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Carlos had no trouble remembering the details of what happened to him as the hellish night continued. This is just the way he remembers it.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0ruMf8H0D8
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Carlos fought like a crazed maniac, trying to free himself from the hidden chamber inside the wall. He kicked, slammed, beat, pushed, and shoved, bruising every bone and muscle in his body. Suddenly realizing something was moving in the darkness behind him, he froze.
"No!" he groaned with a quick breath, realizing that whatever or whoever was in this hidden chamber with him was expelling its breath on his neck, causing the hair at the base of his scalp to stand at rigid attention.
Raging anxiety, like that of a man watching the Grim Reaper appear for his very soul, raced up and down his spine as Carlos quickly turned in the darkness to face his fate, beaming his penlight in front of him.
Before Carlos's eyes stood a half-dead-looking dwarf with decaying, rotting, brown and green teeth. The tiny man was balding, with sunken eyes that glowed a morbid red. He began laughing at Carlos, his voice shrieking through the stale air. The sound of atonal rock music began growing inside the room, becoming so intense that Carlos felt that his eardrums would pop. The floor and walls suddenly began shaking and vibrating from the compelling music that was filling the small chamber and the room filled with a sickening stench.
Carlos moved away from the dwarf, sliding his back against the hidden doorway through which he had entered, and, to his shock, the hidden door instantly swung open, causing him to plummet backward from the chamber and roll out into the hall.
Carlos sprang to his feet, with his fists clenched at his sides, and glared into the black hole, waiting for the dwarf to come after him, but to his amazement, the man was gone, vanished into thin air, just like all the other horrible entities that he'd fallen victim to in the past. Carlos raised his right foot and slammed it into the padded door, forcing it back into the recess of the hall.
He thanked God the little man was gone. He didn't like dwarfs anyway. Once, when he was nine years old, he got in a fight with another kid who stomped his butt. He later learned that the tough boy was a 16-year-old dwarf. Till then, he had no idea little people like this existed.
Carlos cautiously opened the hall door and stepped into the Fiesta Court, and as he did, clawing and screeching sounds came from the ceiling above his head. Then sounds like that of someone raking their fingernails across a blackboard came from behind the liquor room door. He moved into the ballroom and headed towards the stage, ready for his next encounter with the sadistic ghosts from "Hell's Kitchen."
With trepidation gnawing at his gut, Carlos once again ventured behind the stage, his movements cautious and deliberate. He approached the crude hatch that concealed the entrance to the dreaded tunnels, his hand trembling slightly as he reached out to open it. The rusty hinges creak in protest as the hatch swung open, revealing the yawning darkness below. Summoning every ounce of courage he had, Carlos took a deep breath and began to descend. The ladder groaned under his weight as he scaled it, each rung feeling like a step closer to the unknown depths below. With every downward movement, the air grew colder, the silence more oppressive, until finally, his feet touched solid ground and he found himself standing at the threshold of the tunnels, his heart pounding in his chest.
He heard heavy footsteps coming down the rungs of the ladder behind him. He turned and stood motionless, listening, waiting, his eyes staring up at the ladder, but nobody appeared. Even though he didn't see anyone, it was as if someone was standing by the hatch only a few feet above him. Someone pleased with the terror that they had instilled upon him. He wondered how long it'd be before the entity would try to finish him off. After what seemed an eternity, he shrugged his shoulders and moved through the underground passageway toward the exit to the Plastic Room, his eyes ever watchful as he went.
Emerging from the hatchway, Carlos breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped out of the tunnel, the cool air of the Plastic Room washing over him. He climbed out cautiously, his muscles tense with anticipation, and surveyed his surroundings with wary eyes. Just then, the wooden door swung open striking him in the face and knocking him to the ground. Jumping to his feet. his body froze in terror at the sight of the sinister entity standing before him.
It resembled a cartoon wolf, but not the kind you see in children's shows. This creature was twisted into a horrifying parody of a mad scientist. Its fur was matted and singed, stained a sickly yellow with what appeared to be paint. Cracked goggles rested haphazardly on its head, held together by frayed string, while a lab coat several sizes too small hung off its lean frame, torn and splattered with the same unsettling yellow substance. But the oversized axe clutched in its paw is what sent a chill down Carlos's spine. Not even the cartoonish form could hide the bloodstains caking the blade, a stark contrast to the vibrant colors of the resort. As the entity grinned in a maniacal snarl, it revealed rows of pointed teeth dripping with the same yellow substance, its high-pitched voice echoing with disturbing cheerfulness. "I've been expecting you!" it declared in a playful sing-song tone, the jarring contrast with its menacing appearance sending shivers down Carlos's spine.
Carlos tried to run but his feet wouldn't move. He closed his eyes and waited for the razor-sharp blade to embed itself in his skull and spill his brain onto the concrete floor. He knew he was about to die, but for some peculiar reason, he almost welcomed it.
"You're not real!" Carlos shrieked as he raised his hand in front of his face and made the sign of the cross. "In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to be gone!"
As Carlos's words soared into oblivion, some invisible, piercing force passed through his body like an icy dagger, and he instantly opened his eyes only to find himself staring into an empty room. The menacing apparition had vanished.
"Dear God," he whispered aloud in a pleading tone, "please give me the strength to do this!"
Carlos took a deep breath and then moved through the doorway into the Plastic Room, but spun around quickly when laughter rang out from behind him. He gasped for breath when he saw six teenagers, three boys, and three girls, standing there, dressed in black robes and hoods reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan. Their faces were obscured by the shadows cast by their hoods, adding to the chilling aura surrounding them. In their arms, they cradled a squawling human infant, its cries echoing through the air like a lamentation. With each chant of "Hail Satan!" that escaped their lips, the atmosphere grew heavier, thick with malevolent energy.
