by Allan Burd
“Whoever’s taking care of the outside of this creep fest certainly isn’t putting the same effort on the inside,” I say.
“Place could definitely use a bride of Frankenstein,” says Cooper, his furry hand sweeping cobwebs off the walls.
“What do your senses tell you?” Miguel asks him.
“I’m smellin’… something. Something dead coming from dead ahead,” Cooper answers, pointing between the gargoyles.
I notice a pattern on the floor. The dust is thicker in some areas and coats the floor in uneven waves. It’s probably from the wind slicing down from the murder holes but there’s also a subtle path sweeping between the crests. “Something moved through here not too long ago,” I say.
Cooper comes over, bends down, inhales on a spot, and recoils. “It’s rotten, worse than Frankenbear,” he says. “It’s got to be Frankie Monster. Only super old flesh can smell that bad and I don’t envision this place having a shower.”
“Like you guys do back at your wolf den,” I say.
“We have streams,” replies Cooper.
Miguel crosses the room. He brushes a coating of dust off one of the gargoyle statues and closely examines the markings on its horns and its chin. “This place was touched by forces other than human. These statues are far too accurate representations of lesser demons to be mere coincidence. Cooper is most likely correct assuming a demon brought Frankenstein’s Monster to life. Perhaps Balzuzu, perhaps another. What is clear though is that far more happened here than literature admits.”
Cooper eyeballs the gargoyles. “Creepy looking fuckers,” he says, backing away from them. “So, do we go forward or some other way?”
I take out the map. On the front was the mark that got us here. Originally, I didn’t understand what was on the back, but now that I’m standing in the main hall, I can tell. This room is represented on the map as is the rest of this castle. The X indicates where we need to go, a place opposite from where we entered.
“We need to go straight. I think the gargoyles mark the way,” I say.
“I agree. It seems only fitting that in order for us to complete our mission we need to go through demons,” says Miguel.
“At least they’re not real this time,” I reply.
We move into the next room and pause. The surroundings are similar, but there are two gargoyles on opposite walls that are large, ugly, and far more familiar. They both have goat faces, bat-like wings, and hooves instead of feet. They’re not exact replicas of Balzuzu, the facial features are a little off, but they’re pretty darn close, as if someone saw him and did his best to chisel his likeness from their memory.
“Aw, shit,” I say, the words catching in my throat.
“Yup, this is the part of our adventure where I say I told you so,” says Cooper.
“Not necessarily,” says Miguel. “They could be his ancestors, or perhaps, his brethren.”
“That’s just great. To think there are more like him in Hell,” I say.
“The afterworld is home to many demons,” says Miguel.
“Yeah, but he was the worst.” I say. I reach into my pack, pull out two bars of C4 explosives.
“What are you doing?” asks Cooper.
I slap one explosive on each of them, right between their goat legs where I imagine it will hurt the most. “You said it yourself. Balzuzu specializes in bringing things to life. Tell me you can’t picture these two buggers coming alive and attacking us. I’d rather not wait for that to happen.”
“Your placement seems… extreme,” says Father Miguel. “Maybe even post-traumatic stress disorder extreme.”
“No, I’m with Silas on this,” says Cooper. “Why take chances?”
“That’s what I’m saying and it sure beats therapy. Take cover.” I push the button activating the charges on each. The bang is music to my ears, as are the raining droplets of pebbles that are the immediate result of my ‘dick’ move. Once the smoke clears, all that’s left of the statues are piles of rubble that litter the floor.
“Feel better?” asks Miguel
I would, but one of the heads remains intact and I can swear it’s staring at me. “Come on. The map says we veer left into the next room. Let’s move.”
Cooper punts the head like a football. “Don’t bother. You hear that skittering? Whatever was in that next room is coming to us.”
