Help Me, I’m in Hell

By Merlyn Sheldon

Dedicated to:
All of the women who have passed through my life. This one’s for you.
Michael Sheldon, for your support and comprehensive understanding. You of all people
saw through all of the cynical BS, and picked up on what I have always been trying to
get across in life. I may have given up on humanitarianism, but you better not.
Peter Wendt, for showing me how a man is supposed to be, for all of your support of
our weird little family (can’t forget to mention putting up with us/me as well), for
everything you’ve ever done.
Jennifer Lake for well…I think you know. Thank you so very much, I literally owe my
life to you.
And last, Danielle Hemingway-Wendt. Being the most kind, caring, considerate,
angelic, peaceful, tolerant, patient, and beautiful mother of all time wasn’t enough for
you was it? You also had to be the best friend I’ve ever had, didn’t you?
I love you
Part One
He awakens in what appears to be a hotel room. Or at least, what use to be a hotel
room, before it turned into a blood-tinged, violent crime scene. The drapes in the
windows are smashed, dripping with what seems to be visceral fluid. This must have
been happening for some time now, as the floor appears to be soaked in this dark red
liquid. He rises out of the bed, and notices the rust on the bedpost. He then realizes he
has been sleeping on merely a crimson tinted mattress and a heap of old rusted metal
thrown into the façade of a bed frame.
“What the hell….” he whispers hoarsely to himself, intruding on his own question
with a cough.
As he looks around the room, he just sees carnage.
Nothing around him feels familiar.
‘This is not where I went to bed’ he thinks to himself.
As he tries to remember what had happened, he realizes he cannot remember where
he had gone to bed. He does not remember even lying down, let alone checking into a
hotel. The last thing he remembers is driving. He tries to stand, but he feels as if his
brain spins inside his head when he does. He feels hung over.
‘How much did you drink last night?’ his id asks his ego.
There is no question on whether he did or did not drink the night before, merely how
much. Drinking had become quite his habit since the death of his wife.
“Hello?” he says out loud, hoping somebody will answer. All he can hear is
humming in the background, as if by some sort of machine. Occasionally he can hear
steam-pumps, as if he were in a factory.
“Is anybody there?!?” he yells. He is growing frustrated with the ambiance. He
decides to try standing one more time.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, I gotta quit drinking” he curses, with one hand holding his
forehead and the other holding onto the bed post for support. The hangover is beating
him down.
There is a wooden stand next to the bed, and he moves towards that. As he looks
around, the walls appear to be falling apart. The majestic red paint is chipped in large,
erratic portions, revealing a deep brown wall behind it. He sees a wooden door, and
begins to head towards it. He feels as if he is dragging himself to the door, as if one of
his legs were in proportionately heavier than the other. He makes it to the door, and
wraps his hand around the doorknob.
He looks out the door through the peephole, and sees a wall that is painted in wave
of red and gold. The design is elaborately gothic. It seems to give the feeling of
royalty. He opens the door, and looks around. To his left, he sees down a hallway with
more doors. To his right, he sees a golden, arc-shaped double door.
As he heads towards the arc-shaped door, he sees a counter. Next to the cash
register there is a bell. He looks around what appears to be the entrance to this strange
hotel. He notices a sign on the wall behind the counter that says
“Helen Wait is in charge of our customer service. If you have a complaint, go to
Helen Wait.”
Cute, he thinks as he leans on the counter, trying to balance himself. He looks to the
right and see’s another doorway. The door is open, and a dim light is on in the room.
As he moves towards it, a twitching freak of a woman stumbles out.
He takes a step back in shock, and notices that the woman is moving in spasms. One
leg jerks in front of the other, her arms convulsing rapidly, in a reckless fashion. Her
head snaps from side to side, never staying still, always moving, and shaking. Her skin
looks flawless, and her figure is accentuated by the tight button up red jacket, and the
red skirt that goes down to her knees and has a split on the side, revealing a little farther
up her left leg.
He then notices her face. Saran wrap seems to be tightly wrapped around her head,
wrapping her hair and face so tightly that her facial features are barely distinguishable,
except for a hole where the mouth is. Except there is no mouth that would seem
familiar to a person, no lips or teeth, only a small hole in the saran wrap.
Slowly backing away from the women, or whatever it is, the fear escalates and
forces its way out of Richard’s body in forms of sweat.
He wants to help her. It seems to him that she is hurt. But her demeanor seems
malevolent. Her steps are hard, her high heels stabbing into the wooden floor. Each
step is a thud in his head that forces him cringe with each terrifying lunge forward, and
so he turns to make a run for it. He realizes she is blocking him from the door now, so
he traces his steps back to the room he woke up in. Hustling make to the room, his
body falls against the door after hastily forcing it shut. His mind is in a panic as he tries
to figure everything out.
The door is locked which calms the man down, but the growing angelic white light
behind him forces his pivot. The light hits him in a way that brings it’s viewer to their
knees.
Sounds of scraping, as if metal against concrete, overtake the tension in the room.
This is joined by an intense banging, each thud louder and more powerful than the
ones created by the maitre de’s high heels.
A haunting girl’s voice pierces through the ear-drum piercing carnage.
“What are you doing here Richard?” says the voice, sounding like a familiar young
girl.
“I’m only giving you one more chance Richard. I would highly appreciate it if you
could figure it out this time”
The sound of scraping gets increasingly louder, as in closer.
“No….wait….what is going on here?” he yells, trying to hear himself over the noise.
“NOOOOOO!” he yells. The noise of the room eventually overpowers his yell for
help, and his head is introduced to the hardwood floor and cheap imitation rugs.
*****
Richard wakes up on the floor. The sound of his voice screaming no is the last thing
he heard as if it were a dream. He sits up, and notices the room he saw in his dream is
now much more elegant.
The bed seems comfortable and luxurious. Static is playing on the television, and it
is set at a low volume. The white noise creates a subtle sense of security. Even though
this room looks no more familiar than the first room, he finds safety in the television.
The presence of the television means he is in a civilized place, and not some vividly
disturbing and grotesquely violent nightmare.
‘Or maybe the other way around’ he amuses himself.
He stands up, and begins investigating the room.
Check the windows.
Looking outside in the dark, he is able to make out the figures of trees and a
mountain top in the background.
Check the door.
He stumbles upon a card that appears to have been slid underneath the door. On the
card, there is a caricature of a maid holding a feather duster, the words next to her
reading
“Sorry we missed you. Please enjoy our service and we hope our accommodations
suit you.”
 The card makes no sense at the moment, but when he looks up to the door, he sees a
sign that says
“Check out is 11:00 am. If room is not checked out in time, you will be charged for
a two-night stay. Thank you!”
Richard quickly spins around the room in search of a clock. Against a dimly lit
corner by the head of the bed, a red and blinking “4:27”.
‘Fuck it’
On the opposite side of the room, a mirror beckons the man with an extremely ill-
timed hangover to look over himself.
Nothing out of the ordinary about his eyes or his face, only in his head.
He opens the door with the peephole, and hastily moves to the main lobby room.
Approaching the desk, he realizes that although he has never been in this hotel before, it
seemed all too familiar.
Déjà vu’?
