“Now who the hell would this be?” I asked, frowning. Then I called out to Ridley. “I found him! Don’t know who this is, but he got turned into armor!”
“Huh? Seriously?” Ridley ran up to me, looking confused. For a moment we stood there, staring blankly at the armor pieces. “Wow. I—uh—I don’t know what to say.”
“So who’s going to wear him?” I asked. “I can’t believe I just asked that. That sounded totally wrong, didn’t it? It’s like talking about wearing someone’s skin.”
“I’ve got my suit on, so you’ll have to do it.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. And you’d better put him on quick before we run out of time.”
I stared at Ridley for a moment. “You do realize that the longer I participate in this game and do weird stuff like this, the greater my chance of growing up to be a psychopath.”
“That’s what therapists are for. Come on, put him on. Here. Lemme hold Wade.” Ridley blushed when he reached out a hand and took the torch from me. “That didn’t sound right, either, did it? Sorry Wade,” he said, turning to talk to the torch in his hand. “I wasn’t sexually harassing you.”
The flames shot up once, again punctuating that with another shower of sparks. Wade must’ve just given Ridley the middle finger. In the meantime, I quickly put the armor on, which proved to be an awkward process. The front and back plates were—duh!—stiff and cold, and I fumbled with the leather straps on the sides, my hands all shaking and sweaty as I tried to get things done as quickly as possible. It felt so big and bulky and crazy awkward. Not to mention seriously embarrassing.
“Okay, I’m set,” I said, glancing up and meeting Ridley’s baffled stare. “I know, I look like a monumental loser wearing this. I don’t even know who this happens to be.”
“I think it’s Freddie,” Ridley said, handing the torch back to me. “I mean, it makes sense, right? He’s the shapeshifter of the bunch, and he sometimes takes on robot masks or masks that involve guns or anything metallic for defense and offense.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean,” I replied, holding on to the torch. “Which leaves us with Peter. And that’s really messing with my mind because if he’s going to be transformed, I don’t even know what I can associate him with. I mean—he’s all about speed and strength. What the hell would that make him?”
“We’ll find out soon enough. Maybe you should leave your knives behind since you might not need them anymore.”
“What—are you kidding? We’re going to get ambushed! I need something to use!” Then Wade the Magic Torch spluttered again, and I frowned at her. It. Whatever. “Wade, if you’re trying to tell me to trust you, it’s kind of hard to do that, seeing as how you’re not exactly a weapon I can use.”
Ridley sighed. “Come on, dude, let’s go. Don’t worry about the knives. I think we’ll be okay. Remember nothing here can hurt any of us, anyway—”
“No, but things can still hold us back and eat up our time,” I retorted, but at this point, I’d already dropped my knives and was running out another door, following Ridley as he tore down one more corridor. I guess, to some extent, I did feel more soothed by the fact that I had both Wade and Freddie with me, with Freddie literally protecting me from harm even though defense wasn’t really necessary. Then again, it also helped not having to carry him in one hand the way I was carrying Wade, though with him as armor that I wore, I felt like a sad little nerd neck-deep in RPG.
“By the way, Freddie,” I said, stealing a glance down at the armor vest thingie I wore, “don’t get any ideas. Having you wrapped around me like this will probably be your first taste of gayness, but that’s all you’ll be getting from me.”
I didn’t know how many more corners we turned, with those creepy-ass sounds following us wherever we went, but eventually we ended up standing in a foyer-type room with massive double doors opposite us. Corpses were strewn all over the floor.
“God, we’re, like, running deeper and deeper inside this castle without any break,” Ridley said with a tired sigh. “Come on, let’s go.” Picking his way carefully through the corpses, he led me to the doors and pushed them open without trouble. “Oh, yay!”
