Into Hell

by James Roy Daley

  The door had a stick of gum attached at eye level. There was an empty wrapper sitting on the floor.

  This was the door she had originally come from, her sanctuary.

  Or was it just pretending to be that way?

  Stephenie tried to open the door, just to see. Because maybe, somehow, her sanctuary would be on the other side, or the parking lot would be on the other side, or something good would be there, right?

  The door was locked.

  “Of course,” she said, with tears forming in her eyes.

  A moment slipped past; she wiped tears away and took a deep breath. Her chin started shaking and her nostrils flared. Her hands turned into fists and her teeth clenched together. Suddenly her heart was racing. Suddenly her knuckles were becoming red and her fists were pounding against the wood. “OF COURSE! YOU BITCH, CHRISTINA… YOU FUCKING BITCH!! I’LL KILL YOU! I SWEAR IT, I WILL!”

  She cursed into the door, hating everything about everything.

  POUND, POUND, POUND. Her fists grew tired and sore.

  She rested her head against the wood for a minute, maybe more, huffing and panting, swallowing back her rage. She looked at the door feeling angry, misled, toyed with, and mistreated. She wondered what she was going to do, where she was going to go. Nothing resembling a solution showed itself. She was alone. In every way that mattered, she was alone. And she didn’t have a clue what she was going to do about it.

  A noise came from behind her; sounded like a growl. Stephenie didn’t want to spin around, oh no. She wanted to slink away and never return. But she did turn around. Slowly. Just in time to watch a door open.

  Her last breath of hope escaped her then, as unlikely as it may seem. Yes, she still had some optimism kicking around inside her thinking; a little piece of her mind actually thought something good might creep through that door. Something good, can you believe it? Isn’t that a laugh riot? Needless to say, she was wrong. Nothing good stepped through the door. In fact, nothing in the same ballpark as ‘good’ stepped through the door. What shuffled through the opening was a living corpse, a zombie––the walking dead.

  Stephenie felt her stomach flip.

  She said, “No, please. No more.”

  The zombie was a man. His face was pale and shiny and tinted green with mold. He had bugs crawling on his skin and worms crawling beneath it. In life he lived less than twenty years; Stephenie could see his youth hiding beneath the decomposed flesh in a way that made her feel sad and empty as well as terrified.

  The zombie wore jeans and a t-shirt. The jeans were tight. The shirt said MAD MAGAZINE at the top, WHAT, ME WORRY? at the bottom, and had a picture of Alfred E. Neuman somewhere in the middle. The zombie’s hair was glued to his head with a thick layer of yeast and mildew. Both of his arms were broken and twisted in ways that reminded Stephenie of pretzels.

  She stepped back.

  Another door opened, followed by another.

  Doors were opening on her left and right. Zombies started slumping their withered and rotting bodies into the hallway. Some were just children. Some were old enough to be pals with Jesse James and Billy the Kid.

  Stephenie saw a woman with no hands, a man with a chunk of metal rammed through his throat, and youngster with his guts swinging from his belly. She saw an Asian man that had been burned to a crisp in a fire and a Spanish lady that had been run over by a bus. She saw a doctor and a cop, dead and rotting but still in uniform. She saw a black man that had been strung up at the gallows pole. (Seeing the man brought back memories, oh yes sir, and Stephenie wasted no time suppressing them.) There were zombies dressed in suits and zombies ready for a day at the beach. There were zombies that looked like thugs and zombies that seemed ready to jump on stage and play guitar in a metal band. There was a naked zombie and a zombie wearing mittens and a toque. There was a group of teenagers that looked like they died in a car accident together. One had a chuck of windshield embedded in his face and neck. She saw a corpse dressed like a baseball player and a corpse dressed like a soldier. The soldier had a hole in his chest big enough for a pigeon to fly through. She saw a mother with no teeth holding a dead baby in her thin, wilted arms. The baby’s cold, lazy eyes shifted. Looking at Stephenie, the baby grinned like it had a secret it wanted to share. And Stephenie, looking at the slimy child-monster, heard herself scream.

