"Oh really? Because I don’t really see that anyone is handing out other options, you know? Now answer my first question. What were we going to ruin?"
Austin shook his head from side to side violently, his mouth clamped comically so that his lips were hidden. I tried a different tack.
"What’s in the other house?"
He paled. This was a tender wound, still open and fresh. "How do you know about the other house?"
"It’s not hard. All we’ve had to do is watch you. You’re not exactly subtle. You were in there for hours, you and Gordon. Giving you a good seeing to is he? That why he wants to keep you safe and close? Show him a good time, do you?"
I could see from his creased forehead and angry eyes that he was about to vehemently deny this suggestion. Then the proverbial light bulb switched on and he started to agree with me.
"Yes. That’s what we do. He likes it in there. It’s… rustic. He likes that."
"Bullshit. You like that, then why did you take my sister?"
He shrugged. "Can’t help it if I like both."
This time I did wind one back and hit him, square in his misogynistic homophobic jaw. "Don’t fuck around with me. I know how you leered at Carla, and I remember how you treated Lana. You’re about as gay as... I don’t fucking know what. But you’re not. Stop lying. What are you hiding?"
He clammed up again. Rich pulled me back.
"Going about this the wrong way, don’t you think? The easiest way to find out what is behind door number two, is to go and look behind door number two."
Austin’s eyes bulged. "Don’t. Don’t go and look in there. You won’t like what you see. I mean, it’s not… you can’t… just don’t okay. Please. Don’t."
His flippant defiance now sounded like outright panic. This change of personality seemed like the last straw for Rich. He hauled Austin out of the chair and began marching him up stairs. He threw Austin in the bathroom and stood in the doorway, effectively blocking his escape route. I hung around on the landing, not sure what I was meant to be doing until Rich told me to start looking for something to secure Austin with. I headed into the bedroom and rifled in drawers until I came up with five leather belts. I handed them over and Rich grinned.
"Bloody well perfect. You’ll make a great sidekick."
"Do one, you’re the sidekick."
"Which one has more muscles: Batman or Robin?"
I didn’t keep up the banter. It didn’t have the same tension-easing playfulness with Austin listening in. He tried to push against Rich in one last ditch attempt to get past, but he was pushed back down and tipped into the lurid green-panelled bath. A shower curtain came with him, which made it all the harder for him to try to orchestrate an escape plan. With a few grunts and slaps of hands against flesh, Rich tied two of the belts around Austin’s legs, one lower and one upper, and secured his lower and upper arms with the other two. The fifth, he wrapped around the man’s head, securing his mouth shut. He seemed to think better of it and Austin sagged with relief as the belt was slackened off, but Rich just grabbed a flannel that was sitting on the side of the bath, shoved this in Austin’s slack mouth and re-sealed the belt. I grimaced. Flannels were usually grimy, mouldy, smelly little pieces of bathroom accoutrement and I wouldn’t trust one near any of my body parts, let alone cope with having one inserted in my mouth.
Not enough for Rich—he then pulled the door closed and trotted down the stairs. He came back up holding a dining chair, and jammed this under the door handle. He tried it a few times, and it was secure.
"Fat little shit isn’t getting anywhere."
"On to door number two?"
"Too right."
We bounced back down the stairs, but I pulled up. "It’s getting a bit dark. Let’s take some light in there."
Rich tried flicking the wall switch. If the electricity was still on in parts, it wasn’t being so generous in these isolated parts of the country. A quick assessment of the drawers, however, brought out two generously-sized torches with a bright shine which hopefully indicated extensive battery life. Sounds of squeaking from upstairs, the unmistakeable squeaking skin against enamel, suggested Austin was trying and failing to make his way out of the bath. With any luck he’d fall and crack his head against the sink, then we wouldn’t have to deal with him. We brandished our weapons and made our way outside in the deepening dark.
