“Air?” asked Troy, thinking out loud.
Helena shook her head ‘no’.
She kept up her miming and pretended to dribble a basketball. When the others still could not figure it out, Helena stretched both arms out to the right and swung them down as she moved her hips side to side. She repeated the dance.
“The floss…?!” asked Kitty, grasping at straws. “No one does that dance anymore. I have zero idea what you’re saying!”
Helena tapped her nose and nodded.
“Dance?” confirmed Kitty.
Helena nodded excitedly.
“Dance room? Ballroom!”
Helena jumped up and down in victory and grabbed Kitty’s hand now that they were on the same page. Levi went first as the acting leader. He made sure to test the firmness of each foothold. It rattled, but luckily, it seemed more intact than the first ladder they used.
When they made it to the top, Levi struggled to keep his balance, twisting the wheel that would open the hatch. It was a breath of fresh air as it opened.
Poking out his head, Levi took in the surroundings. It was bright. The lights were on, but no one was here.
“It’s safe,” Levi whispered.
He crawled out and signaled for the others to follow. One by one, he helped pull up Helena, Kitty, and Troy. He struggled when it came to Troy, mustering all his strength to heave his hefty brother. They emerged from the corner of the room. The secret hatch was exposed, making it seem like it was not such a secret after all. In fact, Troy and Levi even recalled seeing this door before, the few times they cared enough to come into this room when tables were not set out and waiters strutted across the floor pouring champagne for guests. Their father hosted a few New Year Eve soirees here, as well as the occasional food drive charity event hosted by their sister, Eden.
As silent as mice, the four crept through the ballroom, without making a sound. They had to be careful. The slightest misstep would echo in this room. It had excellent acoustics.
Right when they were near the exit, a voluminous voice blasted through the halls out of nowhere. Troy jumped as it began. It was their father’s voice. Immediately, Levi suspected that another one of his siblings had perished. However, that did not seem to be the case this time. The tone was different. It was not a satirical poem. It was a lecture. Words from their father reverberated throughout the mansion.
“If you are listening to this message, then a large amount of time has passed since the last of you has fallen,” announced their deceased father. “Do not become lax. Do not cling to hope,” the voice preached. “A reminder as to why I have passed this invaluable tradition onto you, my children. We all pray to God as our lord and savior, but these are tales that are passed down from generation to generation. Nothing more than tales. There is something greater than man out there in our universe, but what we do not acknowledge is that He is indifferent to our pain and suffering. We pray for mercy. We pray for safety. We pray for loved ones to live long and prosperous lives…” their father continued. “I’m afraid our prayers fall on deaf ears. We don’t hear the prayers of ants. And God does not hear ours. He neither rewards us nor punishes us for our graces or our sins. He may be our creator, but we are nothing more than an uninteresting ant farm to him at best.
Destiny is something one takes into his own hands despite God’s impartiality. The Great Leviathan challenges the misguided faith we put into a higher power. The Great Leviathan challenges man to empower himself. No desire is out of reach. No task is too taxing.” He ended with, “No action is taboo.”
The tape cut out.
Kitty was on edge as she waited for the silence to stay for a moment longer before saying anything. “No offense! But your pops was freaking nuts,” she exhaled in a whisper.
When they made it down the entranceway, Levi tried his hand at opening the front door again.
Nothing. There was not even a slot for a key. Out of frustration, he and Troy tried ramming it together.
THUD!
Nothing.
THUD!
Nothing.
They tried double-teaming it, ramming and kicking at the same time. They were wasting energy and making a racket. It got so loud that someone heard and had walked out to pay them a visit.
It was Blake. He gripped his shoulder and cringed. He leaned over the banister. He was injured. Bleeding even. Whatever happened to him, he seemed to be hurting in a familiar spot. If Levi recalled correctly, he stabbed the masked man in the shoulder when they were attacked in the bunker. It could be no coincidence. Before Levi could assert his suspicions, Blake redirected the conversation.
