Alex and The Gruff (A Tale of Horror)

by C. Sean McGee

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Alex walked down the hallway towards room seven. The Man was gone, but his mess was still there. There were two arms and two legs, a mangled torso and a severed head clumped together on the floor. They almost looked like a person, except for the spaces that couldn’t join them together.

  Alex looked inside the chest that The Man had dragged in. It was full of human remains. Most of it, in fact nearly all of it belonged to children. Small arms and small legs and tiny little torsos, but their heads were somewhere else; they weren’t with the rest of their bodies.

  Alex took the large serrated knife that lying in a pool of blood on the floor. He held it up to his face then pressed his finger on the edge of the blade. The blood that pooled quickly smudged and ran down his finger and onto his hand. Alex watched the trickle of blood run along the side of his hand, down past the line of his thumb onto his wrist and then down the inside of his arm to the bend in his elbow.

  It felt cool and ticklish.

  He slipped along the room and into the hallway. His feet were slithered with dark red blood. He looked at the far wall and he smiled. He had never really done something like this before, but it was something he had always wanted to do.

  He put his arms out wide and he lowered his left knee and he heavied his back foot and then he ran. He ran so fast and the hallway was long that he could do just that. He shouted with glee as he threw his left leg straight and his body slid along the floor and as it did, he closed his eyes and imagined himself sliding through the open galaxy, closer to his sun than he had ever been before. He could feel her warming his skin. He could feel her lighting his path. And he could hear her heavenly voice telling him to do what must be done.

  Alex turned at room one. The door was closed, but he could hear whimpering coming from inside. He held the knife up to his sight. He could see his own reflection. If he were to be scared of anything right now, it would be the look he had just given himself.

  He turned the handle and the door creaked as it opened wide. The lights were off and it was dark, but it wasn’t so dark that Alex couldn’t see The Man cowering in the corner of the room.

  Alex locked the door.

  It turned quietly and clicked into place.