NoEnd House • horror

eight.

Room 8. 

I got up off the floor and looked around. It was identical to my apartment. If I didn't know any better I would have assumed that I was home and that this was a bad dream.

My mind went to David, and wondered what room 8 was to him, what it was that the house showed him. I walked around and studied the area. Literally everything was how I left it, right down to the half eaten Chinese left out next to the sink. 

I looked over at my computer desk in the family room. The monitor was still on, and AIM was still up and running. I walked over and sat in front of it, scrolling through my conversation with Peter. It was there, word for word. The house knew all of this, and how I had no idea. 

To be honest, I tried my hardest not to think about it, the answer no doubt something I was better off not knowing. I tried to click out of AIM but it wouldn't let me. The computer just froze. I clicked shut down. Nothing. I clicked cntrl-alt-del. Nothing. I pressed the monitor's power button. Nothing. 

And then a pop up appeared on screen. It was a video chat. I looked at the list of people in it, and there were two names. Maggie, and Management. The video feed was live, and all it showed was a grey wall. Then a message from Management popped into the text box.

"Hope everything is how you left it :)"

"Who are you?" I responded.

"Enjoy the show :)" 

And that's when the camera turned. The camera focused on a young man strapped to a surgical table. He was completely naked and sobbing quietly to himself. The image wasn't that clear, but I thought I had recognized the man laying there. He was tall, short brown hair, and a fairly pale complexion.

"This is what happens when people attempt to cheat :)"

That's when I realized who it was. Strapped to the surgical table was Peter Terry. And he wasn't alone.

I don't want to describe what I watched at that moment. The screams, the sounds that Peter made were unlike anything I ever heard out of a human. I couldn't look away. I wanted to, but I think it was the power of the room, I couldn't look away. 

Peter let out one final soul-curdling scream, but I didn't hear it through the computer speakers, it was coming from my room. My heart sank as I spun around towards the hallway. I got up off my chair, and I could still hear the screams emanating as I walked toward its source. 

I reached my bedroom door and the screams were now replaced by the hum. 

That hum. 

It had haunted me the entire time. I slowly opened the door, and I saw inside my room what I had seen on my computer. There was the surgical table, with whatever was left of Peter Terry strewn across its top. No one else was there. The others in the room were gone, but a chill went up my spine. 

The Management was here with me, only one room away. I walked closer to the table, the stench was horrific, and it took everything in me to stop from vomiting. I knew I was nearing the end. I had to be. 

I looked around the room. Somewhere in here was the entrance to the next room. I knew it had to be. And it was. But it was simpler than I had expected. Across the room, where my bathroom door should have been was a simple wooden door, similar to the early ones in the House. Something was stapled to the door, something long, and bloody. 

It was the entrails of Peter Terry, and they formed a 9 on the door.

I felt bad for Peter, but I had gone through hell that night. I walked right past the table, picked up a long surgical knife and didn't give the body a second glance. The final door was there, and I walked right up to it. 

This night was about to end, and I was coming out of that room with David, and I was going to stop whoever it was that was keeping him here. The door opened easily, and as I stepped through I saw what was waiting for me. It was an empty room, it resembled a waiting room for a doctor's office. There were a few chairs lining the wall and crumpled up old magazines in a basket in the corner. Across the room on the opposite side from where I came in, there stood a single door. 

My heart sank when I read the label printed on the wood. It wasn't a number. It was a single word.

MANAGEMENT