“I don’t know how you managed to defeat Allister.” Blake taunted them. He told them that a couple of the other siblings had already found what their keys unlocked. “You better watch out for Pearl,” he warned. “She’s lost her damned mind…” There was an inkling of remorse in his voice.
Levi stared up to his brother who stood at the top of the stairs. “What did her key unlock?” he asked nervously, unsure if he could trust anything that would come out of the chess champion’s mouth. He had to remember. Not all of their keys opened doors. Allister’s did open a case after all. Levi thought perhaps he needed to think outside the box. Especially, if they ever planned on finding Helena’s lock.
A blast reverberated through the halls and everyone shook and tensed up. It was not a crack of thunder. It was the roar of a gunshot! Blake darted his head, looking down the hall.
“Shit!” he blurted. “You’re about to find out!” He ran for his life down the hall. One arm was limp, the other gripping his shoulder. “We’ll cross paths later, brother.” He pushed off the handrails and disappeared.
He got away just in time. Because Pearl made her way out into the entrance. In her arms, as tenderly as a nursing newborn baby, she carried her shotgun.
CHAPTER 11
IT
Hours earlier, Pearl was alone in the rec room. A chest with a lock was staring her right in the face. Her key went in so perfectly. The sound of the clicking lock and lid unlatching was utterly satisfying. There it was—all of her shooting equipment. Her pro sporting twelve-gauge shotgun, multiple rounds, protective glasses, ear plugs, and more. This was her specialty. This was her element. She could operate her gun like a surgeon.
Upon request at the dinner table the night she first met Kitty; Pearl showed her clips of her Olympic silver medal winning performance on the shooting range. She had such concentration and composure in her eyes as she used her shotgun to blast the final round of clay disks to smithereens. Pearl explained that she was drawn to her area of expertise by the technical side of shooting—the focus, the keen eye, and timing. For someone as experienced with guns as Pearl was, she was harmless. She even actively protested trophy hunting in her spare time, calling it barbaric. One of her saddest moments was when Benedict made the mistake of taking her out to shoot quail when she was just a little girl. Ever since that trip, she swore never again to harm another living creature.
However, to make things right, and to calm the surge of calamity at Lancaster Manor, she would have to break that vow. Pearl caressed the rib of her gun with her middle finger. It was glossy to the touch. After readying it, she tied her wavy dirty blonde hair into a bun to keep it out of her face. She put in her earplugs and dressed in her usual athletic gear that she wore to countless competitions. Her cap was in the chest too. It sported the Leviathan emblem in the center. She stared at it in epiphanic awe.
Somehow, it felt right.
In her mind, it was not Pearl who was about to do something absolutely dreadful.
No.
What was about to unfold would be done in the name of the Great Leviathan. And there were plenty of rounds for the job.
Pearl already showed no signs of mercy as she fired at Blake, just grazing him as she blasted through a door earlier. She kept Hiroshi at bay as well, scaring him off with warning shots. Unfortunately, she completely lost touch with reality when
the intercom played Allister’s eulogy. When she inspected his remains in the library, Pearl snapped. She could not take any more of the trial. She held it together when Benedict, her father, died. She did everything in her power to hold the peace and promote positivity when Bartleby committed suicide. She held onto hope that everything would miraculously get better when Zara was killed by one of her own. But Allister was the final straw. She saw that her family had fully accepted the rules of their trial and were beyond saving.
Kill.
Or be killed.
Her family needed to be punished.
In the hall, she stood lifelessly and stared at the cluster of her siblings near the stairs. She was silent. Disconnected.
“Levi,” urged Kitty. She did not move her lips when she mumbled his name. “There’s something wrong with her.”
When the eldest Lancaster took aim and opened fire, Kitty tackled Levi to the ground. It was a good thing she did. Had she not, Levi would have had a gaping hole in his chest. Kitty pulled him up as Pearl gracefully strutted down the staircase, cocking her shotgun and reloading her rounds. Hot shells clinked against the floor. At that, everyone scattered. Troy stumbled and fled aimlessly down one of the many hallways.