Chapter 19
Cooper’s hearing is far more acute than mine, but it only takes a moment for the rapidly repeating ‘scritch, scritch, scritch’ to reach my ears. Whatever’s coming is moving fast and it isn’t lumbering on two human legs like Frankie would. I draw my guns. Miguel cocks his double-barreled shotgun.
“What do you hear?” asks Miguel.
“Eight metal legs,” answers Cooper. “Rounding the corner, now.”
At first it appears as a four-foot high lumpy silhouette in the shadow of the archway. Then it crawls into the light and its nothing my mind can associate with any one class of living creature. It’s an amalgamation of human and animal corpses fused together and carried forward on organic, triple-jointed, spider-like legs. It has a fat hairy body, like that of a bear or a boar, or, more likely, both of them stitched together. Two human arms extend from its side, one wielding an ax. Three heads—a fox, a bear, and a man—tilt lopsided off long necks and have sentient, curious eyes. This abomination isn’t just alive, it’s aware as well.
“Father,” I say. “I get the all God’s creatures part of the bible but—”
My words are cut short as buzz saws flap open from four of the legs.
“That’s not one of God’s creatures,” Miguel yells over the hum of the motors.
He pulls the trigger and the side of its body explodes in fleshy bits. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop the inhuman thing from advancing. We spread out and being the lucky guy that I am, it decides to come for me. I fire my weapon, my aim true. Three bullets sink into its mass, but they don’t seem to do any damage. It takes a clumsy swipe at me with the ax. I duck, roll, and come up shooting again. I place two more bullets into its mass, which also do nothing to slow it down.
The axe goes up again. Miguel blasts it out of its hand taking the human arm off with it. Then Cooper leaps over the extended buzz saw blades, lands on the things wide body, and gets to work. It’s like Frankenbear all over again. He’s making a mess of the thing, slicing through its dead flesh, ripping apart its disparate pieces that were stitched together. He digs through its innards hoping to remove an important part that make it tick but the ‘Amalgamonster’ seems too bizarre for him to get a handle on. Behind him multiple buzz saw blades rises up from previously unseen metallic extensions. Cooper doesn’t see them. Despite his seeming invulnerability to anything other than silver, I’m not sure he could fully recover from being cut in half. Nor do I intend to find out.
I quickly unload the rest of my magazine into the bear head while Miguel unloads on the fox, whose head explodes in a splash of muted gray. The spinning blades whir to a stop and the rest of the thing completely halts all movement. It’s dead, reduced to a grotesque organic mass but Cooper hasn’t realized that yet. He continues tearing at it with his teeth and claws until he’s absolutely sure that the monstrosity is as useless as a dog’s bone. It’s a primal display and I’m reminded once again of the merciless reality of surviving in this world we live in. Though, I’m not complaining. That thing was one of the most unnatural supernatural brutes I’ve ever encountered. The less there’s left of it, the better.
“Is everyone okay?” asks Cooper.
“We are unharmed,” says Miguel.
“What was that thing?” says Cooper. “It made Frankenbear look like Teddy bear.”
“It definitely had all the earmarks of one of Victor’s monsters,” says Miguel.
We examine the remains. Miguel discovers a ruby shard in the brain jelly that blew out of the fox head. I stomp on one of the mechanical arms, snap it and take a closer look at its wiring. The filaments are copper surrou
nded by an insulator… crude, old-fashioned workmanship befitting the profile of an 18th century mad scientist.
Cooper’s holds the human limb in his hand, showing us a metal rod inserted through it. “Looks like man meat shish kabob with the muscle bolted into place. Can we remove all doubt at this point? Frankenstein’s Monster is making more like him.”
“If it’s him, he’s doing a bang up job,” I say.
“I’m not one hundred percent convinced,” says Miguel. “Someone else could have figured out how to use the gems. It wouldn’t be too difficult for another deranged individual to recreate Victor’s work. We need to keep moving forward until the true source of this horror reveals itself.”
I refer to the map. It’s telling us to go through the exit the monster came from. That’s not a direction I’m particularly eager to go.
