“Your mom won’t ever come back,” dad said to him, his tone low and menacing. “She is in another place now and she don’t want you anymore, you understand?”
Matias took a big bite out of his burger and kept watching the lions. “Okay,” he said.
“What happened last night, you’re not to tell anyone, you understand?” dad went on. “If you do, the cops will take you away. They’ll put you in prison. You don’t want to go to prison do you?”
Matias knew that dad had been in prison as well as Uncle Carlos and all of their buddies. It sounded like fun. He wondered if mom was in prison. “You been in prison, is it so bad?”
“That was different. They’ll put you in a cage in the dark and never let you out,” dad warned. “You’ll die in prison all alone. You never tell anyone what happened. You do and you’ll never see me again. You’ll never see anyone ever again. You understand?”
Matias nodded, still looking at the lions. There was a funny looking teenager with dirty blond hair and wearing weird clothes standing in the enclosure. He was waving frantically at Matias and shouting, but no sound came out of his mouth. The lions ambled around, ignoring the strange boy.
“Matias?” dad growled. “You understand what I’m saying? You don’t tell anyone.”
Matias nodded, watching the weird kid as he slowly faded into nothingness, just like a ghost. Matias knew mom wasn’t coming back. She was a ghost like the weird boy now, and that meant she was dead.
“I won’t tell anyone,” he said, taking another bite of his burger. “I promise,” he added as he swallowed it down with some soda pop.
Chapter XIX: Childs’ Play
Pain gripped Amy’s right arm as she pulled herself out of the cockpit. Smoke clogged the air, seeping into her lungs and stinging her eyes. She stumbled along, banging her leg against a hard piece of metal and coughing up her guts. She wanted to drop to her knees and curl up on the ground, but she forced herself to keep going. She could smell burning and she knew she had to get away from the wreckage as quickly as she could.
That impulse to survive made her legs work and she half-ran half-staggered across the hard, stony ground. Without warning, there was a thunderous bang behind her, followed by an intense wall of heat that hit her square in the back. She was sent flying forward, hitting the ground with a thud. For several moments, she lay dazed, her ears ringing loudly, and a low moan escaped from her lips.
I’m in Hell, she said to herself. I’m in Hell and there’s no way out.
Despair tightened round her, but she found the strength to get onto all fours and then onto two feet again. Behind her, the helicopter was a lump of blackened metal wrapped in orange robes of fire. It lit up the heavy darkness, a beacon of flame visible for miles.
A beacon that could easily be spotted from the penitentiary. Or in other words, a massive signpost pointing out her location. Shane’s ghastly face and ice corpse grip filled her mind and her heart skipped in terror. Retreating from the conflagration, she looked in the direction of the prison and saw the pinpricks of ATV headlamps emerging from the gate. They were coming for her.
Amy turned away and started running as fast as she could. Her whole left side was a screaming mass of agony and her ears were still ringing madly in her head. She moved like a drunkard, half-blind with no idea of where she was going. It was hopeless, but she kept on moving.
She had put a few metres between her and the wreckage when she remembered the ravine. Dimly, she realised she had crashed somewhere near it, but it was impossible to see very far in the dark. She knew she had to be careful and was just about to slow down when her foot slipped on some loose earth and she tumbled into nothingness.
The world gallivanted around her and she was lost in a maelstrom of panic and confusion. Sharp rocks cut at her clothes and limbs, and she knew she was going to die. She screamed into the void as if that would save her from her fate, and suddenly hit solid ground again.
Her bones jarred on impact and a sharp pain split her right cheek, but through some miracle she was still alive. A ledge jutting out of the side of the ravine must have broken her fall. She clung to it tightly and took deep breaths, trying to regain control of her terror.
The ringing in her ears began to lessen, and strength began to creep back into her body. When she felt able to, she sat up and peered out at the gloom. She could see nothing much directly in front of her, but when she looked up she could see a ribbon of night sky sliced up by the sides of the ravine. She looked like she had fallen quite a way down until the ledge broke her fall. There was no way she would be able to climb back up.
