WARNING: This story contains scenes of a graphic nature and is not intended for everyone.

Brian Grisham

Victor Remore watched in horror as the mangled corpse crawled toward the kitchen. He moved away from the center of the living room to the fireplace, keeping his eye on what used to be his grandmother. Tears formed in his eyes as his grandmother’s blood dripped from his hands. Was she really dead? He didn’t know, but he did know that the thing crawling on the floor was not his grandmother. The creature now looked like a bag of slop, flesh and broken bones. Victor gave a shrill cry and laughed softly to himself. His grandmother had tried to strangle him with her black-laced stockings. Then she drove the mallet to his head and again in his face, breaking his nose. Victor couldn’t believe what was happening. His own grandmother was trying to kill him.

Victor eyed her with fright and confusion as he slowly grabbed the fireplace poker. The corpse crawled closer to the doorway as it dug its fingernails into the carpet and pulled itself across the room inches at a time. She was dead... wasn’t she? Perhaps his grandmother was dead, but this thing wasn’t. Victor crept across the sunlit room with the poker in hand. The thing made a squishy, belching sound as it vomited up bloody tissue.

"You have to kill it," said the dead woman beside him. "Kill it."

Victor turned and looked into the dead woman’s empty, dark sockets. They were inflamed with some sort of black disease. The dead woman snarled and pointed toward the corpse. Victor turned and saw that it had moved halfway across the kitchen floor. He drew in a quick breath and followed it.

"Kill it, Victor. Kill it!" The dead woman bellowed.

The corpse turned over on its back and rolled up its lips, revealing its bloody teeth. Its eyes were sunken into its head and its face was barely recognizable. Victor’s blue eyes widened as he raised the poker above his head then hesitated as soon as he saw what was left of the face- his grandmother’s face. He blinked as he saw that half of her tongue had been chewed off. The mess that used to be his grandmother’s hand raised in the air and smacked against his ankle. Blood and flesh spattered onto the floor.

The dead woman stood beside him again. Her skin was blue. The sheet wrapped around her was white. Slowly, she grabbed the fireplace poker then ran her black, rotted tongue along the tip. Her tongue retreated between her dark, swollen lips and she made a soft, sensual sound which made Victor’s dark hair stand on end.

The thing on the floor gurgled in pain. It was drowning in its own blood. Victor took control of the poker and, with his mind cleared of all thoughts, he struck the poker down on the corpse. The corpse made a hideous screech. It sounded as if two run-away trains collided with each other. Again and again he struck it across the head until its brains spilled across the kitchen linoleum. Then he stopped.

"It is dead," whispered the dead woman.

"How do we know?" Victor finally asked.

"Because she’s all over your kitchen floor," she said then gave a faint smile.

"But why? Why my grandmother?"

The dead girl looked at him and said, "Because she was alive. There’s no other reason but that."

Victor dropped the poker on the mangled body and replied, "Tell me how, then. How did this happen? How did that... thing get inside of her?"

"It wasn’t just inside her, Victor. It ate her soul. It ate the very sense of the person that was her- what the Tam Talimam gives us all."

"Souls?" He asked.

"Your life force," she replied.

Victor thought for a moment then looked back up at her and asked, "Do you have a soul?"

The dead woman smiled faintly, turned away and left the kitchen without an answer. Victor ran his bloody fingers through his beard, then he turned and followed the dead woman back to the garage where he had first met her. As soon as he did so, he spun away in disgust as the shroud she was clothed in dropped below her back, revealing a black, rotted spine. Thick, red sores had broken out all along the area. Victor closed his eyes and waited until the dead woman left the room. When he heard the garage door shut he took a moment to gather his senses. He entered the garage and found the dead woman by the tool shelves. She was holding a chainsaw.

"You’ll need this," she muttered.

"For?"

"You need to dispose of the body, yes?" She looked at the chainsaw then back at Victor. "Here, take it."

Victor eyed the chainsaw. He felt a sudden panic in his heart. Carefully, he stepped to the other side of the rusted Ford- a car his wife had bought him on his twenty-sixth birthday, ten years ago. He ran a finger across the fender as he neared the dead woman with the chainsaw. The chainsaw was rusted orange and its teeth were black and silver. For an instant he wanted to use the chainsaw on himself. It would certainly end his problems, after all he just murdered his grandmother who was possessed by... what? A creature? A monster?

He remembered just twenty minutes ago finding the dead woman waiting for him in the garage as he pulled in. She told him his grandmother was dead and he needed to kill whatever it was that was inside her. Odd that he hadn’t bothered to question her, nor the fact that he was talking to a dead woman. Her body was wet. She told him she had drowned not too long ago and that she had come to warn him. He gave her a sheet to cover her body- the dead woman was blue and soaked as a sponge. Her eyes were black and they seemed to crawl inside her skull as she talked to him.

