by Conrad Jones
‘Hey,’ I whispered. The shape twitched but only made itself smaller still. ‘Hey.’ The figure trembled visibly. ‘I’ll be back to get you out, okay?’
‘Fuck off,’ it hissed. I couldn’t tell what sex it was. ‘I like it here. So, will you.’ The creature cackled like a witch from a cartoon although it wasn’t funny at the time. ‘You’ll love it when they come for you.’
I figured that they’d lost their marbles, sympathy replaced disgust. ‘I’ll come back,’ I whispered. ‘Just hang on.’ There was no response. I slid the hatch closed and moved on. The urge to hammer the door down was almost irresistible but my primary goal would be compromised. The murmuring voices seemed to be growing louder; an incantation or a chant in a language which I couldn’t identify. I reached a doorway on the opposite side of the corridor identical to the first. The sobbing which I’d heard was coming from inside. I slid the hatch open and stepped back to allow the worst of any offensive smells to dissipate.
‘Help me,’ a voice sobbed from within.
‘Who are you?’ I looked in and caught my breath. A young boy stood naked in the cell. There was a pentagram painted on his chest and his arms were tied behind his back.
‘My name is David,’ he whispered. ‘Please get me out of here.’
‘I will, David,’ I kept my voice low but firm. ‘I will come back for you.’
‘No please don’t leave me.’
‘I promise that I’ll be back.’
‘Oh, God, please help me, mister.’
‘I will,’ I tried to reassure him. ‘How did you get here?’
‘I was hitch-hiking to Ireland to find my grandmother,’ he began to sob. Tears rolled down his face leaving tracks in the dirt on his face. ‘My mum died, and they put us into care. We ran away. We got into a van and they took us here.’ He broke down and cried hysterically. Snot dribbled from his nose and dangled from his chin. His knees buckled and his head was against the damp floor. ‘Please help me.’
‘Who were you with, David,’ I tried to calm him. ‘You said ‘we’. Who were you with?’
‘My sister, Sarah,’ he blubbered. ‘They took her up there.’
‘Where?’
‘Up the stairs to the big room,’ he sobbed incoherently. ‘That’s where they hurt us.’
‘When was this?’ I asked. ‘When did they take her?’
‘Years ago.’ he screamed. His voice echoed from the rocks down the narrow corridor. ‘Fucking years ago.’ He threw himself against the door violently. His nose cracked against the hatch and his top lip split like a burst grape. Blood splattered against my face and I staggered back against the wall. ‘She’s coming, she’s coming. I can hear her.’ He screamed. His voice echoed down the tunnel. I aimed the gun at the stairs waiting for an army of Niners to rush down them. My breathing was shallow and there was a cold sheen on my skin. ‘She said you would come,’ David whispered. His voice seemed to float on the air. ‘She said that you would come and save her, but you didn’t. You didn’t. You didn’t. You didn’t. You didn’t.’
I stepped back to the cell door and cautiously looked inside. The rank stench of decomposition hit me like a baseball bat. The boy was gone or at least his image had. There were skeletal remains curled up on the floor in the foetal position. My mind was reverberating with his voice, the tortured pleas to release him yet he didn’t exist. Not anymore anyway. I knew the remains belonged to a boy called David, the boy that I’d seen walking and talking just a moment before. He had been dead for years. I knew all this and yet I couldn’t explain how no more than I could explain the vision of him begging for help.
I knelt and tried to gather my thoughts. I could no more explain what had happened than I could explain any of my living nightmares. I was dicing with evil, pitting my frail human mind against the most ancient malevolence known to mankind and yet I was searching for reasonable explanations. That was madness itself. I gave myself a mental kick up the arse and stood up. I was here to kill Fabienne Wilder and as many of her followers as I could not to provide answers or solutions as to how to remove cosmic evil energy from the universe. Even Stevie Hawkins would struggle with that one. I smiled to myself inside at the thought of him trying to explain that one and headed for the stairs.
