Murder House: Horror, Thriller, Free Short Stories, Malice, Revenge, Best friend, Sacrifice, Gambling, Ritual, Choices, The Devil, Fabling, Pam
Linda pushed open the door, her hands shaking from fear, she tried to remember how she got to this room, but all she remembered was a night of heavy drinking and partying. She was at her best friend’s birthday batch, she had played a few wild games, she had danced naked on the drinks table, she had played beer pong, she had played ‘I’ve never’, and lost, then she had gone out for air and everything went black.
The door led into a narrow hallway with more doors, her heartbeat became rapid. “How did I get here?” She thought. The walls were charcoal black, and the doors red, from where she stood she could see 5 of them on her left and 5 to her right, and one in front of her. She tried to think back to how she got there but she kept drawing blanks.
“One of these doors should lead me outside, I hope” she prayed. “God please let me get out.” But she knew God was not there, she did not know how or why, but she felt it. God was not there.
She slowly opened the door to the first room, the heat scorched her hands so she shut it immediately. The room was filled with fire. She ran back to the room she had come from, but the door was gone. She frantically searched the wall for a hidden handle, as she finally realised where she could be, hell.
She slid down the wall in defeat, weeping. ‘How could this be?’ She thought. ‘When did I die?’
“How come I’m alone?” She finally spoke. “Am I supposed to pick my door?” She slowly got up and walked to the far left of the hall then braced herself for what was behind the door.
A large head of a Python launched at her and she shot it immediately. She turned to door number three and opened it. It was filled with ocean water and vast, drowning seamed like a good hell to her, then she saw a shark swimming towards her; she shut the door.
Door number four was filled with scorpions, door number five was freezing under 0 degrees, and had dragon-like creatures flying about. Door number six was teeming with large spiders, door number seven had roaches. door number eight had lions, and door number smelled of sniper, the insect killer, no a smell more potent, her lungs constricted she had to catch her breath before peaking into door number 10. In it was a single rope, hanging from the ceiling and a stool underneath it, it looks like mercy, she shot the door, and leaned against it.
This was it. This was the punishment she deserved. She wouldn’t say she led a good life filled with love and mercy, but she wouldn’t also call her self a horrible person deserving a gruel some end.
She took a breath, opened door number 10 and stepped in, then climbed on the stool and took the rope.
“What are you doing.” A cloaked figure said, leaning by the corner of the room.
She hadn’t noticed it until it spoke, but her ability to feel fear had switched itself off.
“Picking my hell.” She said.
“This is not hell.” The voice said to her.
“What?” She asked.
“This is not hell.” The figure said, moving off the wall. “This is a choice on how you die.”
“What? I’m not dead yet?” She asked.
“Not yet. You’ve been sacrificed for the desires of someone close to you.”
“Who?” She asked. “Wait why?”
“Your best friend’s family is in bad debt, and she sold her soul to me in exchange, but the price of a soul is the death of another. The thing behind each door is a painful way your spirit could die and move to the afterlife, and also hints on how you die in real life.”
“So suicide, no matter what I choose, I die by suicide.”
“Technically.” It moved closer to her. “You die by suicide here, but if you had chosen the ice dragons; after you leave the party for air, you’ll fall asleep outside and die from cold.”
“How do I die like this?”
“You get into your car to drive home. And bash it into a pole, the same for if you had chosen the door with the toxic smell, or fire, but here instead of dying from fire or burning wires, you die from being strangled by your airbag.”
“So this is what most people choose.”
It smiled a smile that spread from one end of its shaded face to the next.
“I choose to remain in the passageway and not die.” She put up a brave face and got down from the stool.
“That’s impossible.” Its face became blank again.
“Why?” She had already started walking out the door.
It did not respond to her. But she could feel its gaze on her back. It made her stop.
“You could leave here,” It started, paused, then continued when she turned to face him. “Sell me your soul and you walk out of here unharmed.”
She thought about it. “What happens to those who sell their soul to you?”
“I eat their soul when they die?”
“So they get no afterlife?”
“That I eat them doesn’t mean they die. They keep living but inside me.”
“I refuse.”
“Are you not angry? Did your best friend not betray you?” It was agitated. “Do you not want revenge?”
“I am angry. I am afraid, but I am not stupid. It all makes sense to me now. I was not the nicest person in the world. I used to play this game, give people options with every option leading to their demise. I put my best friend in her situation, she thought I was helping her. I understand so much that I know that there is no way I’ll escape here unscathed and selling my soul to you is the worst of the choices. I can imagine living inside you with all the torment of my actions crumpled in with the torment the other souls in you. I refuse it.”