For Kitty, this was her moment of truth. The only thing she cared about was upholding Levi’s goal, protecting Helena. Even if that meant having to sacrifice herself to do it. She grabbed for Pearl’s gun. Each of them had both hands on it, wrestling for control. “Run!” Kitty screamed to Levi. “Take Helena and run!” They yanked on the gun, pulling it back and forth in a game of tug-of-war. Unfortunately, Pearl had the stronger grip and whipped it back into her possession. She tried to make her way to her fleeing siblings, but Kitty kept jumping in the way, keeping Pearl stuck in place.
“Out of the way,” ordered Pearl. She had a blank stare in her gaze. She signaled with the tip of her shot gun, gesturing it to the side. “I’m not going to kill you, Kitty,” she reasoned. “It’s only my family.” She was at a loss for the right words. “They’re evil…” she settled with. “I-I’m forced to vanquish them. I raised them all. It’s only fitting that I take on the burden of putting them down. You saw what they did to Zara and Allister. But you have nothing to do with this trial of ours. Killing you wouldn’t help anybody.”
Trembling, Kitty shook her head in protest. She held her arms out to the side like a cross. “No!” She stood her ground, cementing herself in place. Kitty knew her audaciousness would get herself killed very soon.
Pearl smiled and sighed. She lowered her gun to her waist. Droplets of blood were still spritzed across her creamy face from when she shot Blake earlier. She stroked Kitty’s cheek gently with the back of her hand. “I know it’s not fair, sweety,” Pearl sympathized. “It’s horrific—utterly horrific. Siblings killing siblings…,” she started tearing up again, but wiped them away before she could start bawling. “Unfortunately, this is the reality of our situation. You see, killing them is the only way to save their souls and end this madness! It’s the only way to preserve my family’s purity before they corrupt further. I will proudly damn my soul to an eternity in hell in exchange for salvaging the others! I won’t allow my family to blacken their hearts! I’ll make sure each of them is remembered when I escape too—every glorious detail of them. And you,” Pearl continued. “I promise that when I’m the last one standing, I’ll unlock the doors for you too. There’s no reason you can’t get through this.” Kitty remained defiant, blocking the hallway and halting Pearl in her tracks. When she refused to move, Pearl laid a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll make it quick and painless,” she winked. “I never miss my mark. For Levi and the others, it’ll be like they’re waking up from a bad dream. I promise they won’t feel a thing.”
At that, Pearl slammed the butt of her gun into Kitty’s head. It bruised and bled as she knocked her out cold. “See?” sighed Pearl. “That hurt a hell of a lot more than a bullet to the brain, didn’t it? They should be thanking me since I’m the only one that can give them a painless death. I’m a blessing—an act of mercy.”
She stepped over the unconscious body and readied her weapon. Each of her steps were low as she proceeded in a crouch while she stalked her prey. She resembled something of a SWAT agent, preparing to track down a perpetrator.
She followed the trail of shoe scuffs into the kitchen. It was the ultimate game of hide-and-seek. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Pearl sang as she often did when they played in the backyard. In the corner of her eyes, she saw Levi climb and hurdle over the counter. She shot a stack of rare china, bursting it into thousands of jigsaw pieces. He could smell the gunpowder simmering in the air. His heart pounded like a drum.
“Levi,” announced Pearl. “Do you have Helena with you?” She scoffed in motherly disappointment. “Bring her here right now, mister! She shouldn’t have to suffer just because you want to struggle. Have her come out and then you and I can continue this absurd game of cat and mouse. She shouldn’t have to endure an unnecessary flesh wound because of you. Mark my word, if she gets a single scratch on her due to your recklessness, I won’t guarantee you a clean shot. Mercy is a privilege, young man. Not a right. This is the only time I’ll bargain.”
Levi and Helena were split up. She was at one end of the kitchen. He was at the other. Pearl was approaching dangerously close. He could hear the crunching of plate fragments snapping beneath the rubber soles of her combat boots.
