by Alan Spencer
Stan raised his Beretta. "You stay the hell away from me. What is this? Tell me it's a joke. Please, God, say something sane."
Something animal sprang into the pizza guy's face. "It's no joke. Sheckler's going to pay. Tonight, it's not his party. It's ours."
The pizza man snuck back into the shadows after his bit of dialogue.
He didn't feel so powerful anymore with his gun. He sensed others in the shadows surrounding the mansion. He caught a figure with a pumpkin on their head. Their eyes seemed to light up when Stan made eye contact, or was that his imagination?
More movement and shuffling about the mansion raised the heckles on his neck.
The music from inside suddenly turned off.
Wild screams followed.
Stan rushed inside the mansion. Finding the first door, he threw it open and locked it behind him. He stepped on a half-head. His foot squished the brains from the skull out the man's ear hole and full screaming mouth.
Goddamn!
He stifled his gorge once again.
The floor was a butcher's block of assorted pieces tossed aside from a great slaughter. Every tile was covered in gleaming entrails. On the counter was a female guest's head. Her eyes were stuffed with French fries. The oven was bulging open with severed arms and legs that cooked and sizzled for some sick fuck to eat.
He rushed out of the kitchen and stopped at the dining area. The room was another slaughter party. One of the tables had five persons sitting in their seats. Their heads were decapitated and placed on the plates in front of them. Their hands were posed as if to dig their fork and knives into their own severed heads. And the buffet tables...Oh God, he thought, and finally threw up again, and again, and again until there was nothing left to purge.
Every instinct told him to bolt away as fast as he could. He was considering a mad dash in the opposite direction of the mansion when a woman came charging right for him. He about shot her in the chest when he realized who it was and tried to comfort her. It seemed everything that had happened between them tonight vanished in the aftermath of this horror.
Minx hugged herself against him. She was covered in blood. Stan didn't tell her he was covering her in red. He only wanted to calm her down.
"Are you okay? Did they get you? You have any idea what's going on?"
"No idea. These people, they came out of nowhere. They're...they're crazy. They killed everybody, I think. I don't know. Maybe it's just us alive. I'm okay, I think. I slipped in a puddle of blood. It's not mine. We have to get out of here. I mean right now."
He saw shadows linger at many of the windows. They were out there, waiting for their chance to attack. He wasn't sure what to do, except to do his best not to go insane with fear.
Dominic refused to listen to the rising of screams throughout the mansion and do nothing. He guided Trudy towards the door. "They need our help. We have to go through that door. I know that's where the killer went, but we don't have a choice."
Trudy was shaking. She couldn't talk. He wasn't sure what to do but to ask her to stay behind him while he opened the only door out of this strange room. The woman in the leather jacket could be right behind it, or she could be long gone. The risk was theirs.
He clutched the door knob with one hand, and the butterfly knife in the other. "I'm counting to three. On three. One. Two. Three."
When the door swung open, a light bulb came on. A form lunged out at them. Dominic slashed the butterfly knife at the figure. "Get away from us, you sick bitch!"
She pulled him back. "Stop. It's not a person."
He stabbed two more times before realizing it wasn't blood coming out of the person's chest. It was pieces of ripped up newspaper.
"Another Sheckler dummy."
The fake Sheckler hung from ropes connected to the ceiling. A strange pulley system had been created for the prank. The light bulb made it clear they were heading down a set of wooden stairs. They were newly built, bare wood. This was meant to be behind-the-scenes. Someone was running around and pulling the pranks, locking doors, and planting Sheckler dummies for their own sick enjoyment.
"Careful." Dominic helped her down the last half of the stairs. They arrived at another basement. There was blood prints where the woman had fled. There were multiple doors around them. According to the concrete floor, the psycho woman had chosen the closest door to escape.
He decided to lock that door. "In case she comes back, she can't get in."
"But what about the other doors?"
The two other doors he locked.
