by David Brian
“It’s going to be fine,” I insisted, kissing her forehead. Roz responded with a lopsided grimace. I couldn’t blame her for doubting me.
Getting this many people away from there wasn’t going to be easy. There was no way I could take them out the way we came in. Choosing that route would end in a bloodbath. A group this size would have no chance making it by the chamber we passed earlier. I looked beyond the row of cells, wondering if the stairwell at the far end of the arena might offer an alternative route. Then I saw a sight which ignited an inferno in my heart.
Three figures pushed their way out from the group and moved toward us. Two of them I already knew. The third was easily identifiable, being several inches shorter than her mother, although of the same stout build, and possessing the same round face and dirty-blonde hair as the child whose hand she held.
Roz’s brow arched as the woman embraced me and planted a kiss on my cheek.
“Thank you, Frank,” she whispered. “Thank you for keeping my boy safe.”
“You’re welcome, Cathy. I wish I could have done more to help…” my words trailed away.
The woman gave a fretful nod. “My mother was a good woman.”
“I’m sure she was. I only met her for a brief while, but she left a lasting impression.”
“Frank?”
I turned to face my wife. “This is Cathy; she is Joseph and Beth Carmichael’s daughter. And this brave little fella,” I said, ruffling my hand through Peter’s hair, “he’s the guy who helped rescue you all.”
Roz made a big show of thanking Peter for his heroics, and there followed a brief though warm acknowledgement between Roz and the two adults from the Carmichael clan.
Cathy turned her attention back to me. “I appreciate all you’ve done for us, Frank. But you shouldn’t have brought my boy back down here.”
“Now now, Cathy –” Joseph started to interject.
I cut him short. “No, Joseph, your daughter is right. She is absolutely right! I knew time was of the essence in finding Roz…in finding all of you. I just didn’t want to leave Peter; I knew he wouldn’t cope being left alone up there. But if I’d known what was going on in this place – if I’d known what was really going on down here – there is no way I would have brought him along.”
Roz gave me the sort of look usually reserved for a dog that just farted beside the dinner table. “Jesus, Frank, whatever were you thinking? Why would you bring a little boy into all of this?”
I grimaced. “It’ll be hard for you to understand, Tub. I can explain better later on, but for now you’ll just have to accept I didn’t have options.”
“Ridiculous. He is only a child. His safety should have been your priority –”
This time it was Cathy’s turn to interrupt. “It’s okay. Honestly, it is. I know your husband did what he thought was the right thing. It’s just that…as a mother, you know?”
Roz gently squeezed Cathy’s hand. “Yeah. I understand.”
Peter tugged at his mother’s sleeve. “Can we go? I don’t like this.”
Joseph ruffled the boy’s hair. “I think that’s a really good plan, Petey.”
I forced a smile and threw the kid my best wink. “A good plan? Hell, I think it’s a great plan!”
Roz tapped my butt. “Then can we hurry with getting out of here, yes? And what’s with all this lot?” she said tugging at the netting strapped to my waist.
I pulled a couple of the bottles free, “We should start sharing these babies around.”
“And what’s in ‘those babies’,” Joseph asked, cocking a brow at the plastic containers.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but believe me when I say those monsters don’t much like getting squirted with this stuff.”
Cathy edged Peter closer to her, nervously eyeing the bottle her son still clutched. “Is it acid?”
“No. It’s honestly not dangerous to Peter or any one of us down here. But it has a really adverse affect on those other things.”
Joseph’s brow creased. “Then what is it?”
“Honestly, I’ll explain later. But for now you’ll just have to trust me when I tell you this stuff is safe for us, yet still highly effective.”
“Okay. You’re right. We really should get moving,” Joseph’s voice carried a level of concern clearly elevated by the growing babble of his fellow escapees.
“Right,” I said, “can everyone gather around?” I gestured for the group to move closer. I wanted to avoid speaking too loudly. “This is what we are going to do…”
As the assembled throng listened to my plan, I said a silent prayer to any higher authority willing to listen, and wondered just what the hell could be taking George so long…
Chapter 33
Outside the tent, the sound of armored vehicles rumbles eagerly by, tires groaning on the hard desert floor as they head toward their designated assembly point.
