HELLS GRACE

Part 14

Eliza could have sworn she heard screams from the forest, sounding like Howler monkeys. But those animals did not live in this part of the continent, and certainly not this far up north. She was starting to get antsy.

She had moved the car forty feet closer to the forest and much closer to the shed. If Zack and Danny burst out of the woods right now, then they would be in the car much quicker, and then Eliza would drive them the fuck out of there.

But it had been five long minutes since Zack disappeared. She kept a watchful eye on the cabin, but no one stirred in there, not even the possessed murderess. It seemed like she couldn’t believe her ears. She kept praying under her breath in Spanish, hoping that someone would listen and ward off the demonic presence suffocating the forest.

Oddly enough, I understood the language as if I had been fluent in it my entire life. I took German for my required language course for three years, and I never touched Spanish at all except for what I’ve learned online, from movies, and from my Spanish-speaking classmates.

Her prayers were undoubtedly not helping to keep her Resolve from dwindling with each second she sat there, alone with her thoughts and wild imaginations. Zack and Danny could be dead already. She might be alone and was the last target—the final girl. They could puncture the tires and render her escape inoperable. She would have to run into the woods and stumble through the darkness with only her phone as a light source. She might find someone camping in the woods and call for help, only for them to die in the hands of the killer and send her running into the woods again. And then her phone’s battery would die, and true fear would take hold of her.

And that’s when Death would claim her.

Isn’t that how horror movies went? She had seen so many of them that they all blended inside her head. But final girls live to tell the tale. Would she survive this night?

Another scream from the woods startled her mid-prayer. But there were differences in someone’s screams. There’s a scream from fear, and then a scream from being butchered. Either sound distinctly different from the other.

She leaned toward the wheel, trying to listen. Did it sound like someone was being ripped apart? It’s hard to hear clearly while the engine was running.

Perhaps that’s why she didn’t hear him: The Goliath breaking out of the woods, his heavy boots crunching against the dead leaves sprawled across the parking lot, and charging toward her car. Perhaps that was why it took her long to turn around and face the driver’s side window and put two-and-two together. No, it wasn’t the engine. Not the horses, either. And then Goliath’s shadow loomed over her window, and Eliza didn’t even have time to scream before the stranger broke through the glass and grabbed a clump of her hair.

Goliath slammed Eliza’s head against the wheel; a quick horn blast alerted Zack that something was wrong. Zack ran faster.

Dazed, Eliza tried to get away, pulling the shift into reverse, but she forgot that she had pulled the parking brakes on out of habit. The car let out a piercing shrill as the brakes grind against the pad, and the vehicle slowly moved backward.

Goliath wrapped his giant fist around her throat and squeezed, ignoring Eliza’s choking pleas to stop. He yanked the woman out of the car through the broken window, lifted her, and then slammed her back against the ground. Eliza took lungfuls of air when she saw the glint of the big man’s axe raised above his head, and she rolled to the right, spraying dirt at her eyes where the axe had landed—where her chest used to be.

Scrambling to her feet, she ran toward the car, still shifting to reverse, but it was gaining some distance from her. If she went for the car, she would have to contend with getting into a moving vehicle as the car gained speed against the slightly sloped parking lot. That would leave enough time for the killer to grab her again, and this time, she might not be so lucky.

Goliath was back on his stance now, ready to charge her again. She could feel his heavy boots vibrating from the earth, and Eliza ducked just in time to hear the blade sing above her head. The motion took Goliath by surprise, and he lost his balance, dropping to one knee for leverage.

Too late to catch up, Eliza veered to the left, scrambled up the porch, and ran back inside the cabin. She quickly bolted the door and dragged one of the heavy chairs against it. She probably hoped that all the windows in the cabin had the same material as the one in the bedroom (They didn't).

Statistically, very few would use the front windows to escape. They only used the front door if they were forced to. They’d first run into another room and use the windows to escape. I noticed that with Leo’s group and the people from Green Hill. They always wanted to put another door (or as many obstacles as possible) between them and the attacker breaking in from the first entryway.

Eliza glanced over where Maxine was. She was still there, motionless and looking very much dead. Patting her clothes, she realized she left the boxcutter inside the car.

“Shit!”

Pushing her fear down and on the brink of another burst of tears, Eliza darted into the kitchen to find a better weapon: the knives on the island counter. She pulled a chef’s knife and watched the front door and windows, trembling. She waited for the sound she expected: the heavy boots hitting the front porch’s steps. Goliath climbed onto the front porch and approached the door, wiggling the handle.