Dominic scanned the room. There wasn't much here except in the corner. It was a giant wooden box the size of a hot tub. Something was perched on the edge of it dripping blood. The person was coughing and trying to catch their breath.
"Who it that over there? Tell us who you are? I'm not messing around."
His voice sounded more scared than authoritative.
The person was bent over the side dripping blood onto the floor. The mystery figure raised their hand up. "Please. I don't know what's happening. I got the wind knocked out of me. Upstairs, somebody tried to kill me."
"Wait? Is that you, Putrid?"
They both ran to help Putrid out of the tub. The wooden box was a tub filled almost to the brim with fake blood. Putrid kept trying to wipe the red out of his eyes and only got more on his face as the sticky stuff dripped down from his head. Dominic searched the area and located a table with tools and a pile of rags. Putrid was grateful for the rag and used it to wipe his face and head clean.
"What happened to you?" Trudy asked. "Where's Minx?"
Putrid pointed at the metal slide coming down from the ceiling. "I don't know. We were together in one of the rooms, and I used the bathroom, and somebody came after me with a pair of scissors. Then the floor opens up, I fall on my ass, and I end up in the blood tank. Then I hear all the screaming from upstairs. What is going on around here?"
"People are getting killed," Dominic answered. "Why, I don't know. We should focus on getting out of here and calling the police."
"My cell phone doesn't work," Trudy explained. "Somebody's blocking the signal. Maybe if we got far enough from the property, I could call the police."
"Not a bad idea," Dominic said. "First, we have to see if anybody else is alive."
"And get out of this basement, or whatever trap this is," Putrid said. "I'm almost afraid this house is full of psychos."
Dominic remembered what brought them down here in the first place. "Did you see a woman in a leather jacket run through here?"
"I was too busy swimming in blood to notice her. I remember a door slamming. That's it. Then you guys showed up."
Dominic did his best to stay strong.
It helped to keep talking.
"Look. We find out way out of here, we run like hell until you get a cell phone signal. We call the police and let them sort it out. We're not equipped to deal with killers. Come on. Follow me."
He avoided the door with the blood-covered knob. That left two other options. The first door was an empty closet. The second was a different set of stairs.
"I'll go first," Dominic said, keeping his butterfly knife at the ready. "You guys follow me."
When they arrived at the top of the staircase, he threw open the door. Nobody was nearby. He heard two voices across the room speak in hushed tones.
What he saw in the ballroom was hideous. The buffet tables. The dancing area. Dominic stopped studying the massacre when he spotted the dead bartender with shot glasses jammed into his eyes.
Putrid coughed and did his best not to get sick.
Trudy kept her hands at her face, trying to block the odd smells of cooking meat and the iron tang of freshly spilled blood.
Dominic led them towards the two individuals standing in the center of the massacre unsure of what to do with themselves. He saw the gun first. Then Minx slathered from top to bottom in blood.
Putrid caught sight of Minx. "You're alive! Thank God. What happened to
you? Jesus, are you hurt?"
Minx ran over to Putrid for comfort. "I don't know. I heard you in that room. I couldn't get inside. The door to that room came open for whatever reason, and I ran out to get help. I fell in a puddle of blood, and e-everybody's dead. Help me get all the blood off of me."
Dominic pointed at the bar. "I'll help you. Look, behind that bartending station. There's a ton of bottled water."
Putrid insisted he take care of Minx.
Dominic stayed busy sizing up Stan with the Beretta. He would've been worried for their safety if it wasn't for the way Stan kept searching the room for answers and only getting more and more concerned.
"I thought you were escorted off the property."
"I was. I shouldn't have come back. I was so angry. I'm still very pissed at Sheckler. Where is he?"
"Nobody knows."
"He has to be behind this shit," Putrid said, coming back with Minx who was dripping wet with water. She was much less bloody than before. "The guy has lost his mind. Think about it. This evening was a big lie. Sheckler isn't dying. This house was designed by him. It's all him. This is how the old bastard gets his kicks these days. Hollywood fucked him up real good."
