Unbinding the Demon

Hidden from His Eyes

Distant sounds of eerie pained groans and low sinister hisses echoed in my head, as the disorienting fog in my mind slowly began to dissipate. My heavy eyelids refused to open despite my best efforts and my achy body felt stiff and firmly tied in place. A putrid smell similar to rotting flesh mixed with musty stone and earthy soil hovered in the thick stale air, and even though I was in a state of partial consciousness, I still felt suffocated and sickened by it. 

The gluey feeling in my eyes eventually gave way, and I finally managed to ever so slowly pry them open. I squinted from the sudden light assaulting my senses, as I strenuously blinked away the blurriness in my vision. My head was uncomfortably tilted far backwards, so the first thing I saw was a ceiling made from old wooden planks above me. Crepuscular rays of sunlight were shinning down through the cracks, illuminating the tiny specs of dust that were whimsically swirling around in the air. 

My stiff achy neck popped as I weakly tried to straighten my head out. It felt like I had literally been stuck in that awful awkward position for hours, and I could only imagine that I looked just as bedraggled as I felt. As my dry scratchy eyes fell forwards, I abruptly froze in debilitating terror... Oh shit... 

I could see that I was in some sort of old rundown ramshackle basement, presumably under the church judging by the many neglected dusty religious artifacts that accompanied all the other random useless pieces junk lining the room. But that wasn't what was terrifying. What was terrifying, however, was the forty or so deranged snarling zombies, all circling me like a pack of vicious rabid animals. Their dead blackened eyes were staring menacingly over at me, as black gooey drool dripped from their hungry disgusting mouths.  

Oh please no! No no no!

I tried to scream, but quickly realized that my mouth was gagged with a cloth and taped securely shut. I then hysterically went to move my arms only to find that my wrists were tightly tied behind my back. The old wooden chair that I was strapped to creaked as I frantically tried to wiggle free, but I was firmly tied to it. Fear in it's purest form coursed through my veins like liquid ice, and my heart was beating so fast that it could have put an overly enthusiastic hummingbird on cocaine to shame.

Frightened pitiful tears began to stream down my cheeks, as a few of the zombies eerily shuffled right up in front of me. They snarled and snapped their hungry jaws in my face, as if they were eagerly awaiting the chance to sink their foul rotting teeth into my scrumptious tender flesh. Their disgusting putrid breath fanned across my face, making me feel even more sick and nauseated. I probably would have gagged if I wasn't actually gagged.

Is this really how I'm going to die?

However, the more they snapped their jaws at me, the more obvious it became that they weren't actually going to bite me. If they were going to, they probably would have done so by now. In my tied up petrified state, I began to warily observe their disfigured faces with wide terrified eyes, and quickly realized that I recognized a good deal of them as people who had been reported missing. And that's when it dawned on me...

Man, I'm an awful treacherous bitch...

There I was freaking out and assuming without any reasonable doubt that Ashton was to blame for all these missing people. I didn't even give him a chance to explain anything first before I wrongfully assumed that he was a serial killer and tried to make a run for it. To say that I felt down right terrible would be a serious understatement. I sat there for a while, surrounded by atrocious snarling zombies, and began to despondently weep. I wished that I could somehow turn back the clock and trust Ashton, not break my promise to him.

The harrowing chorus of hisses and snarls suddenly got louder throughout the room, and then went quiet all together, pulling me from my remorseful forlorn moment. A crack of light appeared along the shadowy dirt floor, as the old splintered wooden door across the room slowly creaked open. Low sibilant whispers murmuring "Father" hissed through the air, and chilled my blood, filling me with suffocating anxiety. Father Adelstein casually strolled into the room with a big bright smile on his face, completely unbothered by the bloodthirsty zombie hoard prowling all around.