Primrose & Brimstone

by Mueller, Jason

  For the second time that day he showered, washing away the juices of a young girl he’d made his version of love to. Danny dressed grabbed his things and left the bedroom. He hadn’t forgotten about young Jeremy Cutler. He wasn’t sure what he would do about him or if he would do anything with him at all. Danny might just leave him be if he could get out of the house without being seen.

  He crept down the hall. Jeremy was still sitting on the couch engrossed in his video game and chatting with his friend through the headset. Danny stopped to watch and listen for a second as the young boy jabbered away with the unseen person on the other end of the conversation. The fact that the boy was oblivious to the horrors that lay down the hall never entered Danny's mind. It was the fact that the boy seemed so happy and so content. Danny could never remember feeling that way. Life had always been hard and painful as long as he could remember.

  Danny Grey casually walked out of the front door. He threw the duffel bag in the back seat. He started the engine and drove away into the night. Little nine-year-old Jeremy Cutler hung from a rafter in the garage by an extension cord scared, alone, confused and kicking his life away as the world went dark.

  It was 9:12 P.M.

  Danny drove the lonely streets. It was Halloween he thought. Shouldn't people be out celebrating? Sure it was getting late, but it wasn't even 10 p.m. yet. He'd always loved Halloween it was his favorite holiday of the year. Bigger than Christmas to him and one of the few holidays he could remember being happy. Actually, Halloween was the only time he remembered being happy at all growing up. On that one night every year he could escape his life. He could put on a mask and be someone else. For the night he was no longer poor, white trash, and abused.

  He liked being army men, cowboys, ninjas and superheroes. He would pretend that the cigarette burns that covered his arms and the bruises and scars from the beatings were battle wounds not the result of abuse. The evidence of his beatings with extension cords that tore the flesh of his back, buttocks and legs were the scars of war in a land far away fighting for something good. Something tangible and of value. Where he had value. Not just scars from fighting to survive another minute in a world full of abuse in a roach-infested apartment on the west end of town. He could still remember the roaches crawling on him at night and being afraid of the dark. The naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling overhead seemed to be the only thing to keep the bugs at bay. But there were other things that lurked in the night that paid little attention to the dim bulb and the small band of light it shed. It was during this time in his life that the devil came to stay.

  Danny Grey is an example of extreme possession. The spirits inside of him whispered hateful things to him night and day and his soul, mind, and spirit was rendered impotent at a young age by the constant assault on his psyche. His own will and personality were overpowered and a lifelong game of manipulation from the spirits left him unable to love, empathize, sympathize or have a definable sense of right or wrong.

  Horrific abuse and trauma plus a wounded child and the demonic are the ingredients for mayhem and Danny Grey was the poster boy.

  Danny cruised bored out of his mind. He thought about just giving up and going home but he hated it there. Living under the radar meant living in a place much like where he grew up and he had bad memories when he was there. Plus this was his night. He could no longer dress up and pretend that he was someone else anymore. Somewhere he had lost that ability. A brightly lit and gaudy sign ahead caught his attention.

  A black sign with white lettering and orange light bulbs illuminating it came into focus. “Horrorland Haunted House”. In smaller letters below it posted the hours of 5p-10p. Danny checked his watch 9:46 p.m. he might just have enough time. He pulled into the parking lot where a teenage boy and girl both wearing neon green safety vest with flashlights in hand directed him toward a space in the nearly empty lot. Really? Danny thought about the absurdity of them directing him to a parking space in a lot full of empty spaces.

  Absent-mindedly he stuck the suppressed pistol back into his coat pocket and grabbed all the spare magazines and shoved them into his pockets. He got out of the Lincoln and locked the door and headed for the ticket booth where a young girl with a pair of ear buds in took his money without a word and only pointed toward a holding area made from a maze of posts and ropes.

  Danny navigated the maze and ended up next to a young man who was maybe nineteen at the most wearing a black shirt with the word “Security” in bold white letters. The security guard was deep in thought and hadn’t even noticed that Danny had walked up.

  Bored Danny thought he would make chit chat with the young man. “Kind of dead tonight isn’t it?”

  The black shirt clad teen blinked a few times as his daydream of fucking one of the hot girls that was playing a character inside the haunted house later that night. In less than ten minutes they would get off work and they would be free to go to the party that the cast had planned where he would do his best to take advantage of her.

  "Uh, yea it's been dead tonight. They took a group in a few minutes ago. So if no one else comes you get to go by yourself." The young man answered.

  “That would be great!” Danny really didn’t want to deal with a bunch of screaming teenage girls and nerdy boys trying to act tough in front of their girlfriends. “So how long does it take to get through?”

  The young man thought for a second. “I would say about fifteen minutes. We expanded the house this year since we have this new location and it's freaking huge man.” The walkie-talkie on his hip crackled with a burst of static and words that Danny couldn't quite make out.

  The young man looked at his watch. "Yup looks like you're going alone, dude! Don't get too scared buddy!" The boy laughed as he removed the rope to let Danny in.

