Chapter 5:
Tristen's POV:
It dawned on me right then and there, that this was real. Brianna is fucking dead, Jacob is practically dying; the eyeless dolls, the two headed clowns, the little demon children, all of it. It was real life; this was all actually happening to my best friends.
I pushed my dark hair away from my face a little, getting a good look at the burned remains of Jacob's legs. It was pretty bad, and I didn't want to say this out loud to my friends, but I seriously doubted Jacob was going to survive. I could practically hear that creepy ringleader now, saying something harsh and witty like 'two down six more to go'.
Emily was standing frozen in her place, so I placed my cold hands around her shoulders and pulled her close to me, enjoying the warmth her stiff body gave off. Affection was not something we often showed each other, but right now I needed any sort of comfort I could get.
My tired green eyes slowly searched the dim hallway. Everybody was in the same stiff stance as Emily, except for Nick who was pacing back and forth between the two dingy walls, murmuring to himself. There was no doubt his head was filled with hundreds of different, all equally horrible thoughts.
We were all on our death beds, but there was nothing worse than knowing how we would go. Nothing worse than knowing we would all die in here, probably extremely painfully too. Lily started sobbing quietly, so Hayley rested a shaky hand on her shoulder.
Nick stopped pacing, and looked at us frantically, then went over to console an upset Lily. Hayley pulled a now teary-eyed Jeff into a hug, and even though this was no time to laugh, I couldn't help but chuckle softly; It's like our nerdy friend was one of the girls.
Suddenly, the glass slowly began to lift, and everybody pulled away from each other to rush to Jacob's side. I was the first one over to him, so I pressed my ear softly to his chest, listening for a hint of a heartbeat.
There was a faint one.
Emily stuck two slender fingers just a centimeter below his nose to check if he was breathing. She nodded her head and hope filled her peridot green eyes, but I have always been more of a pessimist, so I didn't get hopeful just yet.
"Tristen, grab his waist, I'll get his arms. Let's take him over to that lump of cloth," Nick ordered, still looking panicked but at least he had a plan.
"Look guys, I don't mean to be an asshole, but I don't think he's going to make it," I stated, taking in everyone's reaction to what I just said.
Nick looked angry and frustrated, while Lily just cried harder in response. No one said a word for a while, no one knew exactly what to say, especially since a handful of them probably agreed with me.
"We can't leave him there... we have to try," Emily whispered, wiping at the salty tears running down her pretty face. I sighed, looking once again at Jacob. It was obvious he was in a significant amount of pain, and that made my heart clench tightly in my chest.
"Grab his waist," Nick repeated, glaring at me now. Taking an awkward hold of Jacob's waist, I waited for Nick to pick up his arms and torso so we could hoist him up and maybe drag him somewhere safer.
As soon as we managed to pick him up, he legs ripped right off his body and landed with a loud thud on the wooden floor. I clenched my bloodshot eyes closed for a moment and tried to settle my stomach, so I didn't barf at the vulgar sight of my best friend's separated limbs.
Hayley quickly shielded Lily's wide eyes from our direction, and I agreed that she didn't need to see anymore gore.
Emily hastily grabbed a couple of cloths from a dirty pile near a door and ran clumsily back up to Jacob to wrap them around the open wounds. Blood eventually started to soak through the clothes as it was already sputtering all over the floor, leaving us all with helpless expressions.
"Need any help with that?" somebody chirped from behind me. I swung around on my heel to come face to face with the deranged ringleader, Ryan I think his name was. He checked me out up and down with disinterest, then proceeded to wink at Emily, causing anger to boil up inside me. Who did he think he was? Playing fucking mind games with her?
"What do you want?" I hissed, feeling no patience for this randomly appearing psychopath. Ryan looked at me once again, amusement glimmered in his dark brown eyes. We were standing so close I could see the dark, purple bags under his ominous eyes and the ghastly craters in his dead skin.
"Tristen, why are you so sour?" He ticked lightly, causing me to furrow my brows. The creepy ringleader gazed deep into my soul, and I watched curiously as his eyes swirled into a haunting black color. I chose not to answer his condescending question, feeling my sanity slowly slipping away from me.
"Hmm, well I think I'm going to take off, see you kids later," he said after a moment of tense silence, finally breaking his intense eye contact with me. Emily's mouth hung open in disbelief at his casual departure. Ryan was acting as though he was one of our close friends, which he was far from. Jacob was dying on the ground beside us, and Brianna was already dead. Not just normal deaths either, they had been brutally tortured and murdered from the gory looks of it.
