The 11th Floor: Awakening by Charles Culver Read Free Book Online Page B

mouth was taped, Nate went back to his desk. Lou continued to hold her arms behind her back, instead of his arm being around her chest. He pushed her down onto her knees so she couldn’t make a quick attempt at running.
    “Now do it. No stalling, or so help me I will make your death as painful as possible,” said Nate, giving Luke a shove toward her.
    Luke now stood in front of Amanda, holding the blade next to her face. He rotated it side to side so he could see the reflection of the overhead lights on the impossibly shiny, long steel blade. He reached out and grabbed a large portion of her hair and pulled it tight, slicing it off with the blade.
    Amanda began crying even harder, tears running down her face. Luke took the piece of hair he had cut off and wiped her tears with it, like it was a rag, and then threw the hair down onto the floor. He grabbed under her chin with his left hand and lifted her head up so he could look into her eyes.
    From behind the tape, she was trying to scream but none of it was intelligible, just a complete mumble of sound. Luke placed the knife next to her throat and hesitated.
    Nate yelled out, “Now. Mr. Williams. Now!”
    With his left hand still under her chin, Luke pushed her back and threw her down onto the floor. In a seemingly fluid motion, he then turned and jabbed the knife into Lou’s chest and pulled the gun from his waistband and shot Nate twice in the head. Luke then turned and shot Lou in the head and chest. As Lou was falling to the ground, Luke pulled the knife from his chest. He then spun around, and with great momentum, threw the blade across the room into the chest of Nate.
    Luke tossed the gun over to Amanda who was already pulling the tape off her mouth and said, “There are two shots left. Use them if you need to.”
    Like some kind of master ninja, Luke then leapt through the air and over the desk toward Nate. His foot connected with the handle of the blade and pushed it the remaining way into his chest, knocking him to the ground.
    “Luke!” yelled Amanda.
    Luke turned and noticed Lou was trying to run away.
    “The gun!” Luke yelled to her.
    Amanda tossed the gun to Luke. He snatched it out of the air, aimed, and fired the last round into the back of Lou’s head. He fell to the ground with a thud, creating a pool of blood around his body.

Chapter 17
     
    Amanda ran to Luke and threw her arms around him, “I really thought you were going to do it.”
    “I’ve done some things in my life that I’m not proud of, but a murderer, I am not,” replied Luke. “Oh, and sorry about the hair. I had to make it look convincing.”
    “Nah, don’t worry about it. Besides, if this really is a dream, I imagine when I wake up that my hair will not actually be cut.”
    Luke laughed, which was promptly interrupted by a groan coming from behind the desk. He hurried over to the desk and jumped on top to observe Nate. Luke had left him lying on the floor bleeding and presumed dead. Nate was squirming and thrashing around, making all sorts of awful noises. His skin had changed to a dark crimson red. Small horns were now present on his forehead.
    Nate opened his eyes and looked at Luke, then let out a burst of laughter so intense that it shook the walls. When the laughter stopped, he burst into flames. Now consumed in flame s , he didn’t burn as Luke would expect someone on fire would burn. Instead, his body completely disappeared, leaving behind a pile of ash.
    From behind him, Lou began groaning. In the same fashion as Nate, he thrashed about, then burned up and left behind a pile of ash.
    “Well. That was unexpected,” said Luke. “I guess it’s finally over.”
    “So why are we still here? Shouldn’t we wake up now?” Amanda asked.
    “I guess they weren’t the force preventing us from leaving. This is a dream world, so we need to wake ourselves up. I don’t know.”
    “So how do we get out of here?”
    “Well, the first time I jumped out a window,” replied