Dominic wasn't so sure. "Why would Sheckler show us the secret cameras and tell us about his plans to make future movies? If Sheckler did perpetrate this messed up party, why pay out monies to the people he owed? He had to know he wouldn't get away with it, whether witnesses were left behind or not. This is a group of persons doing this. Even if Sheckler's the ring leader, there's more going on than what we think."
"Maybe you're behind this," Stan accused Dominic. "A little ploy to bolster DVD sales. Not all horror movie fanatics are bad people, sure. Absolutely. But maybe you're the exception."
"You're out of your mind if you think that," Trudy argued. "Dominic wouldn't hurt anybody. Nothing like that is going on from our end of things."
"I agree," Putrid said. "It's a dumb accusation. You're the only one I'd keep my eye on in this group, Stan."
Dominic agreed. "You're the one with a gun in your hand trolling the mansion. You came back to hurt somebody after Sheckler threw you out. Admit it. Why else would you come back?"
Stan didn't deny anything.
"Yes. It's true. I only came back to get what belonged to me. Sheckler promised me half of that collection. Look, none of that matters now. We're neck deep in death. Focus on what matters. I didn't do this. How could I kill all of these people? Weirdoes are out there dressed as Sheckler's movie characters. They're obviously the guilty party."
Dominic knew Stan was many things, but he wasn't behind these deaths. "You didn't kill these people. So what do we do now?"
A door was kicked in from outside. In stepped a man dressed in a black police uniform. He raised a chainsaw with both arms and revved it up. The tool was long enough to cut through the thickest tree.
"Resisting arrest is punishable by immediate dismemberment!"
A woman in a dress and wild hair welded a pair of steel scissors in both hands. She appeared from behind a bar top. She kept snipping the scissors at the air and spouting, "God only wants the tip. I'll cut off the tip, and you'll be cleansed. Praise the lord he lets you keep any of your manhood!"
A jack-o-lantern headed scarecrow with busty swelling cleavage slashed a scythe at the air without saying a word. A Jack the ripper figure stepped out of the shadows clutching two long knives in each hand. He wore a black dress, high BDSM leather boots, and a bra stuffed with double d tits bleeding from the tight brassiere.
"Leave the women. I only want their breasts. The men can go. The bitches stay. Gimme those titties now. The ones I'm wearing have gone ripe, and I can't wear what's melting, now can I?"
A grounds keeper stepped down slowly from upstairs. He was carrying a giant pair of hedge clippers. Slung around the man's body was a belt that held six different decapitated heads. "Your heads are all like weeds that need to be ripped from your bodies. The best part, they'll never grow back!"
A family of four who look like they jumped out of the show Leave it to Beaver were incoming. The mother figure announced, "It's Julie Morgan's birthday next week, and she's still single. All she wanted was a man's heart to put against her own. Let's take it from one of those people over there and give it to her."
A man in a lab coat with a long ponytail and an exaggerated Beverly Hills yuppie voice spoke up while reading from a clipboard.
"I can give you very good deals on our special Rent-A-Death packages. You pick the way you want to die, I'll give you half off. But if you run away and scream, your package will be totally free. AND WE'LL CHOOSE THE WAY YOU DIE! Ah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah!"
Other threats were entering the mansion from upstairs and through the doors and windows. Everywhere, threats.
Dominic pointed at the dining area. "Through there. Take my knife, Trudy."
"What are you doing?"
"It's okay. I got an idea. Stan, Putrid, grab a chair. Throw them through the window. Then we can make a run for it. It's our only shot."
Fear made it a snap decision for everyone.
Each of them launched a chair into the giant bay window at the back of the dining area. Dominic used another chair to break away the broken edges of glass sticking out of the frame. He helped Trudy, Minx, and then the other two guys out of the window. He was the last to jump outside. Dominic took one look back before landing against the grass. The dining area was brimming full of the living horror villains. The sight of them propelled him that much faster the hell out of there.