A hooded figure stepped forward from the group, his presence commanding attention as he brandished a large ornate knife in his hand. Despite the shadows obscuring his face, his stature exuded authority and menace. In a gruff voice that sent chills down Carlos's spine, he addressed him: "Join us, and you can reap the blessings of Almighty Satan."
Carlos didn't need an introduction. He somehow knew the man was Razor, the murderer of Sunflower's boyfriend. Five of the teens gripped the baby tightly as Razor turned around and cut the infant's throat with the large knife. The teens rubbed their hands in the gushing blood and licked it from their fingers as Carlos became sick to his stomach from watching this gruesome ritual.
"Go back to Hell!" Carlos screamed, then slammed the Plastic Room door shut, leaning his back against it, trying to regain his composure as the teenagers continued chanting outside the room.
While leaning harder against the door, sounds like that of a platoon of soldiers marching came from the distant ballroom, followed by a symphony of groans that radiated from the stairway to nowhere. Then a scream came from somewhere in the building, followed by a single gunshot that was followed by yet another terrifying event. The jukebox in the ballroom came on and began playing a Dolly Parton song at slow speed, the sounds of the slurred and slowed singing echoing throughout the entire building.
As Carlos stood there in awe, an eerie squeak came from his left. he turned towards the sound to see the heavy steel door swing open and slam against the wall with such magnitude that it broke away from the rusty hinges and fell to the floor with a thunderous echo. Peering into the brick cubicle, he shuddered at the sight of Vince and his cohort, blood flowing copiously from the slashes on their wrists. He wanted to turn and run, but he couldn't take his eyes off the corpses. He seemed hypnotized as he stood there gazing at the sight before him. The sunken black eyes of Vince, bleeding on the left slowly opened and he stepped aside to make way for another figure.
"Oh, God!" Carlos gasped aloud when he realized the figure was the mutilated corpse of Jacqueline Windsor.
The corpse of Vince, with a macabre sense of humor even in death, quipped, "Looks like Jacqueline got herself into a real 'dead-end' situation, huh?" His ghastly joke hung in the air, a tasteless reminder of the horrors that had befallen the unfortunate victims in the tunnels.
The other corpse opened his devilish eyes and joined with the hellish merrymaking. 'Yup. She found herself in a 'deadly' predicament!" he quipped, his tone macabre and appallingly jovial. His ghastly joke added a chilling layer to the already somber scene.
Lost in a world of terror and disbelief, Carlos pulled the vase and bottle of Holy Water from his pockets with trembling hands. He poured the water into the vase and ran over to the hole in the Plastic Room floor. He emptied the powder from the small envelope into the liquid, stirring it quickly with his finger, then jumped down through the gaping wound in the floor.
He disappeared under the flooring and maneuvered himself toward the pit partly crawling, running. Carlos heard the slamming of a door followed by the sound of scurrying footsteps on the floor above him, then came the sound of feet smacking against the hard concrete floor. Someone had jumped into the tunnel with him. There was no time to lose. He quickly held the vase over the mouth of the pit when all at once a staggering thought shot through his mind. He'd been instructed by the Gypsy woman to pour the Holy Water into the vase while he was over the pit! He hadn't done as he was told!
"Oh, God! I forgot! Help me, Lord! Please let this work!" he cried out in a panic.
Proceeding with the ceremony, he recited the Lord's Prayer as he began pouring the mixture into the mouth of the pit. Suddenly, the vise-like grip of a massive hand on his foot began pulling him away, causing him to drop the vase at the edge of the pit.
"I rebuke you, Satan, and seal you in Hell for all Eternity!" Carlos screamed.
All at once, what sounded like the roar of a train vibrated through the floor above Carlos's head. He found himself suddenly slipping in and out of awareness. Still being pulled from the pit, now by dozens of unseen hands, he felt his body begin to tremble, his heart began pounding and everything started going black. The laughter and wind grew stronger and the floor above the tunnels shook violently as if it would surely cave in on him.
"I blew it! I blew it!" Carlos whimpered with what seemed his last dying breath as the ground slid by underneath him. After all, he had not followed the exact instructions to rid this place of the evil force.
Suddenly, some giant force grabbed up Carlos's body and lifted it into the air spinning the man in a circle at a blinding speed, everything becoming a blur.
"Holy God! Help me!" he cried out as the unseen thing from Hell let loose of its grip, sending Carlos flying through the darkness, his head striking the tunnel wall beneath the Plastic Room floor with such force that he began slipping in and out of consciousness. As he fought to stay alert he saw a large ball of fire shoot up out of the pit, and it instantly reminded him of the mushroom-like explosion of a nuclear bomb. From within the flames, he saw the image of the rabbit-man demon, and it made the hair on the back of his head stand out like a frightened dog as his heart jackhammered inside his chest.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzmDPzacRXd
"Carlos Gutierrez," Satan's voice echoed through the darkness of the tunnels, his tone Shakespearean, chilling, and menacing all at once. "Thou art given a choice: kneel before me and become mine disciple, or be cast into the flames of Hell for eternity!"
Spying a baseball-sized chunk of concrete within his reach, Carlos grabbed in his trembling hand and defiantly threw it toward the Prince of Darkness, but the granite missile missed its mark. Instead, it ricocheted off the ground and hit the top of the vase sitting beside the pit causing it to fall into the pit. I'm going to die, Carlos thought as he stared at the howling Devil and suddenly everything turned black and silent, his body growing limp and numb as he passed into a total state of unconsciousness.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhHVqDXuzEu
