Page 17 of Possess Us

Kai is nowhere to be seen.

I spin on my heel and sprint back out the door I came from, running as fast as possible towards the exit. I slam myself against it.

The door won’t budge.

‘I did not sign up for fucking zombies!’ I scream, slamming myself against the door. ‘You never said anything about mother-’ Slam. ‘Fucking-’ Slam. ‘Zombies!’

My forehead rests against the door, and I let out a sigh.

I’m not getting out of here that easily. I step back and put on my big girl pants. Metaphorically. My actual pants are ridiculously small.

I can deal with being trapped in a creepy asylum with a demon and a zombie as my ass hangs out of my slutty nurse costume. I’ve faced worse. Not weirder, but definitely worse.

I have no other fucking choice.

I slip off my stilettos, curl my fists into a ball, and head deeper into the house.

I have a demon to find.

Back in the surveillance room, I search for any sign of Kai and do my best to ignore the live feed of zombie boy ripping into his girl’s liver. Even when a group of girls pass them in a fit of giggles, thinking it’s all part of the show, I don’t allow myself to get distracted.

I see the pre-recorded video of the inmates. Empty rooms. The guests passing by.

Where has he gone?

‘There you are!’ I press my hand against the screen, seeing him walk by what looks like a hospital ward. Plastic patients lie in beds with dirty sheets. He runs his fingers along some of them before disappearing from view. Then they start to move, twisting in their sheets and rolling around.

Before I can lose my resolve, I run out of the room and deeper into the madhouse.

The corridors are dark and dirty. Cobwebs cover the flickering lamps lining the walls, and I shudder at the giant spiders hanging in the corners.

The music has stopped. Now the speakers play muffled screams and distant groans.

I try a couple of doors until I find one that opens.

I step inside, straight into a large room with flickering lamps and a gramophone playing yet more creepy fucking music.

Seats line the walls. Dummies sit in various poses. Some stare blankly into nothing. Others are curled up in a ball. An old man sits in an old-fashioned wheelchair, his long white hair covering his gaunt face and gaping mouth.

By the door is a huge man, his stomach hanging over his knees, and old green vomit covers the front of his white hospital gown.

Ahead is the door. As I walk towards it, a low groan makes me jump.

‘What the fuck?!’

I freeze when several hands press against the wall between me and the door, like people are trapped inside, desperate to scratch their way out. A childlike giggle has me turning.

Yep. Of course, the mannequins are coming to life. The vomit guy is gagging on green puke, unable to move because he is so fat. The girl curled up in a ball is now rocking back and forth, moaning and groaning like she’s possessed.

And the one who was staring into nothing is now staring at me, giggling like a lunatic and holding a fucking knife. She licks it, cutting her tongue in two. Blood oozes from her mouth, and yet she still laughs.

The door flies open, and the guy who stood next to me in the surveillance room grabs my shoulders, screaming incoherently as he shakes me.

I recoil, overcome with the stench of burnt flesh and hair.

As I look, I see that the makeup isn’t makeup anymore.

His skin is smoking! His skin is charring and blackening as though coals lie under his flesh.

‘I’m burning! I’m burning!’ he yells before shoving me aside and running back towards the exit, which I know is still locked.

I stumble back, horrified at the state of the guy. At the stench!

When my back meets the wall, I scream, feeling hands grab at me.

From inside the fucking walls! No longer blindly feeling. Very real hands pushing out from very real brick.

They pin my arms down. My ankles. They grip my hips and feel my face.

‘GET THE FUCK OFF ME!’ I scream.

The deranged patient starts to stumble towards me, the knife in her hand, and her body moving as though stiff and disjointed. Her greasy black hair hangs over her face, so all I can see is her eye honing in on me.

Two women dressed as slutty cats sprint into the room, blood covering their bodies and a very real look of terror on their faces.

‘HELP!’ I scream. ‘HELP ME!’

One of the girls grabs me and pulls, freeing me. But as soon as I’m free, the hands grab them both and pull them into the wall. They reach for me, pleading for help. I grab one of their hands and pull.

But the wall pulls them in, claiming them both.

It goes silent before their faces press against the wall, mouths open in a scream. Hands reaching out.

‘Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.’ My eyes go left to right as I back away.

There’s a screech, and I move just in time to avoid getting stabbed in the face. The deranged girl wildly cackles as she tries to stab the shit out of me. I’m no lady, and I don’t fight like one either. I kick her as hard as I can between the legs and shove her back.

