Stephenie arrived at an intersection she hadn’t noticed until she was a few feet away from it. Now she had choices. She could turn left or right or walk in a straight line. One choice looked the same as the other. The hallways were long and filled with doors.
Stephenie decided to continue walking in a straight line; it seemed like the smartest thing to do. She was rewarded with another photograph of Carrie.
Carrie seemed to be sitting in the same chair as before. Her head was tilted to one side and her body was slumped in a comparable pose. A cloth was wrapped around her hands; it had a dark spot in the middle.
The spot seemed bigger now, darker too.
Carrie looked sad and scared, just like in the first photograph, but with a vacant expression that Stephenie didn’t like assessing; it made her feel like she had failed miserably in the department of parenting. In the first photograph Stephenie could see every last inch of her daughter, from the top of her head to the bottom of her shoes. In this photo, Carrie’s shoes were just out of frame.
Stephenie peeled the image off the wall and slid it into her back pocket, next to the other.
She walked a straight line; her shoulders sagged.
The hallway seemed to get longer, rather than shorter. And when Stephenie turned around she couldn’t see the distance she covered. Everything looked the same. After she hobbled a few more feet Stephenie considered yelling something out. Something like, “Carrie! Are you in here?” Was yelling a smart move? Maybe, maybe not; but she was afraid now––afraid still, in fact. And for that reason and that reason alone, she decided against yelling. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself, she just wanted…
Stephenie paused.
God, she didn’t even know what she wanted.
Stephenie checked more doors. They were locked. She came to another intersection. It looked the same as the first. She walked a straight line because she was afraid she’d become lost. But she was already lost, wasn’t she?
Well, no actually––not really.
Stephenie could always turn around and go back to the change room, travel the tunnel with the rats and…
Ah, but there lies the dilemma. She may not have been lost exactly, but she was trapped. Even if she was brave enough (or stupid enough, her thoughts insisted) to return to the tunnel of the rats, the door that led her into the tunnel originally was locked, not on this side, but on the other. So she couldn’t return the way she came. She may not have been lost but she was ensnared and the result was essentially the same.
She walked, checking doorknobs as she came to them. None would open. The rooms were probably empty anyhow, right? Deep inside, she didn’t think so. There were things inside those rooms, lots and lots of things. Some of the things she wanted to see, others she didn’t. There were things that could fix everything and things that would make matters worse. How they could possibly get worse, she did not know.
She placed her hand on a knob, might have been the eleventh or twelfth one she tried. The knob felt warm. And when she turned her wrist the knob turned with it.
She had found a door that would open.
4
Stephenie stood in the open doorway, seeing but not believing, comprehending on some levels but not on all. The room was an average size, fifteen by fifteen, maybe a little less. There were no windows and only one door: the one Stephenie just opened. The room was empty with the exception of a single chair, which was sitting against the far wall. Sitting on the chair was a girl. She had her head down. Her hair was in pigtails and her hands were resting on her lap, covered in a white cloth. The cloth had a dark spot. The spot looked like blood.
Stephenie’s feet started moving. She took three quick steps and was afraid to take a forth. The hairs on the back of her neck tingled, like she had been granted a moment of Peter Parker’s Spidey-sense. Something was wrong here; something was off. She didn’t know what was wrong but she sure as hell knew it was something.
“Carrie,” she whispered. And it was a whisper. She hardly heard the word herself.
Behind her, the door began closing. It was creeeeeeeeaking shut.
And although she didn’t want the door closing on her, she let it happen. Her mind was elsewhere, on the goosebumps cultivating her flesh, but mostly on the girl in front of her. And when the girl in the chair lifted her head Stephenie stepped away, thinking: Oh shit; I might actually die.
It wasn’t Carrie.
It wasn’t Carrie, but it was.
