The Left Series (Book 4): Left In The Cold (17 page)

I glanced at the black abyss below then back at Smith. “You’re not seriously suggesting we go down there?”

I knew the answer when Smith clicked on his flashlight.

“Okay, you’re the one with the light. You can lead the way.”

Smith nodded. “All right, if you’re too chicken shit to go first
,” he teased.

He stepped down onto the stone steps and began to descend. I hop
ped down behind him, following downward into the blackness.

“
What the hell are we getting ourselves into now?” I muttered.

“Gera could be down here,” Smith whispered. “They might be holding him prisoner.”

“Why would they do that?” I scoffed.

“Who knows, kid? There’s some pretty fucked up people left in the world that seem to throw logic out the window.”

We followed the winding staircase around a central stone column, moving deeper underground with every step. The air was musty and smelled like a crypt. I brushed cobwebs away from my face as we moved slowly downwards. Smith’s flashlight beam seemed to only illuminate a dark void below us. I drew my M-9, feeling uneasy about the whole situation. Smith still carried the golf club, using the end to brush away thick cobwebs in front of his face.

Finally, the staircase leveled off and we reached the floor space of another dark, stone walled corridor. The chamber was around eight feet wide with more passageways running into darkness on either side.

“What the heck is this place?” I whispered. “Looks like something from a horror movie.”

Smith trod slowly forward and I closely followed. I didn’t want to be left behind in the dark. The underground chamber was the stuff of nightmares. I imagined medieval people being tortured
in horrible ways down there. Smith stopped and shone his flashlight down each of the adjoining passageways. They snaked off in twisting routes, leading into total blackness.

“Hello?” Smith called down one tunnel, his voice echoing eerily.

I hung at Smith’s shoulder, near enough to hop up on his back.

“There’s nothing down here, Smith. Let’s go back,” I whispered. I had the sensation that something was crawling down the back of my neck.

He sighed. “I guess you’re right, kid. There’s not much to see down here.”

“Good, I’m glad you agree,” I muttered. “This place is putting the goddamn shits up me.”

We turned around and shifted places so Smith led with the flashlight. We took a couple of steps forward but then stopped in our tracks when we heard a ghostly hiss gust from the darkness behind us.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“What the hell was that?” I whispered in Smith’s ear. “Something croaked behind us.”

“I know. I heard it too.”

“What do we do?”

“Have you still got your gun drawn?”

U-huh,” I muttered, feeling the hairs prickle on the back of my neck.

“I’ll turn around slowly and point the flashlight back down the passageway. You turn with me and take aim with your gun but just make sure not to blast my head off, okay?”

“Got it.”

We shuffled around one-hundred and eighty degrees again. The light beam flashed across the rocky walls and all I heard was Smith
’s and my own heavy breathing. I moved half a pace to Smith’s right and raised the handgun, pointing the barrel down the line of the light beam.

I felt Smith recoil slightly, which jolted my aim to the right
before I could fire a shot. Several emaciated creatures were illuminated by the flashlight beam, moving towards us, one behind the other in slow jerky movements. Their skin was dull gray and ripped and torn in patches and strips, as though they’d been stabbed and hacked at during their time alive. Parts of the ghoul’s limbs were missing, such as legs, feet, hands and arms, hampering their movements. Their faces had deep grooves in vertical slices down their faces and some were missing eyes, teeth, ears and noses. The creatures had endured bites but had not been killed during a feeding frenzy. The cuts, slices and gouges inflicted on their bodies were too clean, as though the injuries had occurred before death and before they were infected.

“What the fuck
…?” Smith whispered.

“Looks like those things were tortured before they died,” I muttered.

“All right,
Columbo
, just shoot the ugly bastards, will you?”

I re-aimed along Smith’s flashlight beam and fired one shot at the nearest ghoul.
The round hit the creature slightly above the bridge of its nose. The back of the head instantly shattered, spewing out a discharge of decaying brains and congealed blood into the disfigured faces of those behind. The pursuing zombies stumbled as the lead figure’s body fell into their path, knocking them off balance like bowling pins.

“I don’t think I’ve got the stomach for this, this morning,” I wailed.

“Ah, come on, let’s get out of here,” Smith groaned, turning and bundling me back through the passageway. “They’ll never catch up with us as long as we keep at a steady pace.”

We trotted back up the staircase. Smith kept shining his flashlight behind us every couple of minutes to check the ghouls weren’t close behind. The open trapdoor was a welcome sight and I was glad to get back above ground. Smith followed me through the opening and we slammed the heavy door back over the gaping hole to the cellar come torture chamber. Smith slammed the bolts back in place and we crouched silently by the trapdoor, breathing heavily for a few moments.

“What in the hell happened to those things down there?” I asked, still regaining my breath.

Smith shook his head. “I haven’t the faintest idea but somebody cut them up real good. Whether that was done before they turned, I couldn’t say.”

“It looked like they’d had their limbs hacked off before they were even bitten,” I gasped. “What kind of sick fuck could do something like that?”

“Like I said, kid, we’ve met some pretty freaky people along the way. This kind of situation can turn people’s head
s so they become fruit loops.”

