B008GMVYA4 EBOK Page 13

  “Don’t go in there!” Brendan said erratically. He scanning the hallway and staircase frantically, his eyes cautious and darted around wildly.

  “What? Let go of me” Madison replied, half laughing trying to make a joke out of it.

  “I mean it! Why don’t we go to my place? I have a great view of the city, I would really love for you to see it” he said demanding at first and then little more casually – playing down his concern.

  “But, we’ve just got here? I thought you wanted Coffee?” she asked confused.

  “I’ve changed my mind” he said angrily, tugging on her arm.

  “What?! Is it because of the house? I know it’s bad, but I’ve really done a good job with my room” Madison said defensively.

  “No, it’s not because of the house. I just want you to come with me” Brendan said trying to pull Madison back down the steps forcefully.

  She struggled in his grip, digging her heels in - not moving willingly

  “What are you doing? Let go of me!” she shouted, starting to get panicked.

  “No!” he shouted.

  Madison stared at him in shock; his face was panicked like hers. His eyes full of worry and anticipation as if he was waiting for something terrible to happen. Her heart began to beat fast, a ball formed in her throat and panic erupted in her mind sending her senses into chaos.

  “What’s your problem? Why are you acting like this?” Madison shouted at him.

  “I’m not. Look, if you come with me I’ll tell you” he said firmly, his eyes still darting around the inside of the house from the open door.

  “Tell me now!” she demanded.

  “No. Come with me first!”

  “If you can’t tell me, I’m not coming with you!” she hissed.

  Madison tried to take a step back up the concrete doorsteps. Brendan tightened his grip around her arm, she whimpered in pain. Tears formed in her eyes, fear creeping slowly in. Brendan had seemed so nice and gentlemen-like to begin with, she hadn’t expected her night to end like this. She was confused and panicked. Brendan had been fine up until the point she had asked him in for coffee. His reaction to the house had instigated this behavior or it had been something he had been planning from the beginning. Madison didn’t really know Brendan and no matter how much good she thought she saw in him, she couldn’t excuse the possibility that everything he had told her tonight could be a lie and part of a sick game to lore her in.

  She couldn’t think straight, she wanted to trust him but his behavior had become too violent and unpredictable. She continued to struggle against his grip; letting out shallow pleads and sobs. His grip tightened, digging in his fingernails so she couldn’t wriggle free. Her skin burned from his fingernails tearing her flesh.

  “Madison, please. Don’t go in there” he pleaded.

  “Let go of me” Madison struggled.

  “Madison, please!”

  “Let go. You’re scaring me. Please, just let go!”

  “No! Madison, please!” he shouted.

  His finger nails dug in deeper, a sharp pain shot up her arm causing her to yelp.

  “Ouch! Brendan you’re hurting me” she whimpered, trying to praise his fingers away with her free hand.

  Unwillingly Brendan released his grip realising his panic was causing her physical pain. Madison leapt into the house and slammed the door on Brendan twisting the lock on the inside.

  “Madison. Madison, please I’m sorry” Brendan shouted through the door.

  The door shook from the impacted of one of his fists. Madison whimpered a single tear spilling out over her right cheek. She gripped her arm in pain from where his clutch had been. She was scared and hurt by how Brendan had acted towards her for no reason. She jumped as his fist impacted with the door a second time, backing away from the door; she turned sprinted up the stairs ignoring Brendan’s pleas.

  “Madison. Open the door. Please Madison, open the door!” Brendan shouted, his voice becoming more panicked.

  As Madison reached the top of the staircase it fell silent - Brendan had gone. She stared down the staircase towards the door but there was no sound. The silence scared her more than angry Brendan had, she spun back around to head towards her room - Bernie stood before her. She jumped and steadied herself from falling backwards down the staircase. Wiping the tear away quickly she stared up into Bernie, his expression was just as angry as Brendan’s. His breath was heavy spraying a cloud of fowl breath over Madison’s face. His eyes fiery, darting around the corridor and the staircase in the same manor Brendan had.

  “What are you doing bringing a Vampire here?!” Bernie spat.

  “What?” Madison said not sure whether she had heard him correctly.

