You're Cute When You Scream

“Well, well, well look who finally showed up!” Shadows shouted, stepping out of a van. My guess would be that they arrived the same time we did. I was stupid enough to think that he was alone.

When I saw four other bodies get out of the van, I felt my heart sink. Randi had been pushed out the door so that she stumbled next to Shadows. Her face was all bloodied up, with most of it dripping down from a large crack at the top her head.

In fact, the entire right side of her face was covered in streams of black, dried blood. Also, two separate lines came from each of her nostrils, over her lips, and down onto her chest. How could something that bad already happen to her?

Katie came out right behind her and luckily she wasn’t nearly as injured. Wait though, I thought this was a personal vendetta between them and Randi and me? Why would they have to involve more innocent people? Hell, they should’ve even left Randi out of this…it’s all my fault, and I should be the one to deal with it.

“Ooh do we have a new little friend?” the Rev sadistically grinned in Katie’s direction, causing her to visibly shudder.

“You all stay the hell away from her!” I shouted, taking a step forward.

Synyster turned to look at me and pushed me up against the trunk door of the hearse. Again, he had put pressure on my back. At this rate there won’t be much left of it, damn it! “We will do what we want, when we want to, got it? I wouldn’t want to have to cause any unnecessary harm to you on your first night back with us,” he said, adding a little sweetness to that last sentence, making it appear as if he really did somehow care about what he was doing to me.

“Can we get this party started yet?” Matt whined, glaring down at Randi.

Syn shrugged, “I don’t see why not? I know I’ve just been dying for this night to come, so yeah Shads let’s start it up.”

All the guys cheered and in a flash Synyster had a death grip on me, pushing me up the stairs, Shadows kept kicking Randi down as she would walk up the stairs, and Zacky gripped Katie’s arm tightly as he pulled her up.

It was only until now that we were on the steps leading to a fucking mansion. How the hell do wanted criminals afford a mansion? This was definitely an improvement from that last piece of shit they were in…not like that makes this situation even remotely better.

There were 2 words that I could use to describe this place…massive and gothic. Every room was oversized, and every room contained some shade of black, crimson, or violet. Currently, they had us standing in the TV room that was 2 floors tall. There was a large plasma TV suspended on the wall with tons of video game systems scattered around. The walls were black and the carpet was bright white. The fireplace was roaring, creating quite a big flame.

The three of us stood in the center of the room, all wanting to do something, but knowing there was nothing to do. “You have no idea how long we’ve all waited for this moment,” Synyster said, standing in the center of the group. “So now we’re going to have a little fun.”

They all exchanged glances and before I knew it Johnny had pulled Katie over to the side, slamming her into a wall, Jimmy had kicked Randi down onto a recliner nearby, and that left me the only one standing. Suddenly, Shadows grabbed me and threw me across the room, landing harshly on the leather couch. I felt my back and neck make a cracking noise. Just as I was regaining my balance and about to sit back up, Shadows pinned me back down to the couch, using all of his force to keep me in place. He was squeezing so hard on my arms that I swear they were going to break any second now.

“And guess what. Myra gets to start off our evening of fun,” he grinned down at me.

The look in his eyes was so malicious that I just wanted to look anywhere but up at him. I don’t even want to know what kind of plans they have for me…and I’m not going to let them have their fun. I took in deep breaths and focused all my strength. “Not gonna happen,” I said confidently as I used both my legs to kick him off of me.

He ended up sprawled on the floor a few feet away. Everyone except for him and Syn were laughing. I quickly began to back away from him but only ended up bumping into Syn. “That wasn’t a very nice thing to do, Myra,” he told me.

I could tell just by the edge in his voice that he was about to go in for the kill, so I spun around in the opposite direction. I must be stupid or something, because this was now the second time tonight that I’ve backed myself into a corner. I was now sandwiched between the wall and Synyster. “How about you say you’re sorry?” he said staring down at me.

I choked back a laugh. “Are you crazy? You’re the ones who should be sorry!”

He was quickly becoming pissed off. He roughly grabbed onto my jaw and made me look right up at him. “That wasn’t an option,” he growled.

I pushed his hand off of me and glared at him. “Sorry,” I begrudgingly mumbled.

“That wasn’t so hard now was it? But still, I’m glad you did what you did. It just goes to show how excited you are to get on with tonight’s events.”

“W-what are you talking about?” I stammered.

He didn’t answer, he only smirked as he lifted up my arms and placed them against the wall. What’s so special about that? Suddenly, four claws appeared out of nowhere. Two of them clamped down into my wrist. I screamed out as soon as I felt the four long metal prongs dig into my wrist, slashing through the veins, muscle, and bone until it got all the way through. I could feel it tear into my veins, freely releasing the blood down my arms and onto the wall even. Tears were an immediate reaction and I couldn’t breathe.

I was not prepared for such an amount of pain – but it gets worse. Instead of having claws at the bottom by my ankles, four metal prongs on each side came out of the wall vertically looking like fingers as they shot through my legs. Those hurt even more because there was even more muscle to travel through. Again, the breath got hitched in the back of my throat and I felt like my world was coming to an end already.