I reached for my pack of cigarettes. “Jesus, I just want to get out of this place now,” I said, offering Smith the pack. He took one and we both lit up on his Zippo.

“We can’t leave until we find Gera,” Smith stated. “This place is like a maze. He could be anyplace around here.”

“More like a house of horrors,” I added.

We turned our heads towards the doorway to the chamber when we heard a high pitched scream from somewhere nearby on the ground floor. The shriek was solitary and lasted for around two seconds.

“What the hell was that?” I whispered.

“Come on, kid,” Smith said, crushing out his cigarette underfoot and grabbing his golf club. “Let’s go take a look.”

We p
added out of the stone chamber and crossed through a themed hunting room, with various animal heads hanging on placards from the walls. The sight of those lifeless eyes staring out at me from those dead animals caused a shiver to run down my spine. Smith and I stopped when we exited the hunting room and stood in a long, wooden wall paneled corridor, glancing left and right.

“Which way now?”
I asked.

“I don’t know,” Smith grunted. “It’s impossible to tell where that scream came from.”

“Christ! We’re lost inside this damn castle,” I spat.

“We can’t get lost,” Smith protested. “We know all the routes will lead us back to the entrance or the Great Hall. It’s just a question of how long it takes to find the right way.”
He pointed left and we padded slowly through the corridor.

I felt a gust of icy cold air blow into my face and sensed we were approaching an entrance to the outside world. Smith and I turned a right angled corner in the corridor and stood in front of an open door. The freezing cold air took my breath away and flakes of snow and ice blustered inside the interior.

“What the hell…?” I stammered.

Smith ducked his head through the exterior door and glanced around the snow laded ground outside. I wrapped my arms around my torso and moved closer behind him to take a look outside.
The doorway led to a small patio area surrounded by a snow covered, waist high hedge. We could see the outer wall beyond the hedge but no movement of any person, alive or dead.

“What the heck is this door doing left open?” I whispered.

Smith moved back inside and slammed the door shut. “Beats me,” he mumbled.

Something moved across the corridor, several yards beyond our position. I saw the figure dash crossways, from left to right in my peripheral vision.

“Who’s there?” I called.

“Who’s where?” Smith quizzed, with an incredulous expression on his face.

“I just saw somebody run across the corridor up ahead,” I explained, pointing in the spooky figure’s direction.

Smith turned to look where I pointed and then back at me. “Are you sure you’re not seeing things, kid?”

“No, I definitely saw some fucker running across that passageway,” I insisted.

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t get a real good look at them. Like I said, they moved real quick.”

“Male or female?”

I tried to replay the scene in my mind but the vision was sketchy at best. “No idea, they were wearing white, I think.”

“All right,” Smith sighed. “Let’s see if we can catch up with them.”

We turned and Smith strolled through the corridor, holding the golf club at the ready. I drew my handgun once again, holding the weapon at my side. I didn’t know what we were up against and felt more than a little anxious. I half expected some ghastly creature to leap out at us at any moment. The atmosphere in the castle had changed from warm and friendly to hostile and foreboding, in the space of a few hours. 

Chapter Twenty-Six

We reached the end of the corridor and the floor space fanned out into some kind of museum type area. Complete suits of medieval armor stood either side of the entrance, as though they were on guard. Waxwork dummies, dressed in various time period costumes stood on plinths in a semi circle around the perimeter of the room. Some platforms contained several waxwork figures, depicting battle scenarios or scenes of torture. Old medieval weapons, such as broadswords and maces hung from the stone walls between the assorted wax statues. The whole museum area was dimly lit by small rectangular shaped windows, situated high up in the wall opposite the entranceway.  

“This place looks interesting,” Smith muttered
, as we moved closer to some of the exhibits.

I studied a waxwork guy, sporting a
bushy, orange beard and long, plaited hair with a snarling, crazy expression of aggression on his face as he attacked some unseen victim with a huge sword, raised above his head. He was dressed in a tartan kilt and a baggy white shirt and stood on his plinth amongst a bed of synthetic, purple heather. A hand painted sign at the sword wielding waxwork’s feet read ‘
Scottish Highland Warrior
.’

“I wouldn’t like to tangle with this guy on a dark night,” I muttered
, replacing my M-9 in the holster.

“Ah, this is all a show for the tourists, kid,” Smith sighed
, waving his golf club around the museum. “The stereotypical red haired Scotsman, wearing a kilt, drinking whisky and playing the bagpipes. It’s all part of the deception.”

“It’s only a dummy, Smith,” I sighed.
“Nothing to get worked up about.”

“That’s the thing,” Smith continued. “All through our past lives, we were fed a continuous
overflow of bullshit. What teachers taught us at school, the books we read, the news on TV, the speeches politicians gave were all a crock of horseshit. They told us what they wanted us to believe. They told us who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. We were told what to think was right and what was wrong. We were manipulated and lied to all our lives and the whole time the world was heading for a meltdown that none of your so called, clever assholes saw coming.”

“You’re beginning to sound bitter in your old age,” I teased.