Chương 5: "We Love A Screamer"

"What the fuck?" Tre breathed.

"Why is the guy who sings 'Beauty School Dropout' a Muppet designed by the Marquis de Sade?" The red imp strolled past our frozen forms with a strut that said he owned the place. He headed straight for the living room, his powder-blue polyester suit twinkling under the foyer light. From behind, tiny, leathery wings poked through tailor-made holes in the jacket, their stretched membrane so sheer I could map every vein and tiny bone.

Then there was the thick, muscled tail bursting from the seat of his pants: a bundle of corded tendons that whipped slightly as he walked, ending in a sharp arrowhead point. Pausing in the center of the living room, the imp looked down at the floor, tiny wings fluttering before finding an invisible mark. The moment he took his place, the living room lights flared unnaturally bright. I squinted and looked at Tre, who shielded his eyes with his small hand.

Sulfurous fog curled along the floor, swirling around our feet before creeping across the floor, eventually swallowing the lower six inches of the room. A title card unfurled from nothing, hovering over his horned head. The words in the title glowed a deep scarlet. WELCOME TO THE GRINDHOUSE"Aaaaaand here we go!" The creature was addressing some invisible audience.

"Welcome, players!" He turned his attention to us.

"I am your illustrious guide. The incomparable, unignorable, utterly unapproachable—" The name came out with the sound of metal grinding through wet bone, a screeching, organic sound that ended with the hiss of escaping steam. Tre blinked.

"Gesundheit." A hysterical bubble of laughter popped in my throat. Seconds ago, I'd been paralyzed with unadulterated terror, and then Tre undercut the demon's grand entrance with a dad joke. It was everything great about my best friend, trapped in the body of a creepy vinyl killer doll. But that moment of lightness vanished as fast as it came. Taking in those synthetic curls, the fixed plastic circles of his eyes, the ridiculous Farmer Joe overalls, it hit me that he was disfigured. Maybe forever.

Yet he was still doing bits. Was he secretly screaming on the inside? The imp spun around to face us, smile faltering to reveal frustrated middle-management vibes." Zgrthnplaxx. It's pronounced Zee-girthn-plaxx," he grumbled, black teeth grinding together audibly.

"Whatever you say, Plaxx," Tre said. The imp opened his mouth. Closed it. Sighed dramatically, shoulders drooping. Tre's no-selling the creature made Plaxx's whole theater-kid energy collapse, but the wounded pride flickering behind those yellow eyes made him more of a powder keg ready to blow than a charming host.

"Anywaaay…" Then the demon scanned my body in a long, predatory stare; his pupils were barely visible pinpricks of red.

"Before we can begin, you need a cleanup. Can't have our Final Girl looking like she lost a bar fight. For Satan's sake, the tutorial hasn't even started yet!" With a snap of his fingers, the half-inch gash near my hairline stopped hurting mid-throb. Followed by a strange tugging sensation as the wound zipped itself up. At the same time, the dull, pervasive ache in my elbow quickly evaporated. The blood on my fingers, the towel, and the smears on my shirt all vanished.

Probing my head for injuries, I found a smooth, unblemished scalp, as if I had never fallen down the stairs.

"Much better." Plaxx beamed.

"Now, where were we? Ah, yes… introductions!" Tre focused on my newly healed head. We shared a flash of understanding: if this creature could heal us with a snap, he could hurt us just as fast. Plaxx's mouth stretched into a wide, toothy smile as he turned his focus entirely to me.

"Meet our star Player, Nora Price, worn down from years of caretaking and scarred by loss. And yet, look at her. Daddy's old jersey, the invitation of those tiny cotton panties peeking out from below... she's beautiful in her brokenness. And ripe for the slaughter." Shame surged up my neck in a fiery wave, and my ears burned white-hot. I pulled down the hem of my jersey, hyperaware of every inch of exposed skin.

With the aggressive enthusiasm of a car salesman, Plaxx opened his arms, presenting Tre to whatever hellish spectators we had.

"And her doll-sized, utterly disposable, oddly endearing companion, Tre!"" Disposable?!" Tre squeaked.

"What are we players in?" I asked, forcing steadiness into my voice.

