TDI: Torture Cruise
Chapter Four: Drill, Baby, Drill
"What game? What kind of sick psycho freak are you?!?" Heather blasted the disembodied voice that filled the cramped, dingy quarters the nine ex-campers were stuck in, the sinister area hidden below the guest room decks of the converted cruise ship.
"It's kind of like 'Truth or Dare'. Except the stakes are way higher! Heh. It's a lot of fun. And my toys are the funnest of all!"
The extremely reluctant contestants glanced fearfully at the ominous machines and devices situated behind the glass partition.
"You're crazy if you think we're playing your insane game, murderer!!" Courtney railed.
"Who said I'm giving you a choice?"
There was a KLIK, and pneumatic, human-sized tubes quickly dropped from the ceiling and encased each of the 'players' - Gwen, Heather, Lindsay, Tyler, Bridgette, Geoff, Courtney, Justin and Katie.
"Hey!! Let me out!" the teens screamed as they pounded and banged on the circular walls of the reinforced tubes, to no effect.
They were trapped.
Like rats!
"Actually, you do have a choice." their unseen tormentor informed them. "I can tell everyone some big, dark secret you have, or you can play with one of my machines."
"That doesn't sound so bad." Katie said.
"Then you can go first. Now then, Katie...Have you told Sadie the truth? Who her mother is?"
"I...W, what do you mean?"
"Katie, Katie, Katie...You mean you've never told Sadie her mom is really..."
"Shut up!!"
Meanwhile, in another part of the ship, all of the remaining cruisers - DJ, Duncan, Eva, Harold, LeShawna, Cody, Sadie, Trent and Zeke - struggled to find some way, any way, to escape their confinement.
All, that is, except Cody.
"Beth is dead." he moaned, then covered his head with his hands and stared at the damp bulkhead floor.
"Cody...Focus! We have to get out of here!" Trent advised. "Can somebody help me remove this access panel?"
"Let me at it, weakling!" Eva glared at the guitarist, then pushed him aside and attacked the metal barrier.
The bodybuilder yanked the panel off...and unknowingly pulled a wire attached to the access door.
The resulting surge of electricity fried every synapse in her brain, and left the muscular girl a twitching, smoking pile of dead flesh!
"Oh my God!"
"This place is boobytrapped!" Harold exclaimed.
Back at the 'game', the mysterious voice teased the thin, pretty girl.
"You could always play with one of my toys, Katie. Or maybe you want me to tell the other contestants how your Mom had twins, but couldn't take care of both babies, so she gave one up for adoption?"
"Stop it!"
"Only you can stop it, Katie. There's a drill over there, behind the glass. I just want to do some work on your teeth, on that beautiful smile of yours. That's all."
"What the hell is your problem? Leave her alone and let us go!!" Gwen shouted.
"You're in no position to tell me what to do, Goth girl! Oh look!"
A closed circuit TV screen dropped from the ceiling. On it were the cruisers trapped in the other part of the ship.
"Aren't those the other passengers? And there's Sadie! Maybe I should tell her you learned your Mom's secret years ago, but promised Mommy that you'd never tell anyone the truth. I wonder how Sadie would react to that tidbit of news? All those years of deceit, all those lies...Tsk tsk, Katie. I wonder if Sadie would still be your friend?"
"Don't! Please! I'll do it!!" Katie cried, her eyes awash in tears.
"Katie! Don't!!" Gwen cautioned. She had a bad feeling about this. A real bad feeling!
After her tube rose, freeing Katie, the solemn girl marched through the now-open partition and sat in the dentist's chair.
Suddenly, straps shot out of the chair's headrest, armrests and legrests and wrapped themselves around Katie's head, arms and legs!
Unable to move, pincers forced open Katie's mouth and the drill moved in on the girl's unprotected molars!
Vreeeeee
"Relax, Katie. This won't hurt a bit!"
Nnnnrrrrgggggkkk
"Aaaahhhhhh!!!"
"Heh. I lied. Just don't flinch, Katie, or..."
kkttt-gushhhh-Vreeeeee
The drill bored right through Katie's head and out the other side!
Then the airhead's brain and all sorts of other organic matter fell out of the hole in the back of her head.
"Ew! I guess she flinched!"
"No. No. No. Nooooo!" Lindsay howled.
"You bastard! You killcrazy, murderous bastard!" Gwen ranted.
"Yeah yeah yeah. Everyone's a critic! Now...Who's next?"
In the bulkhead compartment, the other victims of the madman mourned their own loss.
"Why...why would someone do this? Why set traps for us?" Sadie said as she stood over the dead body of Eva and dabbed her grief-stricken eyes.
"Eh, isn't it obvious? Someone doesn't want us to leave!" Zeke retorted.
"It's more than that." Harold observed. "Have you noticed? None of the so-called 'beautiful people' are here!"
DJ, Duncan, LeShawna, Cody, Sadie, Trent and Zeke anxiously looked at each other. Missing were Gwen, Heather, Lindsay, Tyler, Bridgette, Geoff, Courtney, Justin and...Katie!
Next:
Who's next on the unseen killer's to-do list?
And what will their secret be?
Plus, the 'non-beautiful' group runs into more trouble!