Chapter 8

The candle's fading lights show into the room to reveal a single occupant chained to the wall with shackles on their wrists and ankles.

Pictures of concentration camp victims could not be compared to the twisted skin and bones figure. Discolored flesh cleaved tightly to its frame and left a living skeleton. A monster who pulled and snarled the heavy chains taut with his struggles.

Despite its appearance, there were vestiges of a human being. The monster's eyes were wide and blue like Jack's and in surprise, they were similar to D's.

Its hair was more likely to be that of Jack's thick and blonde. It hung and snarled tendrils nearly to its shoulders.

D leaned against the doorjamb and stared critically at the monster. I was stunned and stayed in the corridor, unwilling to cross the line, a bitter taste of disbelief and fear in my mouth.

"Let go of me," the monster roared, its hollow face contorted in rage. "The mother witch!" He stopped as his eyes, so like Jack's landed on me. He hissed and bared his teeth, long inhuman fangs that shined in the candlelight.

A strange and powerless cry escaped my lips and I had to run behind D and hide. That could probably not be real! D seemed oblivious to the horror of the ghoul, very unaware of the monstrosity of its all as he introduced us like dinner guests. "Jessica, this is Ortiz, and Simeone I assume you know who she is?"

Simeon Ortiz. How could it be him? Jack's brother had gone missing for quite good sometime, not years, and it would have taken years for someone to turn into a walking skeleton before me. No, it had to be someone else.

Ortiz snarled a reply, his voice dry and raspy, " What are you up to, D? Fuck Jack for saying we could trust you!"

"I am not up to something, Ortiz!" D quickly responded. "She probably is here to see the serial killer of her late fiancée"

"Then you should ask her to have a good look. I would kill her next if it were not for her and you..."

"I will never make you a free man Simeone, and you know that!" D cut him off.

The monster's words left me uncertain. If he wasn't Ortiz, then why did he mention his brother, Jack? Why did he as much admit to havin taken his life? In the shape he was in, how could he even still talk let alone pulling on the chains with such inhuman strength?

- I didn't say his brother was human, did I?

But if not really a human, what then?

"Even if I have to release you, what will she do to you?" D continued "He will come for me," the monster hissed, a malevolent smile on its face, its thin lips pulled back from fangs

"We shall see," D looked at me over his left shoulder. "Have you seen him enough?" I nodded, stunned and unable to speak. The thought of a brightly lit gas station full of reality seemed very far away.

We stepped back and out into the hallway and D pulled the door after. "I sincerely apologize for the shocking introduction, but it seemed the best way to make you believe me." He suddenly stopped, his body was rigid as if he was keenly listening.

I could strain but never had a thing except for Ortiz's sudden course of laughter.

"I told you they would come for me!"

"Oh fuck!" D cursed. "Shut your fu*cking mouth you silly creature!" He pulled me close enough to hiss into my left ear, "There is someone here. It may be nothing but it probably could be a coven. She might be here to find her slave. You will stay here unmoving, do you copy?"

"No," I cried helplessly. The insane scenario had gone down into the depths of madness. If a coven was really attacking the temple, how did Ortiz and D get to know? I hadn't heard anything. Maybe D was just a lunatic, but I would rather be with him than alone in the damp corridor with that monster on the other side of the door.

I attempted to explain that, as D shoved what was left of the candle into my hand and pulled away from me to hurry towards the main prayer room of the basement. I tried to follow but as I got near the door he slammed it in my face and locked it loudly.

The hallway seemed to shrink in on me. The darkness became a tangible object that could reach out and strangle my spine in a thin, chilling trickle. I backed against the stone wall and stared into the blackness, trying to ignore Ortiz's muffled cries.

The darkness became a tangible object that could reach out and strangle me at any moment. Fear choked me and sweat ran down my spine in a thin, chilling trickle. I backed against the stone wall and stared into the darkness trying to ignore Ortiz. I shuddered. If that hell of a thing was once Jack's brother, then something had happened to him; something that had turned him not to be human anymore.

He probably wasn't human anymore. I could feel that in the very depths of my soul with a sickening certainty. My skin crawled at the thought of his nearness and my whole being cried out that he was something no one was ever meant to see, something never meant to walk on earth at all.

"Not at all!" I whispered to myself, screwing my eyes shut. I wasn't a heroine in any of the produced horror movies, or in any written books. But this one was real. My new apartment with some cool pink flowered curtains was real. D with this hell of a tunnel, this temple the monster in the other room, and the smell of dampness, death, and fear. None looked real.

I opened my eyes, but the darkness was still there, I held back my trembling rays of light from my nub of candle. I looked desperately for some crack in the fading dream that I was trapped in. I thought of Mzee Keith and his warnings. And truly I confirmed that that was how people died.

I suddenly remembered my phone. I shouldn't mention to the operator that there was a monster locked up not ten feet away from where I was, but that was surely okay. It really didn't matter what I was to say. I had heard enough of the police tapes on the news to know that I just needed to gurgle something that sounded like "help".