Trouble in Hell (Hell Night 1)

“Do you want me to call Grace?”

It takes him a minute to answer. “Yes.”

“Expect her there by nine.” I wrap his hand with some gauze. “Watters was brought in today.”

This news gets a reaction out of him. The pulse in his wrists thumps harder against my fingers.

“When?” he growls.

“Thursday.”

He closes his eyes for a brief second, and I know he wishes the key was back in his hand. I grip his wrist and rub the erratic pulse with my thumb, soothing him with a gentle touch. A few seconds later, his eyes open and the demons normally lurking in the black orbs have gone dormant for the time being. They’ll be back. They always are.

“I’ll warn Grace to be prepared,” I say quietly.

He jerks his chin in acknowledgement. Gripping the back of his neck, I wait for him to look at me.

“You good?”

“Yes.”

“Go home and get some rest before Grace shows up.” I squeeze his neck before letting him go.

Without a word, he turns and leaves the kitchen. A moment later, the front door slams.

After cleaning the mess in the kitchen, I call Grace and let her know Emo needs her tonight. The town of Malus is small, so the pickings of women are slim. It’s made even slimmer with Emo’s dark sexual needs. He’s not the type to sweet talk or cuddle. He only fucks in the dark and never wants to see the women’s face or let them see him. He’s not gentle and kind, but rather rough and unforgiving. He doesn’t hurt the woman, and they always know what their getting from him. With his preferences and his bleak social etiquette, it’s hard for him to find women willing to give him what he needs. Since sex is another outlet for the darkness that resides in Emo, my brothers and I find them for him.

Walking to the bedroom, I kick off my shoes and finish getting undressed. My mind wanders to what will happen on Thursday, and an excited shiver races through me.

Justice will be served, and the monster will be extinguished.

REMI

DO YOU EVER GET A sudden, outrageous urge to do something completely insane? Like you’re standing on the edge of a tall cliff looking down at the jagged rocks below and all of a sudden, you have the impulse to just… jump. Not because you’re suicidal and want to end your life. The deadly impact never enters your mind. You just want to experience the rush of not being tethered to anything, to simply free fall into air. Or maybe the impact does come to mind. Maybe you wonder if time would slow like it often does in adrenaline inducing situations. Would the fall feel like it takes ten minutes, rather than the few seconds it would actually take? Would the millimeter of a second that you’re still alive once you hit the ground seem more like minutes? Would you feel pain before death? Would you die before you even hit the ground?

What if you’re standing in the subway station watching the approaching train when you get the impulse to shove the person beside you onto the tracks? You don’t know the person and they’ve done nothing wrong, but you still want to push them just because it’s wrong and you want to see what happens. Would they be slung to the side back on the platform, or would they fall on the tracks and be cut in half by the train rail wheels?

Maybe you’re in the middle of a dark theater. Everyone around you is quiet and focused on the big screen, when you have a strong need to stand up and start screaming for no apparent reason, only because you can.

As I drive down the quiet two-lane highway in central Texas, the thought of yanking the wheel to the left flashes in my mind. There’s a small ditch on the side of the road, and I wonder if I drive into it, would I come to a complete and sudden stop by hitting the other side of the ditch? Or would my car shoot up the other side and into the air before crashing back down? Would my car explode? Would it roll, and if so, how many times?

I’ve had these types of thoughts many times over the years. I’ve never attempted any of those scenarios, of course. I don’t have a death wish, a secret need to harm someone, or want to draw unnecessary attention to myself. They’re just random thoughts that pop into my head out of the blue.

I used to wonder if there was something wrong with me. I mean, why in the world would I think about jumping off a cliff, let alone have the urge to do so when it means sudden death, or at the very least a bunch of pain and a full-body cast?

I asked my doctor about it once, and apparently, it’s very common. Edgar Allen Poe called it “The Imp of the Perverse”. It’s a phenomenon when a person thinks about doing something they know is wrong just because they can do it.

I grip my hands tighter around the steering wheel and lock my elbows in place. I may have never actually jerked the wheel, but even the thought scares me, and I don’t want to take any chances. I crank up the volume on the stereo and let Jon Bon Jovi take my thoughts somewhere else.

Twenty minutes later, I grab a t-shirt from the passenger side and wipe the sweat away from my forehead, the back of my neck, and dip it down the front of my tank top to get between my boobs. The air conditioner went out in my car about a hundred miles back, and I haven’t come across any open service stations to have it looked at yet. The heat is stifling, and it does nothing to improve my already tired eyes. I’ve been on the road going on eight hours. Two hours ago was two hours too long, but there’s been no decent looking places to rest.

I stiffen when a small twinge hits my lower back. Resting my hand on my hard stomach, I gently rub where my belly button is starting to become an outie.

“I know Bubba,” I say to the little man in my stomach. “There’s got to be some place soon where we can rest a

nd get something to eat.”

I smile to myself when I feel a kick against my hand. Almost eight months pregnant and having felt the baby for the last two, I still get a thrill every single time I feel him move.