“See the brush stroke pattern—like someone was dragged?” she said, pointing. “It looks like a limb was cut off. I wonder where they could be. They can’t have gone far.”
James grabbed the flashlight from Trevor.
“Hey!” Trevor said.
James ignored him and swept the area. The drag marks originated from a shiny, maroon pool and abruptly ended at the wall, as if the wall had dropped down upon them.
“There’s no blood anywhere else. What the hell? Did they walk through the wall?” James said and moved deeper into the closet. He pushed against the far wall.
“It’s solid as a rock,” he said. “I think it’s cinder or concrete.”
“Maybe there’s a switch somewhere, like in the classroom?” Olivia said.
James nodded, and the three searched the room for suspicious mechanisms, but unlike the classroom, the closet offered little to inspect. Smooth walls of cinder held shelves made of grated, black metal. A few fluorescent lights, set in standard casing, cast a greenish hue. These comprised the room’s obvious (and only) components.
“These shelves don’t budge—they’re anchored to the wall,” Trevor said.
“Yeah, I’m not seeing anything,” Olivia said.
“They couldn’t have just disappeared!” James said.
“It appears that way,” Trevor said.
James sighed and closed his eyes.
Deep in the recesses of his subconscious there existed a place James traveled to in dire times, and he offered to it the bloody conundrum before them. Difficult problems dissolved into this special place, and with time, often resurfaced solved. He hoped today would be one of those days.
“James?” Olivia said.
He held up a single finger, eyes closed.
“At least give me the flashlight,” Olivia said and took the light out of his hands.
Blood. Blocked. Gym. Oak tree. Scrawlings—SEEK THE GYM. Map. Tunnel.
“Tunnel?” James said.
“What’s that?” Trevor said.
“Oh—nothing,” James said and returned to his inner sanctuary.
Map. Tunnel. Hollow. Trap. Star. Star trap.
“That’s it!” James said.
Olivia and Trevor stared expectantly, probably awaiting an explanation for James’ outburst, but he gave them no such satisfaction. Instead, he tore the flashlight from Olivia’s hands and hastened to the stage.
James had a thing for actresses. He knew full well—based on more painful experiences than he cared to admit—that they often made terrible girlfriends, but something about starlets turned him into a helpless pile of goo. As a byproduct of this fascination, he had come to understand a thing or two about theater and its structure—its nuances. One evening, while in pursuit of a particularly beguiling, brunette method actress—James later decided that method actresses were to be avoided at all costs—he attended a play at a small playhouse in the South Village of New York City. Local actors badmouthed the venue for its refusal to remove its “star trap,” a dangerous trap door infamous for causing injuries and shutting down productions.
James jumped onto the stage and extended the curtains to the edge of the proscenium. He stomped on the ground, listening for the hollow spot, locating the star trap.
“Someone come here and hold the light on me,” James said.
Trevor vaulted onto he stage and took the light. James examined the wooden stage—as expected, the trap door blended into the floor, though James’ fingernail detected a near-imperceptible seam.
“I knew it!”
He lowered his face to the floor and asked Trevor to reposition the light so that it would catch the seam’s groove, which outlined a square hatch and a spiderweb of lines in the shape of a star.
“There’s a trap door here,” he said. “I bet it leads to whatever it is we need to find next. Quick, spread out and look for a lever or something.”
Trevor disappeared with the flashlight, returning Olivia and James to the soft, glimmering quiet of the stage. Trevor’s footsteps informed James of his location, and Trevor moved from the front of the stage to the rear, followed by sharp clings of shattered glass and a grunt. A beam of light bobbed in the distance and headed toward James.
Trevor knelt beside James. “Excuse me,” he said, and James moved. Trevor slammed an emergency axe into the floor, repeating the action until a hole formed. He reached down, gripped the edge of the hole and yanked open the hatch.
“There’s your lever,” Trevor said.
File that under “don’t fuck with Trevor.”
James stuck his head into the hatch.
