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"HELP ME! HELP!" A woman dressed as a witch came stumbling into the clearing, clutching a gory wound on her shoulder. Her face was caked with makeup and the hair of her wig was all over the place.
She was crying, gasping for air. I hurried to her without a second thought, ushering her to lower her voice. As if he wasn’t watching us already. “What’s your name? What’s wrong?” I demanded, knowing I already knew the answer.
"J-Janie. I w-w-work for the maze! I'm not making this up! There's some psycho in here! He's crazy! He--he killed my friend, and he started to eat him, then he tried to kill me! He scratched me with his claws. Y-y-you have to believe me! This isn't an act! I wish I were making this up! I—I wish!”
"I believe you, I believe you!” I rushed out, taking the stranger’s hand.
“Thank you so much! You’re so kind!”
“Don’t thank me yet! Come on, let’s get us both out of here." I lead the way and ran down a new pathway with her until we heard the sound of bells jingling and the woman stopped, horrified.,
"That's his--his bells," Janie whispered, clutching my shoulders. She was trembling and crying so violently, I had to press my hand against her mouth for a minute or so, until she calmed down. "He's dressed as a f-f-freaking clown. A f-f-freaking clown! He has these b-b-bells around his neck—“
Deep, almost psychotic laughter filled the corn maze and an all-too familiar black and white punk clown darted out from the corn stalks ten feet away from me. The clown filled the path with his muscular frame, staring at us unblinkingly.
He grinned with bloody fangs, and then darted back into the corn stalks with a giggle.
The woman at my side clutched my arm like a woman reaching for the last D & W bag on Black Friday. “That was him! That was him!”
“He is so… persistent,” I hissed, my breath visible in the frigid air. A part of me felt better that I wasn’t in this situation alone. But when I turned back around towards Janie, she was gone.
She was gone.
I scanned the corn stalks around me, unable to shake the feeling of his eyes on me. The corn stalks weren’t moving and it was quiet. I didn’t like that at all. “I’m not going to let you touch her, Death! Do you hear me? This is between you and me!”
“Look at you. Trying to act all tough. He’s breaking you down like all his other dogs.” A red head now stood at my side. I recognized her as David Star’s receptionist from my interview with him. Tiara. As I stared at her with widening eyes, her features seemed to sharpen and her nails lengthened. A small, unfriendly smile lined her mouth. “Mr. Star will see you now.”
A blast of wind knocked into me. I inhaled sharply, and suddenly, I felt trapped between two worlds, teetering between standing in the corn maze and standing inside of an elevator, watching the digital numbers climb up to the top floor of the D & S Tower.
I slowly turned my head towards a wet, low groan, meeting the face of the eyeless, decaying scarecrow I had met when I was unconscious, when Death manipulated me into thinking I was in a funhouse.
My breath came to a halt.
“So pretty…” the monster moaned, blood dripping from its rotten lips. It moved towards me and I moved backwards, smacking into someone else. And that person’s hand curved around my throat, dragging me backwards against a burning hot, iron-hard chest, where I was held captive with thick, muscular arms. I was beyond alarmed.
“I ate your friend, Janie,” the new individual admitted. His voice was higher pitched and cartoonish, but I knew as soon as he grabbed me that it was Death, and by the frilly, black and white themed sleeve of my captive, it was the clown.
It didn’t hit me right away. What he said. All I could focus on was the fact that I was trapped inside a tight space with one psychopath, in two different forms. “Let go of me! Let go!” I bit down into the clown’s arm, and in return, it giggled loudly, roughly dragged me against one of the elevator walls and pressed its exaggerated, makeup smile in my face, wide black eyes directly in front of mine. The bells jingling around his neck made me wince, and it was as if every time they rang they were all I could hear.
“She’s dead, all because of you!” When the clown smiled, his fangs were pinked with blood. “I ate her. Janie, the woman you tried to save. To think you almost almost made a new friend. That would make, two, wouldn’t it? But Marcy doesn’t really count anymore; you stopped all communication with her. How sad.” Then he laughed again, and again, and again. I shoved hard against the clown and he finally let me go.
The digital number in the elevator seemed to climb more slowly.
“I wish you had never been born. You've been touched by evil. You're not pure anymore.” Mom was now in the elevator, clutching the cross around her neck. “Things would have been so much easier for us. Maybe I could have had a normal child, if I never had you. You’re a freak.” She leaned into me, invading my space. “I WISH I HAD LET YOU DIE!” she shouted, and she kept shouting it until I covered my ears. And the scarecrow groaned his wet groan. And the clown cackled crazily in my ear.
“SHUT UP!” I yelled back.
