Hide and Seek in the Dark (Being Rewritten)

Chapter 13

13

I was cold. That was the first thing that I noticed. I was really cold. I wanted to curl up into a ball and pull my blankets around me tight but couldn't. I had no energy to even attempt to open my eyes. I couldn't move, couldn't see, I couldn't feel anything but the cold. Was I dead? Was this what vampires experienced after they died for the second and final time? Was this purgatory?

Somewhere nearby someone coughed a wet, sickly cough. So, I wasn't alone after all? Chains rattled as the person coughed again. I put all my energy into opening my eyes. It took a while, but soon my vision went from black, to blurry, to at least decently normal. The room spun and a wave of nausea hit me hard as I blinked over and over again trying to steady my focus.

I was lying on my back on the floor. It was cold and hard, almost like concrete, but it wasn't. It reminded me of the floors you see in garages and basements. Blood was smeared on the ground along with mud and who knows what other muck.

"Are you awake?" a small voice asked me. I craned my neck toward the source of the sound, fighting off another wave of nausea, and looked at the small boy.

His brown hair was uncombed and matted with blood, his pale face was swollen and bruised in some places, his cheeks were tear-stained. Even now, it looked as if he was fighting to not cry. He raised his small, dirty hand and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his matted and torn sweater.

Oh my god. Benjamin.

I struggled to sit up. Horrible jolts of pain shot up my torso in response. A pitiful gasp escaped my lips as I shut my eyes tight, trying to will the pain away.

"You shouldn't move," Benjamin sniffled and wiped his nose again. "If you bleed too much you might actually die." He crawled closer and slowly lifted up the hem of my sweater until it revealed the little present Len had given me. The cold air hit the wound and I screwed my eyes closed again, though this time it wasn't because of the pain. Where the stab wound had been was now a three inch line of pinched flesh, red with irritation, sloppily stitched together- like some ratty old doll at a garage sale- with thick black thread. Pieces of flesh poked out haphazardly through the needlework, some already dried out and dead.

"God damn it!" I whimpered and tossed my head back against the floor, covering my face with my hands.

"It could be worse," Benjamin said and I felt my sweater being pulled back down to cover the horrid patchwork.

Lifting my hands I craned my head to look at him. "Yeah? How's that?"

"You could've been dead when they brought you in." Benjamin stared at me with a face so serious, eyes so dull and sad and filled with pain. It hurt just to look at him. "If you were," he continued. "Then I would've had to eat you." Benjamin crawled back to his place against the wall, the chains attached to his ankle rattled loudly. He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his thin arms around them tightly, his eyes staring at adjacent wall. "Just like the others."

I craned my neck again and looked at the wall facing my feet. In one corner near the door was another pair of chains. Attached to said chains was a half mutilated corpse. One arm was missing all the meet, leaving nothing but bone and teeth marks from the wrist up, his stomach was ripped open to reveal half rotting intestines. What was left of his face was sliced to ribbons, his eyes were completely gouged out, his mouth hanging open to reveal yellowing teeth and a lack tongue.

Not a second later I had somehow made it to my knees and elbows and was throwing up whatever had been left of Daren's barbeque the other night.

Somewhere between my gagging and Benjamin's sniffling I could hear him whimper in a small voice: "I had to. He was looking at me. He wouldn't stop looking at me..."