Chapter 18 #2
“Let’s go,” Mattie suddenly says, her voice low and urgent, and she grabs my wrist, yanking me sideways, not giving me a choice.
I stumble after her, legs heavy and unwilling as we break cover and run toward the store, my eyes darting wildly everywhere.
Once we reach the storefront, Mattie pushes the door open with her shoulder, and we all hurry inside in a panicked huddle. She quietly closes the door behind us, trying to make as little noise as possible.
The inside of the store is dark and gutted—shelves knocked over, products scattered across the floor. Everything is covered in a layer of dust and mold, with heavy cobwebs sagging in every corner.
This place smells rotten as I press my back against the nearest wall, hardly able to draw a breath.
Mattie glances at me behind her shoulder, her hand still gripping my wrist like she’s afraid I’ll bolt.
“We’re inside,” she whispers. “We’re going to be okay… for now.”
I nod once as our eyes sweep around the huge store, shadows stretching long between the shelves.
“It looks like it’s a big one,” Lotty murmurs beside us. “We’ll probably find everything we need, then we’ll get the hell out of here.”
I push myself away from the wall on shaky legs and start moving forward with Mattie down one aisle, the others splitting off into the one alongside it.
“Let’s find something to fix you up a bit.” She mumbles under her breath.
But I’m starting to think unstitching my mouth might not be the best idea. The amount of times I’ve wanted to scream since we washed up on this island is insane. I’m not sure I’ll be able to control it once the threads are gone.
What if I start and can’t stop?
Something catches my eye in the far-right corner. A surveillance camera mounted high on the wall, its lens angled directly toward us.
I stop dead in my tracks, my gaze immediately locking onto it, while for some reason, a shiver scatters beneath my skin.
The camera looks old like everything else on this island. The tiny red light beneath the lens is dark, but that does little to reassure me it’s actually turned off.
So far, nothing about this place has behaved the way it should. I’ve already seen enough to know that dead things don’t necessarily stay dead here.
Mattie stops beside me, following my line of sight.
“I doubt it’s even functioning,” she mutters dryly. “This place doesn’t seem to have electricity anymore.”
Maybe she’s right, but as I continue staring into the black lens, I can’t shake the feeling that it isn’t as lifeless as it appears.
It hangs there in the corner like a patient observer, silent and waiting, as though it has witnessed every terrible thing that’s happened within these walls and still wants more.
What if it is on? What if sickos are watching us right now, laughing at how we run, hide and fucking bleed? What if this whole thing really is just a game for them?
As we keep moving, my gaze tracks the food on the shelves, scanning the packaging. But the brands look very outdated, like stuff from the 90s, maybe even older. It’s as if the entire store had stopped in time the moment something dreadful occurred.
“Here’s the medical stuff,” Mattie says, turning left.
I follow her into a small pharmacy section, the shelves still stocked with medicines, bandages, scissors, and everything we could need.
Sliding down the nearest wall, my legs giving out, and I sit on the dirty floor, the cold seeping through my thin, silk dress.
Mattie starts gathering supplies, moving quick but cautious. I watch her, yet my eyes keep darting back toward the dark corners of the store, waiting for something to move or the next piece of my past to come tiptoeing out of the shadows wearing a new shape.
When she crouches in front of me, my gaze flicks to hers, and at first she starts with unpacking cleansing whips, dousing them in raw alcohol.
As soon as she presses it to my face, I hold my breath, knowing the smell of it will only send me into turmoil.
She wipes the sore stitches, and my brows pinch hard from the fire shooting through my face, like the wounds are being inflicted all over again.
My watery eyes, stinging with unshed tears and the sharp bite of exhaustion, drift to the wall just beyond Mattie’s head. And there, in the dim light, I spot crude markings and nightmarish drawings gouged deep into the disintegrating plaster, etched with what can only be bloodied scratches.
Dominating the center is a tree, its branches twisted like mangled limbs, and from those skeletal boughs hang small, limp bodies.
On the far left, separated from the strange tree, words have been engraved with jagged, trembling strokes. My eyes drag over them, heart hammering against my ribs as I silently read in my head.
Here, your terror will wake,
Here, your mind will break.
Here, your fears creep,
Here, your soul they keep.
Here, your horror's lie,
Here, your cries die.
