Undead as a Doornail

by William F Aicher

  The scrape of metal against stone broke the silence and my breath quickened. Searching the room, I found nothing … and was about to leave the explanation to my overactive imagination when the sound rang out again, followed by a woman’s whispered moan. Barely audible over the crackling of the candles, the voice called out in weak and desperate pain.

  I rose from the pile of bodies, tore a dripping femur from the sloppy mess at the bottom, and ripped a chunk of clothing from one of the ones higher up. Wrapping the fabric around the bone, I created a makeshift torch and dipped it in the waxy goo the decomposing dead leaked onto the floor, then touched the mess to a candle. A ball of flame engulfed the end, and the room lit up in a burst of light.

  In that instant, I saw her. The woman chained to the wall.

  But I didn’t see the other one. The one behind me.

  Chapter Five

  By the time I came to, I’d already been hogtied, gagged and blindfolded. There was no telling how long I’d been out since we were still down in those tunnels, but it had been long enough for whoever’d clunked me to shove a gag in my mouth and wrap a few lengths of rope around me. I don’t really know where the rope came from, but the gag, on the other hand, was obviously a chunk of shirt torn off one of the dead bodies. The taste alone gave it away, and I did everything I could not to choke to death on the rancid stank.

  Unable to see or move, I listened, attempting to gain any sort of knowledge as to who’d snuck up behind me and put me into this predicament. From my left, a clank of chains echoed again against the stone walls, followed by a loud metallic crash. Then another, and another. I scraped my face against the stone floor, desperately trying to push my blindfold loose, but it was tied too tight. A woman yelled, screaming what sounded like it should be an obscenity, but in a language I couldn’t understand.

  Then silence. I craned my neck back and forth, hoping to catch a clearer earful of whatever was behind me. I stopped at the sound of shoes on stone, clacking louder and louder as whoever it was approached me from behind.

  “Qui es-tu ?” a woman’s voice demanded. “Qui es-tu? Où est ma sœur ?” she repeated. This was followed by a swift kick in my gut.

  “Hey lady, I can’t understand you,” I grunted through my gag. But it came out something a little more like “Hgg. Gggag, ga gag gggrng gug.” Based on the follow-up kick, I was pretty sure it didn’t translate.

  A heel to my forehead held my head in place, and I grunted again … but didn’t struggle. Whatever this woman was up to, I had a feeling she wasn’t about to kill me. No cold gun barrel pressed against my temple and no more inane shouting. Besides, if she did want to kill me, she could have done it long ago. Much easier to whack a guy when he’s out cold than when he’s able to struggle—even if he’s tied up and helpless.

  Then a new thought hit me. What if she was one of those crazy broads who likes to tie a guy up then torture him. Blame him for all the wrongs she and rest of womankind had suffered and take it out on him, one piece at a time. I quickly shoved that idea away when the taste of the rotten gag reminded me of the pile of bodies stacked in the room. Unless this lady was one of the worst serial killers in history, it was highly unlikely she’d been behind that mess.

  The heel pressed down further, and I moaned as my jaw strained between the pressure of her foot and the unmoving floor beneath. “Ne bouge pas !” she said, and her fingers took hold of the gag and pulled it free.

  “Listen, lady, I have no idea who you are or what you’re doing, but you’ve got to untie me,” I stammered. “You don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into here. Hell, I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into. But whatever it is, trust me when I tell you your world is about ready to turn to shit.”

  “American…” she muttered and removed the blindfold.

  I was still in the room where she’d knocked me out. The stack of bodies melting on the floor about twenty feet away, still stinking the place up. In the time since that conk on the head, I’d been moved to about five feet away from the chained-up girl, sitting with my back against the wall. She’d since stopped moving and looked like she was on the verge of death. But the subtle rise and fall of her chest indicated life. If barely.

  Directly in front of me, another woman stood. About six feet tall, wearing jeans, a stained white t-shirt, and a leather jacket. Something had been printed on the shirt at one time or another, but due to a combination of fading and the mess of blood and guts smashed into it, I couldn’t really make it out. On her feet, she wore a pair of dirty blue converse high-tops, one of which swung back and quickly reversed course like a pendulum until it landed with a thud in my stomach.

