Authors: James Roy Daley
Scott watched his wife drop.
His mouth was agape; his eyes were wide with terror.
Looking away from her, he saw the animal leap and he screamed. With his hands held in a distressing pose of defense, he thought he was about to be torn to pieces.
Miraculously––as if God himself intervened––the dog came to an abrupt halt in mid-air.
It was chained to the wall.
“Jesus Christ!” Scott cursed as the animal was hurled to the ground.
The dog lifted itself to its feet, yelping. The hair on its back pointed north. White foamy drool hung from its mouth like a beard.
“What the fuck is that!”
Penny was shaking; she was close to tears. “Help me up,” she said. “Scott, give me a hand.”
Scott helped his wife to her feet, still cursing and angry. “This isn’t art! This is bullshit! Are you okay, honey? Are you all right?”
Penny wrapped her arms around her husband. Her dress––her beautiful peach colored dress––was torn on one side. “Look at me,” she said.
The dog growled and barked several times, drowning her words.
“I’m not happy about this,” Scott said. “This is bullshit.”
“I know it is. Lets get out of here.”
As the dog barked again, Scott screamed, “SHUT UP!” He was furious now. That fucking dog was
not
cool.
Hand in hand, Scott and Penny walked towards the white door, eager to move on. The floor was sticky. The white door had spots of blood on it.
They entered the next room; the door closed behind them with the familiar CLICK. This time, the sound pissed Scott off. He tried opening it. Sure as shit, it was locked. Not that it mattered––they
couldn’t
go the other way. Not with that fucking dog in the room.
The new room was bigger than the one before it, but designed similar: black ceiling, black walls, black floor, white door and spooky music. But this time, four pieces of art hung from the wall on their left, placed inside three-foot glass cube cases. The art seemed to be ‘actual art’, not photographs.
Scott said, “Wait here.”
He took a step away from Penny and away from the cases, wanting to investigate the dark corners of the room.
Grabbing his arm, Penny said, “Are you crazy? Don’t leave me here! You’re going to trip some invisible wire and a gorilla will jump out and tear my friggin head off!”
Scott felt the urge to pull away from Penny and tell her to shut up.
He didn’t.
“You’re right,” he said, feeling terrible. This wasn’t her fault; it was his. He was the one that brought them here, not her. “I’m sorry. I’m just a little upset about that last room.”
“That’s okay, but don’t leave me.”
“I won’t.”
They walked away from the art, checking out the dark corners. There was nothing to see: no secret doors or hidden panels, no levers or tripwires. Having found nothing waiting in the darkness, they approached the first piece of art.
In the top right-hand corner of the glass cube was another Polaroid print, labeled FIFTY-ONE – MARTIN McCAMMON. It was the photograph of a twenty-year-old man. He had dark skin and dark eyes; he was not looking at the camera. In fact, he didn’t seem to realize that he was being photographed.
Beneath the photo, a corpse was humped together in a pond on blood; it looked like the same person. The legs were cut off, the arms were off; each limb looked like it had been sliced a thousand times. In the center of the kid’s face, a deep cut traveled from chin to forehead.
The glass was smudged red, like someone had opened the lid and dropped the corpse inside.
The case must be airtight
, Scott thought.
Otherwise the blood would be dripping out of it.
They walked across the sticky floor. Inside the next case they found another photograph. This one was labeled THIRTEEN – CHRISTINE S. HUSTON. It was the image of a woman. On camera she looked pretty. Inside the case she looked like ground beef.
If Scott had to guess, he’d say someone had taken a chainsaw to her.
Inside the third case they found comparable art. The photograph was labeled EIGHTY-NINE – OWEN GLENN. A teenager had been ripped apart.
“God,” Scott said, amazed. “These look real, don’t they?”
“What if they are real?”
“Yeah right.”
“No, think about it,” Penny said, completely serious. “What if this is real? That doesn’t look like a special effect to me. That looks like a dead body.”
“You’ve seen a lot of dead bodies, have you?”
“That’s not the point. Look at it! It’s real!”
“Why would anyone do that to a person, and then display it? You’re being stupid.”
“No I’m not. They’d do it for the money.”
“Money? What money?”
“The two hundred dollars.”
“They only sold a hundred tickets, babe. That’s all that they put on sale. What’s two hundred times a hundred?”
“It’s twenty grand.”
“Twenty? Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Still… twenty grand isn’t enough money to kill for.”
“No? This is a ‘one night only’ event. Think about it. They set up shop, rent this shit-hole for next to nothing, kill a couple bums, take our money and hit the road.”
“I think you’re being insane. I also think the people putting on this event were hoping to draw this type of reaction, and with you, it’s clearly working.”
“Don’t talk to me that way.”
“What way? I don’t want to fight, babe. But think about what you’re saying! So this is what, a snuff show? I bought tickets in advance! It’s promoted in the newspaper!”
“So what? They could take the money and run, couldn’t they?”
Frustrated, Scott put a hand to his head. This sucked. First, the dog scares the shit out of them––and not in a good way––and now this. He wished he had stayed home. “I suppose.”
“I’m ready to leave, Scott. I’m tired. I want it to be over.”
“Me too.”
They walked to the fourth display. It was different than the first three. It still had a photograph (without a number), and it still had a body, but this time the art was a dog. It looked like the same dog that tried to eat them, only mutilated.
* * *
Lawrence and Elizabeth were led from the conference room, down a hall and through a set of doors. There were several black limousines waiting. They sat inside the nearest one and the car began moving. Fifteen minutes later they arrived in a part of the city that neither Lawrence nor Elizabeth had been to before. The buildings were condemned. Derelicts loitered on the street.
“My,” Lawrence said. “There sure are making an effort to capture the mood, aren’t they?”
