The Nightmare Game (72 page)

“Yes, yes, I know.” Arrosha said dismissively. “I
wish my creatures were capable of a few more words; they are so incredibly wearisome.
It’s like having a tiresome parrot that only knows two words. Good luck to me,
though. The most stupid parrot on earth is a sodding genius compared to these
brainless things.”

“Help me,” they mumbled again.

“Oh do shut up!” Arrosha barked. They obeyed her.
“You’re wondering why I brought this motley little group into the room?” she
asked me blithely. Not waiting for an answer, she continued, “It’s simple,
really, my dear. Before I let Max have a good go at you, I plan to have some
fun myself until I’m able to release my real pets upon you.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, afraid to hear what
new perversions she had in mind.

“All torture doesn’t have to be physical, dearie.
If I play a sour enough tone on those little heart strings of yours,” she said merrily,
“that will give me a jump start on being able to get my vanquished enemies’
hands on you. Besides, tormenting you emotionally will give me something to do
while I wait. But what should I do with these obscene little creatures here?
Should I torture them to death as well?”

“No! Don’t! Please don’t hurt them!” I shouted.
The puppy eyes on Ben’s gargoyle face were filled with so much fear that it
broke my heart; each of Illea’s many eyes were overflowing with tears. The rest
of the group were all shaking terribly as they cowered in their cages.

“No? But it would be so much fun!” Pausing, she
looked at them in mock pondering, as if weighing her decision. “Hmm, but then
again,” she said with too much glee in her voice, “perhaps it wouldn’t be so
much fun after all. They don’t hold out very long in this condition. They’re so
delicate; they die too quickly and all too easily. I mean, they would be dead
before I really had a chance to get into it and where’s the fun for me? No, it
would simply be too frustrating.”

Chills ran down my spine as she said this. Her
sadism seemed to know no bounds.

Suddenly, Arrosha brightened. “I know what I’ll do
with them!” She said this as cheerfully as if she were a ten year old girl
planning a picnic. “I’ll change them first and then force feed from them! You
know, like I did with the first youth!

“I’ll simply let their energy by-pass me and turn
them into essence. Fabulous! What a fitting way to get a head start on my next
group of followers! Of course, I may not even need new followers, because I’m
not exactly sure how long it will take me to rid myself of Edmond, but,
whatever the case, it will look good for me to have supporters in tow when I
take back my rightful place as Goddess to this world.”

“You are going to change them back, though?” I
couldn’t explain it, but somehow this thought gave me a tiny sliver of hope.

“Certainly. I can’t eat them the way they are now.
I can’t even sieve off their energies. They’re nasty and disgusting. Why, I can
barely even bring myself to look at them. You can just imagine how horrible
they taste. No, once they’re changed into these creatures, they have no food
value whatsoever. They would actually make me a little sick, literally as well
as figuratively. The essence from them would immediately kill anyone else. I
have no choice. I’ll have to restore them to their human selves first.”

Max sheepishly looked up and said shyly, “You’ll
restore me as well, won’t you, Arrosha?”

“Why?” she said snidely. “Do you want me to eat
you, too?”

“No, no, Arrosha,” Max said, putting his hands up
defensively. “But you promised you would restore me.”

“Will you please just shut up and quit
interrupting me?” she yelled back at him sharply. “Just do as your told, dog,
that’s what you’re here for, nothing else. As I told you before, if you do a
good job, I’ll restore you and make you prettier than before. If not, I’ll make
you supremely ugly. How many times do I have to keep repeating myself?”

“S-sorry.” he said, his hands stuffed in his
pockets, his eyes once again trained at the floor. His reply was so soft that I
could hardly hear it and yet his pain came across distinctly.

“Now,” Arrosha said indignantly, “Where was I
before I was so rudely interrupted?

“Oh, yes, our guests and how I’ll have to restore
them in order to take their essence. I will, of course, have to wait awhile
after their restoration for their energies to recover so they’ll be edible. You
know the old saying, dear, ‘don’t be hasty or they won’t be tasty’. After I
return them to normal, while I wait for their taste of rot to vanish, I’ll have
Max remove your necklace, taking the amulet with it. Then I’ll let him get to
work on you in between getting rid of these,” she pointed to the group. “You’ll
have such fun, now, won’t you Max?”

