The Nightmare Game

by Martin, S. Suzanne

  “In the end, it turned out to be a moot point, anyway, for Edmond’s contender wound up being dissolved and flushed down the bathroom drain. Then you came along and I did not need them for you. Shame about The Sisters, really, because I did so enjoy those three evil little creatures before I transformed them. If you could have seen the three of them before I changed them, you would have been shocked. What lovely, degenerate, black hearted little mercenaries they were! After their transformation, even Geoffrey bought my fictitious background story, lock, stock and barrel, for he had no reason to doubt me. The Sisters, fresh from having their minds laundered, wept sorrowfully from hearing their ‘tale’ when I told them.

  “I hated having to kill them because such an evil little trio I’ve not come across in ages! They were so wonderfully horrid! Originally, I had big plans for them for after I took over the world. Whereas I needed good little people like Ben to do my P.R., I needed people like the Sisters and Geoffrey for my less, shall we say, savory chores.”

  “I still can’t imagine the Sisters being of any diabolical use to anyone.”

  “You only knew them damaged. I wish you could have met them earlier. They were extraordinarily bright and conniving before I changed them.

  “Oh, well, what’s done is done,” she sighed. “In the end, the whole group let me down. Geoffrey’s telling them who you really are contaminated them all. Sure, I could have wiped their memories, but I was too angry with them to do that. Besides, it’s more refreshing to start over with new people.”

  “I thought you liked them,” I said.

  “Of course I liked them. I liked Max’s group, too. I just didn’t like them that much.”

  “You hurt them. You can’t just leave them all maimed like that until they die!” I argued, understanding that death would be preferable to the pitiful state in which I had last seen them.

  “I’ve been wondering when you were going to mention that. I didn’t kill the rest because I had a further use for them. Actually, I’ve been saving them for just this moment,” she said, waving her arm again. “Surprise!” At the wall next to her, appeared her group, still disfigured, in metal cages.

  “Help me, help me,” they mumbled, more or less in unison.

  “Yes, yes, I know.” Arrosha said dismissively. “I wish my creatures were capable of a few more words; they are so incredibly wearisome. It’s like having a tiresome parrot that only knows two words. Good luck to me, though. The most stupid parrot on earth is a sodding genius compared to these brainless things.”

  “Help me,” they mumbled again.

  “Oh do shut up!” Arrosha barked. They obeyed her. “You’re wondering why I brought this motley little group into the room?” she asked me blithely. Not waiting for an answer, she continued, “It’s simple, really, my dear. Before I let Max have a good go at you, I plan to have some fun myself until I’m able to release my real pets upon you.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, afraid to hear what new perversions she had in mind.

  “All torture doesn’t have to be physical, dearie. If I play a sour enough tone on those little heart strings of yours,” she said merrily, “that will give me a jump start on being able to get my vanquished enemies’ hands on you. Besides, tormenting you emotionally will give me something to do while I wait. But what should I do with these obscene little creatures here? Should I torture them to death as well?”

  “No! Don’t! Please don’t hurt them!” I shouted. The puppy eyes on Ben’s gargoyle face were filled with so much fear that it broke my heart; each of Illea’s many eyes were overflowing with tears. The rest of the group were all shaking terribly as they cowered in their cages.

  “No? But it would be so much fun!” Pausing, she looked at them in mock pondering, as if weighing her decision. “Hmm, but then again,” she said with too much glee in her voice, “perhaps it wouldn’t be so much fun after all. They don’t hold out very long in this condition. They’re so delicate; they die too quickly and all too easily. I mean, they would be dead before I really had a chance to get into it and where’s the fun for me? No, it would simply be too frustrating.”

  Chills ran down my spine as she said this. Her sadism seemed to know no bounds.

  Suddenly, Arrosha brightened. “I know what I’ll do with them!” She said this as cheerfully as if she were a ten year old girl planning a picnic. “I’ll change them first and then force feed from them! You know, like I did with the first youth!