She was dead... the woman was dead.

"She’s dead Victor. You need to dispose of the body," the dead woman whispered.

Small rays of sunlight beamed in through the garage-door window and sliced across the dead woman’s face. Her body was still and her eyes were crusted. Victor held out his hand and let his finger tips caress the chainsaw handle. It was smooth and cold to the touch, and he imagined that was how the dead woman felt like.

With one quick motion, Victor grabbed the chainsaw with both hands and left the garage. The rest of the house was dark but the kitchen was lit with the afternoon sun. He looked out the window briefly then peered down at his grandmother... except she was gone. He turned around. Trails of blood and brains swept across the linoleum and disappeared as he neared the carpet.

"Damn it!" He whispered to himself. "Fuck, damn it, fuck!"

Victor ran down the hall, past the garage door and into one of the bedrooms. She wasn’t there. He rushed into the bathroom. Still nothing. Then, he turned and found blood smeared on the bedroom door across the hall. He smiled fiercely... his eyes infuriatingly blue. He whirled into the room and again he found nothing. Frantically, he searched the room, and he felt as if he had lost all hope until he remembered the bed. He turned toward it and smiled.

"Ah- ha!" He shouted then tore the mattress off the bed frame.

A screaming, gurgling sound emanated from underneath. Victor moved the bed-frame out, then flipped the box spring over. There she was, flat against the blood-soaked carpet with her mouth stretched open and her mutilated tongue thrashing from side to side. Victor started the chainsaw and watched the teeth race along their track. He let out a grin.

The broken corpse tried to back away.

"Not this time!" Victor shouted. "You’re not getting away from me again!"

At that instant, he brought the chainsaw down on the corpse, severing its leg at the knee-cap. Blood shot out everywhere. The corpse let out a high-pitched shriek that stabbed into Victor’s ears. His grin was gone. All emotion was absent from his face.

Covered in blood, the chain saw growled intensely as if it wanted him to attack, wanted him to kill. Victor brought the chainsaw closer and closer to the thing’s neck. The teeth sank through the flesh like butter, shredding skin, bone and flesh. Blood splashed all over the walls and his expressionless face. As he finished severing his grandmother’s head, he could faintly smell the toxic aroma of burning bone. It filled his nostrils with sickening pleasure. At last, the thing was no longer moving. It was finally dead.

Victor stood up and dropped the chainsaw, realizing what he had just done. He eyed the bloody mess: The walls, the bed, the carpet and himself. His grandmother- he just killed his grandmother. Victor backed out of the room as horror washed over his face. How could he have done this? He shook his head, disbelieving what was before him then dropped to his knees and stared blankly at the mess.

He didn’t move for the rest of the day. The living-room clock chimed eleven when he woke from his daze. Just for a second, he forgot everything that had happened, but his memories flooded back into his head, releasing not water but horrific thoughts of his dead grandmother, his grandmother eating the cat, the dead woman and the chainsaw. He lay his face in his hands and began to cry. As the first tears hit his hands he felt, or what seemed like, a sharp sound go off deep within his brain as if a rubber band finally snapped in half from all the given tension.

An hour later, he cleaned up all that he could and disposed of the corpse. He worked all night scrubbing the blood stains off as much as possible. He couldn’t remove the blood from the carpet so he removed the carpet from the room. He cut it into smaller sections and stuffed them into trash-bags along with the sheets. It was four-thirty in the morning when he decided that there was nothing else left to do. Tomorrow night he planned to paint the walls, take the bed down to the dump with the rest of the given evidence and get the hell out of town.

Victor went into the bathroom and sighed. He looked at himself in the mirror. He was a wreck. He decided to clean up before getting some sleep, although he didn’t know if he actually could. Then again, a hot shower would do him some good. He took off his shirt, then remembered the dead woman. Was she real?

"Of course she’s real," he said out loud to himself. But was she really?

Victor didn’t know anymore. His memories were jumbled up and washed together. He was so tired, so very tired. All he wanted was a relaxing night after work. He had the entire house to himself. His wife and daughter were away for the weekend at an art show in St. Louis where his wife’s work was being exhibited and auctioned off to a number of wealthy collectors. Victor thought his wife’s paintings and sculptures were a little bit macabre; dark, twisted and gothic as they may be. Nonetheless, he was glad to see that she fulfilled her life’s dreams. ‘At least some one did’, he thought. He was still an accountant, and a rather bad one at that. Victor looked down at his hands. Now he was a murderer. Undead monster or no undead monster, he was still a murderer in the eyes of the law.