That’s strange, Richard thinks, but no time for that. Antsy fingers begin to ring the
bell, hoping that an attendant will be of service before the clock strikes eleven. After
several rings of the harsh clanging of the bell, he is still alone in the lobby. The door
that the bloody maitre de came out of, the one that he had dreamt of, is exactly where it
was as of last night.
And opened exactly how it was.
Instincts compel him down the hallway, away from the door.
The hotel room is silent. There are no windows in the main hallway and lobby
areas, and a large and grandiose chandelier is hanging from the ceiling in the room on
the opposite end of the hallway from the main lobby.
As Richard makes his way to the room, a bright white flash again blinds him. He
stops in his tracks, and covers his eyes with his hands. When the light begins to dim
any reasonable drunkards expectations, his eyes crack open and his hands part ways to
see a woman in what looks like a white nightgown hanging from the chandelier. A rope
is pulled tightly, wrapped around her neck, her head tilted forward, with mangy black
hair covering her face.
The sight induces flashbacks in Richard, bringing him to his knees, tears welling up
in his eyes.
All he can do is stare at the girl, for the resemblance of his ex-wife is far too much to
endure. He looks away, hoping this to be an illusion, or some sort of cruel game.
‘I must still be dreaming! Why am I dreaming this?’
The walls suddenly seemed to have decayed several years. It looks much like it did
in his previous dream/nightmare, with blood accenting the walls in random bursts of
violence.
He instantly becomes terrified when he realizes that the thought of escaping the
nightmare was merely a hoax, a malicious joke his mind had played on him. He looks
back to the woman hanging, and just as he looks up, her head snaps back and she
screams. Richard jumps to his feet in bewilderment. The sound of her scream
punctures his inner ear drums, and an overwhelming sense of terror takes over from
there.
He runs around the black leather couch that is now dotted with blood. The
chandelier above him begins to rock back and forth, and the lights begin to flicker.
When Richard looks up, the hanged woman is gone, but the light bulbs in the chandelier
shatter instantly. He hears a hoarse and muttered moan. He turns in the direction of the
sound, and sees a monstrous humanoid figure looming towards him.
Its flesh is dark grey, sickly and ill looking.
Its legs are disproportionate, the right leg being slightly skinnier and a good four or
five inches shorter. When standing on its left leg, the creature must be at least seven
feet tall, as it stands at least a good foot over Richard’s 6’1” frame.
Its right arm however, seems to be more sculpted and defined, and slightly bigger
than its left arm.
As he examines this monster limp towards him in the dark, he realizes he is less than
a foot away from this thing. He takes a step back, and as soon as his left foot hits the
rug on the floor, the lights hanging on the wall surrounding the room burst on. The
creature suddenly becomes more defined in Richard’s mind. Its limbs appear to be
sewed onto his torso, as if he were made of several different people’s body parts. Its
head lacks eyeballs, and it seems as if flesh from his eyelid were stapled across his eyes,
creating a cross pattern across each eye. His mouth is sewn shut, with pale flesh
creating a criss-cross pattern where his lips should be. And just as the light had filled
the room, variously sized black spikes shot out of his body, as if waiting for the light to
come on.
Seeing the creature in the light made it far more menacing, far more monstrous. It
happened to disgust Richard, and he did not care if it were trying to hurt him or help
him, he wanted it to go away.
At least it had stopped moving towards him in the light.
When an incredibly nervous man’s right foot hits the floor, the licks flicker off.
The giant winds his right arm back, and swings at Richard. Its attempt to hit Richard
is slow, and fails its purpose as he ducks under the monster’s arm.
If it would have made contact, the results would have been devastating.
The right arm of the beast strikes hard into a pillar behind Richard. The pillar snaps
at the impact from the fist, and debris falls from the ceiling. Richard hides his head
under his arms, and runs down the hallway. The lights come back on, and the creature
stops completely. The deadly spikes shoot back out of his skin.
They must have retracted themselves in the darkness. Richard makes his way to the
main lobby, and sees the golden arc-shaped double doors. He grabs onto the handle,
and pulls to no avail. He tries the other door, and nothing. He starts banging on the
door, kicking it, punching it. The lights go off in the building, and it becomes dead
silent.
Richard turns around, and sees the creature’s figure moving slowly around the room.
Richard tries to stifle his breathing, as he drops himself down to the floor. He gets on
his hands and knees, and begins to make his way on all fours to the room he woke up
in, never taking his eye off the figure in the darkness. He moves slowly, trying hard not
to catch the attention of that hideous creation down the hallway. As he moves his legs
in accordance to the movement of his arms, the wooden floor beneath him creaks and
moans.
He slows his movement, trying to lighten the pressure on the floor. One of the
floorboards makes a loud creek when his left knee presses into it. The silhouette spins
around, facing him, and begins making its way down the hallway. Richard spins his
body off of all fours, and leans up against the wall, behind the desk. His breathing
becomes heavier, and he feels around for something to use as a weapon. Underneath
the desk, he can make out the outline of something that looks a baseball bat. He starts
to move towards it.
His breath is heavy, his heart is beating rapidly.
He finally makes it to the object, and he grabs it up quickly. As he clutches the
baseball bat, he sees a large fist barreling towards him. Quickly diving out of the way
of the strike, the desk behind him bears the brunt of the devastating swing. The light
comes back when the fist hits the wall. The creature freezes in its spot, and the spikes
pop out of the arms. One comes just inches shy of Richard’s leg.
 Richard jumps up, wielding the bat, and spots the un-yielding appearance of the
creature’s face. This was the first time he had seen it up close. This, deformation, had
two faces! There was a much smaller face on the side of its head that he had not seen
earlier. The face on the side was more just a large mouth, jaws snapping its jagged
teeth together. The mouth snapped furiously in every direction.
Richard does not take much time admiring the hideous, grotesque arrangement of
the deformation; he smashes the bat into the side of the creature’s head. The monster
actually steps back reeling in pain, as it lets out a ferocious yell. The mouth on the side
screeches in agony, while the mouth on the front pulls on the flaps of skin crossing his
mouth, attempting to let out a painful bellow.
Richard takes this opportunity to run back down the hall to his room. When he gets
to his room, he pushes the door open, and walks right into the bloody maitre de from
the previous nightmare. He pushes her back as he jumps back out into the hallway.
Down the hallway, the lumbering monstrosity starts heaving its way towards
Richard. He runs further down into the hall back to the room with the chandelier. He
spots stairs off to the left, and he quickly runs towards them. The lights begin to flicker
again, as he rushes up the stairs.
When he reaches the top, he looks down the stairs to see where the deformations are.
Not seeing any, he looks ahead to find a window. As soon as he turns, the women in the
white gown rushes towards him screaming at the top of her lungs. He trips back and
falls down the stairs. Spinning on the way down, he sees the woman standing at the top
of the stairs looking down at him. A loud thud is heard when Richard’s head hits the
first floor.

PART TWO
The beating of the suns’ rays through the windows of Richard’s car forces him to roll
down the windows. Sitting in the driver’s seat, he lights a cigarette and scopes out the
parking lot. Frank is on the phone in his car, sitting on the other side of the parking lot.
Jordan is smoking a cigarette in the smoker’s cage. Richard takes a quick swig out of
his flask. He had quit drinking before, and never imagined he would be swigging rum
in the parking lot of his job. Then again, he never imagined much about the life he was
living now. Things had just kind of fell apart this way.
