by Sam West
Hope was dangerously close to throwing up.
Is that a fucking horse I hear?
A whinnying noise reached her ears above the music – it seemed to becoming from the next stall along.
From the next stable. How apt.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Rohan said, “I don’t think this next part is going to be pretty.”
Mick jerked on her lead, moving away from the macabre scene of the girl being eaten alive. “Everyone in my world has a fetish, Hope,” Mick was saying, “and you’re about to find out mine. That’s the reason I haven’t fucked you yet, you’re too special and I’ve been saving you up for my favourite sport. Bestiality.”
Aww, Jesus Christ, no…
In this alcove was a pig and a pony, both of which were tethered by rope to a metal hook in the wall. The pony whinnied and bared its teeth, the pig snuffled and grunted and tugged at the rope. Except on closer inspection, it wasn’t a pig, it was hairy and grey and had pointy teeth.
It looks like a fucking wild boar.
Hope’s heart sank to her feet when she saw the monstrous hard-on the pony sported. And she almost chucked up when she saw the boars cork-screw penis.
I can’t, I’d sooner die…
“Deep breaths, baby,” Rohan said above her, “it’s going to be fine.”
Fine? You call this fine? You call getting fucked by barnyard animals fine?
“No, I think you’re going to get away with it... See? What did I tell you?”
One of the muscled henchmen approached and leaned in close to his boss, saying something directly in his ear.
What’s he saying?
Rohan stuck his face between the two men’s. “Gorilla boy here is reminding Mick that it’s almost ten to midnight. That it’s almost time.”
Time? Time for what?
“Time for the slaughter to begin.”
Mick smiled down at her. “We don’t have long left, my sweet, time has got away from us. It must happen at midnight, you see, it is not an old-wives tale it is called the witching hour.”
He ducked under the wire, and Hope crawled after him.
Confusion and despair washed through her. What was more, she could see the shifting shadows were back out the corner of her eye.
The demons are here, oh God, they’re here.
“I’m sorry to say it, but you may well have a point,” Rohan said. “When I was alive, I just thought you were off your nut on drugs, but now I’m dead… Well, let’s just say you were right. This place is bad, it’s rotten. All the shit that’s happened here, it’s attracting demons. They’re here to feast on people’s suffering. If Mick pulls this off, it will open up a rift between here and Hell. I don’t know how long it will stay open, mind.”
Hope glanced up at Mick, even though he hadn’t given her permission to look at him. He looked wistful, his eyes far away and dreamy.
“Such a shame we’ve run out of time, oh, the things I was going to show you. All my little projects are here, in the alcoves. You’ve barely seen any of them. I so wanted to show you my basket-cases again. Frank passed away, sadly, but Fred and June are still going strong, they are currently being raped by some acrotomophiliacs. That means perverts who really dig the amputee look.” He laughed and Hope felt ill, whether from his story, all she had witnessed, or the drugs, she didn’t know. “We still have ten minutes. Plenty of time to cock your leg against the pig and suck him off.”
Her stomach lurched. “No,” she said, not caring in that moment how he might punish her. Nothing in the world could be as bad as having to suck off a god-damn pig.
Pain exploded in her stomach and she fell to her side, doubled over.
The bastard kicked me in the guts, she thought through a blaze of agony.
Rohan kneeled down next to her and gazed into her eyes. “Poor baby. But good for you. I’m getting stronger with every passing second, I think the rift is giving me power… And I think our moment might well have arrived.”
“Don’t you dare fucking disobey me,” Mick bellowed down at her. “Get over to that fucking pig and suck his fucking cock!”
She looked past Mick’s red face with the spittle covered lips at Rohan, who was stroking the boar’s head and whispering in its ear. The boar growled and snorted, its little eyes full of Hell. Rohan smiled, and went to the hook at the wall…
Suddenly the boar was free, and heading straight for Mick who didn’t notice because he was too busy shouting at her. Hope manged to roll to one side just in time as the boar charged Mick, knocking him off his feet with one hard head-butt. Then the boar was on him, snapping at his neck and making the most god-awful sounds like a rabid dog.
“Quick, over here,” Rohan shouted, gesturing wildly at her for her to come to him.
Gathering herself together and ignoring the pain in her guts, she stumbled towards him and he bundled her in his arms, kissing her squarely on the mouth.
“Come on, we don’t have much time,” he said taking hold of her hand and dragging her after him. “If we’re quick, we can get you to a safe place before it starts…”
He pushed on her shoulders, forcing her to duck under the wire. Rohan didn’t duck, he just walked right through the barrier like it wasn’t there.
“Miss? You’re coming with me.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Shit,” Rohan said as the man grabbed Hope.
“Come with me now.”
“No,” she gasped, but she was no match for his strength and he easily marched her in the direction of the stairs. “Help me, Rohan!”
“I can’t, I’m not strong enough yet.”
He pushed the man, then tried pulling at him, clawing at his clothes. Hope watched the way his white t-shirt twisted round his torso, but the man seemed not to notice. Rohan gave up and matched their stride, walking beside Hope.