Seconds after Dominic landed in the yard, a great round of explosions rocked the night. Rows of limos were lifted up off the ground by giant plumes of flames. The group scattered, dodging the outreaching branches of fire. Dominic had hold of Trudy. He kept telling her to run, run, run. Stan, Putrid, and Minx were right behind them.
"Stay back, or I'll shoot," Stan kept repeating at the darkness of the expansive yard. "I'll shoot you dead. I swear to God I'll do it!"
The group somehow ended up in the backyard. They fled through a courtyard. What they spotted in the swimming pool had them doubling their speed.
Sheckler's wives, Dominic thought. Jesus God, they're burned.
"Try your phone," he demanded Trudy. "Is there a signal?"
"No! Shit. There's nothing. Still jammed."
"Everybody keep moving. It looks like we'll have to go into the woods. I know it's crazy. If we can get away from the signal jammer, we can call somebody. It's not like we can double back. Those people are right on us."
"We're with you," Putrid said. "As long as we're creating distance between them and us, I'm just fine."
"Is that you, Dominic? Putrid? Who else is there?"
Skip Whitley, Sheckler's old special effects guy, Bart Brown, now without that pair of rubber severed hands for a necklace, Hank Baggs, Fracula himself, and John Gerkins, Sheckler's director of photography, were huddled together under a tree with terrified faces.
"Anybody else alive?" Skip asked. "I thought everybody was gone."
"I'm not sure," Dominic said. "Those people are right on our tails. We need to keep moving and make it fast."
The group didn't have to debate the proposition. They could hear movements about the woods. The skirting of feet. Leaves crunching. The pattering of sneaking steps. A few malicious giggles. Their tormentors couldn't hold back their sick glee.
Dominic thought the entire woods was full of the psychopaths, the way the sounds of their joyful stalking repeated around them.
Billy Bob Gohagen, Sheckler's old college roommate, was coming at them with arms flailing for help. "Hey! Don't leave me alone out here with these loonies!"
Two nurses dressed in tight skimpy uniforms with the highest skirts and tightest bosoms raised the heavy duty flame throwers and bathed Billy Bob Gohagen in ball after ball of flames. Burning skin reek tainted the air. He screeched to the song of his burning.
The burning victim raced for a nearby lake. He
collapsed into the water, dousing the flames out. Right when the man came up to the surface wailing in awful pain, a figure in a snorkel and wet suit slashed the man's throat. They both vanished beneath the water in a wild gurgle of bubbles.
"Grab anything you can," Dominic shouted. "A rock. A tree limb. Whatever's around you, use it. These people are for real."
Stan blasted a bullet at the screeching woman in the leather jacket and hoop earrings. The bullet pierced her face. She toppled backwards with her skull case opened. The moonlight caught her dead, mad expression.
Dominic double checked to make sure Trudy still had his butterfly knife.
She did.
He reached down and grabbed a thick tree limb. It was nothing up against a flame thrower, but it was something.
"Run as fast as you can!" Stan repeated. "These people aren't letting up. They'll kill us all. They're maniacs!"
Putrid and Minx were holding each other for comfort. They hadn't searched for a weapon. They were too busy being afraid. The rest of their group had scattered in different directions.
Dominic tried to stop them. "Wait! Stick together!"
The thick bodied Hank Baggs was trucking it fast for a six foot tall three hundred plus pound man. Two kids jumped from a tree and landed on his back. The girl was scalping him with a meat cleaver. The boy was watching in delight, licking his drooling lips.
The fucking Cleaver family, Dominic thought. They're enjoying this.
Stan shot the girl in the back. She writhed for minutes before she died. The boy was racing at Stan with his cleaver when he fired again. The boy was thrown backwards and didn't move. Both kids were dead.
The mother and father stepped out of the shadows. Both of them clutched giant axes now. They weren't pleased their children had been gunned down.
"Why are you people here?" Dominic challenged the "parents". "You're playing characters from a horror movie and slaughtering people? Why? Damn it, what's the point? Did Sheckler put you up to it? Tell me why?"