The Pits (Part 7)

He ran around some of the rooms on the first floor. He knew there was a second floor, but he’d already made one stupid decision going into the house in the first place. The startled teen was not about to make another mistake by going upstairs where it would be more difficult to escape. Max found a vent just big enough for him to fit in if he sucked in his gut. And it only had one screw of the four it took to hold the vent secure.

            “Dumb decision number two…” he growled to himself. “What a fucking day.”

            Max pushed the vent’s opening over to the left and up and slid into the duct feet first while holding his breath. Only about two seconds after he had slid the vent back down did the front door open, and a tall older man walked in, dragging something behind him.

            ‘He’s pretty built, for an old guy,’ thought Max as the old man picked up what he was dragging by a different spot. Max could see now that it was a person. One of the cultists. The man walked up to the vent.

            ‘Fuck! He found me!’ Max tried to push himself further back into the duct without making noise but found he couldn’t go any further than where he already was. He couldn’t close his eyes, even though he really wanted to. But the man never opened the vent, like Max was expecting him to, which kind of through him off. ‘What’s he doing?’

            SMACK!

            Max nearly vomited at the sight of what lay before him on the other side of the vent. It was one of the cultists. Except his lower jaw was torn off, leaving his tongue dangling where ever gravity decided it should go. His left arm was missing, and he was wearing a bear trap on his right leg like it was the next big fashion trend. The destroyed body in front of Max wasn’t even dead, yet. That was the worst part—at least for Max. The cultist’s eyes were wide and nearly bulging out of his head, staring Max directly in the eyes. He looked like he was trying to scream but was in so much pain that no sound could leave the gaping hole that was once a mouth.

            The half-dead cultist’s blood was pooling quickly around his head, travelling straight for the vent. When Max was finally able to avoid looking at the train wreck of a body on the other side of the vent, he noticed the blood. It was coming toward him.

            ‘What if it gets in here,’ he asked himself. ‘What if the old man tries to open the vent to clean it up? What. The fuck. Do I DO?’

            Max began to panic more at the thought that the blood would seep into the duct. ‘If it gets on me I might leave a trail when I get o-!’ His frantic thoughts were cut off by a splattering of blood, bone, and brain matter hitting him in the face. Max’s eyes shut automatically when he felt the gore paint parts of his face. He wiped it off with his hand and attempted to wipe it off onto the wall of the duct as he looked back towards the cultist.

            He no longer had a head.

            The old man stomped one of his boots onto the dead man’s head, obliterating it on impact.

            Max blinked several times, the understanding of the situation sinking in slowly. The panic Max felt caused his heart to beat faster than it did when he was running through the woods and he felt a scream clawing its’ way up his throat. But before it could be heard someone else began to scream instead.

            “Where am I?” They asked. “Let me the fuck outta here! Please, please, please! I’ll do whatever ya want! Just please let me go!”

            Max could hear the person sobbing. The voice sounded familiar.

            “Look, dude! My friends are out there, somewhere! I gotta find them! I…I think I lost them, and It’s all my fault! Please, you gotta let me go,” the voice went back to uncontrollable bawling for a while, causing the old man to grunt in annoyance and head towards the stairs.

            ‘It’s Gio! It can’t be anyone else. He’s alive! And now that psycho is probably gonna kill him!’ Max looked through the open door. There was a truck parked with the bed closest to the front door. ‘The tail lights are on! The truck is running!’ Max thought for a second about leaving Gio there and taking the old man’s truck. Part of him felt he was justified. Like Gio left them on purpose. And now, Simon was dead.

            “NO!” Gio yelled. “Please don’t… I don’t wanna die… Jesus, please!”

            Hearing that changed Max’s mind. He’d never seen—well, heard—the big bully he called his friend so scared that he suddenly became religious. And maybe Gio lost them on accident like he kind of said a minute ago.

            Max opened the vent, and pulled himself out, getting covered in more blood and gore in the process. He then stood up and stared out of the door at the truck.

            “Last chance, moron,” he whispered. After a few seconds, he took a step forward, actually planning on getting in the truck and driving away. But he heard something akin to a punch being thrown, and Gio stopped crying for a moment. Max’s heart broke. He sighed, turned towards the stairs he told himself he’d never go up, and began walking as quietly as he could.