  “I’ll do my best!” Danny was stoked being able to go alone as he stepped into the pitch blackness. He fumbled down a long hallway that seemed to stretch for miles. The rough back painted plywood that made the tunnel was rough on his hands as he felt his way through.

  About twenty feet into the darkness that matched the darkness in his soul the devil chose that time to leave Danny Grey. His already warped and twisted mind shattered with the devils leaving. Years of abuse, murder, and possession that had been held at bay by the dark entity all this time came flooding back.

  Fear and madness gripped Danny as he staggered along blindly desperate to get out of the darkness and back to the light. It never entered his mind he could easily just turn around and go back out. Instead in his madness, he moved forward. Was this merely instinct or symbolic because Danny did need to move forward? The spirit had been in control all these years and Danny was now faced with having to deal with its leaving and the trail of pain and suffering in his wake as it all came flooding back. He smashed into a wall face first smashing his nose. An unseen and unfelt trickle of blood ran down his face. The tunnel turned to the left and he could see the faintest hint of light coming from a long way off.

  He could see a faint blue light as he made his way along the tunnel. The blackness receding with every step as the light grew stronger as he grew near. He nearly collapsed into a ball when instead of safety he burst into a grisly scene. Bodies lay on a table in pieces while young teenage girls behind fake bars screamed for him to help them as they mimicked reaching for him.

  He was scared, panicked, and confused. What kind of place was this and what was going on in his head? It hurt. Instinct took over. He could no longer tell the difference between the contrived and fictional horror scene and reality. Years of hard training took over. Muscles reacted, and the gun was in hand and going off the suppressor doing its job. Everyone in the scene lay dead or dying. Three more lives that Danny would have to atone for when he stood before God but the nightmare wasn’t over yet.

  Determined to escape this hell Danny moved on. He would make it out if the ammo held out he thought as he navigated another dark corridor. It would be a long bloody fifteen minutes at the Horrorland
Haunted House. His last kill at the attraction would be the obligatory character with the chainless chainsaw paying homage to Leather Face and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre who came out of the fog only to have his left eye demolished and the back of his head blown out by Danny’s expert shooting. The teenager was dead before he hit the ground. The chainsaw kept running.

  Danny Grey stumbled out into the coolness of the last night of October. He sobbed as he staggered to the Lincoln shoving the gun back into his pocket as he went out of habit. He passed the young security guard who had yet to realize that the majority of his coworkers were dead.

  “Hey man how was it?” He asked grinning believing the attraction was disturbing and a little scary. He would find out shortly how disturbing and scary it was now.

  “It was fine!” Danny rambled as he scurried past bumping into the young man on his way out to the parking lot. The only thing he could concentrate on was getting into his beloved Lincoln and getting away from there. Finding somewhere safe.

  He nearly cried with relief when the huge motor of the Lincoln roared to life. He fled away into the night retaining enough of himself to not drive crazy and draw attention to himself. Four blocks later as he was sitting at a red light a police car passed through the intersection with lights and sirens blaring heading toward would become known as the Horrorland Massacre when the world learned of the murders.

  Danny had no idea where he was even though he had driven the same road his entire life his mind was so jumbled. So he drove concentrating on staying at the speed limit and watching for stop lights. The images that were still flashing before his eyes punched him in his psyche like heavy hammer blows. The faces of those who were dead by his hand became a gut-wrenching kaleidoscope as the images burned into his brain as he remembered them. Their words, tears, and begging with their last breaths.

  Urban turned into suburbia and finally Danny was out of the city and into the country. Farmhouses and barns pocked the barren landscape. With each passing mile, he could feel himself calm somewhat. He found himself on an old state highway that saw little traffic anymore since the interstate and the bypass was constructed. It felt good to follow the winding road as the Lincoln took the curves well for a car that size and it gave the impression that one was riding on air.

  As Danny relaxed, he thought more clearly. His real mind not the tormented possessed mind he had dealt with for so many years functioned little by little as the images died down. He did his best to make sense of it all but he couldn’t. How could he have killed so many people? It was time to disappear. Danny had always known this day would come although he was confused how he knew this. But it shocked him to realize that today was the day.

  He could feel a shift in his thinking as if a dark veil had been removed. He’d always wondered if there was something wrong with him? Well, he'd known since he was a kid that something was wrong but he could never understand what it was. There were his thoughts. Those other thoughts and his actions and he couldn't ever rectify the three. He wondered if he would ever know what it was.

  It had always seemed like there was someone or something inside him that had the control making him do its bidding. It spoke horrible thoughts inside his mind all these years. Now that his was the only voice the inner silence was unsettling. Where were all the horrible blasphemies, the perverted thoughts, the words encouraging him to kill and to hurt people? He pondered as he drove.

  So deep in thought was he that he didn’t notice when Amanda Cutler appeared in the seat next to him. “You have to pay Danny.” She spoke to him with no emotion in her voice much like you would expect the dead to speak.

  Danny, shocked as he was, jerked his head toward the voice and there she was. She was naked like he'd left her. Her eyes bugged out and bloodied from the ruptured capillaries from choking the life out of her. In the darkness, he could see the bruises on her neck, breast, and belt marks from his brutalization on her luminescent skin.

