Judging Challenges

SCREAMS Weekly Contest Entry - Week of 10/4/21
Prompt: Tell me how Ray is going to escape from his abduction!

Ray whimpered, feeling the languid descent of sticky heat as it began to soak into the top of his jeans. His cramped legs buzzed with the telltale tingle of stagnant blood flow, rapidly on their way to becoming dead weight from a lack of circulation. He was sure that the blood pouring out of his gut from his knife wound wasn’t helping matters.

Ray was still shocked that Serpent had betrayed him. Internally, he cursed himself. He should have known better than to collaborate with horror writers. As friendly as they seemed, scary-story crafters were always on the lookout for inspiration of the morbid variety.

“Serpent?” Ray called out, his voice tinny and weak, even to his own ears.

There was no response.

Ray squirmed inside the itchy burlap sack, rolling onto his side, only to feel the squish of blood-soaked fabric against his hip as he did. How much blood was he losing? As if in answer, he began to feel lightheaded, unsure whether the feeling was actually due to the loss of blood or simply from his anxiety over it. He sincerely hoped it was the latter.

The tightness in his chest began to ease as pin pricks jabbed at the quivering flesh of his legs in a wash of welcome discomfort. The change of position had served its purpose, feeling gradually returning to his extremities. His dizziness continued unabated, however.

That wasn’t good.

Ray clenched his fingers, instantly regretting it. A jolt of pain lanced from his throbbing wrists as the rope that bound them dug into his flesh, already rubbed raw from his initial struggles to free himself. The prone man stilled, breathing heavily for a moment as he steeled his fraying nerves. He knew what he needed to do next, though he was not looking forward to it in the least.

He rolled over again, this time onto his chest, the spear of pain through his abdomen, leaving him breathless. Undaunted, however, knowing that his life may depend on escape, he didn’t stop. He pressed down on the chilly concrete floor with his forehead, gathering his knees beneath him, then spreading them wide.

*Rrrrrrrrip*

The small puncture from Serpent’s knife in the bag that held him tore with the pressure, expanding rapidly to send a wave of relief through Ray’s thumping, adrenaline-flooded heart.

He centered his legs again, the excitement of success giving him renewed hope, and he pressed his knees outward a second time. Again, he heard a zippering sound, this one longer as the opening in the bag that contained him drew longer and wider. He wiggled his hips, moving his knee to the center of the bag, the chill of the bared concrete telling him that it had, indeed, been parted. Deciding it was large enough to allow him to attempt escape, Ray ducked his head into his knees, ignoring the wave of vertigo that accompanied the movement. As his sweat-soaked hair simultaneously touched the base of his thighs and the biting coolness of the floor, he extended again, sliding his head along the floor like an inchworm. His damp head caught the edge of the hole, expanding it further as his head slid out of its confinement. He twisted, the stab wound in his gut sending a surge of bile into the back of his throat. His damaged body screamed in protest, its vehemence emphatic enough to cause his legs to shake with clenching agony.

But his head was free, the swirling air of the dank environment rolling over his cheeks like the soft breath of a reticent lover as he flopped onto his back. He forced his lips apart, ignoring the unpleasant pull of the duct tape as it slowly worked free of his moist skin. When it finally came loose, he shrugged the bag to its free end, catching it on the burlap. He wiggled and squirmed until it came completely free, the flaring burn of his injury forcing him still as he finished. He licked dry, sticky lips, taking a long moment to bask in the musty succulence of freedom as he breathed it over the tip of his tongue.

His eyes were wide, staring upward. He had been hoping to see something, but the room was pitch black, every bit as dark as the interior of the sack. He rose slowly to his feet, rough fabric slipping down his arms. The throbbing pain from his cramping, wobbly legs played steady counterpoint to the stomach-clenchingly sharp bursts of agony from just above his blood-slicked hip. His soggy t-shirt clung to his trembling torso with desperate tenacity as he swayed in the murky darkness.

He looked around, a tiny bead of flashing green light catching his attention. It appeared to be from some sort of electronic device. He staggered toward the faint light, gritting his teeth against the symphony of unpleasant sensation from his awkward movement until his hips collided with what felt like the edge of a table. He stopped, tremors rippling through his jellylike legs with the contact. He lifted a leg to probe around it, a thump followed by the scraping lurch of chair legs against a hard floor causing a lump of gratitude to form in his throat.

