“If you see someone going through that door after we’ve already gone in…you take ’em out, little brother,” Brandon added, building his ego.
“Yeah, that’s right. I got your back, now get,” he said, pushing us toward the door that he was now pulling open.
Chapter Sixteen
Not one of us could hold the little snickers in, as we rushed across the dark foyer. Brandon and I followed Bo’s movements. If he stopped in the deeper shadows of a corner, we froze with him. I automatically turned the knob on the first door as we passed it, knowing that Bo had already said it was locked, but I wanted to be sure. The thought of someone or something grabbing me as I walked by, sent shivers up my spine. Once I was past, the thought hit that they could simply unlock it from the other side, causing my stomach to drop into the lower pits of my abdomen.
“You alright back there, Renee?” Brandon asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“You just started breathing hard.”
“Had a bad thought, but it’s gone,” I explained, putting my hand up on his shoulder.
“Stay close,” he said, placing his hand on top of my and squeezing. He didn’t have to say that twice, because I was as close to him, as he was to Bo.
Bo opened the second door with the hall behind it and quickly darted his head in and back out just as fast, then opened it up enough for us to rush in. Once he had the door closed, it was so dark we couldn’t see our own hands in front of our faces. “Feel for a light switch,” Bo instructed A few minutes later, little red lights came on all the way down the hall. Each one had a painting underneath it.
“This is really weird.” Brandon’s brows wrinkled as we started to make our way in.
The hall was no more than six feet wide. The walls looked like they were painted a dark brown or even black. The floor was the first wooden floor that I had seen in the place and it was varnished to a glass finish. I heard Bo gasp and looked up to see what he was looking at and had to take a step back. The painting that we were all fixed on, was the most horrid thing that I had ever laid my eyes on. There was a female hanging upside down from a wooden cross with her stomach cut open from her privates to her throat—I think. I say I think, because her intestines were covering her entire head, and draping much further down. Her breasts were spread to the side in a morbid pose with her hands lightly gripping them, as if pulling her own flesh apart.
“Who would want something like this hanging in their home?” Bo asked, taking a step back.
“The sick bitch that we’re going to kill,” Brandon answered, backing away with him.
We continued down the hall of grim paintings, stopping at the one down and across the hall. I had thought the first was the worse that I had seen, until I laid my eyes on this one. As soon as you looked at the painting you knew that it was a human skin nailed to the red wall, with blood running down like sap from a maple tree. It’s what lay on the ground at the bottom of the hanging skin that proved to be the worse of the two. It was the crumpled form of the individual that had once worn it. He or she lay reaching toward the artist with its very visually painted hand that resembled that of raw meat. The whites of its eyes showed brightly against all the red gore of what was left of its face. Its mouth was open in a round dark circle of agony that in this painting, will last an eternity.
“Do you think this person just thought this stuff up, Renee?” Brandon asked.
“Do you want an honest answer, or do you want me to just keep it to myself?”
“Probably better just to keep it to yourself.”
I don’t think that any of us looked at anything but our feet until we reached the end of the hall. I know that I didn’t care to ever look at another one of those paintings again for the rest of my life. Knowing how sick minded Yvette was, I had no doubt that the artist had used barely alive models when they made the demented artwork, adding more reasons to burn this place to the ground.
“There’s no door knob.”
“What?” I asked, recoiling out of my thoughts.
“I know this is some kind of a door, but there’s no knob,” Bo added, as he felt around the edges.
“How do you know it’s a door?” I asked, thinking it looked like the rest of the wall.
“Feel here,” he said bending down, placing his hand at the bottom. “You can fell the air coming out.”
“I see what you mean. Maybe it slides,” I replied, as I started feeling the edges of what I could now see to indeed be a door.
“They did good hiding this thing, but not good enough,” Bo grinned. Then a sound of a soft click rang out. “That’s it.”
