She leaned forward.
Dark blood poured from her mouth, splashing against her legs and feet. She felt more blood running down her back, getting inside her pants. She coughed twice, thinking she’d fall over. Wasn’t getting enough air. Pain in her chest was intense, so intense. It felt different than the pain that had burned her ankle. That pain was extreme (of course) but it wasn’t attached to her breathing, her heart, her life. She never thought the pain in her ankle would kill her. But this pain––this pain was different. It would kill her. In fact, it seemed to be happening already. She felt like she was dying––with good reason. Those little black spots were the lights going out.
Christmas bells rang and Stephenie managed to look up. She watched Carrie release one last scream before she was hauled inside the restaurant, kicking her feet and waving her arms.
The restaurant door closed.
Stephenie staggered a few feet and fell on one knee. One knee became two. Hands dropped to the ground. Now she was crawling towards the restaurant. More blood ran from her mouth. Her stomach cramped and her face hit the dirt. She pushed onto her hands and knees, crawled several more feet, caught a glimpse of the wooden patio swing and made her way to it. Using the swing for leverage, she pulled herself into a standing position. The little black dots in her eyes faded, becoming big white dots. It didn’t seem like a step in the right direction. It seemed like different shades of dying. She staggered to the restaurant door and placed her hand on her chest. The tip of the knife was sticking through her skin.
Eyes watered more.
The world faded completely, but only briefly; she was standing. Just. She grabbed the door and pulled it open. Christmas bells rang as she tumbled inside, wondering what she was going to do next.
5
Craig Smyth said, “There she is! Grab her!”
Stephenie looked up in a daze. She was expecting to see a zombie but didn’t. Craig looked the same as he had a few minutes ago, like a normal guy wearing a nice white shirt, only now he wasn’t acting nervous; he was showing his true colors.
Craig grabbed Stephenie by one arm. Lee Courtney swooped in and grabbed her by the other. They dragged her towards the counter and Stephenie felt her knees letting go. She wasn’t fighting them. She couldn’t; didn’t have the strength.
Karen Peel stepped behind the trio. She slapped a hand on the butcher knife handle that was embedded in Stephenie’s back and yanked the blade from her body.
Pain came first, followed by a fresh batch of blood. It boiled from Stephenie’s back, splashing on the floor in three separate piles. She coughed twice quickly and her heart started bumping around inside her chest in a way she had never felt before. It was racing and stopping, racing and stopping. The whites spots in her eyes became black spots once again and for a moment she faded into oblivion. When her eyes reopened, she was lying on the countertop, facing the ceiling, watching the blades of the ceiling fan spin around in a slow moving circle.
She tilted her head left; she tilted her head right.
There were people standing all around her: Susan Trigg, Angela Mezzo, Craig Smyth, Jennifer Boyle, David Gayle, Lee Courtney, Alan Mezzo, Karen Peel… there might have been more, she couldn’t tell. Her vision was coming and going.
She said, “Where’s Carrie?”
“Oh, don’t worry Stephenie,” Alan Mezzo said. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head, we’ve taken good care of her.”
Stephenie coughed out, “What have you done?”
Craig Smyth stuck his face above Stephenie’s line of vision, grinning psychotically. “You shouldn’t worry about her, oh no. You see… it’s not about what we’ve done. It’s about what we’re about to do.”
“Absolutely,” Lee Courtney said, licking his lips. “Let’s look to the future, not the past.”
“The future,” Karen Peel agreed, tapping her pencil against her chin. “It’s all about the future. Lets start with the arms, shall we?”
Jennifer Boyle lifted an electric carving knife and grinned. The carving knife had a white handle and two saw-like blades attached to each other. They were eight inches long and would move back and forth when powered. Jennifer said, “Oh yes. The arms! Lets start with the arms! I love that idea. It sounds perfect; don’t you think, Stephenie? Starting with the arms?”
Stephenie looked at Jennifer, registering that fact that the girl had been sitting behind the counter, short one arm, not long ago. For some reason it struck Stephenie as ironic that Jennifer wanted to start with the arms. With blood invading her mouth, she said, “I don’t know what you mean. I don’t understand what you want!”
“You’re a smart lady,” Alan said, nodding his head with an excited looking grin. “I think you’ll figure it out.”
Stephenie looked at the carving knife, just as Jennifer clicked it on.
The knife buzzed, reminding Stephenie of the electric hedge-clippers Hal had purchased the summer before last.
When powered, the knife made a sound not completely unlike an electric razor. And when Jennifer brought the blade down, towards Stephenie’s elbow, she realized for the first time what they were planning on doing.
Stephenie said, “Don’t!”
“But why not?” Karen Peel said, before the blade touched the skin. “This is fun! Don’t you think?” Karen raised the knife that had been embedded in Stephenie’s back and licked the blood off the blade, mockingly.
“I think it’s fun,” Lee agreed. “Do you think it’s fun?”
Craig nodded, “Oh yes! I think it’s fun too! In fact, this is one of my favorite things to do!”
Jennifer said, “Are you ready Stephenie?”
Stephenie said, “No…” She tried to pull away, but couldn’t do it. They were securing her tightly.
