(part of https://www.storytellingcollective.com/courses/flash-fiction-february-2024)
Prompt was:
“Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate”
Content Note: horror, violence, blood, reference to sexual acts.
“The next door must be the one!”
That’s what Harry told himself. He clutched his burning thigh and limped along the dark corridor. Will’s body would have to wait. He bumbled over his partner’s body, careful not to slip on the green ichor, and reached for the door handle. Locked. Nada.
“Not this one, surely the other one.”
He unclasped the handle and turned. From down the corridor Will’s call echoed, beckoned. Not Will, but whatever stole his face. No time to reload the Sig-Sauer that he had emptied in the wrong godfather of his daughter. The door frame offered support for his aching legs and back.
“Come on, Harry, pal,” not-Will called.
Was Maria too in this black church? Harry shoved himself off the door frame and continued down the tunnel. Or up, he didn’t care. He just had to persist. The exit is always the last door you try. From across the corner he didn’t expect the call of his own voice to resonate.
“Will, you down there?”
Harry turned the corner and saw his own shape reflected across a vantablack shadow. He raised his empty handgun and pointed it at nothing. The staircase at the end were capped by a wooden trapdoor. A thin shaft of yellow light pierced the darkness.
Through the ceiling, above him, the church congregation had won. The Beautiful Mourner had stepped through, enjoyed the morsels, bellowed, flew off into the sweet summer night. At least that brought silence. Harry noticed he could think again.
“Stay with me, Harry,” not-Will or dead actual-Will said.
Harry didn’t turn. Nothing for him back there. The dice had been cast. The bullet casings were cold.
Harry’s leg gave up and he hit the damp floor. The empty gun slid away. The blood on his thigh had grown cold too, but the pain underneath was hot.
“Just one last door,” he thought.
He turned around to catch his dying breath. From the dark of the tunnel, Will’s shape approached.
“Come on, Harry, you know how this works. You were always a sore loser”, it said.
Will’s uniform was stained, crumbled. The first time Harry saw it like that. Will pressed his white shirts and wore colorful ties. Fridays was the rainbow tie. The lieutenant would tell him to take it off when canvassing or interviewing. “People love it, boss”, Will would retort.
“You stole my friend,” Harry said. “I’m stealing your lackey.”
Harry turned and crawled on his knees to climb the staircase up to the church. The stench revealed the hubris of the doctor’s folly. The mad priest was resting on the front row pew, sweaty limbs atop a writhing mass of song and ecstasy.
“That won’t cut it, pal,” not-Will said.
Harry crawled between the mass of bodies and found the doctor’s throat. He clenched and ignored the deep moans. He clenched.
“Yes,” not-Will whispered from far down the stairs.
Harry saw himself pile a body atop another body, pushed the black church’s doors open to the red skies.