The girl was dressed the same and for the most part she looked the same, although her mouth and her eyes were completely different, not like in the photographs. Oh heavens no. Her eyes were large, and not a normal kind of large. They weren’t large in a ‘my-oh-my, your daughter sure does have some big beautiful eyes, Missis Paige, don’t you think?’ kind of way. Oh no. Her eyes bulged from her head like they belonged on an insect that devoured its partner after mating. They were large, and the way they sat above her nose, high on her head––almost nearing her hairline––they looked really large. And when the girl that was Carrie but was not Carrie smiled (oh man, oh man––she was not Carrie), her face looked so unnatural that Stephenie thought she might fall onto her knees and be sick on the floor.
Her mouth, oh sweet Jesus her mouth––it was upside-down; there’s no other way to describe it. When the Carrie-monster grinned her lips curled the wrong direction––and yes, Stephenie was well aware that in most cases people accept this expression as a frown. But this wasn’t a frown. It was a grin, sitting on the girl’s face horribly wrong, like someone had figured out a way to remove her mouth, flip it around, and plunk it back into her skull without killing her.
Stephenie put her fingers to her chin and stepped away.
The child thing in the corner leaned forward. Her upside-down grin grew fatter and longer until the lips hung right off the sides of her face. Her mouth opened then; it opened just as the child’s lips drooped towards the floor like big meaty whiskers. Pale baggy flesh sagged. Thick white liquid streamed from the wrinkled flesh; swimming in circles as it hit the floor.
She chuckled and drooled, and said, “Mommy?”
Stephenie could see three rows of teeth. Each tooth looked like it belonged inside the mouth of a baby shark. Upon seeing them, Stephenie whined. She was terrified beyond her wildest dreams.
The child-monster lifted her hands and the white cloth fell to the ground. It landed between her feet with the red spot facing up. Now the child-monster’s hands were exposed. The fingers were gone, every last one. Thumbs too. All ten digits had been lopped off somewhere near the knuckle leaving ten bleeding nubs that were less than a half-inch long.
The thing that looked like Carrie stood up.
“Mommy, we need to talk.” The voice was just right. It sounded like it belonged to a child, like it belonged to Carrie. The only difference was the tone, which was a little deeper, a little graver.
Stephenie screamed and spun around wildly. Her hand shot out like a bullet and wrapped around the doorknob. The knob felt extra cold. A cold day in hell, she thought strangely, and she knew the door was locked before she even turned her wrist.
“Mommy,” the thing said again. “Oh mommy, look at my fingers. They’re all bleedy, mom. Can’t you see? Don’t you care? Look at my hands. They got bleedy all over them.”
Stephenie limped into the corner with her eyes facing the floor, locked on nothing, open but trying not to see. She began shivering.
The Carrie-monster said, “Where are you going? Talk to me, mommy; talk to me.”
“What do you want from me?” Stephenie spat. She turned, and wedged her back against the wall. Then her knees gave out and she fell onto her ass with her arms held high. Her knees curled towards her chest. She put her fingers together in a makeshift cross, like she was attempting to ward off evil spirits. It didn’t work though, and soon enough Stephenie knew it.
“I want to talk to you about your medication.”
“My what?” Step
henie’s hands dropped and her eyes shifted.
“You heard me,” Carrie’s doppelganger said. “Your medication. You know, Lithizine, Mesoridazine, Oxazepam, Thorazine… you understand what I’m talking about, right? How does it make you feel? Have the doctors discovered the right doses yet? Are you having hallucinations?”
For a moment Stephenie looked up at this creature like she didn’t understand what had been said.
The creature looked awful, so awful in fact that Stephenie’s eyes found new things to look at soon after.
A wonderful thought came: maybe she was dreaming, or at the very least, having a ‘bad trip.’ What if all the dreadful things were inside her mind? It was a comforting thought, real comforting, super-duper encouraging––at first. Then she started wondering what life would be like if she stayed this way forever. Suddenly the notion of ‘things being wrong inside your mind’ didn’t seem so fantastic. What if this wasn’t a bad trip that would end soon, but one that turned her into a full-blown crazy woman? What if she was locked inside this nightmare until the day she died? What would she do then?