“There’s a ladder,” he said. “It’s a long way down—I can’t see the end.”
“You first,” Trevor said handing James the flashlight.
“Right…” James said and hesitated as he pictured shadowy hands grasping for his legs from within the ominous hole.
James’ nostrils curled with a damp, pungent mildew odor. He shoved the flashlight under his armpit and worked his way down. Slick, moldy railing kept his movements methodical—he agonized over his every step.
“Get a move on,” Trevor said from above him. “We don’t have all day.”
“Trying! The steps are wet,” James said. “I don’t think this passage has anything to do with the stage, it’s like a sewer. Disgusting.”
Halfway down the ladder, a greasy film began to form on James’ skin, clinging to him like a warm, wet blanket. He struggled to breathe and miscalculated a step, nearly falling. The flashlight broke free of his grip and dropped, splashing in a filthy, shallow stream of water. It cast a sharp beam of light that contorted as the water flowed over it.
“Shit!” he said.
“What was that?” Olivia said.
“Dropped the flashlight—looks okay.” James said. “Well, at least we know where this thing ends.”
James continued until his foot encountered air where the next step should be. He hopped down. Trevor came next, offering to catch Olivia, who declined and landed like a cat.
“What the hell is this place?” James said.
“Kinda reminds me of the sewers under London,” Olivia said, looking around at the soiled stone walls. “I’ve seen photos—don’t think I’ve faffed about in sewers,” she added.
“It doesn’t look like this goes for long,” James said. “Let’s move.”
After a few hundred feet, they encountered a rusty metal gate that creaked as it swung open. Beyond it, a hallway split in two.
“Let’s go right,” James said.
“Why?” Trevor said.
“Call it a hunch,” James said. He was pretty sure the bloody supply closet was in that direction.
They went right. After a short distance, the passage turned a sharp left into a long, dark corridor lined with barred prison cells on both sides.
“Goddamn,” James said. “It’s like a medieval dungeon.”
“You think the school was built on top of this?” Olivia said.
“Who would build a school on top of something like this?” James said.
“Who would build this under a school?” Olivia said.
They came to a holding cell on the right whose door leaned crooked against its entry, unhinged, its padlock deteriorated and bored through. Inside, a pair of manacles hung from the wall. One pair’s unlocked cuffs hung splintered apart and the other looked caked with dried blood.
“Lovely,” James said.
The trickle of streaming water faded, replaced by an awful, sawing din. And whimpering.
“Oh my God,” Olivia whispered. “I think that’s Colette.”
“It’s coming from the end of the hall,” Trevor said.
They bent low and scuttled to a pair of wooden doors down the hallway, opposite the cells. A slight crack between the doors allowed them to see into the room.
“Dear God,” a woman’s voice said between sobs. “Please stop. No more, he can’t take it.”
A sick, copper odor e
manated from the room, and James’ stomach roiled.
“I smell blood—a lot of it,” Olivia said.
James peered in, his view limited to a sliver. Torchlight flickered. Colette crouched in a corner, curled in a ball and shivering. She alternated between glancing at something and burying her head in her arms.
“Damn, she’s in serious trouble,” James said. “But I can’t see from who—or what.”
“What should we do?” Olivia said.
“I say we bust in…Trevor, what do—Trevor?” James said, his gaze now fixed on Trevor.
Trevor’s nostrils flared and the muscles surrounding his temples rippled as his jaw clenched. Veins protruded from his neck and his breathing came in methodical huffs.
“Hey…are you okay?” James said. Trevor seemed a whole lot less like Trevor—he exuded a distinctly threatening aura. James scooted back a few inches.
Trevor’s eyes watered as he ground his teeth and forced his breath to steady. He had participated in dozens of rituals from the refuge of Purgatory 8. Each flooded back into his mind. He was now a participant. Experiencing a ritual from this side was too much to bear. He saw James, Olivia and Colette for what they were—people, not participants.
“Fuck it,” Trevor said and kicked open the doors.