  “I’ll simply let their energy by-pass me and turn them into essence. Fabulous! What a fitting way to get a head start on my next group of followers! Of course, I may not even need new followers, because I’m not exactly sure how long it will take me to rid myself of Edmond, but, whatever the case, it will look good for me to have supporters in tow when I take back my rightful place as Goddess to this world.”

  “You are going to change them back, though?” I couldn’t explain it, but somehow this thought gave me a tiny sliver of hope.

  “Certainly. I can’t eat them the way they are now. I can’t even sieve off their energies. They’re nasty and disgusting. Why, I can barely even bring myself to look at them. You can just imagine how horrible they taste. No, once they’re changed into these creatures, they have no food value whatsoever. They would actually make me a little sick, literally as well as figuratively. The essence from them would immediately kill anyone else. I have no choice. I’ll have to restore them to their human selves first.”

  Max sheepishly looked up and said shyly, “You’ll restore me as well, won’t you, Arrosha?”

  “Why?” she said snidely. “Do you want me to eat you, too?”

  “No, no, Arrosha,” Max said, putting his hands up defensively. “But you promised you would restore me.”

  “Will you please just shut up and quit interrupting me?” she yelled back at him sharply. “Just do as your told, dog, that’s what you’re here for, nothing else. As I told you before, if you do a good job, I’ll restore you and make you prettier than before. If not, I’ll make you supremely ugly. How many times do I have to keep repeating myself?”

  “S-sorry.” he said, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his eyes once again trained at the floor. His reply was so soft that I could hardly hear it and yet his pain came across distinctly.

  “Now,” Arrosha said indignantly, “Where was I before I was so rudely interrupted?

  “Oh, yes, our guests and how I’ll have to restore them in order to take their essence. I will, of course, have to wait awhile after their restoration for their energies to recover so they’ll be edible. You know the old saying, dear, ‘don’t be hasty or they won’t be tasty’. After I return them to normal, while I wait for their taste of rot to vanish, I’ll have Max remove your necklace, taking the amulet with it. Then I’ll let him get to work on you in between getting rid of these,” she pointed to the group. “You’ll have such fun, now, won’t you Max?”

  Max said nothing. He just nodded, keeping his head low, toward me, so that Arrosha could not see the expression of extreme hatred toward her that he had on his face.

  “All right then,” Arrosha beamed excitedly. “Let’s begin, shall we!”

  As she was saying these things, my stomach churned and I felt as if my insides were being liquefied by sheer terror. I’d done everything in my power and when that wasn’t enough, I’d kept her talking as long as I could. There was no putting off the inevitable any longer.

  She waved her arm casually, dismissively, quickly. She was no longer putting on a show, she was just anxious to get started.

  Immediately, as quickly as I had seen Ben and Geoffrey changed, one by one her followers were reverted back to their beautiful, former human selves. Manacles attached to chains in the wall replaced the metal cages.

  “What happened?” Illea asked, looking around frantically, confused in finding herself suddenly in an unfamiliar room.

  “Everybody!” Ben said excitedly. “Everybody! You’re alive! You’re alright! Arrosha, wha
t happened? Why are we chained? Please release us!” He then looked over at me and became even more distressed. “Ashley! Why are you trapped like that? And Max, is that you? What’s happened to you?”

  Max just shrugged.

  “We’re back!” said the rest, almost in unison.

  “But from what?” Illea said. Apparently, while she realized that she’d been gone for awhile, she had no memory of what had befallen her. “Arrosha, my Queen, please release us. Someone has chained us here.”

  “Gee.” Arrosha said snidely. “I wonder who that could be?”

  “You did, you bitch!” I said angrily. She was going to hurt me no matter what I said. Being honest wouldn’t make much of a difference at this point.

  “Ashley!” Illea said, horrified. “Don’t blaspheme! She’s more than our Queen. She’s our true Goddess. She watches over us, protects us. She would never do anything like that!”

  “That’s right,” added Kenny. The others mumbled in agreement.

  “No, no, Illea, guys.” Ben said. “Ashley’s right.”

  “Ben, don’t!” Illea replied imploringly.

