who lay scattered about the room in varying positions, only some of them complete. Near one side of the room, a skeleton leaned against the wall, as if sleeping, and around him were scattered many of the long bones of those closest to him. These bones had been broken or smashed and clearly picked clean.
“What kind of place is this?” Ethan asked. “This is sick.”
“They let them starve,” Abby whispered.
“It looks like they started to eat each other.” Ethan whispered. “What kind of demented person…” he began but did not finish.
They entered the room more slowly, uncertain of the reality of it all considering the visage giving them chase. In the center and over the edges of the hole lead three of the chains, at the end of each the remains of those finding suicide a better release than starvation.
“They hung themselves,” Madison said with breathy horror.
“Or were thrown in by the more cannibalistic of them.” Ethan’s voice sounded as if he were about to be ill. “There’s more in the hole,” he added after shining his flashlight down. “That’s a bit of a drop.”
“Let’s go back; we can’t get out here,” Abby urged as she started for the door.
They headed back toward the passage and stopped when they hit a wall of stench, the stench of burning flesh.
“Oh my God, it’s coming!” Abby gasped, frozen where she was.
“Go, before he blocks us in!” Ethan shouted.
The greasy tangle of hair made a lazy turn around the corner and stopped. The head rolled back with a crunching sound and the thing’s sword came free of the rotting belt. Its hand shook slowly, like an old person fighting a losing battle with age. It made a sinister sound, a wet hiss, but not like an angry snake, more like rusted iron drug across stone.
“Go back!” Abby pushed. “Go back!”
Ethan let the girls push past him as he raised the gun once more. He fired, striking the thing in the head. Behind him, one of the girls screamed at the sudden loud noise. It fell from the force of the round and struck the wall behind it. It slid a bit before trying to work itself back up. He fired again, each shot releasing more of the rancid ilk to splash across the wall and filling the passage with a rotting sickbed stench.
The second shot caught the thing in the chest, and this time, it fell flat on its back, yet it did not drop the sword or the cinder stick, still sizzling around bits of Chris’s flesh.
Ethan turned and ran after the girls.
He found them on the far side of the room, clutching each other, trying to shake their terror free.
“Did you kill it?” Madison screamed.
“No, the damn thing won’t die! I hit it in the head, and it didn’t even drop the sword.”
“Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed…” Abby began, her eyes clenched tightly.
“What do we do? We got to get out of here!” Madison screamed. She was clearly losing her mind, and doing so rapidly.
“Down! Let’s climb down the chains.”
“…on Earth, as it is in…”
Madison rushed for a chain and started to scramble down, leaving Abby to her prayer.
“…this day, our daily…”
“Abby! Come on! We are leaving!”
She looked up at him, but clearly frozen in terror. The stench of burning flesh and the gritty sound of iron and stone began to invade the room.
Ethan rushed to her and dragged her to the hole on her knees. “I can’t carry you down, Abby. You have to do this yourself.”
Madison had reached the end of her chain. “It’s not far enough to reach the ground.” She screamed, “Ethan, help me!”
Ethan was quickly approaching a point where he would snap. When he did, and this was his greatest fear, all bets were off, and he was sure that for an eternity, he would walk these halls seeking prey like this thing entering the room. “Abby, climb down, sweetie,” he said calmly as he brought the revolver back up. “Climb down, Abby.”
She finally rose and grasped the large links of one of the chains. Ethan fired a round, carefully aiming for the thing’s head. It flew backwards again, flinging the mockery of blood from the other wounds as well. Abby suddenly got hold of herself, shocked by the sudden retort of the gun, and scrambled over the edge, dropping quickly.
Ethan waited a moment for the thing to gain its knees and fired twice in rapid succession. Without checking his shots, he grabbed a chain and slid down, leaving flesh in the rust adorning the links. He had trouble stopping himself before sliding completely off the chain. He dropped his flashlight and pistol to use both hands, and he heard the unmistakable sound of dried bones crunching beneath their weight.
“I can’t hold on much longer!” Madison whined, the skeleton that once hung from her chain now shattered and fallen to the floor below.
Abby had managed to get her feet to clamp on the iron loop at the end of her chain, and seemed rather capable of holding there for some time. Ethan found himself stretched and swinging slowly back and forth almost by the tips of his fingers. “I’ll drop first. Try and hold on, Madison,” he ordered through clenched teeth then let go of his chain.
He felt as though he hung for just a split second before falling. He was not sure the distance, and at this point, did not bother worrying. He struck the floor hard, sending a raging burst of pain up his feet and into his ankles before rolling through the skeletal debris.
“Ethan!” Abby screamed down to him.
“It’s not that far, just try to roll when you land!”
Madison landed hard, but instead of rolling, she sat smashing a skull beneath her. She shrieked in pain and rolled to her side.
“Is she alright?” Abby shouted down. Before anyone could answer, a tangle of long hair oozed over the edge of the hole.
“Abby! He’s there, above you!”
Abby looked up and screamed in pure terror. The thing pulled an ember from the side of its neck and dropped it over the side, right at Abby’s open mouth. She tried to squirm away from it, but it glanced off her shoulder and she screamed again, this time in pain. She did not wait for another pelting, and let go of the chain.
“Roll!” Ethan shouted to her as she landed, and she managed to do just that, scattering bones as she went.
Another cinder came down and landed close to Madison who began to squirm out of the way on her side, much like a snake trying to escape that which had wounded it. Ethan crawled away from the opening as well, not ready to put weight on his feet quit yet. From above, a screech—more iron across stone—lanced down, sending waves of nausea through them.
“I don’t think he can reach us here,” Ethan spoke his hope aloud.
“I think I hurt myself,” Madison said matter-of-factly. She lifted herself up and threw her bottom out at Ethan. In two places, bone had pierced her jeans and stabbed into the meat.
“That doesn’t look too bad, Madison—could have been much worse. I don’t think I have any permanent injury. How about you, Abby?”
“My feet are ringing like bells.”
“That will pass. I need the first aid kit; we got to patch Madison up.”
“So much for the website, huh?” Madison asked sarcastically.
“You’ll be fine. You could always get a tattoo to cover these if they scar.” He gently removed the bone fragments and was pleased to see they had not gone in very deep. “These look superficial, but I want to scrub them out a bit. These bones don’t look very clean.”
Madison said nothing and just rose to her knees and dropped her pants. Ethan began rubbing the cuts with small peroxide pads, cleaning out the bits of debris.
“Anything for a burn in there?” Abby asked. “That fucker got me in the shoulder.”
Ethan used a few stretchy bandages on Madison before condemning her wonderful flesh to the confines of
