by Dixon Lee
A few of the rodents in front of the line started inching their way towards him and he could hear those above and below him scuttling around. His breath was held hostage in his throat, and he was terrified of making even the slightest of noises, so as not to set them off. How am I supposed to fend off against such a large amount of them? They’ll tear me up within moments! What would the doctors and nurses think, when they came back into my room and found nothing but a shriveled mess of skin and blood? What would Stephanie think if she managed to escape from Lillian? If I die here and now, then all of her sacrifices will have had been for nothing. Lillian was right, I can’t live with another dead person to my name. I have to find a way, but how…?
That was the looming question, how? How could he kill or even demobilize so many rats, without sustaining injuries himself? I can’t. The truth settled into him like a bomb that was about to explode. His only hope was Stephanie, but wasn’t he also hers?
He was beginning to feel sick to his stomach, and fluid was rising in his throat. He kept swallowing it down, but the taste made the feeling worse and soon enough, he could no longer control the urge to puke. A mixture of acid and blood rained out of his mouth and onto the floor, initiating a sound like drops of water hitting a roof. It wasn’t loud, but it was all the rats needed to leave behind their stillness and charge him with full force. The only thing close enough for him to grab was the doll, Lillian had previously used to torment him. He grasped it by its head and began to wildly swing it in a circle, whacking the rats who got too close, but there were just too many of them to hold off.
A plump one attached itself to his left shoe and bit down hard on it, chewing through the thick material. Another launched itself onto his back and took a large bite from his skin. It was close enough to his ear that he could hear it munching down and swallowing, which almost brought forth another round of throwing up. Almost.
The rats continued pouncing onto him, from all angles. They were crawling up through the floor and dropping down onto his head from the ceiling. It was long after when he finally lost his balance and tumbled down onto the dirty, infested, ground. The rodents wasted no time at all taking their chance to hop onto his weakening body and begin devouring him.
What match was he against such a force? He couldn’t even move. They were walking across his face, making their way down into his clothes, traveling everywhere on him. From the ceiling, you wouldn’t have even been able to tell that there was a man underneath all of the tails and fur.
One of them crawled inside of his mouth, blocking air from entering his lungs. The more he struggled, the more pieces they took out of him. Blood was pouring out around him, seeping down to any lower levels (although he doubted there was any).
His time to live was quickly dwindling down and he knew that he only had mere moments before Lillian would have received her wish. He was seconds away from death.
Chapter 10
Stephanie Clifford
Lillian’s head snapped up to face her, her eyes were filled with seething rage and something else that Stephanie couldn’t quite place.
“I just had the nicest little visit with your dear, Tony,” she smirked.
“What did you do?”
Lillian’s face was smug and almost proud, she obviously found great pleasure in torturing them.
“I didn’t do anything, I sent my pet rats to do it for me. I estimate that he has about… five minutes left to live, and well before that, you wouldn’t want him living anyways. I have seen what they can do to the human body countless times and it never fails to amaze me. Oh well, I guess that you won’t be able to save him, after all. You should have run away, I know that’s what you wanted to do, but no, you had to be the hero. Nobody likes a hero, Stephanie, especially the villain.”
“Five minutes is all I’ll need to end you… bitch,” she growled in return, infuriating her opponent.
“Is that so, little girl? I would love to see you try.”
Lillian curled over in what looked like pain, but as Stephanie soon found out, it was the last few stages in her transformation. Her original form, the one she uses while consuming her victims.
Her skin was pink and blubbery, covered in short frayed hairs. Her face sunk in, while her soulless eyes bulged out. Long rows of teeth emerged from her gums and her nose all but fell off of her face. Her fingernails turned into razors, as did her toes. Worms sprouted from her pores, trying to wiggle free of her grasp. A lone rat wondered out of her open mouth and skidded away from the duo.
Once again, Lillian rose to confront her, although this time it was clear that Lillian was dead, or at least the host body was.
“Do you like what you see?” she hissed, through her snake-like tongue.
“You’re a disgusting freak…”
“Don’t worry, soon I’ll have your lush skin to hide myself behind.”
Stephanie grunted something that she believed resembled a ‘we’ll see’ and moved closer to where the demon-like being awaited her presence. It was stood up on two thin legs and she was unsure how they could support its body weight.
Lillian, for lack of a better name, seemed to be stalling their looming battle, which Stephanie perceived to be out of fear of failure. If I don’t execute my plan now, then there will be no point. Tony will have already been pronounced as dead by the time she decides to start anything, so it’s up to me. What the actual hell am I doing? What if I’m too late or it doesn’t work? Then it would all of been for nothing. She looked over at the monster, meeting its eyes and holding its gaze. If what I have in mind actually works, then I’m going to be in so much pain. She’ll draw it out, I know she will. I can still leave… She sighed and took another step forward. No, I can’t. Tony needs me and I’m not going to let him die.
