House of Horrors

The four boys went through the doors to the next room, spitting out the taste of blood in their mouths, a gruesome reminder of the last. Joe looked back and bit his lip, the sharp pain a way to stop him from bursting into tears at the sight of the small, pale body of his friend: Rhys Webb.

He looked like one of Faris’ drawings, a stick man with a pair of gashes in his chest through the thin linen shirt that draped his tiny frame. His winklepickers gleamed black in all the dull shades of red and white, palms open and both facing upwards. Joe looked at his own hands. They were red with blood.

Joseph averted his gaze to now stare at the room before him. The walls were a foul, sewer green in contrast to the white tiles of the room previous and the floor was dull metallic shade, the surface clicking beneath the heels of his shoes. Once again, but to the wall on his left, there was a black door: the only way out. Faris, clutching his stomach, reached out a hand to support him self but slipped, his knees buckling as he fell against the surface of the wall.

“What have we done?” he cried, rocking where he sat, tears streaming down his face, “We killed him! We killed Rhys!”

Sickened and exhausted, Joe dropped to the floor. The silence was shattered as Tom let out a keel in anger, his tears leaving grey streaks of makeup down his face. “We should have all fucking died in there.”

“Well if you wanted to be dead so much, why didn’t you volunteer?” Faris roared, from where he kneeled, head pressed against the wall, a smear of blood still visible on his olive cheek.

“All I’m saying is Rhys didn’t have to die back there. He was the best of us lot. Always looked out for us. If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t even be in this band. We wouldn’t be us!” he yelled, his voice, once small, was getting louder and louder, as the louder his voice became, the more he shook.

“Well if you talk like that, if it wasn’t for your beloved Rhys, we wouldn’t be fucking in this mess!” Joshua snarled, shutting him up. They all stared at him, even Tom and Faris, an occurrence that seemed to be happening more and more frequently.

“Y-you don’t m-mean that…” Joe stammered. Although his back was now turned to Rhys’ cadaver, he could still sense it’s presence, dark and haunting. Joshua’s brown eyes darted to the face of each of his friends in under a second before he replied.

“Maybe I do… maybe I don’t… but bickering about it isn’t going to solve shit.”

“You disgust me,” Tom hissed.

Joshua cackled, shaking his head, his hair bouncing along with it. “I disgust you? Fucking, me, of all people, disgusts you? Come on. Joe’s the one that hacked up Rhys. At least dislike him.”

Joe screamed and stormed his way straight towards Joshua, fists raised. He shoved the taller boy to the floor and punched him straight in the jaw, his knuckles scraping painfully against the hard surface of a tooth.

“You bastard! You fucking stupid bastard!” Joe bawled, his fists around the collar of Joshua's black shirt, shaking him senseless. Faris struggled onto his feet and attempted to pull him off but to no avail. Tom looked on in apathy, whether because he was stunned into shock or plain indifference was unclear.

With a childish giggle and a mouth full of blood, Joshua laughed, holding on to Joe’s shoulders to pull them close, their foreheads pressed against the others. His voice was light and breathless as a pink tongue curled out and wiped away some of the red liquid seeping through his white teeth. “Gone on. Do it. Kill me. It’s not like you haven’t done it before…”

Joseph snarled and pushed him back onto the floor, using Faris momentarily to help him to his feet. The tears he had been persuading himself to hold back for so long finally let themselves free and he sobbed in the corner as Joshua lay on the floor, circling his jaw in its socket, a delirious look in his eyes.

“I can’t believe what this is turning you into Joshua. You’re a monster,” Tom whispered, his face pale and saddened.

Faris was the first to notice the dark box by the second door and stumbled towards it, turning to face the other three as it sat in his hands. Flipping the latch, he opened it swiftly, a hard look set in his features. Tom watched, breath held as Faris’ hand disappeared into the depths of the container and emerged again with the new weapon of choice in his fist: a long silver chain. It uncoiled in his hand and swung softly for a moment before he let it go, the links hitting the floor with a reverberating sound.

“How do you kill someone with that?” Joe mumbled, confused. With a grin, Joshua mimed using it as a garrotte to strangle himself. Any other situation, it would have been funny but then it created a sickening feeling in his chest.

“Room two – The pit. In this room, you have received a metal chain link however, around the room several other weapons have been hidden: six bullets, a silver dagger and un-loaded gun. There is no time limit to room two but as before, the exit will only open when someone is dead.” When he was finished, Faris looked up from the sheet of paper, eyes terribly wide.

Joshua rose to his feet in a graceful arch and paced the room, circling them all like a starved vulture or a hunting tiger, chuckling. Tom’s eyes flitted around the room, searching for the gleam of a hilt or the barrel of a veiled gun.

“No more games. Please,” Joe muttered, weak.

“But how are we gonna figure who’s gonna… you know…” Tom questioned, the sound of his voice hardly above a whisper.

“Oh come on Joe! Don’t be such a spoil sport. The only loser we have so far is Rhys,” Joshua cackled, stopping his slow, menacing revolutions around the remaining three. Tom retreated to a corner and sat, sobbing to himself for another time. Faris rose to his feet and loomed over Josh, discomfort flashing about his face only for a second as he stared the shorter man down, who looked back, crazed, in defiance.