“You did this to us!” I turned another direction and there was Little Faith, curled up in a ball at the corner of the elevator, rocking back and forth. She clutched at her stomach, where her dress was stained a dark red. “It’s all your fault! Now Blanky is mad!”
Ding!
The elevator doors opened. I threw myself out of the elevator, landing hard on my knees onto a thick carpet. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and my muscles tightened with trepidation. I was now in David Star’s dimly lit office, but I was a bystander, and I was certainly not alone. Lounged back behind his desk, like a lazy black cat, was David Star. Handsome face, hair was neatly styled, well-dressed, strong shoulders and long fingers twirling around a ballpoint pen.
In one of the seats in front of his desk sat a young woman with frizzy hair. As I daringly walked closer to the two, I could see that she was fidgeting with her hands in her lap, looking around the room as if she was in awe.
“Hello, Katie,” David said.
Katie’s eyes darted to the beautiful man, as if she hadn’t even seen him before. "H-how did I get here? How do you know my name?"
"I know everyone's name, Katie Pargas."
Katie's mouth trembled. "I d-d-don't understand why I'm here. I was just walking on the street..." She blinked a few times, slowly. "And I saw these men in suits. They surrounded me...." Her eyes grew wide as she recalled it. "One of them grabbed my upper arm, and then--then--"
"Then you were here. I can only imagine how terrified you must be. Must feel like a nightmare.”
“It does,” she said.
“This is a nightmare with your eyes wide open." David Star leaned forward in his black leather throne of a chair with a condescending grin lining his mouth. "Katie, I want you to know that you have every reason to be afraid right now. You have every reason to be afraid of me. I’m not the hero.”
“I don’t understand.” Tears brimmed her eyes. “What’s going on? Who are you?”
“There’s no easy way to tell you this.” David stood up on his feet, walked over to Katie, and squatted next to her chair, his face level with hers. His words were slow, almost taunting. “Actually, there’s a very easy way to tell you this. You’re my snack.”
“Your what?”
“Oh, Katie, life is cruel. Life is very, very cruel.” He reached for her hand, clearly feigning sadness. “ But the thing is, I’m a masochistic psychopath, and although I have a really nice ass and my body is sexy as fuck—or so I’ve been told for the last two-thousand years--I’m pretty damn foul on the inside. I’m rotten. I enjoy inflicting pain onto people because I’m a huge, self-centered dick, and my hobbies include making weak humans, like you, cry, because it gets me aroused. Pretty girls, like you, try to steer clear from pretty boys like me, but it never really works. I have my tastes, and I always get what I want.”
Suddenly, Katie’s eyes went so wide I thought they were going to pop out of her head. “Your face…”
“Choose your next words wisely,” David said, his mouth twitching upwards into a harsh smirk. “It could very well decide how I’m going to eat you, and how painful it is.”
Katie froze for the longest time, before ripping her hand out of David’s and stumbling out of her chair. "Holy shit.”
David remained in the same spot, his chocolate brown eyes trained on his prey. “There’s nothing holy about my shit, sweetheart.”
“You’re a monster!” Shrieking, Katie tried to open the door to escape, but it wouldn’t budge. “This isn’t real, this isn’t real!” She started to sob, flattening against the wall as David finally stalked towards her. “Get away from me!” She went to run past him but he grabbed her with an inhuman growl. She kicked out as she grabbed both sides of her skull, her sneaker connecting with the glass coffee table at the center of his office and shattering it.
That could have certainly explained the shattered table in his office the day I went to my interview with David Star.
“That was a very expensive table. And I’m afraid I can’t do that,” David said, licking his upper lip. From his pocket, he pulled out a small knife. “I get cranky when I don’t have my snacks.” Then he leaned in towards the terrified girl, grabbing her jaw, parting his mouth a little as if to kiss her, when suddenly, a pattern of beeps sounded in his room.
David stiffened, pocketing the knife. When his lip tilted upwards in a tiny snarl, I caught a glimpse of row of large, white fangs.
The television turned on in the office, revealing live surveillance footage of David’s waiting room outside his office. I saw myself, wearing the outfit I wore to that ridiculous job interview, and a fist clenched around my lungs.
“What the fuck is she doing here?” he mumbled under his breath, unmistakably shocked, and then roughly pushed Katie away from him. “Count your blessings, Katie Pargas, because you’ve been sparred. Don’t ever discuss what occurred in this room, or I’ll slit your throat in your sleep.” He chucked a D & S Towers pack of tissues at her chest, and the girl rushed out of the room bawling.
When he scrubbed a hand down his handsome face, the frown wedged between David Star’s eyebrows melted away. He straightened his outfit and hair, gave one last irritated at the monitor before shutting it off. He started to play with his phone and threw open his office door.