But was the woman real?

Victor couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night. He lay awake until morning in fetal position beside the garbage bags that held his grandmother’s parts. He felt broken inside his mind as if something had finally given way, and now all he could see was his grandmother’s body dead on the kitchen floor.

Then, from within the garbage bags he heard a voice whisper, "You killed me, Victor. You killed me."

Victor opened his mouth but he couldn’t speak. He put his fist in his mouth, wishing this would all go away. Death seemed to swirl around his soul, and right then his grandmother was death. She wanted him dead. She wanted to kill him, eat him and eat his soul just as the dead woman warned him.

"No, this can’t be happening! There is no dead woman! My grandmother’s not here! None of this is real," he cried to himself.

"Oh, but this is real. So very real, Victor. YOU KILLED ME!" His grandmother roared, then jumped up from the garbage bags and grabbed his throat.

Blood and spittle flew from his lips as he tried desperately to call out for help. He looked up at his grandmother’s face and was shocked to realize it was a face of a man; a bald-headed man with thick, black-framed glasses.

The man drew closer and growled, "You’re mine."

Victor tried to scream but it was garbled by the hands tightening around his neck. He cried in pain and agony, trying desperately to reach for one last breath. Then suddenly the man vanished altogether. From the other end of the house the front door burst open and voices called out for him.

Victor screamed out loud. The police officers rushed through every room, looking for him, and within seconds he was surrounded by police officers with their guns aimed at his head.

"Christ, sir. I think I’m going to vomit!" said a young cop as he hurried out of the bedroom with his hand held over his mouth.

The police officers could only stare at Victor as he lay there on his knees, with his own hands around his neck.

After Victor was cuffed and reminded of his Miranda rights, he tried to explain to the detectives what really happened: about his grandmother, the dead girl and the man who tried to choke him just before they arrived. But, Victor was immediately shackled by his wrists and ankles then carried out of the house and secured in the back of a police van.

After a twenty-four hour stay at Emergency Care Hospital, Victor was brought down to the police station, where he sat alone at a table in an empty room with an obvious two-way mirror taking up the side of the wall. From afar, he, heard the slashing and tapping of type writers and the on-going voices of busy people working on their cases. He could smell tobacco in the air with a faint sent of urine. He waited for over an hour before two detectives arrived. The detectives moved across the room like robots being controlled by some master computer. They both sat down and stared at Victor with glazed eyes. The man who sat directly across from Victor had a gray mustache and thinning, brown hair and his face reminded him of a squashed cantaloupe. The detective beside him had receding, light blonde hair and thin spectacles.

At last, the detective with the mustache spoke, "Mr. Daniels, I’m Lieutenant Crawford and this is Lieutenant Weir. We found you in the bedroom with your hands around your throat and covered in your grandmother’s blood. Care to explain?"

"Mr. Daniels," interrupted Lieutenant Weir. "I wish to inform you that you have the right to have an attorney present if you wish not to speak at this moment."

Victor stared at both men for a long time before answering. "My grandmother attacked me. I had no choice."

"No choice?" asked Lieutenant Crawford. "You dismembered her with a chainsaw."

"You don’t understand. She wouldn’t die. Even when I dismembered her, she still came back and tried to kill me. Look, I know how crazy this sounds."

Lieutenant Crawford spoke, "So, how did your grandmother attack you? What exactly did she do?"

"She tried to strangle me, then it wasn‘t her anymore but someone else," replied Victor.

"Ah, okay. And who would that be?" asked Lieutenant Crawford as he pointed at Victor’s bruised neck.

"I- I don‘t know," Victor replied sourly.

"Now, I’m going to ask you again. Why did you dismember your grandmother when she was already dead?"

"Look," said Victor, "She wasn’t dead. The dead woman said I had to do it or it would have killed me, and I, too, would have been like it. The same living dead-like creature."

"Dead woman," muttered Lieutenant Weir.

"What dead woman?" asked Lieutenant Crawford.

"The dead woman who drowned in West Point Lake the other day. She died just a few hours before I got home," said Victor.

"How do you know this?" asked Lieutenant Crawford.

"She told me," Victor answered.

Lieutenant Crawford raised an eyebrow. "I see," he uttered. Both men looked at each other then Lieutenant Crawford spoke again, "Okay, get up. We’re going to hold you for a while longer."

"Why for? I told you, I killed my grandmother in self defense."

"I know, but we’re having a hard time understanding why," said Lieutenant Weir.

"She was dead, damn it! She was dead before I even got home."

