The Painted Room Page 24

Chapter 21

  The Monster

  May could see nothing in the darkness. She felt sharp claws pressed into her shoulders, pinning her to the wet floor. The creature that held her down breathed on her with fetid breath. It sniffed her, and she felt a drop of something warm strike her cheek.

  She heard a rasping voice say in a disappointed tone, "Oh, it's just a girl!" before the claws released her with one painful last dig into her shoulders. She heard heavy footsteps walking away next—clump, clump, clump, clump. She lay there in the darkness, dazed, afraid to move from where she was.

  There was the hiss of a match and about ten feet away a lamp was lit.

  She sat up and backed against the wall. She was in a room shaped like a cube about thirty feet in every direction. Just to the side of the room, standing before a huge rectangular red table, was an enormous, ugly man almost twenty feet tall with long gray scraggly hair. He sat down, and it was a giant's chair that he sat in.

  He drummed his long dirty fingernails on the tabletop. "Where did you come from?" he demanded.

  "I—I—"

  "Well, out with it!"

  "I—I came through the wall."

  "Well, on your feet now. Get up. Can't sit on the floor all day, you know. Get over there in the corner." The giant pointed. "I want to see you better."

  In silence, she obeyed. She didn't even think of doing otherwise.

  In the corner, her anxious face gaped back an infinite number of times, misshapen and distorted in the mirrored corner of the room. Her breath began coming in short gasps. Why did that have to happen now?

  "Turn around," said the monster, making a circle in the air with his finger.

  She did as she was told.

  The monster sneered. "Bit of a homely thing, aren't you? Come closer."

  "Why?" she rasped out, alarmed.

  The monster's eyes flashed. "I said, get over here!"

  May took a tiny step closer.

  "That's better," the giant cooed, relaxing. "That's very good." He glanced at the wall. "Tell me, my ugly little bird, are there any more coming through like you?"

  She didn't know whether Sheila and Carlisle were ever going to be coming, but if they did, she sure didn't want this thing to have any advance warning.

  "No," she answered. "Just me."

  "Pity," the giant said. He began drumming his filthy nails on the enormous table again. The sound was amplified in the emptiness of the room.

  He stopped tapping suddenly with an abrupt scratch of claws against wood. He smiled. "Unless you're lying that is."

  Somewhere in the room, a fly buzzed.

  She heard a loud rushing, sucking noise. The giant extinguished the lamp.

  From out of the pitch black, she heard a tremulous voice say, "May?"

  "Sheila? Run!" she yelled.

  There was a sudden scuffling noise, and then she cringed when she heard Sheila's bloodcurdling scream.

  The monster swore and raged out of the dark. "Another girl!"

  He moved heavily across the floor. Clump, clump, clump, clump. A match hissed again and the ogre's black eyes glimmered in the reignited lamplight. Sheila was shrunken back against the wall. "Get over by that one," he yelled, pointing to May in the corner, and Sheila ran to her.

  The creature sat down again. His expression changed from anger to disappointment, transforming the dirty creases of his face into a hideous carnival mask. "I was so looking forward to the next arrival." He whined, "I was so hoping it would be a boy!" He put his forehead in his hand.

  "Where's ... Carlisle?" whispered May.

  "He's still trying to get through," Sheila whispered back. Her voice sounded on the edge of hysteria. "What do you suppose it does with the boys anyway?"

  "I don't want to know."

  "No whispering," said the monster. "You there. Yes, you, the little fat girl."

  "Fat?" said Sheila.

  He leered at her up and down. "Believe me, I don't mind. It's kind of cute and kittenish, really. But you better watch it when you're older. Who do you think's going to want a fat girl?"

  Sheila blinked back tears.

  "Don't listen," whispered May. "He's just trying to play with your head. We need to get out of here. Start looking for a door."

  "I'm not leaving without Mr. Carlisle."

  "We don't even know if he's going to make it through."

  "Then I guess we'll just have to go back and get him."

  The ogre muttered, "Whispering again? Didn't anyone ever tell you little brats that it's impolite to whisper?"

  May watched the monster warily. "We need to be sensible about this, Sheila."

  "No, May, no. I don't want to be sensible. I don't want to be! I just couldn't live with myself. Could you? He'd never do the same to us. Never."

  She pushed Sheila roughly towards the wall and ordered, "Go look."

  The monster said, "You see, that's one of the problems with the girls. They're always chatting. Yippa-yappa, yippa-yappa, yippa-yappa." He seemed to stare straight through them, his voice trailing off to nothing, yet his lips still moving.

  Watching him, May tried to calm herself down. "Okay," she said, "He's not just an evil giant—he's an insane evil giant. We are trapped in a revolting room with an insane, evil giant."

  Without any warning, the monster got to his feet, knocking his chair over backward with an earsplitting crash against the stones. He came from the table with far more speed than May thought possible considering his size and lunged at them.

  The girls screamed and ran under the table to the lightless corner at the opposite side of the room.

  May slipped on the wet floor and skidded onto her bottom. She rubbed her hand on her pant leg. Her palm left a dark smear on the faded denim fabric. She turned her hand over and looked at the burgundy stain on her skin. Her eyes searched the floor and stopped. Next to her was a pool of something dark and sticky.

  Blood.

  She got to her feet in a daze. Where was it coming from? She had to know.

