On Saturday July 15th, Micheal Scott lay in his bed at 4 am.
For an indiscernible amount of time, he lay there contemplating his surroundings. This was his house, his bedroom. His eyes adjusted to the darkness so that he could see the posters on his ceiling with perfect clarity. He strained to see the clock on his bedside from the corner of his eye. From this, he numbly estimated to have only been asleep for about 5 hours: more than any time he'd slept in the last year—and what's more—in the last week. Poor Bridget Henshel, now dead... at least, that's what they initially thought. Poor old Flynn too, who erupted into such a clatter of nerves that they were all up on their asses searching for the mysterious body that evaporated into thin air. Somehow, Micheal wasn't worried at all, though. How could the body disappear as quickly as Flynn said, without a logical explanation? "Must be ghosts. Cops don't believe in ghosts." That's what Michael thought, and he honestly believed it. He said so to everyone except Flynn himself, who would no doubt fly into another rage if he did.
His fan blared in the corner of the room, blowing around musty air uselessly. The sheets beneath him sucked his body heat until he felt as if he were stuck in a vat of hot wet beach sand. Even then, there was nothing he could do about it as he couldn't move even a bit. Sleep paralysis, again. Pressure built against Micheal's chest as he breathed a harsh sigh of annoyance. He hated being like this, unable to do anything, even scarcely breathe. If his mom decided to come in all of a sudden, there'd be nothing he could do about it but lie there in stupid shame as she scolded him to take down all his 'inappropriate' pictures. Only it was way too late in the night for that, so there was nothing else he could do but lie there and think.
Good old Flynn. Poor old Flynn. His head, flying every which way. It was all bullshit in his own opinion. Flynn said he was in love with her, can you believe? Micheal could've admitted he liked her too, a little—she was a lovely girl, she really was—only, real boyfriends don't hand out their girlfriends like prostitutes. It's not that Micheal was complaining anyway. It's just that, now the fun and games were over, it felt like a bit of a shame, really. He tried thinking of Bridget Henshel in the front office, having a pleasant conversation with a teacher while sipping a mug of coffee, her uniform all smooth and ironed.
After everything he'd witnessed, it was hard to picture. It was much easier—surprisingly easier—to picture her as one of the girls on his posters, all exposed, legs open, mouths out. The horribly funny thing was he didn't feel guilty at all, or scared. Just depressed and thinking of how bullshit it all was. All this trouble, over some girl he felt like banging. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
It was just then, that the fan suddenly shut off. Not in a quiet way, instead it made a noise so sharp that's Micheal's whole body jolted, only that he was still paralyzed. It must've been his soul trying to jump out of his body but stone cold as it was, he panged within it like a metal ball inside an arcade game. The fan screeched to a halt, like someone stuck a metal comb in between the blades, and then it stopped very suddenly. He inwardly frowned, struggling to look at it from across the room. Did it bust finally? It was pretty old, after all. He tried to remind himself of that, despite the eerie feeling that suddenly draped itself over him. He stared up at his posters and a cold gripped him in the chest.
The eyes of the girl were looking at him. It was like, they were always facing the camera giving sensual gazes, but now it seemed their eyes burned into him, almost as if they were really alive as they stared down at him in contempt. He lay there, feeling clammy and his heart racing. He shut his eyes to try and avoid it all. This wasn't anything new, these night terrors. Just another upside to sleep paralysis. It happened every so often—much more often when he was younger—but it didn't amount to as much as this did. It was because the weight in his chest became harder and harder, until he gasped for breath, tasting something horribly rotten in the air. He wondered if it was more night terrors, or if he actually heard—felt—something breathing against his face.
A shrill sound pierced the air, something that almost sounded like the fan breaking again but not that at all at the same time. It was like... a giggle. He couldn't take it anymore and snapped his aching eyelids open, only to discover something horrifying.
The body of Bridget Henshel sat on top of him.
A scream stuck in his throat. She was the same as when Flynn had killed her, but she had changed for the worse. Her face had decayed. Maggots squirmed around in the gummy redness that hung onto her. Her eyes were huge, bulging, no longer a pretty green hazel but red and veiny and glazed over with yellow pus. Sheets of gray skin dragged on her like robes. She was merely an inch from Micheal's horrified face as she suddenly pitched a wild scream, her limbs extorting and twisting in the most inhuman way possible. Brown fluids and bugs flew off her and onto his sheets, his face. And all the while he was helpless, unable to move or do anything but sit there in mute terror. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. This was the real Bridget Henshel, not the pretty goody-two shoes from the office or the slutty one from Flynn's apartment. So horrified that he was that he didn't see the girls crawling out of the pictures, or the black figure in the corner, sitting in his chair, watching the whole spectacle. Then they were all around him, circled around the bed like he was a feast for them. Their beautiful faces distorted into empty black sockets and bloody mouths, to the point you could see flesh in between their teeth. Sweat covered Micheal's face in a thick layer. This isn't real.
But he felt the cold rawness of Bridget's fingers as she grabbed his face. Her ugly mouth, crawling with flies, unhinged like the way mouths did in horror movies, and then at that horrible moment, he broke out of his paralysis. He thrashed, screamed a terrible scream as Bridget swallowed his entire head. He choke in the darkness on her fluids, bugs crawling into his mouth.
Then his heart exploded.
(A/n) Hiya, I'm back again with more spastic updates. Sorry, it took me a while to scrap together a clear story line for the next few chapters, and I've finally decided to do that in a flashback. It's still a little hazy, but I hope that my updates will become a little most consistent.
Also, this is weird to say and it's probably a little late, but I just want to tell you guys how much I appreciate you for reading this book. When people read and comment on how much they like it and share their feedback, it really makes me so happy. It's like, you don't realize how happy it makes me. And so I'd just like to shout out to Spiffy, for giving lots of feedback a while back when RAGE was just starting out. It helped me more than you know.