Bo stood up and pushed the door in, holding one brow high above the other. He showed Brandon and I where the small pin was on the bottom of the crack under the door. He then admitted that his father had one put in the upstairs of his home. He said his father was always worried that he was going to be robbed, and came up with the same idea, like these hidden rooms. The first thing that we noticed when we walked in was the smell. It wasn’t one of death and decay, but one similar to chemicals. To me it was almost a mixture of sulfur and ammonia, which had my nose and eyes burning within seconds after entering the room.
“What is it?” Brandon asked.
“I haven’t got a clue,” I replied. It was then that Bo found a light switch.
The room lit up so brightly that we all covered our eyes. When mine were adjusted, I lowered my arm to find that we were in a laboratory of sorts. The room was stark white from top to bottom; the only color came from two, long, metal tables that sat along the right side. There were shelves that extended as high as the ceiling, on the back wall. The shelves were filled with various shaped and sized, labeled bottles. On the left side of the room were several barrels with what I could only guess, was the foul smelling chemicals that were burning our eyes. The room was spotless. Even the floor that had a drain in the middle, glimmered as if it had just been shined. The only thing that looked out of place was a white curtain that was hanging from the ceiling to the ground, in the far back corner of the left side of the room. The cloth hung so out of the way, that if you weren’t paying attention, you would actually miss it with all the other items in the area.
“Renee, you better take a look at this,” Bo said, as he stood there with the curtain partially pulled back.
I walked around him and almost threw up right then and there. I was beginning to understand what this little room was used for. I wouldn’t know for sure, until I was able to ask Garvin about it. The large glass container was full of bits and pieces of body parts. The second one was full of reddish liquid that seemed as if it was fed from the two tubes coming from the large container. It was nothing but a nightmare. I didn’t have the words to explain what my eyes were witnessing. I was watching different patches of what I was certain to be skin, floating by an arm, then a foot, as the liquid swirled around in the larger of the two containers. It wasn’t until the head with the half eaten flesh and missing eyes pressed up against the glass, that I reached and closed the curtain.
“It’s some kind of acid, that’s why our eyes are burning,” Bo concluded.
“I have to get out of this room,” I said and head for the door.
“I’m with you,” Brandon replied and beat me in bending down towards the switch.
“Wait,” Bo said rushing up. “Someone’s coming…listen.”
Brandon stood up and we all leaned onto the door. Bo was right. I could hear the sound of feet moving every so often, then stopping, only seconds later to start up again. I pushed Bo with my shoulder, and looked down toward the bottom of the door. He nodded back once and hit the switch with his foot. The door swung open and Derek screamed a sound that came out something like a wounded pig, or a fog horn. Bo grabbed him around the mouth and dragged him inside, while Brandon hitting the switch and closed the door.
“You better hope like hell you closed that door at the end of the hall,” Bo said, squeezing Derek’s face a little too hard.
“Bo, put him down,” I said with authority.
“I got worried,” Derek cried, dropping to his knees and holding his hand to the busted lip that Bo had given him. “Y’all were gone for a long time.”
“I didn’t mean to do that,” Bo said, leaning down next to him. “Did you close that door?”
“Yeah, I closed it, Bo.”
“I’m really sorry. I think I got carried away because one of us could have killed you thinking you were one of them.”
“The truth is, I got really scared being back there by myself. I’m sorry I let y’all down, but if I stayed there anymore, I swear my heart was gonna blow up.”
“Come on. We’ll stay together, but we need to move.” I nodded, and Brandon hit the switch on the door.
“Did y’all see those pictures out there?” Derek asked, stepping in behind the rest of us.
“We did and they’re paintings,” Brandon replied, looking down not wanting to see them again, as we moved back through the hall of horror.
“That guy had a sick imagination. I couldn’t think of things like that if I tried,” Derek went on.
“What makes you think that he was using his imagination, Derek?” Bo asked, as we made our way back to the foyer.
