I wrote this a couple of years ago for a project. A friend of mine published a series of flash fiction for Halloween. Sadly, it was the last piece I wrote for such a purpose, but I loved the story, based on a dream I'd had long ago. With Halloween being right around the corner, I decided to dust it off and share it again.
Kaleidoscopic Hell
Jesse V Coffey
That’s the last time I
hit a frat party at Daemonium Biblical College.
Did you know that the
night before Halloween is referred to as Devil’s Night? The real night
of Trick or Treat. And the night that every frat and sorority on campus decided
to get wild. My best friend wanted to go. Her boyfriend was in the PolyOmega
fraternity. I figured, sure. We can keep each other pure, fight off the horny
frat boys. So, I went with her, carrying my can of pepper spray in my pocket. I
was damned if I was going to carry my purse with me. I stuck my dorm key in my
sock and brought nothing more than my school ID and my driver’s license, that I
stuck in my back pocket.
See, I was still a
virgin in those days. I know, I know. It’s old fashioned to want to save
yourself for marriage, but the truth was, with all the diseases flying around,
pregnancy was just a small part of it. I didn’t expect any of these guys to
have condoms and I wasn’t in the mood for it with anyone I didn’t know. It just
seemed safer. You know?
I saw it as soon as we
walked in the door. Halloween. I should have known that this was going to get
crazy. An upside down pentacle on the floor. The frat boys were all dressed in
black.
“Great. A bunch of
Satanist wannabes.” I grabbed her sleeve. “This is not a good idea. We need to beat feet.”
“Come on, Jamie,” she
said. “It’s just a party. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Bullshit, I thought.
But she drove. And I didn’t feel like walking the mile to the sorority dorms.
But I had my hand in my pocket, hanging on to the pepper spray. Come near me and you’re gonna get the
surprise of your life, dirt bag.
I was given a cup of
what tasted like hot cocoa with peppermint schnapps in it. Oh, I love that
stuff. I could drink my weight in it. The boys started their party—if you wanna
call it that. And that feeling of needing to run just kept getting stronger and
stronger. But that drink was getting to me. My spidey sense said go, but my
feet said, up yours. I wasn’t moving. They started chanting in deep voices,
saying shit that I had no idea what it was they were saying.
Lainie left me at that
point, to walk through the crowd and I told myself, Jamie, this ain’t no party
and it damn sure ain’t no disco. There will be absolutely no fooling around. I
swallowed the rest of the drink as she was escorted to a sort of a table and
after they stripped her bare, they laid her on it. And, if a bunch of sick
jerks have anything like love in ‘em, they lovingly laid her on it.
The world started to
spin a little. And I hear this voice in the back of my head. A voice that
sounded like it had seen way too many cigarettes, because it was raspy and
really deep. My eyes darted around, trying to find who was talking, but none of
them were facing me.
“She’s not a virgin.
She is unacceptable. You promised me a virgin.”
My body was going numb,
my skin tingling as it did. The chanting faded slowly, slowly disappearing into
what little light there was in this room and that was fading too. Did I imagine
being lifted? I don’t know because the darkness was invading my sight until all
I knew was black. I felt nothing. Saw nothing. Heard nothing. What the…what is going on?
The drink had to be
spiked but with what?
Am I dying? Why can’t I see? WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?
Then it began.
My senses were
assaulted by colors and smells. The scent of rot and syrupy flesh. Rotted
fruit, that’s what it smelled like. And underneath that, if death had a smell,
it was meat that had spoiled after being out in the sun for too long. That
disgusting, cloying smell of maple syrup and maggots and trash and puke. I
wanted to puke. And I hate to puke. But I wanted to. And I wanted to stop
breathing. If I stopped breathing, then the smell wouldn’t go up my nose or in
my mouth.
The colors; oh my God,
the colors. I had an uncle that grew up in the sixties that told me about his
first LSD trip. The closest I ever came was a peyote button, but I totally got
it. This was exactly like that. My head filled with colors, changing shapes and
sizes. A constant and ever present kaleidoscope of reds and yellows and oranges
and greens and blues. I was wrapped in a blanket of colors. It wasn’t just that
flood, it was the sense of heat from the reds and oranges. The freezing from
the blues and greens.
“What? After I chose
to honor you?”
I could hear screaming
now. The feeling was slowly coming back into my body and that heat in my belly
was painful. And icy cold. The screaming was louder and louder. I was fighting,
trying to move. If I could feel, I had to be able to move. I must be able to
move. I needed to move!