"We have to kill that son of a bitch," Hayley whispered, trying not to shed any more fearful tears. Nick turned to her and nodded his head in approval, after she spoke what was probably on all our minds.
"We can't kill him," Emily murmured, staring straight ahead to where the sinister ringleader once stood. Her answer shocked all of us, until she finished speaking, "We have to torture him first, kill him violently like he killed our friends."
I looked at Jacob suddenly, who was moaning and twitching his bloody fingers slightly. Nick kneeled down next to him and whispered something to Jacob. His brown eyes suddenly fluttered open, and he glanced down at what were once his legs. Letting out a quiet whimper, he hesitantly reached down to touch the melted flesh.
It was obvious that Jacob was trying to hold in his pained screams at this point, with hot tears running down his face as he weakly assessed his gruesomely injured body.
"Jacob?" Jeff whispered softly, fear and hurt laced in his shaky voice. Jacob finally let out an agonizing shriek of pain, making Jeff and Lily both jump a mile high in fright.
"Wha- what happened?!?" He yelled out, slurring his words a bit. The pain in Jacob's deep voice was evident and my head started to ache from all the exhaustion and stress.
Before anybody could answer Jacob's question, a loud, confusing suction noise filled the dim hall, followed by a shrill screeching sound and suddenly Jacob was being sucked into a dark hole in the wall next to him.
Shock spread quickly throughout all of us, as we tried to process what was happening. It looked impossible and it seemed impossible, but the wall had morphed into a dark hole that was probably going to kill our friend.
Jacob cried and screamed while thrashing around violently, reaching out aimlessly with his scratched-up arms. He was desperate to grab onto anything he could, but there was nothing there to help him.
Something, or someone managed to pull Jacob into the hole entirely before Nick even had a chance to reach for his flailing arms. We could no longer see his figure, so we all just held our breathes.
Silence soon engulfed us. We waited, to hear a scream, a cry for help, anything at all. The ceiling and the walls around us began to shake once again, causing dust and dirt to cloud the air and make me cough painfully.
Jacob was suddenly spit back out.
The dark cubby in the wall burst, sending parts of Jacob and a deep red blood all over the hallway. Chunks of flesh were covering the floor and shredded intestines were spewed in every direction. Thick, dark blood splattered everywhere, even onto my screaming face. The vile smell that followed curled in my stomach and I could hold it in; I threw up over his scattered remains and quickly turned away from the god-awful sight.
"Let's go now!" Nick demanded, slowly pushing Lily's limp, sobbing figure down the hallway, closer to the dark shadows where the burned child appeared from.
"STOP!" someone behind us shrieked. We didn't dare stop though, by now we knew better than to fall for this evil house's fatal tricks and traps.
"I said STOP," a voice yelled again. This time both Nick and Hayley were thrown aggressively into the wall by an unknown force. Hayley was wailing out in pain, covered in old dusty drywall and ripped wallpaper. Jeff and I frantically tried to help them back up to their feet.
I looked over my shoulder at the monster that was causing this violent chaos. It was a small girl, with brown frizzy hair that was soaked in dried blood and mud. Her round eyes were pitch black and evil, and a daring smirk sat on her childlike face. There were dried blood stains on her skin under her demonic eyes, and her neck was covered in ugly yellow and purple bruises as if she had been strangled. The little girl had on a plain, dingy white dress that was shredded to pieces at the ends, and her small, bare feet were completely blue.
"Thats more like it," she announced, a pleased hint in her tone. Her voice was deep and broken sounding.
"Oh my god," Lily gasped as she looked over at me and Jeff wide eyed.
"That's one of Satan's children or some shit," Hayley screamed, and usually I would assume she was joking, but she looked completely serious in that moment, especially as she tended to her fresh wounds.
Shocked, I turned to the little demon and she smiled mockingly at me and squinted her black eyes. Harsh pain suddenly shot through my body and I yelled out in pure agony and shock. It stung like nothing I have ever felt before in my life, and hot tears started to run down my flushed face involuntarily. My body felt as though it was set on fire while millions of insects ate away at my muscles and flesh.
Just as abruptly as the pain started, it stopped, and I fell to my knees on the wooden floor with a loud thud, weakened from the torture. Tiredly, I glanced up and saw the psychotic devil child sinking into the floorboards. My vision was spotted and blurry, but I could still tell from the demented look on her bloody face that this was just a 'Hello'.