Free 13 Tales To Give You Night Terrors by Elliot Arthur Cross Page B

Their faces spell out wild abandon whilst
in the shadows an awful growling oscillates between animalistic
prowl and the death rattle of something human. Noticing that the
bizarre sound has already began a flirtation with her keener, less
respectable, senses the Assistant holds her finger fast to the lift
switch and is relieved at, what she assumes is, a lucky
escape.
    Skipping Floor Six, which had already
been scored off the floor plan with hasty vicious gouges, the
Assistant steps out on Kidswear, lets her charge flop impotently to
the floor, then storms off to screech at a young mother in the
process of dismantling an unmanned till. Close by, her red eyed
child desperately beats a charity collection off the cracked tiles
like a deranged monkey trying to navigate a coconut.
    In this brief moment, hardly a calm in
the storm but perhaps the closest thing, serenity does its best to
settle. Through the floors of concrete and chaos only the loudest
screams pierce the walls. Unrelenting sounds of construction and
deconstruction maintain a vicious bass, a constant chugging, which
gives the impression of pulse-like motion. The walls swell and
contract, but so slightly that to notice is to look dangerously
close.
    On the floor immediately above, a loud
crash shakes dust from between the obsidian tiles. A few of the
meagre lights shudder out leaving large portions of the shop floor
in uncomfortable dark. After cracking the young mother’s head open
with the till she had been vexing to prise open, the Assistant
continues heaving the black sack across the floor to the fire
escape. Behind her, as more lights flicker out and bodies run to
and fro snatching at air, the child toddles over to its mother’s
corpse and there is a moment of darkest consideration that bereaves
the soul of any onlooker, a moment of childish hunger that begins
an action, so awful, it is probably best lost to the
dark.
    The fire stairs are old and doused in
a sickly red light accentuated by the flames that have begun
licking their way towards the top. The heat is near unbearable and
the stench of burning stabs at the Assistant’s head. The wind on
the ground floor, the smell of the lift, the reek of blood on the
fourth floor, the smells cling to her nostrils. The smoke sneaks in
with thin greasy black fingers to creep down her throat and she
retches uncontrollably. A few floors down, one of the fire escapes
creeps open then slams shut. She blacks out soon after.
     
    ● ● ●
     
    SHE wakes up when the biting cold water seeps into the gouge on
her forehead. She feels the straps across her chest and legs. She
smells burning hair. She panics and fights the straps that bind
her, arching her back and shaking with rage. To her right there
stands a huge black prism which reeks of rotted fruit. To her left,
rows of cleaners kneel and sway, faces turned down in hoods
fashioned from large carrier bags with the company’s logo
emblazoned in crimson. The low thrumming of heart strings and vocal
chords sounds like a riot in the ears of the terrified girl. A soft
whine emanates from the prism and she shakes with fear. She dreams
of a time when things were normal, but that dream becomes just as
foul and twisted as this one. She opens her eyes and prays for
something to happen, and it does.
    The Head Janitor steps forward and
places his hand on her stomach, smiling whimsically as his hand
rubs the soft skin slowly.
    “ Hail the Conqueror Worms!”
he gasps.
    She spits and curses, calls him every
name she can, and carries on faster as he raises the dagger. The
seething masses abandon their plastic wrappings and hum louder than
before, reaching a fever pitch as the smiling monk drives the
dagger down. Down it flies as the Assistant screams and the dagger
drives deep into the monk’s stomach, he looks at her, bewildered,
and then collapses back into his followers.
    The Assistant becomes aware
her ropes have been loosened, just as the midnight mass is
spontaneously reduced to