by DA Chaney
She ran straight into the manor’s backyard, running along stone walkways and lush grass that she could feel under her boots. Ed had come to Lockland because she was told these were animal attacks. Swicker had told her that he didn’t know what kind of attacks they were and she felt heinously mislead. His round about, almost cryptic explanation at The Slaughtered Lamb hadn’t indicated that the attacks were of a human nature. Had Swicker known about this all along? If he had, had he brought her there to deliver her to the monsters that roamed the estate? Maybe he hadn’t known. After all, he had supposedly gone inside the estate...
Suddenly her feet faltered and she nearly tripped face first. The carriage was gone. If Swicker hadn’t known what was happening, had he taken one look inside and hopped back into the carriage and taken off? Maybe Barlowe had already been bitten and couldn’t drive the carriage himself and Swicker had taken it and bolted. The bastard! Had he intentionally left her there to die or forgotten all about her?
Ed stopped to catch her breath again, glancing at the torch. The thing had saved her life. If she hadn’t been able to see what had happened to Barlowe and been able to see to get away, she would have been taken down by either him or someone else. That much was obvious. Saved her life and made her a target at the same time.
Switching hands, she noticed that something caught a reflection of the torch light ahead. Having nothing to lose by checking it out, she moved forward and inspected the source. It was a symbol like one she’d seen earlier on the carriage. A Lockette family symbol. It seemed to be carved into a hill. Moving closer, she realized that no, it wasn’t carved into the hill, it was a metal doorway leading into the hill. Was this a family burial plot? Ed had heard from Brock that there were some rich families that constructed large monuments to bury relatives in, but she’d never seen one before.
Ed bent to get a closer look at some foot traffic before the door, brushing her fingers over the ground. Someone had been here as recently as a few days time judging from the deep imprints that had survived the rain.
She tread carefully around the immediate perimeter, lighting her steps with the glow of the torch, looking for anything out of the place. She didn’t know if burial sites were booby-trapped or not. She’d always assumed that she wouldn’t be in one and had never stopped to ask Brock what to look for. Spotting something in the short grass, she stooped to retrieve it. Pursing her lips, she looked at it in the light. A ball from a pistol. Shrugging, she let the ball drop to the ground since she wouldn’t need a single bullet for a pistol that she didn’t possess.
Like the gardens, she hadn’t planned on going inside the burial tomb with the danger surrounding her, but the sounds of moaning that was creeping closer made her rethink it. Reaching out, she pulled on the metal door and it creaked as it opened for her. Stale air gusted out from the blackness in front of her and the torch flickered in response.
Stepping forward, she felt the cold air from the crypt against her face and she held the flame before the blackness. It was bloody dark down there. Swallowing, Ed saw that the doorway led downward into a narrow set of stone steps. Nothing dangerous rushed out at her like Ed half expected, which was a good sign. Pushing the torch forward, she watched the flames as they burned away the fragile webbing that had coated parts of the entrance; either burning the crawling bugs that dwelled there or sending them fleeing from the fire.
Watching some of those fleeing black blobs in the torchlight, Ed hurried inside and closed it behind her. It was her hope that the builder of this burial site had built some kind of passage way that might lead her back to the manor. She’d been in a rich house pretending to be a maid before and had discovered a tunnel leading from the stables to the house. It’d allowed her to steal pretty well from the place and escape before she was found out.
The grounds might be overrun with things like Barlowe, but if the passage was clear underground it would be a safer way back to where she started and maybe even a hiding place until she figured how to get herself out of this mess.
Immediately, she was struck by how cold it was inside and her skin broke out in goose bumps. Moving forward, Ed held the torch and her breath as she descended the stone steps. They were narrow, thin, and steep. She silently begged herself not to fall down them. As a precaution to keep her balance, she slid a hand along the stone wall, stepping down the stairs sideways until she reached the bottom. Her boots scraped lightly against the stone as she descended. The room seemed surprisingly dry with no musty wet smells emerging from the blackness beyond the torch like she would have expected. No water must have gotten inside.