“Please, stop! We didn’t do anything to you!” Eliza screeched, “Let us go! We won’t tell what we saw!” She probably thought it was the best thing to say and hoped she sounded convincing enough. Maybe the killer would believe her that she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The doorknob jiggled again, and Eliza let out a loud whimper. So did the tears, and they never stopped flowing.

That’s when she caught sight of the box-shaped rotary telephone on the wall. She ran toward it and almost jumped with joy when she heard the dial tone. She took some time getting used to turning the numbers she wanted. Rarely did she have to use these things in the advent of smartphones.

9.

1.

1.

Another couple of rings and a man’s voice echoed across the line. “911, What’s your emergency?”

“Hello? Hello! Oh my God! You gotta help me! Someone’s trying to kill me.”

“Okay, okay. Slow down, ma’am. Tell me where you are.”

“Um, I…I don’t know. Some cabin in the woods? I think we’re near a lake or something. My boyfriend drove us here. I don’t know the address!”

“Okay. But do you remember how far you are from town?”

“Um, I think we drove past a roadhouse on our way here. Rosie’s, Posies something…”

“Josey’s?” the operator asked.

“Yes! That one! We were heading north toward Portland, and then we turned right. And we’re near the lake from there. Please! You gotta help us. My boyfriend and his son are still out there. He’s just a kid!” The loud bangs from the front door were getting louder now. “Oh my God, he’s trying to get in.”

“Okay, ma’am. One thing at a time. You’re doing very well. Can you find a place to hide?”

“Um…” There’s nowhere for her to hide without dragging the phone with her, and even with its long, twirling cord attached to the wall (and the boxed machine) itself, the killer would find out where she was hiding pretty quickly. “No. I can’t. I’m too exposed.”

“It sounds to me like you are in Cedar Lake.”

It didn’t look like Eliza knew where she was or the exact name, but she nodded and said an “uh-huh” to him.

“Looks like you are in the cabin by the north side?”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Um, I think so. We’re very close to the mountains.”

“That’s the Fairlie’s cabin.”

Eliza scrunched up her brows. “Look, I don’t know their last names. Just please get here! Get as many people as you can!” Another weight barreled through the door, making her jump.

“I’m trying to place where you are, Eliza. Now, are you in the bedroom?”

Eliza froze, sweat visibly forming around her forehead. “Wait…how…”

“Are you in the study room?”

Eliza shook her head, lips quivering. “How…”

“Are you in the living room?”

“How did you—”

“No, wait. I know where you are. You’re in the kitchen,” the operator said as if he finally cracked the code. “You’re in the kitchen, right?”

“I d-didn’t tell you m-my n-name,” she whispered between breaths. She tried to slow her breathing, but it felt like all the air in her lungs was getting squeezed out of her sternum.

“But we know who you are, Eliza,” the operator said. The front door suddenly stopped shaking. “We know exactly who you are.”

“Who…what are you?”

“I can think of a better question than that, sweetheart,” he said. “Do you ever wonder what Hell sounds like?”

A piercing cry emanated from the phone, and Eliza threw it away from her ear; she felt like she would lose her eardrum. She could still hear a hundred, a thousand, no, a million screams pouring out of the phone, clamoring at once; the tiny holes on the telephone’s speakers and microphone started dripping out with black blood. A sulfurous smell wafted into the kitchen. She didn’t know where it was coming from, but it quickly choked the room with its stench of rotten eggs.

“Saint Michael, the Archangel. Defend us in battle.” Eliza started reciting the prayer in Spanish, stepping away from the wall and the bleeding phone. “Be our protector against the wickedness and snares of the devil—”

“—May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,” a man’s creaking voice echoed from the living room, continuing the prayer in English, getting closer and closer. “O do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God—”

Chris stepped into the kitchen’s light, eyes golden fiery red, lips dripping with black blood. His left arm was still missing, goblets of black blood dripping onto the floor from the soaked makeshift bandages. Eliza could barely make out a scream as her lower back hit the counter behind her. “THRUST! INTO! HELL!” Chris bellowed, “SATAN AND ALL HIS EVIL SPIRITS—!”

Eliza fell onto the floor, dropping the knife. Both hands clasped over her ears. The screams emanating from the telephone grew louder and louder, filling the room with their blood-curdling howls and Chris’s shouts.

