Loop 2 Chapter 8

Jacob Makes a Mistake

Jacob's arms and legs felt like iron lumps as he swung them off the hospital bed. His stare remained anchored on the closet and the invisible specter on the other side.

He almost collapsed as he took his first step. Whatever poison Alice had jabbed into his neck was still fighting for control. It was hard to focus as he staggered closer to the white door.

"That's right!" the voice said, and Jacob could practically see its smile. "Open the closet!"

Jacob's chest heaved with exhaustion as he reached out for the doorknob. Whatever was inside had freed him from his restraints. Whatever was inside was... different than what was in the other closet.

His hand touched the cold steel of the doorknob, and ice raced up his spine. Jacob's body revolted at the very thought of turning the knob.

"You're almost there! Quickly!"

A hundred dozen little spiders tiptoed across his throat. It was not an unfamiliar sensation. Whispers of a memory tickled his ears, and the spiders were replaced with a delicate pair of hands. He could feel someone squeeeezing the soft flesh of his throat!

Jacob flailed his arms in sudden panic. He turned around, his heart in his mouth, but the room was still empty. The pressure on his throat disappeared, but the memory did not.

He had tried to open the closet before. It had not ended well.

Jacob's wide-eyed stare fell atop the tray full of scalpels and tweezers and other horrifying instruments. He gulped loudly.

"Come back!" the voice hissed as Jacob took a step away from the closet. "You're making a mistake!"

Jacob did not answer. He was not sure what had happened or what he had felt, but the closet seemed to have its own dangers. His attention remained instead on the sharp gleam of a long scalpel.

He picked up the cold steel from the hospital tray and immediately felt better. He had a weapon. He had not even realized he had been naked this entire time, but now he finally had clothes. He had no idea who these people were or what insanity was going on, but now he had a way to fight back.

Jacob glanced nervously back at the closet... but the cluttered white door was not there. He spun around, but the closet had disappeared. It frightened him how little he cared.

Jacob licked his lips and turned his attention to the real door. The scalpel was heavy in his hands as he stalked closer. He half expected it to burst open at any moment.

He pressed his ear against its wood and held his breath.

There was nothing. He could hear nothing from the other side.

He gently grabbed the doorknob with a trembling hand. He turned it ever so slowly...

...but the door was locked.

His thoughts remained trapped in the thick mud of his mind. The poison was slowly returning, or perhaps it had never left. He tried to turn the doorknob the other way, but it was clearly locked.

He would never be able to break the door down. He had already spent years trying to batter down this same indomitable wood. He had to remind himself that this was the same room as before.

And then he heard a noise.

Jacob held his breath and held his ear against the door.

...click...

...clack...

His eyes widened with panic as he recognized the sound of footsteps! She was coming! The voice had been right! She had made him wait years last time, but now her footsteps were growing louder and louder.

Jacob's face was a spasm of uncertainty. His eyes darted around the nondescript hospital room. There was no closet to hide in or bulky machines to hide behind. Did he wait beside the door? He lifted the scalpel, testing its weight. Did he ambush her at the door?

But then he remembered the security guards. The scalpel suddenly seemed small and insignificant when he remembered the three other Alices all draped in Kevlar.

But the footsteps! She was practically outside the door!

Jacob turned frantically back to the hospital bed, and a plan quickly formed in his mind.

As quietly and quickly as he dared, Jacob slipped back onto the bed. His face was covered in sweat, and his hands would not stop trembling as he pulled the cut straps back over his arms and chest. The smooth pieces of leather had been cut so cleanly they almost seemed undamaged.

The footsteps were thunder in his ears as Jacob stashed the scalpel under his left leg and frantically tried to connect the different halves of the straps. He wanted to scream as they kept falling back over the side of the bed.

He heard the doorknob turn. She was here. She was coming in. Jacob gnawed on his lower lip as he lay back and clenched his eyes shut. He was not even sure if all the straps were in place, but he had run out of time.

The door opened, and he could feel Alice's presence.

"H-hello!"

It took a supreme force of will not to leap off the bed as Alice spoke. Her voice sounded... strange. Almost subdued as she stepped inside the room.

"Oh? Are you asleep?" Alice's voice drew closer. There was an almost nervous trembling to her words. "Or are you faking? You don't have to be nervous, Jacob! It's me!"

Alice stopped beside the bed, but Jacob kept his eyes clenched shut. The scalpel was a burning coal hidden beneath his leg.

"I mean, we haven't met before, but it's me!" Alice said, stifling a familiar laugh. "I'm here to help!"

Did he strike now? Was the door still open? He tried to remember if he had heard it close. Should he take her hostage? Would that even work?

"Heeey, are you really asleep?" Alice asked. Her voice seemed to hover over his head. "I'm a friend, Jacob. A new friend because, as I mentioned before, we have not met."

Jacob did not understand what she was talking about. He knew it was Alice. He could recognize her voice. But still...

He allowed his eyes to crack open the smallest sliver. She was wearing a white lab coat and a stethoscope. But there was something... else.

"There we go!" Alice exclaimed, her voice full of sunshine and rainbows. "Are you finally waking up? It is a pleasure to meet you for the first time because we have never met before."