Elizabeth huffed. “This is dreadful. I can’t imagine what encouraged you to buy tickets for such an event.”
“Variety is the spice that makes life worth living, my dear.”
“Well, I could do without this.”
The driver opened their door but didn’t offer a hand.
Mr. and Mrs. Whitely pulled themselves from the car and were led into an alleyway. Elizabeth wondered if they would be mugged. They reached a door. The driver knocked three times, paused, and knocked again. The door opened, and Denoté led the couple up a flight of stairs. The stairs looked terrible. They hadn’t been renovated in fifty years.
Lawrence opened his mouth but decided not to say anything. His blooming questions would be answered soon enough, he figured. There was no point in inquiring about the location.
They entered a room that
had
been renovated, walking past two very large, very ugly, men. They looked like escaped convicts that were forced to wear suits. One man was missing a handful of teeth. The other had a scar that ran from his eye to his chin, and a tattoo of a swastika on each temple.
The walls of the room were freshly decorated; pot-lights had been installed in the ceiling. There were elegant paintings on the walls, most of them from the 1800s. There were freshly cut flowers sitting inside stylish vases. There was a fully stocked bar and a man in a tuxedo handing out cocktails. There was a piano with a highly talented musician. His fingers rolled across the keys effortlessly; light jazz comforted the room. The piano sat upon a circle of coffee colored carpet. Where the carpet ended, the room had been remodeled with dark hardwood floors. Stainless steel baseboards circled the space. And on the far side, several large windows had been installed next to each other. Television monitors were above them. Tables and chairs created a living room type atmosphere.
Mr. and Mrs. Whitely were offered a drink and led to their seats. Lawrence requested bourbon. Elizabeth asked for a glass of red wine.
The man sitting in the chair beside Lawrence introduced himself as Buck Million. He wore an oversized brown suit and cowboy boots made of alligator skin. He said, “You’ve missed quite a show so far, folks. Yes, sir. Don’t know how they do it, but it’s fascinating, worth every penny.”
Lawrence and Elizabeth smiled at the man and looked through the glass. They saw nothing.
“Not there!” Buck said. “Don’t look down there, not yet anyhow. The action is in the monitor right now, sure it is. See? Look at ‘em. They’re getting ready to move! You’ll know when the action is down there. The lights shine.”
“Down there?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yep… down there, and they’re putting on quite a show.”
Lawrence looked at the monitor. A man and a woman were standing in a dark room; looked like they were arguing. The man lowered his head and reached for the doorknob.
Buck said, “Oh boy, here they come. You’re gonna love it!”
Lawrence thought that he recognized the couple, but he wasn’t sure. The image was too grainy to distinguish faces.
* * *
Scott stepped through the door with his shoulders raised. The floor creaked. The room was dark. He couldn’t see anything. Standing inside the doorway, Penny held the door open. The light from the other room was the only light they had.
“What should we do?” Scott asked, with his voice echoing off the walls.
“Why is it so dark?”
“I don’t know.”
“I can’t see anything!”
“Me neither.”
The light in the room behind them flickered, and turned off. Now there was only darkness.
“Close the door,” Scott said.
“Honey, I’m scared.” Penny squeezed Scott’s hand hard enough to let him know that she meant business. “I don’t like this.”
“Close the door.”
“Why? What do you know that I don’t?”
“The only thing I know for sure is that I want to get out of here. I was in a funhouse one time, inside a very dark room, like this. The objective was to find the door on the far side, but they were tricky, see? I put my hands on the wall and I circled the room. But the door I was looking for was closed. Touching it did nothing; it felt like the wall. I had to circle the place twice before they opened it. Point is… I think were in a funhouse, babe. We need to find the door on the far side.”
“I hate this place.”
“Me too. Is the door closed?”
Penny stepped ahead and allowed to door to close. They heard the CLICK. New music came on, which was a lot like the old music, but with a slow and steady pulse: BOOMP. BOOMP. BOOMP.
Scott said, “Let’s follow the wall and get the hell out of here.”
Penny agreed.
Hand in hand, they followed the wall to the nearest corner. The floor seemed shifty and unstable.
“What’s wrong with the floor?” Penny asked. She stubbed her foot on something sharp. “OUCH!”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. I cut my foot on something!”
They turned the corner and walked about ten feet before Scott touched a glass case. He wondered if there was a body inside, but he didn’t wonder for long. A light began shining from within the glass, growing steadily brighter.
A corpse was revealed. A photograph was revealed too: SIX – RICHARD GOLDSMITH.
Floor creaking, they moved on.
When they reached the next case the same thing happened: Scott put his hand on the glass and a light began to shine. This time, the art was different. The case had a photograph––but no body.
The photo said: SEVEN-THREE – CURTIS RYAN BERRY.
“Why is it empty?” Penny asked.
“I have no idea.”
Scott could see the room now, not much, but a little. It seemed like a gymnasium. After he put his hand to a few more cases, he’d know for sure. He stubbed his toe on something solid, dismissed it, and moved on.
“There is something sharp sticking out of the floor,” Penny whined. “I think my foot is bleeding.”
“Just keep walking.”
Scott touched the next case with a trace of excitement. Each case revealed more of his surrounding, like he was unwrapping a gigantic gift. Unfortunately, this sensation was short lived and replaced with the feeling of imminent horror.
The light inside the case crept on.
Both Scott and Penny recognized the corpse. SIXTY-EIGHT – GARY SOMERS.
It was the real estate agent.
His body was in pieces.
* * *
Lawrence took a sip from his tumbler, looked at his wife and shrugged.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “What’s happening?”
Before Elizabeth had a chance to respond Buck Million barged into the conversation. “Of course you don’t get it! You’re catching this act halfway through the performance. Maybe you guys would be better off waiting for the next round. Go talk to the piano man or something, tell him he’s doing a good job.”