Free Nightmare Fuel: The Ultimate Collection of Short Horror Tales by Wesley Thomas

hard, cold concrete with a sickening thud. The clonk of heels and a door closing was the last sound she heard. Then she blacked out.
     
    ***
    An icy slab, horrific migraine, lumpy wall, and indescribable foulness filtering the fresh air and leaving rankness in its wake. These were the first sensory feelings Rachel awoke too. The reek was almost too much to handle. A rotting, with the metallic tang of blood, and a ripe body odour. Vomiting was a near possibility. Her eyes flickered open to an almost pitch black room, save for the dim light bulb swaying in the murk. It swung with an eerie squeak, pulsing through the room. Rachel then realised her hands were bound behind her back, as she leant against a cold beer keg.
    “What the hell?” Rachel muttered.
    No one appeared to be in the room. She wasn't sure which was worse. Solitude brings the side effect of a death caused by starvation. Or accompanied by a homicidal maniac that would pillage and massacre. She questioned what exactly had happened. The last thing she could recall was creeping from this room with Claire. Claire! Where's Claire? What happened to her? Did he come and grab Claire and leave me here to die? Adrenaline coursed through her. Rachel's eyes swam in the darkness, searching for something that could help; when the light stopped swinging. She jerked up to see a hand holding the bulb. Not the metal chain it hung from, but the actual bulb. Seconds passed and smoke hissed. The burning flesh was being scalded by the light. The smell of charcoal and barbecues wafted into the air.
    “Wh......” Rachel was mortified.
    Then the hand retracted from the bulb. Even from afar, red blisters and boils could be seen. Small lumps on the palm, blood dripping, blackened flesh. The hand fell down as the clearly deranged person crept forwards. The head came into focus under the dim bulb that now had peels of flesh attached. Blonde, dishevelled hair sitting atop a head like a hairy cat. Ruined makeup, and hardly any clothing. Claire.
    “Rise and shine,” Claire gleamed psychotically.
    “Claire? What's going on?” Rachel frowned.
    “Claire? Who is Claire? I am Clarice,” Claire looked offended.
    “What? Clarice is your real name?” Rachel was shocked.
    “NO MY NAME IS CLARICE YOU STUPID BITCH!” Claire yelled abruptly with veins swelling at her forehead.
    “Okay, okay, I'm sorry.....” Rachel spoke gently, trying to appease her clearly insane room mate. Was she schizophrenic? How have I never noticed before?
    “But what is going on here? Why am I tied up?” Rachel asked delicately, attempting to not provoke another aggressive outburst.
    “Oh silly girl, it was me,” Clarice winked.
    “Wh... You? Why?” Rachel became scared.
    “Why is there a Y in why?” Clarice burst out laughing, bending over in comical hysteria at her own joke.
    Oh my God. It hit Rachel like a thunderbolt. Claire could actually be the kidnapper. How ironic that Rachel had set out to save Claire when actually becoming kidnapped herself by the criminal in question.
    “You're the.....” Rachel was at a loss for all the many names the authorities had given the criminal. The community campus killer, adolescent abductor, and so on.
    Clarice nodded with a smirk, full of pride, and began to slink away. The heels clonked in the abyss. The mentally ill girl teetered further into the void, vanishing from sight. That was when the worry really took a hold of Rachel. The enormity of the situation was realised. She could die, most likely would. Rachel tried to evade the rope around her wrists, but it was too tight. The cold from the beer keg was beginning to make her arms go numb. Which, wasn't helped by the slab of concrete freezing her buttocks. Then a switch sounded from the dusk. The sound didn't seem to travel far, absorbed by the concrete. A second later a blinding florescent light came on. It stung Rachel's eye so much that she turned away and squeezed them shut until they were ready for such