Sleep Revised

by Wright, Michael

  “You hear that?” He said.

  “What?”

  There was a clang from the other side of the door. She pictured a metal door slamming shut, vast and studded with rivets and bolts, stained with blood and scratch marks. A chill settled in her skull and she carefully backed against the wall.

  “Yeah.”

  “Get ready. Run if you have to. Just get out of here.”

  “What about you?”

  “I can’t run.”

  “If you think I’m taking off and leaving…”

  “It would be best if you went and got help. We can’t handle this. Whoever on God’s green earth has us, they mean business, and it means that we need to have a way out of this if it goes sour. I can’t run, and you can. You can get help.”

  She didn’t like the idea. It left things too open, too vulnerable, but she knew at the same time that he had a point. If they had any hope of getting out of it, then that would be the only solution. But the very idea of it terrified her. She felt fear begin to slowly work back in, pushing past the shock, like a monstrous virus slowly paralyzing her in her bones, keeping her from being able to move. Turning her to stone.

  Or like a pillar of salt. She thought.

  There was the sound of footsteps outside, and she felt her chest tighten. Blood that she didn’t remember spilling from a cut on her face had settled down on her chest in a wet pool. She barely remembered a tree branch slicing her face. It all seemed incredibly unimportant.

  The doorknob twisted and she could hear metallic clanks. She took in a breath. Held it.

  Clark moved back from the door. He was braced for something. He knew what was coming and she cursed him for not telling her what it was, what was coming next. He knew where they were and what was going on, the least he could have done was let her know so she could be prepared.

  Darkness settled over her mind, and the pangs of panic began to sting. She felt her fingertips wrap tight around the rugged surface of a brick. The cold, smelly sweat of fear drifted over her, wrapping around her entire body, blocking her off from the other sensations that crowded her body, pushing through her skin at every opportunity. Her stomach cried out in agony, and she felt her bowels loosen, but hold. She knew that it wouldn’t take much for them to release.

  The door screamed open. Tired and exhausted from use and wear. Years of abuse in the hinges cried out.

  Clark looked back at her. “Whatever happens,” he said, “run.”

  She nodded, though she knew in the dim light that he probably wouldn’t be able to see her.

  The door swung open to a blinding difference in light. There were dancing orbs of light on the other side, hanging on the walls, probably torches, but in the room they were in they looked as bright as the sun. In the doorway, stood three figures. Each one was dressed entirely in black, the bright light reflected off of the curves of their garb, showing only the shifting corners. In the shroud of a hood she saw a white expression staring back. A mask. Each one wore a different mask, one of them with a long and crooked nose like that of a witch from an old story, the others she couldn’t make out any details. Only the vague outline.

  They stared at them, and she felt a scream begin to rise in her throat.

  One of them had long hair, staring out at her. She thought of the man in the coffee shop, long hair hanging in his eyes, waiting, staring at her, a gun tucked beneath his clothes, looking out at her. Ready for her.

  Peekaboo.

  He pointed to her, and the large man moved into the room and towards her.

  “What are you doing?” Clark said.

  Sam froze. She saw the door and the open space she could use to get away, she saw Clark beginning to jump up to attack, to try to get through so she could make it out, so she could get away. He would attack them, he would try to stop them, but she knew inside it was no good, that it was impossible.

  She tried to run. Her legs remained locked. Her shoulders stiffened into place, locking her back, holding her tight against the wall. They were unwilling to let her move away. She tried to get her fingers to let go of the wall but they held fast, not moving on their own. The man was moving towards her, with long lumbering strides. His footsteps sounded like thunder, raging and bulky. Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the light better and she could see the folds of his robes moving back and forth, swaying almost, in the light from the torches.

  Clark jumped up from his place on the floor and extended a hand out to block her from him. His face was set and determined. He said something, but her mind had shut down all ability to understand what he was saying, she couldn’t put together what was happening. All she could comprehend was the white terror that settled deep in her bones, holding her tight against the wall, pinning her down and not letting her go.