"Ah, ah, ah," Plaxx admonished, with a Dikembe Mutombo finger wag.

"Business before pleasure, babycakes." Plaxx's wings twitched with unspoken irritation, and he produced a scroll from thin air with all the flourish of an aging Vegas magician who'd done the trick too many times.

"Standard participation agreement." He thrust the contract into my hands. Archaic text written in a mix of English, Latin, and a Byzantine legalese filled the parchment. It was nearly impossible to understand without reading each sentence twice, and even then, you'd need a master's in Ancient Languages and a law degree. The imp's hoof tapped against the hardwood, a metronome of impatience.

"Really?" His head fell back.

"Must you read every line?"

"She's not gonna sign a contract from a demon without reading it first, dude," Tre answered for me. Plaxx's face contorted with predatory intent.

"Well, if she doesn't, you'll both be promptly killed and resurrected as NPCs, and new players will be chosen." I ignored them and kept reading: "... irrevocable consent to potential physical and psychological torment..."

"... waive all claims to bodily autonomy..."

"... failure to complete objectives may result in immediate termination and soul forfeiture..." It wasn't good. But the alternative was worse. I tried to think of what I'd be protecting by refusing, and the list was short. Tre. Just Tre.

"How am I supposed to sign it? I don't have a p—" Biting pain flared in my thigh.

"Ow!" A fountain pen was jammed into my leg at an angle. My blood welled around the puncture, filling the reservoir as the pen drank its fill.

"What the hell, man!"

"Relax," he ordered, ripping the pen free and holding it up impatiently. A single drop of my own blood dripped from the nib, spattering on the floor between us.

"Sign." Tre shrugged helplessly. I had no idea what I was signing, but getting turned into a mindless NPC wasn't an option. I signed it anyway.

"Done." Both the contract and pen disappeared with a soft puff. Then Plaxx snapped again, and my thigh was healed. I lowered my voice, trying to sound threatening.

"Now tell us what the fuck is going on."

"Gladly." Then he booped my nose, and the lights cut out. A single spotlight found the tiny demon, centering him in a perfect white cone. I tried to find the source of the beam, but it didn't seem to be coming from anywhere. It just… existed. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

"Before we get to the what," Plaxx said, adopting the measured tone of a man who had done this many times before, "you should know the who." He paused for dramatic effect and wiggled his eyebrows at me.

"Your captor, the reason any of this exists, is the Executive Architect of Agony himself, Maltheris the Agronomist." I had a name. The thing torturing us had a name. After months of grieving something vast and shapeless, it felt good and clarifying to have a specific target.

"He does not lose," Plaxx added grimly.

"What does he want?" I asked. Plaxx's smile flattened.

"The only thing he's ever wanted. Fear." He resumed pacing, spotlight obediently following.

"Fear is food where Maltheris comes from. Pure terror, harvested at scale, is his entire reason for being. For a long time, fear extraction was a messy, chaotic process," he began.

"Maltheris was summoned to a populated world, unleashed chaos, and collected what spilled out." The flat smile curved into a performative frown.

"It was inefficient. Like leaving money on the table."

"So he became a better businessman," Tre said." He got smarter." His eyes didn't match the conviction of his words. They had a particular blankness of someone describing a system they live inside, not one they admire.

"He discovered that hope produces additional, more potent fear. Turns out the most exquisite terror is the moment just before death, when the hope of survival still feels real." He raised a four-fingered hand, the back covered in coarse black hair, and drew a jet-black fingernail slowly across his neck.

"Give'em a chance to live, and they generate a hell of a lot more fear in one hour than a massacre produces in a week." He spread his hands wide and wiggled his fingers, as his mouth tugged into a huge smile.

"And so, The Grindhouse was born."

"He built an artificial beehive to farm our fear like honey." Tre's voice pitched up on the last word.

"Huh?" Plaxx raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, right, your whole deal is the insect thing. Sure, if that's the metaphor that makes you more comfortable, by all means." Plaxx held his hand on one side of his mouth and leaned toward me conspiratorially." The Grindhouse is a survival gauntlet with life-or-death stakes.

