Chapter 2 The Church Tower Corpse
Fumbling in the dark, I open the door I bumped into and slip inside.
As my eyes adjust, I can make out a few key things: a desk and a toppled chair to one side, a wardrobe at the back, and a bookcase on my right.
I’m guessing this was an office at one point, a place where the priest came to write his sermons and read his Bible, or play Tetris on his prepaid phone.
Using the desk as my anchor, I curve around it until I reach the wardrobe.
Up close, it’s huge, like an antique someone would find at an estate sale.
I run a hand over the surface of one door and feel the carvings in its face.
It isn’t my ideal hiding place, but it’s good enough.
As it opens, the hinges squeak from years of neglect.
The way my heart shoots into my throat at the sound of it, I wince, and bite my lip so hard I draw blood.
That was loud enough to wake the dead.
Footsteps sound outside. Either he knows where to look, or he’s aimlessly wandering and my bad luck led him here.
This guy just doesn’t give up. I climb into the empty wardrobe, shutting myself in, and huddle close to the back. As I feel around, I realize there’s a slight breeze in here, blowing against me from behind. I’m shocked to discover a small doorknob at the back.
Holy shit. There’s a secret room? I give it a small twist, but it’s locked. No good.
“Where the fuck are you?” the man calls, closer now.
How do they always know where to look? I think sardonically.
My gut tells me he’ll find me in a matter of seconds, and I have to be ready to put up a fight.
There’s no way I’m going down without a few more solid hits.
Switching to my knees, I keep one hand on the hidden door, and slip the keychain in my pocket back around my fingers.
A few tense beats pass, but the quiet affords me some focus so that I can listen for his footsteps. When the door to the office creaks open, my heart races with anticipation. His voice slithers in over the toppled furniture, piercing the wardrobe doors. “You’re in here, aren’t you?”
Sweat beads my forehead, dripping down my cheek and along my lips. No matter what happens now, I’m ready for him.
“Peek-a-boo, I found you!”
The second the wardrobe doors open, I jab my keychain out, and hit him in the face again.
He snarls, one hand snatching my wrist. I kick one pointed heel out, hard, and connect with his groin.
He lets go with a yelp, and I stumble back into the hidden door.
Summoning every ounce of strength, I plunge through, hoping against all hope there isn’t a dusty sex dungeon on the other side.
Instead, I crash into a set of stairs with a cry, snagging my thigh on the jagged edge of a broken floorboard. Something warm wells against my wounded leg. I must be bleeding. It drips down my thigh, and while I want to cave to the panic, adrenaline has my mind focused on survival.
Light, I need a light. I fumble for my phone, which has managed to stay lodged in my coat pocket. The battery is fading, but I should have enough juice for the flashlight.
With the tap of a button, a dim white light floods the darkness and chases away some of the shadows.
I sweep it around the small space with purpose.
The stairs I crashed into are at my back, and the crawl space from the wardrobe is a few feet away.
From there, I can see where the floorboard tore up my leg.
I don’t want to look at that, though, because I’m sure I’ll lose my momentum the second I see the wound.
Instead, I amble up the stairs, wincing at the pain in my leg.
My movements are slowed, but I have to keep going.
With another sweep upward using my phone’s light, I see a door waiting at the top.
More and more doors, but still no exits.
These stairs must lead to the tower that I saw outside earlier, which can only mean one thing.
There is no escape. My body feels numb, and I swallow, throat tight. I might actually die here.
“You’re really starting to piss me off,” a voice behind me rumbles.
I startle and whip my head around. He’s climbing through the crawl space now.
His heavy breathing and hulking figure pull me back to the real and current danger.
With the little light from my phone, I can see his face well enough to make out the wretched anger in his expression mingled with my handiwork.
Blood cakes half his face, dark and shining, from a gash that cuts across one eye down to his cheek.
I have enough time to catalog the damage, but when he launches himself toward me, I’ve got less than a few seconds to react.
I move to evade, but he snags my ankle in a death-like grip.
He gives a sharp tug, and I slip down the stairs, bashing my head on the edge of one step.
