No Exit

by Taylor Adams

“Please. Please, I—” Ashley adjusted his hold on Sandi’s scalp, planted his boot higher between her shoulder blades (for leverage, Darby realized), and tugged hard. The woman’s neck broke, eventually. It wasn’t quick, or painless. Sandi screamed until she was out of air, her face going a rotten purple, her eyes bulging before going flat, her fingers clawing, kicking. Ashley paused once, adjusting his grip before yanking her head harder, harder, harder, ninety degrees backward now, until her vertebrae finally dislocated in an audible, wet string of clacks. Like popping knuckles. If she had still been conscious, she might’ve experienced the paraplegic horror of her body going numb. It was a straining, clumsy, grunting process, and it took a full thirty seconds before Sandi was visibly dead. Then Ashley let go, letting Sandi’s forehead thud against tile, her neck loose with separated bones. He stood up, red-faced. Lars was clapping his scarred hands now, giggling with excitement, like he’d just seen the card trick to end them all.

Holy shit