  “I know Ashley’s right,” Ben insisted. “I’m starting to remember things now. They’re fuzzy, but I’m remembering. Geoffrey was so mean, so cruel. And Arrosha was cruel as well. She did something to me. I can’t remember what, but it was horrible. I was trying to get away from her. I was so much less, somehow. Ashley, help me remember. Do you know what happened?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “She turned you into…”

  “My, my,” Arrosha interrupted, her unbridled contempt for the group now laid bare. “I return you people back to normal and all of a sudden we’re just a bunch of little chatty Kathies, aren’t we? I don’t think so!”

  “But Arrosha, I just want to know why you’ve turned against us. I just need to know what’s going on!” Ben said, frustrated.

  “You don’t need to know anything!” Arrosha barked.

  “But Arrosha!” he said again.

  “I said, shut up!” At the wave of her arm this time, the entire group was ball-gagged. Muffled cries were the only sounds to escape their gags.

  “You didn’t have to do that!” I cried.

  “They were getting on my nerves.”

  “I was talking as much as they were. Why did you gag them and not me?” As soon as the words left my lips, I regretted having said them.

  “Because, my dear,” she cooed sadistically, “I want to be able to hear you scream.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  “You see, child,” she said as Max brought the instrument table nearer to me, “I want you to become intimately familiar with the cause of your screams. I’ve imbued Max very well with the use of these implements and by now I’m sure he’s quite adept. I want you to experience the full range and levels of pain that they can inflict in the hands of someone that’s been implanted with that skill as well as Max has been, before I can turn my little pets that live in the floor upon you.”

  “You sick bitch!” I spat at her. There was no longer any reason to hold back, for she had made up her mind that this was to be my fate and nothing I could do at this point would change it.

  “Whatever,” she replied. “Do you recall that I said not all tortures are physical? Ah, I see you do. Before we start on your flesh, let’s start with your mind.”

  She walked over to the gagged and bound remaining members of her group and sniffed them each.

  “They’re almost ready. Good. Ashley, do you remember the first young man that I brought in here?”

  “How could I forget?” I said defiantly.

  “His death wasn’t very pretty, was it? That’s not a nice way to go, is it?”

  “What do you think?”

  “No, no, it isn’t. I suppose I should feel badly for the poor creatures for whom that is their fate. I should, but I don’t. The sad fact is that it’s exactly the way your friends here will die.”

  “You witch. You gave Geoffrey a better death than that.”

  A light went on in her eyes and she brightened. “Geoffrey! Yes, why, I almost completely forgot about Geoffrey! Thank you for reminding me. The others aren’t quite ready to be consumed yet anyway and tending to Geoffrey will give me something to do in the interim besides having to talk to you.”

  When she waved her hand this time, Geoffrey appeared. He was lying down, still dressed in the same filthy clothes, still in the same sad shape as he was when last I saw him. Miraculously, he had not yet died.

  Arrosha looked at him with utter contempt. She waved her hand one more time and while he was still lying upon the floor, he was now back in the clean clothes that he’d been wearing before our visit to the alley. He was young and healthy again, as beautiful as I’d ever seen him, as if his awful transformation had never happened.

  Like a drowning man, he gulped a lungful of air before pushing himself up to lean upon his elbow. Then he examined his reflection in the highly polished floor’s mirror-like surface, feeling his face, hair and neck to make sure their appearance matched what he was feeling.

  “Arrosha!” he exclaimed excitedly as, ecstatic with his findings, he bounded to his feet with joy. “You have saved me! You have restored me! Thank you! Thank you! How may I ever thank you?”

  “So tell me, Geoffrey,” she said, ice in her voice, “Do you think that this is what you deserve for betraying my plans? For betraying me?”

  “I’m sorry, Arrosha, I’m so, so sorry,” he pled with her.

  “Yes, you are, Geoffrey,” she replied. “You are sorry. You’re a very sorry excuse for a human being.”

  “I will never do anything like that again, Arrosha.”

  “No, you won’t Geoffrey.”

  “I promise, Arrosha, I promise.”

  “You promised me your loyalty once before and yet you betrayed me.”

  “I’m so sorry, Arrosha, it will never happen again, I swear it, I swear it. Please, please forgive me.”