What started as a romantic, fiery affair ended up being a rotten and miserable
marriage. Alyssa had two kids to another man, but this never seemed to bother Richard.
He was absolutely infatuated with her. They were seeing each other every day for a
long time, until they both decided it would be a good idea to move in together and get
married. Who wouldn’t want to sustain this feeling of intimacy between two people
who just seemed to click? After about six months of marriage, they began to loathe
each other. They each had their own personal problems, and only now did they seem to
be meeting each other.
A car door wakes Richard from a day dream. He checks the clock on his dashboard,
and sees it is 11:58. Two minutes until lunch is over. He takes another swig of his
flask, this one bigger than the last, and he rushes back inside the bottling factory. As he
opens the door, he walks past his boss.
“Hey Rich, I need to talk to you quick.” Says the tall man wearing a ‘Chicago Bears’
hat on his head. Holding a manila folder and a clip board, he looks right at Richard.
“Rich, your job performance lately, has been lacking. You have been here with us
for a long time now, and normally your lines output is above par. I’m worried about
your future Rich, I know you and your wife are having some hard times, and I can tell
just by looking at you that…” he pauses. Sniffing something in the air, he leans closer
to Richard.
 “Have you been drinking?” he says, with a look of anger and disappointment. A
defeated employee stands before him, not even looking him in the eye.
“This is it Rich, that is the last straw. Go home, your fired. HR will be getting in
contact with you through phone. Get it together man.” The boss says as he walks away
from him.
*****
Sounds of sex surround the room. Eyes open to the all too familiar ceiling. Richard
is in the room’s bed. He hears pounding and female orgasms as if from the next room
over. He looks to the right and sees the clock. A solid “8:05” is illuminated in red. In
an attempt to stand, his body feels more like an anchor. He cannot move his arms or his
legs. Upon looking down to his chest he sees that he is tied down. Barbed wire is
wrapped around his wrists and ankles. It is not until he sees the barbed wire digging
into his skin, and his blood covered hands that he realizes the amount of pain he is in.
He yells, but tries to stay very still so as not to rip himself apart.
Suddenly, radio static accompanies the orgy. As the frequencies shift, Richard can
hear a familiar voice through the static.
“Guilt is how you know you’re still human. It’s when you don’t feel guilt that you
should be worried. But unfortunately, guilt can also lead to depression. This can then,
when left to its own devices, lead to suicide. Guilt is an incredibly powerful emotion,
one that is capable of driving a mind mad, breaking a man down piece by piece until
nothing is left but a physical shell of a human.” says the voice over the radio, sounding
like a television evangelist. While sounding familiar, Richard cannot pin the voice to a
face.
He looks around the room, which terrifies him because he soon realizes that the
room is in the nightmare state. He hears a dog’s yelping. He looks to the left in the
direction of the animal’s noise. Pacing in circles, a dog is pulling itself around with its
two front legs. Where its back legs should be, there is a singular “leg” jutting from the
dogs hindquarters. It is considerably smaller than the front two legs, forcing the dog to
crawl around with its front legs.
“If you are not careful, guilt can put you in a downward spiral of self-pity, self-
loathing, self hatred, a path that can lead to an early ending.”
Making the dog even more disturbing, its head seems to have been bent backwards.
The snout of the dog is facing the backend of the deformity. It is growling, snarling in
the direction its head has been forced to look. This poor dog cannot see, it merely
crawls aimlessly in every direction.
“A spiritual Fibonacci sequence that traverses through denial, anger, fear, insecure
thoughts…”
“What the fu…” Richard’s voice trails off in mid-sentence as he watches the dog
continue in circles. It whines and moans as it pulls itself slowly towards the bed. Its
head is shaking back and forth, blood-tinted saliva dripping from its snarling jaws.
About a foot away from the bed, Richard can feel the sweat on his forehead building
up. The heat in the room only makes the situation more uncomforting.
“Your mind will play tricks on you, looping memories, forcing you to relive your
moment of weakness over and over again, confronting you with all of your deepest,
darkest fears, pushing you to break down. There is a way to end it, Richard.”
The door swings open, and the deformity with two faces steps in. With heavy,
thunderous steps, it makes its way towards the bed.
“It’s all in your MIND! The guilt is all in your head! And how do you stop your
mind from hurting you?” The static buzz increases.
Grabbing the dog by its single hind leg, the two-faced creature lifts up the deformed
dog. Without much thought or hesitation, the giant freak whips the dog to the left. A
final whimper is heard before the dogs body is smashed against the wall.
“You’re worthless Richard!!! Pathetic and worthless!!! Every person who would
miss you in your absence you have single-handedly pushed away. You let your
delusions run your life, and now your guilt-fueled delusions are running your death.
But this can all stop, it’s very simple!” Feedback from the radio pierces his ears.
Tensing up, Richard looks away as the barbed wire digs into his body. Sweating,
screaming, and absolutely terrified, he is confined to the bed, waiting for the creature to
grab him and smash him to pieces as well. In all the excitement in the violence of the
room, he begins to feel light headed. To his left, a blurred vision distorts a horrible
sight as the looming gray figure grabs both ends of the dead dog, and rips it apart.
Screaming for god, the room goes black. The sound of a gunshot over the radio is the
last thing Richard hears before wandering off to unconsciousness.
*****
“Now why do you think you harbor such negative feelings towards women?” says a
smoothing female voice. The room is an elegant brown, a desk with a computer on one
side, and a bookshelf filled with self-help books on the other side. Richard lies on the
couch, while a middle-aged female therapist sits across from him, taking notes on his
answers.
“I know what you’re getting at, and no, I am not sexist. Some of the most important
people in my life have been women. But I don’t see what a woman would see in me?
If their dating me, they are obviously in it to take advantage of me!” he exclaims,
staring at the ceiling.
“And what makes you think they are taking advantage of you?” She crosses her
legs, sipping her coffee.
“Look, I know I’m not the most attractive guy around. But other than my looks, I
feel like I got life figured out. I’ve got a solid, decent paying job and a strong head on
my shoulders. I haven’t had a drink in almost a year. But I’m simply not that great. I
know how important looks are, and so obviously, if a woman is dating me, she is
eventually going to see that they could be getting better from someone else.”
“And this mentality leads you to be suspicious? Is this what makes you check
through her phone, or look through her receipts?”
“It just, it feels compulsive. I can’t help myself. Its second nature, sometimes I
don’t even want to look at her phone, but I can’t stop myself.”
“Now, you and…what was her name again?”
“Alyssa” he says, finally making eye contact.
“Alyssa, that’s right. How long have the two of you been together now?”
Breaking eye contact, he lets out a sigh.
“About two months.”
“And has she done anything to make you feel this way? Anything at all to make you
not trust her?” she says, tapping her pen against her notepad.
“Not really, I mean, she has this guy friend who she is always talking to. She says
they have been friends for years, but that’s all there is. She told me they had sex before,
and they tried dating, but decided they made better friends. And I just don’t trust him.
He calls her ‘babe’ and ‘honey’ all the time.”
“And this makes you not trust her?”
“No, it makes me not trust him. Like, he is going to come around one time when
I’m not around and sweet talk his way back into her pants.”