“How bout it, Faz? Wink Murder?” he giggled, manically. Joe closed his eyes and pressed the palms of his hands over his ears.

Faris let out a hiss of air, similar to a kettle letting out a sliver of steam, his dark eyes boring into Joshua’s which glittered with lunacy. Turning away he muttered darkly, “Let’s just get this over with…”

“Indeed.”

Three faces all turned up to see a stout, black barrel of a revolver pointed at then each in turn. Joshua merely giggled, biting the soft, fleshy curve of his lips. Faris gapped at it, stunned, then at the smooth pale hand which held it in long fingertips. Joe stood to his feet, and held up an open hand in a friendly gesture. He cleared his throat, preparing himself to speak.

“Put down the gun, Tom.”

Raising an eyebrow, a simple word flew effortlessly out of his mouth. “No.”

Joshua’s child like titter could be heard the bulky silence which caused the gun to be pointed at him. “I’ve got a little secret.”

“Shut up you! I’m sick and I’m tired and I fucking want this shit over without you and you’re giggling and your bare-ass fucking cheek! You should have left it well alone, man. Well alone!” Tom screamed, turning the pistol from Faris’ gut to Joe’s chest and right back between Joshua’s eyes.

“I’m giggling,” Joshua chuckled, slow running a hand through his mass of hair, that devilish smirk on his lips, “because something is hilariously funny.”

He swaggered closer to Tom as the gun shook in his right hand so he swiftly used his left to steady it. Joshua’s hand crept into the pocket of his skin-hugging, black trousers as he used to other to stifle an amused yawn.

“Hey, Faris? Do you remember what the paper said?” Joshua asked politely, coolly indifferent to the gun about a four fingers width from his face.

Faris replied, confused and as tense as a nun in a whorehouse. “Yeah, I guess. Erm… this room’s called the pit. We don’t have a time limit-”

Cutting his off with a wave of the hand, Joshua snapped. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Could you cut to the part about what else was the in the room?”

“Oh…erm… the gun, a dagger… and some bullets.”

“I just found the dagger,” Joe murmured bleakly, gingerly holding the weapon by his fingertips.

“Precisely. It said “around the room several other weapons have been hidden: six bullets, a silver dagger and un-loaded gun”. Six bullets, a silver dagger and un-loaded gun. Six bullets, a silver dagger and un-loaded gun…” As he whispered this mantra, his hand slowly slithered into his pocket, causing Tom’s hand to rattle in mid-air.

“W-what are you doing? Get your hand out of there!” he screamed, tears ready to burst from his bloodshot eyes. Slowly but surely, Joshua’s hand inched back out his of pocket, revealing a tightly, closed fist. His fingers outstretched, in a similar fashion to the grasps of mewling babes, and to the ground fell six, shining shells of ammunition, twinkling as they hit the floor.

Joshua’s toying smirk mutated into a leer, his voice harsh and malevolent, screeching until it climaxed into yell, “Six bullets, a silver dagger and un-loaded gun. Six bullets, a silver dagger and un-loaded gun! SIX BULLETS, A SLIVER DAGGER AND AN UN-LOADED GUN!”

In the height of his crescendo, Joshua’s hand rocketed back, looping back into Tom’s face, fist smashing violently into the curve of a jaw, sending the smaller boy to the floor. Automatically, Tom started screaming, scrambling to rise to his feet. But Joshua was too fast. Way to fast.

Joe and Faris didn’t even notice the point were Joshua had grabbed the chain into his fist. It seemed shock had left them numb, releasing its immobilizing grasp as the metal was slung over Tom’s neck in an asphyxiating grasp, leaving time only to scream.

“No Joshua!” Faris yelled, holding onto Joseph’s sobbing shoulders. But Joshua was lost to the world. He couldn’t hear Joe’s cries, Faris calling out to him to stop or the scuff, scuff, scuffle of Tom’s heels on the metal floor as he fought to be free. All Joshua could hear was his dark muttering, everything else like a roll of thunder in the back of his mind.

“Un-loaded gun… un-loaded gun…”

Tom’s lips slowly turned blue as he desperately tried to fill his lungs with air, face horribly distorted. His hands clawed at Joshua’s clenched fists then at the air, returning to pawed limply at his neck, only increasing Joshua’s fury and the grip held on the chainlinks. The flailing subsided and his movements, once jerky and sharp, subsided into the occasional flicker or twitch of life.

Joshua stood up and let Tom’s head, heavy and weighted, slump, with a sickening thud, to the floor. Joe wept into Faris’ shoulder, whose features where set in grim, harsh lines about his faces. He watched Josh blink several times, as if awaking from a stupor, eyes widening open to their greatest limits then stammering shut.

“Look at his eyes.”

Faris looked, as something deep within him stirring as he peered into Tom’s large, fawn like hazel orbs. He mused whether Bambi’s mother had eyes that glittering and glass like in her death.

“Look at his eyes,” Joshua muttered again, his voice curious and child like. It looked almost innocent as dropped to his knees for a better view, his hands smearing against the rapidly cooling skin. “Look at his eyes. They’re so wide… so wondrously wide…”