Page 10 of Eternity of Horror
I start at the beginning of the hall and walk through, notebook in hand, adding ideas for improvement or what I need to complete my vision for the section. A smile grips my face as I slowly push my way through the corpses, their foul smell filling my nostrils and getting me high on their rotting death. Some bodies have feet dangling from the bottom of their sheets. Some are just torsos and have intestines swaying as you walk by. Small puddles of blood collect underneath the more mutilated ones, providing an extra element of realism to the set.
More screams fire off from the previous room. While building the haunt, I like to introduce the ones I can to their scenes. I let them know that this is, in fact, the place where they’re going to be brutally murdered, so please enjoy these last few moments as best you can. I leave them to scream and cry, piss and shit, claw at themselves and the walls, try to break stuff, get their blood on everything, carve out messages for help with their bare hands until their fingernails go dull or break off. Set dressing can be the biggest and most time-consuming task in a haunt, so when I can, I allow my actors to distress it for me. Providing the more realistic, natural sights, sounds and smells to the scene.
A loud sound of wood breaking draws my attention. It could be a million things I don't have to worry about,but it could also be something I do. I put my notebook down and start to backtrack down the hall, my hand firmly wrapped around the handle of my knife I keep on my belt.
The screaming has turned to sobbing whispers. The moonlight seeps through the dead tree branches and dusts the structure I’ve put together with its light as I make my way around the corner to investigate the source of the sound. One of my victims has pulled their shackles from the wall and is no doubt whispering to the other some promise of coming back to save her. I smile at how much she cares for this stranger and how I know she’s being honest. If I let her leave she absolutely would come back and save everyone she could.
I crouch down as I slink closer to them. Licking my lips, I imagine the adrenaline they must be feeling right now. The hope soaring through the girl who’s pulled herself free from my walls. Her heart is probably pounding, her head filling with all the people she thought she would never see again but now has a chance. I let her have this moment, giving her a few extra seconds to believe she could actually get free and come back with help.
"I will come back for you, I promise. I'll be so quick. I'll be back before he is and set you free. I’m gonna bring the entire fucking police force with me, and they’ll kill this motherfucker. We are going to be ok. I prom…" Her words are replaced by a scream of agony as I swipe my razor-sharp blade across her Achilles tendons. I watchthem roll up under her skin just before her body drops to the ground.
The girl standing and still restrained to the wall screams in unison with the one on the ground.So cute.I take a moment to lean against the opposite wall and revel in the pain and terror oozing out of them. With a happy sigh, I charge the one on the ground, reaching out and wrapping my fist in her hair. With a beastly growl, I drag her away from the one left standing. Her arms flail violently and try to attack. Before she can swipe her dirty claws across my face, I grab one of her arms and press her elbow just above my bent knee. I force her wrist down and snap the joint in half, her arm bending 90 degrees in the wrong direction. She immediately vomits from the pain, coating her chest. I swipe a finger through it, between her breasts, gathering some to have a little taste as I make eye contact with the girl still shackled.
I pull the puke covered girl up until she's sitting between my legs, back to my chest, shaking and choking on her cries and vomit, each fighting for their chance to exit her mouth. My mouth, on the other hand, is pulled into a toothy grin as my fist yanks her hair down, forcing her chin into the air. The girl still chained up watches in horror, my eyes never leaving her.
I pull the blade up to the throat of the girl I'm holding. As she begs me for forgiveness, for life, to stop, I begin swiping my blade slowly side to side across the thin flesh encasing the contents of her neck. The act resembles someone playing a cello. My knife is the bow, and her screams, cries, and gargling death are mysymphony. Playing my beautiful song on her throat as the blade hacks more and more into her body. The girl standing watches in horror, my eyes never leaving her.
I continue to pull back on her hair as I swipe and swipe, her body and mind still alive despite being opened like a Pez dispenser. Blood is now spurting outward, splashing down her own dying corpse.Hack. Hack. Hack. Until there is simply no more tension left, and her head slumps from her shoulders. The red gore bubbles and overflows down her neck as the girl I’m going to let live, for now, stands and watches in absolute horror.
My eyes never leave her.
Chapter 10
Lilith
Ihaven't talked to Osiris in a few days. Only a few short texts here and there since he came over and destroyed me. That's not what has me anxious, though. I have bubble guts over the fact that I confessed to him something that should have gone to my grave with me. I hardly know this man, and after our second time together, where he gave me a thorough and proper fucking, I just spilled my deepest darkest secret. Honestly, I feel like it’s darker than the fact that I get off with the help of some of my flatlined friends who come through my prep room. The more time that passes, the more knotted my stomach becomes. It feels like I drank a gallon of sand before pulling my intestines out to make balloon animals.