“Well, we had talked before about your father and your relationship with him, and
how he had abandoned you. And I think that this great betrayal so early in your life,
that event of your father walking out on you, has made you weary to trust anyone ever
again. You feel subconsciously that everyone is eventually going to ‘walk out’ on you
again. And your trust issues are something we are going to have to start working on,
but for today we are out of time.”
Sitting up, he looks around the room and finds the clock. 4:30.
“Have you been reading that book I gave you?”
“Yea, I’ve read about half of it so far.” He says, lying easily.
“Good, well, keep reading that, and next week we will go over where we stand so far
with your trust issues, and we can get to work. OK, see ya at the same time next
week?”
“Yup, I’ll be here.”

Part Three
A knocking sound wakes Richard from an almost-comatose sleep. Putting his hands
on his forehead, in a futile effort to calm the throbbing in his head, he props himself up
on the bed. White static is on the television, and the room clock reads “10:03”.
Another light-handed knock on the door.
“Who is it?” Richard says in a disgruntled, exhausted voice.
A soft, muffled “housekeeping” is heard through the door.
Pulling himself up off the bed, Richard limps over to the door. He grabs the handle
and pulls the door open, and is greeted to a small Spanish-looking woman in a maid’s
outfit.
She walks in right past Richard, wielding only a duster. Humming a minor key song
of some sort, she makes her way around the room straightening and dusting everything.
With one eye closed, Richard decides it’s time for some answers about this hotel.
“Where am I?” he asks, sounding rough.
The maid, who Richard now realizes is actually a young and very attractive woman,
continues humming her way around the room.
“Excuse me, ma’am, what hotel is this?” he tries again.
Taking the pillows off the bed, she begins to make the bed. Spreading the blankets
over the mattress, she makes her way around the bed. Richard grabs her by the arm and
asks again.
“Where the hell am I lady, why won’t you answer me?!”
Staring at her face she realizes that her face is swollen and she has been crying. She
flinches away from Rich, avoiding making eye contact. He lets her go and apologizes
for his actions.
“I’m sorry, I am just really feeling like shit, and I just want to know where I am. I
have been having these really odd nightmares; I don’t even remember coming here
honestly. I must have been drunk and came here to get some sleep, I don’t know, but
I’m trying to figure that out.” When he lets her arm go, she continues making the bed,
as if the whole event never happened.
“I don’t know what is going on, but I just want to go home and that is it. I don’t care
what is going on here; I just want to sleep in my bed. Do you understand what I’m
saying? Do you understand English? Ma’am, please, just tell me what is going on
here.” He pleads, his voice shifting in pitch to match his desperation.
Once she puts the final straightening touches on the bed, she looks at Richard, looks
behind him, and then looks back at him. She makes her way to the door, and shuts it.
Turning around, she unbuttons her maid’s vest, revealing a red bra supporting her
lustrous breasts. She grabs Richard’s head and her lips embrace his. Caught off guard
he takes a step back, with the maid pulling herself towards him. He falls onto the bed,
and she quickly straddles on top of him.
“Wait, what is going on?” he gets out in between stolen kisses. She pushes him back
so that he is lying on his back, and she takes off her unbuttoned vest and her bra
revealing her luscious and ample bosom. She grabs his right hand, and draws it to her
mouth. Taking his middle finger into her mouth, she seductively eyes him up and
down. Pulling his finger out of her mouth, she places his hand on her chest, forcing
him to fondle her.
“Isn’t this what you wanted Richard?” she moans.
“What are you talking about?” he says, breathing heavily in between syllables.
“You wanted it all to end, and now it has. You want to know what is happening, and
I am showing you. Everything is coming…” she un-clicks his belt. “to fruition.” Using
her hips to grind her body into his for emphasis, Richard is bewildered.
“But where am I?” breaking a sweat.
“You’re at the place where everyone eventually comes to learn about themselves.”
She says, snapping her head down so that her hair covers Richards face. Slowly
making her way down, she rubs her head down his chest.
“This has got to be another dream.” He says out loud, looking at the ceiling, waiting
for something to wake him up.
A loud snap is heard coming from down the hallway. In an instance, the maid is up
and moves towards the door and down the hall. Before exiting, she looks at Richard
one more time.
“I’m all yours Rich; I’ll be here whenever you need me.”
Richard sits for a moment at the bed, contemplating what just happened. He looks
around the room, and spots a pack of cigarettes on the table. He grabs the pack and
pulls one out. Conveniently there is a Zippo lighter on the table. Lighting his cigarette,
he looks around the room. Next to the clock, there is a picture frame with a familiar
looking picture. This was not there before. Squinting to make out the details, he
realizes the picture is of him and his ex-wife on their wedding day. How did this get
here? Where could this have come from? He walks to the bed and sits down, grabbing
the picture.
Staring at the picture, he reminisces fondly. When they met, everything was just
perfect. And what happened after their wedding just made Richard feel terrible. Did
she lose that feeling they shared? That connection that brought them together, did she
suddenly not feel it anymore? Why did she take her life if she did feel it still? Was it
the fact that she had this connection to me that drove her to kill herself?
This floodgate of self-defeating thoughts was interrupted by a loud smashing. A
gasp and a female cry for god immediately followed the initial smash. A creaking table,
a constant banging sound, and female orgasms drive Richard to get up and shut the
door. The sounds of violent sex still fill the room, now only barely audible.
The picture takes him to a better place, a simpler time. Cherishing the memories
that this simple picture gives him keeps his head clear of any negative thoughts.
Suddenly, he hears his name. It sounds like the maid’s voice, letting out a cry of
ecstasy in Richard’s name.
“oh yea Richard, I’m all yours baby, this is all yours” she says in a seducing and
lust-filled tone.
He gets up and approaches the door.
This has got to be a trap.
‘I should just stay in my room, and ignore it.’ He tells himself.
Pacing the room, he lights another cigarette. The sex in the next room continues,
with the maid screaming his name repeatedly.
‘Who else is here?’ Richard says to himself. That definitely sounds like two people,
so who else is with us?
Almost in response to this question, the TV clicks back on and white fuzz fills the
screen. White noise is barely heard at first, then increasing in volume. Soon the static
from the TV becomes too much to take. Covering his ears, Richard looks around the
room for a remote, but does not find one. There are knobs on the television itself, but
getting closer to the source of the sound makes it more deafening. With both hands
over his ears, he makes his way to the television. When he pulls his right hand off to
turn the dial underneath the word “volume”, a high-pitched piercing sound fills his right
ear. As he turns the dial, the sound seems to be undisturbed by his efforts. As he turns
the dial to the left, a silhouette of a little girl appears on the television. Giving up on the
television, he covers both of his ears. Now the sounds of the violent sex are pounding
in rhythm with the television static, creating a symphony of lustful obedience.
Coughing, Richard realizes that smoke is slowly filling the room. Looking at the
table where he left the pack of cigarettes, he discovers that the lamp that was on the
table has caught fire. The flames quickly spread to the rest of the table, and to the floor.
Black smoke floods the room, causing the smoke alarms to go off. Giving up, Richard
makes his way to the door.
Pulling the door shut behind him, it seems almost completely silent in the hallway.
