House of Horrors

The eerie silence was broken by Tom’s spluttering as he wiped sick from the back of his hand. Faris stood up to wrap his arms around Rhys, who was still sobbing quietly to himself as Joe racked through his brains to figure out what was going on.

Unexpectedly, there was a loud bang as a trap door open above them and a sliver, metal box was dropped, with a clatter, to the floor. It rattled closed but the boys were all too stunned by the event to breathe, let alone move.

Joshua crawled towards the box and opened it slowly, his face sheet white when the contents were revealed to him. Joe scuttled towards him, clasping his hand for support. Within the box was a plain sheet of paper covered by a few lines of text in red block capitals and a knife, shiny and blunt, its use questionable. With a nod from Joe, Joshua picked up the document and read it aloud to the ashen faces of his friends.

“Welcome to the Maze. The rules are simple. To get out of the Maze, you must journey through all the rooms. To get to the next room, one person must be dead.” There was a collective gasp from them all as furtive looks darted from one to another.

Clearing his throat, Joe continued, “There are four rooms meaning only one person will reach the end. You must decide who will be this person.”

“Fuck!” Faris screamed, running to a wall to bash his fist against it over and over again, the crust of dry blood dusting off onto his fists and the floor.

“R-room one – the freezer. In the box, there is a knife. Use it. You have fifteen minutes to decide who will be the first victim. After 5 minutes, a poisonous gas will be pumped into the room. After 10 minutes, the room will be totally filled with the gas, killing you all after five more minutes. The gas will be stopped and cleared after the corpse falls. Your fifteen minutes starts when you have finished reading this page therefore, it starts now.”

“No. I’m not doing this. It’s not funny and who ever this sick fucker is who is making us do this should know I’m not doing it,” Tom snarled, his green eyes going into dark slits.

His voice low, Rhys whispered, “But we have to do it- ”

“I’M NOT FUCKING DOING IT!” Tom screamed, making the others cower as the noise echoed and ricocheted off the tiled walls, its sound skewed and distorted. Joshua started cackling madly, shaking his head.

“Come on you guys. Who’s it gonna be?” he smirked, picking up the blade in his hand. They all stared at him blankly, refusing to believe the utter nonsense exiting his mouth.

“Shut up, Joshua!” Rhys yelled, holding his hands over his ears.

“Let us out of this place! Now!” he yelled, desperation making his voice crack. He was shaking with fury, glaring hard at where the opening once was as if it would open by his will alone. Joshua continued to waltz around the room, his eyes dark with menace.

“Ip dip do, I choose you!”

The ragged blade was pointed at Faris who stormed up to him and snatched from his hand, shoving Joshua to the hard ground. Unfazed, the wild-haired youth continued to laugh, holding his stomach as he cringed in pain.

Joe stood up, furious as he looked down at his friend who had obviously lost his mind. “Do you think this is a game?”

Joshua froze and the sniggering ceased, in its place a dark sneer, worsened by his haggard appearance and wayward hair. “It isn’t… but we could make it one…”

“What do you mean?” Rhys snivelled, his usually confident and excited voice small and quiet.

“A game. We could make it a game and the loser forfeits,” he continued.

“Forfeits? FORFEITS?! The loser fucking dies if that’s what you call a goddamn forfeit!” Joe screamed but Faris raised a hand, his expression slightly unsure of what he was about to say.

Clearing his throat, he muttered, “But it would be completely fair and that way no one can say-”

“But I’m not good at games!” Rhys pleaded, clenching his fists in protest.

“There’s no other way, is there? We either have one person live or we all die,” Joe hissed, running his fingers through his ruffled, black hair. “Does anyone have a coin?”

“No way am I determining my future through heads or tails,” Faris snarled to Joshua’s amusement. Rhys edged away from him slightly, uncomfortable with the strange moods Josh was filtering through.

Rhys shook his head and frowned. “But we’re running out of time…” As if on cue, there was a click of a ventilator, signifying the start of the final ten minutes.

“How’s about Rock, Paper, Scissors?”

The rest of them turned to Tom, who looked at the floor instead. Faris turned to Joe and was met by an apathetic shrug. Joshua shuffled closer to make a crocked circle, leaving Rhys the last to join. With his eyes eerily bright, Joshua shoved a fist into the middle of the circle first, joined reluctantly by the rest of the group. Clearing his throat, Joe muttered the three words that would be begin the sick game that would end in the loss of a life and a friend.

“Rock, Paper, Scissors.”

There was a collective gasp as the palms were opened as four fists sat closed in mid air joined by one solitary sheet of paper. Faris looked down at his hand and gasped, as shocked as they all were. He was the first to win. He could stay living.

With a voice that sounded aged well beyond his years, Faris whispered, “Rock, Paper, Scissors…”

It ended with Joshua, triumphantly exiting the circle, a less than sympathetic grin on his face. The ritual began again but this time, there was a unexpected turn. There was one of each symbol spread out before them. Fear filled looks were passed around until Joe got up and cough noisily, his ribcage rising and falling irregularly beneath his thin white shirt. With a cry, he showed his palm and the skin soiled with scarlet.

“It’s the gas,” Faris whispered. Joshua coughed and spat onto the ground, his phlegm thick with red.

The three remaining, Rhys, Tom and Joe sparred again, with Tom coming out victorious. Joe closed his eyes and so did Rhys. That was it. The moment had come. One of them was going to die.

Together, all five boys repeated the words they all whispered as children but were forced to do so as men. For the final time, the fists were raised and lowered to cold words which brought make-believe tales with memories of play ground games and days spent chasing young dreams.

Rock.

Paper.

Scissors.

Then there was silence.

Rhys was the last person to open his eyes but somehow he knew. He was already expecting it as heard the hushed sound of Joe’s saddened tears. Even though he knew the outcome and that their time was slowly running out, he didn’t want to open his eyes. After much thought, his eyelids parted, a wave of sadness pouring over him as he stared down at his open palm, as white as the sheet of paper it was meant to symbolise and Joe hands across them, a pair of scissors splashed with his salty tears.

“I told you I wasn’t good at games,” he smiled sadly, his hand still hovering open in front of his chest.

“Oh Rhys!” Joe sobbed, pulling his friend into an embrace. Faris started to cry also, his tears coming in ones and twos down his long face. With a growl, he stormed to the back of the room, again smashing his fist repeatedly into the crimson blushed wall.

Rhys laid down on the floor and smiled up at the faces of the friends he could see. Above him was Joseph, his big, blue eyes, filled with shimmering tears, Tom on the other side, mouth pressed into a thin, hard line. He could see Joshua by his feet, head down, face covered while the sound of Faris’ footsteps clicked in the room, filling the silence.

Joshua coughed again and looked up, revealing his bloodstained mouth. Their time was almost running out. Breathing in slowly and out again, Rhys nodded and whispered, “I think I’m ready now. Make it quick.”

With a nod, Joe picked up the knife from where it had been discarded on the floor and looked down at the scared face of his friend.

“We love you, Rhys,” Tom whispered before the knife was brought down into his chest and again. He groaned slightly, teeth gritted in pain. The blood leaked from his wounds and into Joe’s black jeans staining their front a murky, blotted maroon.

There was a clunk of a lock and the door was opened but no one moved. They were all silence by the wounded, ragged breathing of their dying friend who with a last grin, sighed, letting go of life and all that is living.

With a clap of his hands, Joshua stood up and yelled, “So who’s ready for room two then?”

In reply, Tom burst into tears at the realisation that everything was real. It was all real...