Inside the tent, surrounded by an untidy clutter of merchandise – boxed food items, crates filled with supplies of magazines, new uniforms, helmets, and boots – we relax; tucking into dry sandwiches, and sipping sweet tea, secure in the knowledge we have been given a pass on this latest forward assault.
The hit our troop took on Monday, and seeing Norman Kaylor and Danny Trent’s remains spread all across desert sands, encouraged the platoon top brass to give us young soldiers a ninety-six-hour pass. Of course, being stuck in the middle of this itchy-trigger-finger crisis, it’s not like there are any bars or clubs within striking distance – even if it was safe to visit them.
Billy Gray crams the last bite of sandwich into his mouth and then picks up the deck of cards from the sealed crate doubling as a table. He shuffles the pack, and then deals five hands.
“So, whatcha doing then, Frank?”
I stuff the remnant of bread into my mouth, and then wipe my fingers on my trousers before sorting my hand.
“Give us a sodding minute, will you?”
Pte. Charlie Austin grins. “Don’t take too long checking them cards, Frank, otherwise the kid might piss himself, again!
“Sod off.”
The boy is still smarting from the grief he’s taken following Monday’s hit on our convoy, and his subsequent little accident. It’s cruel, but I can’t resist smiling at his discomfort.
Pte. Sam Glover slaps Billy hard on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Pissquick. First time the ragheads shot at me, I shat myself. Literally!”
This news raises Billy’s spirits, and a smile creases his features.
Pte. Ed Walker slaps a fiver down on the makeshift table. “So, come on then, are we playing or what? Let’s see what you lightweights are willing to lose, eh?”
I am not the only one who smiles. On the first night of our leave from basic training, Ed won over a hundred quid at the dog track. He now considers himself something of a John Aspinall – even though he’s barely won a hand of cards since we’ve been in Egypt. The dozy sod is easy pickings when it comes to losing money.
My joy at Ed’s card-playing-ineptitude falls away, the smile slipping from my face as I see the figure. Like a silhouette cut from gray linen it glides from the rear of the tent, only stopping as it reaches Ed. The wraith places ashen fingers on Ed’s left shoulder, and as it does so I see him flinch.
“Are you okay, Frank? You’ve gone dead pale.”
I hear Sam’s question and I flash him a glance, but I can’t find any words. My jaw slackens and my ears draw attention back to the strange visitation standing beside Ed. The gray thing is weeping; soft, agonized groans of distress forewarning of my friend’s demise; in six days time Ed will die in a hail of Egyptian bullets. No! No! No! This is not what happens!
Something is not right; Ed will not die here in Egypt; the conflict is only weeks from being over. Ed will return home safely, and once there he will meet the woman of his dreams, and together they will raise three beautiful daughters.
But how can I know this?
I know it becau
se it isn’t the future.
My eyes snap open as the gray fabric of the curtains gusts through the room.
“Oh dear, it’s blowing up a bit out there,” says the uniformed young woman as she reaches for the latch. “Best I shut this up now. Don’t want you getting a chill, Frank.” She drops the catch, and then turns to wipe the trickle of drool from my mouth. “You can have another hour to try to get a bit of shut-eye, Frank, then me an’ Tracey will get you cleaned up a bit, alright, love?”
I have no wish to answer the girl, even if I was able. My mind is a racing jumble of confusion: This isn’t right; I should be back with my unit… but, no, that isn’t right either. I was with Roz, wasn’t I? Oh, my God, those things, those dreadful, awful monsters, and the terrible mistake that I made.
It is a horrifying notion, yet I understand that I must return to that frightful place.
I cannot lose her.
I will not lose her.
Squeezing shut my eyes, I surrender to the graying silhouette of my memories, succumbing to the horrors of days long past, yet embracing those same days, understanding they must be faced again, for the sake of both our souls.
