Nonchalantly tossing the gun over her shoulder she slowly sauntered over to Jill. Staring at Jim she slowly began spilling the contents of the can around Jill’s feet. The smell of gasoline slowly reached his nose making him sneeze. This just added more agony to his already tortured body. He was clear headed enough to wonder how the whole house wasn’t an inferno by now. Between the two of them rolling around a little while ago to the gasoline it was a wonder they weren’t toast by now.
Squinting he saw the interior actually did look a little darker than he remembered. He assumed the darkness was a result of his head injuries but that apparently wasn’t the case. Adjusting his head he saw most of the candles that had been lit the last time he’d seen them were now scattered, smoking as they died. Maria must’ve taken advantage of the time he’d been unconscious to extinguish most of them so she could draw out her little plan as long as possible.
In his mind he still struggled to regain enough of his senses to mount some kind of resistance; he couldn’t let it end this way, but his body wouldn’t obey him either. He was still having a lot of trouble breathing and his arm was still dead. His hands and knees were the farthest he’d been able to make it since his pummeling had begun. He didn’t know what to do. If there were ever any option he hadn’t seen them. Now all he had to pin his hopes on was a creature that didn’t exist. Oh yeah, said creature wanted to kill him so there went that idea.
Through a haze of pain he watched Maria as she danced around the room dumping gas here and there like it was water instead of a flammable liquid. While most of the candles were out he knew some were still burning otherwise they wouldn’t be able to see. It wouldn’t take much for a small flame to become a big one. Especially in an old place like this. It would go up like it was made of paper.
She made it most of the way around the room when she suddenly stopped and tossed the can to the ground. Bending over she shifted some boards and papers out of her way, let out a small squeal of delight and stood up.
“Looky what I’ve found Jimmy!” she shrieked happily.
Shit, Jim thought, she found the damn axe. Why couldn’t Pete have made himself useful and grabbed the damn thing before he left. At least then he would have been of some help instead of running around spouting stuff about the Goatman. He really did sound like some kind of freak when he did crap like that.
“So, which one of you do you think I should kill first?” Maria asked no one in particular. “Maybe I should do the Eany, Meany, Miney, Moe thing. That always works in the movies. Then again I could do the Rock, Paper, Scissors stuff but that’s no fun alone.”
She stood thoughtfully for a minute.
“Oh! I know! We can draw straws!” she said jumping up and down. “Wait a minute. Jilly isn’t awake enough for that. This is really a lot more difficult than I thought it was going to be.” She stood undecided for a moment before shrugging her shoulders and walking towards Jim.
“Well,” she began sounding somewhat sad, “since Jill won’t be awake for a while I suppose you and I will just have to have our fun first. Nothing that will kill you or anything like that. We have to wait until I kill Jill for that. Who knows, maybe if we’re lucky your yelling and screaming will help wake her up, then I can have some fun with her while you watch. You have to watch you know.” Pausing again with a finger to her lips, “No, I think we’ll just make sure you’re in a lot of pain first. The fun stuff will come later.” She took a step closer fingering the blade of the axe, “Let’s see, where should we…” she was abruptly cut off as a tremor shook the floor. Jim could almost swear he heard a ringing sound accompany it but he guessed that was probably just from his injuries.
Dust sifted down from settling around them in a cloud. Jim could hear groans of protest sounding from the upper floor of the house. Maybe someone was looking down on him. If he was lucky the house might come crashing down around them. If he was really lucky it would just fall on Maria, killing her allowing him and Jill to make their escape.
“What the hell was that?” Maria yelped.
Almost as if it had been waiting for some signal the tremor rocked the house again. Pieces of plaster fell from the walls this time. Jim’s hopes rose as he thought about something falling on Maria. He also heard the ringing sound again. It sounded vaguely familiar but he couldn’t remember from where
Maria looked unsure of what to do. Obviously what was happening wasn’t part of her grand plan. She looked around the room like a deer caught in headlights. Her eyes were wide and darting all over the place trying to find the source of the miniature quakes. He’d actually like to know himself.
Glancing at the front entrance to see if maybe Pete was there causing this he saw nothing. He briefly entertained the possibility that Pete might’ve been able to reach someone and they come to the rescue like the proverbial cavalry. Apparently that wasn’t the case. There was some other explanation for what was going on. He just didn’t think he would be around to find out what it was. His vision was blurring quite a bit around the edges. If it wasn’t for the situation it might’ve been kinda interesting but as it was it was just a bad sign of things to come. Looking at Maria he could barely make her out. Between the drifting dirt and dust and his failing eyes she looked more like a ghost than an actual human being.
Jim knew the combination of all his injuries were finally taking there toll on his mind. His body was telling him it was time to shut down for a while and relax. But he couldn’t. There was still a crazy woman with an axe he had to find some way to deal with so he willed his addled mind back to the brink of consciousness. He probably wouldn’t be able to talk her out of killing them but he could try. At the very least he would face his death awake just like his friends had.
“Come on,” he croaked, “this place is getting ready to fall down around our ears. Let’s go. We won’t tell anyone what happened. We’ll all just go our own ways.”
“You won’t tell anyone?” she repeated. “What do you think I am? My name isn’t Johnny. I’m not some puppy dog following someone around so close that if they stopped his head would go up their butt. Give me a little more credit than that.”
“You’re right,” he said gritting his teeth, “obviously something isn’t going according to your plan. Maybe you should just get out of here and leave us. That would work wouldn’t it? Nobody would find us for days. We might even be dead by then.” He couldn’t believe he was saying crap like this but he didn’t really have any choice. A bum arm and a rattled head weren’t the best things to have when trying to negotiate for your life. He was about to say more when the house suddenly shook again worse than either of the previous two times. Things fell from the roof, boards splintered in the walls, a crash sounded from another room then everything stopped. Nothing broke the silence but the echo of the metal on metal sound he kept hearing. It still sounded familiar to him. Almost like something from a dream he’d once had but he couldn’t remember what it was about.
“Well,” Maria said totally forgetting anything Jim might have said, “I don’t have the slightest idea what that was,” then to Jim, “but where were we?” She acted as if she were trying to remember. “Oh yeah, that’s right you were begging for your life like a little girl and I was ignoring you and getting ready to start cutting off little pieces of your body.” She sound really excited about this. “Let’s just make sure this is sharp,” she said as she reached up and plucked some hair from her head. Jim watched the dust cloud out from her head like a man on death row watched his lethal injection be plunged into his