She looked up, eyes wide.
“Mommy?”
“Yes,” Stephenie said, her voice pleading. “I’m having hallucinations.”
“Really?”
“Oh God, yes I am!”
“Can you describe them to me?”
“I don’t know what to say. Everything’s so… bad.”
The Carrie-monster’s voice was changing, losing its childlike charm, becoming more direct and to the point. “Start from the beginning.”
“The beginning?”
“Yes. I want you to tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Everything. Hurry. Do it; do it now.”
Stephenie nodded a couple times. “Okay,” she said. “Okay, okay.” She closed her eyes and tried to pinpoint the beginning. “There was a restaurant.”
“Yes.”
“And everybody inside the restaurant was dead.”
“How?”
Stephenie slapped her hands on her face and shook her head like she didn’t want to articulate her thoughts. She said, “Oh shit, I don’t know.”
“Yes you do. Tell us.”
Stephenie’s eyes peeked above her fingers, curious about the ‘us’ comment. Maybe she was in a hospital surrounded by doctors. That would explain the clean looking rooms and the long hallways, wouldn’t it? Sure it would.
The thing that looked like Carrie––with its upside-down grin and big monstrous eyes––moved closer. With its voice growing deeper and meaner, it said, “Answer us, mommy. Answer us! Tell us about the restaurant.”
“Don’t call me mommy.”
“What do you want to be called?”
“Stephenie.”
“Fine. Stephenie, tell us about that fucking restaurant or I’ll tear your head off your body and swallow your bones one at a time.”
Shocked, Stephenie barked, “Don’t say things like that!”
“Tell us about the restaurant, Stephenie! Tell us!”
“I don’t know what to say! I went inside and everyone was dead! The people looked like they had been ripped apart by a grizzly bear!”
“Yes! They did, didn’t they?”
“Yes!”
“And you killed them.”
“What? No I didn’t!”
“Yes you did.”
“No! They were dead when we arrived!”
“No they weren’t. You chopped them apart with an axe.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Are you?”
Stephenie stumbled on that one, recognizing at once that it was a damn good question. Was she crazy? Yes, perhaps she was. With her voice losing its authority she said, “Leave me alone.”
The Carrie-thing grinned its terrible upside-down grin, clicked her bony, bleeding, finger-nubs together and said, “I don’t think so, you worthless, evil bitch. I’m not going to leave you alone. You don’t deserve to be left alone. You deserve everything you get. Oh yes you do. And you’ll get plenty, mommy. We’ll give you plenty.”
Stephenie pulled her hands away from her face. They were trembling so much she looked like she was having a seizure. But she had an idea, and hoped it would work. She said, “There’s a sanctuary.” Her voice had never sounded so desperate.
“What are you saying?”
“A sanctuary!” Stephenie looked up at monster with the big bug eyes and the upside-down grin. She pushed her half-stick of chewing gum from one side her mouth to the other, and said, “If this is a nightmare, which I think it is, I can go back to my sanctuary. I can stay in there, you know? I don’t have to come out. Not ever. I don’t have to be out here with you! I can go back to my sanctuary! I know exactly where it is! I marked it!”
“Oh really?”
“Yes… really! I don’t have to be here with you. I don’t have to be here at all. My medications are fucking with me; that’s all. This is just a problem with my medications! Nothing more. This is all just one big misunderstanding!”
The Carrie thing sniggered. “And what will you do for food, locked inside a change room with a toilet, huh? Eat your own shit?”
“Ah ha!” Stephenie pointed her trembling finger at the thing hanging over her, the creature that looked like it wanted to swallow her whole. She took several deep breaths and thought she might hyperventilate; then she wiped a tear from her eye, and said, “I didn’t tell you it was a change room! That proves what I’m saying! That proves it! You’re confirming my words; that’s what you’re doing! I didn’t tell you my sanctuary was a change room, and I didn’t tell that fucked up family in the farmhouse what my name was. Blair knew things because he wasn’t real. And you know things because you’re not real. Oh God, you’re not real!”