Chapter 34
Moving stealthily, a mixture of fear and apprehension palpable among the group as we snaked through an abundance of dark stairwells and bleak landings, we pushed on toward the building’s summit and its promise of freedom. It was not lost on me that the climb from the cellar was as rigorous a journey, and perhaps thrice as lengthy, as the descent had been. Peter persisted with his claims that Nana and he had fled the cavern via the same stairwell our group used, and yet our climb had somehow taken us in a different direction than the boy previously traveled. I believed him. He had recognized the hallways we moved through on our descent, and these were on the opposite side of the building. It seemed certain now that my earlier assumption was correct; the usual laws of physics were somehow discarded in this place. I was also keenly aware of something else. George had offered an impossible explanation for what this place really was, but whatever the true nature of the horrors stalking these halls, it was unlikely they would let us just walk away.
I persuaded Kurt to surrender his torch, and now used its narrow beam to guide us as best I could through the uneven twists and curves of the building’s corridors. I was aware that the odd curvature of these hallways, plus the lack of any sufficient lighting, was doing nothing to calm the unease of the group.
There was a dreadful smell rife in the air. Something pungent, resembling raw sewage and rotten meat, permeated the latest stairwell and last two corridors traveled. It was as much as any of us could do to snatch short, sharp breaths in an effort to avoid puking.
Moving two-abreast, with Roz by my side, I was at last able to utilize the bulk of bottles I’d been carrying with me. The liquid was distributed evenly back down the line, although I opted to keep added firepower toward the front of the party. Roz, Joseph, Cathy, Peter and I, each held a bottle. We moved in a formation that kept Peter between the four of us. I remained hopeful more than confident that these weapons might offer a fighting chance of escaping the building…at least for some of us.
We reached a hallway considerably wider, and with a higher ceiling than any we traveled earlier. We could easily have walked four-abreast, had we chosen to do so. Instead, we held our narrow formation, moving in pairs, every tenth pairing armed with a salt-and-blood container.
The corridor seemed endless, and as we continued into the unknown we noted the walls of the hallway were daubed with something greasy and unpleasant. We soon realized the ungodly ooze was emanating from the walls themselves – the building literally sweating evil – producing the foul and nauseous odor we had been retching on since commencing our climb.
The house wasn’t just presenting a threatening impression of evil; an interpretation inspired by our own concerns over what was, and had been occurring in this building. The house itself seemed to relish its own ill will.
Where the hell has George got to?
After what seemed hours, though may just as likely have been a fraction of that time, our unobstructed path came to an end. Before us stood a set of stone doors, the formidable nature of their construction – being high enough to accommodate the passing of a twelve-foot tall humanoid – did nothing to lessen fears already rife among the group. What lies ahead, hidden in the darkness?
The point of the group ground to a halt as behind us a murmur of discontent rumbled down the line. Those trailing bunched and collided in the gloom – a rising echo of bodies thudding together reverberated along the rancid corridor. Those of us at the lead paid little heed to the discontent at our backs. A block of light shone beneath the doors. Above the grumbling disturbance at our rear, and through the thickness of the stonework, a sound was calling to us; an entrancing melody, emanating from the other side of the barrier.
The volume of the music continued to grow, bellowing as though through the pipes of a church organ; but the fine harmonies seemed more akin to the strings of a harp, or, to be more precise, the strings of a thousand world-class harpists.
“What should we do?” asked Joseph.
The stress which had been pressing behind my eyes these last hours, it suddenly magnified to a degree where I felt as though my head could explode.
“Not sure. We can’t go back.”
“But we can’t go in there, either,” insisted Roz.
My chest tightened and my heart skipped several beats, the tone of my wife’s voice betraying her terrors.
“We may have to,” I said softly, squeezing her hand with what I knew was a vain attempt at soothing her worries.
“No,” she repeated. “We can’t…I can’t!”
“We may have to, Tub.”
I felt Joseph’s firm grip on my shoulder. “I’m with your missus, Frank. It could be bloody suicide if we go in there.”
A murmur of unrest traveled down the massed ranks; word of my wish to proceed on, and to confront whatever was producing the music, being met with a solid chorus of disapproval.
