Lackadaisy
Unlucky Member
Part I: Wine
An old, glass door silently creaked open as a twenty-seven-year-old man stepped into the dimly lit restaurant. The restaurant was devoid of any life besides that of a girl of equal age to the newcomer. This girl sat alone at the back of the restaurant reading a novel that the newcomer could not make out.
She was a beautiful young woman with long, lush black hair and a rounded face. Just seeing her filled the newcomer with unbound joy; yet, a strange feeling that something wasn’t right permeated his mind. But, this feeling was pushed aside as he marched towards her with a charismatic smile, which she returned in kind with a grin.
“I truly cannot express in words how happy I am to see your face again, Grace.”
“And to you the same, Jack.”
Jack sat across from Grace and folded his hands under his chin.
“We last spoke, say, just after graduation, right?” Jack nodded his head in response.
“Yes, it was at our senior party. You, David, Michael, and I went.” Grace twirled her hair and pushed a menu towards Jack, who grabbed it and scanned through the steak section.
“Ah, yes, I recall. All three of you could never stop yourselves from fighting for my attention.”
Jack chuckled and placed his menu back on the table. He had elected to order a rare sirloin steak. “Heh, and to think that I managed to win your affection in the end. The others, at least on the surface level, were far superior in regards to flirtations and appearance.”
“Yes, they were,” Grace responded uncaringly.
An old, grizzled man appeared before the table and asked for Jack’s and Grace’s orders. He told the pair that he would have their meals done within half an hour and that their wine would be out shortly.
“This place is odd, Grace. Did you reserve it just for us? It’s empty.” Grace twirled her hair as she stared at her fork and knife.
“So to speak. I know the owner quite well and he agreed to keep this place empty for the two of us.”
Jack looked around the dimly lit restaurant and shivered; the strange feeling of unrest was getting stronger, though it remained under control by his affection for Grace. The elderly waiter returned and placed two red wine glasses before the couple, then quickly shimmied into the kitchen.
“Isn’t it beautiful, Jack?” Grace picked up her glass and swished it around in an almost hypnotic sense. “Like currents of blood, it swirls around in an endless whirlpool.”
Jack, not quite knowing how to respond, nodded in agreement. “Yeah, you could certainly put it that way.”
“Why don’t you take a sip, Jack? The wine here is to die for.” Grace sipped from her glass. “Simply to die for, Jack.”
Jack smiled uncomfortably as he brought the glass to his lips and poured its contents down his throat in a manner that created a waterfall of blood within. Almost immediately, Jack began to feel tired, as if he been working for days without sleep. He smiled again as his vision became blurry. All he could make out before falling unconscious was the sinister grin that Grace had on her face.
Part II: Home
Jack’s head throbbed as he regained consciousness. He was no longer in the restaurant and was now inside of a pitch black room. From within, he made out the sound of chains brushing slowly against the floor, and outside he could hear the creaking of stairs. His heart pounded with unbridled fear.
The door slowly opened and light crept into the room. Jack began making out the contents of the room. He was inside a bedroom, handcuffed to an oak bedstand. The entirety of the room was covered in dirt and blood, and tools of torture were on a table next to a boarded up window. Across from him, chained in an upright position, was a man covered in a thousand cuts and wounds; portions of his flesh were attached only by a single thread of muscle.
Jack looked over at the door and saw Grace entering with an aluminum dinner tray. On the tray was a wide array of finely cut strips of meat covered in blood. Resting on Grace’s hip was a lantern. Grace grinned and bent down on one knee in front of Jack.
“Good evening, Jack. Did you get a good sleep? I do hope so. I don’t like having uncomfortable guests.”
“Where the fuck am I?” Jack said in a traumatic tone.
“Home.” Grace placed the tray onto Jack’s lap. “Eat up. You will need your energy for tonight.”
Jack looked down at the blood-soaked meat with disgust. It didn’t look like any meat that he had seen before, certainly not one that he’d be willing to try.
