Page 5 of Corpse Roads

The unknown scares me so badly. My world spans the size of this basement, and my entire existence is dependent on the Michaels. I’ll starve to death if they don’t come back. Maybe that would be a good thing.

“Please... let me die,” I sob.

You're so weak, Harlow.

Giving up so easily?

Ignoring my scathing inner voice, I scrub my aching eyes that refuse to cry any more tears. I haven’t had a drink of water in far too long, my lips are cracked and dried out.

I want to scream and shatter into pieces that are sharp enough to rip a hole in the fabric of this world and escape into heaven’s light. Surely, I’ve atoned enough. The price has been paid in my blood, time and time again.

They’ll be gone for the rest of the night.

Why aren’t you running?

“I can’t run. The cage is locked,” I scream uselessly.

Pull yourself together.

You are the darkness now.

Don't be afraid of it.

Time ticks by as my sanity spirals. The fever and dehydration are doing something to me. I’m hearing things that aren’t here, taunting whispers and invisible voices.

I think about Laura. Abbie before her. Tia. Freya. Adelaide. Lucy. Countless others who, despite my best efforts, I can’t remember anymore. Their faces are blank in my mind.

There have been so many lives lost in this dark place. I was so glad when the girls started to arrive after spending so long in the basement alone, my solitude only broken by daily beatings.

Then the violence began. The killings. Rituals. Prayers and slashed throats. Bloated corpses and blackened skin. Relief turned to horror, then numbness took over. It became a new normal to watch torture on a daily basis.

You’re alive. They aren’t.

Don’t be ungrateful.

You still have a chance.

“Leave me alone. I can’t do this anymore.”

Get the hell up, Harlow.

Wrapping my shaking hands around the bars, I grit my teeth through the pain and drag myself up. The stubborn little voice inside of me refuses to give up, even as my body fails me.

Searching the basement, nothing has changed. It’s still dank and empty, freezing cold and dark as night. The rusty, age-spotted cage door is still locked. There’s nothing.

Laura didn’t die for nothing.

Her blood is on your hands.

Make it count.

Acid rises from my empty stomach, but nothing comes out. I dry heave while clutching my aching midsection. When I’m done, I limp across the cage to reach between the bars, straining until I find the next cage.

You want to get out of here?

God isn’t going to do it for you.

A fire burns beneath my skin. It’s not the fever, but something else. A delicate, damaged butterfly of hope that has finally had enough. My fingers search through cold goo, wrapping around something hard.

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