Relics

AN: I was heavily inspired by Ju-On: The Grudge and other J-type horror figures for the look of the family, in addition to SH's own Cynthia and her memorable appearance from the fourth game. :)

Enjoy! ;D


Relics


“I'm so sorry. The mechanism is broken, you see. It wasn't supposed to stop there, I assure you.”

Heather rolled her eyes at the announcer's voice. Yet another parlor trick from this macabre fun house. She had already been subjected to numerous “amusements”, including a hanging silhouette (of a hanged man), a blood-splattered room, and a corpse that came shooting down from the ceiling. The spikes hardly bothered her as the returned to the ceiling; it was the typical setup of thinking something was going to come down on you only to stop a few feet short. They were startling at first, but they were nothing compared to “Danny” from the other room.

This place is lame, she decided, looking to her sides at the make-believe prison cells. They were supposed to be intimidating, she realized, but all they did remind her of how pathetic this place truly was. So what if a few 'attractions' were genuine and not make-believe? The corpse was real, but Heather wondered if she was becoming desensitized to the violence. Compared to the horrors she'd faced outside, this place was nothing. This was why she never liked fun houses, she decided. They were always trying to scare you with lame tricks, and all they did was make themselves look cheap.

What a waste of time. The Borley Haunted Mansion...what a joke.

She was walking toward the exit when Heather's world collapsed underneath. The floorboards crumbled beneath her, and she barely had time to scream as she realized she had stepped into a deathtrap so perfectly concealed by the wood. She tried to grasp onto something as she fell, but there was nothing hold onto as she fell, and she plummeted into the darkness below.

The first thing Heather thought when she regained her bearings was that she was glad to be alive. She was afraid she would fall into one of those bottomless pits found all throughout this place. As the dust cleared, Heather analyzed her situation. She was lying in a pile of debris, twisted up with her legs settled awkwardly among the debris. There was a sharp pain coming from her leg; Heather was afraid she might have broken it. What she saw was worse. Heather nearly had a heart attack when she saw the state of her injured leg. There was a huge piece of wood impaled through her left leg, near the beginning of her knee. It looked nasty, and blood was splattered all around the wound, mixing with the dull brown of the wood. The tears came unbidden to her eyes and she was unable to hold them back.

Heather looked around at her surroundings. The room she was in was a perfect replica of the upstairs room. She didn't know how that was possible, but she didn't care. God, it hurt so badly! Never had Heather thought she could feel such pain. The pain was excruciating, spreading all over her leg and into her upper body. The wound was repulsive to look at, and Heather almost wanted to throw up from the nauseating feeling she got in her stomach from the agony.

She cradled her injured limb gingerly. The pain was getting worse. Somehow, she had to get out of here. She knew she had to find Douglas. Maybe he could patch it up with a first aid kit and she would avoid losing her leg.

Heather knew one thing for certain: she was done for here. There was no way she could go after Claudia now. Her father's murderer would have to wait, much as it burned at her to do so. There was no way she could go after her now.

It was then that something caught her attention. There was a noise from the back. There was an exit in the back. Next to that exit was a stairwell. Suddenly, an arm descended the stairwell, followed by another. Heather's eyes widened as she realized something was coming down the stairs...and it could only be after her.

Oh God...

The creature was pale, with long black hair over its face. It looked like a woman, but the way it was moving and the unusual crawl of its arms suggested it couldn't possibly be human. It was wearing a white dress that was stained with grime, and blood, all over. It groaned with a choked sound in its throat, as if it was being strangled or had somehow suffered trauma to the throat. The worst part was under the hair. It's face was deformed, and it seemed to have suffered gruesome damage to its features.

Heather immediately knew she had to get out of here. She couldn't fight this thing in this condition.

