Sittings at your kitchen table, staring at a pile of bills. Phone, cable, electric and gas. All this money due, and your internship is paying you barely enough to get by. You know in the long run, this will pay off, but this isn't the future, this is now, and you need to make some cash.
You have the afternoon off, and you meet one of your fellow interns for lunch, You're a little amazed, she's always ordering expensive entrees, has new clothes, and damn, if she does'nt have new, amazing shoes every time you see her.
"Must be nice" you think to yourself. Rich parents? You laugh to yourself. Drug dealer?
Finally, your curiosity gets the better of you, and you bring it up. "How in the world do you afford all this great stuff on our crappy salary?"
She laughs a little, and swirls the wine around in her glass for a second, thinking. "Janice, can you keep a secret? I've been doing a side gig dancing at the Platinum go-go". You both laugh, and you don't believe her for a second, but you can see she's serious. "Hon, I dance two nights a week and pull down an extra $700 cash, just dancing and no funny business. Some of the girls will do extras in the lap dance room, but I don’t, and still make lots of money. I can get you up on stage with me, no problem!"
You blush, and think there's no way you could pull it off. You're used to guys checking you out, 5'6" with an amazing rack (if you do say so yourself) and curly red hair, you're always getting the corny "goth girlfriend" jokes, but this is different. If your conservative family EVER found out, you'd be disowned, for sure. No way you could come back if you got exposed.
"Listen" she says "pack up a few pieces from your lingerie drawer, and I'll pick you up tonight, you're gonna kill it!"
Reluctantly, you agree, she assures you NO ONE will find out, and a few hours later, you're walking through the door of the club, nervous as hell. You meet the owner and manager, they give you a few papers to sign and before you can even think, you're in the dressing room with the other girls, getting your makeup perfect and putting on your favorite "fuck me" heels and a teddy you've been saving for a special occasion.
Once you're up on stage, you have no idea what to do at first, slowly you get into rhythm and start having fun. For the most part, the guys aren't TOO creepy, but you try to keep your distance for a while until you've gotten comfortable.
There's a guy in the crowd, who every time you look over, is locked eyes with you. Not a big surprise, given the environment, but he's got a smirk, almost "knowing" smile on his face. You climb down from the stage and grab your stuff to take a quick break, immediately he's standing in front of you.
He speaks first: "I gotta say, you're absolutely incredible, are you available for a lap dance?"
You're a little flustered, you need to be back on stage soon, but hey, first time for everything right?
"Sure" you reply "I've got a few minutes before my next set, make it worth my while huh?"
He smiles and hands you two $50 dollar bills, and you both chuckle as you pickup your gear and lead him by the hand into the lapdance room, closing the door behind you.
The music is muffled inside, and you can hear his voice a little more clearly, deep, gravelly. He's older than you, most likely a married dad, but he's handsome in a sort of sinister way.
You drape you arms over his shoulders and straddle him, and slowly grind you body onto his torso. You can feel the bulge in his pants through your sheer lingerie, and you realize you're...kind of enjoying yourself.
Until he slips his hand into your teddy and tries to slide a finger inside you.
"What the fuck!" You jump off him, and back away, turning around, a little disoriented in the dark booth. "Hands to yourself fucker!" He puts his hands up in an "I surrender" pose, and smiles that smirk again.
You open the door, carry your purse back to the locker room and hop back on stage, quite perturbed.
After you wrap up your time on stage, you reach into your purse to check your messages, and your phone is gone. And your ID.
You're furious. Hustle out into the lot, but he's out of sight.
You call the cops. They're understanding, but you don't reallly feel any better, and realize there's not much they can do. A few days go by. You're not so rattled anymore. You've replaced your phone, stood in line and got a new ID.
Things are getting back to normal.
One afternoon, sitting in your car during a break at your internship,, a message shows up on your new phone. It's just a picture, no message. A picture of your bedroom, taken from the doorway.
A cold bolt of fear goes through your stomach. You know it's him.
You're terrified, panic is starting to grip you.
Before you can react, another picture comes through.
The panic you were feeling is eclipsed by a terror you’ve never known before. It's a picture of outside seating at a restaurant. In the background, you can see your mom eating lunch with your aunt.
He's there. Just a few feet away from your loved ones.