Jacob forgot his stealth for one brief moment. He stared up at Alice and blinked, utterly confused.

The woman dressed like a doctor was unmistakably Alice. It made no sense, but for whatever reason the black-haired witch had plastered a fake mustache over her lip. Something was also wrong with her hair, but Jacob could not look away from the fake mustache that dominated her clearly embarrassed face.

"My name is... Huh." Alice's face was a mask of anxiety as she tilted and scratched her head. "Doctor. Yes, my name is... Doctor! Doctor? Dr. Doctor! I'm here to help with whatever's wrong with your head!"

Jacob was not sure whether to laugh or cry as he gawked at the madness looming over him.

Alice's eyes flicked away and over to the tray beside him. A frown replaced some of her anxiety as she looked around the room.

"Huh. One of the scalpels is missing. And all of your restraints have been removed."

A spasm of terror snapped Jacob free from his confusion. She knew! He had to act!

"Has someone else been in here?" Alice asked with a smile, and Jacob took the scalpel hidden under his leg and raaaammed it into her throat.

Hot blood needled into Jacob's face as Alice screamed. Jacob offered up his own scream as he continued his assault. All thoughts of hostages vanished from his mind as he tried to jam the scalpel deeper and deeper into the soft horror of her flesh.

Alice flailed her arms wildly, and the scalpel was torn from the red hole in her neck. She turned to flee from the room, but Jacob leapt on her back like a lowland puma. The pair of them hit the floor as the world was reduced to one continuous looping scream.

The scalpel was hot and heavy in his hands as he raised it high into the air and then jammed it into whatever flesh he could reach. Alice threw him off her back, but the scalpel remained embedded in her arm. Horror gripped his heart as the blade slipped free from his grasp. A fountain of blood rolled down Alice's lab coat like a science experiment gone wrong.

She tried to crawl away, but an animal ruthlessness filled Jacob's thoughts. His face was burning as he reached out and tore the scalpel free from her bloodied flesh. It felt like being reunited with a lost friend, and he slashed the blade at whatever he could find.

The violence was random and chaotic. Jacob was screaming. Alice was screaming. She flailed the bloody lumps of her arms, and the scalpel flew out of his hands.

Laughter suddenly replaced the screams. Jacob was kneeling atop Alice, and the witch's bloodied face was a portrait of hilarity. If he had closed his eyes, he would have thought she was a hyena. She filled the room around them with an endless chorus of mirth.

"Shut up!" Jacob screamed, but she only laughed louder. The demon's mirth drummed relentlessly against his ears. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

His hands were slick with blood as he wrapped them around her throat. He tried to squeeze shut the maddening song that filled the hospital room.

But Alice was unbothered. Tears rolled down her face, but her smile was eternal. An ear-to-ear grin mocked Jacob as he squeeeeeeezed.

Alice's hands suddenly launched for his face. Her nails carved bloody lines into his flesh. They tried to scrape out his eyes and rip out his tongue.

Jacob turned away from the demon, and her hands began to claw at his throat. He could feel hot streaks of blood rolling down and onto his chest, but he refused to let go. He squeezed harder and harder and harder.

It felt like hours passed before Alice's laughter began to dim. Jacob's face and hands were raw scraps of meat as she slowly stopped clawing. He squeezed all the harder as he felt the last few flickers of life leave the demon.

Her hands fell against the floor with a muted thump. Jacob's entire body shuddered with what could have been relief. His grip loosened, and a relentless trembling took hold. Tears streaked down his face. He could have been crying the entire time, but he only noticed them now.

The room was very quiet.

He turned his head, slowly, back towards Alice.

He was afraid to see.

He was so terribly afraid.

Jacob looked down... and saw.

Warning: Graphic Image

Her throat was black and bloody.

Her eyes cold and lifeless.

The left half of her body had been reduced to a red lump of carved and ruined flesh.

It was the other Alice. She stared up at Jacob with a blank confusion.

The room around them was a mess.

The hospital bed was gone. The hospital room was gone.

The old room had returned. The same room.

Jacob stumbled away from Alice's corpse. His thoughts would not settle. He was finding it difficult to breathe. He was so tired. He was so confused.

He felt something wet and soft press against his left hand. He turned, only half awake, and found a white box and several pastries littered across the floor.

Italian pastries.

From Italia Bakery.

Alice had brought them. She had said they were his favorite.

And they were. Jacob licked a little cream off his hand. He loved these. He had no memory of Italia Bakery or ever having eaten these pastries before, but they were his favorite. Somehow he knew that.

And somehow Alice had known that.

Jacob looked back over at the red lump of flesh. A sickly red pool had formed around her.

Nausea churned in his gut. He could not breathe. He could not stand.

Jacob crawled out of the room and retched onto the hallway floor. He was crying, though he had no memory of when he had started. Tears blinded him, but he looked up and down the hallway.

There was no blood on the floor. No walkie-talkie.

There was nothing.

And then he heard a noise.

...THUUUNK...

...THUNK...

...THUUUUUNK...

He turned instinctively towards the closet, but the noise was not coming from there.

It was coming from the front door.

"POLICE DEPARTMENT! OPEN UP!"