by Spencer,Alan
"GOTCHA, BITCH!"
A woman was lifted off of her feet. A hand grabbed her face, and with shocking strength, the attacker ripped the skin right off. The sound of sticky duct tape being yanked off of a surface made David gag. The man slapped the woman's face over his features, and the woman's face became his own. His features moved like the woman's. He even sounded like her.
He couldn't believe it.
The impossible was occurring right before his eyes.
A collection of other victims forced their way past David. He was knocked to the floor, stepped on, and left there. When he did get back up, what he saw nearby, it made his face shape into a silent scream.
A severed head was rolling down the incline. Severed arms and legs were arranged like bowling pins. The head bashed through them at such speed, the human pins detonated. A flying tooth scratched David's cheek. A chunk of scalp smacked him so hard on the chest it would later bruise.
He was running full blast out of pure instinct.
Move your ass, or die, he kept thinking.
A giant two-sided axe swung down from the ceiling. Whooosh! It cut a running man in two halves. Those two halves kept racing on for nine seconds, unloading organs and unspooling intestines with each new tread, until the body lost its momentum and toppled over.
Faster and faster, David charged on.
That's all he could do.
Run like hell and watch out.
A woman's corpse was spread out on the ground up ahead. David was about to run around the body when a man four feet tall sprang out of her belly. He shoved the skin over the abdomen aside like a curtain and tried to grab him. David kicked the attacker's face. He watched the hider roll backwards into the fog and out of sight.
Meat hooks dangled from the ceiling ahead of him. He counted a hundred hooks, easy. They would rise and fall randomly. People hung above, acting as fishermen trying to snatch their prey. People were caught between the legs, through the cheek, gouged in the eye, or penetrated in the abdomen and lifted up. Once they were forced upwards, blood and guts immediately rained down.
He crawled on all fours to avoid the hooks. Once he was beyond those hooks, he got back up to his feet. He could see an end to the fog. Up ahead, there was mostly darkness. A blue light gave a vague impression of the area beyond where he stood. The walls were that of a cave. There were two outlets. Blood colored the ground where others had trod before him.
I can't leave Kayla behind.
There's no way to find her. You turn back, you'll most likely die.
He hesitated. Maybe if he waited long enough, he reasoned, somebody else, another would-be victim, would appear, and they could team up.
How can you trust anybody? You saw that face-wearer. You don't know who's good or evil. There are no rules here.
A firm hand seized David's forearm. The reek of cigar smoke and the stink of terrible hygiene, a medley of mold and stinking armpits, made him cough and nearly lose his gorge. The stranger wore an orange ball cap marked "DEMO MAN". The rest of his outfit was a black shirt and black jeans. His skin was a deep pale with a bluish death tint. Blood was congealing beneath his flesh. His dark facial hair looked sharp enough to cut you like quills.
"Hee-hee-hee." The sick titter was directed at David. "You wanna see something really cool? I live and die by cool. Cool is my trade. Ice cold cool.
"I'm a demolition man. You can call me Demo. I blow shit up. That's what I do, and I do it best. I've leveled dozens of skyscrapers in my day. I've destroyed fifty cliffs. I've blown up I don't know how many bodies. I used to do it to hookers and hobos for the fucking fun of it. Then I did it to anybody. It's fun to watch dead things explode, but to watch living things go up, and I mean really fucking blast off, is orgasmic.
"Hee-hee-hee-heeeeee! Watch me have some fun."
Demo lunged towards the fog and disappeared. David thought he was gone, and he could run away, but the strange man soon returned. Demo threw a man out of the fog. Demo suddenly had two sticks of dynamite in his hands. Where he got them from, David didn't know.
The fuses lit themselves. They sizzled fast. Demo jammed the sticks into the man's eyes. The man screamed in horrible pain as paint-thick blood oozed down his features.
"Five seconds, and that son-of-a-bitch goes BOOM! Hee-hee-heeeeeeeeeeeee!"