"I can see where you got your good looks from Janice, maybe I'll see to it your mom gets to her car safely after lunch...since you wouldn't give it up, I'll see to it mommy doesn't get a choice"
Your vision goes foggy and vomit spews out of your mouth as you try to command your fumbling fingers to get the key in the ignition, finally the car turns over and you're racing across town, steering with your knee and desperately dialing your mothers phone.."pickup, pickup, PICKUP!!" You're flying through traffic in what seems like slow motion. Your car lurches into the parking lot. The valet and patrons at the entrance are looking at you incredulously. A gout of bile stains your shirt, eyeliner running down your cheeks, heart racing.
Just across the lot, you see your mom and aunt getting into the car, unaware of whats happening, totally unharmed.
Your legs are trembling, mind is spinning, trying to think of a way you can warn them without exposing your secret. You walk back to your car, distraught, and notice a piece of paper under your windshield wiper.
One word is written on it: "SOON"
The phone rings as you're staring at the paper, you jump out of you skin, startled, and drop the phone, and then immediately scramble to pick it up. It's your mom. "Hey hon, I just looked at my phone and saw you called, are you OK?" You breathe deep and answer her as calmly as you're able "Hey, sorry I think I must have butt-dialed you a dozen times, how was lunch?"
You keep composed and chat for a second before hanging up. She's Ok. "It's going to be OK" you tell yourself, but in the pit of your stomach, you know evil is coming.
On the ride home, you stop and grab a coffee, and when you get back in the car, a figure sits up in the back seat. It's him. He'd been following you. He knew you'd go straight to the restaurant your Mom was at. You gave yourself right up to him. Your bladder voids reflexively, and you feel hot urine pooling into the carseat. You're paralyzed with fear, burning with hatred.
He speaks: "Janice, I'm going to speak slowly and be very clear. I can get to your family and there's nothing you can do to stop me. You're going to complete a task for me, and if I'm satisfied, I will disappear and you will never see me again. If you call the police or try to run.." he pauses and holds up a steel butchers hook: "this is going through you mothers jaw while I violate her, please believe me when I say I'm a man of my word"
You face is contorted in rage as you stare into the rearview mirror. You lip is trembling, and you want to lash out, to kill this sick fuck, but you can see it in his eyes, he's serious. You ask, almost a whisper: "what is this task?"
He replies, smiling: "Im glad you asked Janice..tonight at 11PM, you're going to drive to this location" and slips a piece of paper into the front seat "Walk about 100 yards north from the lot, and you'll see the entrance to the path leading to the abandoned insane asylum. There will be a duffel bag on the ground, take off all of your clothing, phone, jewelry, everything you have, put them into the bag, and follow the path, you'll come to an old tunnel, pass through it and I'll be waiting for you on the other side. If you're not at the exit of the tunnel by 11:30, I'm going to rape and kill you mom, now, tell me you understand"
You can barely speak "I understand"
He asks: "what time shall I expect you"?
Venom oozing from your voice now: "11PM"
He claps his hands joyously and grins: "EXCELLENT! I can't wait to see you" And just like that, he hops out of the car and is out of sight.
The rest of the day is a blur. After showering and changing clothes, you're involuntarily rocking back and forth. Your stomach is a mess. You drive to a gun store and sit in the lot, thinking of a way you can retaliate. But you're resigned yourself, you know he can get to your family, and if you have to sacrifice yourself, thats what you'll do.
As the sun sets, you to drive to the location he'd written for you, and when you arrive, it's fully dark. You turn your phone off. You look around for any sign of life, but the spot is totally isolated.
It's 10:55. Mind racing, heart pounding, you get out of the car and lock the doors, and find the path in the dark. Sure enough, a duffel bag sits on the ground. You're sweating, and you drop all of your clothes and stuff them into the bag. Earrings, rings, necklace all zipped up. Your skin pops goosebumps as the chill of the night air grips you. You walk forward through the dark wooded path, the gravel is killing your feet. All of your senses are screaming with adrenaline. Every noise makes you jump in fright. Any shimmer of light through the woods fills you with dread.
After what you figure is 10 minutes, a structure begins taking shape as you approach. It's a large concrete form with a 15 foot hole in the center. You're standing in front of the entrance to the tunnel. Long abandoned, it's covered in graffiti and there is garbage strewn about. You can hear water dripping inside. On the other end is the abandoned asylum. On the other end is HIM.
Putting your arms out in front of you, you take your first steps into to tunnel, and within a few feet, you're completely enveloped in the pitch black of darkness.
The darkness of the tunnel swallows you entirely, and you wave your hands in front of your face to try get your vision to adjust. Feet sinking into the muck on the floor of the tunnel, you slip, and try to balance yourself every few steps.
The air inside is a miasma of filth, you taste decay in your mouth as your breathing starts to become labored. Slowly you shuffle forward, and try reach the concrete wall to balance yourself, only to slip, and come down onto your knees, hitting something sharp on the slimy tunnel floor. You reach to feel for a cut, but your hands and legs are covered in rotting muck, you can't tell if you're feeling blood, or the revolting filth covering half your body.
You steel your nerves and push on for what feels like hours, your vision starts to perceive tiny spots of light up ahead, you're ambivalent, you want to be out of the tunnel, but you also know he'll be waiting.
You finally manage to make it out, and as grateful as you are for sure footing and fresh air, dread fills you to the core, your eyes adjusting as the moonlight shimmers through the trees.
"Janice! You're right on time!" Cringing as you hear his voice.
Standing at the top of a short incline, he has the bag you put your belongings into draped over his shoulder. Smiling that infuriating smirk. As if in a dream, you walk toward him, despite every sense telling you to escape.
"You look awful! Not so nice inside the tunnel huh?" He walks to meet you halfway, and you see the asylum behind him, not far away. The blown out windows of the decrepit tower look like black, insectoid eyes. The song of the cicadas in the trees seems to swell and grow louder as you approach one another.
You speak: "Listen, whatever it is you wanted from me.."
An explosion of pain as he stomps your ankle, you crumple to the ground, a guttural cry of pain replaces your attempt to reason with him.
"Shut the fuck up and listen Janice" he grabs a fistful of your hair and beings pulling you along the ground, rocks and broken glass tormenting you as you try to crawl along to keep up. Your ankle is useless as you try to scramble forward.
"I told you if you completed this task, that I would spare your mother, and I will. You, however will be transformed by dawn, I’m going to change you forever. You have one last chance to be play nice, to NOT be like the others, and this is it"
He continues you pull you by your hair, until you fall flat, and a big chunk of hair comes up in his hand, little streams of blood start running down your forehead where he ripped your scalp.
He holds the hair, bits of bloody skin up, almost nonchalantly and smiles a little, and says "huh"
In a quick fluid motion, he casts the hair aside and unclasps his belt, pulls it through the loops in his pants, swings it into his palm, and loops it around your neck.
"Lets.....speed this up, shall we?"
You gasp and gurgle as he's dragging you by your neck, you can see the entrance to the building looming, and quickly, he pulls you up the stairs and down the hallway of the darkened hospital, you mangled feet kicking to try and keep the belt from strangling you. He kicks a door open and throws you into the middle of the room. He stops to breathe, and pulls an old chair over to sit down.
The moonlight through the windows allows you to see inside. Nobody has been in here in a long time. Your heart sinks as you see, in the center of the room, an exam chair. Stirrups. Your adrenaline kicks in and you jump to your feet to try and run, but you can't stand on your ankle, and you fall pathetically at his feet.
"If you're gonna get jumpy, I'm gonna have to make you go night night" And with that, drives his fist into your orbital bone with all of his strength. Your vision is blurry, but you can still see. "Holy shit you can take a punch babygirl!" You see his elbow coming toward you..then..black.
The sunlight on your skin feels warm and comforting. The feel of the freshly cut grass as you run your fingers through it seems so familiar. Looking up, you're in your parents backyard. You're safe.
In the distance, the familiar squeaky noise of your neighbors old swingset. You look up, hearing a voice, sing-songs in time with the creaky swings. "Janiceeeee...come play...come on Janice..."
You awaken with a jolt. Gasping for air as reality hits.
He's rocking back and forth in a chair, creaking as he casually looks at you. His pants are unbuckled and he's grinning at you.
You realize you're tied into the exam chair, legs spread. But he's cleaned you entirely and pulled your hair back into a ponytail. A soft green light illuminates the room, and you can see he's strewn a few glow sticks about. Through a collapsed piece of concrete on the wall behind you, you can make out bassinets, an old, abandoned nursery.