My hand finds my lower arm, nails digging in, ready to pinch hard enough to draw blood and prove I’m still here.
But before I can, something crashes to the ground.
The sound explodes through the store, and the walls seem to narrow. I rise to my feet quickly before Mattie and rush toward the noise.
Rounding the corner, Sarah stands there stiff, a smashed jar of rotten pickles scattered across the filthy floor like pale, severed fingers in brine.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she whispers, fright strangling every word, tears spilling into her big eyes.
We don’t have time to respond, because in an instant, we hear it outside in the street. That low growl of an engine, followed by that same demented ice-cream truck melody, gliding through the rain like it’s been waiting for us.
Lena instantly goes into a frenzy beside me, but we all duck behind the nearest shelves, bodies pressed low, peeking wide-eyed through gaps in the products toward the shattered window.
The song loops again, closer now, the notes bending into something that almost sounds like laughter, like it remembers every little girl it ever took.
No one dares to make a sound, but my pulse rings so loud in my ears I’m sure that thing outside can hear it. Lena’s hand finds mine and squeezes until it hurts, her body shaking so badly I can feel it through the shelf.
When the truck stops close by, too close, I hear heavy footsteps, and dragging sounds before a tall shadow spills across the wet pavement outside the window.
Then, we see a creature that’s lanky, pale and thin stepping into view. Like a man stretched and flattened by roller until his bones crushed.
It wears a filthy, old-fashioned ice cream man uniform, the once white fabric now stained yellow and brown, buttons missing, and a little striped hat is perched crookedly on his head.
His arms slog along the ground behind him, abnormally long and ending in hands coiled into sharp, gleaming ice cream cones, the metal tips filed into vicious points that scrape against the concrete with every step.
His face is grey with two sunken black eyes that sit too far apart, empty and endless. His mouth hangs open, slack and wide, revealing rows of small, needle-like teeth drenched in something dark.
He stops in front of the shop, head tilting from side to side with a strange clicking sound, as if listening for the fear leaking out of us.
The thing takes one step closer to the door, and my stitched mouth trembles. It looks like every nightmare who ever offered me something sweet… right before they took everything.
Without warning, his cone-shaped hands smash through the doors window, and glass explodes inward like shrapnel. His metallic cones stretch incredibly far, whipping through the air with violent force.
They crash into the shelves, smashing everything in their path. Jars shatter, cans explode, and products fly like broken bones, the sound deafening, chaotic and destructive.
Everyone screams, and we all scramble backward in blind panic, feet slipping on debris and spilled brine, aiming for the end of the store.
My heart is a trapped animal trying to fight its way out of my fucking chest, but Mattie’s hand yanks me forward until it’s too late.
One of the cone arms lashes out like a whip and wraps around Lena’s waist with a repulsive slap. She shrieks, high, raw, and terrified, as the arm lifts her clean off the ground, her legs kicking helplessly in the air.
It tightens, swathing around her like a serpent, her body vibrates with a horrible sound that fills the store, bones cracking and organs bursting.
The other arm swells at the tip, blooming into a cone-shaped spear of teeth. Then, it shoots up with brutal speed, slamming straight between her legs.
Her body jerks as the massive appendage tears into her, ripping through soft tissue and muscle.
Gore spills out in heavy gushes down her thighs, splattering across the floor as the tendril burrows deeper.
When it grabs hold of something vital inside her, her eyes bulge wider and wider, veins bursting, until they pop out of her skull and fall to the floor with a soft splat.
Hot blood spurts from her mouth, nose, and ears, spraying across the shelves and us in thick, dark waves.
Then, with a savage, violent tug, it rips her spine clean out through her anus.
The long, glistening column of bone and nerve comes free with a tearing crunch, vertebrae cracking one by one as her body twitches in its final death.
“Lena!” Lotty wails.
But it’s already over.
The arm yanks her broken body back through the smashed window with ruthless strength before throwing her into the back of the ice cream truck like a sack of meat.
The tune keeps playing as the truck’s engine revs once, almost cheerfully, before it slowly drives away, taking what was left of Lena with it.
As the music grows distant, the store plummets into a horrible silence, punctured only by our ragged breathing and the blood dripping on the window.
I can’t move, my legs have turned to stone, and all I can see is Lena’s eyeballs lying on the floor, staring at nothing.