Not that she wanted to. The search party they had sent after her would soon reach the crash site and then they would start looking for her. Grimly, she wondered how good Chill Cadavers were at climbing.
Shifting onto her belly, she crawled forward and patted the air with her hands, looking for the edge of the ledge she was on. It was only a few feet away and there was only empty space beyond. She asked herself if it was possible to climb down to the bottom of the ravine from here, but wasn’t sure what good that would do. She would still be trapped. Up or down, there was no escape.
Resting her face against the rock, she closed her eyes, too exhausted to worry. From somewhere below came the sound of tinkling music, soft and gentle. It drifted upwards and Amy opened her eyes abruptly. That was just great, she thought. Now she was losing her mind. The music got louder and she forced herself to sit up. The pain in her arm was abominable, competing for attention with the throbbing agony in her cheek. The side of her face felt slick and sticky, and she figured she was bleeding.
The music was getting closer and a flickering grey light appeared from below. Amy stiffened and she coiled against the rock wall at her back. A dark sense of dread filled her and she suddenly realised that the air was getting closer.
The gentle melody was all around her, and sounded like a tune that a music box might play. Though it sounded innocuous and twee, it filled Amy with abject terror. The grey light was also getting stronger, becoming almost as bright as daylight, and she could now see the ledge clearly. The music seemed to be coming from directly below it and, as she watched, two small gloved hands that gave off the grey light appeared over the rim of the ledge. A few moments later, a mass of blonde curls popped up and a small childlike creature in a frilly satin dress that was immaculately white climbed up onto the ledge and sat cross-legged in front of her.
The creature’s rotting face was more like a skull, and its mouth was twisted into a grotesque rictus. Its fixed grin widened and its grey jaw fell open. “Play with us,” it said in a high pitched voice that could have come from a well-mannered young girl. “Play with us.”
Amy raised her hands. “Get the hell away from me!” she shouted.
“Play with us,” another voice called out from the gloom, and a second ghoul child, this time a boy dressed in a pristine tuxedo, crawled up the wall on her left hand side like a spider. He turned his decaying face to her, and where his cheeks hadn’t shrivelled away she could see his dimples. “Play with us,” he squealed. “Play with us, play with us!”
The little girl thing took up the chant, and other voices joined in, echoing around the ravine.
Amy stared wildly as more children climbed up the sides of the ravine, making the grey light almost blinding. They crawled around on the rock, calling out for her to play, their voices clawing at her mind.
“Get away from me!” She was sobbing now. “Please, leave me alone!”
The little girl on the ledge stood up and ambled over to her. “Play with us,” she insisted, tugging at Amy’s arm.
“Play with us!” a little ghoul boy dressed as a sailor and with maggots wriggling inside his eye sockets reached out and grabbed a clump of her hair. “Play with us! Play with us!”
More of the glowing children were gathering out and reaching out to grab her. Amy kicked and punched, trying to get them away from her, but
they kept on coming. She struggled but to no avail as they started to drag her off the ledge.
“Play with us! Play with us! Play with us!” the chant made her head hurt.
Unable to stop them, Amy was pulled off the ledge and lowered down the side of the ravine by dozens of tiny hands with supernatural strength. At the bottom, more ghoul children waited, and they picked her up over their heads and carried her along a narrow defile deeper into the ravine. Amy still struggled, but it was useless. She was trapped in the nightmare and, somewhere in the distance, she sensed the malevolent intelligence that had attacked her in the server room.
At the end of the defile was the mouth of a tunnel, and the ghoul children took her deeper into the gut rock itself until they came to a large cavern.