I hurried after him and found that we’d reached an open courtyard. It was huge, easily about five times the size of the throne room (maybe more), but it was still a part of the castle, and the castle’s second half—or whatever it was called—stood a good distance before us, and I figured that that was where the tower room lay. Then again, the tower room wasn’t our problem anymore, according to Althea. To our right and left were the castle’s battlements, standing around the height of a three-storey apartment building. There was no gate or doorway on either side, which meant that we had to enter the second half of the castle in order to get out.
Which, by the way, sucked massively, but that wasn’t all.
In between the open area where we stood and the castle’s second half stretched a garden maze type of thing, made of super tall shrubbery that was all dead and rotting. Since the maze was so ginormous and appeared to fuse itself to the battlements—read: there was no room around that’d allow us to bypass it—it was obvious that the only way to the second half of the castle was to find our path through the maze.
Great. Another obstacle course to suffer through under time pressure. And we still had to find Peter.
The area was, like the castle, dotted with corpses lying on the stone floor, which was cracked in several places, with weeds sprouting through. At the sight of those bodies and then the maze, I couldn’t help but droop.
“Oh, man, I don’t believe this,” I said. “There’s no way we’re going to get out of here in time.”
Ridley didn’t answer. He stood in place, turning his head, his face slightly tilted up as though he were sniffing the air or watching something above us. “Wait,” he said after a moment. “Peter’s here. I can sense him.”
“Thank God!” I cried, whipping around to scan the area. I raised up Wade, breaking up the shadows around me as I searched the corpses. “I have absolutely no idea what form he’d take, though.”
Ridley had walked off to cover the left half of the courtyard. “I don’t, either, but whatever it is, it’s got to be something that’s related to his powers.”
“Which leaves me nothing to go by.” I sighed as I looked around, half-anxious and half-excited about the fact that we were close to finishing this insane game. I stepped over bodies, still shivering at how awful they all looked, but at least I wasn’t in danger of puking where I stood. Every once in a while, though, something would make me stop, gasp, and look up. Since we were outdoors, those weird echoes inside the castle weren’t heard, but the creepy feeling of being followed or not being alone remained, and I was no less jumpy than I was indoors.
I swear—I swear—some of those corpses moved a little, but when I turned to stare at them, they lay still.
I didn’t know how long it was taking us to find Peter, but the awful realization that our time was running out grew starker and starker in my head. Panic started to grow again, and not even having Wade and Freddie there with me helped. I didn’t have my knives. I felt horribly vulnerable to anything that’d attack me. Even though I wasn’t going to be earning any points, it still meant running the risk of going over our time limit and finding ourselves forever trapped in that freaky castle, perpetually fighting off corpses till—what? Till we collapsed in exhaustion and died? Starvation and thirst would certainly a major issue. God, what a way to go.
I whirled around, gasping, when I thought I saw more movement from the corner of my eye. I held Wade up and looked but saw nothing. A light breeze had picked up, disturbing some of the smaller debris on the floor. I looked at Wade the Magic Torch and was relieved to find her fire not getting disturbed by the movement of air around us.
“Peter!” I called out. I would’ve whispered, but at that point, I just wanted to find him, pronto, fight off rampaging corpses, and then get my ass saved by
Althea within the next ten seconds. “Peter, I know you can hear me!” Wade the Magic Torch spewed a few sparks. Maybe she was trying to call out to Peter in her own way, too. Kind of cute, really, and I would’ve appreciated that more if I weren’t borderline meltdown-ish.
“If he can, he can’t talk back!” Ridley replied from another end of the courtyard, where he was poking around.
“Hey, that pizza promise you made before we got sucked into this game had better be good still,” I said. “There ain’t no way I’m going to suffer through nightmares every day for the next year without being properly compensated for my trauma.”
“Seriously, considering what we’ve been through? I’m making my parents pay for twice the number of pizzas I promised. But that’ll happen right before they ground me for a week or something after they find out about this.”
“If they find out, you mean. Dude, come on. Get with the program.” That said, double the number of pizzas for emotional and psychological compensation? Ridley Russell was now my newest, greatest BFF.
