Doll Face

46

In the darkness of the corridor that led to the hub of the factory, the nest, as it were, Creep could hear things moving around him. Not doll people, but what he thought were rats, hundreds of rats that skittered over the floor and climbed the walls and dangled by their claws not three feet above, dropping their foul pellets on his head. He could see their gleaming eyes, but they did not frighten him because he had the oddest feeling that they were actual living creatures who were frightened of him and in a mad exodus to reach shelter.

Behind him, something was following him.

He could hear the slapping of its feet as it came for him to finish what he had started.

About twenty feet into the corridor, he realized that he had stepped off into some nighted cavern that stretched on to infinity, an endless black chasm from which he would never return.

He had seen such a place only in his dreams and knew it would run on and on for miles and never, ever would he be any closer to its end than he was right now. But he couldn’t turn back. If he did, she would get him, so he had to keep moving and moving until he could move no more. To stop was something worse than death. To go on, madness. There was no in-between. He would go marching along until the flesh dropped from his bones because there simply was no alternative.

He realized he should have been terrified, but he wasn’t.

Not yet.

Not just yet because he knew that there would be an end because the director of this little play would get bored and he would cut the scene. That’s when Creep would be afraid. That’s where the real fear lay.

Then, as if on cue, he was looking into the mouth of hell.

He had reached the hub because it was necessary that he reach the hub. Only it wasn’t exactly as he had imagined it. It was a kiln, a blazing blast furnace that ejected glowing tongues of flame. The smoke made his eyes water and the heat singed his eyebrows.

There was the choice.

Go back to the thing that followed him or step into the flames.

That was his choice. So without further ado, he did what he had to do.