blisteringly hot door handles. But she did not notice the pain, tearing the doors open and fleeing outside.
She didn’t stop running until she was a good twenty metres away from the pub. She had suffered minor burns and cuts, but she had made it. Her lungs felt as though they themselves were on fire as she realised that she must have inhaled a hell of a lot of smoke while trapped in the building. She watched the doorway knowing that the thing was still inside…And then she saw it again, it burst through the doorway and Mandy could have sworn the thing was boogieing and swaggering in glee.
"Yahoo…..here I am again you bitch, ready to go for round two. And this time nothings going to stop me having my wicked way with you".
Mandy took off her shoes and hurled them at the beast, these just burst into flame when they hit it causing it no harm whatsoever. She looked over at her car but then remembered her keys were in her coat, and she had left that inside the cloak room of the building which by now was a blazing inferno. The thing began to close in on her again and she turned and ran off into the cold moonlit-night, not knowing what to do. Then she heard its voice again and she knew sooner or later she would have to stop it one way or another.
"Yahoo, this is it baby, you know you can't run forever. Sooner or later the lust machine will make you SCREEEAAAAMMMMM".
Suddenly a thought struck Mandy and she realised there was a chance to stop it (or at least if it was to eventually catch her and kill her, then she could perhaps take some satisfaction in hurting the damned thing). She would give it a hard time, and if nothing else, make sure to put the bastard thing through a lot of pain. Her direction of running suddenly changed and instead of heading towards the small grubby football-pitch where the children of the village would play after school she headed for the old Victorian museum.
It was a good quarter of a mile to the museum, and although Mandy seemed to be slightly faster than the creature on foot, the thing never seemed to tire. Mandy (who would smoke twenty a day) was getting tired fast but pushed on even though she felt that at any moment she was about to keel over from exhaustion. She knew that a year ago she probably would have, and thanked her best friend Liana who had persuaded her to go to the gym with her and train on the bikes, treadmills and steppers. She had only started to do this as a means to keep in shape; little did she know at the time that all that hard work in the gym had probably just saved her life.
Around ten minutes of running had surpassed and now she entered the grounds of the museum. Stopping to take in deep breathes she looked towards the fire creature. It was about a thirty metres behind her and moving fast towards her. Seeing her stop to catch her breath, the thing realised she was getting tired and made her know this as well, shouting out to her:
"YAHOO…here I come baby, ready or not. I'm in hot pursuit and ready to rock your world".
For the first time Mandy realised what a complete and utter tosser this thing was, the way it spoke reminded her of a past ex-boyfriend she had had as a teenager, and also the sleaze balls she would get coming up to her after performing a strip. Also, for the first time, instead of feeling terror, anger now filled her veins, and she found herself making an obscene hand gesture towards the beast. Then as the creature closed to within twenty feet, she again turned and fled towards the doors of the museum.
The door was shut and as she tried the handle she realised it was also locked. She hammered her fists against the door in frustration, then her brain clicked once more into gear and she quickly began to examine the door. It was and ordinary door, and fortunately not re-enforced. Out of desperation she charged it, slamming her shoulder into it hard in an attempt to break the lock. Even a door like this shouldn’t have broken, and a large man twice the size of Mandy would be hard pushed to break it down at the first attempt. However Mandy’s first attempt did smash it open, not because she was some kind of super-human, but because the nights proceedings had filled her full of fear, anger, and adrenalin, and with all this pumping through her skinny wiry frame she managed to perform the near impossible.
She burst through the door and into the museum tripping over some old moth eaten chair. Getting to her feet she looked around at the large room she was in. The room was quite spacious, about fifteen foot wide and forty foot long. Dotted around it in various places were pieces of furniture dating back to the beginning of the last century. She also realised she had set an alarm off in the building as a loud “whoo whoo whoo” sound filled the air.
The room was dark and grey inside, the only light being given off by the moon-beams which flooded through the double glazing of the museum. Suddenly a new light was introduced as the doorway she had come through began to glow orange, and she felt the heat begin to rise until finally the fire demon appeared.
"Yahoo, this has been fun baby, but now you’re running out of places to run. It aint looking to good for ya!"
Mandy grabbed hold of a small wooden table that must have been used in the past for serving drinks in a cocktail bar and waited for the creature to approach.
"What's the matter honey, don’t you realise that I'm coming to get ya, and der aint a thing ya can do’s bouts it. I've got a whole lot of pain waiting for ya, if’ in ya don’t run".
Mandy raised the small wooden table above her head and waited for the beast to approach.
"Come on then you fiery fucker", shouted Mandy. "Come and get me if you think you've got what you've got".
The fire demon was puzzled, why was she not running. There were still doors in the room she could try and seek escape, for a short while anyway.
"Perhaps she's had enough and realised she aint gonna escape me no matter what. Or perhaps she's got a plan", thought the demon suspiciously.
"What's going on baby, why don't ya run. Old papa lust is starting to cool down, he thinks maybe something’s up".
Mandy had to think fast, she needed the thing to enter the building. The thing to her seemed as though it was sex mad and kept referring to how lust was a major part of it. "Maybe”, she thought, “Just maybe I can entice it in”.
"Come on sugar", said Mandy to the demon. "Come on, don’t you want me. Why don’t you come in and the pair of us will play a little".
Mandy then started to perform a slow erotic dance that she used during one of her stage routines. She wriggled seductively around the floor caressing her body and running her fingers through her hair.
"Jeeeesus…", cried the demon. "YAAAHHHOOOO, wow owe ow, I cannat tack it babe, your driving me CRAAAZZZZZZZZZY. I'm a coming baby, I'm a coming".
With that the creature entered the room. As it did Mandy hurled the chair into the flames.
The chair burst into flames as soon as it came into contact with it but past straight through the demon. As the chair fell to the floor eight foot behind the creature. The tower of fire began to roar with laughter.
"Is that it baby, is that all ya got", the creature said as it closed in on Mandy, cornering her against a wall of the building. This time there would be no escape.
"Yahoo, I've enjoyed the chase babe, but this is the part now where me and you tango".
The terror had now left Mandy. She was exhausted and had resigned herself to her fate (or at least that’s what she wanted the monster to think as it grew closer and closer).
"What are you", asked Mandy. "Are you the devil".
"Just part of him baby, just part of him", the creature said as it closed in for the kill.
The table which Mandy had thrown at the fire demon was producing a lot of smoke. This smoke rose upwards towards a censor that was placed on the ceiling, and this censor detected the smoke and sent it's signal all around the building.
As the creature approached Mandy, suddenly lots of little water drops filled the air and came splashing down all around, getting stronger and stronger by the second. Mandy gave a deep sigh as her plan came together; she just had to pray that it would be enough.
After the arson attack by the school kids on the building, the local authorities had fitted a
fire alarm and extinguisher system which produced an artificial rain effect by using dozens of tiny sprinklers that were placed in the ceiling all throughout the building.
The fire creature screamed in pain as it was immersed in the water, but still it carried on towards Mandy. With every foot closer it came closer to her it shrank a few inches, cursing her now and threatening her with what it was going to do once it had her in it’s flames. However, by the time it reached her it was no more the size of a match flame that is given off as the sulphur is first ignited.
A tiny voice came out of the flame "I'll have you,… you bitch I'll..............Mandy put her foot on the flame and extinguished the beast.
"Dream on mother fucker…dream on", and with that she collapsed in a heap, exhausted by the terrible events that had taken place throughout this dark and evil night.
Epilogue:
The next few days were strange for Mandy. She had expected to be questioned by the police and even charged with the murder of the two girls. After all, when all was said and done, she was the only individual alive and she had been found lying