Summary:
Few people notice the absence of Victor Lewis, an Urbex that targets one building a month, taking pictures and recording video. Two weeks ago, he targeted an abandoned mall, and told friends of his plans – only they made the connection to his plans and disappearance, and share it on a small local forum. As the rumors spread, more follow after Victor’s footsteps.
Mature | Death; Body mutilation; Body horror;
Everything is silent when I open my eyes.
The smell of roast smoke fills the air, the fire is gone completely and everything is back to darkness. The people aren’t here anymore, I can’t hear them talking or coughing. When I try to push up my arm crumbles and I can barely breathe, holding my chest in the other hand and they are soaked again in blood. I wish there was no more blood – I’m completely sick of it. Slowly the pain goes away and I can put pressure on it without a problem. But my eyes adjust to the shadows with the faint glow coming from the stairway. I’m on bloody cardboard, where my hand pushes away is on a blanket thrown to its side, almost folded over. I face the stairs in the distance so the other beds and fire are behind me. I want to thank them, so I turn.
A girl lays over the fire.
Her stomach is pulled out and her arms bent in ugly broken shapes beneath her. She’s looking at me and swallowing, crying – she’s still alive. Not so far away is another person – he’s missing an arm and his chest is heaving. Two others lie behind a cardboard box, their heads completely smashed – but their mouths are moving, coughing and spitting blood.
They should all be dead, why are they like me, why are they still breathing? The look on the girl’s face, the one laying over the fire pit is staring at me. Her face is twisted in fright, and she twitches when I push away. Struggling to my feet only makes it worse, she is struggling to move her legs, and they are scratched up behind the knees.
I wish I could throw up.
Blood just drips from my nose and mouth, my throat refuses to work and I hold it. It’s cut in the center and I feel blood bubbles bursting against my hand. I probe deeper, this can’t be here, why am I still able to breathe?
Fingers wiggle in my throat and I gag, pulling them out quicker doesn’t make it any better and I double over holding it, cradling it. Oh god, why have I done. These people don’t deserve this, they were going to help me. They didn’t need to die.
I can only move away from the camp against the wall, leaning against it as I still frantically try to breathe, the bubbles rupturing within my chest, outside the slit in my throat, within my own mouth that I spit the blood out again, more blood on the walls. I should’ve run out of blood a long time ago, why is there still blood coming from me? I can only crawl against the walls, listening to the awful silence and the echoes of my own movement. I don’t remember time, I just move.
One step, coughing, spitting, rolling along the wall, take the second step, and my stomach twists into a knot. It never ends, only once did I come across a corner. This place is too big, I’ll never get out of here. Light comes through to the stairs after what feels like several hours, bleeding soft blue light into the darkness. I long ago stopped caring for those stairs, but I look to them. Soft light spilt into the darkness, flashlights stared down them and bounced as they grew.
More people, maybe they can help, maybe they can finally kill me. I hope for the later.
I only watch as they speak amongst each other, the beams of lights flash from the floor to another person. They found my trail of blood, thank god.
One of them holds up a thick object, holding with both his hands, bumping one of them forward with the butt of it. They are talking about something, that’s all I can tell for sure through the constant loud ‘sssh’s that break their footsteps. They are slow to follow, taking each new step with whatever care they decided to take. One eventually follows the trail at his own pace and runs ahead. They get to the homeless person camp and they only stand around. One of them makes a gesture to the girl still where the fire once sat, and another walks up to her and kneels down. Of course he’s surprised, that she is still breathing, and is probably asking him for help – but he only shoots her in the head and they wait in silence – and they move back when she moves her head into the floor.
They are quick now, following the blood leading against the walls and each stumble blood pile. One of them, the one that shot the girl, finds me first. “It’s over here guys!” The others run up, the one with the shotgun aiming it hard at me, another with a flashlight “What the fuck did you do to those people, you fucking monster.” I don’t shield my eyes.
“I-I didn’t…” I whisper before I hack up more bubbles of blood, even more leaking down my throat. The five of them still stand there, look at each other and pull their guns.
“Tell us. Now, you sick son of a bitch,” the leader shouts and shakes his pistol, “or I swear to god I will blow your brains out.
“I didn’t,” I whisper again, “haven’t,” that’s all I can manage before I collapse again and heave, spiting blood onto the concrete. The leader steps closer, the buckles of his pants snapping together.
“Fucking tell us or I will blow your sick ass brains out, I swear to god, if you ate any of them, I will kill your family too.” He has the gun against my head, his finger on the trigger.
“D…do,” I barely breathe out before I cough out bubbles of blood again.
“Do? You sick fucker,” he pulls the trigger.