“What is this?”
“An old friend of ours.” She looked over at the man chained against the wall. “You may not remember him well. It has been nine years, after all.” She stood and walked over to the man. “Wake up, Michael.” She tapped his shoulder, which was one of the spots of his body that lacked much in the way of skin. Michael let out a howl and Grace smiled enthusiastically.
“Don’t worry, it’s not the shoulder or anything like that.” She pointed at Michael’s left calf. “It’s far better than that.” She returned to the door and crossed her arms. “I’ll tell you what, if you at least try it, I’ll loosen your wrist and give you some time to explore your room.”
Jack gulped and looked down at the flesh before him. Now that he knew what it was, he found himself disgusted beyond parallel. Jack didn’t know the value that freeform movement would grant him, but he suspected that it might be his only means of escape. He closed his eyes and with his free hand, scooped a forkful of human flesh into his mouth. Reflexively, he spat it out; Grace let out a wicked laugh as she walked towards him and released him from his handcuffs.
“This will be a fun night, Jack, and I duly look forward to what awaits us.” She turned and exited the room. A loud locking sound echoed throughout the room and the stairs creaked as she walked down them.
Jack tossed the tray from him and stood. The room was pitch black again and he couldn’t make anything out. Knowing that Michael was still alive, he turned in the direction that he remembered him being,
“Michael?” Silence. “Michael?” More silence. “Michael?!” This time, Jack could hear groaning. “Michael, answer me!”
“J-jack? Oh god, she’s got you, too.” He said in a raspy voice that came out at a dreadfully slow pace. “You have to escape. Don’t end up like David or the others.”
“David was here as well? Shit.”
“There’s a key in here under the pillow on the bed.” Michael forced out. “But, be warned, she wants you to escape,” he let out an agonizing cough, “t-to play her twisted game of cat and mouse. A game that I lost.”
Jack gulped and crept towards the bed’s pillow, where he found a heavy, iron key lying under it. “How do I escape, then?” He asked as he neared the door.
“Don’t get caught…”
Jack unlocked the door and carefully pulled it open to avoid alerting Grace. He looked down the dark staircase and made out an adjacent hallway. He turned back to Michael.
“I’ll get you out of here, I promise.”
“Just go…”
Jack slowly stepped down the stairs with his fists ready. As he crept down, he could make out the singing of Grace from a room somewhere to his left. He didn’t know the song she was singing and he couldn’t make out any of its lyrics.
The hall that Jack found himself in was lit only by two candles on both of its ends. Looking straight ahead, Jack could see the front door, but he knew better than to go straight for it. Grace would never make the escape so easy. Instead, he turned and crept into a side room, which was illuminated by a dim lightbulb.
The room appeared to be another bedroom. An old bed lay in the center of the room with a white drawer next to it. On the drawer was a broken lamp. On Jack’s right was an old armoire and the floor was also covered by a circular, blue rug.
Jack quietly rummaged through the room until he found a pocket knife inside of the old, white drawer. It was an ancient pocket knife, at least a decade old with a cracked wooden handle, but it would do. Jack unfolded the knife and walked towards a door on his right. The singing had stopped.
Jack reached out for the doorknob but stopped suddenly upon hearing Grace’s voice on the other side. Fear gripped him as he flew under the bed. The door opened and Grace entered. She stood motionless at the door.
“The game has begun. Heh, Michael didn’t warn him to close doors.” Jack felt something crawling along his back. To avoid shouting in terror, Jack covered his mouth and repeated affirmations in his head. After a minute of silence, Grace exited the bedroom and went upstairs. Jack, in an instant, shot out from under the bed and rubbed his hands against his body. A large centipede fell from his back.
Jack took a deep breath and entered the room where Grace had emerged. It was a kitchen with all the markings of one; it had a stove, a dishwasher, a sink, a microwave, and a long counter. All of the furniture was dirty and both the stove and sink had traces of blood, with the latter being painted in it. Jack, letting his curiosity get the best of him, walked over to the sink and looked into it.
