. The leg I picked up earlier…was that real? A new shiver strung up his body. He gulped, a sense of nausea slipping into his stomach.
The skin around the edge of her leg, her waist and arms were stretched out, tugging against the nails that held her body to the wall, blood dribbling over every spare inch of her skin. Her head was angled away from Kayden, but he could see
something long and slimy connected to her face.
In the brief second before his mom had tried to shield his eyes, his gaze had streaked like lightning across the long string and landed with a gasp when he realized where it ended. Inside Oscar’s wide-open stomach. Intestines, Oscar’s intestines.
The man’s hand was nailed flat against the wall next to where his body sprawled back limply on the concrete, more nails protruding from his feet and leg. His head was held up by another string of intestines affixed nauseatingly to his temple. Kayden followed the small organ back to Florence’s side.
Tammy released her grip around Kayden, bent over and wretched onto the floor. Kayden felt like doing the same, but swallowed, refusing to let himself lose his lunch.
“What type of sicko does something like this?” Ken gasped, stepping backward. He lifted his shirt at the waist and withdrew a small compact pistol, the 9mm Springfield Kayden knew he always carried, ignoring the No Weapons Allowed signs whenever they popped up. “We’ve got to get out of here, now!
He about-faced, holding the pistol low but ready, and pushed Tammy and Kayden back the direction they’d come. “Let’s get back to the entry. Now!”
Kayden went to run, but remembered what the shopkeeper had said when he led them into the maze.
“The man at the desk said the door would be locked,” Kayden reminded them as he stumbled for a moment before regaining his footing, his words running into each other as they spewed out in fear.
“Maybe it’s just a ruse,” Tammy hoped. “Maybe it’s just meant to keep us in the maze.”
“Listen to your mom,” Ken commanded as they took off, spreading their legs to their max. It wasn't meant to be condescending or domineering, it was only meant to get them moving.
The red and orange lights began to strobe. Kayden squinted, noting the sudden change in their pattern which strained his vision, trying to adjust to the frantic flashing. He shot forward, images of the severed leg and string of intestines flashing into his mind with the incessant rhythm of the strobing lights. His mind replayed him picking up the severed leg of the earlier cadaver over and over.
It was real! This can’t be happening.
A skeleton pounced out of the wall to their right as they triggered the motion sensor. Adrenaline pumping, Kayden nearly lost his balance, swerving into his mom and tumbling against the wall before planting his feet firmly beneath himself again. His feet pounded the concrete, breath panting, his parents hot on his trail.
Kayden careened around the last corner and fixed the entry door in his sights. Oscar’s cold dead gaze flashed in his mind and Kayden jerked to the side before realizing it was all in his head. The lights flashed. Kayden continued to pump his lean legs, the gap between him and his parents widening.
He thrust past the last fork in the maze, end in sight, when a grunt and clatter behind him stole his attention. Something metal clanged against the floor. His dad yelled, and his mom screamed. Kayden ground to a halt and spun on his feet.
“Dad!” Kayden squelched, honey brown eyes wide in terror at the sight of blood flowing down his dad’s chest.
Pumpkinface was getting back to his feet, hovering over Kenneth’s body. He yanked the serrated blade out of Ken’s chest, tearing away a chunk of fat and muscle. Strings of something meaty, matted in crimson and shades of blue and purple, dangled from the knife. Ken’s eyes fluttered and he groaned.
“No!” Tammy yelled, throwing herself on the masked man.
“No!” Kayden echoed, but it was too late. Kayden witnessed the tip of the same blade burst through his mom’s back just above her pelvic bone. “No!”
“Ru…run, Kayden! Run!” Ken screamed, before fixing his eyes on the freak in the mask as the blade was ripped from Tammy’s stomach. She fell against the wall, hands clutching her body.
“No. I…” Kayden tried. He couldn’t leave them here, not like this.
“Run!” Ken bellowed, blood gurgling between his lips.
Kayden stepped toward them, wanting to do something, anything.
The towering figure returned his attention to Ken, intent on finishing what he’d started. He reared the slender metallic edge back and slashed forward. The blade melted through the thin skin and muscle holding his mouth together. His jaw flopped down, a heavy piece of flesh and bone, dangling without purpose. A sanguine river burst from his mouth, pouring down his neck, obscuring the grotesque mass.
Kayden stared wide-eyed at his dad, eyes trapped by the jaw hanging useless by a slender strand of muscle at the back of his mouth, a gaping void where his lower jaw should have been. He went to move, but it was too late. His dad's chest had stopped rising and his eyes were no longer filled with fear, his empty gunmetal grey eyes peered upward without purpose. Kayden tried to scream but his mouth wouldn’t move as emotions flooded his heart.