Colette shrieked, threw her arms over her head, and coiled into a fetal position. Trevor paused, his brain struggling against the bizarre tableau, then caught himself as his knees wobbled and his neck hairs cringed. Keto groaned. He hung like a limp slab of meat, sharpened dowels pinning his body to a large circular table propped on its side. His jaw fell slack and his head lolled. Trevor struggled with the lopsided nature of Keto’s body: he was missing his left leg at the knee and his right arm, which had been severed at the elbow. Blood pooled at the foot of the table, makeshift tourniquets cinching the flow from his wounds.
Beside him stood Horace, who—like a child—laughed, bouncing and clapping.
6
“Oh, how I love company! Do you like my work? Colette here can’t get enough. She’s next in line to experience my genius, you know,” Horace said.
James stood mute. Olivia and Trevor were silent as well.
“Speechless? I fully understand!” Horace said. “My work often has that effect on people.”
“How—why—what are you doing?” James stammered.
“Oh, that’s right,” Horace said. “You never did get an answer.”
“An answer?” James said.
“To what I was doing before I arrived here.”
“Look, that doesn’t matter—” James said.
“Oh, but it does,” Horace insisted. “I was ‘reconfiguring’ my latest boy toy from Brazil. Thiago had a delectable body, save for a few unsavory traits. I corrected those, but unfortunately I found myself here before my work was complete. That left me unsatisfied. It’s been absolute torture acting in pain, like a weepy girl, awaiting the moment I could pick you off one by one. If only I’d had more time with Anthony—he was so…appetizing,” Horace said.
“Anthony?” James said. “You killed Anthony?” He launched himself at Horace.
“Ah-ah-ah!” Horace said, taking hold of one of Keto’s tourniquets. “Careful James, you wouldn’t want me loosening these, would you? Keto will bleed out in less than a minute—trust me, he doesn’t have much left—the poor thing.”
James froze.
“What do you want?” Olivia said.
“What every man wants—a bit of love, a bit of lust, a bit of blood,” Horace said.
“Let him go,” James said.
“Oh, and what is little James going to do?”
“Take me instead.”
“James!” Olivia said.
Horace licked his lips and massaged his chest.
“Now that prospect has got me all hot and bothered! James, you are a delightful creature—give me your body and I will gladly free Keto.”
Horace withdrew a machete-sized glass shard with a cloth-wrapped handle: its edge dripped with blood. He bit his lip and fingered the tip while staring at James—James’ jugular thumped hard against his neck. His numb hands went clammy, and he stepped forward, placing his wrists in front of him in an act of submission.
“Oh, my—you were serious! All for a man you don’t even know? How splendid! Heroic! I cannot wait for your transcendence,” Horace said. “Being human is so blasé. Step over here—that’s right. Good boy.”
James did as he was instructed.
“James, no!” Olivia said.
He looked at her.
“Take Keto out of here. Colette, too. Don’t look back.”
Horace is right—all for what? I don’t know these people—but I just can’t let them die. What am I doing?
This would bring it all to an end, maybe for the best. Perhaps this was his purpose. It wasn’t a bad way to go out. Unexpected, sure. Heroic, even—an electric trill surged in his gut and propelled him forward. Where this courage originated eluded him, but it entranced him—foreign, yet comforting.
Horace bound James’ wrists with a torn shirt and shoved him against the wall. A rusted manacle gnashed a cut deep into James’ forehead above his left eye. Blood trickled down his face as Horace locked a single manacle onto his arm.
“Now let Keto go,” James said.
“Fine by me!” Horace said and ripped from Keto’s shoulders and hips the sharpened sticks on which he was impaled. Keto groaned and fell to the floor like a sack of rotten flour.
Colette ran to Keto’s side. Horace kicked her to the corner, waving his glass dagger at the room.
“Not yet, young lady—I almost forgot,” he said and loosened the tourniquet on Keto’s leg then punt-kicked Keto in the gut—once, twice, again and again, fast and furious—he sent him rolling across the room followed by spirals of spurting blood. Keto came to a stop near Olivia and Horace skirted back to James’ side.