Hundreds of candles burned in alcoves and on rock shelves, competing with the grey light coming off the creatures. The cavern itself looked like some kind of crude nursery with jumbles of broken toys on the floor that seemed to come straight out of the nineteenth century—old fashioned tin soldiers and rotting teddy bears, as well as rocking horses lay derelict and neglected, and a black board sat at one end of the cave with aged wooden chairs and tables strewn haphazardly in front of it. Amy’s heart missed a beat when she saw that several adult-sized skeletons were slumped at some of the tables.
The children carried her into the centre of the cavern where a small brightly coloured table had been set up. The little girl monster who had climbed onto the ledge was sitting on a stool on one side of the table and a petite china tea set was in front of her.
“First we will have a tea party,” the girl said. “Bring the other guests.”
Amy watched as ghoul children dragged two corpses from the shadows in the cave to the table. They wore convict uniforms and were in the early stages of decomposition. Their stench hit Amy as they were propped up in stools on either side of the little girl. Amy stared in horror at the cadavers, unable to recognise who they were because the lower half of their faces had been burned away completely, leaving only charred blackened flesh.
“Bring the lady to the table and I will pour the tea,” the girl ghoul ordered.
Amy thrashed and struggled as the sight of the corpses gave her a fresh incentive to escape, but the grasping hands were too strong. The children got her to the table and forced her onto her knees. Pain and terror took the fight out of Amy, and tears rolled down her face.
“Please, just leave me alone,” she groaned.
The girl ghoul’s empty eye sockets fixed on her and she clapped her gloved hands together in glee. “Everything stops for tea,” she said cryptically. Picking up the teapot by its handle, she poured out a steaming green liquid into one of the dainty cups.
The vapour from the liquid stung Amy’s eyes and hit her in the back of the throat, making her cough. She tried to pull free again when she looked at the ruined faces of the corpses and put two and two together. The ghoul children were like a squirmy lead weight holding her down and the ghoul girl brought the tea cup now with the green fluid in it up to Amy’s face.
“Open wide.”
Amy clamped her mouth tightly shut. The ghoul girl huffed. “Open wide, I say. It’s time for tea.”
The other ghoul children pinched and bit her, and the sailor boy started prising her mouth apart with his withered hands. She couldn’t fight against them any longer and she let out a howl of despair as they got her jaws open. The steam from the seething liquid burnt her lips as the ghoul girl leaned forward to pour it down her throat.
A hideous shriek, primal and full of rage suddenly echoed round the cavern, silencing the chanting children.
The ghoul girl took the cup away and looked around in confusion. From a ledge up above, a huge furry shape jumped down and bounded toward Amy and the children. Amy stared in shock as she realised the huge creature was a badger. It roared like a lion and knocked some of the ghoul children out of the way as it made a beeline for Amy.
“No!” the ghoul girl shrieked. “We’re playing! Stop him! Stop him!”
The ghoul children launched themselves at the badger, vicious black talons sprouting from the tips of their fingers to rake and slash at the animal’s hide. The badger’s liquid black eyes glared with an almost human-like determination and it bared huge glistening fangs that snapped and bit back at the scrawny undead creatures. The sailor boy rushed forward, slashing at the animal’s face, and the badger grabbed him by the throat, ripping away a good chunk of it and unleashing a spray of watery black blood.
The sailor boy moaned and tumbled aside as the badger ploughed through the other children like a bulldozer.
As he reached the table, the ghoul girl picked up the teapot and made to cling it at the creature. In all the confusion, the ghoul children had forgotten all about Amy and she was now free. She lunged forward, knocking the teapot from the child’s hand. The vile brat screeched at her and, with claws extended, she made to gouge out Amy’s eyes. Amy staggered back and was almost thrown off her feet as the badger barged between them and roared at the ghoul girl. The creature lashed out at the animal, but the badger swatted her away with one large paw. As Amy watched the conflict, the badger swung its head round and faced her.
“Get on my back, little maker,” the badger said in a deep guttural voice.
Amy stared at the creature in shock. “You . . . you can talk?”