CHAPTER 41
I passed the other cells and opened the next two hatches. There was a young girl in one, her hair matted with vomit and blood. Her teeth were missing, and her head was tilted at an impossible angle, yet she smiled at me as if I was her favourite uncle. ‘Is it my turn again?’ she cooed. ‘So soon?’
‘What’s your name?’ I asked cautiously. I didn’t know if she was an apparition of something past.
‘Whatever you want it to be.’ She screamed like a wounded dog and spat in my face. Her saliva burned like acid eating into my skin and the rank stench of rotten meat sickened me. I wiped at it with my fingers but when I looked at my hand, there was nothing there. When I looked back into the cell, she was gone. Movement on the cell floor caught my eye. Maggots wriggled from the empty eye socket of a half-buried skull. Long grey threads of wispy hair clung to it, reluctant to let go even in death. I staggered backwards, shocked by the vision and by the fact that I might be losing my mind. Either that or the insidious evil which oozed from every inch of that place was controlling my thoughts.
I wanted to run away but I couldn’t show weakness. I didn’t want to look inside the next cell, but I had to. It held a middle-aged man shackled to a rusty metal ring which was drilled into the rock. He was tied up with a leather dog collar around his neck and a gag ball strapped tightly around his face. His muffled laughter disturbed me until I saw that he was masturbating. His face reddened, then turned blue and dark blood began to trickle from his eyes and nose. His head rocked backwards, either in ecstasy or agony. I couldn’t decide which. A guttural noise came from his throat and his body went into spasm. I felt bile rising in my throat. I blinked the vile scene from my mind and slammed the hatch shut. I had no idea what type of hell I was seeing. I ran without stopping. There was no point. I wouldn’t be able to tell who was real and who wasn’t. I reached the end of the tunnel and crouched down to look up the stairs. The stone steps climbed steeply upward and then twisted to the left.
The incantations were louder now, more urgent, more sinister. A strangled cry echoed down the stairs and I decided that caution was no longer the key. When I reached the turn I ran, taking the steps in twos. At the top was an arched opening and as the room beyond came into view, a sickening vista greeted me. An iron chandelier illuminated the horror. It hung from the roof holding ever decreasing circles of burning candles. It was the only source of light.
There were six naked people, their faces hidden by wrinkled animal masks. A goat, a cow, a dog, a horse, a stag, and a cat. It was like stepping into the dreams of a twisted mind, except I knew that I couldn’t wake up. A woman lay spread-eagled on an altar, her body painted with symbols of the occult. Her severed head was placed on her stomach, her eyes gouged out and tongue removed. My stomach churned and my blood pressure soared to boiling point. The others were occupied with a man who was suspended from the rafters, a heavy chain on each limb. His limbs were twisted at awkward angles, the shoulder joints dislocated. He was hanging above a pentagram which had been carved deeply into the rock. His blood was pooling into the symbol, filling each crevice with his life force. His head lolled backwards, his eyes open and staring at me. There was life in them. There was pleading and agony in them too. His lips moved silently as if in prayer. The chanting grew louder. They were oblivious to my presence, lost in the hysteria of the ceremony.
I aimed the Mossberg from the hip and fired three shots in quick succession. The candles splattered all over the entourage and then the chandelier crashed down from the ceiling. The Niners beneath were floored by its weight, crushed and pinned down against the rock. The lights were extinguished plunging the hellhole into darkness. I lowered the night vision goggles and reloaded the shotgun. The men at the
altar fumbled about in the darkness. I closed the distance between us and blasted the first one in the lower abdomen, ripping the tip of his manhood off, leaving just a bleeding stump. I could see his lower intestine glistening through a deep hole in his side. He writhed on the floor screaming. As he slid along, his intestines unravelled like a slimy string of rotten sausages. The more he panicked, the more his guts spilled out. I thought about shooting him dead to end his suffering, but the thought was only a passing one. Fuck him.