More hands reach out from the wall. Disembodied moans and groans call out. The faces of the two women just taken emerge, their mouths open in a desperate scream, before hands grab them and pull them back into the walls of the house.

‘Willlllooooow… Come to us Willllooooowwwwwww,’ they sing.

I face the knife-wielding lunatic.

And I shake my head.

‘Nope.’ I step back, turn on my heel, and for lack of a better expression, I leg it. ‘Abso-fucking-lutely not.’

Ghosts. Are they fucking ghosts? Are their bodies now trapped in the walls?

I have no intention of hanging about to discover the truth or wait to get a knife in the face.

I run through the door, slamming it shut behind me.

Catching my breath, I hold the door shut, half expecting something to slam into it or a knife to break through.

Nothing happens.

‘What the fuck is happening?’ I whisper, gasping in panicked breaths. I rest my forehead against the door, seriously questioning my life choices until now.

It’s then that I hear scuttling sounds.

A lot of scuttling sounds.

I slowly turn.

‘You have to be shitting me.’

Spiders. Hundreds and hundreds of fucking spiders. They cover the floors. The walls. Hang from webs overhead.

On the floor are bodies. Spiders scuttle over them, biting as they go. One of the bodies twitch, and his eyes stare helplessly in my direction. He’s still alive but unable to move.

A spider goes into his mouth and emerges from his nose.

I suddenly become painfully aware that I am so fucking freaked out that I can’t move.

I don’t do bugs. All those fucking legs. The eyes.

I stay pinned to the door.

Oh fuck. There are rats, too. I yelp when one scurries out of the guy’s trouser leg and runs up his body, stopping on his face to eat his nostril.

My hand rests on the door handle. But ahead, another door slowly clicks open. And with a creak, it widens.

‘Not creepy at all,’ I tell myself in a painfully high pitch I can’t control. ‘And in no way ominous.’

Looking at the door, I know precisely where I’m supposed to go. Where the house and the demon stalking its halls want me to go.

‘I really fucking hate spiders.’ I force myself to take a step forward. ‘Why did I take my shoes off?’

The spiders like to make a point of scuttering over my feet. All those tiny legs. I shudder and try hard not to look or think about it. Especially when I stand on them. The crunching… eurgh!

Rats brush past my ankles, and when I pass three rats happily eating a woman's fingers, exposing the bone as she watches me pass with wide eyes, I can’t help it. I go to help. To kick the rats away and help her up.

I get held fast by an invisible force, like someone has a firm grip on me. Hot breath lands on my neck, and a whisper warns me.

‘Do not disappoint me. You will regret nothing more.’

It’s a whisper. One filled with warning. And one which forces utter terror into me. Fills me with it. Paralyses me with it!

I’m released, and the icy fear dissipates. With a final look at those still on the ground, I walk towards the open door. The spiders and rats letting me pass without overwhelming me.

And I step into the next room with a relieved sigh.

Of course, the door slams shut behind me on its own. A cold shiver passes me, and I swear I hear a child giggle.

‘Ok. So you’re actually a haunted house. I get it!’ I quickly brush off the last of the spiders, stand straight, shudder again, and face whatever comes next.

It’s a long corridor with metal doors. Above them are security monitors showing the patients inside. I walk on, every instinct telling me to run. That evil isn’t simply walking the halls but seeping out of the foundations.

Each cell has a patient inside. And they are far from actors. They scream and cry, trapped inside straitjackets. Hurling themselves against the walls of their padded cells.

‘Let me out! Let me out!’

I know that if I help them, there will be consequences. And I’m running out of time. Determined, I make my way down the hall and turn a corner.

The next room is deafening with the sound of electricity.

More flashing lights as I see what I guess is supposed to be electroshock therapy.

Only it’s a man, a very real man, strapped into a chair being electrocuted.

I keep running. I pass half-eaten corpses.

A woman dressed as a ghost, clutching her body and rocking back and forth.

I stumble into a hospital ward illuminated only by candles and the lightning flashing outside the windows.

On the beds are what I assume are park guests, as they are dressed in costume.

There’s a clown. A ballerina in black. A prisoner in an orange jumpsuit.

But all of them have been operated on. Bandages cover large parts of their bodies.

Metal instruments of torture have been secured to mangled limbs.

One has had her eyes and tongue removed.

All are strapped down and writhe in pain.