“Up to the house, I think,” she said after clearing her mouth onto the floor.
“How did the Hearts get supplies up here without an access road?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Well, I’m betting that there is a tunnel out of here near the foot of the mountain. They had to get horses and food and prisoners and, you know, stuff up here.”
“I guess; I have no idea. Why are you asking me?” Abby was beginning to sound irritated as well.
“Just thinking out loud.”
Madison began to climb the iron rungs back to where they had come, and the first one pulled from of the wall. She fell to the floor with an audible rush of escaping breath.
Ethan went to help her up. “You alright? That had to hurt…”
“I’m fine. I guess we aren’t going back up there,” Madison said, still short of breath
“I got the feeling that we were not going to get out up there, anyway.”
“Why not, Ethan? Do you know something?” Abby asked him, accusation in her voice.
“Well, we walked in a straight line and got lost. Turned around, walked in a straight line, and almost fell in a hole. Turned around, there was another hole. You guys don’t feel the, I don’t know, strangeness down here?”
“I just feel like I need to get out of here,” Madison whimpered.
“Yeah, I feel it,” Abby agreed, her face a mask of growing desperation.
“Let’s look for another way to go,” Ethan suggested as he strode to another of the four doors.
The second concealed a rack of chisels and augers and other rusted iron hooks, all for the same apparent purpose. This room as well was spattered in layers of aged blood, rusted into the walls and on the wood racks.
“There seems to be a bit more to this place than what Brighton told us. I think a lot of torture happened here…and not so long ago,” Abby said.
“Who knows?” Ethan replied as he moved on.
“There is a passage in this one,” Madison called from the next door. “It goes on forever.”
Ethan peered into the small door window expecting to see another of the cruel chambers, but instead his light vanished down a lengthy brick passage. A bitter odor drifted in on the stale air; something acrid and woody was burning somewhere. “Do you smell something burning?”
“No…” Madison said thoughtfully.
“Let’s find our way out.” Abby unlatched the door and began walking down the hall.
The others fell in behind her with shuffling feet, scraping at the sandy floor. The walls seemed wet, oozing moisture along their height. The ceiling was tall, easily twelve or thirteen feet up, but it did little to ease the oppressive feeling of being underground. It made Ethan rather nervous, he being slightly claustrophobic.
Abby suddenly stopped, her flashlight held out before her like a shield. There in the glow stood a man, or a man-like thing, its skin a hideous gray color, scabbed and pitched. It wore a jacket of some kind, but shredded and torn and without any emblems. Its head leaned sickly to one side, dangling a stringy mat of hair that collected on the ground. On many areas of its body, small cracks had opened in the mushroom-colored skin, which leaked a puss-like fluid. All along its body, fixed deeply in the skin, were embers, small, smoking embers burning away at its flesh.
Madison looked at the thing, gagged once, then wretched small bits of pasta at the wall. The odor suddenly became so strong it was hard to breath.
Abby began to step backwards, pushing Ethan and Madison with each step. She was terrified beyond reason, and she could not take her eyes from the thing as she attempted to flee.
It turned its crooked neck slowly and peered at them from around the greasy mat of tangled black hair. When it did, Ethan could just make out the rod in his hand, the grotesque rod with the small clasping mechanism at the top. Like the ones in Mr. Brighton’s house, it was a cinder stick, and possibly the very thing that had tormented Chris before he took his own life. It wore as well a cutlass on a ruined belt, more rotten leather than useful harness. Ethan was suddenly sure that this was Captain Black.
Abby finally lost all control, spun on the two she had been pushing, and screamed, “Run!”
They all took off as the grotesque thing dripped and shuffled after them, its hair dragging on the ground, its steps tearing strands free. It trailed behind it the greasy smoke of burning flesh.
They reached the outer chamber quickly and rushed through the door. The first thing Ethan noticed was the cross now stood firmly in the stone cup in the floor. Nailed to the dry wood was the remains of Chris, his body gray with the lack of blood, the flesh of his neck yawning open to show his spine. Adding to the horror of this desecration was a savage mutilation that allowed the softer parts of him to fall out and collect in a pile of bloodless tubes on the floor. Madison vomited again.
Abby screamed an ungodly scream, a scream that Ethan had never imagined coming from a person, and ran to the next door. Madison stumbled and spit as she followed after. Ethan spun on his heels and drew the revolver tucked at the small of his back. He aimed with the flashlight’s help and waited until he could see the thing that pursued them.
“Ethan! There’s another hall! Come on!” Abby voice was as high pitched and strained with horror as Ethan felt.
“Don’t wait for me!” he shouted back as he began to fire. The large caliber hollow tips struck the figure and blossomed into explosions of gray flesh and puss. He pulled on the trigger repeatedly until the explosive retort became a metallic click. Even with the large, snot-filled holes, the thing continued its pursuit, slow and purposeful, intent on some wicked deed.
Ethan sprinted to the door the girls had gone through and turned just in time to see the thing tear an ember from its own flesh, affix it to the cinder stick, and begin to burn Chris’s corpse, already deeply branded, already long dead. Ethan closed the door and turned to see the two flashlights bobbling from floor to ceiling and back to floor as the girls ran down the passage.
Ethan started running, and after a few moments, found he was having trouble catching up to them. They were running headlong and hazardously as if Death on its pale horse rode behind them.
Chapter 9
The passage ended in a crossway. To the left were doors and more passage; to the right, a large room.
The girls slid to a stop, Madison bumping the wall before turning back to Ethan. She saw him coming, his face a grim standard, and screamed for all she was worth. Abby threw her arms around her and tried to staunch her own scream.
“What the fuck was that! Oh my sweet Jesus! What the fuck was that?” Madison screamed at Ethan.
“I don’t know! We have to go—now! I shot it six times; it didn’t even look at me!”
“Wait…stop…think…holy shit, guys, what do we do?” Abby seemed to be trying to regain control of herself, her eyes flickering down the passage.
“We get our asses out of here!” Madison shouted.
“We have to think, guys! We can’t just go running through here like prey! God, where are you?” Abby’s voice spun down to a whimpering cry.
“Alright, think…” Ethan said, the empty revolver still in his hand. “We can’t just run, I agree, but which way?”
“I don’t give a frog-fucking damn, people! Let’s just go!” Madison sounded on the verge of bolting.
“Okay, alright, let’s go this way,” Abby said, indicating the large room. “Its closer and we can always run back here. Where is that thing?”
“It stopped to burn holes into Chris. Did you see what happened to him?”
Abby did not answer and headed off to the large room. Ethan yanked the box of shells from his bag and started to fill the revolver as he followed her, Madison trailing by his shoulder, her eyes behind them, seeking the abomination.
The room was large and centered with a square hole the size of a car. All around the room, chains hung from the brick walls with tight loops of iron on each end. Inside these loops were the skeletal necks of many souls