  Danny was stunned not only at her appearing and words but of his horrific actions that had left this beautiful young girl dead and brought them both to this moment.

  “I am so sorry Amanda.” Danny stuttered unsure if she was really there or a figment of his imagination. So deep was his sorry and regret tears ran down his cheeks. As if the apparition could read his mind she shrieked and jerked the wheel making the Lincoln slew back and forth violently. Despite Danny's best efforts she proved to be too strong now in death and the car barreled off the road and over the embankment slamming into a tree.

  Danny’s face slammed into the steering wheel. His already busted nose from when he hit the wall at the haunted house pulped under the impact. Danny sat dazed, blood pouring out of his nose. He noticed eyes on him. He lifted his head and saw Amanda standing to the front of the car in the lone working headlight slashing through her leaving her washed out from the waist down.

  Terrified he got out of the car and bent back down to grab the duffel bag he'd taken into the Cutlers home when he killed them and held the tools of his trade so to speak. The gun and extra magazines that were left were still in his coat pockets. He would need to act fast and get the car towed before the police drove by and saw it before morning. It would cost him to get it tonight but money was no issue.

  He turned the lights off so as not to draw attention to the wreck and be seen from the road. Hopefully, the steep embankment was high enough that traffic would just keep driving by oblivious to the fact there was a smashed-up Lincoln at the bottom. He stood up and found himself surrounded by the dead he had wreaked havoc on that night.

  Amanda Cutler was still there along with her mother Beth, father William, and young Jeremy. Shelly the dead hooker was also there. Thankfully she looked much like Amanda and not the burned corpse that was found in the motel. The Harris boys were there too. They were the hardest to look at for Danny as they showed the trauma of their demise and were horrifically mangled even in death.

  Danny wept when he saw the boys so great was his guilt. What had possessed him to commit such a horrible act? Lastly, there were the thirty-nine young people that Danny had shot in cold blood. They all crowded around him. Frantic Danny saw a gap closing and rushed for it and broke free. They all turned to follow him calling out to him as they herded him toward the road.

  "Danny, why did you hurt me? You have to pay Danny. Hell is waiting for you." Were a few of the things that were said by his victims as they listed everything he’d perpetrated on them as they followed. Their words cut him. He begged for them to stop. To forgive him but they continued to follow him and rend his mind with their words. Danny ran for the road but it seemed as if he was making little progress even though there was no reason for the struggle and he was working so hard that his heart was pounding.

  Hands grasped at him. He pulled the still suppressed Sig out of his jacket and fired but his shots did nothing. How could you kill the dead again? He finally reached the embankment. The highway was right above and safety. He started up the incline, but the crowd stopped following all but little Jeremy Cutler who still pursued at his slow pace. The marks from the extension cord and his misshapen neck still visible.

  John Adams no relation to the president by that name was pissed off as he down-shifted on the curvy section of the old highway. The life of a truck driver has always been a life of long hours and missing family time. He had planned to be home in time to take the kids trick or treating since they were getting to be too old to be going. Where had all the time flown? He’d always busted his ass trying to put food on the table and a roof over everyone’s head and he’d suffered for it. All the missed moments haunted him lately.

  So instead of spending time with the kids he sat for four hours waiting for his truck to be loaded and now the whole fucking night was ruined. Oh well, he tried to convince himself it didn't matter another twenty miles he would be back at the terminal and on his way home. The only problem was having to slow down on this old ass road he thought as he navigated yet another tight curve. The idiots
at the warehouse overloaded him so he couldn't save time and drive on the interstate because he couldn't go over the scales. They would fine him and possibly put him out of service.

  So now he was sneaking around on this old highway that hardly anyone used anymore but it was so curvy and hilly it would take him longer than he had planned. As he came around yet another curve finally, there was an open stretch of road. He sped up moving back up through the gears. He let the proverbial hammer down and soon had the old Kenworth up to just under seventy miles an hour.

  Danny was near the top of the embankment. The crowd of dead stood at the bottom except for little Jeremy Cutler who followed Danny as he scrambled through the overgrown grass, weeds, and briars. With a final effort, Danny crested the top of the hill gasping for breath. His broken nose not helping. The sound of his heart beating drummed in his ears as he fought to catch his breath and the sheer panic of the situation cause him to not see or hear the truck that barreled toward him.

  John saw a man and a little boy appear out of nowhere from the side of the road. Stay where you are he muttered at them knowing there was no way he could even slow down let alone stop.

  John Adams night got a lot worse. He swore he saw the little boy push the man in front of his truck just as he reached them. John felt the impact as Danny’s body met the bumper and the overweight truck knocked him to the ground and his body lay splattered and scattered over the old cracked pavement as the eighty thousand plus pound truck smashed him into oblivion.

  In shock, John Adams scrambled out of the truck when he finally got it stopped. John puked as he staggered through the carnage. He needed to find the little boy he almost slipped and fell into the gore as he continued to look. John looked down the embankment where he’d first seen them and only saw a black Lincoln its front in wrapped around a tree.