Max said nothing. He just nodded, keeping his head
low, toward me, so that Arrosha could not see the expression of extreme hatred
toward her that he had on his face.

“All right then,” Arrosha beamed excitedly. “Let’s
begin, shall we!”

As she was saying these things, my stomach churned
and I felt as if my insides were being liquefied by sheer terror. I’d done
everything in my power and when that wasn’t enough, I’d kept her talking as
long as I could. There was no putting off the inevitable any longer.

She waved her arm casually, dismissively, quickly.
She was no longer putting on a show, she was just anxious to get started.

Immediately, as quickly as I had seen Ben and
Geoffrey changed, one by one her followers were reverted back to their
beautiful, former human selves. Manacles attached to chains in the wall
replaced the metal cages.

“What happened?” Illea asked, looking around
frantically, confused in finding herself suddenly in an unfamiliar room.

“Everybody!” Ben said excitedly. “Everybody!
You’re alive! You’re alright! Arrosha, what happened? Why are we chained?
Please release us!” He then looked over at me and became even more distressed.
“Ashley! Why are you trapped like that? And Max, is that you? What’s happened
to you?”

Max just shrugged.

“We’re back!” said the rest, almost in unison.

“But from what?” Illea said. Apparently, while she
realized that she’d been gone for awhile, she had no memory of what had
befallen her. “Arrosha, my Queen, please release us. Someone has chained us
here.”

“Gee.” Arrosha said snidely. “I wonder who that
could be?”

“You did, you bitch!” I said angrily. She was
going to hurt me no matter what I said. Being honest wouldn’t make much of a
difference at this point.

“Ashley!” Illea said, horrified. “Don’t blaspheme!
She’s more than our Queen. She’s our true Goddess. She watches over us,
protects us. She would never do anything like that!”

“That’s right,” added Kenny. The others mumbled in
agreement.

“No, no, Illea, guys.” Ben said. “Ashley’s right.”

“Ben, don’t!” Illea replied imploringly.

“I know Ashley’s right,” Ben insisted. “I’m
starting to remember things now. They’re fuzzy, but I’m remembering. Geoffrey
was so mean, so cruel. And Arrosha was cruel as well. She did something to me.
I can’t remember what, but it was horrible. I was trying to get away from her.
I was so much less, somehow. Ashley, help me remember. Do you know what
happened?”

“Yes,” I answered. “She turned you into…”

“My, my,” Arrosha interrupted, her unbridled
contempt for the group now laid bare. “I return you people back to normal and
all of a sudden we’re just a bunch of little chatty Kathies, aren’t we? I don’t
think so!”

“But Arrosha, I just want to know why you’ve
turned against us. I just need to know what’s going on!” Ben said, frustrated.

“You don’t need to know anything!” Arrosha barked.

“But Arrosha!” he said again.

“I said, shut up!” At the wave of her arm this
time, the entire group was ball-gagged. Muffled cries were the only sounds to
escape their gags.

“You didn’t have to do that!” I cried.

“They were getting on my nerves.”

“I was talking as much as they were. Why did you
gag them and not me?” As soon as the words left my lips, I regretted having
said them.

“Because, my dear,” she cooed sadistically, “I
want to be able to hear you scream.”

“You see, child,” she said as Max brought the
instrument table nearer to me, “I want you to become intimately familiar with
the cause of your screams. I’ve imbued Max very well with the use of these
implements and by now I’m sure he’s quite adept. I want you to experience the
full range and levels of pain that they can inflict in the hands of someone
that’s been implanted with that skill as well as Max has been, before I can
turn my little pets that live in the floor upon you.”

“You sick bitch!” I spat at her. There was no
longer any reason to hold back, for she had made up her mind that this was to
be my fate and nothing I could do at this point would change it.

“Whatever,” she replied. “Do you recall that I
said not all tortures are physical? Ah, I see you do. Before we start on your
flesh, let’s start with your mind.”