"Uh huh..." Lieutenant Weir commented.

"I’m telling the truth! She was a zombie... she attacked me first!"

"Look, we’re going to contain you for a while longer until we get this straightened out, but for right now, things are looking very bleak for you. You killed your grandmother, first of all, and second you described to us a scene we just found five hours ago of a girl who drowned in a lake. Right now, it’s declared an accident but forensic experts have reason to believe that there may have been foul play involved. Now, you know the place and time the incident occurred," Lieutenant Crawford explained.

"Wait, wait, I had nothing to do with that. She came to me-"

"We know, Vic. A dead girl warned you about your dead grandmother who eats flesh," said Lieutenant Crawford.

"Wish I had a nickel for every time I heard that one," snickered Lieutenant Weir.

Shortly, two police officers entered and escorted Victor, not to a jail cell, but down to a cement room with very little lighting. Once he was inside, the guards closed and latched the bullet-proof door. Victor peeked out the window in the door like a scared child. He knew he was in trouble, and he knew he was going to die.

"We’re all going to die, Victor," said a voice behind him.

Victor spun around and saw a man dangling at the end of a noose that was made from a bed sheet. He couldn’t believe it. Was he really imagining all of this? The corpse swayed from left to right, watching him with bloodshot eyes. His mouth was in a frown, the kind of frown his father used to give him whenever he tried to impress him. The corpse’s face was wrinkled, thin, and covered with sores and open cuts. He could smell his rotted body and it almost made him want to vomit.

The corpse grinned and said sullenly, "Hello, Victor."

"Uh, you’re dead," Victor replied.

"No shit. Now listen. I didn’t die in this cell."

"No?"

"Nope. I died in the cell next door, and I committed suicide shortly after I was captured."

"What did you do?" Victor asked softly.

"You know that bitch who visited you? I killed her." The corpse looked at Victor for a moment then continued, "I found her by her car on the side of the road. I greeted her, then raped her. When I was finished, I drugged her up and put her in her car, then rolled it into the lake where she drowned."

"But if you’re dead, the police won’t know who killed her...," said Victor.

"Yes, they will. You see, I’m not dead yet."

"Excuse me?"

"Tomorrow, I’m going to turn myself in. They’re going to interrogate me, and lock me in the cell next door. A few hours later, when they come back to ask more questions, they’ll find me like this, hanging from the bed sheet."

"Holy Christ, I’m insane," Victor said as he turned away and put his hand against his forehead.

"No, no... you’re maybe a bit delusional but not insane."

Victor stood there, looking at the corpse. His mind was racing a million miles a second and suddenly one question stood out in his mind. "If you’re not dead yet-"

"Then why am I here?" interrupted the corpse. "Because, when you’re dead, time no longer exists."

"So, you’re able to time travel?"

"Well, it’s not that simple. See, I needed an anchor... someone who I was connected to in the living world, and that someone was the dead bitch. You could say, she made a big impact on my life." He grinned again, then continued, "And since she had used you as an anchor, I was able to find you to tell you."

"To tell me what?" Victor asked.

"How to escape," the corpse replied and smiled widely, exposing his black teeth.

"But, why would you want me to escape?"

"Because the dead bitch wants you to. She owns me now; she owns us all."

Victor sat down on the floor against the wall opposite of the bunk beds and the dangling corpse. He wanted to go home- just go home, lie down and pretend none of this ever happened. He wished he could forget about his grandmother, the blood, the dead woman, the police and now the dead guy. His mind was spinning and he felt as if he were lost in some far away dimension where ghosts predict the future and dead bodies hunt you down for revenge. Now he was here, locked in solitary confinement.

"It doesn’t sound that bad, you know," said the corpse.

Victor looked at him with wide eyes.

The corpse continued, "About the girl. About being dead. This may seem very uncomfortable, but it’s not. I don’t feel a thing."

"Because you’re dead..."

"No, not yet. It’s because I don’t exist." The corpse smiled then his eyes shifted to the door and he whispered, "Someone’s coming."

"Who-"

The sharp sound of the door unlocking echoed in Victor’s ears, and he turned for the door as one of the guards opened it and stepped into the cell. He had his billy-stick drawn, and he aimed it at Victor with dominating force.

"Come on," said the guard. "The chief wants to speak with you."

Victor looked at the corpse, then back at the guards and asked, "You- you don’t see anything?"

"What, your ugly face? Of course we do." Both men laughed. The two guards grabbed Victor and escorted him out.