The man's face gleamed with spurting blood and the incendiary orange of fast-burning fuses. David fled, lunging for one of the exits that led deeper into the cavern. Before he could clear his way to safety, the giant KA-BOOM rocked his body. He was thrown up in the air like a ball. He wasn't conscious long enough to know where, and if, he landed in one piece.
Luke Bloom stood in front of the double paned window. He had a perfect vantage point to view David Smith being dragged off by...well, he couldn't see what exactly had him by the legs. The dust and smoke from Demo's dynamite blast continued to settle.
He turned his eyes away from the game to enjoy the view of his wife. They were standing in a private viewing room together. Bliss was adorned in a black and red leather bodice. Her arms were bared to show off the pentagrams tattooed on them with pride.
"I don't think I can wait," Bliss said, sauntering over to Luke who kept watching outside the pane for David Smith to reappear. "I want you to fuck me. The sight of blood gets me hot. I can't wait, Luke. Do things to me, I'm begging you."
"Do you realize what's at stake here? If your man is the last standing, you get to go to hell for a week. You know that's been my dream. I'd take you with me. You're allowed one guest. I'd normally ravage you by now. Please understand me. I have so much hope placed in David Smith. If he's dead already, I don't know if I can take it. I had my hopes up on going to hell. And knowing I have to go back out there and hobnob with our guests for the evening and not knowing if our man is alive, I'll puke my guts out. I hate schmoozing people. Dad loves it. I hate it. They're all my competition. I want to crush them."
Bliss forced him away from the pane.
"Choke me."
"Bliss, I--"
"Choke me, I said!"
Her tongue probed his mouth. She licked the sides of his neck and made a moist ring around his ear. "You can make it through this. The game's not over. David Smith's not dead. Choke me, baby. Please."
His hands tightened around her neck. At first, she didn't feel anything. Then she made a gasp-squeak noise from deep inside her throat. It hurt her more than she had anticipated. The way her eyes bulged, he was instantly hooked.
He squeezed harder, and harder, and harder. Her face was flushed a deep red. Her eyes were bulging orbs. Now she was purple. Foam was working at the edges of her lips. She beat her hands against him. He wouldn't let up. He choked her even harder. If he squeezed with anymore force, he would break bones.
Luke came hard. The hot venom spattered Bliss's inner thighs. Bliss had been stroking him off the whole time. Luke's fingers were now inside of her, working to the beat of her orgasm. She swayed her hips. That hot sticky spot responded to his touch. Soon, she too couldn't get enough, and she moaned in ecstasy. She shivered twice, spent.
They both collapsed onto the leather sofa and almost knocked over the bottle of imported wine and the tray of hors d'oeuvres. He embraced his wife. She was the one who could not only match his desires, but challenge them.
She kissed his lips. "I don't want you to worry, honey. The game's not over yet. Give Mr. Smith a chance."
Luke threw back a mouthful of eight-hundred dollar bourbon and zipped up his pants. He had to hobnob with the guests soon. He would play the MC of the night. Interviews, and ass kissing, and game commentary. He could piss on it all. Marlow, his father, insisted that's what the people who funded them wanted. They expected a sporting event. A catered spectacle.
That was what his father used to do, and now he had inherited the job. This was the event their family had created. The Blooms had perfected incantation. They worked hard to convince hell to give them the gifts they had received tonight. Twenty-four to
seventy-two hours of their favorite serial killers coming from hell for one wild night of murder and debauchery. The Event grew in scope with every new year.
He checked his watch. He had fifteen minutes before he was due to make another appearance as host of The Event.
Luke enjoyed the moment with his wife for a little bit longer before going about his duties.
David came to in an empty bathtub. The room was dark and without any lighting. He wasn't sure if he imagined it at first. To his left, he saw a long pane of glass. He could see the profiles of over a dozen people peering in at him through the glass. Once David gave the pane a closer inspection, the glass went dark. The profiles of those looking in were gone.
Are people watching me?
A muted green light flickered on above him. He realized his body wasn't cold. It was the bare set of legs up against his own that was giving him a chill.
