With his wrists and ankles in cuffs and a pair of burly prison officers flanking him, Albert West was taken to the electric chair. As he stepped on stage, he didn't look at the faces of his accusers who anticipated justice to be delivered against him.
The guards strapped him into the chair and a wet sponge was placed on his head before it was covered with a cap. Then a hood was placed over his face. Then he heard the guard give the signal and a switch being lowered to send a lethal jolt of electricity through his body, cooking him from the inside out. He jerked sharply and thrashed, but the straps held him fast. The switch was thrown a second time, sending a slightly weaker jolt through him to finish the job.
Oblivion. That was all he knew. He remembered the sermons from his ministers at the church as a child. In thundering tones, they pronounced apocalyptic judgments for the unconverted soul. He remembered how they went into graphic detail about how the minute that soul drew his last breath, that man's soul descended into Hades, the abode of the damned who wailed and gnashed their teeth in intolerable agony from the unquenched fire and the undying worm.
Except none of that happened. Albert wasn't on fire. No worms eating his flesh from the inside out. He wasn't even in any pain. In fact, he felt strong. He felt better than he ever had in years. He opened his eyes and slowly sat up. He appeared to be in some kind of dark hallway. The walls were black and he could see a sky of fading light.
Albert looked behind him. There was a wall behind him. The only way ahead of him was further down this straight, narrow hallway which he couldn't see the end of.
Then he heard it.
It was faint, but it sounded like a happy child's song. The kind of song that one would expect to play from an ice cream truck. He had no idea why, but it unsettled him.
After a moment's hesitation, Albert began to walk down the hallway. As he did so, the sound got louder and clearer. But it also started to change. The formerly happy and cheerful song was slowing down in pitch, growing deeper. It was then replaced by a rumbling droning sound that grew so deafening that he had to cover his ears.
Then the sound abruptly stopped. He slowly lowered his hands from his ears as he continued down the hall until he came to a door. He put his ear to the door to see if he could hear anything. Nothing. He slowly reached out to open it, but it swung open before he could touch the doorknob.
Standing on the other side of the door was a little girl with long black hair.
"Hello!" She said cheerfully.
Albert blinked. "Uh, hi?"
"We've been expecting you, Albert." The girl said.
"You were?" Albert asked, forgetting to ask how the girl knew his name.
"Yes. Please, come on in!" She opened the door wider for him to step through.
Albert looked behind him. The hallway behind him was gone. There was nothing but pitch black. He looked down at the girl who was still smiling up at him.
"Who has been expecting me?"
"All of us. You are our guest of honor. The event cannot begin until you arrive. It is all about you, sir." The girl continued with disarming politeness.
Albert slowly stepped through the door. As soon as he did, it closed on its own.
He turned to the girl, who began walking away from him quickly.
"Wait!" Albert pursed the girl who picked up her pace as she sang a happy child's song whose tune he recognized, but whose name he did not know.
The girl continued to walk faster and faster away from him. Albert found himself struggling to keep up with her for some reason. It didn't make sense considering that he was a grown man and she was a child. He found himself running after her, yet she still kept him from closing the gap despite walking the whole time.
He followed her down the twisting corridor of hallways. Unlike the first hallway that he came from, these halls were colorful and bright. They were filled with children's drawings of kids frolicking in fields and playing with animals. There were portraits of children dressed in uniforms that looked like something out of a yearbook.
Then the girl abruptly stopped. Likewise, Albert also stopped.
A strange noise came from the girl. It sounded like she was crying.
"Kid?" Albert asked.
She didn't answer. She kept crying.
"Are you okay?" Albert asked.
Then he heard a loud slamming noise behind him. He looked behind him to see that down the hallway he had run up, the lights were turning off one-by-one. He looked in front of him at the girl, but she was gone.
SLAM!
The lights down the hall continued to turn off and he heard loud grinding noises like some kind of machine coming his way. He began to run. As he did so, the noises continued and the lights down the hall continued to turn off.
He ran and ran until he arrived at a door. He turned the knob and pushed. But it did not move. All the while, the sounds were getting closer behind him.
He pushed harder, but it didn't move.
The mechanical sounds now seemed almost right behind him. But the door still did not move. Then just as suddenly, the door opened. It was the girl from before.
"What?"
"Get in!" She ordered before she grabbed his arm with surprising strength and pulled him inside before slamming the door behind him.
