Dark Screams, Volume 1 by Brian James Freeman Page A

the padlock.”
    “Do it, then! Hurry!”
    I moved in closer to Goliath. Blood pooled around his head. His skull leaked red stuff onto the concrete.
    “Who do you think he is…was?” I asked.
    Katy didn’t care. “Try snapping his collar. Go on, it’s not as if he’ll feel any pain, will he?”
    “This paper suit he’s wearing…they give those to crime suspects when their clothes have been taken away to be examined in a laboratory. Do you think he might have escaped from prison? What if he’s a famous serial killer? Or what if he was normal like us and he’s been injected with a drug that’s made him crazy?”
    “Please, John, get me out of this dungeon.”
    “He killed people down here.”
    “And we’d have been next.”
    “Katy, did you see the bodies of those two women? They were chained together at the neck like me and him. Do you think they were forced to fight each other?”
    “This isn’t the time for speculation. We need to focus on the living—us!”
    “They must have been abducted, too. Could this be some kind of experiment?”
    “John, snap out of it! Once you get that collar off, come and free me. Okay?”
    “Okay.”
    I set aside those troubling notions and got down to work, pushing the sharpest end of the metal bracket into the collar where it hinged at the back of Goliath’s neck.
Perhaps the hinge is the weakest part? I might be able to break it and open the collar up. Then I’ll separate myself from this monster.
Those thoughts poured through my head as I worked, levering, then twisting the bracket, trying to snap the hinge pin. I still worked at the collar when I noticed that something had changed.
    His eyes were now open. So he wasn’t dead after all. That killer of men twisted around in order to glare at me. He roared with fury. I climbed to my feet as he rose to his knees. I used the bracket as if it were a hammer, smashing it down onto the top of his skull. Once, twice, three times. It had no effect whatsoever. He got to his feet, all the time staring at me with total hatred.
    Oh, yes, he saw me now. And he despised what he saw.
    Goliath snatched the bracket from my hand. I recoiled from him, panicky and ready to run. Though I couldn’t run far. I managed five paces before the chain snapped tight. The collar dug in deep, hurting my Adam’s apple.
    You’re in trouble now.
I remember thinking those actual words.
You hurt him, so he’s going to hurt you.
    He didn’t chase me. He simply gripped that iron bracket between his teeth, like an old-time pirate with a knife blade clamped in his mouth. After that, he pulled the chain hand over hand. A psycho fisherman hauling in his human catch…dear God, this was going to hurt…
    Katy yelled: “John! Kill him!”
    “How?” My throat hurt and I had to choke out the words. “What with?”
    “Think of something! He’ll kill us both!”
    How right that woman was. When I was close enough, he released the links, plucked the iron bracket from between his teeth, and swung at me as if using a scythe. I flinched back, and that chunk of iron missed my chin by a mere inch. I ducked down as he swung again. This time he came stomping toward me, swinging the heavy bracket with enough force to explode my skull if it struck its target.
    I tried dodging around the vertical pipes that soared upward out of the floor. In a helpless, despairing kind of way, I hoped the links would catch on a protrusion, or he’d somehow get the chain tangled, which would prevent him from murdering me. Yes, hopeless, futile…he just kept on coming. Meanwhile, Katy shrieked. She’d found real strength in her voice and the woman used that screech like it was some kind of sonic weapon.
    I was breathless, my legs turned weak and rubbery. The energy just bled out of my body. I couldn’t avoid him for long. Not when we were manacled neck to neck.
    Just when I thought the pitch of Katy’s screeches couldn’t go any higher, they did just that. Goliath stopped dead.