Bag of Horror

Short Story by: Jay Coles

I'm not proud of what I've done, but it was my job. How am I wrong? I've been nothing but loyal to my master - whose sinister eyes are frozen with darkness. In the end, I do something for the good. How am I wrong?

I work in the basement of a factory during the night. Master tells me it's only right to do "the deed" at night - just about midnight. It is only 9 PM; master says tonight will be a night when we receive many visitors. I remind him that we have several hours until the clock strikes twelve midnight.

I can not really explain to you "the deed" and it's aspects. But I can show you. And to show you, you must pay close attention to my job.

Master calls my job "Head Blender" only to find out I don't work at a bar, and that job title was literal. Previously to my current job, I worked at the "House of Mazes". The House of Mazes only was open for 31 days. Those 31 days were in October. Annually, we held the best haunted house in the city. We had built a reputation of severe horror. Master owned the House of Mazes.

About a decade ago we had received a letter that read: "YOU HAVE BEEN TERMINATED, DUE TO HUNDREDS OF ACCUSATIONS OF ACTUAL HUMAN SACRIFICE". We both knew it was a lie. And so did many of our "ex" customers. We mourned but had no choice but to put our passion and business aside and move on.

It's 11 PM the factory is closing and lights are dimming. Master says in an utterly sinister voice, "It's time. Tonight will be the night of nights in which we will give those who accused us of the deed their fate". I'm not suppose to tell you this, but our business in the basement of this factory is a "haunted house". We scare and scare until morning a rises. But tonight. Tonight is special. Tonight will be the night of nights in which we will give those who accused us of the deed their fate.

Master tells me our plan was to choose 10 people from the city and invite them to our "haunted house". All 10 came willingly. We wait until the grandfather clock on the roof of the factory dings 12. We invite them in; they all walked in a fashion of ebullience and amazement of how "real" everything looked. What THEY didn't know was that only 1 of them would survive.

As the group of 10 walked around, admiring our decorum; master and I picked the one whose life we will take first. We dazed awkwardly at a tall, blonde, slender woman. She wore I ripped shirt that didn't cover her stomach, short blue jean shorts, and 20 inch heels (making her look foolish and clownish).

We'd made up our minds to take the life of this woman and thus rid ourselves of the accusations forever. We are not crazy. We just want what makes our customers happy. After all isn't that what a business is? If killing them did Justice for them, society, and our businesses' reputation then so be it.

Our "ex" customers accused us of human sacrifices. Little do they know they will get their wishes. They don't have a clue what they will have to go through to survive.

They all split.

The blondes dead. I slit her throat and "blended" her head into hundreds of pieces. -- That was my job, "Head Blender".

We kill 7 more, brutally. Chained them to walls and peeled their flesh and collected it in a bucket. This bucket will be our dinner. We peeled until we saw the beating of each and every "lying" heart. Each screamed for something different. Help, Mom, God, for us to stop. We had a job to do. We will stop when the deed was done. We took the flesh and sat it where it can be preserved for dinner.

For the time being, master pulled out his bullhorn he had in the "Old'n days" when he owned "House of Mazes". He announced how each of them were going to die. He said "Welcome to the Thane of Terror. I will be your host, you may address me as, 'master'." Gazing at each other in shock our customers struggled to be set free from their chains. Master finished his dreadfully haunting speech by saying "You will have justice. You will be sacrificed".

Master gave me the honors tonight. Tonight was even more special than I had thought. We had our own special ritual in mind. I took over the sacred bullhorn and said, "Bow heads all. We call upon the guardians of Ashanti to take our offerings and feast in awe." I continued the "ritual" - "I offer Ashanti the beating heart of a satisfied customer". Master must have been happy. He jumped high in amazement and bliss - Continuing "I offer you lungs to breathe forever. I offer you a brain to increase your intellectual powers. And on and on and on. I offered until all of our customers or better yet, "ex" customers were satisfied and dead.

We offered until we had 7 bloody corpses hanging from chains, swinging back and forth, oozing blood all over our floor, and a blonde girl slain dead on the wooden planks that held the basement together; all in which our "next customers" would admire for it's reality.

Master and I realized we still have 2 still roaming the basement. We located both and showed them a room in which we wanted them in. We told them it is the scariest room in the whole basement. They believed us.

They both looked innocent. Before we made up our minds to take one of their lives, we couldn't help but remember the both of them. They were two of the best customers at the "House of Mazes" back In the "Old'n Days". We felt very much sympathy for them, we had known them a while and knew that they wouldn't have been one to accuse us of such fallacy of engaging in human sacrifices. So, we had made up our minds to set them free.

Halloween is over, and we await for the next one in 364 days.