The woman was a naked corpse.
That was a bare bones description of her.
She was much more than a dead body. Her hair was a wet-with-rot-mop that defied any natural color. The corpse's parchment skin was actively boiling with movement beneath the skin. He could see her fingernails were wiggling in place by the grub worms and maggots underneath them. She was infested. Her body was the rotten core of an apple where worms ate, bred, and played. From her nipples, white silk worms writhed free. They were newborn and white as milk. Between her legs, a wretched colony stirred with activity.
The female corpse smiled at him. She knew where his eyes had roamed. That lascivious smile caused both of her lips to slough off.
"Even in the condition I am, the guys still stare at my snatch. Nothing changes when you're living or dead. Men will be men."
She reached behind her and turned the knob to start a bath. A pipe coughed. A thick clog was trying to dislodge itself.
"You need a bath. You're too clean. If you're going to love me, you're going to have to be like me. Then you won't be scared of me. We'll be equals."
He was still shell shocked by the dynamite's blast. If he could get a few more minutes to recover, he could plot an escape from this corpse woman.
God, how he craved escape.
"Give it a minute. The pipes are old. They're clogged with all kinds of shit. The plumbing in this place is shit.
"While we're waiting, my name's Alana. Most call me Maggot Girl. Looks like we have some time to get acquainted. It's lonely sometimes. People, even in hell, are afraid to talk to me. I'm that nasty."
He didn't have to say anything.
Maggot Girl kept talking.
He thought she was crying when her tear ducts twitched. A centipede wriggled down her right eye and crawled into her left nostril.
"I have to keep my maggots fed. I died covered in maggots and crawly things, and I woke in hell infested with them. It's just how things turned out. Don't ask me for any special logic to it. Hell does what hell does best. It tests your gorge.
"I do have a story. When I was alive, I was addicted to heroine. I was homeless, and I overdosed in an abandoned building. When I died, nobody found me. The summer was especially hot and humid. By the time someone did stumble on me, I was a pool of raw meat and maggots. They make me restless. The maggots are so hungry. I must keep them fed, or they'll eat what's left of me. If I don't, I'll dissolve. Who knows what will be done with me then? I'll probably be the shit that's going to come out of this bathtub soon. I'll be at the bottom. In hell, you don't want to be the shit at the bottom."
The bath tub coughed out what was supposed to be water. It was definitely not water. It resembled a turpentine sludge.
"Have you ever swan in fetuses and rotten placentas? If you look closely, you can see other dead remains. It's a game I play. Identifying the shit floating in the shit. Oh, look! There's a wrinkly old gall bladder. And, there's--"
The plopping of slop into the tub kicked up the nastiest reek. He couldn't sit there, no matter how his body felt. He dodged the mess before it could touch any part of him. When he lunged out of the tub, Maggot Girl was begging him to stay.
"Don't leave me! Once they're inside you, you'll be like me. We'll be lovers. I'll do things no other woman could ever do to you. Wait, please--PLEASE! I ONLY WANT TO FEED THE MAGGOTS INSIDE OF ME!"
There was another giant explosion. The door to the room burst into pieces. David hit the ground and covered himself. Warm blood wet his back. He looked up to find the top half of a man had landed in the tub with Maggot Girl. Where the victim's midsection was torn and singed and smoking, it faced her in the tub.
"Oh, this is wonderful! Time to feed!"
Maggot Girl was there one moment, and the next, she was a mummified bag of bones. Every parasite, maggot, and insect retreated from her body and attached to the corpse. They were feasting. The body was visibly being reduced by the second. Hunks of skin, meat, and gristle were being carried back over to the woman. Her arms, face, and midsection regained color. She was a rancid puzzle work of a woman slowly being rebuilt to healthy skin.
"Join me, David." She spread out her arms to him. "Take me. I want you inside of me."
"Hell no, you crazy bitch."
He bolted out of the broken door. The source of the explosion seconds ago was long gone. Maggot Girl kept beckoning to him. Her words had zero effect on him. He had to find Kayla. There was only one way to do that.