  “Who are you? Where is my sister?” she shouted. “Give her to me or I will kill you.”

  Of course, I had no idea who her sister was … much less where we were. But from her feral expression, I didn’t doubt her willingness to follow through on the killing me part. Maybe she didn’t dress like a killer, but I’d seen that face before. The one where you’re desperate and angry and ready to do things you normally wouldn’t do. The face she wore looked like her old one had been cut off with a steak knife, and this new one slapped on, stapled and superglued in its place.

  “Listen, I don’t know who you are or who your sister is,” I replied, careful to keep my voice slow and calm. This was much more difficult than it might sound since that last kick had probably cracked a rib. I coughed, spit out a mouthful of blood, and continued. “But you’re in a heap of trouble here. And I don’t mean from me. I assume whoever that is,” I motioned to the woman on my left, “she’s not your sister … and you probably aren’t the one who brought her here.”

  My attacker took a step back and crouched, bringing her face level to mine. “You took this woman. You killed all these people.” She clutched my lower jaw and twisted my face to meet hers. “Now you will tell me. Where is my sister?”

  I thought for a bit, trying to come up with some sort of argument or explanation of why I was here. Down in this mess of caves, catacombs and dead bodies. Something to make any bit of sense to a stranger. But nothing I could conjure would make much sense. Of course, there was the option of telling her the truth. That I’d been back home in Mississippi, killed myself, gone through a magic portal in my closet, gotten attacked by parasitic fairies, escaped back into my portal, gotten lost, followed some random trail, and ended up here. But I had a sneaking suspicion she wouldn’t buy it.

  She let go of my jaw, and my face slammed against the floor. My teeth clacked shut on my tongue, and I tasted more blood. Just as she was about to haul off and give me a third kick, she stopped. Her ears perked, and she held her finger to her lips. Then I heard it too. The sound of metal on stone. Faint at first, but slowly rising as it came nearer. Soon a grumbling voice singing a dirge in what sounded like Russian began to emerge. Someone was coming.

  “You’ve got to let me go,” I urged. “Whoever, or whatever, is coming I’m pretty damn sure it’s who you’re searching for.” I nodded my head in the direction of the body pile and continued, “And I’m pretty sure it’s what did that.”

  The woman thought about this, but only momentarily. As the scraping of metal continued to intensify, the desperate fear in her eyes made it clear: she was about to make a run for it.

  At this point, I knew she wasn’t going to help me. And I had a hunch whoever was coming our way wasn’t going to either. Instead, I’d probably end up on the top of his pile. Though, depending on the circumstances, that was probably something my nature could handle one way or another. But I didn’t want to end up on his pile. And I didn’t want to let this girl go. She needed help. But she also knew something. Something I didn’t. And one way or another we were going to need each other.

  So, I went ahead and did something drastic. Something I hate doing because it wears me the fuck down. But … desperate times.

  My eyes closed, I focused my energy inward, identifying each and every flow of power through my body. I meditate
d, redirecting my energy into one big ball in my solar plexus. Then I pushed it outward. It hurt. It always hurt. But it also worked. As the energy moved outward, it transformed from power to heat until, reaching the outer confines of my physical body, it transformed to fire. My hair burst into flame, followed by my clothes, and finally, the ropes binding me.

  The woman gaped in horror, as one would expect someone would when they see someone spontaneously combust right before their eyes. Then she tore off her jacket, threw it over my flaming body, and smothered the blaze. A few seconds later, I stood up from the pile of ash, brushed the layer of crust from my naked body, and picked up my red-hot cutlass. Then, I grabbed her by the arm … and we ran.

  Down the corridor we bolted, opposite the sound of the oncoming stranger. Then, once we made it past the corner and out of the light cast by the torches, we stopped. The shrill, dragging sound of metal echoed louder and louder, and the Russian song finally became clearly audible—though I still had no idea what the words were. Completely foreign and in a tongue I can’t even begin to try to mimic on my own.