You realize there's wet between your legs, a dripping sensation, you look at him and know, he's been inside you while you were knocked out.
"You motherfucker..you fucking rape me, threaten my family..all of this? Just because I wouldn't fuck you? Are you fucking insane? What do you want??"
"What I want, Janice is to finally find a vessel who isn't a complete piece of shit" He picks up a piece of PVC pipe up off the floor and holds it up: "Are you a piece of shit? Are you a whore??" He brings the white plastic pipe down on the inside of your legs. The pain is excruciating. "No! Fuck! I'm not a fucking whore you sick fuck!!" He continues to hit you viciously. You scream "What answer do you want, what the fuck??"
He laughs: "There is NO RIGHT ANSWER"
He stops hitting you and smiles. He straightens up, pulls his cock out and starts to stroke himself, getting hard. He takes a step in between your legs and whispers into your ear: "You're right, you're not a whore" He takes another glow stick out of his pocket, cracks it and shakes it. Throws it over his shoulder, it hits the ground and starts to roll toward the back of the room. He continues: "But they were.."
You gasp as pushes his cock inside of you and starts pumping. You're looking over his shoulder at the glow stick rolling on the floor toward a darkened alcove. It stops rolling and you can see inside the alcove now, you start to spasm and scream.
Corpses. Ribcages. Mangled arms and legs. Blood and viscera .Pieces of women, decaying. A severed head with its jawbone open in a silent, permanent scream.
He grips your arms and pumps harder as you lose your mind screaming so hard your voice turns into a croak.."No...no...no.." He shudders and you feel him seeding you.
You look at his face in horror and realize he's not sweating, he's crying.
"Thats right Janice, all of those disgusting whores failed me. And now they became rat food. A feast for vermin"
He buckles up his pants and picks up the duffel off the floor and puts it in your lap. He unzips the bag, and pulls out knife and unfolds it. You shriek and pull on your restraints, and he looks down, and slides the blade through your right hand binds and cuts your hand loose.
"Fuck fuck fuck..please no..fuck please don't fucking kill me" you're screaming.
He steps back, smirks that infuriating smirk, "But not you" and pulls the blade across his throat.
For a second, total silence. Blood is streaming from his neck, and you're stunned. He looks down at the blood, gives a quizzical look ands says: "like this?" and starts to plunge the blade into his neck.
Jets of blood shoot out of his neck now, a violent spray hits you in the face, you raise your free hand to try and ward off the jets of blood. He takes two steps backward, and falls onto the floor. In the fading green glow, a pool of blood spreads around his head and and runs toward a drain in the floor.
You're frozen, in shock as you sit totally still, waiting for him to stand back up. But his blood continues to pool and run onto the floor. You use your hand to pull the bag open, and all of your things are still in it, as well as a pair of cutting pliers. You grab the pliers and cut your self free, and manage to crawl out to the front balcony of the hospital. Still looking back into the hallway to make sure he's not coming, you pull the phone out, whispering to yourself: "please please please"
Full battery. Full service. With trembling hands, you dial 911.
As you hear the sirens approaching, and the lights from the first responders illuminating the trees, you realize you're going to have to explain how this happened. But as you hear footfalls approaching, you slump over, and pass out.
Weeks have passed. The poilce have identified the man. Martin Wagner. History of mental illness. He had pictures of you at home, the inside of your house, but nothing, no mention of the club, or how he found you. The detectives tell you he was born at the hospital he had taken you to. His mother had been committed there while pregnant, and managed to stab herself in the neck while she was just a few weeks from delivery. The doctors had delivered him in an emergency, post mortem caesarian section. The rest of his life was spent in and out of prisons and mental hospitals. Violence against women. Delusions of grandeur. In total he'd killed 13 women in the room you escaped from, all of them from different backgrounds, all of them somehow caught his attention, and failed him in his demented mind.
You thank the officers after your final interview, and on your way to the exit, find a restroom. You hurry inside and puke your guts out. "Just nerves" you tell yourself as you look in the mirror, cleaning yourself up. "Just nerves Janice..nerves and cramps..cramps and your tits are sore..sore tits and fatigue..."
You hear his voice in your mind: "Finally find a vessel who isn't a complete piece of shit"
Tears begin to stream down your face: “What. The. Fuck. Is wrong with you?” your reflection says, as you look into the mirror.