“No! What have you done?” Olivia said.
Keto looked like he’d lost consciousness.
Trevor lunged at Horace.
“Watch it, Trevor! You wouldn’t want to see me pull James’ tongue through a hole in his throat, would you?” Horace said, pressing the blade against James’ neck.
Trevor stopped.
“Trevor—it’s okay. Take them out of here, please,” James said.
James’ courage proved much. Trevor balled his hands into fists. Despair coursed through his heart as the mental conditioning erected by Magnus collapsed. He gazed to the floor, weighed down by a lead neck. Rituals exposed and contained the horrors from a bygone age—their design was never meant to expose today’s horrors.
Horace.
Horace was more monster than Arikura Fukushima, Super-814N.
Trevor shrugged.
It didn’t matter any longer—living in a world where terrifying savages ran free was no better than letting the ritual fail, returning humanity from whence it had come—returning control to the Gods.
The lesser of two evils—I am cursed. This isn’t my decision to make. Forgive me.
“I’m sorry, James,” Trevor said.
Trevor placed his forefinger between his incisors and bit hard. He winced; blood dribbled from his mouth as he withdrew his finger and knelt.
“What are you doing? Stop!” Horace said.
Trevor focused on the dilapidated cobblestone before him, where he began painting a torii in his finger’s blood. The image required but a few masterful strokes, and when completed, Trevor placed his hand on it and recited: “Arikura Fukushima. I am here to free you. Reveal yourself!”
Pale, crimson light washed Trevor’s face as the symbol glowed. It waxed and waned. The firelight in the room extinguished then lit again as a wind swept through the dead, stale air.
“What did you do?” Horace said. “What’s going on?”
Trevor scurried away as an outline of a girl dressed in a gossamer gown appeared atop the bloody symbol.
“Not this annoying bitch again,�
� Horace said, reaching into his pocket and retrieving a tiny figure like the ones James had in his.
“Nice try, Trevor, but I already discovered this cunt’s weakness,” Horace said and held the figure toward the girl.
Arikura let forth a terrifying scream and rushed at Horace but smashed into an invisible barrier like a fly hitting a window. Sparks filled the air where she struck. Horace squealed, spittle flinging from his lips. He danced, giggling.
“Who’s the scary little bitch, now?”
As Horace pranced about, Trevor caught James’ attention and pointed to his pocket, then at James, who nodded and fought to wriggle his bound hands into his slacks and withdraw the statues. But Horace caught on to their exchange.
“Oh, I don’t think so!” Horace said and heel-kicked James in the chest. James dropped the statues, which Horace retrieved, holding them together in his hand. When the statues touched, Arikura cried aloud, yelping like an injured dog. Her image scintillated, appearing in one place, then another, wildly thrashing against the invisible barrier. Red, white, gold and purple sparks shot around the room. Trevor recognized this turbulent, spectral pattern—Arikura had grown unstable and had reached the height of her threat potential.
While Arikura’s rage captivated Horace, Trevor dove through the chaotic veil of sparks and surprised him with a well-aimed fist to the jaw. Horace staggered and tripped over his left foot but kept his grip on both the statues and glass dagger. Horace ducked a hook from Trevor and dodged a kick, feigned right—Trevor threw an elbow, missed and stumbled, hand steadied on the floor. Horace slashed at Trevor’s kidney and struck millimeters shy of a fatal blow. Trevor ignored the hot laceration, blinded from the pain it would later register. He sweep kicked, bashing his shin into Horace’s ankle—Horace howled and faltered. A statue dropped.
James’ breath returned. His eyes widened as he watched—the two fought as blurs until Horace dropped a statue. James leapt for the tiny figure, but the manacle’s leash snapped him backward. Cursing, he pried at the cuff with his fingers. It deposited rust and grime under his nails, which gave him an idea. He bashed it against the stone wall, pulverizing the mortar into dust, and kept bashing until blood ran from his wrist.
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