  For a moment she was a kid again, standing in the kitchen with a gun held high, and a man bleeding in front of her.

  “Bring her!” The two words arose out of the mass of noise and confusion, she heard it but didn’t quite process it until the large man swatted Clark out of the way, sending him flying into the wall and continued for her. She saw his hands reaching out for her. Dirty, broken hands, tainted with blood and slime. She could smell rot and death on them, and slid back further against the wall.

  Deep in her mind, she realized she was screaming.

  Clark was on the floor.

  The hands of the man grabbed her and he began to pull her out of the room.

  She was still screaming.

  2

  “You monsters!” Clark spat. Blood ran from his mouth and onto the floor in a sticky puddle. It was dark and didn’t register with his vision. He could feel where a tooth in his mouth had broken, splintered by the impact against the wall. “Leave her alone!”

  Why hadn’t she run? She didn’t do what he said, why didn’t she do what he said?

  “Make her ready for the opening.” The man said to the lumbering giant that had thrown him against the wall. “Get this one ready as well. You know what to do.”

  Clark stood again, shaky. “Hey!”

  The other large man stepped forward, reaching out a mountainous hand toward Clark, grabbing the top of his arm. He pulled back, twisting out of the grip. “Screw you!” He gasped as he backed against the table.

  The man reached again, his mask coming into clearer view. It was a distorted and twisted thing, leathery with an unearthly texture. Clark stared at it for a second before he realized it was a human face, dried and painted white. The eyebrows were painted back on, and the paint cracked where the skin had dried and pulled apart from taking it off and on. He felt nausea swell in him again and tried to climb up on the table, to wriggle away into a corner away from the man. The man moved forward and reached with both hands, grabbing him by the top of the arms, the smell of rot and decay strong on him along with rich and dank sweat smell that seemed to ooze out of his pores, drifting toward Clark in a thick cloud.

  He didn’t have any way out, he was trapped with the man who would doubtlessly get hold of him one way or the other.

  The man lunged forward again, wrapping Clark in a crushing bear hug, the stench of the sweat overwhelming him. He felt hot breath pouring out of the mask, down onto his neck and to the side at his ear. “That girl you brought here, she’s a nice one.”

  He fought against the grip.

  “The priest will like that a lot.”

  “What is she to you? Let her go!”

  “She’s the key.”

  What?

  “So are you.”

  What was he talking about, it made no sense! He shoved against the bear hug, but the man was too strong and lifted him off of his feet, and continued squeezing. Clark felt the strength slipping out of him and his arms gave out, crushing him against the massive sweaty mess.

  “You’re all going to help us. This is what we are designed to do.”

  The world was going black, dark and shadowy. He saw white and gray at the edges of his vision. A pulsing pain in his eyeb
alls. It throbbed in his forehead, a pounding, that he couldn’t stop. His breath came in rabid gasps, his lungs burned with a thirst for oxygen but none of it came. He knew he was beginning to pass out, and that would be even more devastating to their cause than simply giving up. If they led him away he would be out of the room and maybe able to find out what was happening to Samantha.

  He went limp. The man relaxed the grip and let him fall back onto the cot/table. He then grabbed him by the upper arms and looked him over. “You’re not what I was expecting, I’ll tell you that.”

  What was he expecting then?

  The man pulled him to his feet and shoved him out of the room straight into the hallway of his nightmares.

  3

  There was screaming. Not of pain, nor of despair. She couldn’t pick out from the endless notes any despair—only pleasure. It was thick and filled with moaning desire. The rough hands pushed against her, forcing her forward. There was whispering from the rooms around her. In the rooms far behind she heard the screaming again. It was a climax, filled with unutterable delight.

