Jack Kilborn - Endurance

If Ulysses sees that phone...

Just then, Ulysses walked into the clearing.

He was big, every bit as big as John. Thick in the shoulders and the chest. A head as massive as a tree stump. Felix could only make out his silhouette in the moonlight, but he could see Ulysses was carrying something long and curved.

A crowbar.

Felix quickly reached out his hand, slapping his palm over his cell phone, covering the green light.

Then there was a burst of red. Ulysses had lit a flare.

The red glow illuminated the large man’s facial deformity. The right side of his face bulged out like he had a baseball under his skin. This stretched out his mouth, making it almost twice as wide as normal. Ulysses looked like he could swallow an orange, whole.

Felix stared, impotent, as the man stalked closer. Soon he was three steps away...

Two steps...

One step.

Please no oh please don’t step on...

MY HAND!

Ulysses’s work boot crunched down on Felix’s broken hand, prompting a pain so intense Felix had to gnash his teeth so he didn’t scream.

“Y’all put a dent in my truck,” Ulysses said, staring into the woods.

Get off my hand! Get off!

“When I find you, I’m gonna beat out that dent with your skull.”

GETOFFGETOFFGETOFF!!!

Ulysses hacked and spat, hitting Felix on the cheek. Felix squeezed his eyes shut, feeling it slide down into his ear, knowing he couldn’t hold the scream in any longer.

Then Ulysses abruptly walked on, into the forest, the red flare growing dimmer and eventually disappearing.

With tremendous effort, Felix got up onto his knees, and shoved the cell phone back into his pocket using his thumb and pinky.

The Inn. I need to go back to the Inn and find Maria.

But with his mangled hands, he knew he was practically useless. He couldn’t hold a weapon. He couldn’t even open a door.

Are my fingers broken? Or just dislocated?

Squinting in the moonlight, he studied his bent digits. The bends and twists were primarily around the knuckles. But, incredibly, the two of the fingers Ulysses had steeped on looked better than before.

Maybe I can bend them all back.

He brought his right hand up to his mouth, ready to stick his finger inside.

Just bite down, and let gravity do the rest.

But Felix didn’t bite down. On the list of things he didn’t want to do, trying to fix his fingers ranked slightly above pouring gasoline on his head and setting his hair on fire.

Just do it.

Felix didn’t move.

Do it! For Maria!

He clamped his teeth down, hard, and then quickly dropped his wrist.

SNAP!

A sob escaped him, and his whole body shook. But his index finger did seem to be better. Even semi-functional.

Three more to go.

He switched hands, raising the left one to his face, when he noticed a firefly in the bushes, glinting yellow. The firefly also had a mate, a few inches away.

Then the fireflies blinked, and Felix realized he wasn’t staring at fireflies.

He was looking into the eyes of the mountain lion.

# # #

Deb didn’t hesitate. With her folding knife in a death grip, she hacked away at the throat of the nearest Siamese twin, cutting and slashing until she hit bone and they crawled off of her, spraying geysers of blood.

When they got to the bed, the twins sat up. The duo shared the same two legs, but at the chest they forked into two halves. A single, underdeveloped arm jutted out of their sternum just below the split. The head on the left-hand side was limp, nodding forward, eyes rolled up. The left arm was similarly slack.

“Andrew?” the other head said, staring at his dead twin. “What’s wrong, Andrew?”

He slapped the slack head, repeatedly. Deb gawked, the horrible image too much for her to handle. She scooted away from them, snagging the bag with her prosthetic legs from the closet.

“You killed Andrew!” the other twin cried. He attempted to lunge at Deb, but only half of his body worked. As he pathetically tried to drag himself forward, Deb crawled to the nearest wall and pulled herself up.

The blood soaking her sweater was warm, and the stench was making her sick. She stripped it off, down to her tee shirt and shorts, and headed into the hallway. More than anything else, she wanted to run outside, get as far away from this awful house as possible. But she wasn’t going to leave Mal behind. Somehow, she knew he’d give her the same consideration if the roles were reversed.

The next room over had Abraham Lincoln stencilled on the door. Brandishing the knife, Deb went in quick, feeling along the wall for the light switch. When she flipped it on, all she saw was lots of creepy Lincoln decor. But it was empty of people.

Next came Calvin Coolidge. Like every door so far, it was unlocked, making Deb wonder if any of the locks actually worked. Testing her theory, she turned the lock on the knob and then twisted it.

It doesn’t lock at all.

Again she stepped into a dark room, reaching for the light switch next to the doorway—

—touching the man who was standing there.

Deb recoiled, pulling away, backpedalling into the hall. Her ass hit the banister, and for a crazy moment she thought she was going to flip over it and tumble down to the first floor. She lowered her center of gravity by doing the splits, her Cheetah prosthetics splaying out as she sat on her ass.

Whomever she accidentally touched walked out of the dark room, into the light of the hallway. He had a large brow ridge, bisected with a single bushy eyebrow, on a head that was big and flatish on top. His arms were longer than they should have been, and his fingers were fused together in a triangle shape, like the flippers of a walrus. His other hand had a bloody bandage wrapped around it.

But the most repulsive thing of all was his torso. He had no shirt, and his pale, hairless chest was pocked with dozens of—

Nipples. He’s covered with nipples.

The freak opened his mouth and made a noise that was a lot like the honking of a Canadian goose. Then he lunged.

Deb thrust her blade at him, but he batted it aside with his bandaged hand, sending it skittering across the floor. She tried to scurry after the knife, but the curved fiberglass of her Cheetahs slipped across the wood floor. The only traction on her prosthetics were the rubber treads, but in a sitting position the bottoms were bent upward like the ends of a W.

Calvin honked again, getting his arms around her, nipples poking at her face and eyes. Deb tried to turn, to get onto her hands and knees, but his grip was too strong.

Behind her, the banister creaked, then shifted.

Calvin backed up, apparently afraid of breaking it and falling over. Deb took the opportunity to lunge for the knife, tapping it with her fingertips, sending it spinning toward the railing.

Don’t fall! Don’t fall!

The knife handle teeter-tottered over the ledge then righted itself. Deb stretched farther, trying to snag it, and then her head was yanked back by her hair. But it felt more than just pulling. It also felt wet.

She turned her head, trying to see what was happening peripherally.

He’s biting my hair.

Deb tried to push against the floor, but her prosthetics couldn’t get a purchase. Then her eyes flitted to her bag, the strap still around her shoulder. She reached for it.

Calvin’s hands moved down, encircling her neck, and Deb thought he was going to strangle her. But the pervert lowered his hands, reaching for her breasts instead.

Bad move.

Deb tugged down the zipper on her suitcase and freed one of her prosthetic mountain climbing legs—the one with the spikes on the toe.