The Bloodspawn

by Michael McBride

  “After you,” Harry said, gesturing with his hand, allowing Scott to pass first through the doorway into the kitchen.

  Kicking aside a pile of plaster in the middle of the bowed plywood floor, Scott headed straight for the door leading down into the basement. His heart had begun to race, his lips parting to assist in the panting. Throbbing mercilessly, all he could hear in his head was the pounding of his pulse in his temples. Reaching out with his shaking right hand, he grasped the doorknob, turning to look at Harry.

  All of the color had drained from his face as well. His fingers clenched the handle of the flashlight so tightly that his knuckles had turned bright white. A pained expression wore deeply into his face, and he forced a smile for Scott’s benefit, closing his eyes briefly and taking a deep breath. He just nodded, and Scott could tell that meant that he was as ready as he was going to get.

  The knob squeaked in his turning hand, the door creaking loudly as he swung it wide. Their straining eyes fought to adjust to the thick darkness, only a thin line of light visible from beneath the boarded window. Dank earth accosted their nostrils as they descended the rickety stairs. Switching on his flashlight, Scott pointed it at the wall of earth behind the hot water heater, illuminating the lip if the darkened hole, halfway up the wall.

  “That’s it,” he said, pointing through the shadows as a long ray of light burst from Harry’s flashlight behind him.

  The two landed at the bottom of the stairs, the soft ground sinking slightly beneath their feet. With a quick glance back, Scott slipped between the furnace and the hot water heater, setting his flashlight atop the rim of the hole, and pulled himself up, ducking his head, and crawling into the tunnel. Clutching the light in his right hand, he inched forward, flashing the beam all about the ground that entombed him.

  Dirt from the slightly damp floor of the tube rose between the fingers of his left hand, covering the knees of his slacks.

  “Are you sure you know where this leads?” he asked, craning his head over his shoulder in the tight quarters.

  “No, but I’ve got a hunch.”

  Shrugging, he turned back to the tunnel. There was something in the middle of the floor straight ahead, right at the point where the light faded into the darkness. Creeping toward it, he slowly became able to discern what it was. Long shadows traced the floor past the pile of bones that he immediately recognized from the night before, the palms of his hands still stinging lightly from where they had punctured the tough skin. The yellowed bones, tattered, fur-covered flesh dangling from appeared to by a series of small ribcages. As he neared, he was able to make out the long, arched front teeth of what had apparently been a large rodent on the sloping, hollowed skull lying askew in front of the pile. He counted at least five more of the skulls as he crept closer. There was something unique about the dried, curling flesh that hung from the decaying bones, something that was suddenly quite obvious. The edges of the shredded flesh were rippled slightly in a series of arcs, and there was no mistaking their origin. They were bites, from a human set of teeth.

  Stopping briefly, he flashed the light around. There were long, parallel lines carved into the floor and walls all around him. Reaching up, he placed the tips of his fingers in the niches carved into the ceiling above him. They matched perfectly.

  “Check this out,” he whispered as Harry crept up on him from the rear.

  Skirting the pile of bones, he worked his way deeper into the tunnel, the muffled sound of the river barely audible as it echoed through the larger tunnel ahead. He could see the metal-rimmed edges of where the grate had been at the end of the stream of light. His breath coming in short bursts; the dirt began to stick to his clammy palms. Shuddering, he paused, poking his head out of the smaller tunnel into the cavern beyond. Flashing his light from one side to the other, he could see the dim light from the outside clear down to the left, nothing but more darkness to his right.

  Trying to calm his breathing as it bordered on hyperventilation, he set the light on the ground beside him, closing his eyes only briefly. Wiping his damp forehead with the back of his trembling hand, he swallowed the dry lump in his throat and climbed out of the tunnel and onto the floor. Frantically, he grabbed his flashlight, whirling and shooting the light into every darkened cranny that he possibly could. He heard Harry groan as he slipped down behind him.