She walked over to the gagged and bound remaining
members of her group and sniffed them each.

“They’re almost ready. Good. Ashley, do you
remember the first young man that I brought in here?”

“How could I forget?” I said defiantly.

“His death wasn’t very pretty, was it? That’s not
a nice way to go, is it?”

“What do you think?”

“No, no, it isn’t. I suppose I should feel badly
for the poor creatures for whom that is their fate. I should, but I don’t. The
sad fact is that it’s exactly the way your friends here will die.”

“You witch. You gave Geoffrey a better death than
that.”

A light went on in her eyes and she brightened.
“Geoffrey! Yes, why, I almost completely forgot about Geoffrey! Thank you for
reminding me. The others aren’t quite ready to be consumed yet anyway and
tending to Geoffrey will give me something to do in the interim besides having
to talk to you.”

When she waved her hand this time, Geoffrey
appeared. He was lying down, still dressed in the same filthy clothes, still in
the same sad shape as he was when last I saw him. Miraculously, he had not yet
died.

Arrosha looked at him with utter contempt. She
waved her hand one more time and while he was still lying upon the floor, he
was now back in the clean clothes that he’d been wearing before our visit to
the alley. He was young and healthy again, as beautiful as I’d ever seen him,
as if his awful transformation had never happened.

Like a drowning man, he gulped a lungful of air
before pushing himself up to lean upon his elbow. Then he examined his
reflection in the highly polished floor’s mirror-like surface, feeling his
face, hair and neck to make sure their appearance matched what he was feeling.

“Arrosha!” he exclaimed excitedly as, ecstatic
with his findings, he bounded to his feet with joy. “You have saved me! You
have restored me! Thank you! Thank you! How may I ever thank you?”

“So tell me, Geoffrey,” she said, ice in her
voice, “Do you think that this is what you deserve for betraying my plans? For
betraying me?”

“I’m sorry, Arrosha, I’m so, so sorry,” he pled
with her.

“Yes, you are, Geoffrey,” she replied. “You are
sorry. You’re a very sorry excuse for a human being.”

“I will never do anything like that again, Arrosha.”

“No, you won’t Geoffrey.”

“I promise, Arrosha, I promise.”

“You promised me your loyalty once before and yet
you betrayed me.”

“I’m so sorry, Arrosha, it will never happen
again, I swear it, I swear it. Please, please forgive me.”

“Go to your knees, Geoffrey. Bow before me to
swear it.”

He ran up to her and fell at her feet, tears
streaming down his face. He clasped his hands into a prayerful position and
began to beg, “Arrosha, my Goddess, my Goddess. I am so heartily sorry that I
betrayed you. It will never happen again, I promise you. Please save me from my
own weaknesses, my own pride. Please, please forgive me.

“I’ve learned my lesson, Arrosha. I’ll never give
you reason to be unhappy with me ever again. I’ll never give you reason to
doubt me. Thank you, my Goddess, for forgiving me.”

She said nothing. She simply stood there,
immobile, expressionless. Geoffrey again stood up, still elated, looked into
her eyes and repeated, “Thank you for saving me, for restoring me, my good,
kind, forgiving Goddess.”

She walked away from him silently, turned and
spoke to him in a cold, hard tone.

“I never said that I forgive you, Geoffrey.”

He was utterly confused. “Wha…?” he began to say,
but before he could finish the word, she waved her hand at him one more time
and again he began to change in an instant.

“Face it, Geoffrey, you are such a snake. No, on
second thought, you’re not even a snake. You’re just a cockroach.”

As had happened with Ben, his clothes began to
melt off. As he grew thicker and his form became rounder, less defined, he
rolled over upon his belly and his arms and legs disappeared, his skin growing
dark, hard and shiny. Insect legs sprouted from his abdomen. The once
beautiful, proud and arrogant Geoffrey had been turned into a large, fat
cockroach, horror written upon the face of his still-human head. He tried to
speak to her, but the sounds that came out of him were grotesque and
imperceptible.