"Thirteen zones, each one modeled on a different horror tradition from your planet's culture. Maltheris does his research and tailors every Run of the Grindhouse to whatever world we're harvesting. You are the crops, and the Grindhouse is the Harvest. And Maltheris is dining on every spike of terror, every desperate scramble to survive you make. And he savors every moment of it."

"Is he watching right now?"

"Yes, always." Plaxx's tail flicked straight up as if to clarify the point.

"Everything you do, every choice, every moment of hope or despair is all for him. He wants you to last. He's rooting for you. A quick death wastes the yield, after all." Tre looked Plaxx up and down, taking in his whole getup.

"If this isn't a show, why are you dressed like a game show host?" Plaxx's mouth twitched, caught between a scowl and a smirk." Game show host." He snorted.

"I am a functionary of The Grindhouse. A facilitator of Runs. A shepherd of the Harvest." He straightened his lapels with evident satisfaction.

"That didn't answer the question," Tre said. Plaxx looked down at himself. Twirled the mic once again.

"I've been doing this for a very long time." A pause, genuinely reflective.

"Might as well have fun." Tre's face said the same thing mine did: we're being kept alive to be terrified to death!

"What do we get if we win?" Tre demanded.

"Win?" Plaxx chuckled to himself." If by some miracle you survive all thirteen zones, Maltheris's grip on your reality severs completely. Poof." He mimed an explosion with his fingers.

"Gone. Humanity, well, what's left of it, is returned to the shell we stole them from. And Maltheris is banished from this dimension. He can never return or be summoned here again."

"That's it?" Tre put his hands on his hips.

"We just survive thirteen horror zones, and the demon's gone forever?"

"More or less."

"How many times has someone won the game?" I asked.

"A small handful." Plaxx winked.

"And those maggots—""The mind-larve." Mind-larvae? Somehow, that was worse than worms or maggots.

"The mind-larvae," I repeated.

"They're still inside us?"

"In your brain, yes. Linking you to the system, to Maltheris, to the game, to each other." He said it the way someone describes how your dishwasher works.

"They're also why you're not dead. Your human bodies are still on Earth. The Mind-larvae are the tether." A beat.

"Try not to think about it too much."

"We're just... asleep back home?" Tre asked.

"Like, this is all happening in our heads?"" No," Plaxx said, sounding offended.

"That's the part you people never get. The body you left on Earth was never you. It's a shell. Meat and bone kept warm by the larva, so there's something to pour you back into if you win. But the part of you that thinks, that's scared right now, that's standing here arguing with me? That's not dreaming. That's not projected. You got pulled out of the old shell and dropped a new one, in a real place, and everything that happens to it here happens for real." Tre let out a strangled laugh.

"Hold on. You're saying what happened downtown actually happened?"

"Oh, yeah, and not just in Chicago. Earth itself is fucked, pal."

"Those things are actually in my brain?" Tre's voice climbed three octaves.

"Yes." Plaxx sounded bored.

"How do I get them out?!"

"Win the game, they die. Lose, and you die. Those are your options." The imp threw his arms into the air, face contorted into frustration.

"It's not complicated! My realm. Maltheris's realm. Is real. The Grindhouse is a pocket of it he carved out and turned into the perfect fear farm. The things in this realm are physically there. You cannot 'wake up' out of the Grindhouse. And you will feel pain, you can be maimed, and you'll probably end up gruesomely murdered." He let that all sink in. Tre and I looked at each other for a long, silent moment.

"But, if we win, I get my body back, right?" Tre asked quietly.

"I mean, assuming Nora completes all the zones, then yes," he said, eyes locked on me, not Tre. The look in his eyes sent a rush of cold down my spine to my legs, making them weak.

"Those of you still alive will be returned to your old shell in what's left of your silly planet. But there are no second chances here. And in the history of The Grindhouse, the only players that have escaped I could count on one hand... and I only have four fingers!" Plaxx held up his four-fingered hand as visual confirmation. I wanted to split my skull open and dig the writhing little monster out. But that seemed unreasonable, so I asked the only question that mattered.

"How do we win?"

"Survive." The word was an anvil crushing my skull. Survive. That was all we got. After a beat, that shit-eating smile snapped back into place.