“Maybe it’s for the best,” he panted. “If you’re with Mick, you’ll be safe, for the moment anyway. It’s about to turn into bedlam down here.”
Where is Mick? Did the boar kill him?
“No such luck, but at least it saved you a beating. Or worse.”
Hope was dragged up the stairs, then carried under her armpits when she lost her footing. Up on the landing the man flung her to the ground like a bag of rubbish and she landed in an ungainly heap.
Rohan extended his hand down to her.
How come you can touch me and untie a rope but not stop that guy from dragging me off? she grumbled in her head.
Rohan shrugged. “Dunno. My power kinda comes and goes, like in waves. I guess you can feel me touch you because you can see me. Because of our bond.”
“Well that’s just great,” she muttered as he pulled her to her feet.
“Who are you talking to?” came a horribly familiar voice.
Hope glared at Mick, wishing that the boar had ripped out his throat. It had been close – he was clutching a blood-soaked handkerchief against a spot on his collarbone just below the jugular.
If only...
“Tell me about it,” Rohan said, “just a few inches higher.”
Mick closed the gap between them and peered into her eyes. “Are you tripping? Tell me, what do you see? It’s going to make what you are about to witness all the more delicious.”
“Sir? It’s almost midnight.”
Mick’s gaze flitted to the man who had escorted Hope up the stairs. He nodded.
“Then get the men in place and let her rip.”
Mick stepped away from her, and for the first time, Hope properly took in the scene.
Oh, fuck…
Rohan wasn’t kidding, this was going to be fucking carnage. Along all four walkways of the hallway, muscly men in white t-shirts and blue jeans were lined up. She counted twenty of them.
All of his men are up here…
Each man was pointing a rifle down at the crowd.
Suddenly, the music stopped and the huge area was flooded with brilliant light. The people down below stopped what
ever they were doing, be it dancing, strutting, torturing or dying. A few looked up.
“They’ve got guns!” someone screamed in a shrill voice.
“The exit is locked!” another person cried.
And then it started.
Hope expected the men to open fire, but instead they stood sentry-still, watching the crowd down the length of their rifles.
Above the confusion and panic, the deep whirring of machinery could be heard. Hope stared at the scene below in wide-eyed horror.
What’s happening?
“Over there,” Rohan said, pointing at the far end of the room.
Hope looked and her insides turned ice-cold. The full realisation of what was about to happen hit her seconds before it actually did:
So that’s what that wire is for…
The far, panelled wall opened up horizontally, like a curtain rising on a stage. Behind it was a huge, gleaming metal machine with massive wheels either side of it. A trip wire appeared, running from wall to wall. The wheels started to turn, until they were just a blur. The high, whining noise signalled that the wheels had reached maximum speed and then the wire was released.
It was spat out at speed, whizzing along the pre-laid out wire track that ran the full length of the room.
In less than ten seconds, at least a thousand people were decapitated or sliced clean in two at the chest. The wire came to a halt at the opposite end of the room and for a moment the silence was absolute.
Hope could only stare down in stark disbelief at the sea of red flesh. There was some movement amongst the carnage where a few people had had the foresight to throw themselves to the ground. Then the screaming resumed. The alcoves, safe from the lethal wire, gave shelter to perhaps a few hundred terrified survivors.
That’s when the men on the balcony opened fire. They took out the remaining revellers in less than a minute.
“Get down there,” Mick said to the armed man nearest to him. “Get the stragglers.”
Two men raced down the stairs and further gunshots rang out, the screams of the dying echoing around the great hall. The screams grew less and less until silence prevailed.
Hope couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. The carpet of dead people was as mesmerising as it was horrific. It was like a scene from a movie, except this was real. The stench of death hung sharp in the air – slightly metallic, fecal, tainted by the acrid, burnt-dirt smell of gunpowder.
It made her nostrils flare and without warning her stomach lurched and she threw up. Slowly she straightened up, tears stinging her eyes. Rohan was by her side and she drew comfort from his presence.
“Stay strong, baby,” he said softly in her ear.
“You’re going to really like this next bit. Ben? You can come out now,” Mick shouted.
Ben? Oh God, please don’t let him have hurt Ben...
Just the shock of hearing her brother’s name turned her legs to rubber. Her heart and stomach felt like they were trying to swap places and she was so angry she forget that she had just witnessed the slaughter of thousands of people.
“What have you done to my brother, you fuck?”
“Hello Sis.”
She spun round on the spot, horrified to see her brother emerge from a door behind her. All she could do was stare at him open-mouthed, taking in his bright orange hair, freckles and turned-up nose. Try as she might, there was no ignoring the horrible sinking sensation deep in the pit of her guts.
“Ben? What are you doing here? What has he done to you?”
He smiled at her, but it was far from friendly. “Has Mick been treating you well?”
She swallowed the lump in her throat. This wasn’t right. Even before he elaborated, she felt conned. There was no other word for it, somehow, some way, Ben was in on this too.
“What do you mean?” she managed to force out.