“What’s that you say, Geoffrey?” She said as she
leaned in. “Ah, ‘why?’ You’re asking me why. Because, Geoffrey, if you want
forgiveness, go find yourself another deity. I’m not the god that saves. I’m
not the god that forgives.”

At this point, Geoffrey’s head began to change as
well, becoming a forward-leaning cockroach’s head, antennae sprouting from it,
mandibles replacing the mouth that once condemned me. He began to shrink
rapidly, growing smaller and smaller until he was the size of a large
tree-roach.

Arrosha walked over to the cockroach, looked down
at it with disgust and said to it. “I never forget, Geoffrey. And I never
forgive. You should have known that and now you do.”

She lifted her sandaled foot, placed it over the
roach, hesitating a bit to savor the moment. Geoffrey used that moment to try
to escape, scurrying about wildly and rapidly.

“You’re fast, Geoffrey, I’ll give you that,”
Arrosha said. “But now that I think about it a little bit longer, Geoffrey,
you’ve always been much more of a worm.”

As soon as she’d said these words, Geoffrey’s
shape shifted again until he was turned into a large, fat worm. He stopped
scurrying, able now only to wriggle.

“Step on him, Max, kill him for me,” she said.

“What?” Max said. I didn’t know if the thought was
disgusting to him or if he’d mentally been blocking out the scene in front of
him.

“You heard, me Max, step on him, kill him. I’d do
it myself but I don’t want to get the bottom of my shoes dirty.”

In the echoing room, I could hear the squish of
the worm that was once Geoffrey as it was being crushed. While Max finished
scraping the residue of Geoffrey’s worm insides from the bottom of his shoe,
Arrosha continued to stare at that spot for a few moments.

“Children,” she said, more to herself than to me,
“can be so terribly disappointing at times.”

Then, returning her attention to me, she clapped
her hands once and said, “Now it’s everybody else’s turn to die. I think I’ll
start with Kenny and Antonio, move to Timothy and Ricky, and then on to Robert,
Illea and for the grand finale, Ben. Yes, that’s a good order, saving those you
were closest to for last. And speaking of order, let’s see, where shall I put
you, Ashley, once I’m finished with you?”

She pointed to the walls, which lit up on each
side as if she had just turned a spotlight on them. The high, curved arched
ceiling revealed three figures imbedded within, one on one side of Edmond’s
stasis chamber, two on the other. I recognized them immediately. Virginia was
to Edmond’s right, while Marcus and Zachary were buried to his left. As had the
figures in the hallway, they were now working futilely to escape the walls in
which they were trapped.

“They sense that you’re coming to join them,
Ashley. It’s making them restless.” Arrosha said before she mused, mocking me,
“Let’s see, now, where should I put Ashley for her eternal rest? It’s such an inappropriate
term, you know, since no one around here ever gets much rest.

“Should I put her next to Virginia? Or should I
move Marcus and put her next to Zachary? What would be best? Girls on one side,
boys on the other? Or would girl-boy, girl-boy be better? Chronological order?
Oh, decisions, decisions! What to do, what to do! You know, my dear, this
really is a matter of the gravest importance.” Arrosha sighed deeply. “You know
what?” She said, brightening up. “If I don’t like the arrangement, I can always
change it later. This is what I’ll do. I’ll stick you next to Virginia for
right now. If I find I don’t like it that way, I’ll just move you next to
Zachary. Either way, it’s a better arrangement than what I have now. At least
you’ll all be even and that’s always so much nicer. Edmond’s helpers flanking
him, extremely near, impotently unable to help him, more trapped even than he.
So fitting, dear, don’t you think?

“Now this is how it’s going to pan out, darling
Ashley,” she said. The low, dangerous quality in her voice indicated she was
through playing. “First, Max will remove the amulet from about your neck. Then,
making you watch, of course, I’ll destroy your friends one at a time, turning
them into nothing more than essence and ghouls. Not to worry, I won’t let them
get you, though, because that death would be far too easy for you. No, I’ll
restore Max a bit and have him take care of them the way he did that first
fellow because he’s very good at getting rid of zombies or ghouls or whatever
you want to call them. In between, Max will have several really good goes at
you, torturing the amulet’s remaining protective energy out of you, using the
implements I showed you a little while ago. Poor Max. He’s been so very
frustrated for such a long time that he needs to take out his frustrations on
somebody, don’t you, Max, sweetie?”