At the bottom of the steps she found a dry torch in the wall and she raised her flame to light it. It was a big space. If it weren’t a touch too creepy of a thought she figured she could live in the one room alone and be relatively happy with it. Cool against the summer air, dry—no rain seepage—it seemed almost perfect.
The idea that she was actually thinking of it made her shiver. She might dig up dead people for money, but she wasn’t as sure that she wanted to live with them and likely far too long dead to make a profit from it.
The room Ed was in was large, bare, and oblong, as if to prepare or view an open coffin before proceeding further inside with a darkened hallway branching out from it, opposite from where she stood.
Spotting a second torch, she crossed and lit that as well. She wasn’t afraid of the dark, but it made no sense to rut around in the dark for no reason. It was difficult to tell how far the burial chamber was by looking at it. It could be merely two antechambers, but bigger families probably had decent sized areas, so it could go on quite a bit before reaching the end.
Ed stepped forward into the hallway and scanned the floor as she moved along it. No scat, no blood markings, and no dead animal bodies. It looked fairly untouched by what was going on outside. The stone hall was throwing off a chill that she could feel through her shirt as she walked quietly down it. It was getting uncomfortably cold.
She walked down the rest of the length down the hall that deposited into another room. This room held stone coffin holes in it but no coffins in them. It appeared as if the room was prepared for the more recently deceased, which likely meant that the older relatives of the family would be back through other corridors. She lit another torch holder as she passed through the room.
As she reached the end of the hallway that lead into another chamber, she pulled up short, cocking her head and listening. She could have sworn she just heard whimpering. She listened again. Wait, there it was again, quiet, almost sob-like whimpers.
As she emerged in the next large chamber she was assailed by the smell of rich copper. Blood. She held the torch high but much of the chamber was still shrouded in darkness. She noticed the coffin holes on the left side of the room were partially filled with coffins and the holes that had been filled; the coffins had all been broken open. Bones and wood were spread across the dusty floor. The damage looked old. Where was the smell of blood coming from?
Pivoting, she ignored the next chamber’s entryway and crossed in the center of the room to inspect the other side, when the torches light revealed the source of the bloody odor. She froze. It took everything she had not to scream. She was not a screamer and yet...
She had seen some terrible wounds in bodies before. Men accidentally shot in the face, men caught in man-made traps, men gored and sewed up but most of them had been dead before she got there. Even Barlowe wasn’t like this. Nothing came close to the live body in the state that it was now.
She stared, unable to move, the torch trembling in her hand. Her mind screamed to escape, but where to?
There was a bloody body slung over a slab where a coffin was meant to sit. It was unmistakably male, noting the heavy arms that were sprawled over the sides of the stone. Horrific long strips of skin and deep thick muscle had been noticeably torn from parts of his arms leaving a gruesome discovery for the torchlight. Thick blood from his wounds, looked black, and had run in dark rivets, poo
ling at the back of his head. Parts of his face had been bitten or chewed away. His lips, eyes, nose, and ears were simply gone, leaving nubs of bloody tissue behind.
His waistcoat had been shredded exposing the chilling sight of his chest. Thick curly chest hair was sticking out from where he still had patches of skin, whereas the rest was a bloody mess of exposed roped muscle and holes that leaked blood which had crusted onto his abdomen, and soaked into his trousers. His belly looked as though someone had put a fist through it and widened the hole as the large cavity wound had begun to spill out soft pink guts. Ed realized with further horror that the man’s legs were missing below his knees. She moved the torch closer and saw only gristle, thick clots, and sticky wet blood on the dirty floor. Something had bitten through his leg bones and had carried them off. She shuddered, choking back burning bile in her throat, looking around for the stubs.