  “Go to your knees, Geoffrey. Bow before me to swear it.”

  He ran up to her and fell at her feet, tears streaming down his face. He clasped his hands into a prayerful position and began to beg, “Arrosha, my Goddess, my Goddess. I am so heartily sorry that I betrayed you. It will never happen again, I promise you. Please save me from my own weaknesses, my own pride. Please, please forgive me.

  “I’ve learned my lesson, Arrosha. I’ll never give you reason to be unhappy with me ever again. I’ll never give you reason to doubt me. Thank you, my Goddess, for forgiving me.”

  She said nothing. She simply stood there, immobile, expressionless. Geoffrey again stood up, still elated, looked into her eyes and repeated, “Thank you for saving me, for restoring me, my good, kind, forgiving Goddess.”

  She walked away from him silently, turned and spoke to him in a cold, hard tone.

  “I never said that I forgive you, Geoffrey.”

  He was utterly confused. “Wha…?” he began to say, but before he could finish the word, she waved her hand at him one more time and again he began to change in an instant.

  “Face it, Geoffrey, you are such a snake. No, on second thought, you’re not even a snake. You’re just a cockroach.”

  As had happened with Ben, his clothes began to melt off. As he grew thicker and his form became rounder, less defined, he rolled over upon his belly and his arms and legs disappeared, his skin growing dark, hard and shiny. Insect legs sprouted from his abdomen. The once beautiful, proud and arrogant Geoffrey had been turned into a large, fat cockroach, horror written upon the face of his still-human head. He tried to speak to her, but the sounds that came out of him were grotesque and imperceptible.

  “What’s that you say, Geoffrey?” She said as she leaned in. “Ah, ‘why?’ You’re asking me why. Because, Geoffrey, if you want forgiveness, go find yourself another deity. I’m not the god that saves. I’m not the god that forgives.”

  At this point, Geoffrey’s head began to change as well, becoming a forward-le
aning cockroach’s head, antennae sprouting from it, mandibles replacing the mouth that once condemned me. He began to shrink rapidly, growing smaller and smaller until he was the size of a large tree-roach.

  Arrosha walked over to the cockroach, looked down at it with disgust and said to it. “I never forget, Geoffrey. And I never forgive. You should have known that and now you do.”

  She lifted her sandaled foot, placed it over the roach, hesitating a bit to savor the moment. Geoffrey used that moment to try to escape, scurrying about wildly and rapidly.

  “You’re fast, Geoffrey, I’ll give you that,” Arrosha said. “But now that I think about it a little bit longer, Geoffrey, you’ve always been much more of a worm.”

  As soon as she’d said these words, Geoffrey’s shape shifted again until he was turned into a large, fat worm. He stopped scurrying, able now only to wriggle.

  “Step on him, Max, kill him for me,” she said.

  “What?” Max said. I didn’t know if the thought was disgusting to him or if he’d mentally been blocking out the scene in front of him.

  “You heard, me Max, step on him, kill him. I’d do it myself but I don’t want to get the bottom of my shoes dirty.”

  In the echoing room, I could hear the squish of the worm that was once Geoffrey as it was being crushed. While Max finished scraping the residue of Geoffrey’s worm insides from the bottom of his shoe, Arrosha continued to stare at that spot for a few moments.

  “Children,” she said, more to herself than to me, “can be so terribly disappointing at times.”

  Then, returning her attention to me, she clapped her hands once and said, “Now it’s everybody else’s turn to die. I think I’ll start with Kenny and Antonio, move to Timothy and Ricky, and then on to Robert, Illea and for the grand finale, Ben. Yes, that’s a good order, saving those you were closest to for last. And speaking of order, let’s see, where shall I put you, Ashley, once I’m finished with you?”

  She pointed to the walls, which lit up on each side as if she had just turned a spotlight on them. The high, curved arched ceiling revealed three figures imbedded within, one on one side of Edmond’s stasis chamber, two on the other. I recognized them immediately. Virginia was to Edmond’s right, while Marcus and Zachary were buried to his left. As had the figures in the hallway, they were now working futilely to escape the walls in which they were trapped.