The police chief was sitting at the table when Victor entered the interrogation room. He eyed the familiar setting then sat down, facing the police chief. For some reason, he seemed familiar; his fat pudgy face, bald head and black-rimmed glasses. The police chief licked his lips and frowned at Victor like he was eager to punish him.

Then he smiled and said, "Hello there, Victor. Glad to finally make your acquaintance."

Victor remained silent.

"You can call me Gregor," said the chief then continued, "There are two dead women, Victor. Your grandmother and a twenty-two year old girl we just found dead in the lake earlier this morning. A few minutes ago, the coroner confirmed that she was indeed murdered."

"I didn’t murder her, sir," replied Victor.

"No? Well, I think you did. I think you’re a crazy psycho who went out and murdered the young lady after releasing your sexual frustration, then pushed her car, with her inside it, over the ledge. When you returned home you found your grandmother there. An unexpected visit. Your alibi was now ruined and in order to get it back, you killed her, and to hide the crime you chopped her up into parts and attempted to destroy all evidence left behind... unless you invented a new way to clean your carpet." Chief Gregor smiled, revealing his crooked, yellow, coffee-stained teeth. "You’re guilty, and you’re going to fry, Victor."

"But it was self defense! The dead woman told me that my grandmother was possessed or something by some... creature!"

"Enough with the stories already, Victor. There’s no use hiding behind them anymore. They’ll just prove my case. You’re insane and I’m going to prove it." Chief Gregor looked away then back at Victor and whispered, "I’m going to make sure your head will roll straight into Hell."

Victor remained silent, knowing he had no choice. The chief was right, the more he talked the crazier he sounded. Good thing he had neglected to mention the dead guy hanging from his bed sheet in his cell. Then he’d probably get thrown into something worse. But, what can be worse than this? Damn it, he was only protecting himself from a creature who was trying to kill him. There was no other way... there was no way to save his grandmother’s life. The creature had to die, even if it meant dismembering her with a chainsaw. A chainsaw for Christ’s sake! He had to do it. He had to kill her. Now, as he gazed upon the chief’s hardened, relentless face, he knew that he was doomed. Perhaps not to Hell, but doomed nonetheless.

A few minutes later, Chief Gregor ordered the guards to escort Victor back to his cell. How humiliated he felt as he passed other officers, some of which he knew throughout high-school. They just looked at him with no remorse. Their eyes were vacant and dull, as if they, too, were dead. Other prisoners peered at him with soulless eyes, and Victor was afraid to even think of what sick, perverted ideas were swimming in their brains. One Hispanic inmate exposed his penis, telling him to get down on his knees. One of the guards whipped out his billy-club and whacked it. The Hispanic fell on his knees swearing revenge. A few other inmates winked at Victor. Others called him names and threatened his life. All in all, Victor was doomed.

The guards threw Victor back into his cell. The room was dark except for the little light that beamed in through the door’s window. The corpse was gone as was the smell, but he knew for sure that he wasn’t crazy. It was all real. And he knew that if he started to doubt himself now, that he will certainly become insane. Victor knew what he saw, and he knew what he had to do once he escaped. The only thing was how to escape. The dead man told him that he was going to help him. No doubt Victor would see him again soon. It may be a few days or weeks, but he would see him.

Victor lay down on the bottom bunk and stared up through the darkness. Hours passed before he could sleep, and when he did he dreamed of blood, bodies and millions of prison inmates having their way with him. He woke up, screaming in a blanket soaked in sweat. The dead guy was there to greet him, only this time he wasn’t dangling from a bed sheet, but was leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette. His skin was mostly eaten away and one of his eyes hung down past his cheek bone. The corpse was covered with red, infected flesh. His clothes were gone, and his bones poked out of his body like horns.

The corpse inhaled, blew the smoke out of the holes where his nose used to be, then said with a raspy voice," They will be coming for you in a few minutes."

"How do you know?" Victor asked.

"That’s not important right now. What is important is that you need to listen to me. We don’t have much time and you have to be precise. Understand?"

Victor nodded yes.

"When I say run, I want you to run as fast as you can and don’t look back. Got it?"

"Yeah, but I’m confused. You want me to just run?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Straight out the doors and all the way to the front office and outside. You’ll see a green car some hundred yards to your left in the parking lot. Get in it and drive off. The keys are in the ignition."

"It can’t be that easy," Victor scoffed.

"Indeed it can, Vic."

"I don’t know... I’m not sure about this..."

"Hey, Vic. Kiss my lobotomy." The corpse exhaled and grinned.

"But an escape like that just sounds-"

The cell door opened with a clank and two guards grabbed onto Victor’s arms. The guard on the left uttered, "Talking to your dead girl again, Vic?