  “That’s…” Scott started, the words catching in his dry mouth. “That’s where the tunnel starts by the river.”

  Harry’s light flashed down the tunnel toward the gray aura of light before turning immediately back and pointing to the right.

  “Then that’s where we need to go.”

  The thin lines of light darted from the tips of the flashlights in their hands as they pressed on through the tunnel. Small icicles hung from the rocky ceiling overhead, glittering as the lights flashed overhead. Bat guano was crusted to the walls and floor to either side of the shallow stream of frozen water in the center, the icy covering crackling beneath their tread, echoing through the darkness. Small creatures skittered ahead of them, skirting the edges of their dancing lights, clinging to their shadows as they scurried about, cringing against the base of the walls.

  Bending slightly to the left, the tunnel stretched on as far as they could see. They had been walking through the blackened corridor with no end in sight for close to a mile already. The air grew increasingly cold around them, their damp breath crystallizing against the flesh on their faces.

  “What’s that?” Scott asked.

  Harry squinted to see the end of the tunnel. A stone archway appeared at the end of the tunnel in their diffused rays. Nothing more than a roughly stacked series of coarse stones mortared together around an oblongated half circle of darkness. As they neared, their lights bouncing up and down with their strides, they could see that the tunnel bent away at a ninety degree angle to the left, leading, as best as they could tell, to the south.

  “This thing has got to be well over a hundred years old,” Scott said, breaking away the crumbling chunks of mortar.

  Spider webs floated from the surface of the large rocks, their white ball-like egg sacs nestled tightly in the crevices between the rocks and the cement glue. The archway was stained along the floor, rising waters marking the stones with a light green line as high as chest level.

  “I think this is where we need to be,” Harry said, flashing his light into the darkened corridor beyond the arch.

  “What do you think is back there?”

  “I know there are tunnels underneath the old convent leading to the hot springs. The castle itself used to be a haven for tuberculosis sufferers who were taken to the supposedly therapeutic waters of the springs every day to be cleansed of their affliction. As it was socially unacceptable for people with TB to be moved out in the open during the day, they had to be shuttled back and forth through these tunnels. The guy who used to own all of this land, this Cavenaugh, his daughter suffered from it, and finally died. After burying his only child, it was only a matter of time before he disintegrated himself, but he used it as a sort of hospice for others with TB until he died and left it to the church.”

  “Okay,” Scott said, pausing. “I’m familiar with the general history of the area. You’ve explained the tunnels, but what do you expect to find down this hallway.”

  “An entrance into the old convent.”

  “The old folks home? I’ve got news for you, there’s a much more accessible entrance above ground.”

  “Don’t you think that I’ve been there? After the church sold the property to a group of investors, converting it into the nursing home, I tried to get them to let me look around, to see if the nuns had left any records that might help me rationalize what I saw here so many years ago. But they wouldn’t even allow me to stray from the tour. In fact, they were more than insistent.”

  “So you want to sneak in the back door…”

  “If there still is one. I’ve combed these hills since the early Seventies looking for the en
trance into these tunnels, but I hadn’t been able to find anything.”

  “But you never looked in that house?”

  “Look, that hole in the basement wall wasn’t there decades ago when I boarded that house up. I put a lock on the front door and boarded all of the windows, why on earth would I even suspect that anyone would be digging a tunnel through the wall?” Harry huffed, his face reddening.

  “No need to get worked up,” Scott said, looking Harry directly in the face in the dim glow of their lights. He hesitated, formulating his words carefully so as not to offend the older man again. “There is just something about this story that doesn’t quite fit. There are gaps that I am having a hard time making any sense of.”

  “How do you think I feel?” Harry said, steering his light into the darkness beyond the archway. “Let’s see if we can find some answers.”