“We’re doing this right now, you and I, so get up off your fat ass and come at me you bastard.”
Any fear that she had sensed in Lillian left, and she stood up on her two legs (at the full height she was easily twelve feet tall, so she hit the roof with ease) and took a step towards the smaller girl who hid her quivering well. Stephanie had to crane her neck to even see her face, but she had anticipated this and had found a weakness in the others’ build.
She backed up slowly, stopping once she had run into the cabinet behind her and reached her hands back, grabbing hold to something sharp and metallic. After it was held firmly in her grasp, she moved forward once more and halted at the base of Lillian’s legs.
“Are you still down there tiny pest?” she asked, voice echoing from above.
“What does this tell you?” Stephanie screamed back, slicing the knife she had been holding through the beast’s two legs, chopping them off evenly.
It let out a shrill shriek as it fell to the ground with a crashing boom, shaking the entire building. Stephanie had to jump to escape the falling body, and she did so but hardly got far enough out of the way. She was wise enough to know that it was far from over, but at least she had shrunk it to her size, making it a more even match. This, she believed, would make the process pass by quicker with less fun and games from her opposing side. In short, she wanted what was about to happen to be as quick and painless and it could be.
Stephanie was pulled from her thoughts by the demon in front of her struggling to stand up. Feet were beginning to grow from the stubs of its legs, and it was once again standing in almost no time at all. Good.
“Did you really think for a second that it would be that easy? You’re in for a rude awakening.”
Its voice was smooth, much like the calm before the storm, of which she hoped was brewing inside of it.
“Do you want to know what I plan on doing to you?” the talking corpse asked, face gleaming with something indescribable.
“No, I want you to get over here and show me.”
She prayed that her words and body were enough temptation to lure the creature over to her, and to her astonishment - it worked. The demon tumbled and rolled itself to where she had
placed herself - the two were now touching noses and she could smell its breath (it most closely resembled that of a cross between a rotting skeleton and a flesh-eating animal, which she supposed it was both).
“I’m going to open your pretty little mouth and drip myself inside of you. Then I’m going to remove those clothes from your body so that I can get a better view of you. Since I can already tell what a beauty you are from the outside, I’ll want to know if you look the same on the inside, so I’ll have to split you open and check. Then I’ll… well, I guess you’ll have to wait to figure out what I’ll do to you then.”
Stephanie spits into its face and it slurped up her saliva, before trapping her in its embrace. She tried to struggle free, but it was of no use, it planned to deliver on its word.
The demon slammed her into the ground, then it climbed over the top of her. Using two of its blades, it separated her lips and allowed its long tongue to curve in between them and slip down into her throat. She could feel its black goo dripping into her lungs and it kept itself inserted inside of her until she began to choke. Step number one of its master plan was marked finished in her head.
Once it was good and satisfied, it moved down to where her sundress hung off of her shoulders. Ripping it off her was an easy task, and before she even knew what was happening, she was lying there naked. It ran its fingers over her exposed body gently, taking care not to break the skin just yet. The creature paid special attention to her breasts and it leaned over to lick them. She didn’t squirm or even try to protest it, she knew that her stillness would cause her suffering to be finished much more quickly. It sucked on her nipples a few moments longer before preparing itself for stage three, marking the end of step number two.
It raised one of its long finger-like spears above her naked torso, then brought it down cutting her open just like it had promised. She let out a scream off pain but was quickly shushed when it became too much for her mind to process. The monster took hold of her skin where she had been slit and turned it inside-out so that it could truly view at what the inside of her torso looked like. She was close to passing out, but Lillian kept her awake. Step number three had finally been completed and now only one remained, the unknown.
Chapter 11
Tony Preciado
The rats crawled down into his throat, making their way into his stomach. He could feel them moving around inside of him - it truly was the oddest sensation he had ever been unfortunate enough to experience. Every second brought forth hundreds of new bite marks being left behind, the result of rodents enjoying their human buffet. His mouth foamed up at its edges and blood trickled out of his broken nose.
At first, he had tried to fight against the current but eventually, he had no choice but to come to it. Every inch of his body was shaking from the agony of which they brought forth. Breathing had become a nearly impossible task, as was moving any more than the slight twitch of his fingertips.
As far as he could tell, at least four of his toes had already been bitten off by the rats, but he still sustained all of his fingers. The weather in the attic had dropped to below zero, but the rodents seemed to thrive in it. Tony, on the other hand, found himself freezing to death more and more with each passing second.
