Short Horror Stories

Murderous Kin Pt. 2

The flickering light of a barely lit lightbulb greeted Eliza as she regained consciousness sometime later. Her sensitive eyes adjusted to make out that a figure in a decaying wolf mask was holding her up above an open battered trap door.

"Ah, you are awake," Matias said ecstatically, his voice somewhat muffled by the mask. "Now the fun can truly begin." He grabbed a fistful of Eliza's unbrushed hair, yanking her head back to expose her throat. "Any last words?" He asked with a hidden grin.

Even if Eliza had not been in her dazed state, she would never satisfy Matias with final words, only globules of spit.

Matias wiped the spit from his muzzle, like a slobbering dog, before flinging Eliza as hard as he could into the void below.

"Ah!" Elizabeth shrieked into the nothingness as she landed with a thud that caused her teeth to jut together. But she had no time to dwell on her pain. The trap door had just slammed shut. She had only mere minutes before Matias would be joining her down here.

"He said everyone else went up," Eliza remembered. "So I must go down".

It was difficult for Eliza to discern which way was forwards or backwards in the darkness. She prayed with all her might that she was going the right way as she slithered like a snake through the crawl space's maze. Eventually, her pain-ridden head collided with a wall. Having not encountered her Uncle, she had gone the right way after all. Her hands frantically patted the floor, hoping to find a side path. Eliza gave a stifled yelp. Some bladed article on the ground had sliced the palm of her left hand clean open. She picked it up despite the pain it caused her appendage. It felt familiar, but she did not know why.

Smearing a streak of blood along the black floor as she went, Eliza commando crawled through a side path to her left. The walls seemed to be getting thinner as her hope of escaping waned. After what felt like an eternity of turning left and right, her head once again collided with something hanging overhead. She raised her hand up to the ceiling. Her knuckles collided with a splintering wooden beam.

Although unable to see him in the darkness, Eliza could hear Matias breathing raggedly before her. He had no way of knowing she was behind him as the narrow walls meant he could not turn. Eliza inched ever so slightly forward until the hairs on the back of his wolf mask kissed her cheeks.

"NOW, TIME FOR THE GRAND FINALE!" Eliza screamed.

Matias let out a gasp. For the first and final time, he had been beaten at his own game. 

Eliza rammed the knife into the top of his back.

He roared in pain, attempting to crawl away.

But, Eliza, with all her might, dragged the knife down from the top of his back to the bottom, tearing through his trapezius and latissimus dorsi.

Matias collapsed to the cold floor.

"You cheated," he said in between labouring breaths.

Eliza laughed, "No, I just did not play by your rules."

She crawled over the bleeding-out monster, all her weight pressing down onto his gaping wounds.

Matias squealed in agony like a pig mid-slaughter.

"I will be taking this," Eliza said, removing the knife from Matias' back, causing him to scream in anguish. "Oh, and I cannot forget about these." Eliza removed the night vision goggles and wolf mask from Matias' head.

He tried to claw at her but failed.

Putting the goggles on, Eliza immediately smiled at seeing how frightened and bloodied her Uncle was in the darkness.

"Thank you for the game, Uncle. But now I must really be going."

"D-do not leave me down here, Eliza," Matias begged.

Eliza acted as though she did not hear him. Crawling forwards down the narrow tunnel, she quickly found the trapdoor she had been thrown down.

Clambering out, she finally looked at the saving grace clasped in her still-bleeding hand. It was a Bowie knife with the word "omega" engraved onto the wooden handle.

"We did it, Mom," Eliza cried at the knife. "We killed the Hideaway Killer."