Movement from his thighs pulled her focus back up from his missing legs. Something was moving freely beneath the remains of his trousers. A low keening sound came from the man’s throat and his jaw flapped uselessly. Hearing a high-pitched squeak, she lifted the torch and saw that rats had come from somewhere, scurrying around his head, and they were eating through his tangled frizzy hair. It left little to the imagination to what was working not so carefully beneath his trousers.
The sharp rat teeth had not broken into his brain cavity yet from what Ed could see, but they looked on the verge of it. They worked fast as she watched, as if they had no choice but to eat quick and run away. Bloody skin and hair were being chewed with gusto.
She commanded her legs to move but they didn’t. She could only mutely stand and stare in complete horror, the meal of bread and cheese that she’d eaten earlier rising so threateningly in her throat. Her mind screamed at her to put the man out of his misery. There was no going back from what he was experiencing and the torment he’d endured as horrific as it was, was going to last as the rats ate his brain out of his skull. She knew what she had to do, and her hand shook as she reached for the cheese knife in her pocket. She could walk away from many things, but she could not take the suffering of this nameless man in front of her. His torment was beyond imagination.
She took a deep swallow and forced herself to step closer to the body and the strong smell of human feces caught her nose. Her belly rolled painfully and she breathed through her mouth, not blaming him for fouling himself considering the terribly slow death that he was experiencing. It’d be hard for anyone not to under the circumstances. “I’m sorry.” She whispered in the general direction of where his ear would be if he still had one. She had no idea who the man was or if he’d also come in looking for a place to hide and had been attacked so horribly, but her grief for him was new to her. If the roles were reversed, she’d hope someone would do her the favor that she was bestowing on him. It was the only right thing to do.
The body froze and then bucked around as if he was finally aware someone was there. In his state, it was probably true. His head moved wildly as he realized help was in reach, but he was too far-gone to realize, there was no helping what remained of his body. How he‘d survived so far was beyond her.
“I’ll put an end to your pain,” she promised. This is necessary. It is an end to the agony, she reminded herself.
She put the knife to his throat and she heard a rasp leave his throat before she cut deep, pushing the dull blade as hard as she could as she sliced. “Unnnnn.”
What remained of his blood gushed out from the new open wound drenching the stone slab he lay on. The rats squeaked in his trousers as his body spasmed and jerked in death. The churning in her stomach was too much and, bracing her hands on her knees, she bent forward and threw up. Chunks of undigested bread and cheese littered the floor supported by the ale and bile that it floated in. She felt the weakness from the action tickle at the backs of her knees as they threatened to buckle, but she managed to stay on her feet. Sweat broke over her body and she wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her shirt.
Belly sensitive to already having vomited, she caught a fresh smell as the remainder of bowels that the man had released upon his death, hit her nose. Her body buckled as she dry-heaved for a moment. She urged her feet to move backwards away from the combined scents around the body. Straightening, Ed gulped, feeling the coldness of the crypt on her hot, sweaty face. She replaced the knife and tightened her grip on the torch when she caught a new odor in the air.
Now what? This place bloody sucks, why did I come down here? I should have kept running.
Turning away from the body to inspect the new source of smell, she screamed in shock and confusion when she saw what had come up behind her while she’d been tending to the helpless, tortured man. An armless rotting figure had shambled up behind her. Half of the flesh of his face was gone and she was staring into a gooey orb-less eye socket. The man’s flesh had begun to bubble around his neck with gas and hang droopy from his chin. The nose had been torn away and suddenly, she was screaming into the nose hole when it leaned forward, and bit into the fleshy section of her cheek.
Shock dulled part of her senses for a moment, but then the gnashing, pulling pain of teeth digging into her cheek exploded with a white starburst in front of her eyes. She continued to scream as she brought the end of the torch up and began hammering the things back with it. She sent the flaming end along the back, setting the tattered clothing it wore on fire. As the flames quickly spread, Ed worried that the thing would stay stuck to her and catch her on fire as well.