  11

  She ran down the hallway, knocking the dead over before they had a chance to descend upon her. Her ankle burned but she didn’t care. She needed to get away. Besides, the pain in her ankle had become such a constant and relentless thing it was becoming a non-issue. She just hoped it wouldn’t give out on her, wouldn’t twist and send her falling on her ass… again. Because it could, sure it could. The damn thing was broken and stabbed and swollen and bleeding all over the place.

  A zombie with long, wormy hair grabbed Stephenie by the shoulder. It grunted, and something that looked like dirt fell from its open mouth in a writhing wad. She punched the creature in the chin. The chin exploded and Stephenie and kept moving. She had to keep moving; she had no choice.

  She dodged and weaved, avoiding what she could.

  A zombie threw an arm around Stephenie’s neck and opened its mouth, attacking. The corpse was so old and putrid that its pants were hanging around its ankles and its shirt was nothing more than ribbons. The corpse had gone beyond worms and bugs. It was in that mummy stage that made Stephenie wonder how the damn thing was able to get around.

  She elbowed it in the stomach.

  The zombie toppled over like a stick of beef jerky.

  Stephenie kept running, merging between zombies like a go-cart on a jam-packed track. She punched a couple, rammed a couple, and poked an old zombie-lady in the eye. Blood, mold, and brains, covered her finger all the way to the knuckle. The zombie-lady howled, spun her old-lady purse in a circle and fell onto her bone-petal ass.

  A zombie that looked like it worked in a fast-food joint––before it took a pair of bullets in the forehead, that is––grabbed Stephenie by the arm. Stephenie tried to pull away but wasn’t fast enough. The corpse gnawed a giant piece from her bicep before Stephenie had a chance to react.

  Blood squirted.

  A flap of skin flopped open.

  Stephenie screamed, grabbing the torn flap with her hand.

  Her eyes blurred. Seeing stars and swirling colors, she thought she might fall over. Blood poured from the wound and down her arm, running across her fingers in a dark river before splashing puddles on the floor.

  A zombie stuck its fingernails into her shoulder, then tore a strip from her back. Stephenie howled again. She felt overwhelmed, like she was drowning in zombies. They were all around her, inundating her. Teeth snapped the air next to her ear. Hands groped her chest. More hands pulled on her hair. She was getting pushed and shoved. She was getting scratched and scraped.

  She swatted a zombie with her elbow––the same zombie that was eating a piece of her arm (mmmm, yum!). Her fingers tightened around her abrasion, concealing her bubbling wound the best she could, but it wasn’t enough. She was bleeding all over the place, and the bite mark wasn’t small. It was huge. It seemed like she had lost enough meat to make a sandwich.

  She tripped; she stumbled. She faltered and cried, wondering if this was the end.

  The zombie chewing on Stephenie’s arm licked its lips, smacking its gums. A zombie with a blonde afro grabbed her by the shirt, and when she pushed the zombie away, her middle finger slid into the creature’s mouth.

  The zombie stumbled and swayed and bit down hard.

  The finger was severed.

  Blood shot from the digit, spraying the zombie in the face before speckling the wall.

  Stephenie screamed again. She pushed the zombie a second time, making it fall onto its back. And when she looked at her hand, her finger was gone. Just gone. All that remained was a nub that reminded her of Carrie. Blood spurted into the air, onto her chin. It was squirting in every direction she faced.

&nb
sp; Stomach churning, she became dizzy. She thought she might fall over.

  A zombie slapped its hand on her face and grabbed her bottom lip.

  She pushed it and the monster fell.

  Then she turned a corner and ran down a hallway, limping and crying as blood poured from several different places. She was leaving the majority of zombies behind. The few that remained seemed slow, uninterested. Perhaps they thought she was one of them. She had that look about her.

  Stephenie turned another corner. And that’s when she came face to face with something terrible. Something she didn’t want to see, something that had her thinking she had gone absolutely mad-crazy-cuckoo-loco.

  Standing a few feet from where she was standing––frightened and confused––was another Stephenie.