It was fight or flight.
If he ran, it would not matter. He would still be within range of her double-barreled shotgun and would most certainly take a fatal blow to the back. He leapt up and began whirling his family’s custom designed plates in her direction. He tossed them at her like frisbees. He did everything he could to disorient her—to buy Helena more time to run and hide!
“You must be kidding!” Pearl gleamed wildly as she blasted two plates with ease. They burst into countless porcelain shards. A few of which bounced off her protective glasses. The pushback of the recoil exhilarated her. She laughed proudly as she reloaded and pumped her shotgun. “I’m a silver medalist in skeet shooting. You’ll have to do a little better than that, honey.” She cupped her hand around her mouth and giggled, “Puuuuull!”
On second thought, running sounded a hell of a lot better.
CHAPTER 12
I SPY
Things were moving so quickly that Levi lost track of Helena. A lump formed in his stomach just thinking about it. It felt like abandonment. He prayed he would not hear her eulogy over the speaker, taunting him in his failed promise to protect her—prayed she would stay hidden. He tasted a drop of salty vomit wanting to rise as fear for Helena’s fate tormented him. He swallowed it back down as he sprinted around another corner. His only comforting thought was that at the very least, he was leading Pearl away from his little sister’s location.
BLAM!
Another shotgun blast put nine steamy holes into the wall beside him. Levi’s heart was thumping faster. Adrenaline was kicking in. He took track and field last year and decided to put his legs to the test. It would only be a moment before Pearl would turn the corner and get full view of him again. Levi ran at top speed as he heard her footsteps chasing from behind.
Run.
Run!
Faster!
Levi made his way down the hall to the far north corner of Lancaster Manor.
There it was.
The elevator.
He prayed it was already on the first floor. Again, and again, he dabbed his finger into the ‘up’ button. He thought he might just punch a hole straight through it. It lit, but took its sweet time responding.
Ding!
He turned and looked over his shoulder twice before the doors began to open. Of course, Pearl made it to him by the time this happened. She readied her weapon. Gazed through the sight with one eye. Took aim at her brother’s head.
And fired!
The doors sealed in the nick of time. Her buckshot dented the metal elevator
and she frowned, resting her gun at her side. ‘Good grief!’ she thought, mild with disappointment. ‘I’ll get him next time…’
Levi sat on the cold floor of the elevator. He slumped with his back against the wall as he recouped. The soft whimsical tune that played in the background did nothing to calm him. Part of him wished he could stay in here forever, sealed off from the rest of the world in peace and solitude for all of eternity—separated from the hellish calamity that continued to fester within his home. Isolation was a comforting thought.
But he had work to do.
He could not afford to stay idle. And yet, he had not had adequate rest and the fatigue from running, fighting, and enduring the overwhelming stress of survival was chipping away at him. Rest sounded tempting. The idea of closing his eyes and calling it quits was an alluring fantasy. However, he could not afford to give in to his exhaustion. Levi had work to do. Helena needed him. Kitty needed him. What remained of his family needed him. The last time Levi checked; his blood was not yet dry. He had a heartbeat. He could rest when he was dead. He would have all the time in the world to sleep at that point. Levi took a deep breath and got back on his feet when he reached the third floor.
No doubt Pearl would follow behind once the elevator would make its way back to the bottom. When it dinged, Levi wasted no time. He ran to the one area he knew he would be safe.
The security room with Cynthia.
Levi knocked frantically against the security room’s door. He prayed one of his sisters was there. “Cynthia!” he shouted. “You have to let me in! Pearl’s going to kill me!”
The door was locked, so she had to be in there. However, there was no response. Levi knocked harder, banging his balled fist against it. He could sense she was in there, but Cynthia stayed put within the panic room. ‘Oh, God!’ thought Levi. ‘She’s like the others. She doesn’t care about her family anymore! What if she snapped?! Just like Pearl!’
The Leviathan Trial Page 10