The second man ripped off the mask and ran blindly into the wall, smashing his nose and breaking his front teeth. He dropped to his knees where I blew his head off with three shots. His headless body remained kneeling before the altar which at that moment seemed ironic. Blood spurted from the ruined neck in time with his dying heartbeat, making him like a morbid water feature in a garden from hell. The Niners trapped beneath the chandelier cowered and twisted in agony, their bones crushed by the massive weight. They could move but they couldn’t escape. I thought about quietening their screams with a bullet to the face but again, it was just a silly passing thought. I left them limbless and sobbing for death to take them, begging for the pain to end. Fuck them too.
I checked but none of them was Fabienne and there was no sign of a baby. There were no exits apart from the way that I’d entered. It was nothing more than a high cave carved from the bedrock. I sat down on the steps for a while to calm my nerves and thought about what to do next. I tuned out their desperate cries and switched off the visions of carnage which were emblazoned in my mind. It was a wicked thing that I’d done but it felt right. I’d shown them the same level of mercy that they’d shown others. What goes around comes around. I knew that the Niners in the mansion would have heard the gunshots, there was no doubt about that. I pulled myself together and ran down the stairs. I banged my head on the low ceiling several times as I ran down the rock tunnel. When I reached the trapdoor, I climbed a few steps and listened for a moment. There were the footsteps of several people above. I heard voices whispering from the trapdoor above me.
‘She wants him alive.’
‘He can’t get past four of us.’
‘I’m not going down there. We’ll wait until he comes out.’
‘Give me the gun.’
‘Fuck that, I’m keeping it.’
‘Here, take this.’
‘What is it?’
‘A taser, just stun him.’
‘But I’m soaking wet. I’ll get a shock.’
‘Shut up.’
‘I won’t shut up and I don’t want a fucking shock.’
I banged on the hatch and the voices stopped. ‘You’re in for a shock but not the one you’re thinking of,’ I shouted. I took the mobile from the rucksack, ran back down the corridor and dialled.
***
When the device in the locker exploded, there was a whooshing sound first and then the sensation that the air was being sucked out of the corridor. Then the blast hit, and I felt the ground vibrating beneath me. I thought that I heard screams, but I couldn’t be certain. The metal locker would have been shredded by the blast. Hundreds of shards of red-hot metal travelling at a thousand feet a second would have decimated any living being instantly. Smoke and debris filled the corridor and the fumes were blinding. My eyes streamed as I waited for the air to clear. When the noise settled down, I made my way back to the trapdoor. There was a gaping hole where it had once been, and I could see the moon shining behind the clouds and the raindrops splashed refreshingly on my face. The explosion had taken the wall and the ceiling off the gardener’s store exposing it to the sky. It had also blown a fissure in the rock tunnel wide open. I’d missed it when I first entered the tunnel assuming that it ran in one direction.
I peered into the opening. It was like looking into the darkest pit of hell. The blackness was impenetrable. The tunnel ran in the opposite direction, heading beneath the hotel grounds towards the mansion. The desire to head up the steps into the fresh air was overwhelming, but I had to ignore it. I’d come to kill Niners and they were in Porth-y-felin House. The tunnel would take me there unseen. I squeezed through the gap and felt the atmosphere change immediately. It was like stepping into a void of desolation. The air that I breathed seemed to suck the life force from me. I felt hopelessness, desperation and infinite sadness running through my veins. Whatever was generating such negative energy was incredibly powerful. My body was saturated with despair. My legs turned to jelly, and my hands were shaking uncontrollably. I felt red-hot tears of anguish burning my cheeks. My breathing was laboured, and my strength was dissipating as every second ticked, by but I was drawn forward involuntarily. I was taken back to my dream where I was walking through mud.
