Alone with the Corpses

Short fiction/ Horror: He stepped into the strangers’ car and went deep into the darkness

Darkness and tears. Copilot

“Each time a woman stands up for herself, she stands up for all women.”

Maya Angelou

---

Ben had no idea how he ended up in the car.

Actually, he did.

It had all started with his old trick: slapping the curvy bottom of the black-haired girl, then putting on his well-practiced look of desperate terror when he saw her shocked face. Oh, I thought you were my ex-wife! You two look so alike! See, we have this little prank, me and her… I’m sorry, I’m so very sorry! How can I make it up to you? Buy you a drink?

He was such a good actor that most of them took the bait. Then, he’d lay on the charm until they were properly drunk, he was properly drunk too, and they’d end up properly in the bed of his small rented apartment.

As for this latest beauty — she took the bait all right, only she’d come with two girlfriends in tow.

They were just as stunning as she was. Ben remembered he kept repeating their names in his mind like mantras, downing drink after drink to gather the courage for what he hoped would be a threesome.

Liza — the black-haired angel whose butt I slapped. She’s got something Asian about her, for sure. That smooth skin, like porcelain, and those slanty eyes!

Carry — the tall, muscular powerhouse with curly red hair that covers her from head to toe. Gosh, have I ever seen a girl with so much hair? She must have some secret natural fertilizer! Imagine that hair brushing against your chest, ahhh!

Oh, and Lily, the petite one. She’s cute, too, though not exactly my type, but I wouldn’t mind her joining the other two. Why’d she cut her hair so short? Looks like a boy. And her skin’s pretty dark. Latino? No idea. She moves like she’s lived on trees. Tarzan’s daughter?

Now Ben was squished in the back seat of the car between Liza and Lily, while Carry drove. To where? He didn’t know. The alcohol had muddled his brain, leaving only the thrill of the wild adventure ahead. He’d never been with more than one woman at once. And these three promised an unforgettable night.

“Hey!” He blinked, trying to clear his vision. Dark buildings flew past, silver raindrops sparkling on the window. “Where are we going again?”

“Changed your mind?” Liza slid a warm hand under his shirt, her fingers tracing his stomach. His muscles tightened, skin crawling. “Relax, boy, it’ll be my first time, too!”

“Nothing like a first time for me, baby,” he muttered, burying his face in her neck and giving it a playful bite. Her skin tasted like fresh lemon. “I’m an old soul. I know all the tricks from past lives!”

“Then you have nothing to worry about!” Carry’s voice boomed from the front seat.

Is it just me, or is there a chill in that voice? That one’ll be a mouthful. Her hair alone could strangle me.

“Sure!” he said loudly as Liza squirmed with delight under his teeth. “Just wondering where we’re going, baby. I’m not into any crazy cult clubs, you know…”

“Your soul’s not that old?” Carry shot back, taking a sharp turn down a side street.

“Well…” He hesitated, not quite able to process the irony in her tone. A flower of irritation bloomed in his chest. “Just answer my question, will you?”

When Carry didn’t reply, Ben let go of Liza and turned to look at Lily on his left. She sat, glued to the window, her big black eyes fixed on him. She’d been silent the entire time — even at the bar, he hadn’t heard a word from her. Her expression was hard to read, too; she’d simply been observing him with those dark eyes, like he was a forgotten treasure she’d just unearthed in her backyard but knew she shouldn’t touch.

“Aren’t you gonna say something? Why are you so quiet all the time?”

Lily kept looking at him. She reached out and touched his arm tentatively like she was afraid her fingers might hurt him.

“You’ll be okay, Ben,” she whispered. Her voice, soft and melodious, made his tense muscles relax instantly. It was pure love. Suddenly, Ben felt the urge to grab this little creature and run off with her into the night. Marry her. Have a bunch of chubby kids. Settle down. Get serious.

The car stopped abruptly. Ben lurched forward, grabbing the back of the front seat. They were in one of the city’s poorer suburbs, with old apartment buildings crowded on both sides of a narrow, dilapidated street. A single lamppost cast a muddy, grayish light over the uneven pavement.

The three women got out, and he followed, diving into the cold darkness. The fresh air cleared some of his dizziness.

Carry gave him a wide smile, shook the red forest on her head, which made the entire street shake in response, and beckoned him to come closer. She wrapped a strong arm around his waist, her cherry-flavored lips brushing his briefly.

“We’ve got a special place here, beautiful!” she said. “Consider yourself lucky — not everyone’s invited.”

“Liza said it’s her first time, too,” he murmured, feeling himself drawn again to the anticipation of what lay ahead.

“Yeah, well, it’s usually just the three of us having fun here. I’ve invited guys before, but only on my own. Lily and Liza are a little shy around men, but they really liked you, you know. You’re different.”

“Not that scary, huh?”

“No, not at all. You’re so sweet.”

Her deep, almost masculine voice made that last word strangely thrilling. Ben’s heart started pounding harder. Yet, when they entered the building and she unlocked a door leading to an old, dimly lit staircase going down, he hesitated at the first step.