  Hidden in the dark, the two of us stopped. The woman began to speak, but I quickly shushed her with an ash-covered hand over her mouth. Her emerald green eyes bulged at me like she was an animal about to bite. But she held still and kept quiet, eventually sidling up next to me to sneak a peek at whatever was coming out of the darkness, yet careful not to bring herself too close to my naked body.

  From the shadow, a figure emerged. Dressed in a pair of ragged combat fatigues and an oily overcoat, he stomped forward one boot clomp after another. In his hand, he held a string of jute, tied to what looked like an old metal milk maid’s pail. With each step the pail dragged along behind, screeching and clanking against the stone. As he entered the room, another sound started up. A quiet, high-pitched wail.

  The girl. She’d awoken.

  Scuttling closer, and still singing his song, the man crouched and reached out to her face. He appeared to be reaching for something. A lock of hair perhaps, or just a sickening stroke against her cheek. But as his finger crept forward, she slunk back against the wall, cowering to avoid his touch. Still, there was nowhere for the girl to go. And even if she hadn’t been too weak to run off on her own, the shackles holding her arms to the stone weren’t going to let her go.

  He hesitated at her movement, eyed her cautiously, and his hand darted into the dirty nest of her hair. When he pulled it back, a two-inch-long millipede wiggled between his pointer finger and thumb. He popped it into his mouth, bit down with a soft crunch, chewed and swallowed.

  The woman shaking before him made another attempt to speak, but as the first frantic words began to escape her lips, he hauled back a fist and punched her in the side of the face. Her jaw went slack, and she slumped over, unconscious. My new friend and I continued to watch, careful not to give away our hiding space—though my hand cupping her mouth stifled more than one scream.

  I glanced from the stranger and his prisoner in back to this woman who’d knocked me out and held me captive. I should’ve knocked her out then and there, left her to suffer whatever fate the stranger had in store for his captives. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The stink of fear sweated in thick beads from her pores. Whatever she’d been doing down here, I’d somehow gotten into the middle of it. Or perhaps she’d gotten into the middle of whatever I was doing here. Either way, we were in this together … for now.

  The man in the other room dragged his bucket across the floor, placed it upright at the unconscious woman’s feet, and loosened the rope from the handle. Looping it around the woman’s feet, he tied her ankles together and swung the other end of the cord up over a hook set high in the wall. One strenuous grunt at a time, he hoisted her up, until her limp body hung upside down against the worn stone wall. The slack end of the rope went through the chains shackling her wrists and into a tight knot and there the woman hung, head down, feet toward the ceiling, unconscious. Her dress draped down over her body like a death shawl, exposing her milky legs against the yellow rock of the cavern.

  The woman at my side made another move to help. To lunge forward and do whatever kind of heroics her fit of enraged madness might allow. But still, I held her back. In any other instance, I would have expected her to fight me. To do whatever she could to escape this charcoal-covered naked man holding her hostage in the shadows of some god-forsaken cave of horrors. “Hold still,” I whispered, and she listened, slackening in my arms as the man once again dug into his satchel.

  Quicker than a jackrabbit escapes a braying hound dog, he drew his hand from the bag. A bit of silver clutched in his hands glinted the reflection of torchlight. With one swift, seamless motion his hand moved upwards and to the left, across the young woman’s throat. A torrent of blood streamed out, first in a wild spray, coating the man’s face and body. He reacted quickly, reaching out and adjusting the woman’s body, coaxing the blood to follow his guidance from her throat and into the bucket below. Once he had her situated to his liking, and the blood changed from a fountain to a waterfall, he moved to wipe his hands on his pants, paused, and licked them clean instead.

  It all happened so fast; I didn’t have time to react. And by the time I realized what was happening, my hand had dropped automatically to my side to reach for my missing gun (which was still probably buried in the pile of ashes where my clothes had been), and my new friend let out a blood-curdling, wake-the-dead (and if-they’re-already-awake-make-them-come-running) scream.

  I sighed and rushed forward, wild-eyed and screaming, naked as a newborn but for my layer of soot, with my rusty sword held high, waving it like a madman.