* * *
The door to house number two was ready for replacement. The paint was peeling, and what had once been a small glass window, perhaps frosted, perhaps pretty, had been shattered a long time ago. Rich tried the handle and the door swung open without protest. I started breathing through my nose as the smell of urine and faeces hit us full on. Rich called out, and he held his nose closed too; he sounded like he had a cold.
"Hello? Is anyone there?"
"Is that a good idea?" I hissed. "We don’t know what’s in here!"
Rich shrugged at me and waggled the torch and the gun, as if this alone were a clear and complete explanation of his confidence in our safety. It was unlikely that this place was full of gun-toting parasites waiting to pick us off, but I was becoming increasingly disillusioned with mankind as a whole, and having someone in wait to kill us would not have been surprising in the least.
Despite Rich’s apparent bravado, I followed him gingerly and prayed to whatever deity that might be paying attention to keep me safe from friendly fire and buckshot. There were no lights on and whilst the house had a standard layout, the darkness gave everything muted layers which made navigation both hair-raising and difficult. Rich moved steadily, trying not to bump into things, and kept up his shouts for attention. I figured that, if there had been any undead in here they would have already been upon us. Anyone with maligned intent would be sat in a room laughing silently at our slow progress. Transparently though, the house was dead and we were talking to ourselves. From the hallway we went into the kitchen. Meagre light shone through the uncovered window. In the mottled light, we saw a room of nothing. There were no dishes, no food out. There was no electrical hum so the appliances that were left plugged in were inactive. I didn’t dare look in the fridge or freezer as a result. The smell that had assaulted us as we walked through the front door was, if at all possible, worse in here. We listened in silence for a minute.
There was a slow drip-drip that sounded like it came from upstairs. I also heard a metallic dragging. It was a slow noise and sent a chill up my spine. It was brief; perhaps only a couple of seconds. I was about to whisper if Rich had heard anything when it sounded again. It was definitely something dragging on the floor of the ceiling above us. We faced each other, but could not see enough to read expressions. I could picture mine; a blend of transfixed horror with an overwhelming sense of dread. I bet Rich’s hands had closed around that gun just a little bit tighter.
"What do you think it is?" Rich asked.
I snorted. "The bastard lovechild of Pennywise and Pamela Vorhees? I don’t fucking know! I don’t really want to find out, either! But I bet you’re going to say something stupid, like we don’t have a choice."
"Well… we don’t, do we? I mean, we’re here to find out what’s in this house, and Austin’s hiding something. If it’s something Austin can keep in check then it’s not something that we should be scared of."
"But Austin always left before it got dark."
"Probably only because it’s creepy as hell in here. Would you want to hang around a place like this after dark?"
"Only if I wanted to be a dead extra in a horror film."
"Exactly… wait, what? Ain’t no one dying. At least not from us two."
"Can’t guarantee that. But we do have to go see what’s upstairs. Look at it this way—if it was something or someone that had the capability to do us harm, they would have done it by now."
I snorted again. His logic was flawed, but in a vague sense, he was right. There wasn’t a lot happening up there, and I didn’t think we would be troubled if we tackled it as a pair
. The only thing I was becoming concerned about was the god-awful smell. We hadn’t found where it was coming from, and I was reminded of the hanging couple at the bottom of the hill. The stench made me think of their house; it smelled like decay.
"Okay, let’s do this in a basic way. No need to be all SWAT team about things. Together, room by room. You keep my back. I don’t think anyone’s going to be sneaking up on us though. I’ll declare a room clear or ask you for help. Shouldn’t take us long to see what’s going on up there, don’t you think?" Rich asked.
"Are we saving that room until last?" I pointed up at the ceiling, clearly indicating the room with the creepy noises.
"We should do that one first. It might be the only one that gives us trouble."
Rich turned and left. I followed, muttering under my breath that I really didn’t want any trouble. He was halfway up the stairs before I made it back to him. "Hey, you leaping ahead doesn’t constitute teamwork in my book. Slow down."
"Sorry. Just want to get this over and done with."
"Well let’s get it over and done with and still be alive at the end of it, okay?"