  “You heard him!” Rich shouted from Madison‘s side. He had appeared from nowhere, in his normal attire of no shirt and tan trousers. Rich’s eyes were narrowed to stare at Madison, a bitter anger spread across his face She had never heard Rich speak before, his deep, bitter, harsh voice unnerved her. Madison didn’t know what to say, she stared at them blankly. Everything was surreal, the manner in which Brendan had acted and now what she was being accused off. Madison could safely say that this was the strangest night of her life and she wasn’t sure whether to laugh hysterically or run and cry.

  She shook her head in confusion, continuing to stare from Rich to Bernie blankly.

  “What?” Madison stuttered.

  “Don’t play dumb with me!” Rich threatened, shaking a fist.

  “What the hell are you going on about? Has everyone taken a trip to the crazy farm today?” Madison shouted, losing her temper.

  “Don’t mess with us, Madison. We’re not the type of people you want to play games with” Bernie thundered.

  Madison had never seen Bernie angry before, she stared at him in disbelief. She was completely clueless.

  “He knows where we live...” Rich cautioned Bernie.

  Their eyes met. Slowly, but simultaneously their eyes shifted over to Madison. They had both came to the same conclusion, although Madison had no idea what this conclusion was she imagined it wasn’t a good one. Panic erupted through her; it flared stronger in her than it had when Brendan had tried to force her out of the door. Only now did Madison contemplate that maybe Brendan had been right?

  Rich took a step closer to her. Her heart thudded against her rib cage, a ball rose up into her throat. She swallowed hard, her eyes becoming blurry with fear.

  “You brought a Vampire to our house! He knows where we live!” Rich spat, an accusing finger pointed at Madison.

  “I…I didn’t? I don’t know what you’re on about?” she said fearful.

  Rich was so close to her face she could smell his sour, revolting breath.

  Her senses took over and urged her to run. Madison turned quickly to sprint back down the staircase, but before she could place one foot onto the first step - Rich grabbed the same arm Brendan had dragged her by. He held her tighter then Brendan had, his fingers pressed down on her muscles causing her sever pain.

  “Let go of me!” Madison screamed.

  Her fear and panic was more heightened then it had been when Brendan had grabbed her. Even as Brendan persistently attempted to drag her out of the door, a part of Madison knew he was good and meant well, but the other much larger part of her couldn’t perceive the situation any further than face value. But there was something really threatening and dangerous about Rich, making her fear more real.

  A piercing pain shot up her arm from the spot where Rich had gripped it, her body became weightless - air born. Madison was flying through the air, over the Corridor at the stop of the staircase. Rich had launched Madison into the air, thrown her across the corridor and into his room. She glided through the open doorway, only catching a glimpse of the doorframe as she pasted it, bracing herself for impact. Rich had grabbed and thrown her without warning, he launched her into the air as if she weighed no more than a tennis ball. She flew in slow motion, only hearing the rush of air past h
er ears. She turned in mid flight to see the wooden floor growing closer to her fragile body. The left side of her body impacted with the wooden floor causing her to scream out in pain. She slid across the wooden floor, the arch of her back impacting with the base of an old brown sofa. She gasped several times as the air was knocked out of her. Struggling to breathe through the severe pain in her back and along the left side of her body, she fell forwards, her chin impacting with the hard wooden floor. She cried out in pain, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Bernie entered the room followed by Rich who shut the door behind him. Suddenly Madison became aware of a foul smell that filled the air. It was the same smell she had smelt on the upstairs corridor of the house many times, but ten times stronger. She gagged, swallowing down a mouthful of vomit.

  Bernie laughed as Madison fought to settle her stomach and stop the vomit from rising.

  Once she had controlled her gag reflex she looked up to see both men circling her like a bird of prey. She eyed them both wearily. Rich on her right side and Bernie on her left, she scanned the room frantically for a way to escape.

  Rich’s room was bigger than Madison‘s, the walls were discoloured like the rest of the house. In right corner by the door was a kitchen counter that was stained brown with a sticky black substance caked over it. A vile smell of dirty water flowed from the sink, setting off Madison’s gag reflex yet again. The cooker that sat in the centre of the counter was covered in thick black grease, a lot worse than the cooker in Madison room had been. Another green sofa which was similar to the one in Madison’s room was centered in front of the big bay window.

