by K. A Knight
“Which way?” I whisper.
The bloody trail stops here. There are only a few droplets across the once white floor, letting me know the person must have been picked up. But were they taken to the stairs or morgue?
We can’t split up, not with cannibals here. I won’t lose another of my men, but if we spend hours searching, it could mean the difference between Evvie’s life or death. Jago debates what to do, looking around before he turns to the morgue. “Let’s check down here first, since it’s the closest point to the blood.”
Trusting his judgement, we follow him, all of us ready to face whatever is on the other side of the door. Luckily, the fear of the unknown keeps me on my feet and stops me from being a worried mess.
The door’s electric lock has been broken, and with the barrel of his gun, Archel pushes it open for Jago to slide through. I slip in after him, refusing to wait, and luckily, no one shoots us. It’s hard to see, though, and my eyes strain into the almost pitch-black space. It looks like an entryway, with a hallway to the left and doors leading off of it. There’s more blood here, and skulls and bones litter the floor. When my vision finally adjusts, I almost gag—there are skins pinned to the wall.
Human fucking skins.
Their baggy eye sockets and open mouths make me turn away in horror. How long have they been killing, eating, and skinning people? How many innocents have died here? My Evvie won’t turn out like that.
Moving across the floor, we carefully follow Jago’s path, avoiding bones and bits of chairs and tables left over so we don’t make a sound. The hallway stretches on, but the door at the end is half pushed open, and from inside, we hear grunts and see the flicker of flames.
We manoeuvre down the hallway, with Jago in the lead, me in the middle, and Clay and Archel taking up the rear to protect our backs. Once we reach the doorway, we listen carefully. There is a loud sound, almost like chopping. As metal hits wood, I panic, pushing Jago back and sliding through the door. I freeze, bile rising in my throat as my blood runs cold.
There’s a giant man with his back to me, and it takes me a few seconds for me to process what he’s doing. He’s swinging a cleaver down on what looks like meat, then tossing it into a barrel next to him, which is overflowing with scraps and gore. The scent of death and coppery blood makes me gag, but when I spot the hand falling off the table, I realise what he is cutting up.
Humans.
With a snarl, he reaches down and grabs it, slamming it onto the table before he continues to slice into it like Jago does his apple. Blood flies everywhere, and sweat pours from him. To his left is what I’m guessing used to be a cremation oven, but now it just holds a fire with a spit roast over the table. Every surface is covered with severed limbs, heads—fuck, I even spot hips. I almost throw up, but I swallow it down. I remain frozen to the spot, unable to register the horrors that have happened in this room. To my right is an empty, once silver slab with a partially chopped up human. His head is turned this way, his dead eyes are filled with blood, and his skin is almost blue.
Fuck.
A gagged scream has me looking to the left, and my eyes widen when I see Evan tied to a table. He’s struggling against his restraints. His hands are tied above his head, and his legs are spread on a fucking mortuary table, ready to be chopped up and eaten. His shirt is missing, and his pants are bloody, but he seems okay. The cannibal has his back to me, and the sound of him butchering the body parts must have masked my entrance. I press a finger to my lips as Evan’s eyes swivel around before coming back to me. He nods his head in understanding and quiets down. I crouch behind the closest table as the cannibal turns, throwing meat over the metal spike in the oven. I gaze through the crack in the door, shaking my head at the others and giving them the wait symbol. If they rush in now, we can’t guarantee Evan’s safety. I need to untie him first and be as sneaky as we can about it. These aren’t the type of people to fuck around.
When he goes back to his manwich, I begin to creep along the floor, keeping my breathing quiet and sliding my feet across the blood-soaked tiles. It’s slow going, and I have to freeze whenever he turns around to roast his meat, but I’m nearly there. My foot slips in a patch of blood, and my boot slips out, knocking into a wheeled table. It clanks as it rolls towards Evvie, stopping near the table he’s tied to.
My eyes widen, and I grip my crossbow tighter as the chopping sound stops. Oh fuck, oh fuck. I can almost feel his gaze sweeping across the room before I hear footsteps as he heads around the table.
I freeze, and Evan starts to yell against the gag, making noise to cover my blunder. The footsteps stop and retreat for a moment. “Shut up!” he snarls, the sound giving me goosebumps. It’s halfway between animal and human.
A few seconds later, the chopping starts again, and I relax. This time, I hurry. I rush those last few feet to Evvie and stand. Keeping my eyes on the cannibal, I start to untie his feet. His blue eyes are wide and panicked, and he turns his head to look at the door and back to me as if telling me to go.
This fucking moron.
When both feet are undone, I move to his head, my hands slipping on the bloody rope. It takes me a while to get one undone, then I have to reach over him to get the other. “Hold on,” I murmur so quietly that it’s barely audible.
Fuck, this one is even tighter. I struggle with the fraying strands, the table almost rocking from my movements. My gaze is locked on it, my breaths coming out faster and faster.
I’ve just finished untying the last rope when Evan’s hands jerk up and rip out the gag. “Behind you!” he screams. I turn and duck just in time as the cleaver comes down on the table where my hand just was.
I fall back to the floor, staring up at the cannibal. His teeth are spiked, his head is shaved, and his eyes are sunken and dark. His face and body are splattered with blood, but it’s the madness, the utter hunger and insanity across his face that makes me swallow.
“Hi, don’t suppose you’re a vegetarian?” I squeak out.
He roars and lunges at me. Panicking, I kick the rolling trolley at him and leap to my feet. The cleaver swings down again as Evan gets up, and I roll over the table until we’re both on the other side, facing off with him.
I hear grunts and signs of combat from the hallway, and realise the others are probably fighting more cannibals, hence the lack of their presence.
Okay then, time to boss this.
“Guess not?” I grin as I grab the edge of the table. “I like meat, trust me, but I’m too skinny to eat, motherfucker, so eat this instead.” I shove the table hard, and it smashes into him, pushing him back against the wall.
I leap over it while he’s struggling, grab the cleaver, and slice upward. He howls as he blocks with his hand, his fingers severing. I ignore his other hand, which is trying to grab me, and kick his cock until he falls. Then, in one smooth move, I slice again, almost cleaving his head from his body. Leaving the blade stuck in his throat, I kick him back to the floor to die before looking over at Evan.
“You’re my princess now, I rescued you.” I wink.
He shakes his head, untying the rest of his restraints and coming around the table. Evan looks me over. “Are you okay?”
“I should be asking you that,” I counter.
“I’m fine. Fuckers knocked me out while I was getting water, and I woke up in here. Pip, there are more of them, a lot more. They were upstairs…playing with humans. I heard it.”
I nod just as the door smashes open and all three of my other men step through. “Nice of you to join us,” I joke. “Sorry you missed the buffet.”
“Oh God, stop with the puns.” Jago groans.
“You okay, Pasha?” Clay asks.
I nod and grab my crossbow. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” I step closer to them, and Archel sighs.
“Might be a problem. They’ve blocked the door, so it looks like the only way out is up.”
“Great,” I mutter. “Looks like we are attending a cannibal party.”
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Checking my bolt is still loaded, I ready myself. “Let’s do this.”
I push past them, stepping over the five new bodies in the hallway. Once back in the entryway, I see what they mean. They have blocked the hallway to the back exit off by crashing the fucking ambulance into it. There’s no way we are getting through.
So upstairs it is.
Smart little fucking cannibals, thinking they have trapped their food.
They are damned though.
Heading to the stairs, I keep my crossbow up as I turn the corner and aim. There is no one there, just more bloody marks leading up the stairs, as well as some nipples and penises pinned to the wall. Lovely. That can’t be hygienic at all. Watching the top of the stairs, I continue to ascend, going slowly. Jago is at my side, Evan is in the middle with Clay, and Archel watches our backs from the bottom door until I reach the top. I glance at Jago and nod. He crouches and peers around the corner before looking back.
“Clear,” he murmurs.
I follow him around the corner. It’s another hallway with a ripped off door at the end. We press ourselves to the wall and peek around the frame. It’s darker here, with only a few low fires burning in what looks like a reception area. There are banks of elevators to the right with handwritten signs saying ‘Death Ride’ and more stairs leading up.
There’s an overturned desk in the middle of the entrance with chairs scattered everywhere, and even a broken vending machine. The walls are covered in blood and drawings and body parts, the floor is dirty and stained, and the tiles are peeling away. There are even a few holes in the ceiling that make me worry this whole place is about to come down.
The worst bit though?
The double front doors are chained and blocked off. There’s no way we are getting out of them without alerting the cannibals and being killed. No, we need another way out. “Any ideas?” I whisper to Jago as he searches for an exit too.
“It seems we have to go up again. It’s a hospital, they have to have more than one exit,” he mutters. “We’ll find it, but until then, we stay quiet and move silently. Don’t draw their attention, we are not becoming their food.”
I nod, and we slide out together, moving along the wall to the stairs as a group. Once there, I swing my arm out, stilling Jago as he goes to step around the corner.
“What?” he whispers, but I press my finger to my lips and kneel, pointing out the tripwire.
It’s thin, really thin, almost too small to see, but it runs across the bottom of the doorframe. I peek around the corner to the wide double stairs, but I see no one, so I’m betting it’s an alert system like ours.
Standing, I step over it, and when nothing happens, I look up, searching for the trigger. It’s attached to the ceiling through a hole…and it looks like a fucking guillotine. It’s not a warning system, it’s a fucking booby trap.
Brilliant.
I gesture for them to follow me, and they do. We head up the stairs slowly, looking for any more wires or traps. When we reach the top and there aren’t any, I open the door, wincing at the creak, but no one leaps out, so that’s good.
I sigh as I look around. It’s the upstairs balcony, and across the way are more stairs. The flooring is holey in some places and utterly filthy with clothes, burnt out fires, and body parts tossed everywhere. I slide my feet over the floor, and I’m halfway across when what I thought was a clothes pile moves. My eyes widen, but Archel is faster.
Within a second, he’s on the cannibal, who is turning to us. He snaps his neck, lowers him back down, and covers him before he moves back to my side.
“That was hot,” I murmur and then keep going, hating being out in the open. When we reach the stairs, I don’t spot any more traps, so I guide them to the open doorway at the top. It feels wrong to be going deeper into the belly of the beast, but we don’t have much choice.
This one is a full floor, with open doors to the left and right. It looks like a ward. I don’t hear anyone, but that doesn’t mean anything. Some of the lights are flickering, though, and I spot the door saying ‘Fire Exit’ across the way. Bingo! After pointing it out to the others, I slowly begin to move in that direction. I scan the area for any more cannibals disguised or ready to eat us.
I’m about halfway across when the floor starts to feel weak under my feet. I still, staring down at the floor with more holes in it than the rest. Probably from time, weather, and treatment. I slow down and slide my feet, not wanting to fall to my death.
That would suck.
My breathing seems loud up here, yet we are silent. I really hope this exit is an actual exit and we can get free of this cannibal labyrinth. I’ve just stepped out when the floor caves under me. I throw myself back, but the hole grows until I’m dangling through it, my legs kicking in mid-air. Jago catches me, and I pant as I gaze down…
Right into the eyes of a cannibal in a fur coat, wearing a crown made of fingers, who is sitting on the floor beneath us on a fucking throne made of skulls. He stares at me, I stare back.
Awkward.
“Erm, hi, we came for the party?” I squeak out.
His head tips back, and he lets out an inhuman screech. I hear it ricochet around the building, waking all of the cannibals.
I guess it’s party time.
I scramble back through the roof, just as a spear is thrown in my direction, narrowly missing me as I fall into Jago. “Oops, guess they are ready for the three-course meal.”
“Yeah, which course are you?” Evan queries nervously as he checks me over.
Archel and Clay prepare as we hear the thundering footsteps and yelling of the cannibals as they run up the stairs. Clay sets a tripwire bomb while Archel blocks off the other entrance.
“Dessert, obviously,” I scoff as I leap to my feet, ignoring his complaints. I look around in confusion and start to panic. Where the fuck is my crossbow? Then I see it hanging from a rusted nail in the hole in the floor, dangling down right in front of the gap where the cannibal king is waiting.
Shit.
I hear a smash, and when I look around, cannibals are breaking through the door Archel is guarding. Jago snarls and rushes over, adding his weight and holding them back. A hand slips through the door, its dirty, black bloody nails scratching as it wiggles around. With a growl, Jago and Archel work together and slam the door shut—right on the hand. There’s a scream, and I look over to see Clay lighting sticks and throwing them down the stairs with a grin. I hear a bang and know he’s holding them back.
But there are a lot of them. We need to get out of here.
There is no other exit…apart from down.
Fuck it. I throw myself on the floor, crawl to the edge, and peek over. The king is still there, staring up at me, but I need my bow.
Hooking my finger through the strap, I wiggle it from the nail, my arm muscles straining. I hear a yell, and two seconds later, something whizzes through the air, grazing the top of my ear. Hissing, I look down to see the king firing arrows at me…arrows of bone. I gag but focus on the crossbow. I tug and wiggle, my legs kicking on the dirty floor to give me more power. My face turns red and my ears ring with the force as he fires again. I have to duck, and then I yank the crossbow free.
Taking aim, I kneel and fire back at him. It connects, and he spits with a snarl, thrown into the throne with the force. He scrabbles at his chest where the bolt is protruding from his shoulder area. Gripping my weapon tighter, I look around for a way out. They are coming through the door, and more are surging to Clay, where Evan is now also throwing bombs.
We have no choice.
I glance back at my men and grin. “Going down?” I ask politely.
“Don’t you dare,” Jago yells.
I wink and look at the hole, ignoring their protests. “As soon as I’m through, run for it. I’ll take on this fucker down here. Clay, throw as many bombs as you can. Evan, let’s go,” I order, and when they all nod, I strap my crossbow on, grip one of my stolen knives from Archel in my hand, and
slip it into the leather to keep it there before I hook my hands on the edges of the tile and swing through.
I need to move fast before the king fucker recovers and tries to eat me, so I swing back and forth, lowering myself to the balcony as far as I can. When I hear him snarl, I drop.
I land on my feet and roll to prevent breaking my ankle. I pull the knife free as I roll, and when I come up, I swing as he lurches at me with a roar. I hear a crash and a swear and know Evan is through. I listen as more bombs and yells sound, and then I hear running above us before the clap of three more sets of feet land behind me.
But I ignore them, leaving them to deal with the cannibals above and any more around us as I focus on the king.
He throws his head back, and a howl escapes his lips, showing his sharpened black teeth, black mouth, and bloody lips and chin. Taking my opportunity, I rush him. When I stab him, the knife gets stuck, and I have to yank it out, but it still sticks. Fuck. He looks down at me, his mouth closing, and my eyes widen. He backhands me, and I’m flung to the side. I hear the others shout as I roll across the floor, nearly tumbling off the balcony, where half of the railing is ripped away before I jump to my feet, panting.
“I’ve got this bitch,” I snarl, flashing the now bloodstained knife which he yanked free by the force of his hit.
With a war cry, I fly at him, dropping to my knees at the last minute and sliding right through his parted legs. I slice as I go, cutting across his knees. He stumbles with a roar, and I slash his ankles and then get to my feet before throwing myself on his back. He stumbles forward but stays upright, starting to spin with a growl as he tries to throw me off. I hold on, ducking my head when his hand comes back and swats at me. I ignore his disgusting stench, which is burrowing into my nose as it presses against—Fuck, is that a human skin cape?
He spins, and I almost throw up from the rapid pace, but then suddenly, we feel weightless. I lift my head as we tumble over the edge of the balcony. I reach out desperately, and my hand connects with part of the railing which is broken and hanging over the edge. I hold on tight, my fingers slipping on the rusted metal as we fall another inch. Our bodies dangle in the air as I scream, his hand wrapping around my ankle. The added weight makes the railing creak. Looking down, I snarl as he bites my ankle. He’s trying to climb up my body, my grasp slipping down the metal from our combined weight. I can’t hold us both.