“Tell me mommy––”
“And there is food in there. I have chocolates.”
“I hope you didn’t eat them, you stupid bitch. I hope for your sake you left those chocolates alone, otherwise you’ll be sorry.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I’ll never tell. I’ll never tell you what’s impregnating you now, mommy––”
Stephenie cut into the monster’s words, saying, “Stop calling me that! Don’t you dare call me that! You’re not my daughter! You’re just a problem with my medication!”
“Tell me, babe, what is real?”
“I don’t know!”
“Then tell me, you stupid, worthless, whiny whore… what do you think of this?”
5
The thing that looked like Carrie stuck her bleeding-nub fingers inside her upside-down mouth and began tearing her face apart.
Stephenie shrieked and squealed and tried to shield her eyes by burying her face in her hands. When she looked up again, Carrie’s distorted features were hanging off the child-monster like a mask. But the child-monster wasn’t a child any longer. It had doubled in size and sprouted a second set of legs. The legs were long and green and growing from the hips. They looked like they belonged on the back end of the world’s biggest grasshopper.
The giant Carrie-monster started laughing. Its bulging eyes grew thicker and fatter and somehow deeper. Then, with a voice that didn’t sound human, the monster said, “What’s the last thing you remember? Do you remember driving? Do you remember parking your car close to the pump? Do you remember that old KING’S DINER sign? Here’s a new thought, you selfish, psycho, blood-loving slut: you and Carrie pulled into the gas station. You filled your tank and brought Carrie inside. Somebody came into the restaurant and killed everyone with a fucking axe, including you and your daughter. And because you’ve been such a rotten, miserable bitch all your life, you died and went to hell. And this is it. You’re here! Welcome, cunt! Welcome!”
The monster laughed again.
Carrie’s features dropped to the floor in a pile. A new face was revealed. It was a bubbling mound of puss-covered lumps, a nest of misplaced hair and knots of bone that seemed to change shape at random
.
“Do you know why you can’t find your daughter,” the creature went on to say. “Do you, Stephenie Paige, husband killer? It’s because she isn’t here! She went to heaven, but not until after she had her arms and legs chopped off by a psychopath. She went to heaven and you went to hell!”
“Stop it!”
“Stop what, Stephenie? I’m just telling you the way it is! Someone chopped off your daughter’s arms and legs, Stephenie. And she was alive and screaming until the very end.”
“Shut up!”
“This is hell, and you’ll be here forever. And every day will last a hundred years. And every hour will be worse than the last!”
“NO!”
“You haven’t seen the really hellish things yet, because we haven’t shown them to you. This is day one Stephenie. DAY ONE! Wait until you’ve been here a couple million years. You have no idea how bad this world gets. We’re just getting started.”
“FUCK OFF!”
“I’m going to cut your throat with a hacksaw, which is a better fate than you deserve! But that won’t kill you Stephenie. Nothing can kill you here. I’ll cut your throat a thousand times a day!”
“LEAVE ME ALONE!” Stephenie screamed. She crawled out of the corner and forced herself onto her feet. She grabbed the doorknob and shouted: “YOU’RE GOING TO OPEN FOR ME BECAUSE THIS IS JUST A DREAM! I’M THE ONE IN CHARGE HERE! ME! SO OPEN FOR ME, GODDAMN YOU, OPEN!!”
She twisted her wrist and the doorknob turned. She flung the door wide and exploded into the hall. She started running. It hurt like hell––no pun intended––but she ran all the same. She ran past doors and hallway crossroads. She turned left down one corridor, right down another, then left down a third. At one point she saw a photograph taped to the wall and she pulled it off without slowing her pace. When she came to a hallway juncture, she stopped long enough to look at the image.
It was Carrie.
She was lying on the floor in the restaurant. Her arms and legs were gone; they had been amputated with an axe. Her mouth was open and her eyes were blank. Looking into her face was like looking into the eyes of a dead cat.
Into Hell Page 15