The tunnel sloped gently and narrowed with every tentative step that I took. The deeper I went, the harder it was to breathe. My legs felt like they’d been injected with quick drying cement. They cramped and burned as if I was nearing the end of a marathon. My head felt too heavy for my neck. The pressure inside my skull was building to critical. White spots flickered in front of my eyes. The tunnel appeared to be filled with white bees. There was a high-pitched whine in my ears. I clasped the palms of my hands to the side of my head, squeezing, trying to relieve the pressure. I felt a gentle pop behind my eyes. Blood poured from both nostrils and ran down the back of my throat. Thick globules hit the tunnel floor with a splat. The coppery taste made me want to gag. I squeezed my nose between finger and thumb and tipped my head backwards to stem the flow. The bleeding took the edge off the pain momentarily and I pressed on down the tunnel. It dipped sharply, twisted to the left and ended in a rectangular opening which was far too symmetrical to have been built by the tunnellers.
As I approached the doorway, I could see that it was filled with a riveted metal door. It was a modern fitting, not in keeping with the doors I’d seen on the cells. I pushed it but it didn’t give. There were no hinges and no handle, no keyhole or clasp. I assumed that it must have been bolted shut on the other side. I couldn’t blast it open and I couldn’t force it, so I did the next best thing. I knocked on it.
I heard shuffling on the other side. Footsteps neared. Whoever was on the other side was hesitant. I knocked again but harder this time.
‘Open the fucking door,’ I said. ‘Someone has set a bomb off, hurry I’m hurt.’
‘She said not to,’ a man’s voice whispered. ‘Go the other way.’
‘It’s blocked, you idiot,’ I growled. ‘The entire tunnel has collapsed. Now open the fucking door.’
I heard a bolt slide. Then another. Then a third. The door creaked open a little and frightened eye peered through the gap. I rammed the butt of the gun into the face and kicked the door wide open. The man landed on his back, stunned by the blow. I looked around for any more Niners, but the room was empty. I shut the door, sliding the bolts home. I was in a cellar beneath Porth-y-felin House. There was a huge boiler the size of a transit van in the far corner. Much of the metal and most of the pipes had been ground off and taken away for scrap. There were burn marks and rents of fresh metal exposed on the walls and floor. It looked like the salvage crews had set to work stripping any valuable metals from the structure, but the work had been left unfinished.
‘Stay down there or I’ll blow your head off. Understand?’
The man lay still and nodded. His nose was broken, blood streaked his cheeks. There was an old Luger on the floor next to him. He must have dropped it when he was struck. I picked it up and tucked it into my belt, before checking the door on the opposite wall. It was much more akin to the rest of the building, blistered, peeling and warped. The wood was so dry that it would crumble under the slightest force. I opened it and looked down the corridor. Candlelight flickered somewhere at the far end, casting shadows which seemed to reach for me. The thought of wandering around the cavernous building searching blindly didn’t appeal. My journey down the tunnel had sapped me. I knew that she was close because I could feel the evil, taste the violence and smell th
e tension in the air. I’d experienced her energy before, but this was tenfold. I noticed handcuffs hanging from one of the pipes, a coil of discarded rope next to a tatty old blanket and a stained single mattress. Someone had been held there.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Colin,’ he replied meekly. ‘I know who you are.’
‘Good,’ I grabbed him as I spoke. ‘Then you’ll know not to lie to me then.’ I dragged him across the dusty concrete to the shell of the boiler. His heels dug into the dirt trying to slow down my progress. ‘Take off your belt.’
‘Why? What are you going to do?’ his eyes were wide and frightened.
‘Just do it.’ I hissed aggressively pressing the Mossberg hard into his cheek.
‘Okay, okay,’ he mumbled as he fumbled with his buckle. He held up the belt with a shaking hand. ‘I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to go home.’
‘Why are you here then?’
‘I had no choice,’ he whispered looking around as if the walls could hear us. ‘Most of them left this afternoon. The police were looking everywhere for her. I was going to leave the hotel too but one of them forced me to stay and we had to come here.’
‘Put your hands on that pipe,’ I ordered. ‘Grab hold of it.’
‘Okay, okay,’ he said shakily as he held the thick pipe.
I fastened his wrists tightly to the pipe. His hands and fingers were curled over the top of it. He was sitting down, his legs and feet stretched out beneath the old kettle of the boiler. ‘Why were you guarding that door?’
‘They told me to.’