A faint ringing is all that he hears. Feeling a little dizzy, he walks himself down the
hall, using his hand as support to lean against the wall. The door across from his is
open; but he does not see anything in there. Further down the hall, as he walks towards
the next door, the repetitive banging sounds get louder. Peeking around the door, he
sees the maid bent over a table, facing him. Looming behind her is the creature with
two faces, thrusting angrily into the maid. The banging sound is the desk being moved
forward with each of the monster’s powerful motions. The maids face conveys an
erotic sense of submission, staring lustily at Richard, calling his name in between
moans and cries for god.
Starting to feel sick to his stomach, the deformity that is brutally violating the young
maid seems also to be pleasing her. It brings its muscular right arm up and wraps his
hand around her throat, staring down at her from behind. The mouth on its face is
making disgusting motions, snapping and growling occasionally.
“Richard, please stop!” the maid pants, choking and having an orgasm all at once.
With its left arm, the deformity pulls up a cleaver, and rubs it along her spine. In one
smooth motion, the horrid creature grabs the maids’ hair, pulls her head back, and
drives the cleaver into the young woman’s back. She screams as he pushes the cleaver
farther into her back, twisting in either direction as his waist thrusts into her forcefully.
Almost in shock, Richard watches the blood flow across the table and onto the floor.
Gripping the end of the table, the young maid’s eyes roll to the back of her head. As her
eyes become white, moans and groans punctuate the sounds of a creaking table.
“You must make this stop Richard, please!” the maid says, before the deformation
slams her face into the table repeatedly.
Gasping in disbelief, Richard makes his way down the hall. Back in the chandelier
room, he notices suddenly the room has become host to a party. The well-lit room is
catering to a few dancing drunks. Everybody in the room, sporting a masquerade-style
mask, stops what they are doing and stares at Richard. The masks all seem to be in the
style of an animal. A larger, more robust man is wearing a mask that is shaped like a
goats head. A slender feminine figure sports a mask that has reptilian features. The
man next to the table with wine and cheese is wearing a mask that looks like a pig.
Some of them holding wine-glasses, they look at Richard while remaining completely
still. Only the big-band swing music that fills the room reminds Richard that time is
moving forward.
Looking around the room, he sees somebody wearing a constrictor snake around
their neck. The snake hisses at Richard, as he makes his way towards the stairs. Eyes
behind porcelain masks follow him up the stairs. In a state of complete panic and
disbelief, his footsteps hasten. Once at the top, the party below continues like normal.
The oddly dressed guests begin to dance and chit-chat, glasses clanging in cheers.
Walking around the second floor, looking down below at the party, the snake
maintains eye contact with Richard. His head following Richard down the hall, hissing
the entire time. At the end of the hallway, a door is half-open and light shines out into
the hallway. Making his way towards the light, Richard braces himself for more
grotesque nightmares. Pushing the door open slightly, he hears choking.
Peering in, he sees a young female body sitting naked on a chair in the middle of the
room. As she turns, he notices two small arms protruding from where her nipples
should be. The tiny hands that are coming out of her chest are wrapped tightly around
her neck. She is choking herself.
Other than those two arms choking her, the rest of the young girl seem to be
normal…
‘If I could even remember what that word means anymore anyways.’
With her other two full sized arms, she is wrapping her hair up into a pony tail.
“Do I look pretty?” a scratchy sickly voice asks Richard.
As he looks at her, he notices her eyes are pure white and lack pupils. Her face is
facing slightly off to his right, leading Richard to think she is blind. When Richard
does not respond to her, the two small arms choke her harder.
“Excuse me sir, do I look pretty?” she forces out, gasping for air.
“What? Yes, yes you look pretty! Just stop choking yourself!” he says in disarray.
The tiny arms loosen up, but still maintain a hold on her neck.
Putting the finishing touches on her hair bun, she grabs for a small wooden box on
the table to her right. Opening it, she pulls out a necklace and offers it to Richard.
“Would you mind?” she says, tilting her head to emphasize her favor. The arms
squeeze again, as she lets out a soft whimper.
Richard looks around the room. Plastered on the walls are old pin-up girl postcards.
A mirage of time-faded snapshots of models is on the wall. Written in what appears to
be lipstick over the pictures are the words;
“Beauty is only skin deep?”
Grabbing the necklace, he positions himself behind the self-asphyxiating girl.
“You see, I’m getting married tomorrow!” she says in a voice that exhibits tested and
exhausted hopefulness.
“I’ve been waiting for this day for so long. I couldn’t have picked a better man.”
She continues, as Richard wraps the necklace around her neck, underneath the tiny
hands that continue to choke and release her neck.
“Do you see him? There is a picture of us! Look, please!” Her right arm points to
the table, next to where the jewelry box came from. Richard looks over, and sees the
picture of him and his ex-wife.
“We are meant to be I can just feel it!” the end of her sentence is literally choked out
of her.
Richard walks around the girl, and glances over the table. Various pictures from his
relationship with his ex are spread out all over the table and dresser. Jewelry that
Richard had bought for Alyssa now lies on this dusty and depraved table in this
nightmare of a hotel.
“What are you doing with these? Why do you have these pictures? These are MY
pictures?!” he yells, picking each picture up one by one, confirming that they are of him
and Alyssa.
The tiny hands choke her harder, as she cries to him.
“I love him, I swear I do.”
“Why are you choking yourself?! What are you doing in here?!” he yells, looking at
the nude young lady sitting in front of him now turning blue.
“We…were….meant….to….be” she pushes out from underneath suffocated vocal
chords.
“If you love him then WHY ARE YOU HERE?! IN THIS SLEAZY, DISGUSTING,
SHITHOLE HOTEL, WHY AREN’T YOU WITH HIM IF YOU LOVE HIM SO
FUCKING MUCH! WHY DID YOU KILL YOURSELF IF YOU’R SO IN LOVE?!
TELL ME WHY GOD DAMNIT!” Richard yells as he slaps the young girl across the
face. Painful memories flood his mind, as he struggles to differentiate between the girl
before him, and the girl he fell in love with. She cries, but the tiny hands tighten,
stifling her cries for help, seeming to work in Richard’s favor.
“WHY?! YOU’RE SO FILLED WITH LOVE FOR ME THAT YOU HAD TO
KILL YOURSELF?! YOU WERE SO UPSET THAT OF ALL THE MEN IN THE
WORLD, I’M THE ONE WHO LOVES YOU, THAT YOU HAD TO KILL
YOURSELF?!” a backhand this time emphasizes the questions. This swing forces the
suffocating girl to the floor, whimpering pathetically.
Kicking her in the stomach, Richard turns and shuts the door.
“He loves me Richard, you will see. He loves me, he just needs to learn how to.”
The girl says to him, her white eyes rolling back and forth, looking for a location of her
assailant.
“How do you know my name?” Without giving her time to respond, he kicks her in
the back.
“I SAID, HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME?!” he yells at her, standing over his
victim.
Crying, her two free hands cover her face. As she moves her arms to her face,
Richard sees the necklace that he helped to put on her.
“That was HER necklace! How did you get that! That was the necklace I bought for
our 1st anniversary! WHY DO YOU HAVE IT?!” he says, yelling at her.
The tiny hands, now with veins bulging from squeezing so hard, re-adjust
themselves and re-grip her neck. He kicks her one more time, and looks around the
room. A small television is sitting on the floor by the bed. Richard picks it up, and
stands once again over the suffocating girl.