“—DEMONS, who wander through the world—”

Chris stepped closer.

“—for the RUINS of souls—”

He picked up the knife that Eliza dropped on the floor.

“—et ligattum mittas in abbysum—” Chris switched in croaky latin. He crouched in front of Eliza now, so close she could smell his rotting breath.

“—ut non seducat amplius gentes. Amen.”

Eliza opened her eyes and stared at the yellowy abyss of Chris’s.

“Tell me, Eliza, child of God, flesh-tainted, coveter of a married soul, does your God watch over you now? Have He cast away evil and come to aid you?”

Eliza couldn’t answer. Her tongue twisted so tight she could barely breathe.

“Is God with you?” Chris asked, making a show of looking around the room. “Hm? Is He?”

Behind him, Eliza saw Maxine’s body twitching and then rising. A wide grin plastered on her face. She was enjoying this. She had been listening the entire time!

“We asked you a question, Eliza,” Chris said. “Answer.”

“You’re not real,” Eliza managed to squeak.

“Well,” Chris smiled. “Unlike the old bastard, I’m actually here.”

Then, he lunged at her, punching her face and might have broken her nose. It was hard to see from the angle I was hovering. The sudden force sent the back of Eliza’s head to smash against the lower cabinet, knocking her out instantly.

Chris stood up, rolled his shoulders, cracked his knuckles, and saw the cabinet's dent. He frowned. “I’ll pay for that,” he told me, half-joking. He briefly studied Eliza’s crumpled body, and his frown deepened. “Damn. All that freaky setup just to get an orange Resolve. Not even a darker shade. We got our work cut out for us. I should have gone with my original plan of scaring her down to the cellar and finding your corpse, my liege.”

I narrowed my gaze at him.

“What?” Chris asked. “Is something wrong?”

“I need this body functional,” I said, gesturing at Chris’s body. “For Rebecca.”

“His soul is still intact, my liege,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll leave this body in a few minutes. I want to enjoy his skin a little more. And besides, wearing his flesh stopped the shock of missing an arm from absorbing into his consciousness. We wanted him conscious and alert once our cop friend arrives, no?”

I sighed. “To be fair, I didn’t tell you he was off-limits, but just don’t wear him for too long. I don’t want us to run into any complications with your, um, possessing abilities. I don’t want to give him some brain damage.”

“Hardly. No one has stabbed, burnt, or clubbed over the head.” Chris turned to Maxine, standing beside the island counter. “She’s a different matter. She’s very, very dead once I slip out of her body. She makes up for a convincing corpse a while ago. She’s already numbed and broken from what I have subjected her to when she killed all those people.”

‘What’s he doing now?” I asked, curious.

“He is cowering like a fool in here.” Chris jabbed a finger at his temple. “His screams are even more delicious. He is begging you to free him.”

“He can see me?” I keep forgetting possessed delvers could do that. Except for Danny, I have gotten used to hovering and flying around delvers without batting an eye at me. Even though I had only been in a dungeon for three days, I had to get used to interacting with a “real person” again after a long time.

“He still has functioning eyes, no? Of course, he can, my liege,” Chris said. “He wants to get out of here. He promises not to tell anyone. He swears by it. Not. A. Soul. I told him he was wasting his time. But humans are not good listeners. Neither were they at keeping their words.”

An idea sprang inside my head. “I have something in mind, actually.”

Chris raised an eyebrow and whispered it into his ears. Either way, the real Chris would still hear it.

A loud snap from outside brought Maxine and Chris back to what we had planned. They both dragged the unconscious Eliza out of the cabin and toward the tree line. Danny ran out of the woods, laughing as Old Growth playfully chased him around. He stopped when he saw me. I could feel that something was about to happen and that he needed to put his “game face” on. I studied him momentarily, almost guilty at what I was about to do.

“What of the husband?” Maxine asked me.

“Which one?”

“Of Jenna’s? Zack?” She clarified.

I nodded. “Dead.”

The demon nodded in return and marched toward the trees.

No turning back now.

By the tree line, Zack dangled four feet from the ground by his ankles, flanked by Goliath, who ensured the ropes were secured on the nearby tree. Even though he was hanging upside down, he instantly recognized Danny, and bewilderment and confusion ran through his expression. “Danny! You’re…you’re not hurt.”