My mind is racing with all the possible scenarios of what could happen if I was caught, what I would say tothe police, how I would try to formulate my defense, or if I should just drink some cavity fluid myself and avoid the whole mess. I don’t think O would rat me out, especially after saying he's done some darker stuff. His reaction is the only thing keeping me from having a full-fledged meltdown as I meander about my prep room cleaning and reorganizing my tools and instruments.
My cell phone rings, breaking my train of thought. All air leaves my lungs as I take what feels like three-miles but is only a couple steps over to where it sits on top of the cooler log. I'm able to breathe, only slightly, when I see that it's my dad. "Hey, Dad, what's up?" I answer in a calm, slightly disappointed tone.
"Hey, Lilly Bean.” God, I hate that fucking name. “I just wanted to give you a heads-up in case you haven't seen it already, there's a body in the cooler that needs to be prepped for a viewing tomorrow night. There isn't much else going on so it's up to you if you want to do it tonight or just get it done in the morning," he says.
"Oh ok, I hadn't checked yet. Just cleaning up and organizing my stuff. I think I'll get it done to..." The words cauterize in my throat when my eyes glance down at the last name logged into the cooler. Albert Krum.
This motherfucker made my life an absolute living nightmare in high school. I was a loner, much like I am now, just add in fifty percent more awkwardness and fifty percent less physical development, making me one hundred percent easy prey for bullies. Armed with a face full of acne, four inches in height that seemed to sprout the night before I started my freshman year. It only tookuntil the last semester of senior year to figure itself out, and an ass that was as flat as my chest, I was the number one candidate for a punchline. Sometimes just regular old punches, too. I mean, who would believe me if I told people that Albert would corner me in the locker room and say disgusting things to me, then punch me in the stomach when I didn't entice him with the intended response? Or the porn pictures he would photoshop my head on and put them up in the bathrooms with my number. Spilling my lunch when he would walk by was just a regular thing, and if I didn't have lunch, he would pull my chair out from behind me so I'd fall and cry.
"Lilly? You ok?" Dad responds after a moment of silence on my end, breaking me free of that painful spiral I was rapidly descending into.
"Huh? Oh... ah, yeah. Sorry, Dad. I’ll take care of this tonight. What time are you and Mom coming home?" I ask. I don't know what I'm going to do to this piece of shit yet, but all I know is I don't want my darling parents walking in on something that would shatter their perfect image of me.
"We just got to dinner, so probably not for a few more hours. I have my keys so you can lock up if you go to bed before we’re back. I might take your mother someplace romantic after this," he says, the flirtatious tone at the end clearly directed toward my mother, whom I immediately hear in the background telling him to stop it.
"Gross. Ok, well, whatever you do, have fun and please god don't tell me about it. My stomach can handleembalming toddlers but I draw the line at my parents' disgusting sex life," I playfully replied.
"Lilly!" Dad exclaims in a way that if he were wearing pearls, he might clutch them.
"Love you, gotta go bye," I say quickly before he has a chance to say anything else, and hang up. I love my parents dearly, and that little bit of back-and-forth kind of dulls the anxiety that's ripping through me. But... now what? I have time. I have someone who deserves to be desecrated in a vile way. But I have no plan, and part of me is still very much afraid of even looking at him, dead or not.
I hold my phone in my hand, my thumb petting the side in a nervous tick while I stand frozen in front of the cooler door. Fuck it. I need to call him. I unlock my phone, scroll to O's number, and hit call. I try to do it as quickly as possible because I know if I think about it a moment longer, I won’t be able to hit the green button. I’ll just be standing there, inanimate, like I’m filled with my own rigor mortis. The phone starts ringing.
"Hey, princess. What's up?" he says into my ear. The question at the end is grunted like he just dropped something heavy on the ground. His voice, the cute name, him answering my call like what I told him a few nights ago isn’t even a thought in his mind, spreads a smile across my face before I can even reply. But just as quick as the smile appears, it fades when I remember why I’m calling him.
"Hey… prince..."Wow. Really, Lilith? That's what youcome back with?There is silence for a moment as my face ignites in embarrassment.
"You're so cute," he finally responds, and I feel like I’m able to breathe again. "O, babe, Sir, or Daddy. Those are all fine for our day-to-day chitchat." I can hear him smiling through the phone. "What are you up to?"
"Ok... I... Babe… sorry. Daddy… I… "Get it the fuck together."Sorry. Anyway, so..… I’m in full-on panic mode, and I’m sort of spiraling and just needed to call you because, well, I’m in a unique situation, and I feel like you’re the only one I can talk to about this. You're the only one I want to talk to." Ending my sentence there immediately makes me realize that I sound desperate. Cue more nervous panic. I sigh and continue, "To talk to about this. And well, I just... I need your help. I don't know how you're going to help me, but..." My words slowly fade, and I realize it's best to just stop talking and let him respond. He may be busy and not even have time to deal with my bullshit.
