The Bloody Maze- A Horror Short Story

By: K.T. Rose

Genre: Horror, Occult

I’m never drinking again, I thought as my eyes fluttered, carrying me to consciousness. I could feel my cocktail dress wrapped around my waist and my pumps squeezing my feet. The air was thick and wet, smelling of metal and alcohol.

I groaned as cramps surged through my limbs, and my back ached as I lay on a slippery surface.

Did I piss myself? I thought as my heart thudded. I pulled my dress down and peered at my hand. Alarmed by the warm red covering my fingers, I peered around and skipped a breath.

The room . . . wasn’t a room at all. And it certainly wasn’t my room. My eyes popped at the sight surrounding me as my weary head swayed and vision blurred. I searched for my purse, but saw nothing but a hard, pale floor, soaked in blood.

The walls—or whatever they were—looked like vines crossing over one another as they moved unpredictably. The foul things looped and intertwined, squelching all the while. Their angry thorns tore at one another, opening new gashes that squirted, allowing blood to leak through.

I scrambled to my feet and did a frantic spin. All the walls were just the same: wet with moving parts, bleeding out from fresh wounds.

I stopped turning when I spotted an opening in the corner. It sat in a spot where the two walls were separated, offering a gap.

I raced for it and groaned as my stomach lurched and tumbled, turning over the shots of gin from the bridal party with the whisky we had at the pub crawl.

That night barely came back to me.

As I turned the corner, I fought the foul wetness on my tongue that promised vomit. My heart dropped.

Around the corner, I only met more walls. More disgusting bloodied walls.

I rushed up the corridor and slipped. My feet left the floor, and I crashed down, landing in a puddle as a cramp shot up my back. Tensed, I sucked my teeth as I winced at the new pain.

I yelped as a crippling twinge stunned me and awoke a familiar vicious throbbing in my midsection, just below my rib cage. Struggling to remember when I’d last taken my meds, I gasped: I’d had my morning dose with some grapefruit. That was dosage number one. I couldn’t recall dosage number two. I usually took that one after a night out.

But an aha moment enlightened me. The last thing I remembered was being out and about with Rose, celebrating her psychic thing. I didn’t take my nighttime meds, and I didn’t have them on me. I didn’t even know where I was.

I pushed myself to my feet slowly and limped to the next opening. Another ominous gap in the wall lit up, letting out a flood of deep red light.

As I drew closer, I noticed the wall had gaps on either side, offering a choice. Left or right.

Right or left.

“Left,” a muffled voice shouted from the walls.

I gawked as my heart slammed at the abrupt response. “W-What?” I asked and peered around, looking for a face—anything other than bleeding vines.

“Go left,” it said and sounded like it was yelling into a pillow, but the muffled voice was clearly desperate.

“Who are you? Where am I?” I asked, shaking at the knees, still looking and not finding the mysterious voice.

“Go left!” the voice thundered, shaking the room. A chill shot down my back as my eyes shot around the ceiling. I knew that voice, although it was one I hadn’t heard in over five years.

And neither had anyone else.

“Go left, now!”

M-Mom? I thought. But no. It couldn’t be. She’d been gone for years, having fallen to the fate of the dreaded disease I struggled with daily.

If I’d learned anything from my Mom, it was to never take her advice. A trap, I thought. Why else would anyone have the audacity? Where am I . . .? Fully convinced I was stuck in some sort of hell, I went right instead . . . only to find more walls, more bloody vines, and more confusion. The new room looked a lot like the last one. There was a wall that had gaps on either side, forcing me to choose left or right. But this room was slightly different. There was a sign plastered to the swarming wall, and it offered a message scribbled in black cursive letters. As the vines moved around it, they drizzled blood that leaked over the front of the sign.

But it was still readable.

“Do not touch the walls,” it said.

I slowly walked toward it.

Do not touch the walls.

I examined the taunting barriers that never gave me a way out. They only twisted my head by trapping me and channeling my mother’s voice. They locked me away and pilfered my few memories of the night before.

And now, the maze was telling me what to do.

Do not touch the walls.

But then I thought, What if I did? What if I touched the walls and this whole thing ended? Was I on some sick gameshow? Or was some psycho having fun at my expense? I needed to get out. I needed a bathroom. I needed my liver pills. I needed water. In that moment, I cared less and less about an explanation and more about being free.

Slowly, I reached for the wall, pointing a finger at it to see what it felt like. Was it sharp? Would it hurt?

My fingertip met the vine, and it felt like a slimy rose stem. My breath caught in my throat when it stopped moving just as I touched it. The whole wall stood still.