"Sorry. Come on, catch up."
He started moving again when I caught up to him on the stairs. It was darker up here, with no windows on the landing to let in light from outside. My fears were being realised, too. The odour was getting worse. The reek was getting up my nose and making it feel itchy. I wiped the back of my hand across my face a few times and sniffed. Rich walked steadily but I heard a few tell-tale sounds of disgust as we moved deeper into the house.
All of the doors on the landing were closed. This was good, in a way; we were being guarded from the worst of the smell. But like before, as soon as we opened the offending guardian of the eternal stench, we would be greeted by enough rot to make us dry heave for a week. At the end of the landing, the first closed door waited silently for us to arrive. In the dark all we could see was a closed portal, and the worlds it would take us to were undefined and intimidating. I could still hear an occasional dripping, but there were no other noises indicative of life up here. I heard Rich inhale, possibly preparing for what foul rankness lay beyond, then he pushed the door open.
The smell didn’t so much impact us as ooze out and rot the newer, less stale air. I held my breath too, and still felt a change in the air. Something hotter, something staler, something inherently loaded with squalor washed over us. There was a window in the room, but a blanket had been thrown up over it to stop any light from coming in, or out, and there were no shapes moving in the darkness. Rich lifted his torch, not willing to use it before to bring unwanted attention to us. Now it was clear there was nothing threatening up here, we needed to throw some light on our subject matter.
"Oh Jesus."
He dropped the torch and it spun in a circle, coming to rest with the light still shining into the room. Rich had dropped quickly to his knees and was vomiting on the floor. I heard liquid matter splatter against the floor and felt bile rise in my throat. I followed the line of weak amber light and the emaciated figure I saw there had me turning away, hunkering on my haunches, and taking in deep breaths to try and stop myself from following Richard’s lead.
I turned my head, taking in the scene from foot to head, literally. Feet that were blackened with dirt and old blood were weighed down by heavy manacles. The bare legs were covered with cuts and bruises, and the top of one thigh looked like it had been heavily burned. The body had been given shorts, but these looked dirty and clung desperately to the man’s body. His chest, like his legs, were a contusion of burns, bruises, and cuts. His head hung down between his shoulders, and his arms were limp and by his side. His feet must have been moving around to cause the scraping noise that had caught our attention when we were downstairs. There was nothing else in the room. The floor was mottled with stains and the iron smell of human faeces was unbearably strong. Rich moved on his hands and knees to get to the window. He tore down the cloth covering and pulled himself up to push it open. As soon as he could, he hung his head outside, taking in great gulps of fresh air.
The skeletal man, kept here against his will and beaten, and who knew what else, looked up at me. He squinted into the light and started to cough. The coughing turned into a laugh, which rose to a maniacal cackle. He recognised me. And I recognised him.
It was Tom. He hadn’t died in the explosion, though looking at him, I bet my own life he wished he had.
CHAPTER FORTEEN
"Help me get him free, Rich."
I crawled over to Tom and started picking at the manacles. They looked pretty firm. There had to be keys somewhere in here to get him loose, although the amount of human waste lying around negated that potential fact. Tom’s cackling subsided long enough for him to start whispering to us. His voice was hoarse. His skin was dry and he looked parched. Were they even feeding him? Or were they just leaving him to die?
"Bathroom. Keys. Bathroom."