Victor looked away then eyed the corpse. The dead man inhaled the cigarette and blew smoke into the guard’s face. The guard coughed ferociously and looked around, expecting to find smoke, but there was nothing. No one else was in the room except the two guards and Victor. He looked at the second guard then back at Victor and said, "The chief wants to see you again. Looks as if you might have one less charge filed against you."

"Oh?" Victor said rudely.

"Yeah," said the second guard. "Now come on, you piece of shit."

Once again, Victor was escorted out of his cell, across the prison and into the interrogation room where he first met the two detectives and Chief Gregor. Chief Gregor did seem quite familiar but Victor had no idea from where. He had never been arrested before and never had a purpose to visit the police station. Perhaps he had met him at the doctor’s or even at the grocery store. He hoped the dead guy knew what he was saying. If he decided to up and run, the police guards would blow him away without a second thought. Victor shuddered.

"No need to be nervous, Vic. The chief just wants to talk to you," said the first guard.

Victor’s fearful smile faltered quickly. Yes, he was doomed for sure.

At last the guards brought Victor into the interrogation room and forced him to sit at the table. Facing him was Chief Gregor. He smiled and repositioned his thick, black-rimmed glasses. Victor eyed him carefully. He knew there was defiantly something familiar, but what was it? Then, quietly in the far distance, the soft clinking of chains spilled into his ears. Victor looked around then turned his gaze back to Gregor.

Gregor smiled then said, "I just wanted to tell you personally that six hours ago, my men found who killed the lady that drowned at West Point Lake."

Victor remained silent, looking at Gregor with tired eyes.

"The man’s name is Donaldson. James Donaldson. He confessed as soon as he was cuffed. He raped her, then drugged her up, locked her in the car and pushed it into the lake so she would die horribly. And she did... she died very horribly." Gregor gave a little smile.

"Why are you telling me this?" Victor asked.

"I thought you might want the details. Still, I find it strange how you would know all of this. Were you an accomplice? Or, are you an eye witness who’s refused to speak?"

"I’m neither, sir," replied Victor.

Gregor slowly rose from his chair. The sounds of chains rattling were back again, but closer this time as if they were just outside the door. Victor looked around again and then back at Gregor as he rounded the table. For an instant, his dark-blue suit was replaced with a black leather outfit with silvery studs lining his sleeves and collar. His chubby face was crusted with dirt, his bald head was covered with beads of sweat and in his hand was a length of chain. He swung it around like a propeller. His grin was dark and Satanic, and his eyes revealed his true, evil nature. And then quickly it was all gone. The Chief was back with his suit and tie, except something had changed.

"Hold him," Gregor ordered the guards.

The guards, who were standing behind Victor, came up quickly on either side of him and held him down in his seat. Gregor grabbed Victor by the throat and laughed madly. His eyes bulged like two thick, meaty slabs of infected beef. Victor screamed as one of the guards covered his mouth then punched him on the side of the head. Victor swung sideways and the guard pulled his head back up, forcing his mouth open. Then, before he could do anything else, Gregor rammed the barrel of his gun down his throat. Victor gagged as his arms flailed in the air.

"You’re going down, you son of a bitch," Gregor hissed and stuffed the gun further down his throat.

There was nothing Victor could do. His arms and head were securely pinned by the guards, and his screams were muffled by the barrel of the gun. He knew he was going to die. There was no way he could see his life past this point. Gregor’s big, sagging face was only a few inches from his own, and he could smell the reek of vodka on his breath. He tried to gasp for air so he could hold on for one last second. He felt his legs and arms grow weak, and his heart raced in his chest as if it was going to burst. As his eyes rolled up to the back of his head someone burst in through the door. It was another officer screaming for Gregor. Victor faintly hear the words, ‘help’ and ‘suicide’. The next thing Victor knew, he was on the ground in the interrogation room, alone. The door was open and the office outside was cleared.

"Run. Run now," said a voice above him. It was the corpse, but now he wasn’t much but a rotted skeleton with a cigarette butt in his mouth.

Victor tried to focus his eyes on him, but fell to the floor.

"Damn it, you have to get up! There’s no time for this!" cried the skeleton.

Victor rolled over on his front, then got up on his knees. He eyed the skeleton and thought maybe in a different time and place he would be horrified, but at that moment he felt a sense of friendship toward it. Finally he scrounged up enough strength to get up on his feet and staggered to the open door.

"See that doorway over there?" asked the skeleton.

"Yes."

"That’s where you need to go. It will lead you through a hall and to the front office. No one will be there, Vic. All you have to do is run out and get into that green car I told you about earlier. Now go!"