“Great! Here we go!” Jennifer brought the oscillating blades down hard. They connected with Stephenie’s flesh.
Blood splashed into the air and Stephenie heard herself screaming. Hot, melting misery tore threw her body. Her quirky heart rate increased; she tasted acid in her mouth and thought she might be sick. The room spun. Her vision blurred more now than before and the black dots in front of her eyes grew larger and larger. She convulsed. She heard the metal blades grinding against her bone. She saw a line of blood shoot into the air. Her vision faltered. Karen Peel lifted the butcher knife up, flashed it in front of Stephenie’s face and put the blade to Stephenie’s throat. Stephenie felt the blade cutting her open and the air rushing into her neck. Her vision faded. It was gone. Someone laughed. Somebody said, “Let me try.” She felt her body getting pushed into a different position, like she was a slab of meat and they were a pack of butchers. Chewing noises came; sound washed away, concern dissipated, pain dulled…
Nothing.
Nothing more.
CHAPTER NINE:
Different Principles
1
Stephenie opened her eyes; she stretched her shoulders and back. She couldn’t see anything; everything was dark. She wondered where she was and how she arrived, because whatever she was laying on, it wasn’t her bed. It felt hard, like a floor, like a rock. But why would she be laying on something like that?
The palms of her hands found her eyelids. She rubbed them like she was coming out of a deep sleep. When she pulled her hands away, there was no light. Everything was dark, beyond dark. There were no shapes, no shades of darkness and no tints of grey. The term pitch black seemed appropriate, and for a moment she wondered if she was dead.
But why would I be dead? she thought.
What’s the last thing I remember?
She remembered driving, stopping for gas; the restaurant…
Stephenie’s eyes blasted open (not that it changed anything; it was still blacker than a pot of coffee in this strange new place), and she pushed herself to her elbows, mumbling, “What is this?”
She couldn’t remember the last thing that happened, not right away. There were too many things to consider and they all came junking in
to her mind at once––not as complete thoughts, but as fragmented images. She recalled zombies, Carrie, her grandpa being executed at the gallows pole. She remembered her wounded ankle, the white hallway with the endless amount of doors, getting shot by a pair of creepy children and being chased by a wolf.
But did that all really happen?
She wanted to think the answer was ‘no’ but she didn’t.
Stephenie took several deep, stabilizing breaths as she wrapped her head around her predicament. Okay, she thought. Okay, okay, okay. Assuming this isn’t some crazy, fucked-up hallucination, what’s the last thing that happened? How did I get here?
Stephenie felt something the size of saltshaker scuttling across her arm and she sat up straight. The thing, which felt light, fuzzy, and quite possibly loaded with legs, stopped scurrying and gripped her skin. She swatted it away.
It fluttered.
Only then did she become slightly in-tune with her surroundings.
She heard things moving around, low grumbles, and tiny squeaks. She heard something sliding from one place to another. She heard something making a fittt-fittt-fittt sound.
She remembered the rats, and the way they crawled across her body by the hundreds.
Once again, she wondered where she was.
Thinking she had returned to the tunnel of the rats, she reached a hand above her head. There was no ceiling there. She waved her hand left and right. There was nothing around her, no walls anyhow.
This wasn’t the tunnel. So, where was she?
Outside?
Looking up, there was nothing that resembled a sky. Just darkness. And the air, she now realized, was unmoving. There was no draft or breeze, no airflow of any kind. The air was warm and still. Dirty. Stale. And there was a smell. Oh God, the fact that she overlooked it before was a phenomenon. The air smelled awful. Not like rotting meat, but like worms, like damp fabric and reptiles, like animal fur and rodent shit, like earth and stagnant water, all mixed together in a bucket of mule piss.
Something lively landed on her face and she swatted it away. It was a bug of some kind––more June bug than butterfly. Perhaps it was a dragonfly or a moth.
Now the memories came––
She had entered a room, and unexpectedly found herself in a time before the nightmare began.
She remembered the parking lot.
She remembered Carrie going inside the restaurant, alone.
Stephenie tried to stop her. But failed. The people inside the restaurant weren’t dead; they were alive, seemed normal. She left the restaurant with Carrie, taking her by the hand. The gas attendant came, he pumped gas and…
Stephenie’s mouth opened.
She gripped the sides of her body, searching for the knife in her back. There wasn’t one. The knife was gone; the wound was gone too.
“What happened?” she said.
She remembered getting dragged into the restaurant…
No wait! That wasn’t right. She didn’t get dragged into the restaurant. Carrie did. And she crawled in after, on her hands and knees, bleeding and dying, trying to defend her daughter. But the people inside the building attacked her. They pulled out an electric knife. Her arm was getting––
Stephenie grabbed both elbows with her hands. She still had two arms, still had both hands too. The last thing she remembered was losing an arm. And darkness…
That’s because I died, she thought. And you can’t die here.
Once you die, you start over…
She felt something crawl over her fingers that was big enough to wear boots; felt like a tarantula.
She released a little squeal. “I’m surrounded by bugs,” she said.