Inside he found a bowl filled with blood that had a submerged hand in it. He turned around in disgust and nearly vomited. He shook himself back into reality and walked towards the door at the opposite end of the kitchen.
As he opened the door, he heard a scream from upstairs accompanied by a wicked laugh; he knew Michael had been punished for his role in Jack’s escape. The room that Jack was in was a living room. An old, tattered couch sat against the opposite wall with a coffee table just in front of it and a TV from the late 90’s resting upon a TV stand before it. Hanging from the walls were nearly two dozen pictures of various people, most of which were blocked out by red X’s.
Jack looked over the pictures and noticed that only three were not crossed out: his high school senior photo, Michael’s, and a person that he recognized from high school as being Max Saddler. The stairs creaked and Jack hopped behind the couch’s left arm. From the distance, Jack could hear Grace shouting.
“Come on out, Jack! You have a mess to clean!” The door leading from the bedroom to the hall shot open, and in came Grace with a fire-ax. “Why would you run, Jack, after I made you such a good meal? You were always so rude…” She looked around the room before entering the kitchen. “I was looking forward to the sex, you know.”
Jack crept his way into the hall and attempted to open the front door, only for a loud ding to go off. Jack panicked and shot himself through a door on his right. Without taking note of what was in the room, Jack dove into a shower -confirming that was a bathroom. Jack noticed that half of the shower was filled by something. It was too dark for him to make out what it was.
“Ah-ha!” Grace shouted from the hall. “You were never the smart one, not like David, anyway.”
Jack held his breath as Grace entered the bathroom. The bathroom’s light flicked on, revealing to Jack that he shared the shower with a person’s corpse. The corpse was hanging from the ceiling by a hook that pierced its torso; the body lacked a left hand. Jack let out a scream and fell through the curtain. He looked up at Grace who stood smiling.
“Do you remember Drake? Probably not. He was the quiet kid that never spoke in any of our classes. Very shy, but smart as hell.” She placed her hand under her chin. “The two of us spent an entire night running through this old house. Out of anyone, he lasted the longest.”
Jack regained his composure and slashed at Grace’s leg with the pocket knife. To his horror, the knife’s blade broke off as it found itself stuck in Grace’s leg. Grace let out a scream and instinctively hopped back.
“Fuck!”
Jack forced himself to his feet and sprinted through the house and jumped inside of the armoire in Grace’s bedroom.
“Oh-ho, you rat! Finally another strike upon my transient flesh! Ohhhh, another reason to strike you.”
Jack held his breath as Grace loudly searched from room to room for him. After five minutes, Grace entered the bedroom.
“There are only a few places that you can be in here, Jack.” She bent down and looked under the bed. She then marched towards the wardrobe.
“Oh, Jack, I can’t express my joy at the thought of seeing you strung about the upstairs bed. Oh, how delightful of a decoration you will be.” Grace opened the wardrobe and Jack sprang out. The two fought for control of the fire-ax. The ax was knocked out of Grace’s hands and across the room. Jack shoved Grace to the floor and crawled towards the ax. Just before he could reach the ax, Jack let out a scream as a blade pierced his back; it was the pocket knife’s blade.
Grace grabbed the fire-ax, wiped the blood from her mouth and raised the ax into the air. “It’s only fair.” She brought the ax down upon Jack’s right leg. Within moments, Jack was unconscious.
Part III: End
Max Saddler took a deep breath as he pushed open an old, glass door and entered the restaurant. It was a dimly lit place that appeared to be entirely devoid of life, save for that of a girl at the far corner. She was a beautiful woman with lush, black hair and a rounded face. Her name was Grace, the most popular girl during Saddler’s time in high school. He walked toward her.
“Heya, Grace. Been awhile.”
“And to you the same, Saddler. Here,” she gestured across from her, “have a seat. The waiter should be here shortly with our drinks.”