Holding the torch over its back. She could smell a thick, fatty smell of skin starting to burn and ignored it as she grabbed for the knife again. Ed began stabbing the thing in the face, nearly lancing herself with it as she jerkily homed in on her target.
“Let go!”
Then suddenly, the thing did let go, as she pummeled its face into ruin with her swings. It dropped to the ground at her feet, on fire. She jumped away from it, blood streaming down her face. Was her cheek still there? Had it bitten or pulled a chunk away? She had no time to check.
Torch and blade in hand, she swiveled trying to make a risk assessment of the situation. Across from her, the tunnel that she hadn’t explored yet, made her jump where she stood. More of the same kinds of things were watching, standing there as if curiously waiting for her next move. They were as tall as a human man, but were all rotten and putrid looking. Complete parts of their bodies were missing. Some arms were missing at the elbow or shoulder. Gore ran freely from open wounds and she could swear she saw mold growing from one of the things’ eyeballs. There were some that looked almost mummified and there were half a dozen dressed fresher ones squeezed together just beyond her. On the ground, she saw some had no lower bodies and they dragged themselves with their arms. They didn’t look human.
Startled, she heard rats shriek and she spun to watch in shock as one of the things had slunk up to the newly dead body and now pulled a struggling, bloody rat off and shoved it headfirst into its mouth, tearing the top off. Blood and fur spurted from its lips as it chewed, moaning in its mangled throat. Two others had shambled to the same man and had begun feasting openly on his body. His belly had been completely torn open, intestines dangled, still attached to his body. Eager hands sought more of his soft warm innards as blood trickled from the open hole. Gagging, she shifted her eyes and saw the pile of rags she’d caught on fire, on the floor. The thing was still twitching, but was no longer trying to eat her. Seeing it, gave her an idea. To burn them all. She spun back at the crowd in the tunnel where some had managed to come further out of it toward her.
Shouting at them as loud as she could, the sound echoing off the walls, Ed picked out an older looking one that appeared wrapped in fragile rags and hurled the torch at it. She watched for a moment as it immediately caught on fire, which quickly spread to others next to it. The things around it moaned, trying to move away from the flames. Ones not on fire moved around the calamity while some walked right through it, catching fire in the process al
so.
Her face stung and she could feel the wetness of her blood glide down her face. She had to get back to the entrance. Gripping the knife in her fist, she spun and ran. A horde of the dead groaned in unison as they followed after her, dragging their rotting bodies as they gave a determined chase. The newest dead were the fastest and she heard them closer behind her, grunting and moaning, trying to get her. The smell of rot clung heavy in her nose, and her face felt ruined as the air penetrated it while she ran.
She reached the first antechamber, gasping for breath, and glanced around. She could hear the things behind her moaning collectively and knew they were not far behind her. She stared up at the door and was torn as she heard something banging on it from the other side. Barlowe?
Swallowing and blade in hand, she went for one of the torches in the room, as the moans and dragging sounds grew closer. “Bloody hell.”
This is seriously going to hurt, she thought as she backed up the stairs and tried to go over how she was going to escape. Both ways were blocked. She could possibly throw the metal door open, surprising Barlowe and knocking him down as she fled. It seemed the best possible chance as she watched the dead people shamble closer.
Ed moved up another step intent on reaching the door before the things caught up to her. She hissed between clenched teeth at the jarring sensation in her cheek as she climbed the stairs. She was about half way up them, stride set in grim determination, when there was a new sound coming from deeper in the hall.
The grinding sounds of hand to hand battle. Were the dead fighting over who would reach her first? Losing momentum, she turned and watched with astonishment as the dead people that had given chase were being attacked themselves! Something white, lean, and limber leapt from the hall where they’d the group had emerged from and landed on a crawling torso crushing its skull into the stone below. Growling, the new creature lashed out with hands that had enormous claws sporting from the tips of its fingers, ripping into a walking dead man whose face was missing. A loud gaseous noise split the air as grey intestines spilled out of the opening and tumbled down the mans legs.