  The two left the main tunnel, heading into the thinner, rock-walled channel. The air grew colder with each step, thickening with dust. Cobwebs hung in the air, bouncing as their movement changed in the flow of the stale air. Their flashlights stopped on a thick wooden door, the vertical slats held together by diamond-shaped iron fasteners, the circles of light growing larger and larger on the faded, splintering surface as they approached. A thin line of green covered the bottom foot of the door from where the waters had risen along the base, the slightly sloping ground was slick with the slight covering of slime.

  Stepping right up to the door, the side of his head pressed against the slightly bowed wooden surface, Harry listened intently, hoping to hear anything at all if there was someone just beyond the door. Gripping the black iron handle in his right hand, he squeezed it as hard as he could, the small lever crackling as it lowered beneath his thumb. He could hear the bolt in the wall, groaning and creaking as it slowly broke free of the rust that held it tightly within the wall. With a loud crack, the bolt disengaged, the sound echoing wildly through the tunnel around them.

  Harry looked to Scott, who held his breath, a pained wince engraved into his face.

  Holding a finger to his pursed lips, Harry slowly began to pull the door outward, the bottom edges of the wooden planks scraping loudly on the compressed rock floor. The noise was awful. He could only move the door an inch at a time for fear that they would draw too much attention to themselves, surely even a group of hearing aid laden retirees could hear that noise more than a story above ground in that old castle. It was obvious that the door hadn’t been opened in quite some time, so maybe, even if it was audible on the floors above, no one would know what it was, or even have the inclination to descend into the old cellar to try to figure it out. It was the middle of the day, and surely there was enough activity up there to mask their noise.

  Pulling the door just far enough back so that they could slip through sideways, Harry pointed his light through the small gap between the door and the wall, trying to look inside. There was a tightly stretched sheet of plastic covering the entrance into the castle, a tightly packed layer of spray foam insulation pressed against the plastic from the inside. Producing a small pocketknife from within his jeans, Harry slit the sheet of clear plastic right down the center and began to pull handfuls of the almost Styrofoam-like pink insulation from within.

  After making a sizable dent in the insulation, the pink stuffing piled around his feet on the cold ground, he could see that there was another layer of the plastic covering, sealing the layer of foam between two airtight seals. Slicing through the far side, the tip of his blade clanged dully off of something large and wooden. Ripping out the remnants of the plastic and insulation, he pressed both hands against the wooden barrier beyond.

  Its surface was smooth, not at all weathered like the outer door had been. A thick, almost satiny finish had been applied to the wood, the deep-black, highly-defined grains in astounding contrast to the mahogany stain.

  Leaning against it, Harry strained, lowering his shoulder as he spread apart his feet, hoping to bull his way through it. It was heavy, and, judging by the lack of hinges, it wasn’t a door, just something haphazardly stuffed into the doorway to bar access. The base of the wooden creation scraped across the floor within, bouncing and popping slightly as it caught on the floor, Harry’s force then freeing it suddenly.

  The stagnant smell of mildew flooded the tunnel from the small opening that Harry had created, small clouds of dust swarming about them, filling their lungs. The two hacked almost in unison. Squeezing into the entryway next to Harry, Scott braced his foot against the outer door, his shoulder against the inner wall and shoved with all of his might. The combination of the two pushing together made the object squeak loudly as it scraped along the floor, opening up just enough of a gap so that they could sneak past and enter the small room beyond.

  Two streams of light bounced around the pitch black room, only the thinnest line of gray creeping in from behind the enormous object that had been barring their way. Both of them studied the small circles from their lights, hoping to see anything at all that might help them to illuminate the room further. Their flashlights were barely enough to light more than the thick cloud of dust that hung all around them in the air, shimmering like glitter in the flitting rays.