Ray maneuvered himself into position before his legs completely gave out, landing on the metal chair hard enough to bruise his tailbone. The sting of pain seared his exhausted nerves for a moment until it faded somewhat, joining the numerous other throbbing sensations thrumming at the jagged edges of his consciousness.

The injured man leaned forward to explore the surface of the table in the only way he could⁠—with his face. When his nose brushed against a bumpy plastic surface, he quickly recognized what it was. A keyboard. He bobbed forward, pressing one of the keys. A moment later, a screen before him flickered to glowing life.

So this was where Serpent wrote his brilliant stories. In a darkened basement. The same place where he kept his abductees. Momentarily forgetting his predicament, Ray found himself nodding in approval. It really was the perfect place for horror writing.

Hope filling his gleaming eyes, Ray watched the logos flash over the screen with eagerness, deciding that, while he might not have the strength to make it up the stairs to escape⁠, he could perhaps use the computer to contact someone who could send help.

As a password screen came up, however, his heart immediately sank. Damn it. He hadn’t thought about that. Grimacing as another wave of dizziness threatened to send him from the chair to the floor, Ray thought about Serpent. What would his friend use as a password?

After a moment’s consideration, the corners of his lips curled upward in a sly smile. The injured man leaned forward, using the soft glow of the monitor to identify the keys before sending his nose into each one like a chicken pecking seeds from the ground.

“SCRE4MS!!!” he pounded into the keyboard, punctuating the guess with a definitive snort as he tapped the enter key with the tip of his nose.

The computer whirred to life, a web browser rising to fill the screen. As the cartoon woman that adorned the top of the SCREAMS!!! Forum painted herself over the screen, Ray laughed aloud, the sound echoing within the cinder block room. Stomach fluttering with excitement, Ray extended his chin forward, lowering it onto the mouse and clicking the “New Entry” link with his tongue. He used his nose to start a new message on the keyboard, pumping out letters until his nose was nearly as sore as his punctured stomach.

“Help me! This is Ray. S. Serpent kidnapped me and has me in his basement! His last prompt message wasn’t a joke! Please send help!”

He probably shouldn’t have spared the time to spell out the WritingML to link to his friend’s username, but old habits died hard.

A moment later, he saw the notification screen flash with a response. Then, another. And another. Closing his eyes for a moment to offer a silent prayer of thanks, nearly weeping in gratitude, Ray again maneuvered the mouse with his chin, clicking the button to see the responses.

“Good one,” said Bob, adding a laughing emoji to his message.

“Great prompt, mate,” wrote Beholden, with a thumbs-up. “Very creative.”

“Agreed. Maybe I’ll join in on this one too,” replied Hullabaloo.

Ray’s eyes widened in horror. They thought his plea for help was fiction!

His head began to pound, blood beginning to seep to his upper thigh, as anxiety flooded through him. How could he explain that it was all real in a way they would believe? As he set his mind to the task, however, his vision began to blur, his head lolled to his chest, and he lost consciousness.

A loud clunk from the floor above roused Ray from his nightmare-riddled sleep, his strength now so depleted that he could barely lift his head. Wondering if the sound had simply been a figment of his imagination, his eyelashes began to flutter shut as the siren song of oblivion beckoned to his dull mind once again.

A moment later, however, the sound of the basement door creaking open sent a shiver down his spine, shocking him from his dazed stupor into full alertness once again. Had someone actually understood that his message wasn’t a joke? Was someone here to rescue him?

The sound of something soft and heavy struck the wooden steps. A bag of laundry, maybe? It slid downward, something hard clunking occasionally against the groaning pine. That didn’t sound like laundry. What was that? As steps began to descend the stairs behind it, Ray’s blood ran cold. His exhausted mind managed a flash of intuition. He knew what the sound had been.

It was a body.

“I don’t care that Beholden’s story was better,” a female voice hissed from the top of the stairs. “I don’t care that my dinosaur story was more comedy than horror. I wanted to win, damn it.”

