A free sample of my latest extreme horror story ‘Deadly Skittles’ which is about a young guy and his girl friend who are kidnapped and forced to be human bowling alley skittles and risk being disabled for the rest of their lives in a brutal bowling alley.
1. Jace prepares to bowl Layla
Jace held the ball in his hand in an attempt to delay the moment when he would have to hurl it at his girlfriend Layla and the other Skittles at the other end of the bowling alley.
He couldn’t see much of Layla’s face because she was in the rear of the Diamond and most of her body was hidden by the other Skittles.
But he could see enough of it to realise that it was pale and tense with fear.
There was only one other female in the Diamond,and he could see quite a lot of her because she was on the outer edge of the Diamond.
She was about the same age – 20, as Layla, and like her was wearing shorts and a light top.
She looked scared but seemed to be whispering something to herself, maybe she was saying a prayer.
The other Skittles also reacted in different ways.
Some of them stared back at him with a defiant expression on their faces, as if they were defying him to make them afraid.
Others looked at him pleadingly as if they were begging him not to aim the ball at them, although they must have known that it would hit at least one of them, and disable them.
Two or three of them were looking down with their hands folded and seemed to be silently praying.
Of the ones who were looking at him pleadingly, two had vomited with fear and their vomit has stained the front of their shirts.
Jace was thankful for one thing.
Layla was at the rear of the Diamond, and he thought that he could avoid hitting her if he could hit the Skittles at the front.
But he noticed that the floor that leads up to the Skittles had a camber.
That meant that the centre of the floor was slightly higher than the part of the floor on each side of it.
This in turn meant that even if he aimed for the centre, the ball could change course and veer off it.
It could then travel along one of the sides instead of the centre.
If it travelled along the left side, and hit the left side of the Diamond, it could hit Layla, because she was standing on the left side of the Diamond.
He wondered whether any of the Skittles would be so terrified that they would run away from the Diamond.
Then he remembered.
The doctor had warned them that if they tried to do that they would be sentenced to playing even more games as a Skittle.
In a normal bowling alley the balls wouldn’t have enough power to break human limbs, when they were hurled towards the Skittles.
But in this bowling alley the balls were given an extra burst of speed after they had been thrown to give them that extra power.
The doctor didn’t explain how this was done but Jace suspected that they weren’t conventional balls, they had been fitted with some kind of electronic device which gave them a massive burst of extra speed when they passed by an electronic beam that was on one side of the bowling alley.
He glanced up at the Betting Screen and saw that the odds on one of the Skittles was changing rapidly.
He was grateful for that because it meant that the game had been postponed for a while, which in turn meant that he didn’t have to throw the ball for a while, which meant that his girlfriend was safe.
At least until the game started.
He didn’t want to have to break his girlfriend’s legs.
He had a pretty good idea what had caused the odds to change.
It was because one of the Skittles was shaking with fear so much that it looked as if he was about to have a heart attack and collapse to the ground.
He knew which one it was because he could see his photo. on the screen.
He was a prosperous looking middle aged man who was wearing a dinner jacket and tie, he must have been taken as he was getting into his car or maybe a taxi, he didn’t seem to be the kind to wander around the gritty parts of the city at night, as he and Layla had done.
And maybe as the other girl in the Diamond had done, too, she looked pretty fearless and adventurous.
Or stupid, like he and Layla and been, when they had decided to explore the slums of the city after darkness, he thought wryly.
The man was in the centre of the Diamond, so he should have been safe from being hit by the ball.
At least in theory.
But Jace had noticed that there was a camber, a slightly raised part of the surface, on the surface of the bowling alley.
He guessed that this meant that even if the ball was moving outside the camber, it could swerve towards it.
It could then either keep moving along the camber or move off it and go onto the other side of it.
He calculated that because of the camber none of the Skittles were safe from being hit by the ball.
The ball could appear to be on course to miss them but swerve towards them at the last moment.
He saw on the Betting Screen that the odds on him being hit were moving from 10 to 1, meaning that he was ten times likely to be hit.
Then the odds changed to 16, meaning that he was sixteen times likely to be hit.
He guessed that this was because he looked as if he was about to have a heart attack, and might collapse because of it.
If he was lying on the ground he couldn’t be hit, but what would happen next?
Would they cancel the game, or what?
He thought about Layla again.
What if she was permanently disabled, because the injury wouldn’t heal?
Would he stay with her if that happened?
He was getting tired of holding the ball and started to put it back in the rack ready for when it was time to use it.
But a voice yelled out a warning.
It was one of the guards.
“Hey, you!”
“If you put that fucking ball back you’ll be a fucking Skittle!”
He hastily grabbed hold of it and kept it firmly in his hands.
Deadly Skittles is available on Amazon at the following link:
