Lanherne Chronicles (Prequel): To Escape the Dead (28 page)

Walking as silently as she was able and making sure she kept to the deepest of shadows, Liz did her best to keep the faint glow of Kyle’s candle within her line of sight. Each time he would turn a corner she was promptly plunged into a smothering darkness with only her sense of touch allowing her to catch up with him. But she was determined to not lose him in the maze of Saint Xavier’s corridors, so catch up with him she did. Eventually as her fingers hooked round the fourth or fifth turn Kyle had taken she found herself looking down at him as he descended a wide staircase. Instantly freezing and instinctively holding her breath, she watched as he, oblivious to her presence, left the last of the steps behind him. With the sound of his footsteps echoing in the still darkness, Kyle purposefully made his way across a black and white tiled floor to a door marked ‘staff only’, opened it and abruptly disappeared from sight; immediately confining her once again to a blinding blackness.

‘Crap,’ she muttered under her breath, realising she would have to not only make it down the stairs in complete darkness without tripping and breaking her neck but also somehow find her way across the landing to locate the door.

Picturing in her mind’s eye the layout of staircase and hallway below her, Liz guessed she had at least four paces forward until she reached the landing handrail in front of her. After that, using the bannister as a guide, she should at least get herself to the bottom of the steps in one piece; it was from that point on that she knew it would start to get a bit tricky. Realising the longer she waited the more likely she would lose Kyle, Liz took a breath and anxiously stepped blindly away from the wall. Using the blade of her sword to probe the darkness ahead of her she slowly took first one step and then another. It was on her third step that the tip of her blade hit against something solid. Sliding her fingers along its cold metal surface, Liz’s hand was soon skittering up a carved wooden spindle to the thick handrail she knew would lead her safely downstairs. With the wooden support as her guide, she wasted no time in following the rail to her left and once she felt it abruptly turn away from her she realised she had reached the top of the stairs. With trepidation she slowly edged her foot ahead of her until she felt her toes dip over the lip of the first step. From there on in it was a simple matter of regulating the rise and fall of her feet to descend the staircase. However, unsure of how many steps to expect, it was only when she was jolted with an unexpected ‘thump’ of tiled floor beneath her foot that she knew she had finally reached the bottom.

‘Right…’ she muttered, preparing herself to stumble through the next four or five metres of total blackness until she hopefully reached the opposite wall.

Even though she had seen there was nothing ahead of her, she had been in enough terrifying situations in her life to know that it wasn’t only in fairy tales that the monsters jumped out at you from the shadows. So with the sound of her thumping heart loud in her ears, Liz once again used her sword like a blind man’s cane and began to it sweep back and forth across the unseen area in front of her. When she was sure nothing lurked ahead of her she took a step forward, only allowing her fingers to relinquish their grounding hold on the bannister at the very last moment. As her fingers slipped from the comforting solidity of the wood, Liz finally found herself alone and adrift in a sea of blind oblivion.

‘Come on,’ she said to herself through gritted teeth, ‘get a grip, Liz…’

Trying her best to ignore the irrational feeling that unseen Dead hands were about to pull her toward their hungry gaping maws, Liz held her sword at arm’s length and forced herself to take another step and then another. With each movement she strained her ears to detect the slightest rustle of gore matted clothing or the softest creak of cracked and weather worn decaying skin but no sounds came to her in the darkness. There were no snapping jaws ready to tear into her, she could not smell the putrid stench of death in the air and she did not feel the cloying touch of rotting flesh upon her; she was alone.

Even as the realisation dawned on her that she was being stupid and there was no reason for her to suspect that any of the Dead were within the high walls of Saint Xavier’s, her blade knocked against something solid with a dull ‘thud’.  Mirroring her actions from the top of the stairs, she used her fingers to trace the length of the blade until they came into contact with one of the carved wall panels and then took her final step forward. Pressing herself close to the wall she stretched out both her arms, feeling for the frame of the door she had seen Kyle leave through. When all she was met with was the continuation of the wall in both directions she knew she had missed her mark and would have to choose to move to her left or right if she wanted to eventually hit the doorway. Seeing that she had just as much chance whichever way she picked, Liz began to edge to her right; her right arm feeling its way across the wall as she moved.

By chance rather than any sort of informed choice, Liz had barely taken two steps when her fingers brushed against the vertical section of the doorway. Sighing with relief that she wouldn’t have to spend the next twenty minutes making her way round the room, she quickly moved her hands across the door until she found the handle. Completely unaware of just what lay on the other side, she slowly turned the handle; wincing as the releasing bolt inside the lock sounded with a loud ‘click’. Pausing, Liz hoped that the hinges wouldn’t squeak as they moved and then as slowly as she could, she tentatively pulled the door towards her. It had barely opened a hair’s breadth when a surprising shard of light suddenly broke through the gap to stretch across the tiled floor. She instantly knew the light was far too bright to be coming from any sort burning candle and as Liz pulled the door further open her suspicions were confirmed; apparently not all of Saint Xavier’s power was switched off at the same time after all. There, hanging from the sloping ceiling a few metres down a descending stone staircase, was a single bare bulb burning brightly.

Despite the electricity flowing to the bulb, barely two dozen of the steps gained any real advantage from the single light source and as Liz began to cautiously descend one step at a time it wasn’t long before she was once again stepping into unknown shadows. With her hands flitting across the peeling walls to guide her and the sound of her footsteps echoing against the bare brickwork for company she soon made her way through the darkness to find herself at a second door at the base of the stairs. A little less snugly fitted in its doorframe than the one behind her, this door allowed a second light source to bleed out through the gap at the bottom. As silently as she could Liz got down on her hands and knees and with her cheek pressed against the cold stone floor she tried to see what, if anything, she could of the lit space beyond. Rewarded with only the sight of a row of splattered and rusting old paint tins lined up against one side of the continuing corridor, Liz pushed herself back to her feet. She was about to try the handle when a muffled sound suddenly echoed along the hallway from the other side of the door. Pausing with her hand hovering over the door handle, she couldn’t help but slowly press her ear to the door and listen.

After what seemed like an age but in reality was merely a few seconds, the muffled sound came again, a little clearer this time. Sounding somewhere between a groan and yelp of pain Liz was sure she could also hear something else, something lower in register just beneath it; something more like someone whispering. Just what was being said and by whom, she couldn’t make out but from the way Kyle had spoken she couldn’t help but conjure up images of Fran or Carmella being ‘broken’ as he had so tastefully put it. As another soft agonising cry sounded, Liz knew enough was enough. No matter who was beyond the door she needed to do something; this needed to end.

Slowly turning the handle, Liz readied herself for the inevitable confrontation that was about to come. Charlie had taught her well how to handle both herself and her blade in a fight but despite this and the confidence he had instilled in her she still didn’t relish the thought of killing a living person unless she really had to. So as the door thankfully swung soundlessly open, Liz prayed she could rescue whoever was being held without having to resort bloodshed.

Stepping into a  short corridor smelling of rot and damp, Liz found herself quietly edging her way past a hotchpotch of old paint tins, rusting tools and a collection of worn out brooms and mops. It was obvious to her now that the basement had been used as some sort of storage area for a long gone and probably long deceased caretaker. Trying her best to calm her breathing and the seemingly loud pounding of her heart in her chest, Liz crept to the end of the passage and saw that it opened up into a larger space.

‘Please…’ she heard a women suddenly whisper, the word full of desperation and fear as someone else began to grunt.

The rhythmic slapping sound of flesh against flesh that followed left little doubt in Liz’s mind that someone was having sex just beyond her line of sight and from the woman’s hushed pleas it clearly wasn’t consensual.

‘P… Please let me go…’ whispered the woman again, her words breaking as she choked back a sob. ‘I won’t tell anyone… I promise… please…’ 

‘Shut your fucking mouth, Dyke,’ hissed a male voice Liz didn’t recognise.

‘Unless of course you want the same treatment,’ chuckled a second unknown man. ‘Is that what you want, Bitch? You want a bit of meat between your legs for a change… is that it?

Despite now realising she would be outnumbered two to one, Liz knew she would show no mercy to these men; so with her fist tightening about the handle of her sword Liz stepped into the room.

‘Leave her al…’ she began, her words suddenly faltering as she struggled to take in the scene before her.

What she saw both horrified and sickened her. On her knees with her wrists and ankles manacled with zip-lock ties and being held roughly by her unruly blond hair, was the boyish looking girl Charlie had rescued at the gates earlier that day. Her captor, a tall young man with a swathe of patchy blond stubble covering his strong chin, was one of the black banded guards. But it was not the girls tear and blood streaked face turning hopefully towards her that made Liz balk, nor the blond guard that held her firmly in place on the cold stone floor but rather the second archer, a bulky specimen with a thick goatee beard, who looked up at her with a mix of startled shame and anger flitting across his face as he struggled to pull up his trousers.

She had been right to interpret the sounds she had heard as rape, for that was just what it was; her only mistake had been to assume that the young girl had been the victim. For there, face down on a heavy wooden table in front of the archer who was still trying to put himself back in his trousers, was the figure of a naked woman. With a bag on her head hiding her identity, Liz had no idea who it could be but she instantly knew whoever it was she was simply beyond caring anymore about being raped; in fact she had stopped caring about anything a long time ago. The woman was one of the Dead and had been for a few months at least.

‘You sick bast…’ Liz started to say, finally finding the words to express her revulsion at the necrophilia she was witnessing.

‘Ah, ah…’ interrupted a third man’s voice that she instantly recognised as Kyle’s, ‘there’s no need for name calling…’

‘What the Fuck!’ Liz snapped, about to turn on Kyle when she suddenly felt the prick of cold steel between her shoulder blades.

In her shock Liz had made a stupid and possibly fatal mistake; she had forgotten that she had initially followed Kyle into the room. When she entered and hadn’t seen him she should have guessed he had been standing just to one side of her, beyond her line of sight.

‘Now, now,’ Kyle continued, pressing the blade of his knife hard against Liz’s back, ‘We don’t want any unpleasantness now do we…. you don’t want to leave your young sister all alone in the world do you? Not when there are such… such reprehensible people about… who knows what would become of the poor thing…’

‘And I think we can get rid of this,’ he said, reaching to take her sword from her hand.

‘This is… this is sick,’ growled Liz through her gritted teeth, as Kyle took her precious blade from her grasp and nudged her further into the room. ‘My God, Kyle, how could you?’

‘Sick?’ he replied, as if amused, ‘Who am I to judge how two of Zak’s friends choose to secretly relieve their stress… It’s not something I have a taste for but I wouldn’t deny them what little joy they can find for themselves in this world…’

‘Put that shrivelled cock away, Parker,’ he suddenly snapped at the young man with the goatee beard. ‘And I think you’ve had enough fun for tonight… take it back to the others…’

‘Others?’ said Liz, horrified that the two men had built themselves some sort of Dead harem to play out their sick perversions.

‘Yes, you’ll be surprised just how many playthings these two can find when they put their mind to it,’ said Kyle, forcing Liz to her knees to join the teenage girl on the floor. ‘They certainly are resourceful…’

Liz watched as the man Kyle had referred to as Parker, yanked the Dead woman upright by the sackcloth hood over her head and shoved her towards a second bolted door at the far end of the room.

‘Baxter, introduce our new guest to some zip-lock ties will you,’ said Kyle to the blond man, moving the position of the knife up to the base of Liz’s neck and then round under her chin.

‘Sure,’ said Baxter, throwing the young girl to the floor with needless force, causing her to cry out.

‘Now, you really did bring this on yourself, Abby,’ said Kyle, patronisingly shaking his head. ‘Breaking the law like that… did you really think just because some busybodies turned up in the nick of time that you’d really be forgiven so easily… hmm?’