  “You really should be more careful who you make friends with...” Bernie said, slowly kneeing down beside her.

  “Please… Why are you doing this?” Madison whispered, tears spilling down her cheeks. A sharp pain flooded into her chest as she spoke making her words crackly.

  “You led a Vampire to our home. I’m sorry it has to come to this... I had other plans for us, but it’s too late now...” Bernie said running his fingers through Madison’s hair lovingly.

  “Don’t. Touch. Me” Madison spat, flinching at his touch.

  “You are so beautiful, you know? Such a waste… And to think I thought that maybe I could turn you” Bernie went on, ignoring Madison’s repulsion towards him and beginning to trace the outline of her jaw with his finger tips.

  “Enough!” Rich cut in.

  The door at the end of the room which led through to the bathroom flew open, Suzie stepped through. Madison’s eyes moved from Suzie’s feet up her body to her face. She gasped in terror as she caught a glimpse of Suzie’s eyes that were now a ghostly, milky white. Her skin had become grayish and her mouth was parted reliving a set of razor sharp teeth. All the usual, normal features of the small Chinese girl had now diminished. What now stood in the doorway was not even close to human, her skin and eyes gave the appearance that she had been dead for days. The set of teeth in her mouth was like something out of a horror movie, every tooth a brownish black with dark translucent salvia that flowed down between each tooth.

  Madison became distracted by something that Suzie was holding that glimmered in the light. She focused on it; Suzie gripped a bread knife in her hand, it was stained with fresh blood. A few droplets of blood fell to the wooden floor next to her bare feet.

  Panic spread across Madison’s face, her senses ran out of control causing her mind to spiral into complete chaos. She was helpless; there was nothing she could do to escape her fate and she didn’t know exactly what she was dealing with. It was becoming clear that her house mates were not human.

  Rich and Bernie smiled widely with satisfaction at her Madison’s eyes flashed full of fear and panic. An even worse smell flowed out from the bathroom behind Suzie - a smell of rotten flesh. Madison had never smelt anything like it before; it was the foulest smell she had ever smelt. She couldn’t hold back the urge to vomit this time, she leant forwards gagging, and vomit flowed instantly out of her mouth onto the wooden floor in front of her. As Madison sat there, injured on the hard wooden floor, a pool of vomit in front of her, she found a strange sense of clarity in everything she had experience while living in the hell house for the last three weeks. The constant smell that lingered around the corridors and it always got stronger when Rich’s bedroom door was open. And the smell that had been present in her bathroom when she had first moved in, at the time she had never been able to put her finger on what the smell was, but now it started to make sense. The strange sleeping patterns of the three housemates, and how they never seemed to leave the bedsit until the middle of the night - Madison had always suspected there was something not right about them. Originally she had come to the conclusion that it was drugs, but it was clearly much more than that. Like the two boys in the train station, they were something else unnatural. The faces of the two boys hadn’t been a hallucination, what she had seen had been real. Whatever the two boys were they were different from her three house mates.

  Mystified by the new revelations that had been brought to light, Madison didn’t know what to do or how to escape. She sat back upright and wiped the vomit away from her mouth. Her eyes flickered back towards Suzie. She gazed past her small, dead, frail body into the open bathroom. Blood was splattered up the walls and a large puddle of blood covered the small bathroom floor. Madison stared in silence for a second; fear had sunk in, rending her paralyzed.

  “Oh my god...” Madison whispered, not fully coherent. She let her head roll backwards and her body lean against the front of the green sofa. The room began to go black around her, and her thoughts were consumed by people she would leave behind when her housemates killed her. Tears trickled down her cheeks; she closed her eyes tight in sorrow. Even though subconsciously Madison had accepted her fate, her body tensed itself - preparing to fight whatever was coming next. She opened her eyes to find Bernie had left her side and was now towering above her next to Rich. Their eyes had transformed into the white milky colour Suzie were. Their skin the same grayish, corpse like, and their mouths parted relieving a set of razor sharp teeth.

  Unable to contain her fear - Madison screamed at the top of her lungs. She prayed for someone to hear her and hoped that Brendan was still nearby. But these old houses were built differently to new houses - the sound stayed inside and didn’t escape through the thick concrete walls.