  She dared a peek at the room to her side, and saw a man, dressed in all black just as the ones who led her along cutting into a woman, his knife moving slowly and methodically, slicing through thin flesh, the dull mask portraying nothing but vague disinterest. She was writhing on the table, alive as the man was cutting into her legs. She was not in pain however, her moans were filled with sensual pleasure. It gave her joy to be sliced into—a sacrifice. The blood was being gathered in a bucket at the foot of the table, a slow, sticky stream carefully drained. It looked brilliantly red in the torch light, surreal in it’s texture.

  She forced back her gorge as the vomit tried to trickle up, and was pushed again from behind.

  At the end of the hall a large room, filled with candles from the light coming from it, was guarded on either side by two men, dressed alike in black and with the white masks that looked as a perversion of a doll’s face. She saw the paint used on them cracking and flaking, and the horrible gray of the material underneath that she continually told herself was animal hide.

  Please, God, let it be animal flesh.

  The smell of the place continued to get more repulsive. The smell of cooking flesh, slicing blood, feces, and urine released by the dying and the dead stained the environment with the stench, stinging her nostrils with ammonia and copper.

  She bristled against the pushing at her back as they led her toward the large chamber. The black bricks around them were slick and viscous with a terrible slime, it reminded her of pus that would run out of an infected cut when squeezed. It smelled like the rot that surrounded her.

  In a room to her other side she saw a man cutting into the midsection of a woman, drawing out her intestines, stringing them all over as if they were ribbon from a party. He turned and looked at her, the white mask flecked with bright stains of red. The smile permanently fixed with paint, continuing on dementedly into eternity.

  The room before her expanded as a final scream sounded.

  It was vast. Candles were placed all around. There was a fount, a stone carved bowl raised in the middle of the room, around it were benches, crudely constructed and splintered. To the side she saw an altar, raised. On it was a massive table with a large marble top. It was smooth, with small trenches dug into it, all heading toward the sides where large metal chalices sat. Above it, where buckets, each one attached to a line that led out to the side. Behind the altar, was a set of two massive wooden doors. The doors themselves were wet, bleeding out thick yellow and clear fluid, dripping it onto the floor. But it was also moving, shifting. Something was on the other side, pushing. Waiting to get out.

  She pulled her eyes away from the door and saw a man ascending the altar, dressed in black as the others, and a mask, but his mask was a deeper white, brighter somehow, and marked with red. He was wearing a red stole over his shoulders, draped like a priest. The hood was lined with a straight row of crimson fabric. His hands were stained with blood. He turned to them when they entered and pointed at her. “Bring her closer.”

  They nudged her toward the front, prodding and groping with the thick, sweaty hands that seemed somehow to reach inside of her skin and push her forward by the nerves. She followed, and felt part of herself dying, retreating back into the darkness. She fought to stay present. She had to fight, had to find a way out. Something! Clark was there, and he didn’t have any hope if she didn’t do anything.

  The man walked to the front of the altar, and stepped down the two stairs toward her and when she reached directly in front of him she felt two hands on her shoulders, pulling her to a stop in front of him. He nodded to the guards.

  A scream of pleasure echoed through the hallway.

  The man with the sash reached out and touched her face with a gloved hand. It was cold and sharp.

  “You are not like the others.” He said. “This is a good sign.”

  She stared numbly at him.

  “What is your name?”

  She continued to stare, barely making eye contact with him, trying to avoid as much contact as possible. Just being in his presence made her feel defiled—filthy. His voice was like rocks grating together with velvet between them. It was a voice that reminded her of so long ago…holding a gun.

  “It doesn’t really matter, you know. I am just curious.” His diction was clear, unbroken by the limitations of accent or region. It was crisp and smooth. He was not like the others there. He had a reason. A purpose much bigger. “You’ll do enough for us just the same.”

  The guards tightened down on her shoulders.

  He drew out a knife from between the folds of his robe. It was ornate, carved at the handle with a woman entwined in the grasp of an ungodly creature, chasing after her. He touched her face again, smoothing back her hair. “This part,” he said, “Won’t hurt a bit.”