“I’m very much okay, daddy! But you ran like a chicken after I threw the head!” Danny giggled. “I couldn’t stop laughing. Did you like the game, huh? Did you like it? We should play again, Mr. Pirate!”

“Game? What ga—” he tried searching for Mr. Pirate—to the spot where Danny was looking at me—but he merely saw Eliza lying on the ground, her breathing shallow. She looked like she was sleeping off a hangover. “Eliza! Wake up! Wake up!”

“She can’t hear you,” Maxine said, frowning. “She’s out cold. Poor thing.”

“That’s my fault,” Chris said, a hand meekly raised.

“Chris? You…” Anger welled inside him now. “You were part of this?!”

“Oh, none of us are,” he said. “Chris was very much on your side ten minutes ago.”

“I swear, once I’m out of this, I’m gonna beat the shit out of you, motherfucker!”

“Aw, Zack, your kid is here. He doesn’t need to hear that kind of language,” Chris said. “Jeez, you kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“I’m going to fucking kill you!”

Chris gave the knife to Maxine and smiled at Zack. “I doubt it.”

His anger quickly vanished when he watched Maxine approach, knife in hand. Maybe it was also Old Growth looming behind her. “Okay. Wait, hold on, wait! Wait!”

“Any last words?” Maxine said.

Tears welled up in his eyes, flowing down to his eyebrows. He whimpered, “Why are you doing this, Max? Why? We were friends! We were friends for a long time!”

Maxine leaned toward him. “It’s not your fault, Zack,” she said. “We got what we wanted.” She gestured toward Danny, still with a smile on his face.

“Don’t you ever hurt my son.”

“We have no intention to,” Maxine said.

“What are you going to do with my boy? I swear…I’m gonna kill you if you hurt him.”

“That’s not for you to know,” she said. “You’re just the delivery man.”

Maxine grabbed a fistful of Zack’s hair and pulled his head back, exposing his throat. A quick slash, and blood poured out like a sheet. Zack gurgled, desperately clawing at his throat to stop the blood from flowing out of his body. Within seconds, all that blood rushing to his head—and the open wound—knocked him out. I doubted he even felt his body go cold. His arms quickly gave way and dangled with the rest of his body, swaying in the gentle night’s wind.

[ You have gained 1 essence: Zachary Bird]

[You have gained 150 crystals]

My vision dimmed, and it took me a moment to escape the exhilarating haze. All that fear and despair were injected into my veins. Just like Green Hill, I thought. Oh, how I welcomed the feeling. How it tingled up my body, how luscious in texture and smoothness Zack’s essence tasted under my tongue, washing away the hunger I had been craving for a day. Innocent blood was spilled, I thought glumly still. Yet I couldn’t help but feel how refreshing it was—the first sip of morning coffee.

I couldn’t get enough of it.

Danny clapped behind me, unperturbed that his father was just butchered like a pig in front of his eyes. “Daddy is finally asleep!” He said. What in the fuck is that System doing inside his head? Then, the boy suddenly stopped clapping and pouted. “Does that mean the game is over? We can’t play anymore?”

“Not yet, little Danny,” I said to him. “Your mommy is almost here.”

“But mommy doesn’t like to be scared as much as daddy,” he said. “She doesn’t even like horror movies and won’t allow me to watch them when my cousins visit.”

“Well, tonight she’s going to play. That’s what she told us, right guys?” Maxine and Chris both reassured the boy.

“We are still playing, Danny,” Maxine said. “We pirates are not sleepy yet.”

From that, Danny beamed a sheepish smile. He skipped toward Goliath, grabbed his meaty thumb, and dragged him toward the cabin. Goliath obliged, happy to go along, though I could never really tell behind his white fox mask. He rarely took that damn thing off.

I turned to Maxine. “Fix him a ham and cheese sandwich, will you? The boy must be hungry. Make sure he doesn’t step on the blood.”

“Of course, my liege,” she said.

“And her?” Chris pointed at the unconscious woman.

“Let’s drag her down into the cellar,” I said. “We’ll have to clean up a bit. The others will be arriving in sixteen minutes. I didn’t want to disappoint.”

I saw Old Growth staring at the night’s looming dark clouds. Even though the creature was missing a pair of eyes, it turned to look at me knowingly.

I nodded. “Yes, I smell it, too.”

It was going to rain soon.

Five miles out, a white van turned right from the intersection; the unconscious female passenger inside began to stir awake.