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The way was narrower here, forcing the team
to proceed single-file. In some places, the walls were plaster, crumbling to
expose the bare wire mesh. In other places, there was relatively modern-looking
cinderblock. The team’s progress was further impeded by heaps of moldering
furniture: chairs, headboards, tables, a writing desk, a piano bench, stacks of
rotting timber. Occasionally there would be a window, bricked up from the other
side. After they had gone about fifteen feet, they found a gaping hole in the
floor, almost the entire width of the hallway.
JD shined his flashlight down into it. They
couldn’t see anything. He reached into one of the pockets of his duster and
produced a flare.
“They teach you that in the marines?”
Murphy asked.
“Nope. Boy Scouts, Mister Murphy.” The
Colonel pulled the tab. “Be prepared.” He dropped the flare into the hole where
it tumbled end over end, down to a bare dirt floor. “Whaddaya reckon, forty
feet?” He shook his head. “Deep enough to kill ya, at any rate. Everybody,
watch your step.”
He led the way around the pit, pressing
himself against the wall, gingerly testing the floorboards with his boots for
loose areas.
After that, they could make out the end of
the hallway, and a door.
The Colonel opened it cautiously. His
flashlight revealed a corridor even narrower than the one they were in. It
turned sharply to the right.
The others followed him in.
“Everybody still with me?” he called over
his shoulder. “Murphy-Kate-Doc-Cecil?”
There was a chorus of affirmations.
“Just checkin’. Tighter’n a bull’s ass in
fly season in here. Can’t turn around to look for ya. Everybody stay right
behind me.”
The flashlights revealed wooden walls here.
There were also--
“Colonel, we’ve got doors,” Murphy said.
“Well, shit.”
“After you, sir.”
“Cecil?”
“Looks clear.”
“All right, then.” The Colonel opened the
first door. It led to another corridor full of doors. “Well, shit again.” He
shut it.
“Colonel, if I may...?” Murphy pulled a
plastic doorstop from one of his jacket pockets.
“You carry doorstops?” Kate asked,
incredulous.
“Standard SWAT issue,” he dropped it onto
the floor and kicked it firmly under the door.
“I mean...really?”
“Really.” He jiggled the door handle to
demonstrate. It wouldn’t budge. “Simple physics. Nobody’s coming through that door. Not easily, anyway.” She
looked impressed and he gave her a wry grin. “Don’t applaud, just throw money.”
They continued on.
Kate wrinkled up her nose. “Anybody else
smell that? Smells like—”
“Burnt hair,” Cecil finished.
“And burning flesh,” Doug added. “You
realize what that means.”
“Eretics,” JD said. “Looks like we’re in
the right place.”
“What is wrong with our lifestyle, that the
smell of roasted undead means we’re
in the right place and-- oh look. Blood,” Murphy pointed his flashlight
at the floor.
There wasn’t a lot. But enough.
Murphy knelt down and touched a droplet.
“Still sticky.” He shined his flashlight along the floor. There were more
splashes further ahead-- larger splashes.
No one said anything as they crept along.
They tried two more doors. One led to a room barely bigger than a closet,
stacked with wooden crates. The second led to yet another hallway. Murphy
secured it with a doorstop.
At last, their flashlights landed on an old
black telephone mounted on the wall. The whole section of wall surrounding it
was awash in blood. Beneath it, more blood stained the floor.
“Movement,” Cecil said. He raised his gun,
but couldn’t fire because everyone else was in front of him. Kate followed
where his gun was pointed, swinging her flashlight from the phone to the end of
the corridor.
The Colonel threw his hand up to shield his
eyes. “Get that damn thing out of my face—”
As he spoke, the phone rang abruptly,
piercingly. Kate shrieked, leaping back against the wall.
“Movement!” Cecil shouted.
“I can’t see shit!”
“There it goes—”
“Colonel,
down!” Murphy raised his shotgun.
The Colonel dropped to the floor and Murphy
fired, but the creature at the end of the hallway was too quick. The shot tore
a section of the wall where it disappeared around the corner.
“Fuck,” Murphy pumped the action. “I guess
now we know what happened to Rios.”
“Could he still be alive?” Kate asked.
Murphy looked again at the blood stains.
“Maybe.”
“They dragged him off!” she cried, pointing
to the trail of blood leading down the hall.
“And we’re goin’ after him, Katie. Just
hold your horses,” the Colonel picked himself up off the floor, blinking away
the rest of the after-glare as best he could. “Nice shootin’, Murphy.”
“Thank you. We’re going after him?”
“We’re sure as shit not leavin’ him behind.
Not when he could still be alive.”
Murphy hesitated. “Okay.”
They followed the blood trail. It went
around the corner-- the same direction in which the eretic had gone.
More hallway. More doors. More blood.
“It’s on the ceiling,” Kate marveled.
“Major arterial damage,” Murphy said.
The trail led into a doorway on the left.
The door had been torn off.
“Cecil, any movement?” the Colonel asked.
“Neg—” Cecil began. “Wait. Yes...very
slight. And some heat.”
Kate looked hopefully from Cecil to the
Colonel.
“Murphy,” JD said simply. Murphy nodded.
The two of them went into the room and checked it.
Fernando Rios was lying on the floor on the
right wall. He was on his right side, his back to the wall. His eyes were open.
“Socorro,”
he whispered.
About the Authors
Coyote
Kishpaugh has been writing prose and poetry most of his life, and alternately
entertains and terrifies his children by telling them stories late at
night. Currently, he is pursuing his
degree in psychology at Rockhurst University.
He lives in Kansas City, KS.
A lifetime resident
of Kansas City, MO, Lauren Scharhag is a multi-genre author and poet. In
addition to The Order of the Four Sons
series, her works include Under Julia,
The Ice Dragon, The Winter Prince and West
Side Girl & Other Poems. Her work has appeared most recently in A World of Terror anthology, The SNReview, The Rockhurst Review, Infectus,
and Glass: A Journal of Poetry. She
is the recipient of the Gerard Manley Hopkins Award for poetry and a fellowship
from Rockhurst University for fiction. Currently, she is working on Books V-VI
of The Order of the Four Sons as well
as a new horror trilogy.
Author Links
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