I feel my head burst open, the bullet twisting through my skull, hitting the concrete behind me. I heard the shot ring out the first time and echo in the darkness and through the bones of the other four. But I still stare at them, they stare at me, and blood pours like a fountain down my jaw and neck.
The others start shooting too. They shred me.
Chunks are torn away from bones, bones that shatter a little more with each contact, each contact breaking holes into organs. I feel every bullet that passes through me, every one that strikes the concrete and casts concrete up into the bloody holes, every bullet that is within my head, my chest, my arms, and legs.
The boy who holds the shotgun in both hands, hardly able to control each shot, we made eye contact over and over. Each blast tore through my face, tore my eyes into ribbons and I felt their liquid fall with the blood and fly with every strike.
I heard the crackling of my bones and the sharp stab when they broke apart in my head, the crackle of gunfire shattering my eardrums and ringing through the garage – even the boys were affected by the barrage of sound. They stop when it’s too much for them, or when they are out of rounds.
By then I’m lying on the floor, still choking, blood bubbling through the holes in my head, the cuts among my neck, and the groves hollowing out my chest. A complete mess of bones, bile, blood, and flesh. They stood looking at each other, trying to speak but motioning to each other to hold on, slapping at their eats and shaking their heads.
Why aren’t I dead yet.
“Did that do it?” yells the leader, tugging his shirt back and stuffing his gun within the band of his pants. “Think its fucking dead now, Chip?” The kid from before, one of two that witness my first death, he was the one holding the shotgun. He could only stare at the sockets my eyes reshaped in, his face shaded in the shadows a ghost white.
“I’m,” he swallows, handing the shotgun over to another of them. “I’m not sure, Ko, he’s staring at me.” Damn fucking right, you where there when I first died. Why did you run.
“Are you fucking – alright, I’ll shoot them again,” He steps forward and pops one, and then the other. “Fucking there, now do you think he is fucking dead yet?” No, I can still hear you douche bag.
“No, last time he just got back up and started pleading for help.”
“How in the fuck did that happen, dick cheese,” a gun clicks somewhere.
“I don’t fucking know! He got shot, crawled a bit, then rolled over and died.”
“Well was anyone with you?” Fucker named K shot me.
“No, I fucking told you that,” its Chip, his voice is squeaking.
“Detroit,” the leader.
“Chip, I saw you and K running the fuck outta here earlier,” the third person, a deep voice. Why won’t they go away.
“And somehow, K ends up moving away two months early than expected.” The leader.
“He was watching from outside! The fucking dude probably waltz the fuck in there before me,” the squeaking voice of chip. Someone is taking steps. Just fucking shoot me again.
“Chip, come the fuck on, do you expect me to fucking believe you when we know you fight your way out of a fucking paper goddamn bag,” the leader is walking, his shoes at my head, I hear the blood splashing. “If you get rid of this fucking thing,” a foot stomps against my face and pushes down hard. “Then you are free to fucking go and keep on your dick sucking life.” I’m so tired of all the pain
“Hold on a second,” Chip, “when the fuck did I start sucking dick, because I would’ve remembered it.” Please just let it end.
“You fucking sold ZD out as a fucking dealer! Now were the fuck am I going to get my shit, dickbag?” The leader steps off my head. “Fuck it, Detroit,” the leader snaps his fingers, another gunshot and a body falls flat. He’s lucky. “That’s fucking better. Now,” he stomps on blood, “what the fuck are we going to do with this bag of shit?” He kicks what is left of my legs.
“How about we burn it?” I wish I were dead.
I don’t want to open my eyes.
There is blood dripping down, I am either sitting or lying on something. I can still feel the hole in my chest, the twisted ankle, the fractured arm, the bullets lodged everywhere in me. They are waiting, just waiting for me to rise again and walk.
When I open my eyes, they are.
They’re all on the floor in pieces save for the one with a hole in the back of his head. Four of them, like the others, are still breathing, and they are staring at me, just like what the girl had did earlier, watching me, fearing me, wishing themselves to be dead.
Again, through the pain that would easily kill anyone else, I rise again and stumble, limp past the bodies. One lies in two halves, his legs laying across his face. Another is doubled over, backwards, his arms broken. A third lies staring up, away from the cuts breaking his chest open. The fourth is nearly split, legs folded across his chest. They are struggling to breathe, blood spilling infinitely from their bodies, blood bubbling up their throats, vomit covering their mouths and the area around them.
Just like me.
So very much like me.
The only one spared is the boy with a bullet in his head, crumpled on the floor and blood already drying on his shirt and back. I have an urge, that it should be him not me, he didn’t help me. But, whatever the fuck I am, no one deserves it, no one else should die. And I keep walking along the walls, vomiting bullets and spitting blood while wounds never stop spilling. The bloody path of each step deepens with every small step I make. I want to die.
Chamber of nectar 