A grey hallway was lit by a mere flickering light. I was limping down its winding mass. I have no idea why or how. My head hurts something fierce. The hallway was filled with various noises coming from locations I could not discern. Squeaking, squealing, howling, and churning. Screaming, buzzing, grinding, and wet slapping. I heard a loud bang behind me. With a gasp I turned around and saw a stairwell at the other end of the hallway.
It was illuminated by a flickering light that shattered to pieces the instant I laid eyes on it, plunging the stairwell into darkness. My eyes filled with tears as I couldn’t take the noise anymore. All at once I was plunged into silence and darkness. It felt like things were touching me from all directions. I didn’t dare move. I felt breathing along my neck. I felt fingers raking across my spine and touching my arms. I felt warm drops of saliva dripping down my ears and nose. I felt something slimy twist itself along my neck. Then the lights flicked back on.
Corpses started flowing down from the stairwell like it was a flesh waterfall. They came down in greasy chunks. Eyes, hands, feet, tongues, blood soaked organs, and brains. Worst of all was the screaming. Being cut to pieces didn’t stop them. In a few moments the hallway was ankle deep in blood and gore. I was surrounded by disembodied heads and various body parts.
Some of the heads were begging for their lives, some were silently gnashing their teeth and chewing on whatever gore they could get in their mouths. Some just screamed until their throats were raw. Some of the heads were missing tongues.
Lots were missing eyes. I tried to take a step and tripped on flesh. I fell back, and felt something pulsing against my hand. More gore flooded down the stairs. I got to my feet and tried to fight the tide of warm oozing flesh.
That’s when I found them. Danny, Emily, Mar, Mom, and Dad. And Jason. Danny didn’t have eyes. Emily was just missing one. Mar didn’t have a tongue or lips, she was mouthing words. Mom’s eyes were rolled back into her head. Dad didn’t have any skin.
But Jason stood above me. He was standing tall atop the gore, as if completely at home. His face was obscured by the light above. He was holding out his hand.
“Don’t worry.” He said.
“I’ll take your place.” A smile crept across his face.
I screamed until it hurt.
…
I woke up screaming, soaked in my own sweat. Hands grabbed me immediately. They held me in place while I freaked out. They lifted me up by my shoulders and a concerned looking Mar leaned in close.
“Jacob! It was just a nightmare.” Mar yelled at me. I didn’t stop screaming. Mar frowned and tried to shake me.
When that didn’t work, she slapped me hard across the face. The hands let me go and my head bounced against the floor of the van. I felt better when I sat back up.
“Thanks Margaret the second.” I mumbled.
“Don’t make me smack you again.” She grumbled in response.
Emily and Danny looked really concerned. Mar’s dad was driving us and he looked pissed. His brown beard crinkled in annoyance.
“What are you morons doing back there?” He grouched.
“Mind your own business!” Mar yelled.
“Don’t talk like that to me, you brat! I’m taking time out of my day to drive you little shits around, I’m not gonna take your lip.” He sounded even more annoyed. The others never took their eyes off of me.
“How long have you been having nightmares?” Emily asked.
“Nightmares? Who said anything about nightmares?” I said as I crawled back to create distance.
There were no seats in the back of the van so we slid around as the car moved about. Danny was sitting closest to the driver seat, Emily was in a corner by herself, and Mar was sitting across from me. I was clutching my backpack close to my chest.
“No more secrets, Jacob. Tell us what the nightmare was about.” Danny said. I let out a sigh.
“Alright. It was about corpses.” I answered him.
“Corpses?” Mar asked.
“Lots of them. Pooling out around me like water. Begging and screaming for help.” I explained.
“I don’t even remember my dreams.” Mar said to no one in particular.
“How long have you been having these nightmares?” Danny asked, concerned.
“Since the first night I went out.” I tried not to reveal too much information while Mar’s dad was in earshot.
“You mean since you went out as Mo-” Mar tried to say.
Emily cupped a hand over her mouth halfway through. Mar’s dad’s eyebrow raised a fraction in the mirror. I looked at him and winked.
Then I turned my attention back to Mar.
“Yes.” I gave her an incredulous look. Mar bit down on Emily’s finger and Emily jerked her hand back.
“You guys are the worst.” Danny said.
“You’re one to talk, snitch.” I said in a mocking voice.
“I’ll just let you get hurt next time. Since you apparently do so great on your own.” Danny retorted.
“Will you two please stop bickering like an old married couple?” Mar pleaded.