"Now then, in prior Runs, our players got a single companion. But for this special thirteenth Run, we decided to spice things up." Circling us, Plaxx took on an almost educational tone.

"All players, companions, and bystanders in the Grindhouse are real people." His pointed tail jabbed the air to underline his point.

"Only the player and their companion know it's a game. Everyone else behaves like good little puppets. But in all his magnificent brilliance, Maltheris has added a new wrinkle…" Plaxx milked the anticipatory moment for all it was worth.

"Certain NPCs can wake up and join you under the right conditions," he said, as if this was some huge upset to the status quo.

"You can potentially expand your party to—""That's all cool or whatever," Tre cut in.

"But why does she get to be a sexy scream queen, and I'm a knockoff Chucky doll?"

"Aesthetics, bitch! Plus, we thought a killer doll would be hilarious." Plaxx turned to me conspiratorially.

"We were right."

"Fuck you, dude!" Tre held up a tiny middle finger. The imp doubled over with laughter.

"You silly, unthreatening, little cutie pie. Most companions die screaming in the first hour." The laugh tapered off.

"But you're memorable, so maybe you'll last." Tre bristled.

"I'm a real person, asshole! Not some sidekick for your fucked-up game!"

"Maybe you're just extra baggage." Plaxx's laugh rattled like parched bones.

"Now, enough fun!" He cleared his throat.

"Let's get to the rules!" The lights changed again, and fiery text blazed in the air: RULE ONE: TRY NOT TO DIE.

"Should go without saying, but sadly, it needs to be explicitly stated." RULE TWO: DIE HERE, DIE FOR REAL.

"Yup! Dying down here kills you up there. Not peacefully either. Your fear will be fully extracted, then your meat sacks will turn into husks of ashen bone and curdled blood, while your souls rot in the literal bowels of Hell for eternity. Questions?" He paused.

"Okay, moving on!" RULE THREE: FEAR IS FUEL.

"The more scared you are, the worse you'll perform," the imp explained, dipping into an almost instructional tone.

"Stay calm, keep a level head, and you might make it out alive." His hack comedian voice returned.

"Or don't! And we'll have a richer Harvest." RULE FOUR: ITEMS MATTER. He motioned to my phone.

"It's all organized on your LifeLine. Go on, open it." The app icons floated over the membrane-like background, undulating like something alive. I was momentarily mesmerized by it until I realized Plaxx was still talking.

"…archived there for when you need them. Achievements and objectives pop right into your vision," Plaxx continued.

"Can't miss them, even if you want to." He lowered his voice with mock gravitas.

"Much more civilized than the old HUD cluttered with overlays burning across your vision at all times." Achievements? Objectives? How the fuck am I supposed to process any of this? I couldn't even figure out if this was all real or if I was having some kind of mental breakdown. Except my injuries felt real. I bled real blood. So did my leg after Plaxx stabbed me with the pen. The maggots had been real, too. That was really Tre trapped in the body of a talking doll.

My brain felt like it was short-circuiting, trying to file away information that shouldn't exist while my body screamed that none of this could be real. Get it together. You don't have the luxury of a breakdown, not yet. Fuck these guys.

"This first area is a basic tutorial. An evergreen opener," Plaxx explained.

"Draw it out, savor it. That's what he likes. And don't worry about killing. Think of the non-player characters as props, not people." Those words hit us both at once. I noted the flash of disgust on his face and knew he saw the same on mine. Props, not people. Plaxx took a deep bow that stretched on a beat too long.

"Good luck, players!" When he finally straightened, his face ruptured into a too-wide, feral grin that stretched beyond anything human.

"And remember: we love a screamer!" The lights blacked out before returning to their normal non-demonic luminance. By the time my eyes adjusted, he was gone. Lingering sulfurous stink was the only proof he'd ever been there at all. We stood in the foyer like idiots for an embarrassingly long time. Tre was the first to speak.

"So... we're in a death game run by a demon?"

"Yup."

"And if we die here, we die for real."

"Uh-huh," I numbly forced out. He glanced at me.

"Nora, what the fuck do we do now?" My eyes lingered on the LifeLine.

"We play."