Perhaps only a couple of minutes had passed by since the rats began their attack (he wasn’t really sure, there weren’t any clocks, after all), but he was dying. If the cold was going to kill him if his bleeding out didn’t do the job first. He had a feeling, though, that the circumstances which he found himself in would only grow increasingly worse and he wouldn’t be allowed to die until he had suffered an amount deemed enough. So, he lay there, hopeless, praying that Stephanie was safe. Begging for death to come quickly and save him from this godforsaken woman and her damned rats.
He could feel it in his bones that his time was almost up. Just a few more seconds, Tony, and then it’s all over. We can rest soon. The reaper was waiting for him to finally cross over to the other side. The rats had done their job and made him beg like he never had before for death, but he didn’t care. All he could think about was how sweet it would feel to not feel anything at all. With that final thought in his mind and his last wish of safety for his beloved girlfriend, he dozed off into a peaceful slumber.
Chapter 12
Stephanie Clifford
The demon stood over her naked body, while she waited for it to complete the last and final step of her punishment. Blood was pouring out of the long gash in her stomach and her breath kept snagging in her throat.
“Please…” she pleaded with the devil spawn. “Just end it, I give up, you win…”
It let out a roaring laugh, and brought back down its long fingernail to her split open torso and widened the gap. She screeched once more, but Lillian paid her no attention.
“You had asked what I planned to do with you? I plan to wear you, that’s the last step. I’m already inside you now all I’ll have to do is gut you out and put you on just as you would a coat. Then, I’m going to eat your innards. Oh, but don’t worry, you’ll stay alive just long enough for me to slip your skin over mine.”
Already weakened by the loss of blood, she couldn’t find the strength to protest it. All she could do now was watch as the creature began scooping out handfuls of guts and blood from her body (she found it was kind of like cleaning out a pumpkin for carving) and shoveled them into its mouth.
The process was quick, but far from painless. Lillian had been right, she had been awake and alive for every single second of it, somehow she could even feel her organs being chewed on by its massive teeth. This continued until the only part of her remaining, was her bare skin.
The monster licked the insides of her, cleaning out the rest of the blood that had been left behind. After all of this was completed, it picked her up and let her dangle in its arms, like a kite with no wind to carry it.
As soon as it decided it was satisfied with its job, it threw her onto its body (which changed its shape to fit into hers) and let out a chuckle. It then began to stitch her up so that when it looked in a mirror, all there was, was Stephanie.
“I won. I cut you up and I ate you.”
Oh, did you? I’m pretty sure that I won.
“Please enlighten me on how that’s so.”
In the book, it said that any diseases which your host held before death would be passed onto you at an accelerated rate. I had a brain tumor before you so graciously carved me out. I believe that you should be dying at any minute. I win.
“So that’s how the book informed you to beat me, huh? Interesting. If what it said was true then I should die almost the second you die yourself, and I estimate you have about a minute remaining.”
Good… then Tony will hopefully live.
“Yes, but you had to die for the possibility of that happening.”
It’s what you do for somebody you love.
Chapter 13
Tony Preciado
He awoke in a hospital bed with a cop sitting next to him. The officer had introduced himself, but he couldn’t remember what his name had been, the words that followed had been all too distracting.
“Mr. Preciado, I will have some questions for you when you have healed more and are a bit more awake. As of right now, I have some bad news which I have the displeasure of telling you. A couple of days ago, we found the antique shop you visited before your accident on fire. We were able to extinguish it effortlessly, but we found something inside. There was blood smeared all across the floor, but no sign of a body. We later identified it as Miss Stephanie Clifford. We have yet to find her body, but we have to assume she’s dead based on the amount of blood we found. We’re still looking for whoever did this, I’m so sorry…”
She saved me.
He could find the words to say, so he just nodded - or tried to.
“The nurse also wanted me to be the one to tell you about the injuries you’ve sustained; you’re missing a few toes, there are holes bitten out of you, there’s a hole in yo
ur chest, and those are just the ones I can remember. They say it could take years for you to fully heal if you ever even truly do. On the bright side, they say you should able to move out of the bed and maybe even go outside in a couple of weeks.”
He mouthed a silent ‘thank you’ and the officer tipped his hat and left the room. Silent tears streamed down Tony’s face, yet, he was happy to be alive.
He missed her already but he still refused to waste this life she had given back to him. I love you, Stephanie… now and forever.
Chapter 14
Tony Preciado
- One Week Later -
He awoke suddenly, to a silent figure standing in the corner of his room.
“Hello? Who’s there?”
“I missed you so much, I just had to come back to see you… to finish the job,” spoke out a familiar voice.
The figure took two steps forward, into the light from the moon, flooding in through the open window. Who he saw before him brought forth shivers to his spine. Her hands stretched out for him and a rat escaped through her mouth. Blood dripped through her white shirt, falling onto the floor. She took another step forward, confirming who he previously believed it to be.