I yelped, leaped over a corpse, and quickly turned around to stare in shock at a pile of bodies I walked past. My heart at this point felt like it had pumped its way up my throat. I could’ve sworn my Adam’s apple was getting forced up my tongue. “Oh, God,” I whispered, staring hard at those bodies. “They moved. I know they did.”
But with Wade’s sunlight-like brightness on them, I saw nothing. In the shadows, though, I thought I saw them move. Okay, this was getting out of hand. The breeze had also gotten a bit stronger.
“Peter!” I yelled even more loudly now. “Goddamnit, where are you?” Again, Wade spewed a few more sparks, which all vanished with the wind currents.
“I can’t see him anywhere!” Ridley cried. He’d searched his side of the courtyard and was looking at the maze. “Oh, man, don’t tell me he’s in the maze somewhere. It’ll take us forever to find him.”
“Peter! Peter!” I stumbled back to the middle of the courtyard, spinning around in one place as I held Wade up. The wind seemed to have settled on a bearable speed so that Ridley and I could still hear each other and other possible creepy noises as well. And to echo the game world’s climate or atmosphere or whatever, the wind felt comfy and not at all cold. It was almost like a summer breeze kind of thing, and even though I was in near-panic mode, I felt comforted by it.
Then Wade spat out a few more sparks, and I froze, shocked. “What—oh, my God—Peter?” I blinked and looked up, searching the sky, even though I knew it was dumb. Who could see the wind, anyway?
Sure enough, I felt something brush against my cheeks. It felt like a soft touch of someone’s hand. It also felt like a quick kiss.
“Peter? We found you, didn’t we?” I asked quietly now, and I smiled when I felt another light brush of air against my cheeks. How could I be so stupid? Peter’s speed and strength—of course, they could be translated into wind!
Wade sent out another shower of sparks. I rolled my eyes when I realized that she might’ve been trying to tell me something about Peter. I looked at her even though I was in danger of blinding myself by staring right at her super bright fire.
“I think I just figured out what you’ve been trying to do,” I said. “Thanks, girl. I owe you one.” I turned to Ridley. “We found Peter! He’s been turned into the wind!”
Ridley stood there, looking as though he hadn’t heard me. His face was frozen in an expression of absolute horror, his complexion drained of blood, his eyes wide, and his mouth hanging. I could smell total fear rushing out of him from where I stood, maybe about thirty feet away. His gaze was also fixed on something behind me, which was never, ever a good thing.
I turned around and nearly pissed my pants.
Corpses were rising all around us. And it wasn’t like they were suddenly awake and conscious and were stumbling to their feet. Hell, no—they were still deader than dead, their eyes either closed still or partly open, the skin around them sunken, their mouths closed or slightly open. When they “rose,” they didn’t move any body parts. It was like something—an invisible force—was pulling them up from where they lay, so that their bodies lifted up till they all stood on lifeless legs, though they didn’t tip over. Whatever invisible force raised them up from the floor kept them upright but drooping.
Then they started moving toward us. They didn’t walk, nope. They were moved forward, their feet visibly dragging across the cement, and they looked like lifeless mannequins. Yeah, like real corpses being manipulated to move physically without giving them life. We weren’t being ambushed by zombies this time. We were about to be chased by corpses. As far as what they could do to us when they caught us? I wasn’t about to hang around long enough to find out.
“Run!” I cried, turning and barreling past Ridley and into the maze. Oddly, the only thing that flashed across my mind at that moment was how much a shrink would cost Mom and Dad.
Ridley was behind me this time, and even with the rush of noise around me—more like noise made up of my screeching and cussing—I heard him shoot at the advancing army of corpses with one loud BLOOMP! after another. I also felt Freddie the Magic Armor tighten around me (seriously, he’d better not be making a pass), while Peter the Magic Wind swirled and Wade the Magic Torch shot out flames. For a moment, I wondered what the hell Peter and Wade were supposed to do till gut instinct told me to leave Peter alone and to use Wade as a weapon of some kind in case we came across corpses in the maze.