“Quiet!” I barked, and the noise level fell away.
For the most part these people seemed willing to place value in my words, although it remained understandable that some mutterings of protest grumbled on.
“It’d be madness, lad,” said Joseph.
“Maybe so, but do we really have any option other than to press on? There’s no turning around and going back. So, this is what has to happen…”
I instructed two more men to move up to the front of the line. This would at least give additional firepower to those heading the troop. Then, despite Roz’s protestations, I revealed my intentions.
I made the decision to continue on alone, scouting out whatever lay in our path. Roz pleaded for me not to go, but I insisted we were short of viable options. I said that if I ran into trouble, I would head back toward the group. Hopefully those at the front of the troop would be in a position to fend off whatever danger approached. I drew the pitted blade George had given me, and which up until now had remained strapped across my back. After sharing the briefest of embraces with Roz, I prepared to set off. Just then a figure pushed toward the front of the group, and placed a hand on my forearm. It was the girl with the shaven head and facial piercings.
“I’ve had enough crap from these creepy-assed flashbulb dicks,” she said. “If somebody is willing to give me another of those bottles, I’ll gladly play shotgun for you. I’m happy to go extinguish some of these giant firefly-fuckers!”
I was speechless. At this time I’d never heard such aggression in the voice of a young woman; or, indeed, from any woman – and, even having experienced a war zone, rarely such venom from the hardest of men.
She sounded ready to commit murder.
Still, and although I doubted she stood more than five-two, the look on her face alone was enough to send shivers through me. I gladly accepted the offer of assistance. I kissed Roz one last time, reiterating my love for her. Roz made
a final plea, urging me not to separate from the group…she knew my mind was already made up.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Shandra,” she replied, at the same time commandeering a second bottle from a pale-looking woman behind us. Shandra inspected the bottles in her hands, admiring them as if she carried a set of pistols.
“You sure this shit’ll do the biz?”
I gave a solitary nod of affirmation. Then, using my shoulder I tried to pry open one of the double-doors. It barely moved.
“I got this, lad,” said Joseph, stepping forward and heaving his shoulder against the stone slab.
Even with such a formidable frame as Joseph possessed, it took him a good minute to force a gap wide enough to accommodate easy access.
“Good job,” I said, acknowledging his efforts.
Joseph wiped a hand over his sweaty brow and wearily stepped aside. “Good luck, and stay safe.”
Shandra and I echoed those hopes for good fortune, and then we slunk from the corridor. Despite the girl’s mask of bravado, I suspected ours was an anxiety shared.
We passed the doors only to be greeted by a most daunting sight. The room opened before us into a cavernous cathedral. Some areas were heavily lit by black candles, other spaces remaining in absolute darkness. It was larger even than the rocky cellar below, in which so many had been imprisoned. The air was overpoweringly fetid, with a smell resembling aged death. We stood in a wide central aisle, and to either side of us was an ocean of pews, perhaps forty deep. Some way in the distance beyond these seats, there was a daunting stone altar. It was a room of seemingly mountainous architecture. Everywhere we looked, moldering stonework climbed upwards, rising perhaps two-hundred meters or more, and then curving in a continued climb to form the edifice’s domed ceiling. The roof appeared in a state of atrophy, its center sloping into thickly mildewed arches. These stone arms were in turn supported by behemoth-like cylindrical columns. Riddled with crumbling decay and each as thick as an ancient oak, they remained compelling even in such a state of blight. Cavernous walls were lined by moldering tapestries, depicting vulgar carvings showing legions of demonically grotesque gargoyles carrying out brutal obscenities against constrained men, women, and even children. There were representations of things the like of which I had never seen, and neither would I ever wish to meet – creatures beyond nightmare imaginings, carrying out acts of vicious sodomy, cruelty and cannibalism. A little in the distance, and off to the left, a wide archway opened onto a smaller chapel. Here the pews ran laterally to those in the main hall. It makes no sense. An arena of this size could not possibly sit within the confines of this building. And yet it does.