“I don’t…”
Derek never finished his statement. I think that he must have went into deep thought on the subject. By the sound of how he was coming up the hall looking for us, he was stopping at several different paintings along the way. Now he seemed to have a disgusted look on his face and a new memory that he would not soon be forgetting. I told Derek to stay with me, that he and I would check the door under the staircase, while the others checked the two doors on the left side of the room. The foyer was indeed a huge room, but not so large that if one of us were to get in trouble, the others wouldn’t be able to hear and come to their aid.
“Remember the number one rule—be as quite as you possibly can. I know the head witch has guests, which means this place is used to hearing screams of torment. They probably won’t pay mind to much, but who knows what they will or won’t come to check out. Let’s just try to be as invisible as we can.”
“Does that mean we can’t use our guns?” Bo asked, looking back at me.
“If you have no choice, then do what you have to do. I think they have fixed most of the rooms to hold in the sounds in somehow, because when I was here before, I never heard anything coming from the other rooms upstairs—nothing. And we all know her ‘guests’ were having their way with screaming victims.”
We split up at the bottom of the stairs with the instructions not to enter anything without being all together. We were to open the door, look in, then close it, meeting back at the bottom of the stairs. The door that Derek and I were headed to was at the very back, far left, of the staircase right next to the back wall. The door that the other boys were going to be checking was on the opposite side of the staircase and down a hall, past the back wall that stopped us. Unless we wanted to go back into the area that we just came from. I held my ear to the door and didn’t hear anything, so Derek turned the knob. The door yanked open and an enormous man, that I recognized, grabbed Derek by the throat and lifted him completely off the floor. Derek went wild, scratching at the man’s arm. He kicked wildly, making contact with every move, as the man turned around. I jumped on the man’s back, sinking my fangs in and ripping back with all the might that I had. Blood sprayed across the foyer floor as he stumbled out of the door.
“Let him go you son-of-a-bitch,” I hissed, sinking my fangs back into his neck, while raking my nails across his eyes.
He spun around trying to throw me off; but I held firm. Derek’s legs swung back and forth as his body started to go limp in the big man’s hand. I pulled my curved dagger out of my belt and rammed it into his throat and pulled back. It dropped the beast of a man to his knees, but he would not release his grip on Derek. I jumped off of his back and started chopping at the man’s wrist, until his hand was no longer apart of his body, then pried the fingers from Derek’s throat. The man fell backwards, grabbing at his throat. Before I gave myself a chance to think, I spun my blade around, jumped into the air and came down as he raised his shredded stump to try and block my blade. He hit my shoulder, knocking me to the side, burying my blade right into his heart. I looked into the eyes that I once begged to let me go, and twisted the jeweled handle until I heard a bone in his chest pop, then pulled it out of his body.
I returned to Derek, as he was starting to sit up. I was about to ask him if he was alright, when another man, one that I had seen accompany the now dead man while I was a prisoner, come out of the room and saw his fallen comrade. He threw his head back and screamed a guttural cry that was low and harsh, as if his vocal cords had been cut. Then he lowered his head, looking at me with recognition. He remembered me also. The look on his face said that, he had every intention of killing me for what I had just done. He started storming toward me, stomping thunderous vibrations with every step. I went to stand up, slipping on the blood and the gore the first had turned into. I started backing up in a crab-like walk, with my hands behind me on the floor, working them as fast as my feet were moving. I bounced up and he rushed forward. He grabbed me by the flesh on my waist with one hand and my throat with the other, picking me up and slamming me into the wall that held the staircase up. Stars burst behind my eyes the second my head hit. He released my waist and began pounding his fist wherever he could make contact. I vaguely saw Derek jump on the arm that he was swinging, slowing the force of his blows.
Brandon and Bo came running around the stairs with their weapons in hand. Brandon dove on the man’s back, and started thrusting his blade into the man’s upper chest, neck, and face. The bastard seemed unaware of the damage as his grip tightened on my throat. The last thing that I heard was Bo yelling that Brandon was in his way, and then everything went black.
