Page 50 of Girl, Unmasked
Sleep deprivation had to be kicking her ass, she thought, because there was no chance in hell that what she was seeing could be real.Surely her brain had hit its quota of curdled human wreckage and thrown in the towel for the night, and now hallucinations were bubbling to the surface.
But no.There they were, in black and white.
The story was calledThe Angel Maker.
And it was written byLACHANCE666.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Ella stood at the edge of Austin Creed's farm.The property stretched out dead and brown under a sky that couldn't decide if it was day or night.The fence posts leaned at wrong angles, and the wire rusted through in places.She stepped over a section that had fallen completely.
The farmhouse sat a quarter mile ahead.Paint peeled from its sides in long strips like dead skin.The windows were dark rectangles.No car in the driveway.No equipment in the fields.Just emptiness pretending to be a farm.
She walked through knee-high grass that should have rustled but didn't.Her feet made contact, but no sound came.The silence was total, like someone had torn the audio track from reality.
The front porch sagged in the middle.The door stood open about six inches.Not inviting.Just open.She pushed it wider and stepped into a hallway.
The house was furnished but abandoned.A calendar on the wall still showed October two years ago.Dishes in the sink with mold growing in patterns.A television that reflected her movement as she passed.
She knew where the basement door would be before she found it.Down a hallway.Last door on the left.Also open.
The wooden stairs were newer than the rest of the house.Someone had replaced them recently.They held her weight without protest as she descended into darkness that gradually gave way to a soft light source she couldn't identify.
The basement shouldn't have been this large.She'd seen the house from outside, and it was merely a modest two-story farmhouse.But this space went on and on.The ceiling was too high.The walls too far apart.
Bodies lined the walls.
Not hung.Not thrown.They'd been arranged for her viewing pleasure, each one positioned with its back against the concrete, sitting with legs straight out.Their heads tilted at the same angle.Their hands folded the same way.Dozens of them.Some are in various states of decay.Some were fresh enough that they might have been sleeping.
She recognized faces.Julianne.Jenna.Ben.
At the center of the room sat a figure on what looked like an old church pew.Hood pulled up.Face hidden.Hands resting on knees.It didn't move as she approached.Didn't acknowledge her presence.
She reached for the hood.
Bang bang bang.
Ella snapped her eyes awake, and she was on a bed with a mountain of paperwork for a sleeping companion.Morning light came through the curtains, and suddenly she was back in Connecticut, not Louisiana.
The knock came again.
She managed to roll out of bed, dress herself and answer the door without losing momentum.Ella undid the chain and opened the door.
Mia Ripley was standing there looking exhausted, despite her room being about twenty feet away.‘Mia, what time is it?’
‘Early.’
‘That doesn’t help.’
'It's 7 AM, and I've got something you're going to love.'
Ella was only now noticing that Ripley had a stack of papers in her hand.‘Come again?’
Ripley slapped the papers into Ella’s hands.She scanned them and recognized them immediately.
This wasHalo of Blood,and these were fresh printouts.
‘Mia, what the f…?’