  “Please……I’m sorry! “ Madison screamed, frantically looking from each of her three housemates.

  “Fresh meat…” Suzie hissed her voice unnatural and wild with hunger.

  “I’m sorry it has to be this way…” Bernie muttered a spark of humanity in his voice.

  “Bernie, please! I won’t tell anyone, I promise!” Madison cried.

  Rich held his hand out to Suzie and slowly she placed the bread knife into his hand.

  “No! Please!” Madison shouted.

  “I’m really going to enjoy this” Rich said walking towards her.

  Pain circulated in Madison’s lower back and ran down her legs as she tried to rise from the cold hard floor. She pushed her limp body up with the palms of her hands, but Bernie’s pressed down on her shoulders - forcing her back down on the floor. She lunged at Bernie, throwing her fists at him wildly. Bernie deflected her onslaught, laughing mockingly at her attempts. He straddled her, pushing her body flat on the floor and holding her still.

  “Get off me!! Please!! Get off!!” Madison screamed, the tears flowing fast and fear heightening her voice.

  Bernie was too strong for her to fight off, she couldn’t even move under heavy body. There was no hope left, she was powerless and fate had dealt her an unjust hand.

  Rich lent over Madison’s head, covering her mouth with is hand preventing her from screaming. However, this didn’t prevent Madison from trying - muffled screams sounded through Rich’s chubby fingers.

  Rich held the bread knife to Madison’s cheek. He applied pressure, not enough to break the skin but enough so Madison could feel the
grooves of the serrated knife. Her eyes widened as her blood ran cold. Every feeling she had before had now vanished, what was left was a bitter plague of dread for the enviable. The sound of Bernie and Rich’s heavy breathing above her and Suzie’s erratic laughing and clapping ecstatically was now drowned out by the sound of her heart beat thumping loudly in her ears. She screamed as Rich applied more pressure to the bread knife, piercing her skin. A few beads of blood spilled out and dribbled down her cheek.

  SMASH!!!

  The window exploded, shards of glass rained down on all four of them. Heavily feet landed with a thud on the solid wooden floor. Rich removed the bread knife from Madison’s face and Bernie loosened his hold. She struggled under the weight of Bernie turning her head in the opposite direction to see what had caused the window to smash. Brendan stood motionless at the foot of the window, his feet surrounded by glass. Bernie rose to his feet in astonishment, Suzie lunging to his side in flash. Both of their bodies positioned defensively towards Brendan - preparing for a fight. Rich kept one hand on Madison’s shoulder keeping her flat on the floor, like a feline protecting its prey. Rich raised the bread knife and directed at Brendan. Suzie opened her mouth exposing her black razor sharp teeth; an unholy howl erupted from her throat spilling out into the room. It pierced Madison’s ears, causing her pain and sending her into a dizzy spell. It was the same howl she had heard many times when walking alone down the alleyway towards the house. It was the most unnatural, animal-like howl she had ever heard, causing every hair on her body to stand on end.

  Brendan didn’t flinch, his face was lowered towards the floor but his crystal blue eyes stared straight towards Rich. Suzie flinched and leapt up into the air, flying over Madison and Rich landing right in front of Brendan. Brendan stayed motionless and relaxed until she had fully landed. Suzie jabbed at Brendan. He moved fast dodging side to side, deflecting her jabs and kicks. In an instant Brendan lunged towards Suzie, she responded by flying forward to meet him. But she was nowhere near as fast and as strong as Brendan. He punched her in the stomach; she instantly doubled over - winded. Brendan quickly stretched his arm around Suzie’s neck and twisted it. A loud crack echoed through the room as Suzie’s neck broke in his arm. Madison winced at the sound and shut her eyes tight removing the sight of Suzie’s lifeless body falling slowly to the floor. Slowly Madison began to open her eyes; she was confronted by the sight of Suzie pale, twisted body led at Brendan’s feet. A loud pop sounded as Suzie’s body exploded into thick black ash that rained down over the floor between Brendan and Bernie. Madison stared in disbelief as the ash scattered the floor before her. Suzie’s body had now completely vanished – nothing remained but the thick black ash that you get after a bonfire.