Nightmare Room

Bah.

Five fingers. Five fingers was all I needed for it to be mine. I fondled the empty space in my pocket, eying the golden treasure under the counter, forever forbidden to my hesitant hand.

“May I help you sir?” I flinched as each word sent a sense of awareness down my spine. “Hello?” I looked up at the cashier as she spoke, though, I didn’t respond. “Look if you’re not going to buy-“

”A pack of Marlboros,” I stated shakily, trying desperately to calm my voice and trembling fingers. She eyed me suspiciously, obviously because I looked nowhere near eighteen, but turned to grab the cigarettes anyway. Now was my chance.

“Do you have your ID?” She asked, turning back around to face me with the little box in her hand. I pretended to turn around in my back pocket, pursing my lips in false disappointment.

“Oh sorry. I guess I left it at home.” I smiled meekly. “Nevermind then.” I suppressed a real smile until I reached the car in the far corner of the crumbling parking lot. As soon as I got in and slammed the door, I retrieved from my back pocket the golden pocket knife that I had been so reluctant to snatch every other time that I had come to this little invisible gas station.

I was only fourteen at the time, obviously not old enough to drive yet, but what Mom didn’t know couldn’t hurt her. Another smirk curled my upper lip as I safely tucked away my newly obtained switchblade and started the car, revving the engine of my mother’s jet black, two door cobalt. “Mmm. Purr baby.”

As I fleeted through the back-roads at thirty miles over the speed limit, the dust rose around my car like a chalky mist, obscuring my vision. By the time I could see again, I was quick enough to gain control and swerve past the pickup truck. Unfortunately, trees are much more stationary and tend to not move when something is coming at them. My mom’s car didn’t even have a chance.

Oh god was she going to kill me.

Darkness. Unconsciousness, when in its complete and absolute form, was an interesting thing to experience. Psychologically, there was nothing that differentiated from actual non-existence. Or, if there was, it couldn’t be recalled whatsoever. How does one even know that he or she is unconscious anyway? I guess they don’t. They figure that if they got hit or something and cannot remember anything that they must have been unconscious.

In this case, I had a strong conviction that I had indeed been unconscious. The last thing that I remember was my mother’s poor Chevy wrapping around the trunk of that tree at ninety miles an hour and then-

Nothing.

But now, I had absolutely no idea where the hell I was. Then again, it may have been hell, come to think of it. I did hit that tree pretty hard. If hell wasn’t real, this may come pretty damn close. From the moment I opened my eyes, I recoiled, inhaling sharply. What I saw was not the inside of my mom’s mangled cobalt. Instead, it was a room with gruesome creatures munching on decaying flesh and dark shadows hovering where light should have touched. I nearly vomited from the metallic stench of rotting blood.

I closed my eyes behind the sweat-masked hair matted to my forehead, attempting to somehow escape the images in the bleak darkness behind my eyelids, but the revolting images merely changed their form into sounds, and the smell of blood intensified. There were cries of help, smothered crying, screams of terror and pain, and, above all, a calm and menacing whisper, laughing, mocking.

I opened my eyes, but the noises did not die down. By then I was too afraid to close them again. My vision was greeted by a mutilated doll whose rotten teeth smiled mundanely back at me. Too afraid to try and make a run for the door across the creature-infested nightmare, I acquired a forced interest in the poorly-sewn plaything. I traced the stitching around its neck with my fingers and, after returning my hand to its brother in my lap, felt two hands grasp tightly around my throat.

A stifled yelp that I had meant to be a shriek found its way out of my struggling mouth. I heard a soft, menacing chuckle and was able to breathe again. I struggled for words. “Who- where-?”

No one answered. Rather, not one. All of the creatures halted their groaning and feeding to turn their heads and glare at me. I felt a sudden chill creep down my spine. The doll arose on its own and went on its way to stand in front of the others. It tilted its head and its frightening smile faded, leaving an even more horrifying grimace on its face. Then, its mouth began moving.

“Thank you for visiting the Nightmare Room. Please be sure to come back, and remember to tell your friends.” All of the creatures motioned at the door, eyes pasted on their confused guest.

After I realized that nothing else was going to happen, I stood, grabbing for support of the cobblestone wall behind me. Still unsure about everything, I took my chances and bolted for the door before the “things” decided to change their minds.

As soon as I reached the other side of the door I was temporarily blinded by a light piercing through my translucent eyelids. I was laying down. I heard a man speaking. His voiced was somewhat muffled.

“...and they found a switchblade lodged into his spinal column.” People? YES. I was free! “I heard it was that really valuable knife from the corner store, you know, the one on display made in pure gold or some crap like that. It got stolen about half an hour before.”

“Yeah,”-this one was a woman-“They should really keep those things more guarded, ya know?”

“Eh yeah. They said that’s what killed him. He barely hit his head.”

“Good thing he was wearing a seatbelt huh?”

They both laughed. How was this funny? I wasn’t dead!

“I’m still alive!” I tried to scream. Nothing escaped my lips. I couldn’t even move. I began to panic.

“He probably drove into the tree himself,” the man continued. “You know how guilt can get to these kids. He thought the cops’d feel bad for him if he got hurt. Too bad for him he got more than hurt.”

“Yeah. The things people do nowadays. Man, I mean guilt can give you, like, horrible lifelong nightmares.” If I would have been able to laugh, I would have died right then. Of course, if I was able to laugh, I'd be able to talk, and I'd be more focused on letting them know that I was not dead.

“Well, let’s get him to the crematory and get ‘im roasted. Connie’s making pasta tonight.”

And then we were moving.