Hell's Prison

Chapter 9

Old Habits, New Fears

 On a different floor, Lexus was now alone in the halls of terror. She had no idea why she allowed herself to end up in her current situation. Escaping was the only thing Lexus could think of at the moment of loneliness.

"Damn it!" She whispered quietly.

As she gazed around the room to see where she would go next, Lexus realized that there was an opened room up ahead of her.

"Maybe that's where he went." She told herself.

Lexus took her steps to the door ahead to check what was waiting behind. Before she could open the door, someone from behind opened it to greet her. The small hand of a male child appeared from the dark room.

"It's you! You killed me! You killed me!" The young boy cried.

His face was dripping with dirty, brown water which had an unpleasant odor. Along with that, his entire body looked as if it had been decaying over time.

"It was an accident!" Lexus whispered softly.

She started to get emotional and shed tears of regret. Lexus wasn't expecting to be confronted by a ghost of her past.

"You should be dead." The young boy cried.

Suddenly, Lexus's mind went back in time to the death of the boy. It was a year after she had joined the academy of the police. One day, she found a lead for a case about a criminal who had robbed a bank days ago.

~~~

"Officer Wheeley, we got the suspect we've been looking for. A ten sixty-five just occurred again a few streets from you. Look for a silver Ford Focus ST." The captain spoke.

Lexus picked up her contact radio inside her cop cruiser and pressed the button to check in with the captain at the precinct.

"Copy that! I'm headed after the suspect now. Over and out!" Lexus responded calmly.

"Ten four. Proceed as necessary! Over and out!" The captain replied casually ending the conversation.

Lexus put her police cruiser in drive and pressed the gas to apprehend the suspect. Driving at a hundred and eighty miles per hour, rushing her way down the streets of her hometown, Thomasville, Georgia. She turned left on the next street ahead and her eyes met the license plate of the suspect's car. That rusty, old silver Ford Focus was driving the speed limit, just thirty-five miles. Lexus didn't hesitate to switch her sirens on.

"Gotcha, asshole." Lexus snapped with a focused mind.

As soon as the suspect heard the sirens, he looked in the rear-view mirror to see Lexus right on his tail. The suspect pressed down on the gas of his car after quickly turning the wheel of the car.

"Oh fuck!" The male suspect whispered.

He began going as fast as his car could push. Lexus was on him right before he took a quick turn to throw her off his trail.

"No, you don't! I got you this time!" Lexus mentioned as she shifted her cruiser on the trail of the suspect.

Suddenly, out of all the pedestrians on the block, there was a woman talking to a Chinese man in front of his restaurant with her two kids, which was right in the block. The mother lost control of the grip she had on her son and the little boy ran out into the busy street from out of his mother's grasp.

BOOM! Just as the kid ran into the street, the suspect driving almost at full speed in his old car swerved to avoid hitting the kid. Unfortunately, Lexus's cruiser was right behind the suspect's car. Not noticing the boy running into the street caused the accident of the boy's death on impact because Lexus's cop cruiser was following the suspect closely at high speed.

~~~

It would play the same way in her memory every time her brain took her back to that day. Ever since then, Lexus decided to quit her career as a police officer. Not only was it the flashbacks that haunted her, but the images. The images of the boy's cold, bruised body lying on the street in front of hundreds of people. The image of that poor mother's look of regret and sorrow in the tears surfaced in her eyes. Shocking images of strangers gasping at the situation.

"Where do I go now?" The young spirit of the boy whispered as he faded into ashes.

Lexus stood in silence. She had been trying to come to peace with herself but couldn't find herself to do so yet. Finally understanding what she needed to do, Lexus snapped back into her current situation. A way out was a priority. The main goal.

"No more wasting time." Lexus mentioned to herself.

Entering the room where the boy's spirit appeared from, there was nothing but darkness inside. Lexus stepped inside the room and switched on the light as soon as she found it. After switching the bright lights on, she realized she was entered a room filled with nothing but empty boxes and cobwebs all over the room.

"Ugh, this shit is nasty." Lexus scolded as she walked into a spider web on her path.

"At least clean the place before you trap somebody here." She mentioned as if the masked person was listening.

Lexus wiped the webs from her face and kept walking around the room. Checkerboard colored tile floors gave her a feeling of dizziness to the point like she felt she was going to fall. But then, Lexus stumbled across a blueprint paper crumbled up underneath a dresser in the room.

"What the hell is this?" Lexus questioned as she bent down to pick up the paper. She opened the paper to see what it was and there it was.

"Oh snap." Lexus stated eyeing the paper in front of her.

Not only had she found the blueprints of the entire house, but also the blueprints of every trap in the house. Every single one. From floor one to floor seven. Lexus knew exactly where to go from that moment. Just after she folded the blueprints and stuffed them in her back pocket, the door of the room suddenly began to close. Lexus ran to the doorway to attempt to catch it before it closed. SLAM! The door thudded as it closed quickly before Lexus could reach it.

"Damn it!" Please don't let the lights go out." Lexus begged cautiously.

Ironically, the lightbulbs in the room begin to flicker on and off. Lexus started to feel frighten for what was coming next. She crouched low to the floor just in case. The flashing, bright lights began to give Lexus a minor headache. She covered her eyes with both hands for a moment. Suddenly, the lights stopped. Lexus removed her hands from her eyelids. It was finally over.

"Phew! Glad that's over..." Lexus exhaled in relief.

Interrupted by another mysterious noise, the glass began to crack. Then, every bulb in the room busted one by one. All of them just completely shattered. Lexus slid her back against the nearest wall of the room as she watched the lights break above her. Unexpectedly, as her back hit the wall, it shape shifted into human arms from behind her. The arms of the wall grabbed Lexus putting her in a deadly choke hold.

"Ugh!" Lexus gasped.

Barely able to breath, Lexus saw the right arm of the wall shape shift its fingers into a sharp blade. Then, it put the blade up against her neck. SWOOSH! The figure in the wall had deeply slit the throat of Lexus. Dark, thick hematic blood gushed down her body as the hidden figure shifted itself back into the wall. A quick, silent death!