Déjà vu: Horrendous Halloween
Vivienne can think of no safer place than Club Desires. But over the Halloween weekend it proves to be the worst place she could possibly be. She ends up dying so many times in increasingly long and painful ways that she works herself into a panic, so much so that she gives up her immaculate appearance and instead hibernates in her office. Lacklustre and anxious, she looks terrible. And she sounds it as well, sending everyone away with the sort of tone that screams fear and suspicion.
Someone keeps killing her.
She stops drinking, stops eating, stops moving. If she could stop breathing, she’d do that too. One time she curls up in a cupboard, thinking it must surely be safe in there, only to be bitten by a spider whose venom slowly and agonisingly paralyses her. Another, she lies stock still on the floor for hours until death arrives; in the form of gas creeping from the air conditioning. So she shuts that off the next day, but it comes back anyway, snaking beneath the door and straight into her lungs. She even tries to move away from it, but it’s like a curse, following her until the room is completely filled and she can no longer avoid it. The next time, she rips out her lungs with her bare hands so they can’t be affected. But it doesn’t make a difference. It burns her eyes and sears her skin, like acid eating at her flesh; she may as well be engulfed by flames.
Each time is more drastic, until the miraculous day when nothing happens. Even now, she can’t quite believe she’s safe.
Horrendous Halloween.