  Arms in front of them as they shuffled through the darkened room, they each headed in a different direction. Scott’s hand rammed into something hard, his fingertips crumpling. Recoiling quickly, he clenched and unclenched his fist, his teeth grinding as he shook off the sudden jolt of pain. Slowly, he reached back out, his bare hand running along the dust-coated surface of a table of some sort. Shining the flashlight directly down upon it, he could see a small, hand blown glass lamp, the kerosene within soaked through the think wick which stood just above a thin metal ring. The ornately decorated glass was thick with dust, his fingers slipping from the surface the first time he tried to grab it, before latching on more securely around the thin ring of metal adjoining the two glass globes that made it look like an hourglass.

  Laying his palm into the dust, he slid it from side to side, hoping to smack into a lighter or a pack of matches or something. The cloud of sediment that had been untouched in what could only have been years, floated into the air all around his face, wedging itself tightly into the sinuses behind his eyes and nose, bringing forth a sudden and ferocious fit of sneezing. Holding tightly to the lamp, he rode out the involuntary convulsions, finally sighing loudly as he inhaled a deep breath. Resting his hand on the table, he could feel a long, thin sliver of wood beneath his palm. Fishing it out of the dust, careful not to breathe in too deeply as he did, he held up the wooden piece between his thumb and forefinger. Shining the flashlight on it, he smiled to himself. Setting down the flashlight and the lamp on the table, he held back the flap of cloth that covered the zipper that ran up the front of his jacket with his left hand. He ran the head of the match straight down the zipper, the teeth grabbing at the phosphorous surface of the match. With a burst of black smoke and light, the head of the match flickered to life, the yellow flame hidden beneath Scott’s cupped left hand as he lowered it through the glass top of the lamp and down to the wide wick, the kerosene stinking awfully as it lit. Thick, black smoke billowed from the lamp, the insides of the glass charring with soot. The dancing flame encased within flickered. Settling down, the excess finally having burnt off, the circle of light around the lantern slowly expanded, pushing back the shadows into the corners. At least a portion of the room was now visible.

  “Where did you find that?” Harry whispered, his face appearing from the darkness only feet away.

  “On this table over here,” Scott responded, looking down through the cloud of dust that still swirled around him.

  It was a long, hardwood table, almost resembling a picnic table, only much more elegant. There was a chair to either side of it, a stack of books lined neatly in the center of the table, bracketed by two iron bookends crafted to look like hands that if pushed together they would give the impression of a child’s hands praying. The old, leather-bound
books were buried beneath dust. Not even the embossed letters on the spines were visible beneath the wan light and the layer of dust.

  Turning, he led the lantern through the room, surveying the area in hopes of finding a way out of the room.

  A door appeared from the darkness, a wide, arched wooden slab beneath an ornately carved trim. Grabbing it by the handle, Scott swung the door inward, a cloud of dust kicking up from around his feet. Stepping through, he nearly knocked himself unconscious ramming into the brick wall that had been constructed right outside the doorway. The gray bricks, cemented with a sloppily laid lining of mortar, sealed the room off from the rest of the house.

  Turning to Harry, Scott shrugged.

  “Well,” Harry said, turning from the sealed doorway. “I guess this is as far as we go.”

  Walking back through the darkened room, the glowing ball of light that surrounded them flickered off the walls. A long mantle ran the length of the room along the wall next to the door, dust-shrouded candlesticks lining the wooden beam. Pulling one of the half-melted candles out of its holder, Scott dipped it, wick first, into the lamp, the fuse crackling before finally glowing brightly with the bouncing flame. Pulling it out, he placed the flame atop the other wicks, the dust burning with a deep, thick black smoke. The flames slowly expanded from a small glow on the wicks.

  With the flaming wax lining the wall, he turned back to the room, the glow dimly illuminating the small room. A yellowed atlas was nailed to the wall to the left, small, multicolored pushpins pressed through the map and into the wall in apparently random patterns across the continents. A series of black, metal filing cabinets lined the floor beneath the map. All of their drawers were closed tightly and each of them had an individual lock in the upper right corner. A handful of manila folders sat, stacked, atop one of them, buried beneath the years of the dusty accumulation.