I nodded my understanding. Leaving Rich’s torch where it was, I scuttled across the hall to the matching door which, in the other house, had been the bathroom. I shone my light around. The small room looked like a set from a horror movie. This house wasn’t far removed from that basic premise. The bathroom suite had been white, once upon a time. It had been in hygienic decline before the outbreak started, I was certain of that. Whatever Gordon and Austin had been doing in here, it had got exponentially worse. Shit was smeared up one wall in a line, as if someone had been scraped up and down. The water in the toilet bowl was rank and yellow, and the bowl itself… it looked like someone needed to set fire to it. This place wasn’t used to cleanse. The bath was caked with dirt and old reddened and brown watermark stains showed a tub that had once been full of stagnant water, perhaps something worse. There was no shower curtain and the mirror was gummed with filth; I couldn’t see a reflection. Perhaps that was for the best. The sides were lined with old cleaning products, and amongst the anonymous bottles of cheap shampoo and shower gel I also saw bleach and marigold gloves. I flashed the torch back and forth. There wasn’t a cupboard for the keys to be hidden in, so if they were in here like Tom had said, they’d be in an obvious spot. I sifted over the detritus until I saw a dull bunch of copper sitting underneath one end of a blackened sponge. I pushed the sponge out of the way with an extended finger, which I immediately wiped on my trousers. I clutched at the batch of keys and hustled back to the room.
I tried four in the lock until I could turn and remove the chains from poor Tom’s devilled feet. He wrapped his hands around his ankles and rubbed around the skin there. The chains hadn’t been tight. I didn’t know though what it would feel like to have that weight around you all the time. All I could think about was what an itch would have felt like. That would have been the least of the poor guy’s worries.
"Water? Got any?" Tom asked.
Shit. I was terrible at this heroic rescuer malarkey. Rich waved me down though and ran off himself to find hydration for Tom. I hung awkwardly in the doorway looking down at the man I thought had died back at the explosion. He looked up at me, and the sadness I saw in his eyes told me that death would have been a preferable option.
"Check the other rooms." Tom croaked.
I snapped out of my malaise. "What?"
"The other rooms. I’m not the only one."
We hadn’t heard any movement, so it hadn’t occurred to us to check any other rooms after finding Tom.
* * *
I backed away and took the short steps to the next room. It was a box room and full of junk teetering on the top of a single bed frame, but there was no one in here. The last door would be another double bedroom and given the state of the rest of the place, I braced myself for something rank. I twisted at the doorknob but the door didn’t open. I looked down and saw that there was a keyhole. I knew that older houses had lockable rooms, but never expected to come across any. Tom’s hadn’t been locked, so why was this one? I tensed. I had been ready to shoulder the door open to free whoev
er was behind there, but now I thought about it, the lack of noise could be indicative of a slow undead or something equally sinister.
I pressed my body against the door, turning my head to one side and pushing my ear up against the wood. I listened hard, but all I could hear was the staccato rhythm of my own heart hammering up into my head. If there was anything behind the door, it wasn’t giving away any signs. I wrapped my hand stiffly around the torch. Slow undead could be easily killed by bludgeoning; I didn’t need anything more offensive here. That was the solid theory at any rate. I pressed open the door and pushed it slowly. It glided silently on its hinge revealing a dark, quiet and seemingly well-kept room. I lifted the torch and flashed on the light to expose a neat little room with a double bed which seemed to be in normal order. The floor wasn’t exactly clean, but it was nothing like the squalor Tom had been suffering in. There was a nightstand with a dead lamp and a blank alarm clock. There was a small teddy sat next to all of this and I saw then that the bed had a lump in it. The lump moved. I jumped back a little, shocked, and worried. The moving increased to squirming until a little figure sat upright, rubbing at her eyes. I dropped the torchlight. It was clear the brightness of the beam was hurting her little eyes.
"Isabelle? Are you okay?"
She looked confused, and then grinned, genuinely pleased to see me. That was a lovely rare thing in and of itself. She held out her arms and I scooted quickly to be by her side. I dropped myself onto the edge of the bed, cheap springs putting up no resistance, but making a fair bit of protest noise.
"I’m okay, Warren. The man said that you were dead?"
I frowned. "Which man?"
"Uncle Gordon. He brought me here. He said that you were hurt and then you were dead and I had to come here to be safe. I don’t like it here. It smells and the food is bad." She thought about this for a short while. "And I miss Carla."
I felt a pull at the back of my throat which was rapidly replaced with anger. It was obvious why Tom was here. What did they want with Isabelle?
Great Bitten (Book 2): Survival Page 24