  Half a yard away was a grizzled mass of rotting flesh. She could see the ragged bottom half of a severed leg and foot. Squirming all around the floor, upset by her rude interruption were hundreds of plump, white maggots. May's stomach lurched. She took in a huge breath and let it out in a scream.

  Sheila grabbed her arm and pulled her away.

  They ran along the wall and were met midway down by the giant who jumped into their path.

  The ogre reached out one grimy arm and forced them back against the wall, knocking the wind out of the both of them.

  "Too easy," said the monster, "You're almost not worth the trouble of chasing."

  The giant was incredibly bow legged and the same thought occurred to both May and Sheila at the same time.

  They dashed under the giant's legs.

  May heard a rushing noise again as Carlisle plunged through the wall, head first. He slammed down onto his shoulder, landing with a grunt; slid several feet on the slimy floor and came to a stop directly in front of them, so that she and Sheila nearly tripped over him.

  "I've been waiting for you!" said the ogre.

  Carlisle's face fell. Mumbling under his breath, he got to his feet and fumbled for his sword. The blade made a ringing sound as it left the scabbard.

  May and Sheila turned around, standing between Carlisle and the giant.

  Motioning them aside with one of its clawlike hands, the ogre said to them, "Get out of the way. I'm not interested in you."

  Neither of them moved.

  "Girls, out of the way," said Carlisle from behind them. When they still didn't move, he ordered, "Now!"

  "No," said May.

  "For the last time, get out of the way," yelled Carlisle.

  Picturing the gruesome sight in the corner, she said, "You heard him! He's not interested in us. He wants you."

  "Enough," screeched the monster. "Somebody better move or I'll eat all of you."

  Sheila began to cry loudly but stood her g
round.

  "Sheila, please honey, not now," Carlisle pleaded.

  The monster made a horrible face, put his hands over his ears and wailed, "I hate that noise! Stop it!"

  Sheila tried unsuccessfully to stifle herself. May put an arm around her shoulder and tried to shush her.

  "Stop it," the ogre screamed again, his eyes bulging wildly out of the sockets of his now purple face.

  Sheila cupped both her hands over her mouth. May added one of her own.

  There was quiet at last. Somewhere a fly buzzed again, and a drip of water condensed on the ceiling and plunked to the floor.

  The monster uncovered his ears. "Pathetic," he said. "How utterly pathetic. Isn't it just like a girl to cry!" He pointed at Carlisle with one crooked, dirty finger. "And you! Do you always let girls fight your battles for you? Why don't you just give one of them the sword if you can't handle it. I suppose next you're going to start to bawl."

  "Me?" said Carlisle, drawing himself up to his full height. "I should say not."

  Still with her hand covering Sheila's mouth, May said, "You know this guy's really starting to piss me off."

  "My, my, my," said the monster, "that wasn't very ladylike."

  "What is this guy's problem, anyway? He's nothing but a frikin' jerk! This guy is a total—"

  "You know young lady, he has a point," came Carlisle's voice from behind her. "Must you always sound like you work at a railroad yard?"

  She turned to him. "You're agreeing with the ogre?"

  For an answer, he pointed his sword to the opposite wall. "Take Sheila and find the exit," he ordered. "I'll handle this."

  "Fine," she said to him icily. "Have it your way. Be eaten! Sheila and I will go find the way out of here. Come on, Sheila."

  They moved to the opposite side of the room as Carlisle and the monster faced off. Sheila began searching the wall for a door, walking up and down, trying to locate a doorknob.

  But the monster didn't attack right away. It just crouched down and settled itself on his heels in front of Carlisle and stared at him. It gave an arching sweep of its head and sniffed the air, then smiled. "What's that I smell? A coward? Yes, that's it, isn't it? Just what are you afraid of anyway, coward? You're the one with the sword."

  Nervously, Carlisle tightened his grip on the weapon in his hand.

  "You're that frightened of me, are you? You should probably just give up then." The monster regarded his own filthy nails casually. "But I'll tell you what. I'll make it easy on you. You seem a likeable fellow so I'm willing to make a deal. If you agree to stay, I will let your two little friends go. Two for the price of one. That's not so bad, is it?"

  Why couldn't the monster just attack? Then they could just fight fair and square. There ought to be a rule that ogres shouldn't be allowed to talk. A talking ogre was twice as deadly as just a growling one.

  May shouted out, "Two for the price of one? Is that some kind of sick, twisted flattery? You're worth more, so I'm not interested in them, but—oh, by the way, didn't I tell you? I'm going to eat you."

  The giant turned to look at her. "No, you're wrong. That's not what I want."

  "It isn't?" she said.

  "I've got it!" exclaimed Sheila, clutching a tarnished brass doorknob in her hand.

  The giant scowled. "The little fat girl is good. It usually takes a lot longer to find than that."

  Sheila jiggled the knob then cried out mournfully, "No, oh no, it's locked."

  "A pity," observed the monster in mock sympathy.

  May rushed over to her. "Whatever you do, don't let go." She bent down and inspected the door. There was a keyhole below the knob with no key inside.

  The ogre reached into his mane of unwashed hair and pulled out a brass key on a darkened leather strap. He swung the key back and forth like a pendulum. "You aren't looking for this by chance, are you?"