This was going to take some effort. With one single unhesitant move Heather pushed herself up from the ground, trying to keep her leg as still as possible. Heather screamed as a searing pain shot through her leg. She wouldn't have tried this under normal circumstances, but she had no choice. She clutched her thigh for a moment, trying to steady herself. Heather looked back and the creature was coming fast, but now it was accompanied by two smaller forms equally undead: it looked to be a boy and a girl, the boy with short dark hair, both of them in ragged clothing stained as much with dirt and blood as their “parent's”.

Heather held back a whimper of fear. The panic began to rise in her chest.

Heather thought back to what the announcer said, when she was touring the mansion in the beginning. “A family of four was sliced into bloody pieces in this room. Ah, the cries of the children. Help...help...do you hear those voices? Anyway, I'm lying. It's just a joke. I wanted to scare you...”

Oh God!

Heather knew without a doubt: this wasn't just a joke. Damn it, she had to get out of here! Luckily, there was a door nearby, much closer than the other exit. She would never reach the other exit through all these monsters, but this one was a safe bet even with her wounded. She managed to reach it, but then she had another problem. Come on, come on! Heather thought frantically, shaking the doorknob vigorously. But no matter what she did, the doorknob wouldn't turn. She was locked in.

She took a look back and the monsters were gaining on her. Heather began to panic furiously now. She searched frantically for her gun, but the weapon was nowhere to be found, and neither was her shotgun. Heather really wished she'd brought along her steel pipe right now, but the world here couldn't possibly be this cruel, to let her die after everything she'd been through. She continued to try to turn the doorknob, hoping that the door would magically unlock just at right moment. Please, she begged it, please! Just this once! The town didn't respond to her pleas. And the monsters caught up with her.

One of them dragged down Heather by her leg. Heather squealed as she fell, causing a slight pain to add itself to the horrible ache already present in her leg. She screamed as hands and legs were over her. Heather tried to push them away, but they were too strong and too many. She cried desperately for help, praying anybody could hear her. Being this close to them was repulsive, and she tried to think of them as only persons and not the hideous monsters they were, or the unfortunate victims they'd been. She didn't want to end up trapped in this place like them. But she found herself facing a losing battle, as she was unable to defend herself without her weapon. And the monsters were on her. Heather screamed as they began grabbing at her and tearing at her clothes, assaulting her with their voracious appetite. And no matter how she struggled with them, the arms grabbing at her were too numerous. One of them ripped out the wooden piece from her leg, and Heather screamed in agony as a bloodied hole was left in its place, causing her to release from the agony she felt. She barely reacted to it; the humiliation was there, but it hardly was a thought as she the fear that she was going to be overtaken and was going to die was too palpable to concentrate on anything else.

The entities continued to attack. Heather found herself fading as she was losing energy, getting tired from the struggle. The ground beneath her was wet with a pool of fluid, but that didn't stop them from going at her with every ounce of hunger they had. The entities were savage in their assault, relentless; whatever humanity they had was gone from them long ago. They existed now only as predators to prey upon the town's victims. Heather would have pitied them if they weren't so intent on killing her. They were looking for someone, anyone, to take out their aggression on and Heather was the unwilling target. Heather screamed as they grabbed for her breast, tearing the flesh through her vest, complete with pocketed white fabric. Words could not describe her horror as Heather screamed, realizing there was now a gaping hole on the right side of her chest. Her eyes rolled back into her head as her pain centers overloaded on agony. The entities continued assaulting her, tearing at the skin on her arms, her legs; anywhere they could get their claws on.

They were hovering all over her. She could barely keep her eyes open now; she couldn't scream for help anymore. The monsters were uncaring about her plight; unfeeling as Heather contemplated her final moments on this world, and she wished for once that she had just bought into the town's BS, that she hadn't made fun of it so openly; no doubt they could obviously hear her in her mind. She thought of many things in that moment: Harry, Claudia, Douglas; none it mattered. The adult monster finally dealt a stab that made her stiffen in reflexive shock, mouth open in a gasp as Heather's world went black around her, and the monsters continued to amuse themselves with her body.

The last thing Heather heard was the sound of her own flesh being torn.