Page 1 of Corpse Roads

PROLOGUE - HARLOW

WHITE NOISE - BADFLOWER

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Whispering the words in my hoarse voice, I link my shaking hands and squeeze my eyes shut. In these dark, desperate moments, I often feel like God is watching my suffering—laughing and thoroughly amused.

My prayers have never been answered.

No one is coming to save me.

Tipping my head upwards, I stick my tongue out and catch the falling water droplets leaking from the basement ceiling. It’s rare that I’m brought food or water.

Good behaviour is rewarded in this paradise of darkness, but even after years of learned obedience, hunger is my constant companion. The devil whispers to me sometimes, telling me to fight back.

It never lasts. They beat the defiance from my bones with violent malice, breaking skin and bruising organs. I’ve been shattered a thousand times, then glued back together in a haphazard jigsaw puzzle just as many.

If I scream when told to and kneel as Pastor Michaels unlocks my cage, I’m awarded brief slivers of life. Enough to keep me alive. I fantasise about being bad most nights, certain it’s the only way to escape this life of misery.

“P-Please... I w-want to go home,” her broken voice whimpers.

“Shhhh,” I hush.

Peering through the half-light, I find the curled-up ball of despair in the cramped cage adjacent to mine. Laura was so bright and full of life when she was dragged down here, unconscious and bleeding.

She’s told me stories about her family and friends, tales of a world that I’ve never seen. Her dreams and hopes, regrets and wishes. She promised that we’d see it together one day. It was a pinkie promise agreed upon between our cages, borne of desperation and grief.

There’s a heavy clank that sends dread spiking through my veins. Light floods into the dank basement, illuminating the steep, rotting staircase and a shining pair of boots. It’s time for nightly prayers.

“No... p-please... let me go!” Laura shouts, backing into a tight corner for protection. “I want to go home!”

“Be quiet.” I kneel before the cage door.

“I won’t just lay there and play dead!”

“Stop talking, Laura! You’ll get us both in trouble.”

Lowering my head, I fix my gaze on my filthy hands. The right index finger is swollen and hot to the touch with a steady throb from my missing nail. Blood is still crusted around the infected digit.

Pastor Michaels ripped it out a few days ago when I dared to ask for a drink of water. On the rare occasions that I grow weak enough to beg for sustenance, my courage is swiftly punished.

In the dead of winter, my left arm still hurts. I asked to be freed once, too young and stupid to know better. The bone was shattered in two places with a steel-capped boot.

“Evenin’, folks. Ain’t this a fine day, eh?”

Pastor Michaels’ greeting feels like razor blades slicing me into blood-slick ribbons. My entire body trembles, and my heart explodes in my chest. I bite my lip, trying to breathe through it.

It’s worse if I pass out.

Far, far worse.

He draws to a halt outside my rusted cage, rapping on the bars until I lift my chin. Meeting Pastor Michaels’ clear, green gaze, I swallow the vomit burning my throat.

“Done your nighttime prayers, sinner?”

I nod once.

“If I can’t hear you, then the Lord Almighty certainly can’t.”

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