He had to search and scour.
He couldn't leave her to these monsters.
David dug into his backpack for the flashlight. He didn't turn it on yet. He would use it as a weapon instead.
He could hear Maggot Girl stepping out of the tub. The wet sounds of her soft flesh pattering the ground encouraged him to bolt down the hallway and face whatever crossed his path next.
The Event's viewing rooms were filled with boisterous drunk patrons savoring high end food, guzzling higher end booze, and enjoying the finest elegance money could buy. Rich bankers, lawyers, stockbrokers, real estate champions, business owners, government workers, politicians, and self-made men and women wandered between the rooms to get new views of the carnage playing out in the arena beyond the walls. Television screens captured new areas where people were cut down savagely. Replays of new killings played on a loop in-between new deaths constantly.
Luke walked among his clients as a man on a job. He shook hands, glad-handed people, schmoozed, inquired about their families, friends, and jobs. His father taught him the importance of engaging their clientele. It took him longer than expected to get to the right viewing room. He checked the number posted on the door.
17.
This was the room he needed.
In the corner was a microphone and television screen. He picked up the phone on the wall and called his audio and visual man.
"Everything ready to go?" Luke asked.
"We're good. I'll follow your cues."
"Right. Thanks, buddy. I'll catch up with you in a little while."
"Sounds great, Luke. This year has the potential to be your best yet again."
"I'm with you on that, pal."
Luke hung up the phone.
The crowd in the room 17 was really worked up. Over a dozen people were looking out of a giant Plexiglas window at a muscle bound titan dressed as an executioner standing on a wooden platform. On top of that platform was a guillotine. In that guillotine was a naked woman. The Executioner kept raising and lowering the blade connected to the rope in his hands. He would rest the sharp edge on the back of her neck, lift it up, swing it down fast and let up at the last second so it wouldn't slice off her head.
In his garbled, drunk, barbaric voice, he teased the victim.
"I'm not letting up until I see some piss and shit come out of your pretty holes. There's something poetic about something so disgusting oozing out of something so pretty. How about it, folks? You want to see some piss and shit come out of this pretty little bitch?"
Those in the room roared with anxious noise.
"Yeah! Make her crap!"<
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"Open those cunt flaps and squirt it out, you slut!"
"Make her piss and shit all over the place, Executioner!"
"Scare her some more. I saw a drop come out!"
"She's soooooooo close!"
"I want her thighs wet with piss."
Luke was watching this with baited breath. The Executioner kept up his antics. Lowering the blade. Raising the blade. Playing the blade on the back of her neck. Digging the steel into the skin enough to draw blood. He'd gone through the process so many times, a quarter inch ravine had been carved into her flesh.
The woman kept begging and pleading for her life. If only she knew that's what these people wanted. The home team was scoring big time.
"Yeah, she's doing it!"
"She's shitting everywhere."
"I bet it stinks. I wish I could be in there to smell it."
"There's the piss. Warm and hot and flowing."
"Oh my God, you ever seen somebody piss that hard? And so much?"
The Executioner reared back the blade to its highest point. "Audience, it's time to watch yellow and brown turn to red."
The blade came down with finality.
The woman's head was sheared off and landed with a solid thud into a wicker basket. The Executioner lifted up the basket, picked up the head, and threw it down in the pile of piss and shit. The killer took his bow and made his exit off the stage.
This marked the perfect moment for Luke to take control of the moment.
"Great kill, Executioner. Now that's what I call graphic! How are we doing, everybody? Are we enjoying ourselves? Mrs. Alanson, congratulations. You got to see your favorite killer in action. How does that make you feel?"
Mrs. Alanson was a Supreme Court Judge. She had a wine flute in one hand and a finger of scotch in the other. "I feel young again. It's like living out my first kill all over again. Your first kill you never forget. It's never your best, but it's your first."
"You want a hug, beautiful?"
"Of course I do. I would ask for more if your better half wouldn't have me slaughtered."