“Hey, are you guys… I mean, isn’t this the way to the basement?”

“Yeah, exactly,” Carry replied, the chill he’d heard in her voice in the car coming back. He could hear the shallow, quick breathing of the other two women behind him.

“Listen, I…”

“Think of it as getting to the depths of things,” Carry said, gripping his arm and pulling him forward. “Come on, Ben! Don’t be as shy as my girlfriends here!”

He didn’t move.

“I think…”

“Come on!” Her voice grew firm, her grip tightening so hard it hurt.

I have to get out of here, he thought suddenly.

Aloud, he said, “Girls, I think we should call it quits. See…I think I’m not dressed for the occasion. Maybe some other — ”

“Undress, then,” Carry said, her voice rattling against the peeling walls like ice cubes in a glass. Ben blinked and suddenly found himself staring at the black barrel of a gun.

Carry stood, pointing a pistol at him, breathing heavily. There was no color in her eyes anymore — only darkness.

“Move!” she hissed. The gun was inches from his face, and he realized he was trembling like a leaf in a ferocious autumn wind.

“What the…” he choked, as hard metal crashed against his nose, a flash of pain tearing through his brain. He lurched, blood streaming from his face, and leaned against the wall to keep from falling.

Carry gripped the gun tighter, blood dripping from the barrel.

Oh, Jesus, I’m in trouble! Big trouble!

Through the haze of pain, he saw only the black circle of the barrel.

“From now on, if you don’t do as I say, I won’t hit,” Carry said evenly. “I’ll shoot. I won’t kill you, but I’ll shoot you in places you don’t want to be shot. I’m a good shot, you know. I was in the army.”

“Okay! Okay!” he gasped. “Shit, calm down…”

“Move!”

“Where?”

“Down. We’ll follow.”

They descended into a large basement room, thick with the stench of mold and rotting wood. Under the dim yellow light of a single bulb, he saw chains dangling from the ceiling and an old table littered with hammers, chisels, knives, nails, and splintered planks.

I need to turn around now! I need to turn around and snatch that gun from that insane woman’s hand! Now!

But as he stopped in the middle of the room and looked again into the infinite blackness of the barrel, he realized he couldn’t do it.

He was too scared to do it.

“So,” Carry said slowly, “you mentioned you were improperly dressed. Take off your clothes and you’ll match the surroundings just fine.”

“Look, if this is some kind of game, please, stop it!” His voice was shaking as violently as his body. “I don’t like this kind of shit! You hear me?”

“Do it!” Liza, standing at Carry’s right, spoke in the same cold, even tone as her friend. “Do it. This isn’t a game — she’s completely serious.”

“Why are you doing this?” Ben shot a desperate look at Lily, who stood a little apart from the others, her eyes fixed on him as usual. Inscrutable? No, now he could read her expression.

Fear.

She is just as scared as I am!

“You’ll know soon enough,” Carry said.

“Please,” he whispered, eyes locked on Lily. “Please, let me go. If I did something to hurt you, I swear it wasn’t intentional. I didn’t mean to…”

“Really?” Liza sneered. “You mean you didn’t know what you were doing when you slapped my ass and fed me all that crap to get me into bed? You’d have dumped me the next day like garbage, wouldn’t you? Isn’t that what you do with women? Every time?”

Ben’s eyes began to fill with tears. He shut them tightly for a moment, blinking away the weakness.

He wanted to speak but couldn’t — because any excuse would be a lie. What Liza said was entirely true.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you — those were my father’s usual words after he raped me,” Carry’s words were as black and as full of impending death as the barrel before his eyes. “He did it for six years. Almost every night. He’d come into my room, stick his stinking cock inside me, and then say, sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just love you so much that I can’t help it.”

“And my husband would say it wouldn’t happen again,” Liza added quietly. “He’d beat my brains out and then promise it was just this once, no, it won’t happen again, I promise, sweetheart. Will you forgive me? And I forgave him. Every time. Every damned time.”

“Look,” Ben could no longer hold back his tears, and they ran down his cheeks, “I’m sorry for what’s happened to you. I understand what those men did to you and why you’re angry at me. But I’m not them. I’ve never hurt a woman. I promise. I’ve slept with many, but never against their will. I’ve never hurt…”

“Take off your clothes!” Carry shook the gun. “Now!”

“You won’t shoot me! You can’t!”

“Wanna check?” she lowered the gun until it pointed straight at his loins. Ben took two steps backward, feeling all the blood drain from his face.

“All right! All right!” He took off his shirt and tossed it on the dirty floor. The cold air grabbed fiercely at his naked skin. “That okay?”

“Pants, too!” Carry hissed.

Ben looked at Lily, who seemed more scared by the second. Her face had become as pale as rice paper, and her eyes resembled pools of tar. She was shaking her head slightly, and her lips formed hardly audible words. Ben had to strain his ears to hear them.

“That’s how it starts. That’s how it started…”

Carry looked over her shoulder, the red forest on her head rustling with the steps of invisible predators.