The room was not a hallway. It was a kindergarten room with children solving puzzles, playing with toys, writing stories, cutting pieces of paper, and drawing pictures. The walls were colorful and bright. Cheerful music played from a speaker.
None of the children acknowledged that a strange grown man had walked in.
Albert looked for the girl who beckoned him to follow her.
A feeling of dread in his stomach, he made his way across the cheerful classroom to her. But as he did so, he caught a glimpse of what one of the children was drawing. He didn't get a good look, but he was certain that the child was drawing a picture of what looked like two people having sex. One of the people was clearly a man, but the other one looked like either a very small woman or possibly a child. He had no time to process what the hell he thought he saw because the girl grabbed his wrist.
"This way, please." The girl said. She was still smiling, but there was an edge in her voice now. "The children are very busy. So, no talking." She put a finger to her lips to indicate silence.
They exited the classroom and down more halls. Unlike before, the girl who guided him was not running. But Albert still kept a safe distance from her just to take precaution. These halls were not like the ones he came from or the classroom. They were a dull, faded gray with cracked paint in some places. There were portraits, but they were different than ones from before. They showed children pouting, crying, and looking like they were in some sort of distress.
They entered another room. This one had hospital beds full of children. Some of the children were weeping. Others stared as if they were catatonic. Some had injuries. The music was also a child's song that he recognized, but it was slow and deep.
They exited the long room and down another hallway. This one was different from the ones before it. The walls were covered with screens that buzzed with static noise or rainbow bars. But some of them had blurry images. But others, he could see clearly. They showed malnourished, beaten, and bloodied children in chains or in cages. Some of the children were screaming in rage, sorrow, fear. Others showed children cowering in the corner as a huge shadow of an unseen attacker loomed over them. He saw images of children in containers or in cars driving to unknown destinations. Any adults in the screens were never seen. Their faces were hidden or he would only see certain body parts like hands, arms, legs, and feet. Through the cacophony of sounds, he could make out one distinct clear voice.
"If you're bad, Mr. Candyman is going to be mad and he isn't going to let you go back home to see mom and dad."
"If you're bad, Mr. Candyman is going to be mad and he isn't going to let you go back home to see mom and dad."
"If you're bad, Mr. Candyman is going to be mad and he isn't going to let you go back home to see mom and dad."
"If you're bad, Mr. Candyman is going to be mad and he isn't going to let you go back home to see mom and dad."
Again and again, a deep and intimidating male voice playfully, yet menacingly scolded a crying and wailing child demanding to see his or her mother. The voice got progressively deeper and more distorted sounding.
Then he heard a second voice, this one female, screaming in anger. He had no idea why, but it sounded very much like his own mother.
"LISTEN TO MOMMY, YOU LITTLE SHIT! YOU COME OUT HERE OR YOU ARE GOING TO WISH A SPANKING WAS THE WORST THING COMING TO YOU! ONE! TWO! THREE!" The woman got louder and louder until it drowned out all the other sounds.
FOUR!
FIVE!
SIX!
SEVEN!
EIGHT!
NINE!
TEN!
As soon as she said ten, the screens turned off and the room went pitch black. Then a light turned ahead of him, showing the girl had stopped moving.
"Kid, where are you taking me?"
No answer.
"Look, this isn't funny!" Albert raised his voice, trying to sound angry. "Where am I? How do you know my name? Where are your parents?"
Then she stopped crying, which only scared Albert more.
"Kid?"
The little girl turned to face him. Albert took a step back when he saw her face.
She had no eyes.
Before he could do anything else, she opened her mouth and suddenly let loose a horrible, earsplitting shriek.
The sound was so loud, so piercing that he stumbled and fell back. He put up his arms, expecting to be attacked. But she did not make a move. She kept shrieking nonstop at him, staring at him with sockets without eyeballs.
He stared at this deranged child with numb horror before he turned and sprinted down the hall. He ran and ran until he came to a door. He didn't bother to turn the knob. He kicked at it hard, and it gave way, swinging open. But there was no hall. It was a dead end.
He turned to look behind him and screamed. The girl was almost upon him. He slammed the door right in her face just before she could grab him. He could hear her banging on the door and screaming. The door shivered and started to crack. Albert looked around for a weapon. Then the screams stopped and all was still.
Then he heard a mechanical noise and the sensation of being lifted up, almost like he was in an elevator car.
Then all went still again before the door in front of him slowly opened and a bright light hit his face. Then a man's voice he recognized called his name.
"Albert, is that you?"
"Lance?"