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?’
‘Please, Kyle. I’m sorry… Please…’ the girl sobbed, through cracked and bleeding lips.
Meanwhile as Abby begged for the forgiveness that Liz knew Kyle would never offer, Baxter secured Liz�
�s wrists and ankles with the strong plastic ties.
‘Done,’ he said, pulling the last of the ties painfully tight about her wrists.
‘Good, now get the door for Parker,’ nodded Kyle, gesturing towards the man struggling to keep the Dead woman in one place while fiddling with the bolt at the same time, ‘we don’t want a load of corpses littering up the place.’
Not waiting to be told twice, Baxter wove his way past a mass of tables, mould covered boxes, stacked chairs and old electrical fans to open the door for his perverted friend.
‘Ready?’ said Baxter, his hand on the bolt.
‘Go for it!’ Parker replied, grabbing the Dead woman by her shoulders.
Swiftly pulling the bolt across, Baxter swung open the door and for the briefest of moments the light broke through the darkness of the room beyond allowing Liz to catch a glimpse of the horrors held within.
‘Jesus!’ she whispered, tearing her gaze from the countless Dead women and girls all with bags over their heads, in various states of decay.
‘How… how can you allow those two to keep them like that?’ she asked, shaking her head in disbelief while the rancid stench of rotting flesh wafted about the room.
Beside her, Abby whimpered before starting to gag as the stinking miasma enveloped her.
‘They’re quite safe in there,’ Kyle replied, watching Parker shove the Dead woman into the room to join her putrid sisters before slamming the door on her, ‘and with the bags on their heads they’re completely unaware of our presence… should they by some miracle or blatant act of stupidity on Baxter or Parker’s part actually get out of that room… well, they’ve still got two more locked doors to get through before putting us in any real danger.’
‘And the people here, they’re OK with all this, are they?’ Liz continued, completely dumbfounded that these men could be so ridiculously stupid.
‘Well,’ said Kyle, kneeling down to look Liz in the eye, ‘that’s the whole point of a secret isn’t it… choosing just who needs to know what…. and anyway what they don’t know can’t hurt them…’
‘Except in this case it can…’ she replied, holding Kyle’s gaze. ‘But then I don’t suppose you have to worry about people asking questions, do you? What with those two in your pocket and Zak under your thumb, who’s going to risk rocking the boat?’
‘Zak?’ said Kyle, his eyes narrowing questioningly as if trying to read something hidden from her face. ‘You know… I think someone’s been listening at key holes…’
Instantly Liz knew she had made a mistake, she had let slip just how much she knew about what was really going on at Saint Xavier’s.
‘Now…’ he continued, roughly grabbing her chin, ‘you’re not going to be a problem for me… are you, Elizabeth?’
‘Look…,’ he continued after a pause, suddenly releasing her chin to sit back in his heels, ‘I could go back and forth with subtle threats to keep your mouth shut… but quite frankly you strike me as the sort of woman that prefers to get right to the point…’
Liz silently nodded her agreement.
‘I thought so,’ he said, smiling more at his own astuteness rather than at anything else, ‘Well, let me spell it out for you then…You blab one word, one single word about what these two get up to down here and I see to it that that sweet little sister of yours gets fed to the corpses outside… simple as that… Oh, and what’s more, I’ll make you watch from the wall before handing you over to Baxter and Parker here… you may be a little warmer than they prefer but I’m sure they could make do…’
Liz looked at Kyle and knew he meant every word. She could see the madness and need for control dancing in his eyes. This man was clearly used to getting what he wanted and by whatever means he deemed necessary. This coupled with his desire to remain the secret Kingpin of Saint Xavier’s made him extremely dangerous, perhaps even more dangerous than the Dead women locked in the darkness.
‘I understand,’ she simply replied, keeping the rage that coursed through her from showing itself in her face.
For a few seconds Kyle simply stared at her, weighing up in his mind whether Liz had truly taken his threat on board. Then without a word he pushed himself upright to stand over Liz and Abby.
‘Time to gather together our other additions before the menfolk go a-hunting,’ he said holding Liz’s blank stare.
When he saw Liz was either refusing to take the bait or simply hadn’t heard his plan for the men of her group, Kyle broke eye contact and turned to Baxter and Parker.
‘You two need to go get the woman with Freya,’ he began, already dismissing Liz from his thoughts, ‘and try not to be too rough with her, I like her face the way it is.’
‘What about the pregnant one?’ asked Baxter, scratching his stubbly beard. ‘Do we bring her too?’
‘No, leave her,’ he replied. ‘She’ll be in no state to cause any trouble but wave a few threats about concerning her baby… that’ll shut her up.’