The badger smiled at her. “Don’t tell me this is the strangest thing you have seen this day, little maker. Now get on my back if you want to live. I can’t keep them all back.”
Amy saw that the ghoul children were gathering round again, intent on tearing them to pieces. She didn’t think twice and jumped onto the animal’s back. The badger lurched upwards and Amy had to clutch onto his fur to avoid falling off. The animal’s powerful body bounded across the cavern, knocking ghoul children out of the way, and he roared again as he plunged through a passageway set into the wall on the left. They were swallowed by darkness, though this didn’t seem to bother the badger who didn’t slow down and moved with purpose, entering a network of tunnels, and seemed to know exactly where he was going.
Behind them came the screams of the ghoul children and Amy spotted flickers of grey light when she looked behind her. Eventually though, the lights winked out as she and Badger moved deeper and deeper through the tunnels.
“They will not follow us now, little maker,” the badger said at length, breaking the tense silence. “We have lost them.”
“What were those things? What are you?” Amy demanded. “This is crazy!”
“We are mother’s children,” the badger replied, “though she has disowned me a long time ago.”
Amy frowned. “Mother’s children? You mean Ursa Calladyce?”
“That was her name once,” the badger said, a wistful note in his rough voice. “Before she became more than she is now.”
“What are you talking about? None of this makes sense! What is going on?”
“Patience, little maker, all will be revealed,” the badger replied. “The grand plan will be revealed piece by piece and you will see your part in all this. Hush now, we must get to a place of safety beyond Mother’s influence. Here in the tunnels her consciousness can find us, and my brothers and sisters will go and tell on me.”
Amy wanted to demand he explain what was going on, but knew it was a waste of time. She had to go along with this weird creature if she had even the slightest chance of surviving.
She fell into a sullen silence and leaned against the animal’s body. The badger’s thick fur was warm and soft and offered a healing balm for her exhausted body. She closed her eyes and drifted away as he padded through the tunnels.
She must have drifted off to sleep because she woke with a start, disorientated and confused. The badger was moving slower now and there was a light up ahead. Amy sat up and stared forward as the tunnel they were in opened out into a larger cavern. Electric lights were set in the rock walls high above t
hem, and in the centre of the cavern was a large dome made of light blue steel. The badger ambled up to the centre of the dome and a section of it opened seamlessly, allowing them entrance. The badger went through and Amy ducked her head.
Inside the dome, it was brightly lit and filled with various equipment, servers and monitor screens. The entrance closed silently behind them and the badger lowered his fore legs.
“We are here, little maker. Now we can talk freely.”
Amy climbed off the animal, wincing at the ache in her legs and the pain of her various injuries. She walked shakily across the metallic floor, peering curiously at the various equipment set out inside the circular chamber.
“What is this place?” she asked.
The badger sat up on his hind legs and rested his front paws on his belly. “This is my centre of operations,” he said. “Mother cannot monitor us while we are in here, and it is invisible on the outside to her scanners. We are so deep down in the underground complex beneath the island that none of her agents can find us. From here, I have been monitoring your progress with the BeyondMind project.”
Amy looked at him in surprise. “You’ve been spying on us?”
“Watching over you, little maker,” the badger corrected. “To make sure no harm came to you.”
“You didn’t do a very good job of that,” Amy said. “I nearly got killed by zombies a little while ago.”
“I cannot go above without incurring mother’s wrath,” the badger said sadly. “I watched your plight, little maker, and was helpless to intervene, but when you were captured by my siblings then I was able to act without being stopped.”
“You keep saying Ursa Calladyce is your mother and she’s the mother of those . . . creatures as well? How is that possible?”
“She is our creator,” the badger clarified. “She carved us from the raw material of the quantum essence, though I am far more superior to those degenerate urchins that infest the caverns, and I far outclass my younger brother BeyondMind.”
The Alchemy Worlds: Enter T(he)rap(y): A LitRPG Adventure Page 20