Chapter 20
We quickly slip into the next room—empty thank goodness—then diverge into a narrow hallway that leads to a staircase going down. We arrive in a cavernous cylindrical room almost as wide and long as the entire castle. Light enters through multiple angular meutrieres smaller than the ones we used to climb into the castle. Murder holes are supposed be gaps in the ceiling built around the perimeter so defenders of a castle could shoot arrows and drop boiling oil onto attackers. They’re not supposed to be built into a basement. I search the room looking for why.
Rows of wooden tables line the floor. Rubbed leather straps hang from their sides and coiled copper runs from their bases through thin metal rods which lead to steel boxes on the walls. They’re operating tables of varying shapes and sizes attached to electrical circuits, a deduction easily confirmed by the raised movable carts with trays of rusty old surgical instruments. Toward the center of the room, a large trough runs perpendicular and slopes down toward a drain in the floor with a dark comet-shaped stain around it revealing the frequency of its use. Further into the room are columns of carcasses that dangle from hooks chained to the ceiling. They’re arranged in order of species—wolves, wild boars, foxes, rodents—a menagerie of dead animals, a majority of which are missing body parts. I see a row of humans dissected and mutilated beyond recognition, far more than just six missing soldiers.
“This isn’t a castle, it’s a slaughter house and an operating room all in one,” I say.
“Check out all the mechanics,” says Cooper, referring to intertwining gears the size of railroad wheels, along with several large levers built into the floor. He points out dented steel boxes and old school sewing machines. “It’s like a doll making factory too. This is one time I’m not grateful for enhanced senses.” He retches and pukes all over the floor.
There’s no stench like death. Though the decomposing bodies of humans and animals are different, both are particularly unpleasant and the pungent smell is enough to make most men draw back and think twice before coming any closer. The holes in the ceiling help vent some of it, but I theorize they were built in case anything too monstrous was born here and it needed to be put down from a safe distance. Considering the two we’ve already encountered, that’s saying something.
“It’s the raw harvesting of organic material for horrific scientific experimentation. This is sick,” I say.
“This is definitely Dr. Frankenstein’s lab,” says Cooper.
“It’s more than that,” says Miguel. “See how the walls climb at a consistent angle. This room was designed with a specific emphasis on acoustics.”
“For what, a necropolis rock concert?” asks Cooper.
“Of sorts. But not with music. This chamber was designed to magnify the incantations used to summon demons,” says Miguel. He walks over and inspects scratches on an open area of floor. “A pentagram was carved into the stone here a long time ago. I suspect the murder holes in the ceiling were put there as an added defense in case any demon broke loose.”
That makes more sense to me than my theory. “Well, whoever’s here is still playing with his instruments,” I say, lifting a wet saw off one of the trays.
“That’s a capital saw. They used it in the 1800’s for amputations. Very crude but effective,” says Miguel.
“So is this,” says Cooper, picking up a discolored scythe from beneath a hanging deerskin. “This poor bastard recently had all his innards removed, probably just a few days ago. He’s been thoroughly cleaned. Only the good parts are left. He’s all meat and bones.”
“At least we know where the monsters came from,” I say.
“But we don’t know who or what is creating them,” says Miguel.
Cooper embeds the scythe into a meaty boar hanging next to him. “I’m thinking who gives a shit,” he says. This mission isn’t at all what I thought it’d be. Let’s blow this entire death castle to smithereens and get out of here.”
“Not until we get what we came for,” I say.
“What does the map say?” asks Miguel.
I check. “It says we need to go straight across this huge room and out the other side.”
“Of course it does,” says Cooper. He squints, seeing something through the shadows we can’t. “That exit’s gated off.”
“Probably by the same type of grates that bar the other two exits along the side of this chamber,” says Miguel, pointing to the jail cell type iron bars that seal the archways. “The only way out of here is the way we came in.”
