Snippet #2468667

The Escape

"Sissy, it's lighter than we thought out here, what if they see us?" the timid little boy clung to the hem of his sister's dress, who brushed his hand away with a clack .

"Don't hold onto me so tight! What if we gotta run or something?" Tempe looked up at the strange mass of bleeding skin as he trudged down a white hallway. He led them lethargically, making it a point to keep covered within the shadows despite how thin or small they seemed to be. It were as though he were naturally drawn to them.

"We should be running right now! Why is he so slow?!" Pappe began to whine as he and his sister stepped over a freshly smeared trail of crimson.

"He got us outta there, didn't he? You should be nicer to him, he's gonna save us!" Tempe huffed.

Pappe's mouth opened, but no voice came through to match what he was meant to say. His eyes widened as he held a wooden hand to his throat. Tempe looked over at him in horror.

Behind them, the forgotten figure's jaw twitched. His glass eyes squeezed themselves shut as he stood still. The puppets fell in a jumbled heap where they stood as his hands dropped to his sides. His shoulders were hunched as his hands came up to feel his face. with every gesture of his hands, the puppets would writhe and jolt on the ground in a lifeless pile.

He pushed his fingers past his lips, attempting to pull his jaw apart by hand. He cringed at he lack of success, and with a single forceful jerk of his lower jaw, it cracked into place. His now operable mouth opened and let out a sigh as his puppets jerked to life. They ran full speed around the corner where their new ally had left them.

"Mr. Rags, where are you? Why'd you leave us?" Tempe shouted as they tore down the hall, following the trail of blood until they'd found him standing by a door.

The two children's eyes followed a new trail of blood from the floor as its splattered gore led their gaze to the vacant stare of a guard. He was held by a bleeding, fleshy substance that could have been mistaken for his entrails if they hadn't been glistening in the hospital light on the floor beneath him. The only thing that could be recognized about him was his face, which seemed untouched despite a stream of blood at the corner of his mouth.

"Wow, that went faster than I thought." Tempe looked at the killer who cracked his neck to the side and pulled the unguarded door open for them to step through. A gory slime smeared on the handle of the door as he grasped it. At this point they couldn't tell whether it was the guard's or his own. An alarm rang through each hall with a violent screech, causing the children to cringe at the sharp sound.

"Ah, thanks Mr.Rags!" The two children and the puppeteer hurried through the door. As they did, the little boy's eyes hadn't left those of the deceased man on the wall.

"Say...wasn't he the screaming guy that woke us up running through our hall last night, sis?" he asked as they stepped into the night air.

"Faster....thank-s." the man groaned as he made his way to the shading of the wooded area by the asylum.

"Well that's mean! Fine, we'll go faster!" Tempe pouted as they quickly followed him out of sight of the hospital grounds.

They ran for what felt like miles as the alarm fell inaudible with distance.

They were free.

The puppeteer grinned as he clung tighter to their strings.


--

"Mr.Rags, it hurts! How much longer do we gotta walk?" Tempe whined in a hushed tone. They followed him behind a line of trees that shielded them from the eyes of late-night strollers.

"Tempe, you saw what he did to the guard guy...you gotta be nicer..." Pappe warned as they tried to keep up.

"Mr. Rags, what are you going to do about your uniform? Won't they know you're part of the asylum if they see you?" Tempe asked. The man stopped in front of them and turned to look at her. His sockets blinked one after the other as if contemplating her question.

"Won-'t...see...uniform..." he rasped as they approached a road leading to a small town area. Its streets were vacant as shadows stretched across the yellow glow of its street lights.

"How?" Tempe asked.

Rags ignored her question and looked ahead, stepping over to a semi-lit building. The two children seemed to squint in order to read the sign on its lawn.

"...Yo...tel..." the little girl read. "What kind of pun is that?!" she looked over at her brother who threw a hand to his face.

"We're not staying here, are we, Mr.Rags?" Tempe looked up at him. His neck let out a crunch with each shake of his head.

"Not...staying." he answered.

"Oh good." she answered as they stepped past the door. A flash of red caught the the blackened eyes of the gory man, and his head jerked to look in its direction.

Through the door, a bellhop was stacking luggage upon a gold-painted cart. The silver buttons on his red uniform glistened in the light behind the glass hotel door. His gloves were a pristine white.

Rags' dried lips jerked into a half-smirk for a millisecond before returning to its blank state.

He knew how he'd get rid of his asylum wear.