“Renee? Renee, can you hear me?” Bo asked, slapping my face lightly.
“Yes,” I replied, trying to open my eyes. “How long was I out?”
“Just barely,” Brandon replied, putting my blade in my hand.
“Hurts like hell doesn’t it?” Derek asked, smiling down at me with bruises circling his neck. I assumed I had a perfect match.
I gripped his forearm and pulled myself to a sitting position, then immediately grabbed my head in both hands as the pounding battled on the inside of my brain. It was then that I agreed with Derek. My head felt like it was about to explode, and all I wanted to do was lay right back down, but I knew that was an impossibility. I got to my feet with the help of the boys and noticed the bodies of the two men that once captured me on one of my attempts at escaping. Their bodies hadn’t turned to a burned ash like Annabel’s had. No, they looked more like a blackish wet mush.
“That’s different,” I mumbled slightly confused.
“That woman’s body turned fast and it was like charcoal, but these two turned into goo,” Brandon flinched. “Look how flat that stuff spread out.”
“Tar, that’s what it looks like,” Bo concluded.
“Looks like crap if you ask me,” Derek blurted out, and we all began nodding.
“How do we hide this?” Bo asked.
“I don’t suppose we do. I do know one thing. If these two were down here, then their sick Master is up there doing some sick things to an unwilling victim,” I said, turning for the staircase.
I knew exactly what room that I was heading for and nothing was standing in my way. The thought of anyone being alone with that fat pervert bastard known as Mr. Huerta, took every ounce of pain out of my body. Graphic memories ran through my mind, as I reached the top of the stairs. The boys said nothing, staying right with me. I walked up placing my ear to the door, where I could barely hearing a woman whimpering and the fat man telling her that if she didn’t stop, that he would have to insert her again. I knocked on the door. “Go away, I’m busy.” I stepped back and kicked the door with everything that I had, bus
ting it open and scaring him so bad that he rolled off the foot of the bed. Had Bo not put his foot out, the door would have slammed back shut. I stepped into the room. The man was as round as he was tall.
“What is this? Who are…” he paused remembering. “I never harmed you.”
I looked over at the woman that he had tied face down on the bed. Her arms and legs were spread and tied to each of the bed posts. I closed my eyes for a second, lost with my own nightmarish memories. Blood was soaked into the sheet under her lower half, so bad that it was standing in a dark puddle. I looked again at the twisted animal that was backing away from me. He was wearing the same type of clothing, that looked like it was from the days of King Henry, and he was playing that same horrible music that seemed to help with his perversions. I leaned down and picked up his box of toys and threw it at the phonograph, knocking it off the table. The crash caused the obese man to scream like one of his victims.
“Please, she wanted it,” he pleaded. “I have money, lots of it.”
“Close the door. No one pays any mind to the screams coming from this room,” I spoke in a low calm tone.
“What are you going to do?” he asked, trying to maneuver his way behind the table that held his sick torture items. “My men will return. If you hurt me, I’ll make sure they kill all of you. Do you hear me?”
I walked over and pulled the curtain back on the wall that held the chains for his victims that, he placed there when he had that particular fantasy. He watched me, wringing his bloody hands together nervously, shaking so bad that the fat hanging from his large chin, jiggled. I looked back at the boys and they swarmed the screaming man, forcing him up against the very wall where he had chained his victims. “Help me! Help!” His screams fell in vain, as my boys tried to put his ankles in the shackles.
Bo pressed his shorter blade to the man’s throat, “Try something—I dare you.” Bo held the whale of a man there, while the other two worked on the restraints.
“It won’t go around his leg,” Brandon grimaced, trying to force the iron band around the rows of blubber that layered in grotesque mounds on top of the man’s foot.
Bloodbreeders: The Revenge Page 14