Victor nodded and without a second thought, he scurried across the station office and down the hall. The skeleton watched Victor disappear into the hallway. It took the butt in its bony digits and snubbed it out on its teeth, then vanished.

Seconds later, Victor made his way to the front office. It was empty. He ran out the door, and to the left of the building he found the green Buick.

"Oh, thank God! Thank God, thank God, thank God," Victor proclaimed.

He opened the car door and sat down inside. The keys were in the ignition, just as the dead guy had said. He caught sight of the keychain which read within a mini, brass-plated plaque, ‘William Gregor- Chief of Police’. Victor’s hands grew numb but he tried with all of his might to ignore the screaming voice in his head, warning him of what would happen if he were caught. He could picture that gun halfway up his ass.

Victor’s hands trembled as he started the engine. He shifted the car into drive and sped off. He relaxed after a few minutes, but his throat was still killing him. He thought to himself that he would go see a doctor in another state. But first, he wanted to get back home. He didn’t really know why he wanted to, since that would be the first place the police would look for him, but nonetheless he felt like he was being drawn toward it like the house was somehow calling him back.

A half hour later, he reached his street. He drove the car up the driveway, got out, opened the garage door then drove the car inside. Victor opened the car door, then glanced at his own car and stopped. Ah, simpler times. He frowned wearily with his eyes fixed on the driver’s seat. Then as he sighed and turned to close the garage door a soft, cold voice filled the air. Victor figured it was just nothing... maybe the wind. He smiled at that thought then reached back up and again he heard the voice. It called out to him, "Victor... Victor..."

Victor knew that voice, and he knew where it came from. He turned around and peered at the dead woman. She was naked, wet and her body had a blue hue. The dead woman had come back. Quickly, he turned around and closed the garage door before the neighbors could see.

"Victor," called the dead woman. "She’s dead. Your grandmother’s dead."

"I know... I killed her, remember?" Victor replied.

"No," she said and then raised her hand up in the air. Victor could faintly see something was in it. He slowly moved into the light that leaked in from the garage door window and realized that the dead girl was holding up a dead cat. His dead cat, Tickles. "She ate your cat," the dead woman said at last.

Victor backed away and saw the cat had been eaten. Except for the tail, all that was left was dried bone. In the light, he could see that Tickles’ remains were swarming with ants. Victor backed further away, his eyes still on the eaten cat.

"She’s dead, Victor. You need to kill her. Kill her."

"What do you mean?"

"Two hours ago, I died in a lake. I drowned. I watched your grandmother get taken over by some creature. It was in the form of a human with black glasses and holding a gun. He killed your grandmother with it then took over her body. She’s hiding in the family room, Victor. You have to kill her."

Confused, Victor backed up against the door which lead into the house, took another look at her and said, "Look, I’ll get you something to put on first, then you can tell me what the hell is going on, okay?"

"No, she’s waiting for you Victor. She’s going to kill you."

"She’s dead, lady. I killed her already."

"No, you haven’t... she’s going to kill you."

Victor looked at her for a moment longer. What if his grandmother really wasn’t dead? Could she still be alive? Could her body parts have re-assembled while he was gone? Then another thought came to mind. Wouldn’t his grandmother’s parts be in a morgue? Then something cold brushed over him. Was it death, or was it his insanity?

Victor opened the door and said, "Look, I’ll go get something to cover you up and then we can talk...”

He rushed to his daughter’s bedroom, pulled the sheet from the bed and briskly made his way back to the garage. On his way, he heard an odd thumping sound, like somebody was falling on the ground over and over. Victor stopped and stood silent to listen closer but the noise was gone. Something was wrong. He looked at the sheet he held in his hands. Just as he was about to remember, a pair of black stockings looped around his neck and tightened.

In an instant, Victor found himself on the floor with his grandmother over him, choking him with her stockings. Her face was bloody, and her eyes swam in their puckered sockets, each looking in the opposite direction. Her mouth was large, and her teeth were strangely crooked with bits of cat fur stuck to them.

"Holy shit!" Victor wheezed.

Victor’s grandmother opened her overly large mouth and hissed, "I’m going to kill you and eat you! Your flesh is so soft and buttery, and your bones so hard, hard, hard!" She laughed hideously as her thick, cow-like tongue wiggled outside of her mouth.

Victor grabbed her arms and fought her off then dashed into the kitchen. The dead woman was there, wrapped in the sheet he was going to give to her. He hurried passed her into the living room then stopped to catch his breath. The whole thing felt like a nightmare and Victor was still waiting for it to be over.

Without warning, his grandmother clubbed Victor over the head with a mallet from behind. Victor fell forward as he felt himself get hit a second time on the shoulder. He opened his eyes and found the mallet on its way to his nose, breaking it.