“What’s going on, Lily?” she narrowed her eyes, staring at her girlfriend’s white face. “Oh, please don’t tell me you’re going soft on him!”

Lily took a step backward.

“That’s not justice, Carry. That’s revenge. Revenge leads nowhere nice. Trust me. It doesn’t.”

“They are all the same!” Carry snarled. “They deserve it! All of them! We’ll be better off without them in this world!”

“No!” Lily raised her voice, and it seemed to Ben like a church bell echoed in the dark room. “We won’t be better off without them!”

Carry’s eyebrows shot upward.

“Baby, since when have you been defending men? When I found you on the street three years ago you couldn’t speak. You’ve been fainting at the mere sight of them, nobody could take you near a man. You’re most hurt of us three! Now what? A change of heart?”

“No, I…” Lily swallowed, wrapping her arms around her body, “I just…I’m confused, Carry.”

“Don’t be, baby. I know you want this as much as I do. Relax, and enjoy the show. Okay?”

“Lily!” Ben dived deep into the tar pools of her eyes. “Lily, please, talk some sense into your friends! They’re out for blood and they’ve chosen a random victim! You know I’m not guilty! You know it!”

Shocked, he saw the fear in her eyes disappear, replaced by the cold indifference of the other two women.

“I don’t know, Ben,” she said flatly, her voice no longer melodious, but grating, like a file scraping over rough skin. “I don’t know if you’re guilty or not. Carry saved my life once. She’s been right about everything until now. I think I’ll listen to her.”

“No! Don’t! She’s — “

“I think you should listen to her, too.”

“Please, Lily! Please!”

“Take off your clothes!” Carry shouted. “Now!”

Ben glanced at her. She was almost as tall as him and just as fit, if not more. Taking her on in equal combat would be hard, let alone an unequal one.

He didn’t realize how he ended up stark naked in the center of the room, painfully aware of his helplessness, thinking, are they going to rape me, torture me, kill me, what are they going to do to me, and the utter disbelief of the situation and raw horror dimmed the clarity of his thoughts, leaving him no room to picture details, but letting him feel Lily’s intense gaze on his body, she is staring as if she’s never seen a naked man before, Jesus, what am I going to do, oh help me, Jesus, I swear I’ll never go to a night bar again, I’ll never go near a woman in my life again, I’ll become a monk, I…

“I’ll do it,” he heard Lily’s steady, soft voice.

“You sure?” Carry asked.

“Yes. I have to. I need to prove things to myself. Just give me the gun, because I’m scared to go near him without it.”

Carry hesitated, then handed Lily the pistol. A Glock 19, Ben could clearly see it now. A good weapon. His father had one. If I could somehow grab it…

“Raise your arms,” Carry’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Lily’s going to lock your hands in the chains. Don’t you think of doing anything stupid. Don’t underestimate Lily, and don’t underestimate me.”

Ben looked up at the rusty chains dangling from the ceiling, just above his head. Lily came closer, reached up, grabbed the shackles, and pulled them down with a few creaky motions.

“Give me your hands,” she said, pointing the gun at his stomach.

He stared into her tar-black eyes.

“Please,” he whispered.

And then she turned around and shot Carry and Liza.

Those were two quick, trained shots that sent the two women collapsing to the floor without a sound — shots that produced nothing more than a dull pop, as if two balloons had burst open; shots that didn’t need repeating, as the victims were obviously and irrevocably dead.

Ben fell to his knees and threw up.

When the spasms in his stomach subsided, he looked up to see Lily pointing the gun at him. She looked even more like a boy now, standing with her legs apart, holding the pistol in both hands, her eyes glittering like onyx — not pools anymore, but stones.

She killed them. Killed them in cold blood. She’s going to kill me, too…

Ben stared at her, waiting for the bullet of eternal oblivion, but instead, she started speaking:

“Carry and Liza don’t know anything about me. They thought I was an orphan, a victim of abuse like them. The truth is that I escaped from an island in the Pacific Ocean. Nobody knows about this island; it’s hidden from any radar. It’s a country called Amazonia. Only women live there. It used to be a normal country once, many, many years ago, but because of the maltreatment men received from women, all of them perished. Now we survive by abducting sailors and using them for reproduction. Afterwards, we kill them. That’s what life’s like over there. I didn’t like this life, and I escaped.”

She fell silent. Ben realized that tears were streaming down his cheeks again. He remained on his knees, motionless and speechless.

“I overheard Carry and Liza at the bar,” she spoke again. “They were going to torture you, and then kill you. That’s what they were about to do. I had to stop them. That same revenge was what destroyed our country. I didn’t want to become part of it again.”

She paused, then added softly,

“But I can’t stop all the women in the world, Ben. It’s up to you. Your salvation is up to you, and the rest of the men out there. Think about it.”

Lily turned around and left the basement, closing the door with a bang that felt like a slap across his face.

Ben remained in the darkness, alone with the corpses, and his ceaseless tears.

---

Want another scare? Try these:

Behind the Staircase

Nothing Else Matters

Thank you for reading!

---