Those of you who have read my first Halloween story will probably pick up on the connection. (Why, yes, it's a sicko serial killer that's hunting down the members of a family one by one)
XxxDo
The room is sharply lit by flickering neon lamps that throw ovals of white light onto the plain, cement floor. The walls in the distance are equally plain, on first sight. Touching a hand to his aching forehead, Benjamin’s fingers make contact with the warm, sticky texture of his own blood. He draws air into his lungs, trying to banish the sickly, spinning sensation from his head, then turns and props himself up on his knees. As he readies to get to his feet, his leg protests with a razor-sharp jolt of pain. He gasps out loud, then goes limp, lying flat on his back on the cold, grimy cement for what feels like an eternity, before he builds up the courage to examine his leg.
The fabric of his jeans is slashed at the thigh, leaving a gaping hole some fifteen centimeters in length. The skin beneath sports a relatively superficial cut, though unfortunately placed – his every move tugs harshly at the wound and leaves him grinding his teeth in pain. He breathes, a cloud of vapour billowing lazily before his face, lingering around him like a ghost of the past. He almost scoffs at this thought, finding the irony irrevocable. After all, the last thing he remembers doing is storming out of his house to go on a search for his missing sister, who is, frankly, well on her way to becoming exactly that.
Sitting up, ever so slowly, he regains his composure and feels the sense of lightheadedness fade from him with a relieving speed, then scans his surroundings - a solid layer of concern forming in the pit of his stomach. The room is vast, ice cold, and largely empty. The high ceiling, the neon lamps that hang from chains some ten meters above the floor, and the metal shelves – ten rows thick, by the looks of it - that line one wall seem to come together in the most ominous of ways. Saying that Benjamin is uncomfortable would be an understatement.
As his eyes drift from one cement wall to the identical one beside it, something dawns on him, and for a second he forgets to breathe as the true novelty of his situation comes to life before his eyes. Not only is he in a room he doesn’t recall entering, and waking up with wounds he doesn’t remember having inflicted, it turns out that there is no possible entrance or exit to the place. None of the walls have a door, nor any window... He might as well be lying inside a humongous, hollow brick.
Where the hell am I?
Metallic buzzing fills the vast space, followed by crackling static. Benjamin lifts his head, staring right into the dark lens of a CCTV camera that hangs from one side of the neon lamp. The other side holds an old-fashioned speakerphone. He gets up, grinding his teeth at the pain in his leg, keeping his gaze trained on the camera. Then he freezes in his tracks.
He could have sworn the speakers whispered his name.
“Hello?” He calls out, receiving only a hollowly reverberating echo in response. Swallowing heavily, he touches his hand back up to his forehead, then presses his sleeve against the bleeding wound. Clenching his jaw he limps towards the high shelves, praying for there to be an exit hidden behind the empty metal constructions. A sharp crack sounds, and he stops, lifting up his foot to examine the ground below. A tiny, plastic figure lies there, broken.
Narrowing his eyes he leans closer, then pulls back. It’s a Halloween pumpkin, one of them figures children get for free with their Kinder eggs. He would know; he saw the exact same figurine standing on Jimmy’s desk only hours ago. Furrowing his brow he glances at his wrist, then widens his eyes. Whoever brought him here, took the brand-new watch that he’d gotten it only days ago, for Christmas.
“Fuck.” He hisses, patting down his pockets. His wallet, house keys and mobile phone are missing all the same. Lifting his face to the camera, eyes like glowing coals, he raises a fist at whoever is watching. He is relatively certain that someone, at some point, will be viewing the tapes. Someone whose intentions may not be of good nature.
“Who are you?” He yells, pumping his fist in the air. It’s all he can do not to fall apart. However much he hates to admit it, he's terrified. “Who are you?”
“Who I am doesn’t matter, Benjamin Rowland… it’s who you are that matters.”
Spoken over the speaker system, the voice is oddly distorted, though Benjamin is positive that it belongs to a man. His hand drops uselessly to his side, his initial fighting spirit ebbing away with every nauseatingly rapid beat of his heart.
“I see you, but you don’t see me. You like games, Benjamin?”
Turning slowly, continuously moving on the spot, he keeps an eye on every side of the room – not fancying the idea of having his back turned for too long, out of fear for being attacked.
“No.” He hisses, then glances back up at the CCTV camera. “No.”