Victor shouted, holding his bleeding nose. His grandmother laughed wickedly and swung the mallet again, this time missing him. Victor grabbed a picture frame off the wall and smashed it over her head. Glass and wood shattered everywhere. His grandmother fell to the ground and the mallet dropped at his feet. Victor scooped it up and smiled.

"This time it’s over," he muttered then brought the mallet down on his grandmother again and again and again, until her body was an unrecognizable bag of flesh, bones and blood. The dead woman stood by the couch, touching herself as Victor continued beating the corpse.

Victor brought the mallet up to eye level and watched the blood, bone and hair seep off of it. He dropped the mallet on his grandmother’s broken body and turned to the dead woman. She smiled faintly.

"Okay, she’s dead," said Victor as he tried to catch his breath.

"No," said the dead woman. "She’s still alive."

"Wha- what do you mean? Look at her. I killed her five times in four days. Look at her. She’s dead."

Victor turned around and eyed the broken, mangled corpse. Now he truly knew what it meant to be insane. His heart raced in his chest, but a part of him was finally relieved. He escaped Chief Gregor, fought off a creature who had taken over his grandmother’s body, and now he was planning to leave the house, his family and the death and destruction that had taken over his life.

Victor turned to the dead woman, raised his middle finger at her and told her to get fucked. The dead woman snarled and slowly vanished into the shadows. The mangled corpse that was his grandmother vanished. The entire living room vanished and Victor suddenly found himself strapped tightly into a wooden chair with an old, rusted square cage over his head. Seated in front of him was a man dressed in black leather, holding a metal box with knobs and switches. Behind him was a curtain of chains that enclosed the room from the rest of the facility. The man smiled and gave Victor some time to get familiar with his surroundings once again.

"Where am I?" Victor asked frantically. He tried to turn his head but it was strapped into an iron restraint that wrapped around his forehead.

"Be still, Victor. It takes a few minutes for your memory to return," said the man with the thick, black glasses.

"I said, where am I!" Victor shouted as he tried to break free. "Where am I!"

"Oh dear...," the man replied. "Looks like we have to go through this again."

"Through what? Through what?" Victor demanded.

The man leaned back in his chair, scratched his chin, then said carefully, "For the past eight years you’ve been hooked up to that machine, living a life that wasn’t real... that wasn’t truly your own."

"What do you mean?" Victor whimpered.

The man sighed, looked down at his feet then continued, "My name is Gregor, Doctor William Gregor. Ten years ago, you went on a rampage and murdered your entire family.

"..."

"You murdered your wife. You murdered your daughter-"

"No-" he whispered.

"You murdered your grandmother-"

"No-" he said louder.

"You killed your neighbors and then you tried to kill yourself. In order to keep you from hurting anyone else, we had to remove your arms and legs."

"No... no, no, no, no!" Victor shouted and cried then looked down at his legs but they were gone. Then he looked at his arms and they were gone as well. "Noooooo!!"

"I’m afraid so, Vic. The Tam Talimam found you insane and your punishment was to be hooked up to this machine for the rest of your life," said Gregor as he pointed to the huge, black and brass-colored machine beside him. On the machine were two heads encased in glass jars that were filled with bio-gel. Victor’s eyes widened as he recognized the two faces; the dead girl and the dead guy. "They were your neighbors, Vic. We encased their heads in stasis, so technically they’re still alive. They’ve been interacting with you in your... life."

"No, no, no... this can’t be possible-"

"Ah, but indeed it is. You see, every few years the machine gets thrown into a loop. We haven’t been able to fix all the bugs yet, see, and the world inside there gets all joggled up, and eventually the computer ends up shutting the program down."

"No, no, no..."

"Yes, Vic... and now the computer is ready for you again." Gregor then turned his attention to the control pad in his hands and clicked on the "on" button.

"No, please no... please!" cried Victor.

"I’m sorry, Victor. It’s better this way. While you’re in there, we can safely work on your brain to see what exactly is wrong with you. We haven’t been able to determine what makes you insane, but I’m sure with enough persistence we will find it... hopefully." Gregor smiled and flipped the switch. A lever that held a six-inch needle positioned itself at the back of his head. It slowly moved closer with a mechanical whine.

"No... no... no...," Victor cried under his breath. He felt the needle puncture his skull and work deeper inside his brain. Within seconds, he fell back into his nightmarish world. The last thing he saw before re-entering was the dead woman’s face. It was mouthing the words, ‘Kill her... kill her’.

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Copyright 2003 Brian Grisham and STLYGFA