“N-“ his mother began, but her scream was cut short by the piercing edge of the blade as it slid through her throat like butter. Blood seeped around the entry and exit of the blade.
“Run, boy!” the man behind the mask growled.
Something in the voice crept deep beneath Kayden’s skin. He faltered back a step, but stopped, his body frozen in place, mortified by the image before him.
“Mom!” he finally managed to scream.
In response, Pumpkinface twisted the blade, slicing down further into Tammy’s neck and then wrenched the knife to the left, ripping it out, cleaving her neck in half. Her head flopped aimlessly to her shoulder, blood spouting from the gaping hole. Blood splattered across Pumpkinface’s mask and dripped to the floor.
Kayden stopped, mortified, tears trailing down his cheeks. Then Pumpkinface’s gaze flicked toward Kayden, his empty green glowing sockets falling menacingly on the boy.
“I said run, boy!” he repeated.
Kayden didn’t move, less an act of stubborn horrified rebellion than the sudden paralysis that had overcome him. He couldn’t say why he remained. He needed to run, he wanted to run, but the gruesome sight of his parents in pools of blood on the ground shook him to his very core, momentarily squelching his ability to reason or move.
“Run!” The guttural scream shook Kayden at his core as Pumpkinface shoved Tammy’s body to the ground with an irreverent thud.
Shaken from his stupor, Kayden spun around and sprinted for the entry door. In a few long strides, he was there. He spun the handle, but it jerked against his hand. Locked.
Dammit! He wasn’t lying.
He turned and eyed the masked man, his back turned to Kayden, busy doing something out of sight. There were two other routes, but the past fifty minutes had made one thing abundantly clear. He didn’t know how to get out, except for the door at his back where they had all entered, and it was locked. His eyes jerked between the two alternative paths. He had no real choice, so he chose the far-right path at random.
Kayden shoved off the concrete and barreled down his chosen path, careening around each corner. He didn’t know where he was headed. The path was new to him after the third bend, its corridors bathed in strobing orange and red. The splotches and smears of blood were frightening to his eyes now, real and horrifying. He refused to imagine how they had found their way there, instead focusing the pumping of legs, letting all that running up and down the basketball court finally be put to good use.
He skidded to a stop at a dead-end, leaning over with his hands propped against his knees. His cheeks ballooned as he forced the air from his lungs and took another drag of rotten air, closing his eyes just long enough to catch his breath. Turning, he bolted off again, and took the left at the intersecting corridors. Kayden refused to slow around the next corner. His arm beat against the wooden wall, nearly knocking him off balance, but he made it, one step further away from the freak.
Was Pumpkinface behind him? Was he even following?
Kayden slowed to a jog and dared a look to his rear. Nothing.
Where is he?
He returned his attention forward and accelerate
d to a run, slowing just enough to make the next bend in the maze, before sprinting at full speed again. It didn’t matter if the man was behind him, he had to get out. He hadn’t seen this part of the maze before. It was all new, more unknown, but with it the hope of an exit.
Screams echoed from the loud speakers again. His body convulsed in fear before he realized what it was, his legs clenching, sending his body tumbling to the ground. Arms outstretched, his palms took the brunt of the impact, lightening the fall against his hip and chest. His chin clapped against the concrete. Lightning coursed up his face. Kayden squinted, trying to bear the pain.
“Agh!” he groaned. He reached up and cupped his chin, just as the taste of iron found his tongue, blood. He pulled his hand back at the feeling of the liquid on his chin.
Kayden gritted his teeth, not wasting a second before he shook off the pain and got back to his feet. As his vision cleared, he was amazed at what he found just ten yards ahead. A door. His eyes gleamed.
The exit.
A smile upended the scowl on Kayden’s face as his legs started to carry him forward. He crossed past an intersection in the maze, only yards away from his salvation. He could feel the cool air seeping through cracks in the doorframe and see the slender beams of light breaking into the darkness.
Suddenly a sharp pain pierced through the thick meat of his hip, pushing him off kilter. His left leg went limp for a brief second, but it was just enough to take him to the ground again. He collapsed to the floor, sprawled out on his side. He gripped his hip, fingers touching a small metallic circle just below his waist. Kayden squirmed to get back to his feet, but the feeling of something long and steely puncturing his insides brought him back to the floor. He screamed.
A shuffling to his left stole his attention and he bolted his eyes toward the dark intersection he had just passed. Out of the darkness stepped Pumpkinface, the nail gun in hand. He raised his other hand, a pistol in his grasp. His dad’s pistol.
Kayden gulped and began to squirm away on his rear. He needed to get away. The exit was so close.
The Maze Page 4