“Still alive, huh?”
Jack looked to his left to see Xavier sitting in the opposite corner, almost hidden from view by the others.
“Yeah, unfortunately,” Jack said, hissing in pain as someone accidently bumped into him, trying to make themselves more comfortable.
They didn’t get the opportunity to speak further because the door was yanked open and three Beings hissed at the captives inside; they freaked out and started trying to press themselves against the back wall, trampling on the old, young, and wounded.
The Beings chirped at each other and started dragging people out, shoving them into a cattle chute with a barbed wire roof, forcing them to squat down and shuffle forward if they didn’t want to get cut. Fear lead to panic, panic lead to shoving, and shoving lead to a few people running face first into the barbed wire.
Jack cringed as a young woman lost both of her eyes to the sharp metal. She screamed as blood ran down her face, her eyeballs now shredded. Without thinking – lost in pain and fear – she stood up and tried to run, wrapping more of the wire around her neck. No one tried to help her. They just pushed past as she struggled – slicing her throat and strangling herself to death.
When everyone was out of the stall, except for Jack, one of the Beings grabbed a hold of one of his legs and dragged him out. Knowing there was no way he could traverse the chute, they continued to drag him to where it led. Cement steps, uneven floors, and drainage ditches battered him relentlessly. He blacked out a couple of times because of the pain, only to regain awareness and be beaten back into unconsciousness.
They arrived at a table set between two doors – one was off to the right and lead into a cement block building, and the other was behind the table, set into the wooden wall of the barn they were in.
One of the Beings stalked over and sat behind the table; its clawed feet clicked on the floor rhythmically while it waited, like a human would drum their nails on a table top in a show of boredom.
Jack forced himself to blink rapidly and become more aware. His eyes began searching everything and everyone he could see, looking for his wife, hoping to see her one last time. He knew that in his current state he couldn’t save her, and that brought tears to his eyes. He felt weak and worthless as he thought: What kind of man am I? I can’t save myself, much less my wife, even if I do find her. . .
He was watching the Beings empty more stalls of people into the chute. Each time someone was pulled out and shoved into the narrow passage his heart jumped with the hope of seeing the woman he loved, but she never appeared.
A movement to Jack’s right alerted him that something was happening; a young man was pulled from the chute and shoved over to the table. The Being sitting behind the table and under the only light in the room – a bare bulb hanging from a wire – nudged a set of dice toward the man. Jack could see the dice clearly from where he sat, and a chill ran down his spine. They were clearly made of bone, and the dots looked like they were made with dried blood. He was betting it was human bone and blood that made up the squares of chance.
The Being nudged the dice toward the man again, hissing loudly. He glanced up at the Being standing beside him and then at the one sitting behind the table. Slowly and reluctantly, he reached forward and gripped the small objects in his hand. Swallowing hard, he dropped them back onto the table. Both of the Beings leaned forward and examined the dice, chirping and clicking to each other.
Roughly, the Being standing beside the man gripped his arm and dragged him to the door on the right, the one that lead into another building, or part of the building they were in. The heavy, metal door was pulled open, and roaring and growls could be heard coming from what appeared to be a brightly lit tunnel. The man screamed and tried to fight, but the Being was too strong for him and dragged him through the doorway. The door was closed behind them, but everyone could still hear the screams of the man. A sudden loud and particularly menacing growl made everyone jump; it was followed by more of the man’s screams, which quickly fell silent.
The door opened again, and the Being stepped out, closing the door. A middle-aged woman was pulled from the chute next. She knew what she was supposed to do and apparently wanted it over with quickly. Without prompting, she picked up the dice and threw them back onto the table, staring straight ahead at the wall. The Beings hissed, and the one sitting at the table slammed its claw of a hand down roughly.
The woman was forcefully pushed toward the door behind the table. The Being opened it and bright sunshine flooded the barn. Birds sang merrily outside and green grass shone brightly. The smell of fresh air stirred the people in the chute with hope; they started shaking the sides, trying to get free, but it was no use.
The woman was shoved outside and the door was slammed shut behind her. Jack wondered what she’d rolled as Earl’s words, “Roll the dice . . . See if you live . . .” echoed through his head. The crazy bastard had been right.
The handler Being reached into the chute to pull out their next victim, but the one at the table hissed and pointed at Jack.
He shuddered and gulped, realizing it was his turn.
The Being lifted him off the floor and held him up high enough that he could see the table. The dice were nudged toward him. Jack picked them up in his right hand – the only part of his body that he could move other than his head – and examined them as they lay in his palm. He rolled them around and noticed that one of the dice didn’t have a three on it – the space where it would have been was blank. That’s when it hit him. With normal dice you couldn’t roll a one, but with one of the numbers missing from one of the dice, then it became possible to roll a one and every other number adding up to twelve. To roll a one had to be the first door, the one that led to the outside and freedom.
His chances were slim, but with a deep breath he threw down the squares of bone and prayed he would roll a one – it didn’t happen.