We hear a loud creak and all of us turn. Slowly, the bars blocking the three exits begin to rise.
“Okay, now we can go forward. How did you do that?” asks Cooper.
“I didn’t,” I answer. “That lever wasn’t in that position a moment ago.”
“Oh, fuck,” says Cooper.
But he only gets to say that first, because he’s hears it first… the multitude of ‘scritching’ sounds and footfalls that come our way.
Chapter 21
The gates weren’t opened to let us out. They were opened to let monsters in. Grotesque creatures of varying shapes and sizes pour into the room, an army of distorted patchwork monsters similar to the ones we fought upstairs. Some skitter forward on mechanical legs like Frankenspider, others lumber forward on two legs human animal hybrids. None of them are the same. None of them look like they’re here to welcome us. Miguel blasts the metal legs off the closest deformity with his shotgun. Cooper tears the head off something that vaguely resembles a reindeer.
“Spread out!” orders Miguel. “Let’s each take a door. Try to bottle them up at each entrance.”
But I see there are too many of them. “Forget that. Get behind me!” I yell. I temporarily holster my guns and pull out a grenade. The second Miguel and Cooper pull back from their position, I pull the pin and toss it into a group piling in from the side door. It lands beneath a humongous bear-like thing, the largest of all the abominations in here, and explodes it to smithereens, showering the room with guts and bolts. It was an effective blast, but there are far too many approaching from too many directions.
A rabid looking fox makes an impossible leap at my head as I’m busy shooting a wolf-like thing in the brain. Cooper snatches it out of the air, rips it into two pieces. Then he squishes an iron-jawed rabbit that slipped beneath my notice because my attention is too focused on the larger threats. I swap my handguns for one of the automatics I took from Baecker’s stash and fire wildly into the oncoming crowd. Miguel’s doing the same, constantly shooting, reloading, and pumping his shotgun. But despite all the bullets plunging into all the masses of rotted flesh, the horde keeps coming. If not for Cooper’s ferocity, Miguel and I would have already been overrun.
“Pull back!” yells Miguel. “We need to back out the way we came.”
“Agreed,” I answer.
We backpedal, firing indiscriminately at any advancing target, pulverizing heads and bodies, when we see another lever move by itself. Iron bars slide down from the top of the arch were backing toward, clanging onto the stone, sealing off the way we came.
“What the fuck?”
“Shit!” says
Cooper. “You got anymore of those gre—”
The tip of a scythe exits Cooper’s throat. I turn the Lupara toward whatever attacked Cooper from behind, but there’s nothing there. Cooper pulls the scythe out of his neck. It wasn’t made of silver so he’ll heal quickly, but for the moment he’s out of the game. He points upward to incoming bird cadavers swooping through the murder holes. As if we didn’t have enough problems. One heading toward Miguel has knives for feet. I blast it out of the air just in time, while Miguel, who didn’t even notice it, keeps firing at any attacking amalgamated beast.
“The grenades,” Miguel yells. “Use them.”
I plan on it, right after I eliminate the threat of the birds. Two are coming for me. I shoot one in the head and bat the other away with the automatic. A second later, I take out a grenade and pull the pin. I’m about to roll it beneath a large group of advancing monsters, but a split second before I can, a scalpel comes out of nowhere and pierces my throwing hand. The grenade plops at my feet and just like that the dead hybrids are the least of our problems.
I kick it forward, yell “Duck and cover!” and make a mad dash for the trough. Miguel and Cooper see the live grenade too and start running. We have four seconds. Cooper jumps behind one of the operating tables, flips it over with him, using it as a shield. Miguel slides behind the trough. With one second left before the grenade goes off, I make a full out dive into the trough. I land hard. The explosion hits harder. The impact pounds the heavy steel, the vibration and pressure too much for my head and ears. I’m hurt, severely rattled. Confusion surrounds me as carcass parts rain down ‘splatting’ beside me in the trough and all over the room.