Before I could catch a breath, the wall started moving and took my hand with it.

The vines opened up and formed a small crevice that swallowed my hand whole. I screamed and tugged, pulling my arm back, trying to escape, but the pain was so great that it started to go numb.

“No!” I screamed as it pulled me in, up to my wrist. I could feel ligaments snap and veins pop as the viny wall engulfed me, pulling me into it, approaching my elbow. The thorns dug in deep, shredding skin as the walls ate my arm, feasting on my flesh. I pulled harder and harder, finally starting to feel the vines loosen.

It released my arm, and I stumbled back. My eyes popped when I stared at the numb mess that used to be my arm. Most of the flesh had been torn away, and it barely hung onto the bone. I held my arm against my side.

With a face full of tears and a scream for help trapped in my throat, I carefully approached the wall with the opening on either side. Forced to decide, I glared at the wall, silently choking as claustrophobia tightened its grip around my neck.

My head lightened from the torrent of blood gushing down my arm.

Why? Where the hell . . .? Delirium scrambled my thoughts as I struggled to push forward.

Why can’t I remember what happened last night? I thought. This would be easier if I knew which way I came from!

I gawked, my vision going hazy. Left or right. Right or left.

“Go left!” Mom yelled.

Convinced she was in my head, as she had been dead for years, I ignored the hallucination and went right.

There were more walls.

More damned walls.

More vines.

More blood.

But I pressed on, holding my arm close to my side as warm blood trickled down to meet the mess on the floor. A tingling sensation wrapped my battered limb. I prayed it didn’t awaken in pain.

The next room was the same. So much so, I thought that I was walking through purgatory in circles. The room had the same insidious walls. And Mom’s voice, again, insisted on left.  

But in this room, I stood at the wall, looking at my options.

Left or right. Right or left.

“Go left!” Mom cried again

“Clear!” an unfamiliar voice said.

“Go left!”

“Clear!”

“Left! Go left now!”

“Clear.”

“Stop it!” I yelled at the voices screaming in my ears. My heart blasted and jolted. My mouth moistened as everything inside me threatened to come up. I stood there shaking at the limbs, going weak as sickening convulsions tore through my liver and shredded arm.

“Left!!!” Mom screamed abruptly, acting how she once had when she’d been sober for too long. “Go left, damnit! Now!”

I went left.

“Clear!”

I entered a room. In the center, a pedestal was wrapped in roses. They weren’t bleeding and neither were the walls. In fact, they were covered from ceiling to floor in vines with beautiful red rose heads sprouting from them. A white orb floated before me, keeping its place in the center of the pedestal’s platform and lighting up the room.

“Grab it,” Mom said.

I rushed as fast as I could without falling over.

“Clear!”

The ball of light swelled on my touch. Then, it lit up so bright that it blinded me to everything.

“Keep going!” Mom demanded.

“Clear!”

My chest heaved, and my body threatened to collapse as the bright light started to burn. My skin sizzled and tingled under the harsh light. Soon, I collapsed as the energy drained from my body.

Total darkness enveloped me.

“Are you with us? Cassandra, are you with us?”

I could hear my heart beating and felt my body go cold.

“Cassandra, can you hear me?”

“Y-yeah,” I said with a weak rasp.

“Cassandra, I want you to stay calm. You’re on your way to the hospital,” the man said. I could feel the sickening vibrations of the ambulance, and suddenly, its sirens screamed, demanding the traffic to halt.

I opened my eyes to find an angel, a bearded man, looking over me. “You’re in the ambulance,” he reminded me.

I sucked in a deep breath and cringed as a horrendous ache ripped through my mid-section.

“Oh my God, Cassandra,” my friend Rose said. Her eyeliner had been reduced to navy blue smudges, which bled down her cheeks. Eyes wet with tears, she struggled to speak. “I’m so happy you’re alright. I thought that you were dead.”

I yelped as spasms erupted in my stomach. “Wh-What ha—happened?” I asked, desperate to understand.

“We were having shots with these guys we met at the bar, and you passed out.” She leaned in as if she didn’t want anyone to hear.  “I was so scared. I thought you died and I felt like shit because we were drinking because of my new company and . . . I remember you telling me about your . . .” She fell deep into tears. “They had to pump your stomach. Oh my God. I’m so sorry, Sandy. I’m so sorry. . .I—I’m so happy you’re alive!”

I winced when she leaned in to hugged me. She put her lips against my ear and said, “I’m glad you went left.”

https://www.kyrobooks.com/new-blog/2020/12/20/the-haunting-of-gallagher-hotel-chapter-one