“When I lost loads of money to Mick in a card-game, I didn’t really.” When he said lost, he used his fingers to put invisible quotation marks around the word. “Mick had seen you working the bar in the boozer, and he fancied you. But he wanted you to go willingly to him so he paid me to say I owed him money so you would offer yourself up to him of your own free-will.”
After staring at her little brother for what felt like an age, all she could think to ask was; “Why?”
“Why? Because you did a lousy job of bringing me up when Mum and Dad died, you don’t give a shit about me and you never have. I do have a gambling problem, we both know that, and when Mick offered me shit loads to clear all my gambling debts with some left over I jumped at the chance because I hate you.”
All throughout this exchange Mick tapped his foot impatiently and checked his watch. “This is all very touching, but fuck off, you’ve served your purpose, I only wanted to kill you in front of Hope. May I borrow this?” he asked one of his men who was stood nearby.
He took the rifle from the man and fired it at Ben’s face. Hope screamed, staggering backwards as her brother’s brains exploded out the back of his head. He fell to his knees, his expression one of total surprise with a red hole in the middle of his forehead. Then he fell forwards and Hope saw the mangled mess that had once been the back of his head. Clumps of brain, orange hair and shattered bone looked like they had been scooped from his head then shoved back in any-old-how.
Hope screamed and couldn’t stop. Of all the sickness, depravity and murder she had witnessed, watching her brother die was by far the worst.
But it was his betrayal that cut the deepest of all, she couldn’t even begin to get her head round that right now.
“Stop screaming,” Mick said. “You’re giving me a headache.”
Rohan placed a cold hand on her shoulder, and bundled her against his freezing body. She wrapped her arms around his back, not caring how cold he was. She held him tight, her grief overwhelming.
“Come on baby, you have to be strong, you have to live. It’s not over yet, please be strong for me, I love you so much.”
“I love you too,” she sobbed.
And right then, she understood that she did. Despite the fact that he had hurt her in the dungeon, despite everything that he was, she loved him, flaws and all.
“You’re tripping, who do you think you’re hugging?” Mick asked.
Rohan prised her away from him and stared lovingly down at her. “Don’t let him win. You have to let go of me and face up to him.”
When she finally let go of Rohan, Mick was smiling at her. “Can you feel it in the air? It’s electric. It’s happening.”
What’s he going on about?
“It’s what I said, Hope. Tonight was a Satanic ritual, he thinks the Devil will appear,” Rohan replied to her thought.
And will he?
“No, of course not, that’s impossible, but he doesn’t know that. He’s killed thousands of people but he doesn’t care because he thinks he’s going to be rewarded in Hell.”
Mick checked his wristwatch. “Right about… now.”
He grabbed her lead which still dangled from her neck and dragged her down the hallway away from the men who were stood talking quietly in small groups.
“Hey, what are you doing…” she began to ask, but her words were cut dead by an explosion.
Mick began to laugh and for a moment Hope couldn’t even begin to fathom what had just happened. She looked around in confusion, not making sense of any of it. The men that had been standing around on the balcony were now on the floor in bloody pieces. Something had blown them apart. Flesh, blood and bone smeared the floors and wall; heads and limbs lay scattered.
“They were wearing company belts which had a detonation device in them programmed to explode at exactly twenty minutes past zero hundred hours.”
“Shit, I didn’t see that coming, that’s just fucking gross,” Rohan grumbled.
Hope was lost for words. Would this insanity never end?
Now it has to end. It’s just me and him left.
“And now it’s time, sweet Hope. The D
evil will come and take you and me to Hell where the three of us will rule the underworld together. I love you, Hope.”
Since when was I part of his sick fantasy?
“You always were, baby. I’m not the only one that loves you,” Rohan said.
“Well, come on then!” Mick screamed suddenly, making Hope flinch. “Where are you? I’m ready, come and get me!”
“Madder than a box of worms,” Rohan said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
This isn’t funny…
“Come on you motherfucker! Fucking show yourself! I’ve killed thousands in your name, what more do you want from me?”
Mick turned around on the spot, the rifle dangling from his hand. He went to the banister and leaned over it, looking down at the sickening display of death and destruction.
“Hope?” Rohan said softly. “We need to end this now. Grab that gun and shoot him. Come on, quickly.”
Hope lurched for the rifle and pointed it at his back.
It can’t end like this, it’s just too fucking easy.
“Easy? You call surviving mass genocide easy? Just shoot the cunt.”
She pulled the trigger and Mick toppled over the balcony.
“Too easy,” she repeated.
Together, Rohan and Hope went to the spot on the balcony where Mick had stood just seconds before and peered down. After a minute of surveying the human wreckage, Rohan was the one to spot Mick’s body.
Hope stared at the twisted, bloody body of her dead captor. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke.”
Rohan put his arm round her shoulder and pulled her close. “Congratulations, you survived.”
“What happens now?”
Before Rohan could formulate a reply, movement from below drew their gaze.
Hope flinched and stiffened in his arms. “Do you see that?” she whispered.
What looked like black smoke, or ground-fog swirled above the carpet of bodies.
“It’s the demons feeding on the dead souls.”
“Then why aren’t they feeding on you?” she asked.