‘Now the other two are going to be tricky,’ he continued, removing his glasses to tap them against his chin while he thought it through. ‘We don’t want them kicking up a fuss and alerting the rest of the group… I know… get Freya to lead them both here.’
‘Freya?’ asked Parker, walking over to a small sink in the corner to wash the smell of Dead flesh from his hands.
‘Yes, Freya,’ Kyle repeated. ‘I think you’ll find she’ll be very…. accommodating.’
As he said the last word his gaze flicked briefly to Abby who was still silently weeping on the floor and as he leered down at her he did little to hide the cruel smile that twitched at his lips.
‘Right, let’s get this show on the road,’ he finally said, slipping his glasses back on as he walked to the door.
With Parker and Baxter leaving before him, Kyle turned to the two bound women on the stone floor.
‘Won’t be long, ladies,’ he said, his hand hovering over the light switch.
With a final flash of a malicious grin, Kyle flipped the switch and as he closed the door behind him Liz and Abby were plunged into complete darkness. Listening to the sound of his retreating footsteps, Liz knew she had to get free to warn Charlie and the others so she began to struggle against the zip-lock ties about her ankles and wrists.
‘So what law did you break?’ she whispered to Abby, as she tried in vain to wriggle her bound wrists under her hips.
‘W… What?’ the tearful girl replied, despite Liz’s words sounding unusually loud in the dark room
‘Kyle said you broke a law,’ she repeated, with an annoyed grunt realising it was impossible to slip her hands around her bottom to the back of her legs. ‘What law?’
‘Oh… I… I tried to leave,’ Abby sighed, her words dripping with remorse and sorrow.
‘Figures,’ muttered Liz with an exasperated sigh.
***
‘I’ll get rid of this later,’ said Freya, covering the bucket containing Carmella’s placenta with a towel.
‘He is beautiful, yes?’ whispered Carmella, glancing up from the baby cradled in her arms with a look of pure rapture on her face,.‘My little Vincenzo…’
‘Yes, Carmella. He’s beautiful,’ replied Fran.
With a smile, Freya crossed the room to stand by the exhausted woman in the bed.
‘He’s perfect,’ Freya added, gently using the back of her little finger to stroke the sleeping baby’s cheek.
‘Now… you need to rest too, Carmella,’ she continued, turning her attention to the ruffled blankets on the bed.
‘Yes, you should get some sleep,’ Fran agreed. ‘I’m surprised you can keep your eyes open after all you’ve been through… and don’t worry, we’ll be here to keep an eye on Vincenzo for you.’
‘Well…’ Carmella began, obviously not too keen to let her baby out of her sight even to give in to her exhaustion.
‘No arguments,’ interrupted Freya, beginning to plump the two sad looking pillows wedged behind the woman’s shoulders.
‘What pain?’ Fran began to say when a knock at the door suddenly cut her off.
‘Who on earth can that be at this time?’ mumbled Freya, picking up one of the candles and walking to the door.
Instinctively Fran moved to stand by Carmella, her hand resting protectively on the new mother’s shoulder.
‘What do you want?’ asked Freya, pulling open to door to find Baxter and Parker standing there.
‘Zak wants to know if the baby’s been born,’ Baxter replied, pushing himself away from the door frame he had been leaning against to walk into the room.
‘Well, yes… but…’ said Freya, slightly flustered as Parker pushed past her to follow Baxter.
‘She… she needs to rest…’ she tried to continue.
‘What is it, a boy?’ Baxter asked, ignoring Freya’s protest to stand beside Fran.
‘Yes,’ whispered Carmella, instinctively pulling her son just that bit closer as Baxter moved aside the blanket to get a good look at the child.
‘He’s going to be a right bruiser,’ said Baxter, smiling as he looked up from the baby boy who had wrapped his tiny fingers around his little finger.
‘Look, she needs to sleep,’ said Fran, trying to put herself between Carmella and the man. ‘Can’t this wait till morning? I mean…’
If she had seen the smile slowly drop from Baxter’s face, Fran may have stopped there. As it was, only Carmella saw the young man’s face suddenly cloud over and as her panicked glance flitted to Fran, Baxter began to turn.
‘She’s just had a ba…’ Fran was still saying, when Baxter turned and punched her full in the face sending her flying back against a dresser.
‘What the!’ began Freya, shocked by Baxter’s action while Carmella shrieked and clutched her baby to her chest.
‘Shut it!’ snapped Parker, grabbing Freya by the arm. ‘Zak’s orders. We need to take this one to the basement for a while.’
Lanherne Chronicles (Prequel): To Escape the Dead Page 23