  The knife slid down the front of her shirt, slicing it cleanly. He reached forward, grabbed the connection of her bra and snapped that with the knife as well, then brought the knife up to her chest, right where her heart was, and teased the blade across the soft flesh there.

  Her heart thudded. It was denying. Fighting. But she felt the deadness sweeping over her, the same deadness she had felt so many years ago. The safe place that she ran to when bad things happened, the place that didn’t keep her trapped by the realities of the world, but left her free to roam however long she needed to. It was her only escape, and she wanted so badly to run there.

  He gestured to the guards and they pulled the clothes off of her torso. “So soft. Supple. This will please them very well.”

  She didn’t know who they were, she didn’t understand what he said, nor did she pay any mind when they pulled the clothes off of her. She was frozen in place, trying to stay stable, present. Whatever they were going to do, she didn’t want to consider. She thought of the woman on the table in the room, her entrails being pulled out of her, foot by foot, twisting around the arm of the robed man who smiled into her open torso.

  He repeated the process with her jeans, and pulled the boots and socks off, not bothering to cut them. She stood naked before him, but he did not ogle her. None of them did. He was examining her, as if a choice prize he had picked up at the state fair. “You will please them well.” He said again.

  The two tightened back down on her shoulders, holding her tightly in place.

  “Prepare the table, and summon the others. It’s time to begin.” The man nodded to the guards and pulled off his mask. When she saw his face, she saw long hair, and a youthful expression broken by a scar on his forehead.

  Just like the man from the coffee shop.

  She ran to the safe place in her head.

  4

  He was pulled through the hallway quickly, hearing only the screams of pleasure behind him slowly ending. He caught a bare glimpse on either side of him and saw the men standing over women, clothed just as his captors, in black robes with white flesh-masks. They were cleaning up
their knives, wiping them with rags and standing over the dead and dying before them, gently caressing the flesh, as if thanking them for letting them cut into them and flay them alive. Beneath the tables were buckets, he could only imagine what was in them.

  There was a thunderous booming from in front of him, the drumbeat of hell shook his bones. He felt his skull rattle with each beat with terrifying familiarity.

  God, please help us.

  The large man got assistance from another who grabbed Clark’s other arm, and they dragged him along, his feet hanging loosely behind him, rocking side to side in the passageway, knocked either direction by the curve of the bricks. They knocked his toes, scraping his shoes, whatever was left of them at least, and he grunted as the men pushed him forward.

  Where was Samantha? Where had they taken her?

  A terrible thought began to tease the back of his mind. A memory of the chart that he had printed, the one that Jon had found and sent to him. The one displaying the seven parts of the process. He thought he knew where his role was to be found, but even more terrifying he knew where Samantha fit in the grand scheme.

  They were taking him to the main room at the end of the hall, the room he knew was there, he knew all too well. It was where the thunderous noise came from, filling the chamber. The disgusting leakage was seeping from the bricks, mingling with the drainage of blood and entrails that came from the rooms on either side of him, dripping from the remains of dozens of victims who were all willingly slaughtered for a purpose far more sinister than he dared imagine but he couldn’t fight against knowing.

  They passed another room and he saw a man wearing a mask that was smiling. From the shape of him he was a younger man, filled with life and energy, far more possibility than the ones who hauled him along. How had he gone astray so much to be involved in a death cult? How had he come to chopping up women?

  He turned away from the sides, fighting the growing nausea in his stomach. He looked ahead, trying to fight against the horror, but at the same time wanting to give in, to find the safety of shock that would stun him long enough, numb him long enough for it to all be over. For the nightmare to finally come to an end. He knew that it was something he couldn’t afford to do, it was impossible for him to do that, but he wanted so desperately to disappear into the dark corners of his mind to live forever away from the monstrosities that were to come.