“YOU SAID YOU LOVED ME!” Richard yells, who at this point is also crying. He
repeats himself over and over until finally he smashes the television into the face of the
young helpless suffocating girl on the floor. The tiny arms loosen up and sprawl out on
her chest. The strangely arousing naked body beneath Richard is now convulsing in
shock, her body muscles executing their final movements. Richard is brought to his
knees by tears.
Sobbing, Richard crawls to the corner of the room. With his face buried into his
knee, he sits for hours in the corner, crying and screaming, while there is a wild
masquerade party going on downstairs.

PART FOUR
Looking out over a stunning fifty foot waterfall, Richard takes a cigarette out of his
pack from his pocket.
‘My last cigarette as a free man’ jokes Richard with himself.
The rest of the party is back in the picnic area, drinking and mingling, while the
center of the party was isolating himself for a few moments to breathe everything in. In
a few short hours, Richard would be a married man. Just a few short months ago, he
remembers proposing. They were on a random hike, just walking around taking in the
scenery.
 Or at least, that’s what he wanted Alyssa to think.
When they came upon this very spot, standing over the trees, a lake, and a beautiful
view of the horizon, he kneeled down and proposed to marry the woman he loved.
Without hesitation she said yes, followed immediately by the longest and most
passionate kiss they ever shared.
“Bro, what are you doing over there man!” says the familiar voice of his brother,
Adam, as he hears footsteps coming up behind him.
Sitting down next to him, Adam puts his arm around his brother.
“I’ve got to say, you have really turned it around. Ya’ know, mom, dad and I, we
were all worried about you, but I knew you could quit. I knew you were better than
alcoholism, and now look at you man! You’ve quit drinking, you have a good job, and
soon, you will have a beautiful and incredible wife. Congratulations Richard! I’m
happy for you!” he says, his voice reflecting pure joy.
Richard nods, smiling as he pats his brother on the leg.
“C’mon, let’s get back to the party; we’re all here for you and your bride!” Adam
says as he stands up, offering his hand to his brother.
Richard takes his hand and stands himself up. The two make their way back to the
picnic area with their arms around each other.
*****

Awoken by the smell of rotting meat and flies swarming around his face, Richard
swats at the buzzing insects. Back in the hotel room, Richard is drenched in sweat. He
walks to the door, and peers down the hallway in either direction. Leaving the door
open, he returns to the table next to the bed and finds a bottle of rum.
“Now THIS is a fucking miracle!” he says as he opens the bottle and positions it at
his mouth. Chugging the contents, he begins to pace around the room. Wary to start a
fire, he refuses to light a cigarette. Suddenly, there is a knock at the door. By the time
he turns around to face the door, he realizes it is already half open. The sexy maid has
let herself in.
“Hey there handsome!” she says, winking in his direction. Making her way towards
him, she unbuttons the top of her maid outfit.
Richard replies by taking another swig of the bottle.
“Oh I see you have found my little gift for you Richard.” She says in a seductive
voice, grabbing the bottle from his hand. He struggles to keep his eyes from her chest
as she holds the bottle above her head, filling her mouth with the alcoholic substance.
Handing him back the bottle, she unzips his pants and pulls them down.
“Now you must hurry, I do not have much time. He could be here any minute now,
so we must hurry.” She says, as she grabs his free hand and leads him to the bed. She
bends over the bed, pulling Richard close behind her.
They continue to exchange sips from the bottle as the two have rough and wild sex.
As their bodies push together, images of his ex-wife flood his mind. Sexual thoughts
from his marriage fuel his deviant, alcohol induced sex with the maid bent over in front
of him. When they are both done, they lay in bed together holding each other until the
alcohol puts them both to sleep.
*****
Two days after the wedding, Richard finds himself in his basement. Alyssa had said
she was meeting with some friends of hers. She said she would be home around 8:00.
It was now 8:30. Pacing in his basement, chain-smoking, paranoid thoughts begin to
fill Richard’s mind. These are the exact reasons he attended therapy. To not feel this
way anymore! And yet, here he was freaking out convinced his new wife was
underneath some other man naked.
 The front door bursts open, and Alyssa is being carried in by her friend Craig. Both
with smiles on their face, they are obviously intoxicated. Richard listens to them from
the stairs of the basement.
“Thank you for such a good time, it was so good to see you Craig” says a drunken
woman’s voice.
“Hey no problem, you know I’m always here for you Alyssa. You looked so
beautiful tonight, but then again, you have always been beautiful.” says the bastard.
“Well, hey, you’re always welcome to come see me anytime my husband isn’t
around. I don’t think he likes you very much.” She says, with slurred accuracy,
followed by a giggle.
“Just give me a call anytime you want babe, I’ll be here.” He says. Shortly after, he
hears the front door slam, and hears lone footsteps walking up the stairs.
Staying in the basement, Richard tries to calm himself down using the therapist’s
tricks.
Counting to ten, no, that doesn’t work.
Reminding himself of her vows. But alcohol would help her forget who she says she
loves!
Reminding himself of who she was sleeping with tonight. But Craig will always be
there for her!
And why the need to invite him when I’m not around, he thinks.
‘As if that isn’t suspicious at all. Why is she even friends with that dirtbag?’
All of these thoughts begin to push Richard closer and closer to the bottle of rum
hidden underneath his work bench. He hadn’t had any alcohol in several months! But
his therapist moved out of town, and he had thought he had everything under control.
And now, with nobody to talk to or to calm him down, what was he to do?
He couldn’t go to her and tell her. She was simply fed up with his antics.
The on-again/off-again trust.
She had told him repeatedly that when he wasn’t busy accusing her of cheating; he
was busy suffocating her with his presence.
She had told him she loved him numerous times, and had promised just as many
times that she was solely his.
But these are all just words, Richard thought.
He didn’t want to feel this way. He didn’t like not trusting her. But he had always
been like this.
So he started to go to a very expensive therapist.
Then she moved out of town. She referred him to a friend of hers; a therapist she
said would be a good replacement. He declined this offer, thinking he was at a point
where he could stand on his own. And now, he regrets turning down the offer. But
Richard had matured, surely one drink would not bring him out of sobriety. One night
won’t kill him. Just this one night, when nobody else is around to listen to him repeat
his same sob story, no loving wife upstairs coherent enough to help him through this,
nothing else to keep him from acting out on his paranoid thoughts. Grabbing the bottle,
he presses it to his lips. He just wants to not feel this way anymore. That is all.

PART FIVE
The buzzing sound of a cell phone wakes Richard up in the dark hotel room. He sits
up, surprised to hear it. Looking around the room, he finds a cell phone lighting up on
the table next to the bed. He picks it up, and opens it.
“One New Text Message from Craig”
Enter.
 “Hey babe, u want me 2 cum c u when he leaves?”
Where did this phone come from? Who does it belong too? Richard exits the
message inbox and looks through the contact list. A bunch of guy names that Richard
does not know. The phone lights up again.
“One New Text Message from Craig”
Enter.
“b right there sweety ;)”
Richard puts the phone down, and stands up. A rush of memories swarms his head.
All of those times, wasn’t it so obvious? No, he thinks. Not right now. Grabbing the
bottle of liquor on the table, he chugs until he physically cannot drink anymore.
Suddenly feeling very angry, he kicks the table over. He begins to rip everything in the
room apart, destroying the room even more than it already was.