I cry out as the bite of it makes my head splinter with pain.
I hit it hard enough to split my forehead, blood already falling down my temple.
“Get the fuck off of me!” I twist in his grasp, kicking again with my free leg, sinking my heel into his already messed up eye.
He flails, crying out. My ankle now freed, I claw my way up the stairs, desperately gripping both phone and keychain.
I climb until I reach the top of the stairs, tears welling in my eyes from the pain.
My breath hitches as I barrel through the final door, falling to the ground with a hard smack.
“You’re gonna pay for that!” he roars. I pull myself to my aching feet and ignore the twinge in my leg.
“Fat chance! I don’t pay for shit!” I shout back, breathless as I limp to the back of the room.
Victory is so close, I can taste it. But then my foot catches and I crash back down to the floor with a shriek.
Both my phone and the keychain fly out of my hands and slide into the darkness as I try to catch myself.
A sob makes its way from my chest to my throat.
The keychain? Gone. But at least there’s still the glow of the light from my phone lighting a small part of the room.
“Goddammit!” Tears stream down my cheeks. What the hell did I trip on? On hands and knees, I look over my shoulder, a scream bubbling up my throat. I didn’t fall onto something. I fell onto someone.
A body? There’s a fucking body up here! It’s sitting up, propped against the wall, head slumped to its shoulder.
It looks halfway between asleep and dead, as if the wrinkles on its face are from age, not decay.
Cobwebs and dust cover every inch of it, evidence of its time spent up here.
I can’t even imagine how long it’s been up here, and I don’t want to speculate why, especially not when I’m so close to joining it.
“Damn, baby.” My eyes are drawn away from the dead man and back to the door. There’s nothing between us now. Just four walls and a corpse. “I ain’t ever had to chase a bitch this hard before.”
I suck in a deep breath and half-run-half-crawl over the dead body, toward the back of the tower. The scent of mildew and dust is so strong here that it burns my nose. “Dont come any closer.”
“Or you’ll what?” He laughs, stepping over the body in three strides until he’s towering over me. “You’re fucked, baby.”
Seething at his shitty nickname, I snap, “Not half as fucked as you when people realize I’m missing.”
My hands search the ground desperately, connecting with what feels like an iron bar. It’s light with a pointed tip, as if a piece of the gate outside was lost to the attic. I grip it with my left hand and brace myself.
The guy sinks into a squat, dirty fingers grasping my chin.
The light limns the lines of his messed up face, highlighting the cruel and lifeless smile plastered there.
With a sharp tug, he pulls me close enough to taste the liquor on his breath.
“As if someone’s gonna give a shit about some slutty fucking stripper. ”
He’s dead wrong if he thinks I won’t be missed.
Dax, the girls at String Theory, Gran. Hell, even some of my regulars would know something was wrong if I didn’t show up tomorrow.
I white-knuckle the iron bar and grit my teeth.
I won’t be some dead girl they find a week or two later, shacked up with another victim they find inside the church tower.
If I’m going down, then this guy is going with me.
“Not just a slutty fucking stripper, asshole,” I snarl, readying my arm. “I’m the Associate of the fucking Month!”
The shock doesn’t have time to register.
I spit right in his face and swing the iron bar upward.
The pointed tip sinks into the side of his neck, spattering blood across my face and chest. He rocks back on his heels, howling at the pain.
Using my head to separate us, he shoves away and pulls at the bar desperately as I slam against the wall.
Pain blooms at the back of my skull, and a loud ringing goes off in my ears. I’m about to have a wicked headache in the morning, assuming I make it out alive.
“You’re dead, bitch,” he wheezes, pulling the bar free. The wet tear of his skin against the backdrop of this nightmare makes my skin go cold and prickle with goosebumps. With a cursory glance toward the body in the room, he points at it with the bar. “Just like this guy.”
How in the fuck is he still breathing?
The last of my weapons is tossed to the side, hitting the corpse in the chest. He reaches for me and forces me to the floor. My hands come up in fists, desperately beating against his sides. I scream every single swear and obscenity I have ever learned throughout my life with every blow that lands.