what he couldn’t see in the shadows beyond this chamber was even more frightening than what he could. How many more were there?
The farthest forward of the corpses seemed to have locked onto him now, and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as it raised its haggard face to look directly at him with mournful, sunken eyes. Someone clumsily knocked into him from behind, and he grabbed at the walls in panic, desperate to find something to hold onto. And still the corpse came …
“Use this,” Howard said from close behind him. Michael looked around and the other man shoved a screwdriver into his hand. “Found it in the gift shop. Thought I’d bring it along just in case. Now kill the damn thing!”
Michael still didn’t attack. It had been a long time since he’d seen one of the dead in this kind of condition: nowhere near as decayed as those outside the castle, still capable of moving with relative strength and speed … This was like those they’d cleared off the island when they’d first arrived there. But that was months ago …
Michael knew he had no option. The rest of these pathetic shysters weren’t going to be any help. Despite his still-considerable bulk, Howard had managed to force himself away and was now cowering back in the passageway with Lorna and Caron. Lorna was hanging onto Caron’s arm. Caron was trying to drag her back toward the castle. He knew that if he wanted out of here, he’d have to take control. He gripped the screwdriver like a dagger and then, still holding the torch in his other hand so he could see what he was doing, he ran toward the approaching corpse, screaming with rage.
The creature stopped. Michael stopped too, mid-attack, surprised by its unexpected and very definite response. It staggered back a couple of unsteady steps and raised its arm like it was trying to defend itself. The bloody thing seemed to be cowering from him.
“What the hell’s going on?” he said as he moved forward. The corpse moved farther away, clumsily backing into the others which were hovering behind it now. “Look at this thing. This isn’t right.”
“Who cares,” Howard yelled from a safe distance away. “Finish them! Just get rid of them.”
Harte found his nerve and moved toward the dead, determined to do what Michael wouldn’t, but Michael shot out his arm and held himx20k.
“We don’t have time for this,” Lorna said. “What the hell are you waiting for?”
Michael wasn’t listening. He moved closer again, and this time the corpse had nowhere left to go.
“Look at it,” he said, studying its decayed face. He ran the torchlight over it, revealing the full extent of its horrific deterioration. Its skin—the little remaining which hadn’t been eaten or rotted away—seemed to have slipped down like an ill-fitting mask, leaving heavy, sagging bags beneath its clouded eyes. He could see burrowing things moving in the holes which had been worn through its flesh. Its drooping mouth hung open, occasionally half closing as if it was chuntering something unintelligible.
“What about it?” Harte asked.
“Compare it to the bodies you’ve seen outside recently. How does it match up?”
“It’s still solid,” Harte said, calmer now, creeping a little closer. “It’s still got some meat on its bones. Some of those things outside are little more than liquid now.”
“Exactly. It’s like the one we saw trapped in that car.”
“What are you talking about?” Kieran asked, hovering just behind him.
“On the way to get in here tonight,” Harte explained, “we walked across the dead outside. We found a great mound of them all stacked up, and we dug down to find out why. There was a car buried underneath them, and the driver was like this one. It had been preserved, I guess.”
“Can’t you just get rid of them?” Caron asked. Michael ignored her.
“It looks like they all did about a month ago,” Lorna said.
“Kieran, how long’s it been since anyone came through here?”
“We’d been here a few weeks when Jackson first got in,” he replied, “and as far as I know no one’s been down here since. Why?”
“Because these bodies have probably been down here since then, haven’t they.”
“So?”
“So Harte’s right. They’ve been preserved. Think about it, there’s probably a pretty constant temperature down here, no wind or rain … they used to keep food and stuff in cellars like this, didn’t they? These things managed to get themselves trapped. Remarkable.”
“Just bloody well kill them,” Caron demanded again, shining her torch around into every corner she could in case more of the dead were close.
Much as she’d rather they battered this particularly foul aberration into oblivion, Lorna was beginning to appreciate the significance of Michael’s comments. She watched as he moved toward the group of bodies again, and they all tried to get out of the way, as if they knew he was going to attack. But when he stopped and didn’t advance any farther, the creature at the front seemed to visibly relax, slouching its shoulders and rocking back slightly on what was left of its heels. Michael remained a cautious half-meter away, and shone his torch directly into its wizened face once again. It didn’t react. Its wide, dark, emotionless eyes slowly moved around Michael’s face.
“Poor thing,” Lorna said, surprising everyone.
“What do you mean, poor thing?” Howard said, unable to believe what he was hearing. “You sound like you pity it! You know what these bastards have done, how much pain and grief they’ve caused us.”
“Yes, but none of it was their fault, was it? They had no control over what was happening to them. Same as we didn’t.”
“We should just get rid of them,” Howard suggested. “Finish them off and put them out of our misery.”
The corpse seemed to react to his words. It immediately became more animated and reached out for the torch Michael was still holding. He pulled it back and stepped out of the way, concerned it was about to lash out at him, but it didn’t. It made a second clumsy grab at the torch, but it was definitely the torch it was going for, not Michael. Not sure what he was doing, and with the light from all the other torches now focused on this one particular figure, he handed it over. It tried to grip but it couldn’t and its bony hands simply slipped off the handle. The torch dropped to the ground. Michael picked it up again. The corpse’s shoulders slumped forward and it dropped its head and its hand in what Michael presumed was a bizarre approximation of frustration.
“What’s it doing now?” Howard asked.
“Giving up, I think,” Michael said. “Bloody hell, it’s like they’ve come full circle.”
“Full circle? What are you talking about?”
“Just look at it. It’s helpless. It hasn’t attacked me, and I don’t even think it wants to. What I mean is, I think it’s got more self-control than any others I’ve seen before. It doesn’t seem to want to fight anymore.”
The creature moved, correcting its balance, and Michael flinched nervously. It tried once again to grab the torch, but it still couldn’t get a strong enough grip. Perhaps sensing the futility of its actions and the limitations of its physical shell, it instead raised its hand up to its head, almost seeming to be pointing at its skull.
“What’s it doing now?” Lorna asked, transfixed, all thoughts of what was happening elsewhere in the castle temporarily forgotten. Michael couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He sounded stupid when he tried to give them his interpretation of the dead man’s behavior.
“I think it wants me to kill it.”
“You’re out of your bloody mind,” Harte said, trying to getpast so that he could finish the damn thing off. Michael blocked him again.
“I’m serious.”
He looked at several of the other decaying faces crowding behind the first corpse. They all seemed as passive as it was. Michael remained cautious.
“How many are here?” Howard nervously mumbled, asking an obviously unanswerable question.
“There could be hundreds,” Kieran said. “I don’t expect Jackson stopped to shut the door behind him when he was trying to get in here. That’s if there even
“Well, there must be something,” Lorna said, tracking the irregular movement of another corpse with her torch, “otherwise they’d probably have filled this place, wouldn’t they?”
“Only one way to find out,” Michael said. He began to move again, edging around the first body, doing all he could not to make direct contact with it. It watched him as well as it was able, following his movements with its entire head, not just its eyes, having long since lost anything resembling fine motor skills.