After a good half an hour of drinking massive amounts of alcohol and demolishing a
hotel room, Richard runs out of things to destroy. He opens the door to the room and
stumbles down the hallway. His vision distorted and blurred; the old familiar sting.
Under the chandelier, he dances with himself.
“Where is everybody now huh?! Where’s the fucking party now?!” he drunkenly
yells. Toasting himself, he raises the bottle of rum to the chandelier.
“Fuck it, if I can’t wake up from this nightmare, I’m going to enjoy it.” He says as
he tilts his head back in celebration of his situation.
“Hey where’s that sexy little maid bitch huh?!” followed by spitting.
Up the stairs, he sees room lights come on. Uh-oh, he thinks, somebody must have
been woken up! Making his way up the stairs, Richard is ready to fight.
At the top, Richard holds the handrails, making his way to the room with the light
on. Once again, he hears banging. Is somebody else getting raped in this hotel again?
Entering the room, Richard is not prepared to face what he sees. His ex-wife, folded
up underneath the two faced deformity, naked and moaning in pure ecstasy.
“What the fuck is going on in here?!” Richard yells as he smashes the bottle of
liquor over the head of the beast. The deformity steps back, the small mouth snapping
in Richards direction. It swings at Richard, hitting him right in the stomach, sending
him back up against the wall.
“Please stop! What the hell are you doing?!” Alyssa yells, covering her nude body
with a blanket.
Richard stands himself up, and runs straight into the beast, pushing it up against the
wall. The creature swings again, sending his attacker flying back again. This time,
Richard lands on a chair and smashes it to pieces. He grabs the leg of the chair, which
has been broken off into a sharp point, and runs at the two-faced deformity one more
time. When he reaches him, he jams the chair legs pointy side into the eye socket of the
monster.
“LEAVE HIM ALONE! THAT’S MY HUSBAND!” Alyssa yells again, screaming
and crying.
“What are you talking about Alyssa!? I’m your husband, not this fucking creature!”
Richard pleads, staring desperately at Alyssa.
“Don’t you remember me?! We were married! I love you Alyssa! I still love you
even after all this time apart!” When he finishes that sentence, what feels like a fist of
steel greets the side of Richards head. The room goes black to the sounds of Alyssa
crying.
*****
Two kids sit neglected in their bedrooms. Mom and dad are fighting again. The
oldest, incredibly smart and responsible given his age, tries to tuck his younger brother
into bed, shushing away the sounds of bickering words of contempt. A nightlight keeps
the youngest sleeping calmly throughout the night, while the oldest sits and listens.
“Richard, you are NOT the man I married! Your fucking drunk all the time now,
you’re just an insecure, jealous piece of shit! I don’t know who you think you are to
tell me who I can and cannot spend time with!” says a female voice of rage. This is a
voice of strained hardship. This is Alyssa.
“First of all, I’ve had one drink today and that’s it. Second, if I weren’t married to
the town slut I wouldn’t drink so god damn much!” he yells, hitting the kitchen table to
demonstrate assertiveness.
“I’m the town slut now? What happened to your fucking therapist Richard?! You’re
an absolute fucking psycho! I should have never married you!”
“Then how about you get the fuck out of my house!? I’ve given you everything I
could, and all I ask is to know who you’re hanging out with! I never said you couldn’t, I
just like to know where my wife is!”
“And how about your drunk ass stops yelling because my kids are upstairs trying to
sleep!”
“Oh now you remember you have kids? But at 11:30 in the morning all you can
remember is the fucking snooze button while I run around here cleaning up after YOUR
kids!”
This is followed by a slap across Richards face. The doorbell rings.
“Let me guess! That’s fucking Craig!”
Grabbing her purse, she walks to the door and gets in the car, leaving Richard to
dwell in his insecure hysteria alone and drunk.
The eldest son cannot sleep now.
*****
As Richard weeps in the basement, stopping crying only to take a drink from his
bottle, he ponders everything that is going on with his life. It’s true; he wasn’t the man
she married. But that was over a year ago, and she wasn’t the same woman either.
They had both changed a lot in this time, and both had come to resent each other. It
was sad, he thought, because they started out so intensely. Maybe it was the fact that
they were both cheating on their current spouses at the time, but when they started
seeing each other everything just felt right. The connection between the two of them,
the one that seemed unbreakable, now seemed unattainable.
Staring at his bottle of alcohol, now almost completely empty, Richard weeps harder.
Then, he feels two hands run across his back, and a female voice say “I’m sorry
Richard, I love you” in a re-confirming tone. He turns to meet her embrace, and cries
into her shoulders.
“I’m here for you, I’m sorry Richard. I’m here for you, and I always will be.” She
says, calming Richard for the time being.
Part Six
“Isn’t it funny how people say things they don’t mean? Or maybe their motives and
their opinions change, and suddenly don’t feel the same way! And then what are you
supposed to do huh? You tell me, how a person is supposed to react to a pillar in their
life suddenly disappearing. Have you ever been abandoned Frank? And how about you
Jordan? Ever have a significant other cheat on you? Only have one parent? Been
walked out on before Frank? That look on your face says you have! And it doesn’t feel
good does it!? Absolutely not! So what’s a perfectly sane, normal person to do when if,
of all people in the world, the ones closest to you abandon you? Well abandon the
world! You simply cannot afford to allow somebody to love you, because you cannot
afford to love somebody else! Think about it Frank! Who walked out on you?”
“My father when I was eight didn’t see him again until I was nineteen.”
“And I bet that made you feel horrible didn’t it!?”
 “Yea, I mean, I guess I never really thought about it, but yea.”
“You see, it’s a vicious cycle that has played out over time. Men and women goin’
around fornicating, forgetting that when ya do that, babies happen! So these men and
women who can’t stand each other with clothes on split up, forgetting all about the
human life they have between them. So the little baby boys grow up to have trust
issues and the little girls grow up to have daddy issues, and these psychologically
twisted little babies grow up to repeat the process and have even more fucked up little
babies!”
Audience Applause.
“You see, it’s the parents! The parents, who are so quick to blame the video games
and blame the music, it’s the parents that are twisting these children into psychopaths.
The core values of family that built the fundamental essence of trust, love, and
humanity have been dilapidated to the point of no return. Now it’s all about keeping the
kids on drugs because their too creative. The kids not doing well in school? Well it
must be the televisions fault! Maybe if there were a television show showing kids how
to turn the fucking tv off and read a damn book! Because we all know the parents are
too busy with whatever the hell they got going on in their life to be a parent.”
Audience Applause.
“Parents I’m begging you, for the sake of the children, stick together! You don’t
realize how much harm you’re truly doing to the child by having this revolving door of
fathers come through. And if it’s too late for that, then you give that kid the world!
Because you’re all he or she has, so give them everything you have! Isn’t that right
Richard?”
Opening his eyes, he can see at the foot of the bed the television has been on. On
the screen, three people are sitting in a half circle, one of them holding a microphone.
This one, who is obviously the host, is wearing a nice suit and tie, and a porcelain mask
with a clown design on it. The other two look familiar, but his vision is blurry and it is
hard to make them out.
“OOOOOHHHHHH Richard!!!! Time to wake up! We’ve got some real soul-
searching to finish up on!” says the man with the microphone, staring directly at
Richard.