  Before this horrific imposter had a chance to say anything, Stephenie, dizzy and bleeding and ready to fall over, said: “Oh my God! Oh my God! This can’t be right! Look at what’s fucking happening!” With the loss of blood, her words slurred like she was drunk. Her hands became fists and she raised them in the air, shaking them like mad, splashing blood where it fell. She punched herself in the head, hoping to snap herself free of the nightmare she was in. When that didn’t work, she spit her gum into the imposter’s face and said, “Now do you understand, huh? Do you? Fuck!” It was all she could think to say.

  Unable to look at her own terrified image another moment she turned and ran off, speeding around the first corner she found.

  The hall she entered was empty, save two children kneeing on the floor in a prayer’s pose. They had their knees down and their hands in front of their faces. Two boys, wearing their Sunday best––dress pants, dress shirt, combed hair, hand-me-down Sunday shoes, clean as a whistle. Looked about eight, no older than ten.

  The boys turned towards Stephenie in unison; they began chanting, “Girly, girly, what you drinkin’? What the hell have you been thinkin’? Cut your throat. Drink your blood. Bury your corpse in graveyard mud! Girly, girly, where you goin’? Took Carrie without you knowin’! Cut her throat. Drank her blood. Buried her corpse in graveyard mud!”

  The children laughed and giggled and made stupid faces that were more disturbing than amusing. Their eyes seemed to be flat, without a trace of sparkle or shine. They disrupted their heavenly façade and reached their hands between their knees with movements that almost seemed syncopated. And when they lifted their hands, Stephenie could see each child was holding a gun, a big one––a gun big enough to take down Bigfoot and Chewbacca together in a single shot.

  They pointed the weapons at Stephenie.

  Stephenie’s mouth popped open as she stepped back. With blood running from her arm, hand, ankle and back, she mumbled, “Wait!”

  They didn’t. Little fingers pulled big triggers; the guns fired.

  Stephenie flinched; blasts shocked her eardrums. One bullet caught her in the stomach. The other caught her in the chest, next to her heart. Guts splashed in all directions, and she tumbled against the wall with two giant holes in her back, smearing the concrete blocks red. Somehow she managed to keep standing. Her mouth opened and closed; her body turned hot all over. She was burning up. Her heart pounded a hiccup beat; her nose started bleeding something that was black. She looked at the children in total shock, eyes wide and wet, hands extended, wondering why, drowning in her internal juices. She tried to say something but couldn’t; couldn’t breathe either. Her lungs felt crushed. Blood bubbled from mouth and boiled from her chest.

  The children laughed again.

  They sang, “Girly, girly, are you dying? Burn in hell with body frying. Cut your throat. Drink you blood. Bury your corpse in graveyard blood!”

  Stephenie’s legs trembled. She watched in horror as the children turned the guns on themselves. She only had time to think about what they were doing; then a second bullet was fired from each weapon. Blood, brains and bone fragments splashed into the air and against the wall as their heads blew apart. The children flopped onto the floor, one after another, quivering and twitching as a river of gore poured from their eyes, nose, ears and temples.

  Stephenie turned, tumbled, grabbed a random doorknob with her mangled hand and twisted the knob. The door opened. She placed her other hand on her chest and felt her body’s heat pouring over it. The bones between her breasts had been pushed into strange shapes; the muscles in her chest contracted. Eyes closed, she toppled from the hallway into the strange new room.

  Gasping.

  She was gasping, she was––

  CHAPTER EIGHT:

  Return to King’s Diner

  1

  ––sitting in her car with her hands resting on the steering wheel. For a moment she didn’t move, perhaps couldn’t move. She felt something resembling shock, but the sensation had come so many times now. How many times can a person be shocked within a single day? Once? Twice? Five times?

  But how could she not be shocked? One moment she was being murdered by a pair of creepy children in a place she believed was hell, the next, she was sitting in her car, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel.

  “Oh God,” she whispered; this was it.

  She found the door to her old life, a way to escape the nightmare. She was outside. Healthy. Safe.

  She lifted her hands and looked at them. Her hands were clean, which is to say she had all ten digits wiggling in front of her eyes and they weren’t covered in blood. They should have been. Oh yes. Blood had been spewing from her severed finger in a hot stream. Not only that, but she had been dying. She knew it. She could tell. She had a bullet in her chest and a bullet in her gut, her body was hot in some places and cold in others, her vision was beginning to fade, parts of her spine was smeared against the wall… that’s what dying is, right? Sure, but it wasn’t happening now. Now she was sitting in her car.