“How very unfortunate for you, my dear boy. Do you remember Madeline ?”
His breath catches in his throat at the mentioning of his missing sister’s name, and when he looks up at the camera his eyes are so filled with anger that he almost expects the lens to break. His throat goes dry with fear.
No… Not Maddy. Please, God, no.
“Your harrowed expression tells me ‘yes’, Ben.”
Taking shallow, staggering breaths, adrenaline joyriding through his veins, he tries his best to regain his composure – to no avail. His fear leaves him speechless for a minute, before words bubble through the screen of terror.
“Where is my sister? You motherfucking bastard! Where is she?” His words echo portentously through the empty room, bouncing back and forth between the distant walls as though to emphasize the intensity of his question. A metallically cackling laughter sounds though the speakers, and he flinches involuntarily at the cruel undertone of his captor’s entertainment. When the answer comes, he knows he would have been better off not knowing.
“She’s six feet under, Benny. She’s fraternizing with the maggots.”
God… No… Maddy…
Dropping to his knees, Benjamin feels all the blood drain abruptly from his face, the burning pain in his thigh trumped by the stinging of his soul. He killed her. He killed her, and now he’ll kill him, too.
“Where are you? You sick fuck! Show yourself, you fucking coward!” His voice breaks under the strain of stress, panic and fear, and he flings himself onto the ground, hammering the cement with his clenched fists until they go numb. Screaming, losing his mind to a hurricane of emotions beyond his ability to handle, Benjamin writhes on the ground, then finally falls still and stares into the distance.
Is this the last thing Maddy saw? This fucking room? Is his voice the last thing she heard?
“I’m truly sorry about your sister, Ben. It turns out that she wasn’t good enough at games to save herself. Hide and seek wasn’t quite her strong suit, regrettably. Now I wonder… are you any better?”
Benjamin doesn’t respond, lying on his side on the cold ground, hugging his bruised fists to his chest as he sobs. The faceless voice laughs again.
“Well, Ben, if only you’d played hide and seek with her more often when she was a little girl, huh? Then maybe I wouldn’t have found her so easily. I can't help but wonder, though.... did you do a better job with little Jimmy?”
“You bastard.”
"I saw you look down at that pumpkin figure earlier. It looked familiar, didn't it?"
"Fuck you!"
“Now, now, Benny-boy... You don’t mind if I call you that, do you? I think it's an endearing nickname."
"Leave me alone! You're sick!"
"Care for a game, Ben? I’m going to guess that Marco Polo is your type of game, seeing as you’re adequate at screaming. You should be quite able to reply.” The scorn-filled sarcasm that oozes from the speakers cuts through Benjamin like a blade, mocking him with contempt. He lifts his tear-streaked face to the camera, then crawls forward and lifts the tiny, orange figurine to eye level.
Jimmy...
"Where's Jimmy? I’ll fucking kill you, you bastard!” He bellows, straightening up, panting heavily as he watches his surroundings through tear-blurred eyes, the figure clutched in the palm of his hand.
“I’ll fucking kill you for what you did to my sister, you asshole. Where the hell is my brother? Where is he?” He adds, hissing, balling his hands into tight fists, the pumpkin figurine cutting into his skin. Pacing aimlessly through the vast hall, drawing nearer to one of the walls, he fights the overwhelming panic.
Rhythmic clanging echoes around him, and he focuses his gaze on the high, metal shelves that loom over him. They shake, slightly, and he takes a step backwards. "What the...?"
As they begin to fall, toppling over towards him, his muscles slacked for a split second. By the time the figure hits the ground Benjamin has spun around, dashing away. Running, he glances back over his shoulder, watching the shelves come closer far too quickly. A sharp tug at ankle height sends him reeling, smacking down hard on the cement, hands outstretched, a sickening crunch echoing from wall to wall.
The neon lights go out, and through the laughter that erupts over the speakers, and the piercing crash of heavy slabs of metal collapsing onto solid rock, a single, harrowing scream is heard - before it cuts short abruptly.
“Marco, Benny-boy...” The voice mocks, then rumbles into another fit of laughter. “No answer, huh? Nah, I didn’t think so..."
Statics sound through the speakers one last time, and when the echoing noise dies down it leaves the hall to dwell in the eerie darkness of death; exactly as it has countless times before. It's the domain of a man who's got nothing to lose.