Just like that, she felt them on her body. Bugs were crawling on her legs, back, and neck. They were everywhere.
Stephenie flinched twice and scrambled to her knees. She swatted insects and God-only-knows what else from her clothing. She shook her head back and forth like a dog at the beach, lost her balance and dropped a hand onto the floor. It landed on something that squished and popped. She pulled her hand away and forced herself to her feet. Once she was standing, she rubbed her arms and legs with her hands, knocking dozens of creepy-crawlies away. Oh shit, she was covered in bugs: big ones, wet ones, long ones, hairy ones, bugs with dozens of legs, bugs with wings, bugs with antennae longer than her fingers, bugs with sharp mandibles and black, bugling, obsidian eyes.
Something slithered across her throat.
Something crept into her pants.
Bugs the size of grapes clung to her hair, pinching her skin, nipping at her body. Her lips parted and she shrieked. Something flew into her mouth and fluttered against her tongue. She bit down. Now she was spitting. Now she was kicking. Now she was dancing around in a circle like a cracked-out hippie at a rave, high on too many uppers and not enough downers.
She wanted the bugs off.
She needed them off.
“Oh yuck!” she screamed, but that barely scratched the surface of her thinking. This was awful!
She spit twice more, flapped her shirt around and felt something clinging to her left breast, her nipple. She knocked it away and rubbed her hands across her thighs, chest and ass. Then she wedged her pinkies into her ears. One ear was empty. The other wasn’t. It had a yellow-back, orb weaver spider in it.
Squishing the spider into paste, she released another squeal. The sound of the spider mashing into her skin was loud and sickening. She cleaned her ear the best she could, and when she was finished she heard something that was not bugs, something that rattled and hissed.
She only knew one creature in the whole world that sounded that way.
A rattlesnake.
Stephenie stepped away from the rattling sound, cringing when things crunched beneath her shoes.
“Oh crap,” she said.
A heavy pair of wings flapped in front of her face. At first she thought the wings belonged to a butterfly. But when she knocked the mammal with the back of her hand, she knew that it wasn’t a butterfly, wasn’t a bird either. It was a bat––heavy and woolly and nothing at all like a bird or an insect.
She took another step away from the rattle, followed by two more.
But what could she do?
It was dark, very dark. She couldn’t see anything. Imagining a nest of rattlesnakes in the next place she stepped was easy. She wanted to run, but forced herself not to. She forced herself to stay calm, stay strong. Running in the dark was a bad idea. She needed light. If she had light, she could run from this place, try to find somewhere to hide, somewhere to go. But she didn’t have light. She didn’t have anything.
She thought about the flashlight.
No, strike that. Flashlights.
Blair gave her one, and there was another on the shelf in the restaurant storage room. Hell, she probably had one rolling around inside the trunk of her car too. Lot of good it was doing her now, though. She didn’t even have a lighter, or matches.
Or did she?
2
Stephenie checked her pockets. She had a small amount of pocket-change and a book of matches.
Perfect, she thought.
But this wasn’t perfect. This was the opposite of perfect, wasn’t it? Calling this situation perfect was like going over Niagara Falls in a canoe and being happy you brought a towel.
She opened the pack, pulled a match free and lit it.
For a second, the match was bright enough for her to see two feet of nothing in every direction. Then the flame died down and all she saw was the top half of her hand. She said, “Uh,” bringing the match near her knees. The flame flickered. A bug swooped past the flame and the match went out.
This isn’t going to work, she thought.
She lit another match. Same thing: bright for a small amount of time then the flame diminished and became damn near useless. This flame lasted a bit longer though, and she worked the match a little better, getting the maximum amount of light she could. Once the flame crept too close to her
fingers she let the match fall. Using her fingers she counted matches in the dark. She had seven. Seven matches weren’t going to do much unless she found something to burn, but what?
The matchbook. Okay, yes, she had that.
What else?
She checked her pockets again. Nothing. She had nothing else.
She put a hand to her chest and knocked a bug away. She considered burning an article of clothing but quickly dismissed the idea.
A loud rattling sound swelled from the darkness. She moved away from the sound and lit another match. With the flame burning, the rattling came to a halt. She took another step and bumped into something solid. The object was waist high. She brought the match down a few inches to heighten her visuals. She could see a shape, almost looked like a table. Moving the flame left and right, she could see that the object was four feet by two and a half feet, give or take a little. The top of the table was flat, but the sides were cut at strange angles. It almost looked like an old fashioned… coffin.
A child’s coffin…
The match flickered and went out.
Stephenie snagged another match. She tried to light it but the match wouldn’t ignite. She tried again, and again. Still wasn’t working. She tried twice more without any luck. At this point she figured she rubbed all of the phosphorus off the matchstick, which she had. She tossed the match on the ground and heard another rattlesnake shaking its tail. She tried a new match. It ignited, and something fluttered past her face and landed in her hair. She shook her head left and right, hoping to rid herself of the intruder.
Yes, yes––now she could see it. The object in front of her was a coffin. It didn’t look modern; it didn’t have a rounded top and a glossy finish. It was a flattop, wood grain with no polish. But what was a coffin doing here?
Into Hell Page 20