“When hell freezes over.” I sneered. Mar sneered back without saying anything else. Instead, her dad spoke up.
“With the way this world is moving… I don’t think that’s too far off.” He said to himself.
“Now your cynicism is bleeding into others.” Emily remarked.
“Since when did I become the root of all of your problems?” I asked.
“Since you stumbled into each of our lives.” Mar said with a smile as she reached over and messed up my hair.
“You better forget everything you hear us say back here.” She said in a harsh voice.
“Margaret.” Her father sighed. “Why do you think I care about your tween drama?” There was irritation in his voice.
“Just keep driving, old man.” Mar said.
I laid my head against the wall of the car and closed my eyes. My body gently rocked as the van moved. I got lost in the darkness.
“You’re here. Get out.” Mar’s father grumbled. I pulled my backpack around my shoulders as Danny pushed open the back doors of the van.
We all crawled out together. Mar’s father drove off the moment the doors were closed behind us. We collectively turned to face the massive structure in front of us, a massive golden tower.
It served as an all purpose facility for Mr. Polybius’s company. It was a bank, a research lab, a police training facility, a factory, and living spaces for different groups of people. I’m sure a thousand other things as well. All the other facilities in the city with those purposes had shut down and moved to the tower.
Contained within were one hundred different floors, each with a different purpose. It was over a thousand feet tall. Several high tech elevators within used vacuum technology to move from floor to floor in seconds. The first twenty floors were the bank levels.
We were headed to the sixteenth floor to briefly visit Emily’s dad and then get a tour of the facility. This little mission served as recon for me. I needed to know everything about this lunatic before I made any move. We had to stand in a line to enter. Double doors waited at the front. They were guarded by a single high tech cop.
The gang and I had dubbed them the Ultracops. I immediately recognized the people in front of us in line and groaned. It was Gary Shyamalan and Know-It-All Joni. Two of my least favorite people. Before I could tell Mar to keep her mouth shut she initiated conversation with them.
“Hey, you two. Haven’t seen you in a while.” Mar said with a smile and a wave. They both turned around, and their eyes went wide and they immediately let go of each other’s hands. Gary put his hands in his pockets and Joni crossed her arms. I smiled at the awkwardness.
“Keeping each other’s hands warm?” I chuckled. Joni rolled her eyes.
“We haven’t seen each other since the…. You know.” Joni ignored me.
“Yeah. Everyone’s a little distant these days.” Danny chimed in.
“Why weren’t you guys at Amy’s party?” Mar asked.
“We didn’t get an invite.” Joni sneered.
“We’re not popular like you guys.” Gary spoke up.
He seemed like he was thinking of other things. Maybe he was just trying desperately to hide his embarrassment. I glanced behind them to see the front of the line. It was moving at a quick enough pace, but not nearly fast enough for me to escape the hellish conversation.
“Maybe you’d be more popular if you were nicer to people.” I said. Joni scoffed.
“Be nice.” Danny hit my shoulder.
“What is your problem? I’ve never done anything to you.” Joni said, exasperated.
“You’re just annoying.” I shrugged.
“Ignore him. He’s just cranky that the line is moving slow.” Mar explained.
I checked the front of the line again. We were four away from getting in. My anticipation was rising. I tried to keep myself from pacing. I was bouncing on my feet when the people in front of Joni and Gary were cleared by the Ultracop.
“Well, that’s not an excuse to be an ass.” Joni sneered. The Ultracop took Joni’s bag and rifled through it to make sure she didn’t have any weapons. Two workers made them stand on a platform as they ran a medical detector over their bodies.
They turned on an x-ray and scanned them to make sure they weren’t concealing anything. Then the green light flashed and cleared them to enter.
Any excitement in me died as I witnessed the hoops they went through to get in. I mentally started preparing myself when the ultracop grabbed my bag. But then he stopped. He stood up straight and tapped the side of his head. I think someone was speaking in his ear. He nodded after a minute and looked down at me.
I couldn’t see his face beneath the helmet but I could sense suspicion. He hit a switch and the light turned green for us to go in. I looked back at my friends and they looked surprised and alarmed. The two workers waved us along as we walked down the path to the doors. The people behind us complained about us getting special treatment.
They stopped when the Ultracop pulled out a massive handgun. The doors slowly slid open to reveal an elevator. Danny hit the button for the sixteenth floor. I flinched as I felt my stomach rising for half a second before violently slamming back down as the light telling us our floor number flashed.
The doors opened slowly.