Ray twisted around, catching sight of a slender silhouette descending the final step by the dim glow of the computer screen. Her face was shrouded in shadow. His blood-deprived brain struggled to comprehend the woman’s words, only managing to put them together as she kicked something from the bottom of the stairs.

Dinosaur story? That had been Ray’s own prompt from the week before, hadn’t it? He coaxed the memories from his increasingly sluggish mind. As he recalled, there had only been two entries. One extraordinarily creative one from Beholden, and one not-particularly-scary entry from…

…WriterAngel!

Was this her? Did that mean that the body was Serpent? Had she killed him? When he’d made his plea for help, he had simply been desperate to leave. He’d never thought about other potential consequences. His stomach clenched as a whirlwind of emotion swirled through him. He hadn’t actually wanted his friend dead. Worse yet, it almost sounded as if the woman had enjoyed killing him! He had no idea she took these weekly contests so seriously!

The clomp of booted heels drew near, tearing his eyes from the body to the woman once again.

“WriterAngel?” Ray whispered, squinting into the darkness for a glimpse of the woman’s face.

“In the flesh,” came the quick reply. She made a small curtsy, her eyes flashing in the darkness.

The body on the floor gave a soft moan, and Ray felt his heart leap. Serpent wasn’t dead after all! Maybe they could all still come out of this okay! Maybe…

Ray’s thoughts trailed off as he watched the woman’s silhouette drop into a crouch beside Serpent’s slowly writhing body. The glint of a blade sent a surge of fear through his pattering heart before it disappeared in darkness. The lump stiffened, a sharp intake of breath accompanying its sudden tension. It shuddered twice, then went still.

“What was that? What just happened?” Ray managed, his world beginning to spin once again, bile rising in the back of his throat. He wasn’t sure why he’d asked. He really didn’t want to know.

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with,” she said matter-of-factly, the flashes of the knife and swish of fabric making it clear that she was cleaning a blade. “Just taking care of a bit of personal business.”

“Did you k-kill him?” Ray stammered, remembering her words as she had thrown Serpent’s body down the stairs. “Over a writing contest?”

Ray thought he could make out an indifferent shrug. “Well, there was the whole kidnapping you thing too, I suppose. But to be honest, I really don’t care about that. It did give me a good cover story, though, so thank you for that.”

“Cover story?”

The shadowy figure didn’t answer, instead approaching Ray’s noodle-like body, his chin resting on his chest as he struggled to look up at the figure before him. He felt a hand touch his soaked shirt, her fingers gliding along until they found the jagged slice in the fabric from Serpent’s knife. She pressed her fingertips into the wound, sending a torturous burst of agony through the weakened man’s body. He cried out in a shrill voice.

“Looks like you’ve lost a lot of blood, Ray. I’m betting you don’t have long now.” She withdrew, tapping her lips with a blood-coated finger, her eyes calculating in the monitor’s dim glow. “I’m also betting that you don’t have the strength to make it out of here.”

As if in answer, Ray felt his pain-wracked body slide from the seat, sagging limply to the floor. He fought to maintain consciousness, his blood-deprived eyes now doubling and tripling everything in his field of vision.

“Just to make sure,” she continued, turning and kneeling to pull the upper half of Serpent’s lifeless body upward. “I think I’ll leave you two together.”

With that, she dragged the body toward Ray, dropping his shoulders onto Ray’s numb legs to pin him to the floor. She wiped the handle of her knife on the body before pressing it into Ray’s open palm. She curled her fingers around it, then let his hand fall, the blade clattering from his grasp.

Ray attempted to rise, but only his head managed to do so. Even that only managed to make it about half an inch before it fell once more to the concrete. The soft clunk of skull on cool cement cleared his thoughts one final time, lifting his fading awareness from the morass of misery that his body had become.

“I hope Sugarglider and Rustika like captivity stories,” he heard WriterAngel say to herself as she ascended the stairs. “If they don't, there will be hell to pay…”

Ray’s eyes remained open as the door closed at the top of the stairs, but they no longer saw anything but darkness.


Author’s Note: This is all simply meant as good fun. No story judges need fear for their lives. I’m pretty sure the SCREAMS!!! judges are all undead anyway. Right? ;)

2,534 words