I shuffled quietly behind him, peering into the waiting room. There, around David’s large frame, I saw myself, and it was more than embarrassing how star-struck I looked. I was now aware of how innocent I looked, too, and wondered if I still appeared that way.
"There's broken glass in my office by the couch. Clean it up,” David told my past self, then walked past me towards Tiara's desk. I honestly never wanted to see that crazy red-haired woman’s face again. Her face brightened as David gave her his full attention, and she certainly pushed her breasts out more perkily. "Tia, I'm going out. Cancel any other job applicants today. Tell them I have that...uh, stomach virus that's going around. If they get pushy and try to reschedule, say I shit myself, or something. Yeah, that sounds good. If I interact with one more idiot today, I'm going to explode--"
"Um," my past self began irritably, making me want to break out in applause, "I'm not your maid. And second of all, I don't think I'm going to be a waste of your time."
David Star looked sharply down at Past Faith, analyzing her features, her clothes. It was the same look he had given Katie Pargas, right when he was about to eat her. His eyes lingered on my chest, and I remembered how aware I was at of the tightness of my red blouse, and then those sultry eyes slid down my long legs a lot longer than necessary.
A smile twitched on his lips.
"I'm here to apply for one of your job openings, Devin recommended that I come in for an interview last night. When we...got in a car accident."
David was now staring into her eyes, and I could vividly imagine how uncomfortable it was making her. He had a raw, natural beauty that would make any girl’s knees cave under her. And although Past Faith could somewhat hide her attraction towards him, it was still noticeable.
"Ah, I know who you are now.” He ran his long fingers down his tie, briefly touching his belt, and Past Faith’s eyes followed every movement. “My father said I would like you. I don't like many people, so that's saying something. David Star." He reached his sizable hand out invitingly, grasping the hesitant black haired girl’s smaller hand, and his index finger unmistakably found her pulse. Now that I was looking at this scene form a outside perspective, I was noticing things I had not noticed in person. Like how David had completely invaded her space—my space—and how greedily his eyes continued to drink her in like a cold glass of water on a burning hot day.
“Vice President of the D & S Towers, “ David continued, his voice suddenly rougher, more private.
"Faith Williams." Past Faith’s face went beet red, staring down at their still entangled hands. When she wasn’t looking, he tilted his head a little to the side, watching her carefully. "I don't really like many people either,” she murmured.
"I can't promise that means we'll get along." David squeezed her hand and then slowly let go. When he turned his back to her, facing me, I could have sworn he looked right at me, and there was a flash of green in his eyes. Past Faith nonchalantly massaged her hand, and David flexed his fingers, switching his attention from me, to them. He pulled open the thick, glass office door, expression becoming more welcoming. He leaned lazily against the door, holding it open for Past Faith.
She stood at the entrance of the office, uncertain. Don’t do it, I thought to myself.
"Step into my office, Miss Williams."
And then everything changed.
David slammed the office door behind him and he looked right at me again, not Past Faith. With a slow wink in my direction, he moved across the room and grabbed onto Past Faith by the shoulders, spinning her towards him. He kissed her hard on the mouth, seizing her by waist. Her eyes flew open and she instinctively pushed at his chest, and as he deepened the kiss, then her eyes went a little droopy and she gave into his lips.
Now I was watching my past self and a monster play tonsil hockey, and it was only getting more and more difficult to look away. My heartbeat—or maybe it was hers, was pounding in my ears. David lifted her up with one arm and cleared his desk with the other, placing her on top and situating his body between her legs. He tore her blouse apart, lifting his head away from her mouth and gazing down at her, stretching his fingers up her stomach to her bra cups like a stretching cat. She arched her back upwards towards his skilled hands, moaning, and in return, he slipped his fingers beneath her bra and squeezed her breasts, straight white teeth flashing in a harsh, cruel smile.
“This is what you are going to make me do to you, Faith Williams,” David said breathily, and I couldn’t tell if he was talking to me, or the girl identical to me beneath him. “This is how it ends. I gave you a choice.”
Abruptly, he gripped the girl identical to me by the throat and jerked her upwards, putting her face inches from his. She choked out a scream as his fingers shifted from her throat to her jaw, prying her mouth wide open. As fastened his mouth over hers, the gears in his jaw tightened and the muscles in his body contracted.
He curved his free arm around her body, flatting her body against his, and inhaled until his cheeks went nearly hallow with the force. Acid crawled up my throat, threatening to exit as the pigment in her skin began to grey, the veins in her neck and face swelling, the whites of her eyes becoming red with ruptured veins.
David quickly shut his eyes, and with one last sharp inhale, he let his prey drop lifelessly to the desk.
He let out a low, satiated growl.