I heard my own voice
now. “Honor? What do you mean honor? Let me go. Get out of my head and let me
go. What are you doing to me? Who are you?”
“You’ll see, my pet.
It’s getting quite fun out here. I suppose I could give you a taste of the
delights.”
More screaming. Male.
Female. The sound of things hitting the wall. Bodies flying into furniture and
floor. Angry screaming. Frightened screaming. And always with the colors like a
nonstop stream of vomit over me, around me, through me. The pain was intense.
Still intense. I felt it flying up my throat and out my mouth. The place
between my thighs was throbbing with its own pain, deep inside my womb.
I felt buffeted around,
browns and blacks battering my hips and belly. My legs and ribs. I couldn’t
find my arms, so I couldn’t fend off the blows. More screaming. An angry voice
was filtering through. Whoever it was, was severely pissed off. I stopped
struggling, not wanting to see who the cursing person was. I didn’t want to be
anywhere near whoever that was. Growling. Fury.
“Fun, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what
you’re talking about.”
“No. But I’ll show
you. And I always say, let my will be done.”
Slowly the pain abated.
Slowly the colors faded down from the bright attack, dulling down to the black
again. And then, the darkness faded back, light returning to the room. My
vision returning from the cloud. I was still in the room, but I was the one
lying on the altar.
My clothing had been
ripped to shreds. My panties were shredded and on the floor in front of the
altar. God, my pussy felt raw and throbbed inside and out. I felt a wetness
between my legs and reached down to feel my thighs were wet. My fingers came
away from my crotch, red with blood. My blood. My head hurt so bad that
I wanted to close my eyes; it felt like a railroad spike was being driven into
my third eye. My body had been abused, sexually and physically. Hot tears
gathered at the outside corners of my eyes.
But the best—if I can
be permitted a bit of irony—was yet to come.
I managed to sit up,
cradling my poor womb as I dragged myself into a sitting position. Was I alone?
Depends on how you define the term. See, there were bodies everywhere. They’d
been ripped, beaten, stabbed. Every frat boy, every girlfriend and piece of
ass. Slung to the far corners of the room, hanging over pieces of furniture or
dotting the floor like so many meat throw rugs.
“My dear. I must
make sure never to make you angry.”
I looked around. “Where
are you?”
“Everywhere.
Nowhere. Within you. Without you. And you will now worship me. I own you.”
“No. No, you don’t.” I
surveyed the room again. “What happened? How did this happen? Who did this?”
“You did, my dear.
When they sacrificed your virginity—I should say, I was the one who took
it. And it was sweet. But you took it out on these little bastards. I accept
your gift, my love”
He was tall, with skin
like black leather. Cloven hooves. Bull like horns protruding from his head. It
looked like a sick Halloween costume. Until he got closer and I realized how
real it all was.
“Oh God,” I whispered.
I was hurting really bad. Mostly in spots, but all over, really.
“Mmm. Well, not
really. Not even remotely close. But, I have my purposes.”
“Where’s my friend?”
She was in the corner
wailing. As
painful as it was to get down off the altar, I managed to walk until I was next
to her. “Lainie!”
She was also covered in
blood, only her eyes somewhat pristine. And they were wide open in terror. She
screamed and cringed away from me.
“Shh. It’s okay. It’s
over. There were drugs in that cocoa, honey. I’m me again. It’s okay.”
She let me hold her and
I helped us both stand. We made our way to the door, grabbing her purse and
keys off the floor. We made it back to her car and I drove us home to the dorm.
We got inside and scrubbed that damn blood off. And never spoke of it again.
I was in a lot of pain
for a week after. Took a lot of Aleve and Advil to dull it down, but never
knock it back. I took that week off from classes and decided it was time well
spent. I also got prescribed the morning after pill. I was not going to
have a baby by anyone.
The police were called
into the frat house the next morning. Yeah, sure, they investigated. But there
wasn’t anything in terms of evidence. No witnesses either. So, after a couple
of months, it was forgotten.
As for the…demon?
Devil? I never saw him again either. And I never want to. I’ve got enough shit
going on in my life.
Jesse V Coffey is the author of The Savior and An Opportunity for Resentment. She also writes as Jess Austen with the #RomanticThriller series, the Her Super Spy trilogy, and as Siobhan MacKenzie with #LGBTQ #EroticRomances, the His Man... series of novellas. All available for purchase through Amazon or free reading through Amazon's Kindle Unlimited.