“Althea! We’re together!” Ridley yelled. “Get us out of here!”
“I don’t know how to get out of this maze!” I said, panting, when I skidded to a halt at a dead end. “Shit! Go back! Go back!”
“You go! I’ll take up the rear!”
I squeezed past Ridley and followed another path. This one was short, stopping quickly for a sharp turn right, and as I rounded the corner, I had to dig my heels in with a cry. A small group of corpses were directly ahead of us, blocking the way and slowly moving closer.
“Oh, God, they’re gross!” I spat out. Sparks flew out from Wade, and my gut once again made me snap back. Gripping the torch more firmly, I swung it down like a weapon—a sword—and a long tendril of fire shot out, snapping in the air. I recognized it as Wade’s fire whip, and I swung the torch again, and this time the whip cracked against the corpses, setting them on fire.
They stopped dead—no pun intended—and completely disappeared under bright white flames. The surrounding shriveled up hedges that marked the maze sparked and ignited.
“Crap, I hope I didn’t just trap us here with the burning bush,” I said, gulping.
But whatever fire power Wade had seemed strong enough to completely obliterate those corpses within seconds, and before long we were staring at a pile of ashes on the ground, with a few flickering flames here and there. The hedges continued to burn, but the fires had died down a bit, so that they were as small as the residual flames on the ground.
“Hurry! Run!”
I didn’t need another prodding from Ridley. With a squawk, I leaped over the pile of ashes, feeling the heat of Wade’s fire power surround me for a second before vanishing as we continued to barrel through the maze. I kept running into dead ends, and it was like acting out a skit from The Three Stooges for us when that happened. Ridley would run into me, we’d tangle in a mass of flailing arms, yelling and panicking, and then I’d free myself and run back to take another path.
Another group of corpses met us when we turned a corner. This time around, they were closer than the other group, and Ridley and I had to turn tail and scramble back, both yelling out our grossed-out-ness, and if I weren’t armed with Wade the Magic Torch, I’d be flailing my arms wildly the way Ridley was.
We stopped after retreating several feet, and I had to turn around and subject myself to more nightmare material, again using Wade for offense and defense. Since those disgusting moving dead bodies were closer in range, something told me that I couldn’t use the fire whip, so I lowered the to
rch and aimed it at the advancing group.
Wade’s fire swelled up, almost went supernova, and then it blasted the group with large fire bombs. The corpses stopped when they were consumed by fire, and I swore I could hear weird voices coming from them—like dull moans or something like that—as they quickly burned to ashes. Were they the same voices I heard earlier inside the castle? Maybe. Those earlier ones might’ve easily been my overactive imagination going crazy, but who knows?
“Ridley, how’re you doing with your force fields?” I asked, barely glancing back as I waited for the right moment to charge forward.
“I’m able to hold them back. We passed a few paths back there, too, where corpses came out to follow us, but I got them. Peter’s also tearing down the maze behind us by blowing down hedges and shit and making a mess of the paths. He’s keeping those corpses out or at least slowing them down.” Ridley sounded out of breath as well as tight with sky-high anxiety. “God, I wish Althea would hurry!”
I felt the breeze around us again, calming me with those familiar touches against my face. “We’ll be okay,” I whispered, managing to crack a small smile. “Let’s go!”
I ran forward, leaped, and tore down the path. The process repeated with more and more frequency because it looked like the closer we got the center of the maze, the more corpses we ran across. Exhaustion was unbearable. I was so sore and hungry and totally, totally zapped of energy, but we had to keep on moving while Althea did whatever the hell she needed to do to get us out.
“Althea! Now would be a really nice time to get out!” I yelled while blasting at two groups of corpses that came out of two intersecting paths. “I’m sure Wade and Peter are losing energy!”
“Don’t forget me!” Ridley snapped.
“Oh, and Ridley, too!”
Dr. Morbid's Castle of Blood (Masks) Page 16