  She looked at her arms. The cuts and bruises were gone, the zombie bite was gone; the rat bites were gone too. She no longer had pain throughout her body. Her ankle…

  Oh shit, she thought, excited and terrified at the same time. What about my ankle?

  She lifted her foot towards her knee, but she knew––oh man, she knew. There was positive news waiting; her ankle was in fine condition. No, not fine condition… great condition! She was good! Her ankle was great! This was amazing!

  This was––

  A moment of panic came, followed by another. She needed to do something important, something that was… what? Uh? Time sensitive, that’s what. And she knew what it was, sure she did. It was, umm… Carrie! Find Carrie!

  No, not find her, because Carrie should be…

  Stephenie looked at the restaurant with her bottom lip between her teeth and her eyebrows raised.

  Carrie was outside, back turned, pulling the restaurant’s front door open with her little hands, straining her tiny muscles, wedging her body through the restaurant doorway.

  Stephenie screamed, “No!”

  She grabbed the car’s door handle and tried to open it. Locked. It was locked and she was yanking on the handle like she didn’t have time to unlock it. But yanking on the handle wasn’t working no matter how many times she tried. And she was trying, that was the worst part somehow. She was trying and trying, yanking on the handle harder and faster as her daughter stepped into the restaurant.

  Stephenie said, “No! No! No!”

  And she yanked on the handle some more.

  Finally she stopped yanking on the door handle and put her hands in the air.

  “What the hell?!” she screamed. Drool dripped down her chin; she didn’t notice. She didn’t know what the problem was, but then she knew. She knew! It was so obvious; she was being stupid. The door was locked; it was fucking locked. All she had to do was unlock the goddamn mother-fuckin’ door and it would open right up. Sure it would. It would open up as easy as pie if she simply unlocked the door. So that’s what she did––with her hands scrambling beside the lock, and around the lock, and over the lock––she found what she was l
ooking for and she unlocked the door. Then she threw the door open and tried to leap out of the car.

  Her seatbelt was on, her goddamn seatbelt.

  Her goddamn mother-fuckin’ ass-licking dick-wagging bitch-slapping time-wasting cock-gobbling fuck, fuck, fucking seatbelt was on.

  Her hands scrambled, both of them, together––like unlocking the seatbelt would be accomplished faster if she tossed eight jittery fingers and two twitching thumbs into the project. But it wasn’t making anything faster. It was slowing her down. Way down. Unlocking a seatbelt had never taken so much time in her life. She screamed, “COME ON!”

  A finger found the button and pushed on the button and the belt was unlocked. It was unlocked and sliding across her lap and the car door was open. She tried to make the seatbelt slide faster by grabbing it and pulling on it.

  And the restaurant door was closing. Oh shit, it was closing!

  And Carrie was… inside.

  The restaurant door clicked shut.

  Stephenie said, “No, oh-no, oh-no, no, no!”

  She threw herself out of the car and started running. Dust clouded the air beneath her feet, which were fine now; her ankle was in great shape. It felt awesome! Her ankle felt FUCKIN’ AWESOME! And even though she was freaking out and in terrible danger her ankle felt so fine she almost smiled.

  Stephenie arrived at the restaurant door. She snagged the handle and pulled the door open, listening to those Christmas bells sing. She crashed through the door, bounced against the doorframe and screamed: “CARRIE!”

  And everyone in the restaurant turned towards her.

  2

  Little Carrie spun around with her eyes wide, her shoulders raised and her teeth clenched together. She said, “What the matter mom? I’ve got to go pee-pee really bad or I’ll make an uh-oh in my pants! You know that! Don’t be mad!”

  Stephenie froze. A bead of sweat rolled along her face next to her ear. Her heart was racing and every pair of eyes in the restaurant was on her, analyzing her, watching her every move. Maybe they thought she lost her mind; maybe they thought she was being over protective. She didn’t know. Didn’t want to know. She just wanted to get the hell out of the restaurant, into the car, and away from the diner. She just wanted her old life back.