Max didn’t look up, he just nodded his head.

“Oh, come on, Max, try to show a little more
enthusiasm than that! Oh, well, the torture will cheer him up, I’m sure. No
matter, though, it’s not like he has a choice about it, do you, Max? Once he
has made you vulnerable and touchable, I’ll let my friends out of the floor
again. Without that pretty little necklace you’ve been wearing, you’ll truly be
able to experience the full extent of their, for lack of a better term,
unnatural appetites. It’s at that point that you’ll find out the negative
aspects of the necklace, for it will take you far longer to die for having worn
it. Then I’ll let you rest for a short time while I let you wonder just what I
could do to you that could possibly be worse than what’s already happened to
you. It’s only then that I’ll let them finish off what little will be left of
you.

“Before I do so, though, let me take some safety
precautions.”

When she waved her arm this time, it was Max that
began to change. His arms shortened, his body became even more deformed.

He looked up, a baffled look on his newly-hideous
face. “Why?” he asked, hurt and confused. “What did I do to deserve this now?”

“Oh, don’t fret so much, Max,” she said. “It’s is
only temporary. Remember that. I need to be able to trust you with the necklace
and this is my insurance policy. Besides, it’s not like I haven’t done this to
you before.

“I doubt you can throw far in your current state.
Once the amulet necklace has disappeared back into its box, I’ll change you
back so that you can kill off what’s left of the group after I’ve turned them
into zombies.”

“But you promised!” he complained.

“My promise is for after you complete your task,
not before. Don’t gripe again, Max, I’m warning you, or I may just forget all
about that promise.”

Max became silent once again, staring at the floor
as if he could destroy the room with his very eyes.

“So, my dear,” she said, returning her attentions
back to me. “Now you know how you are going to die and just how futile your
efforts were, that you made no difference in or to the world whatsoever,
except, perhaps, by inadvertently helping my own cause, the cause you fought so
hard against. In the end, your efforts only helped toward enslaving your own
kind. But
c’est la vie
, the time for talk is
over and now it comes time for you to die. Max, take off her necklace, remove
the amulet.”

For a few seconds, Max hesitated.

“Now!” she ordered.

Max glanced up before quickly looking down again.
He waddled up to me, looking down at his feet the entire time. As he stood next
to me, he made eye contact again for only a fraction of a second. There was
shame in his eyes. As he reached behind me to undo the clasp, he whispered in my
ear. “I am so sorry. I hate that she wants me to do this.” Then he added, “By
the way, I want to thank you for kissin’ me earlier. It’s been such a long time
since any woman’s kissed me and I really appreciated it,” he said. I realized
then that he was the false Edmond that Arrosha had sent to try to trick me.

“Did you say something to our Ashley, Max?”
Arrosha asked as more of an accusation than a question.

“Just tellin’ her everything’s over, that she
needs to get ready to die,” he lied.

“Good. Do you have the necklace now? Do you have
it, Max?” Arrosha asked excitedly.

“Yes.” he answered flatly.

“Show me, Max! Hold it up and show me! Let me see
it clearly before it disappears again!”

He held up the unclasped necklace with his left
hand, the amulet dangling.

“Ah,” Arrosha said admiringly. “It is beautiful,
isn’t it. Why did they have to make a weapon for my destruction so incredibly
beautiful?”

Max said nothing. Still holding the necklace, he
started to put his hands down.

“No, Max, no. Keep holding it up. This is the only
time I ever get to see it when it is not worn by an enemy. It will disappear in
a few short moments and I want to enjoy my victory as long as I can. I’ll make
you beautiful for this, Max, I will. You’ll be so very beautiful that no woman
will be able to resist you. You’ve served me well over the years, Max. I’ll let
you have lots of fun with our little captive because you’ve been a good boy to
me, Max. You’ve been a loyal servant, my faithful dog.”