“Bye, bye, stupid girl!” The punk clown was back again, perched on the black couch in David’s office, waving his white-gloved hand at me. “Bye, bye!”
“You’ll always be weak…” The scarecrow stood with hunched shoulders next to me, rotted black flesh slipping from its mouth and onto the floor. “Fear, makes you weak. You’re afraid of everything.”
“I gave you a choice,” David whispered by his desk, covering his eyes with his hands and laughing uncontrollably. My dead body still lay gracelessly on his desk, and to my horror, the room began to rapidly fill with water. “Now you’ll never see the light, just like me.” He snickered darkly and a rope came out of the water, wrapping tightly around his neck. “But you will see fire.”
The office lit with florescent lights, momentarily blinding me.
“You killed us again,” Little Faith sobbed, pulling at my jeans, her lip quivering. “Why, Faith? Why did you kill us again? I trusted-ed you. You’re mean.”
“Because she’s stubborn, she wanted to protect our family,” Mom said, her mouth at my ear, “Meanwhile, all your father and I want is you gone.”
Suddenly, David was laughing louder, straining against the rope dragging him down into the water, drilling the palms of his hands into his eyes. “My eyes!”
“STOP THIS!” I screeched. “STOP!”
Now the clown, the scarecrow, Little Faith, and Mom were all pointing at me and laughing. “Make your choice,” they said in unison. Their laughter appeared to get louder and louder, David’s the brashest, mocking me. The room was filling rapidly with dark ocean water.
I started to cry out, pressing my hands against my ears as the laughter and the water packed the room. In the blink of an eye, it was just David and I, and the office continued to fill with dark water.
“Mind, body, and soul,” David moaned, still digging his palms into his eyes, crawling up onto the desk over my dead body. Blood began to drip from his hands, saturating his dress shirt and skin, the harder he pressed his hands into his eye sockets. Abruptly, one of the canvases in my room, with the furious mismatched green eyes I painted over and over again, flashed in front of me. “Mind, body, and soul…” David started to remove his palms from my bloody eyes and I tore my gaze quickly away—fearing what would be in place of those brown eyes.
I moved towards the couch, clumsily shredding water, trying to keep it to together. I stood on tippy toes on it, keeping my mouth above the surface of the water.
I tried to tell myself that none of it was real. I tried to tell myself over and over again. But as the water continued to rise, and David was suddenly pulled under the water by the rope aroun his neck. All I could do was cry out to the one person I knew could save me. In my moment of weakness, I would make the worst decision of my life.
“MALPHAS!” I found myself screaming his name until my throat depleted. David’s dark shadow rocketed towards me in the water. “MALPHAS! HELP!”
In an instant, Death’s strange world collapsed around me and I now lay in in the corn maze, back to reality, looking vacantly up at the stars. Crickets chirped and the lights flickered out in the path, leaving me blanketed in utter darkness.
My heart skipped a beat.
RAWK! RAWK!
Feathers rustled.
“Don’t be afraid, Faith,” a silky voice announced. A slender shadow, darker than night, blocked my vision and loomed over me. His fingers were cold and long as they wrapped firmly around my wrist, bringing me carefully to my feet. He was a few heads taller than me, impossibly lean, and shadowed by the night. “I am Atticus, servant of Malphas. I can see you have had quite the stir. Know that everything will be fine, and I will take you somewhere safe.”
“Atticus…” My thoughts were so fractured, but I managed to get out, “My aunt and uncle… Death sent a hellhound after them, and I don’t know if they’re okay. And my parents—“
“Unfortunately, I have no control over your aunt and uncle’s situation, nor can I get involved because of their… occupation, but your parents are being watched over by our people as we speak. They will think you are away at your friends house and will not try and come into contact with you until you see them next. I believe we should move hastily. I caught him off guard, but dark magic won’t last too long on him, and we don’t want to be around when he wakes up.”
“Whom exactly are we talking about, here?” I asked, blinking slowly. It was too much for me to take in and my head was throbbing with a migraine. Surely, he wasn’t talking about…?
Atticus inclined his head to the side, and my eyes fell on another shadow darker than night. Except this one was massive, unmoving, and a very unconscious Grim Reaper.
“Are you ready to leave?” Atticus asked, his voice lowering to a gentler tone. “You did seek Malphas’ help, after all, and he wants to meet with you as soon as possible.”
Rubbing at the gooseflesh on my arms, I looked back and forth a few times between Atticus and unconscious Death. With a slow, shaky exhale, I nodded. “Get me the hell out of here."
Atticus pulled me quickly against him, but I pushed away.
"Hold on. I have to do something first." I hurried over to Death's unconcious frame and kicked as hard as humanly possible. "Asshole!"
I went back to Atticus and he pulled me against him again.
Everything blurred around us.
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