I whipped around to see Abby standing in the corner of the room, her head askew at an unnatural angle, blood pouring down her arms and legs and pooling on the floor. Wasps crawled out of her mouth, pushing her lips aside.
This really was hell, wasn’t it? Filled with the ghosts of people I’d only been too happy to be rid of. And here, in this place, they were no less scary and no less dangerous. Abby had the power to keep me here. She was certainly going to make sure Dex wasn’t going anywhere.
Although, that meant he was here to begin with. A rocket of hope jolted through me, battling the fear.
“I can’t have him,” I repeated, surprised to find my voice. “That means he is here, with you.”
She smiled at me, the grin of a mad woman, a dead woman. More wasps came out of her mouth, heading straight for me where they circled around my head. A few came out of her nose and ears. One of her unblinking eyes pulsed and moved as a wasp squeezed between the eyeball and the socket. I was having a hard time not throwing up.
“He is upstairs. With them,” she said. “They won’t let him go. He’s right where he belongs.”
I raised my chin, staring at his grotesque ex-girlfriend with defiance. “I’ll be the one who decides that,” I said, feeling strength and conviction when I thought I would have none. I’d come this far, I guess. There was nothing left to lose, no reason not to believe I couldn’t beat this.
Before I could even turn for the door though, Abby was flying across the room, her long, bony fingers wrapping around my neck like icicles. She threw me back, my head smacking against the door and we crumpled to the ground. She smelled like rotten meat and blood and death and I knew if I didn’t act fast, she was going to kill me.
I somehow managed to roll out from under her but she was fast and as I struggled to get to my feet, my soles slipping on her greasy blood, she grabbed onto my ankles, her nails slicing into my skin.
I screamed and she yanked me back down on my stomach, pulling me toward her by my legs. The air started to swarm with wasps, first a few, then more, until their droning buzz was all I could hear. They landed on my arms, my back, my face, crawled into my hair, stinging me again and again. The pain was unbearable and every time I screamed they made a go for my mouth.
Growls spewed out from Abby’s lips and I felt the back of my shirt lift up, her ice cold nails trailing over my exposed skin near my spine. I felt like any second she was about to slice on in and pull my spine out with her bare hands. Panicking, I flailed my arms, trying to buck her off me, but she wouldn’t budge. The wasps continued to assault me and the blood around me was rising, moving, as if it were a living thing, wrapping sticky rivers around my arms and legs.
When I felt her mouth center over my spine, her teeth razing my vertebrae, I knew I was done for. She was going to tear me apart and eat me alive, sucking out my spinal fluid as an aperitif.
“Dex!” I screamed in vain, a wasp landing on my tongue. I doubted he could hear me. It was a way to let him know that I tried.
I tried.
The sharp stab of her teeth sank into me and I closed my eyes to the pain.
They were immediately blown back open.
A giant rush of wind, of warm force, of power came blasting at me, causing Abby to fly backward, letting me go. I flattened against the ground, my eyes having a staring contest with the writing blood on the floor, coming for my face. I was aware of Abby growling, screaming, and I lifted my head just enough to look over my shoulder, to see what was going on.
Abby was being dragged by her own ankles toward a black pit that had opened up where the door used to be, swirling in the air like a black hole, sucking all the wasps into it. I couldn’t see what was dragging her, it was just this mess of shimmering light, a golden glow in this world of darkness, but the hole that it created was growing stronger and stronger.
I heard the piano screech, the keys rattling in a chaotic song, and I turned my head back to see it moving inch by inch, being sucked into the vacuum, just as my own body began to lift up in the air. I pressed my hands into the bloody ground, desperate to not be taken where Abby had been but it was useless. The piano was sliding toward me and I was pulled back too. I was going to be crushed.
Then, just as my body became airborne and I started to twist like was going down a drain, the roar of sound stopped and for one moment I was perfectly still in the air, floating. Then I dropped. I belly-flopped on the ground, hard, and all the air was squeezed from me.
I gasped, trying to regain my breath and figure out my next move. If I could just lay down my head and close my eyes for a while, I was sure that everything would be fine in the morning.