“I think I might like that,” she said entranced by the priest’s eyes, longing to return her gaze to the engorged manhood beside her. The desire sent the storm in her head into a wicked howling frenzy.
“You just have to allow me to give you Communion, and it is done.”
Madison would have given him an arm at that moment, just to be able to tear her own clothing off and join with these men. She slid from the chair and to her knees, bowing her head as she had seen on television. “I have never done this before, Father.”
“It is a simple thing,” he said as he took one of the wet peach wedges off the tray. “This is my body…” He held the peach before her lips.
She opened her mouth and felt an exhilarating arousal at his placing it in her mouth.
He took her wine goblet and held it before her. “This is my blood…” he almost sang, his voice perfectly made for the bedroom.
She allowed the rim of the goblet to part her lips, and she drank deeply, imagining it was really of his body.
The priest stood abruptly. “That is it, child. Now, enjoy yourself and we will talk of duties later.”
“You will not be staying, Father?”
He stopped and turned back to her, his face suddenly cold and distant. It had changed so severely that it shocked her.
“No, I have others to attend to,” he said as he turned to leave the room.
The turmoil of Madison’s mind suddenly froze, and her former conscience formed in the eye. This was her last moment of clarity, her final grasp of reality. The men began to encircle her, grabbing and squeezing painfully at her more tender places. As she looked to them to raise a complaint, she saw that they were actually rotted corpses, almost gone completely to bone with the exception of their scabbed and bleeding manhood.
She turned to scream and caught her final vision of the priest as it really was: its dilapidated body, its fist smoking around the head of the walking stick, its legs whole once more. Then the men fell upon her, smothering her voice, and she allowed herself to slip back into the comfort of her own madness.
Chapter 12
Ethan and Abby continued, both unaware that Madison was no longer with them. The stress of the past hours and their steel-like need for each other did not allow for such an observation, at least immediately. The passage’s darkness drew from them their need to care for anyone other than themselves, each other, and their current situation.
The passage they traversed broke many times to allow traffic to turn this way or that, but the pair remained steadfast with their decision to seek the end. Maintaining a constant direction should allow, at least at some point, for the running out of mountain, which then would require it to grant them their freedom. It was an unspoken hope between them, an understanding neither of them had to voice.
The mold had grown thicker as they went, hanging like the tendrils of some odd spider, threatening to grapple and suck from them their dissolved innards. They had to, in some places, move it to one side with their arms, loathing the wet and clammy feel of the grayish yellow flesh, but not ready to turn back and seek out other directions.
The passage seemed to continue infinitely, certainly more than was required for a prison and rooms of torture. This place must have served other purposes, most certainly those dark and sinister. Bits of debris found scattered here and there were most certainly bones—human bones—and likely the remains of digits from hand or foot. It was as if the entire British army had come here and been tormented by, Ethan supposed, Captain Black.
Abby suddenly took Ethan’s hand as they walked, and he was glad she had. Her hand was alive and warm and part of Abby, unlike this maze of passages and evil rooms. It was near an hour that they had been walking when they came to a sudden end. The passage, having no doors, suddenly terminated in plated iron riveted directly into what Abby was sure the skin of the very mountain itself. Her heart dropped at the sight, and she just stood there, trying to hold back a rushing need to weep. Ethan seemed to be doing the same thing, but with more grace. They stood there, hand in hand, mourning their situation for many moments, and then the floor snapped.
It was a loud retort in the dead silent passage, the sound of a large branch snapping from a tree. At the same instant, the floor sagged suddenly many inches beneath them, and Abby chirped a surprise scream. Then the entire thing gave way and they fell in a shower of ancient wet lumber to a dirt floor below.
Abby screamed again, this time clearly in pain. She had landed on her feet, but not quite squarely, the fragments of wood twisting her foot. She collapsed to her side and grabbed her shin, rolling back and forth in agony reciting every curse she had ever heard in her nineteen years of life.
Ethan managed to land mostly on his feet, where an explosion of white pain shot through his bruised heels and out the top of his head. He grunted loudly as the air rushed from him and he sat hard. A growl of anguish and pain came from him, slowly building in volume until he finally screamed and pounded the floor with his fists.
“Ethan…I think I’m hurt this time…” Abby said softly, her eyes squeezing tears from her closed lids.
“I’m coming; give me a sec. Damn that hurt!”
“I think I broke my ankle. Fuck!” Her shout echoed along the passage.
Ethan crawled over to her on his stomach and lifted the cuff from above her shoe. It looked solid, but a blue baseball was slowly replacing her ankle. He quickly untied her shoe, and pulled it open. “I don’t think it is broken, but it looks like it is. Did you twist it?”
“Yeah, I landed on a piece of wood.”
“It could be a tear, not sure. We will have to bind it after it is done swelling.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so… I will need a few minutes before I can walk again, though.”
“Madison, are you hurt?” Abby asked while prodding at her ankle.
Ethan began searching around them with the flashlight. Each second that had passed without an answer made his search more and more frantic. “Madison! Where are you?” he shouted.
“Where is she?” Abby asked frantically. “Wasn’t she right behind us?” Her voice was becoming accusatory and angry.
“Madison!” Ethan shouted again. “She was. Maybe she didn’t fall…” He scooted backwards, still sitting, and searched the above with his light. “Madison!”
“Find her, Ethan! She’s like a child. We can’t lose her! Not Madison!”
“I’m looking!” Ethan shouted at her. “Madison!” His voice went hoarse.
“Madi!” Abby screamed. “Oh my God, not Madison…Madison!” She hung her head and began to weep, weep for the poor, gentle Madison, weep for the pain of her ankle, and weep for their situation. She chose that moment to have it out, to let go the weariness and pain, the fear and self-pity.
Ethan crawled up beside her and held her as close as he could, cooing and coddling her, allowing silent tears to fall from his own eyes. He had not particularly known Madison, she was Abby’s friend, but he could hear Abby’s loss in her sobbing, he could tell her soul lie twisted to a painful place. Therefore, he wept with her, for her pain, for her loss, for her sake.
After many minutes, the pain had subsided in Ethan’s feet, and he felt confident he could walk again. Abby had shown signs of ebbing, and he leaned her back against the wall gently. “I have to check that ankle.”
“It sort of burns, tingles like it was asleep,” she said after sniffing and running a sleeve across her face.
Ethan put the light on it and her ankle purple and angry. He was no doctor but thought that if it had been broken, she would be in much more pain than this. “Think you can try standing on it?”
She scooted her back up the wall, bobbling the foot in front of her until she could rest it easily on the ground. She put some weight on it, and it seemed to hold. “It doesn’t hurt very much, but it feels wet and I don’t know… sloppy?”
“That’s good; no break but I am pretty sure there was a tear, so it would be best if I help you walk until we get you to a doctor.”
“Why don’t you look in the wood there, see if there is enough of a piece to make a cane or a crutch?”