Frowning down at the dice, Jack added them up. Ten. He’d rolled a ten. The Beings chirped and clicked happily again, and he was carried to the door on the right. He flinched as the entrance was opened and he was momentarily blinded by the bright light.
He clung to the Being that carried him, fearing what might be awaiting him. The roaring and growls were intensely loud in the hallway, echoing off the bare, hard walls. Each door they passed had a number on it, and he noted fresh, red blood was running freely from beneath door number four and into the drainage ditch in the center of the hall floor.
That must have been the first man, Jack thought shuddering.
Before he was ready, they were standing in front of door number ten. There was a heavy metal bar across it, to keep whatever was inside from getting out. Jack could hear whatever was in there moving around and sniffing at the door.
The Being removed the bar, opened the door, and threw him inside. The door was immediately slammed shut and he heard the scrap of metal on metal as the bar was put back into place.
The room was gloomy and void of any furniture. There was one window high in the wall, which had bars and no glass. Sunshine beamed down from that single opening, lighting a patch of the grimy brick floor. Dried blood and small pieces of bone scattered the bare surface – an ominous sign of what was to become of Jack.
A purring growl from the far dark corner alerted Jack to the creature’s whereabouts.
Shuffling and sniffing grew closer and closer to the center of the room where the sunny patch was. Jack watched in morbid fascination as a creature like none he’d ever seen before stepped into the light and showed itself.
The monstrosity looked almost human in some ways: its face was similar, but its head was mounted upside down; the entire top of its head was its mouth, with long sharp teeth waiting to eat; hair hung from its chin like a beard, but was brunette, lustrous, and curly like those women’s he’d seen on hair color commercials; its skin color was almost white, it was so pale; its arms, legs, and torso, were also similar to a human’s, except they were three times as long and very s
kinny; and on each hand it had four extremely long fingers that had suction cups instead of pads.
The creature stood watching Jack, while he sat watching it. Stepping forward slowly, it purred again, licking its upside down mouth, its tongue swirled around the top of its head.
Jack gasped as he saw something moving in the creature’s mid-section; the face of a human pressed against the skin, stretching it. Something about the face was familiar to Jack, and after a moment of shocked disbelief, he knew it was his wife.
When Jack gasped, the creature growled and leaped forward, going down on all fours, opening its mouth wide.
Jack was unable to do anything to defend himself.
The monster bit off Jack’s right arm as he raised it on instinct – the only thing he could move – spraying blood all over itself and Jack in the process. Quickly swallowing the limb whole, it came back for more, biting off Jack’s other arm, tugging violently to severe skin and bone.
Screams, wild, terrified screams almost deafened Jack, and it took him a moment to realize they were his. While he lay on his side with his blood gushing out to fill the cracks between the bricks; he realized that no one stood a chance. Even if his wife had been alive, he couldn’t have saved her. No one was safe.
The beast quickly bit off and ate his legs, leaving nothing more than a torso with a head bleeding on the floor. Jack could feel the darkness of death coming for him. He welcomed it, knowing death was better than living in this new world where the Beings reigned, where pain and torture were the only options.
“Maggie. . . Regan. . . I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,” Jack whispered with his last breath, as the monster ripped off his head with a liquid crunch.
Author Rebecca Besser
Is the author of the zombie novella, "Undead Drive-Thru," and, “Nurse Blood,” and a graduate of the Institute of Children's Literature. Her work has appeared in the Coshocton Tribune, Irish Story Playhouse, Spaceports & Spidersilk, joyful!, Soft Whispers, Illuminata, Common Threads, Golden Visions Magazine, Stories That Lift, Super Teacher Worksheets, Living Dead Press Presents Magazine (Iss. 1 & 2), FrightFest eMagazine, An Xmas Charity Ebook, The Stray Branch, and The Undead That Saved Christmas (Vol. 1 & 2) and the Signals From The Void charity anthologies. She has multiple stories in anthologies by Living Dead Press, Wicked East Press, Pill Hill Press, Hidden Thoughts Press, Knight Watch Press, Coscom Entertainment, Crowded Quarantine Publications, and Collaboration of the Dead (projects), and one (each) in an anthology by Post Mortem Press, NorGus Press, and Evil Jester Press. She also have a poem in an anthology by Naked Snake Press.
She’s also an editor and has edited: Dark Dreams: Tales of Terror, Dead Worlds 7: Undead Stories, and Book of Cannibals 2: The Hunger from Living Dead Press; Earth's End from Wicked East Press; End of Days: An Apocalyptic Anthology (Vol. 4 & 5/co-edited) from Living Dead Press; and she’s currently editing It's Weighing On You Mind from Hidden Thoughts Press, and co-editing Beneath The Pretty Lies from Wicked East Press.
When she’s not busy writing and/or editing, she’s formatting book covers, building/maintaining websites, and writing book reviews.
For more information, visit her website:www.rebeccabesser.com
You can also follow her on Twitter: @BeccaBesser
Table of Contents
Copyright
HALL OF TWELVE
About the Author
Hall of Twelve Page 3