I watched at blood squirted out onto the crisp white carpet, dying it red. The wall behind me then began to make rumbling noises and somehow the wall around me turned into a wooden wheel, with me attached to it by those metal prongs. What the hell is going on?!

“Everyone,” the Rev said, standing up, “I’d like to introduce you to one of my own personal devices known as the ‘Stab and Spin.’ It’s a fun little game and I’m sure you all can figure out how it works.”

“What the hell kind of house is this? Are there more little tricks like that around here?” Randi angrily demanded.

Zacky grinned, “You’re already sitting in one.”

She looked down confused – it just looked like she was sitting in a regular old La-Z-Boy recliner. But soon brown leather cuffs came out of nowhere and trapped her wrists and ankles. Immediately, she struggled, trying to free herself, but they were bound too tight. “You’ll find out in just a bit what your surprise is,” Shadows added, smirking, “But now back to the star of the hour.”

Everyone turned to look at me, still having a hard time breathing. “Are you ready to play?” Synyster asked, gripping one of the wooden spindles used to spin the wheel.

“No,” I managed to choke out, with pleading eyes hoping he’d just let me down easy.

“Too bad,” he grinned. “Now here’s how it’s going to work. I’m going to ask you a question…if you answer it right then nothing happens, if not you get to spin until you’re ready to answer.” That didn’t seem so bad. But the only thing that worried me was when does the whole ‘stab’ scenario take place?

“First question: do you love me?”

Was he serious? I looked at him like he was crazy. “Are you insane?! Of course not!” You know even though I’ve had those weird nostalgic feelings, that doesn’t mean I love him…or at least that’s what I told myself.

He laughed, glad he got to spin the wheel already, and said, “Wrong answer.” He spun the wheel and I squeezed my eyes shut so I wouldn’t have to watch the world spin around in a massive blur. Spinning around this fast reminded me of this one time a long time ago when my bro Joey took me to a space camp over the summer. I was afraid at first, but he did every single activity with me and assured me everything would be alright. He got me through it then…but he’s not here now…because those mother fuckers killed him!

I didn’t even know what came over me, but I felt myself shout, “STOP!”

I had originally expected everything to simply stop spinning, but that is not what happened. Instead, a piercing pain entered my stomach. The spinning stopped immediately and my shirt was wet. Horrified, I glanced down to see that there was a knife sticking out of my stomach. Something crawled up my throat and spilled out onto my chest. It was blood, and it kept dribbling out. My stomach was gushing, covering my shirt in the liquid.

Slowly, he twisted the knife a little to ease it out from between my skin and tissue. “Ready to tell me the right answer?” he asked, keeping the knife in me still as leverage, I guess you could say.

My body was trembling and I really did not want to get stabbed again…but I just couldn’t bring myself to say what he wanted me to. He began to push the knife back in and I forced the words out. “I love you.” He smirked, glad to get his answer, and then without warning pulled the knife out.

“Alright, now here’s the next question. Who’s fault is it that all of us are in love with killing now?”

That was an easy one. “It’s…your own…damn fault!” I breathed out.

He sighed, “You really don’t understand how this game works do you?” And with that he spun again, causing the blood from my gushing stomach wound to fly all over the place, like a shower of blood.

Why does this have to happen to me? I felt like I was going to be sick this time around and cringed when I tasted a mixture of metallic fluid and digested cookie dough crawl up my throat. I forced myself to swallow it back down and told him to stop, praying he wouldn’t stab me again. I’m not so lucky. This time the piercing pain came down in my shoulder, which made it even harder to stop because at least the stomach was in the center of the wheel. Once the wheel finally came to a halt and he got a better grip on the knife, he pulled it down further, creating a long thin line extending from my shoulder to the middle of my collar bone.

“Answer?” he asked, digging the knife back and forth into the wound.

“It’s all my fault!” I cried out, tears pouring and blood dripping. With each deep breath that I took, more pressure was applied to the new wound causing it to open up further. “It’s all my fault…” I whispered to myself, hanging my head in shame.

Although he will never know it, I wasn’t admitting to his question, I was admitting to myself that it’s my fault that my friends have to suffer through this. It’s my fault they killed Joey.

All of my clothes were clinging to me now, being drenched in blood. I don’t know how I’m even still conscious…I must’ve lost tons of blood by now. He ripped the knife out and to my surprise, the claws retracted too, tearing out of my skin, removing shreds of flesh, leaving gashes in what used to my wrists, leaving holes in what are my legs. I fell to the ground, in a crumbled wreck. He knelt down next to me, lifting me up so he could look at me.

“If you think that was bad, just wait till what we’ve got planned for the rest of your little vacation here,” he grinned.

I had avoided eye contact, but as soon as his words left his mouth I glanced up at him and saw more than I needed to see. Behind him, hidden in the shadows stood someone I thought I’d never see again…Ronnie. “No, not him too,” I sobbed.

Why the hell would he have to work with them too? I guess nothing in my life can ever work out to my advantage. I wanted to just pass out right then and there to escape all this, but Synyster wouldn’t let me. “You can’t leave us now,” he said, “Randi’s show is about to begin…and our new gang member has something he’d like to tell you.”