  As I attacked, I let out what I thought was a war cry. Something blood-curdling and rage-filled, sure to send this executioner into pallid shock. But the only sound to emerge out was a squeaking “HYEAAAAA” that got his attention, sure enough … but didn’t set him quaking in his boots. Instead, he turned his blood-soaked face in my direction, held his blade out ahead of him, and smiled. The whites of his eyes stared out from his crimson mask like two golf balls while his pupils got bigger. His mouth turned up into a smile of cracked yellow teeth like he held a miniature corncob between two dripping ketchup-stained lips.

  The woman thankfully stayed behind. Or, at least I thought she had, as I rushed forward ready to take this monster out. Though I closed the gap between us in mere seconds, the stranger before me still had plenty of time to react. In retrospect, I’m surprised I didn’t come as more of a shock to him. A crazy naked dude with a sword screaming like a kid playing Indians. But he kept his cool, readied himself, and smiled as the woman who’d knocked me out earlier caught up to me, her left shoe in her right hand ready to club the guy to death.

  Now, I’m not the kind of guy who doesn’t think a woman can handle her own. We’re all equal in my book. But I also don’t think most women have dealt with any of the honest-to-God monster sort of people. Maybe an abusive boyfriend here, a mugger there … or, God-forbid, a rapist. But the kind who piles up scores of dead bodies, chains people to walls, hangs them like cattle and bleeds them out into buckets? Not normal. Though, truth-be-told, this one was also a first for me. Still, I wasn’t about to let her go at this psycho while armed with nothing but a shoe and a pissed-off attitude. So, I went ahead and did what any other chivalrous gentleman would do in this situation: I stuck out my leg and tripped her.

  The screech of pain as she hit the ground worked out in my favor, too, as it doubled as a distraction from my poorly-orchestrated attack. As her face cracked against the ground with an audible crunch, the blood-soaked man’s attention was momentarily diverted. He licked the blood from his lips and made a move to attack her while she was down. But my chivalry mode was still on the upswing, and the second I sensed the new danger I pedaled forward as hard as I could, my muscles burning under the strain. Yes, for a moment I worried I’d spring a Charlie horse and plummet to the ground myself since, if we’re being completely honest, I was pretty out o
f shape. But luck was on my side, and I closed the gap between us in mere seconds.

  Down came my cutlass, in a heroic arc aimed perfectly to slice the man’s head clear from his shoulders. And it would have worked, if I hadn’t forgotten about the rope holding the now-exsanguinated corpse upside down on the wall. My sword came down, caught against the rope, and lost its intended target. The dead woman crashed to the floor, her head landing in the bucket of blood with a goopy splash … and the killer thrust his blade straight into my gut.

  Time stopped for a moment as I realized what had happened. The blade hit low, not anywhere near my heart where I’d seppuku’d myself not so long ago. So, it didn’t kill me, at least not right away. But it hurt like hell and all I could focus on was the pain. My sword clattered to the ground like a kitchen pan tossed by a toddler who’d grown tired of banging it. I fell forward into the stranger’s arms as he plunged the knife deeper, all the way to hilt. I didn’t scream, but someone behind me did, and as the scream reverberated through the cavernous space, an earsplitting crack followed. The man’s limp body took us both down as he collapsed on top of me.

  Although by no means a large man, his full weight was considerably more than I had expected. Mostly because he was dead. Just after his body gave a few final death spasms, each one shoving the knife harder and deeper into my gut from pressure, I tried to push him off but couldn’t gain the leverage. I would have rolled over and slid out from underneath, but with the knife jammed into my lower abdomen and his full weight on top of it, any attempt to move sent shrieks of pain through me.

  As the echo of the gunshot faded, the only sound to remain was the steady drip-drip-drip of blood—no longer from the captive woman, but now from the recently produced cavern in dead man’s head. Most of what had previously been his brains had blown out against the wall when the shot hit, but still, some remained, and found its exit from the place where the man’s left eye had been. It fell onto my face … and there was nothing I could do to stop it aside from squeeze my mouth and eyes shut and hope it didn’t start running up my nose.