Looking around, he realizes he is again tied down by the wrists and ankles by barbed
wire. The men in the tv and the audience, real or not, begin to laugh hysterically.
Busting in the door, the two-faced deformity comes creeping towards Richard.
Audience applause.
“Have you figured it out yet Richard! That’s you!” yells the man with the
microphone.
Tied down and bleeding, Richard is starting to feel woozy again. The lumbering
deformity stands next to him, almost as if awaiting command from the television show
host.
“Oh come on Richard! You can’t be that fucking stupid can you?”
The audience laughs on cue.
“Oh fuck it, I’m done. Take his fucking leg off.”
Audience applause.
The two-faced creature turns around and walks to the hallway. A chainsaw engine
revving can be heard by Richard, who is now lying in what is presumably his death bed.
The creature steps back in, jaws ferociously snapping in Richards’s direction, a giant
black hole where the right eye should be. Wielding a chainsaw, the deformity makes its
way to Richard. Taunting him with it, he waves the chainsaw above Richard’s body,
before resting the chain right above his left knee.
Audience applause.
 Cutting through the flesh and muscle, the chainsaw’s chain meets resistance with the
bone. Smoke and screams fill the room, blood covering the bed and walls.
Audience cheers.
Richard struggles not to fight it, as pushing or pulling in any direction causes further
lacerations to his ankles and wrists. He must just sit and take it, or risk further injury.
Audience whistles and hoots and hollers.
In a powerful moment, the chainsaw tears through the remaining parts of the left leg,
meeting the blood-stained mattress. A final horrified scream is let out by Richard, who
faints from the blood loss.
Audience standing ovation.

Part Seven
“.11” reads the breathalyzer. Richard had bought a breathalyzer for use at home to
make sure he wasn’t driving over the limit. But he found it this morning stashed away
in a box in the attic. Wiping the dust off, he decided to play with it today. Viewing the
small LCD display as almost a personal high score, Richard takes another swig of the
bottle. The sound of tiny footsteps was replaced by the sounds of a bottle being
emptied slowly, as the kids were off with Alyssa’s sister. A van pulls up the driveway,
and Alyssa walks up to the door carrying a bag of groceries. Richard decides to help
her with groceries, so he stumbles up the stairs in the basement and out the front door.
Catching his wife’s eyes, he is happy to see her.
“Hey babygirl, how are you doing?” he says, punctuated with a hiccup smelling of
rum.
“Are you drunk Richard!? It’s 1:00 in the afternoon and your drunk?” she says, not
entirely shocked by this.
And this is the day it happens.
The day is April 27th. Richard has been unemployed for quite some time. Drinking
heavily more and more, his marriage is also feeling at a loss. They barely talked
anymore, the sex felt routine, and now they spent more time together than ever.
Driving drunk, he had decided to go for a drive to get out of the house. They had got
in an argument. Glasses were thrown at each other, curse words exchanged.
“It was a nice idea” she said. Those words keep repeating in his mind as he
struggles to stay in one line driving. This is how she now saw the beginning of their
relationship. As simply a nice idea, an idea no longer attainable, but a nice idea none
the less.
He pulls into his driveway. The moon is out, and the stars look remarkably
beautiful. Taking a moment to stare at the stars, he contemplates his actions upon
entering the house. He wants to pull Alyssa out and lay in the yard staring at the stars,
like how they used to. .
Opening the door, he is expecting an empty house. Alyssa had text him while he
was out, telling him she was going to stay with her sister for awhile.
Right to bed, he thinks. Just walk straight to bed and go to sleep.
Walking into the living room, he quickly realizes that will not happen.
Hanging from the overlook on the second floor, Alyssa is blue and swinging like a
pendulum. A rope around her neck, the sight brings Richard down to his knees.
*****
His head shakes back and forth, waking him up. He is seated on a wheel chair. A
bloody left stump sits between him and the wheelchair, reminding Richard of the last
nightmare. Looking around the room, he realizes he is in the chandelier room. The
lights are out, and slowly one by one they flicker on down the hall. The lights hanging
overhead in the hallway swing back and forth. Porcelain masks, abandoned by who had
previously embodied them, now lie on the floor covered in dust.
Using his hands, he pushes himself through the debris and wreckage of the room.
As he pushes past the carnage, he makes it to the hallway. As he passes the doors, they
creak as they open. To his left, a woman is hanging upside down with barbed wire
wrapped around her ankles. To his right, the maitre de is convulsing erratically on the
floor, her high heels clicking and snapping against the hardwood floor.
Further down the hall, his room door is open on the right and the door on the left is
closed. In his room, the maid is tidying up. Continuing past his room, the maid glances
at him and then continues to fold towels. As he pushes his way towards the check-in
desk, he hears laughter. Coming around the corner, he sees the two-faced deformity
looming in the corner, breathing heavy. Leaning back in a chair with his feet on the
counter, the clown-faced man wearing the suit and tie is laughing at the television.
“Oh, hey Richard! How’s that old leg of yours doing?” he laughs, slapping his knee.
He struggles to find the words. His head is hazy, and his thoughts are clouded.
“Oh it doesn’t really matter. I see you haven’t really been learning anything here
have you?” when he finishes the question, the two faced monster turns and faces
Richard. Head down, he now struggles to face the two.
“Well hey, you look real tired. Before you pass out, you need to watch this.”
On the television, it looks like footage from a security camera. Black and white and
hazy, he sees three people standing next to somebody in a hospital bed. One of them is
a doctor.
*****
“As you know Mr. Kingston, your brother has been in a coma for several months
and has shown no signs of a full recovery.”
Looking at his brother, Adam cannot bear the sight any longer. He has been coming
once a week for three months, hoping to see his brother just smile. The face expressed
a blank, emotionless, defeated individual.
A young couple was driving down the road, and found a car smashed into a tree.
Adam had come to find out that Richard had been driving drunk and had ran into a tree
at a very high speed. They had talked on the phone the day before, and Richard had
told him about Alyssa killing herself. He told him about losing his job, about picking
up the bottle again. And Adam knew by the sound of his voice that his brother was
asking for help. He just did not know how much help he needed.
Adam could never figure out for what reason or why his brother was driving drunk.
But whatever reason it was, it not only had cost him his left leg, which he had lost in the
accident, but also had put him in a comatose state for four months.
Adams girlfriend takes his hand, knowing he needs the strength right now.
“Richard has shown some signs of brain activity, but this cannot be taken as a sign of
a full recovery. The brain is amazingly powerful, and may just be ‘day dreaming’ for
Richard until his body shuts down.”
The tiles on the floor form a criss-cross pattern. With extreme hesitation, Adam
attempts to speak.
“I think, doctor, that it’s time….” He cannot finish the sentence, but the message can
be felt throughout the room.
The sound of the EKG meter is all that can be heard. Adam steps away from the bed
and runs his hands through his hair, holding back a scream.
“Are you sure this is what you want to do, Mr. Kingston?” the doctor says, slicing
through the tension.
After several seconds that feel like days, Adam nods.
“This is what he would want right now. Out of his misery.”
 As the EKG meter’s beeps turn into one long audible signature of death, Adam and
his girlfriend embrace each other, tears falling on each other’s shoulders. Looking at
Richard one last time, Adam finally sees his brother smile.