The figure flung its head back laughing, it’s hood fell back and now its face was visible. It was beautiful but malicious looking. She was stunned. “What, you expected to see a monster?” But before she could answer, it changed into a dark go0ey form with a mouth as wide as its face and teeth as sharp as sharks, a horn and legs of a serpent. And from every corner of its body, souls struggled to escape. “You expected to see this?”
Her fear was back. She ran for the door.
“This was unexpected, I could have had a little fun with you.” It laughed and started moving to the wall where he had initially been leaning. “I told you, it is impossible not to make a choice.”
She opened the door and came face to face with the ice dragon. This was what she had done to her best friend. No escape, then acted as if she had done nothing and continued the friendship. She was vile. The icy breath of the dragon grazed her face and she ran to the stool, she’ll die before it got to her. She got on the stool and noosed the rope around her neck and kicked the stool. Before her eyes closed in death, the dragon swallowed her from beneath, but the lions pounce on it, rolling her out of its mouth and then they mauled her just as the spiders came in and webbed the room.
“And if she had picked the scorpions she would simply have died as she was always meant to die, Alcohol poisoning.” The figure said as it vanished.
——-
When she left the parting, a rough-looking man had tried to talk to her.
“Hey, sweet, pretty. You need a hand?” He said.
She was wasted but even as drunk as she was he was still beneath her. “Stay the fuck away from me creep.” Her words came out slurred but with enough venom to keep him away. She wanted to vomit the alcohol she had, but it would be unsightly and beneath her, she wondered how she had ended up drinking this much, and just as the creep strolled towards his friends who were sitting outside and drinking, a montage flashed, reminding her of why she had drunk so much.
“You are a bastard. My dad said that your dad impregnated your mum and your mum was such a bitch that he refused to marry her. That’s why you are selfish. We don’t want to be friends with you anymore.” She was eight years old and had just been pushed down by another eight years old girl (her best friend), in the midst of other children. Then she was 10 and walking home when she saw that her best friend crying in front of her house and walked up to her, “What happened?” She asked. “Why should I tell you? So you can laugh? She looked towards her house and saw her mother being carried out in a body bag, and crouched to hug the girl. Then she was 14 and had been seducing an older man in his house, just as her best friend walked in, and she stepped away, they weren’t caught. “I like being strangled, slapped, but just do what you want to do to me, daddy.” Still, at 14, she was cuffed to a bedpost, in bra and pant, looking up at the man. “Do you like this daddy? You can do anything to me.” She was showing her best friend and her best friend’s father the sex tape. At 20, her friend and father, now living in a run-down apartment, she walks in. “I asked for a million naira? What the fuck is wrong with you two?” She was furious. “Please, haven’t we paid enough?” Her best friends asked. She looked at her fallen friend and then looked sad. ”You are right. I’ve taken this silly revenge too far. After all, you are still my best friend. I have an idea, I know this loan guy who will give you about six million, you can build back everything you’ve lost and I can get the one million then I’ll destroy the video.”
The montage ended with her realizing that she was already sitting in her car. “I am the worst.” She muttered. “I could have ended it with the tape. I wonder if everybody I’ve destroyed will be waiting for me in hell.” She put the key into the ignition and went 250km/h into a pole, her airbag came out, and all her senses slowly went out, but she hadn’t died yet. She woke up, opened the door and crawled out then lay down facing the sky, the cold breeze violently blowing at her. ‘looks like I get a merciful end.’
Then the creep and his friends walked up to her. “If it isn’t the bastard who is too good for anybody.”
She tried to speak, but nothing could come out of her mouth, the airbag had crushed her vocal cords, so she rose her middle finger up, only, agitating the creeps, who now looked around to see that nobody had come out to see what had happened.
They pounced on her, having their way with her and devouring her, till she died. The one making her blow him off, noticed she was dead first, then alerted the other creeps. “Let’s burn it.” They said, and just then an electric pole fell and fried all of them.
Days had passed and the town had heard of how she and the creeps died from the police, but her best friend had seen it all and was now standing in front of her well-decorated grave.
“She refused to sell her soul.” The devil said. Walking up to her.
“Are you here for mine?” She asked.
He held her face, staring into her dead eyes. “Why do most humans get this soulless eyes when they sell their soul? This is why I wanted hers.”
“She was in pain.” She answered.
The devil kissed her. “Well, the deal is done. The loan shark is dead and your account is loaded. See you whenever I feel like coming for your soul.”
The devil began to walk away.
“Wait. What happens to her now”
“She pays for her sins then disappears or gets reborn in purgatory for a second chance at purification.”
The End
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Last two years I asked my friends to Challenge me with titles and Anita Embelakpo Oki dropped this title – Murder room. What do you think? Also, see what I did with this title The Life and Times of Mr. Hanz the Recluse