Descent: Part Eight

Blackish-green fluid that matched most of the blobs on Mary, was spattered in broad arcs out from the broken bodies of monsters. Like the pillar in the main entrance to the whole temple, they seemed to avoid being looked at. The scales that covered their whole bodies formed in looping, undulating patterns that almost hurt to follow.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from them, even as Mary’s breathing slowly steadied against me. Her head was still buried in my neck, and she muttered incoherently as her vice-like arms clutched me against her. But I could not feel her warmth.

The cold light of my flashlight, harsh and white and still nearly blinding, stole my attention from the girl in my arms. Leaving me only able to see the bodies. Twisted, scale-covered limbs stuck out at odd angles as the fluid, I think it could only be blood, slowly pooled around their twitching forms.

Flashing the light around, I could make out grotesque faces with too many teeth and the still writhing, nearly transparent masses of tentacles. Not to mention the thing they were attached to.

Writhing like the pillars, like the lines on the back of Sasha’s hand, those shadowy lumps refused to show themselves in the light. The tentacles trailed back to them, still twitching the way I had heard some people eat octopus in Asia. Fresh chopped and still wriggling down their throats.

Pain lanced through my stomach as the concept of people eating those things crossed my mind. My stomach was so empty, the muscles seized and aching that there was no way I could ever retch at the thought. Against me, Mary’s sobs began to taper off, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the carnage around us.

Not even trying to count the bodies, trying desperately not to see the twisted almost human faces or their huge, staring, glassy eyes as I failed to turn away, I tried to process what was happening. We were safe, for the moment at least, and I had Mary again – my heart started to slowdown, my breathing calming in time with Mary’s until I closed my eyes.

My sigh trembled on its way out, tears pricking my eyelids as I tried to control myself. It would be my turn to lose my head later; right now, Mary needed someone solid to hold on to. The cane clattered against the sticky stones, Mary’s other arm closing tightly around me. We were safe. That was all that mattered.

“Goodness,” Mr. Sage’s voice echoed around the giant, almost silent room. It bounced back at us from every angle, I couldn’t even begin to guess where he was. “You caused quite the mess there, my dears. Shame. Those specimens had their uses, but more can always be found. Or raised, as the case may be.”

His voice shattered the otherworldly sense of calm that had just started to descend. Still like wet gravel, grinding against my ears. Pain spiked through my head as he laughed; it was a deep, throaty sound. The kind of laugh that a mature adult gives to a child surprised that jumping in the puddle made them wet. It was exactly the kind of laugh that I remembered from his more lucid days in class, when he would laugh or sarcastically joke with us. The days that made his horrible history classes worth while, or at least broke the monotony of his elderly droning about some war or other.

Except the laugh did not belong to Mr. Sage. It wasn’t the contented chortle of an old man amused at the children around him. It was young, friendly, and cold. Hearing him speak leached some of Mary’s warmth from my perception. It pounded into my head and coiled around my brain, tiny spikes jabbing, making the pain worse as the words kept coming.

“So sorry I can’t stay and watch what happens next,” the voice changed, growing almost regretful even as Mr. Sage’s enthusiasm shone through. He was excited about what came next. His next inhale sent a fresh shiver down my spine as Mary pulled her face out of my neck and dragged in a shaky breath. There was something… wrong with that inhale, something that made my skin crawl all over again. “But there are things I have to attend to at the altar, I’m afraid. I trust you won’t cause too much damage, disappointing as your performance has been so far, I have faith that you’ll fulfil this task. You were always best suited to the simple ones.”

Mary pulled away from me and stood on shaking legs. On her way up, she grabbed the silver-headed cane set her feet.

“Bring it, you freaky creep!”

“Cute,” Mr. Sage’s voice was further away now, echoing around the vast, empty chamber. “Never let it be said I didn’t notice your Moxy, little girl.” A creaking like hinges sounded, and a hollow, reverberating boom as some door I couldn’t see slammed shut.

Then the shuffling started. Then I really looked at Mary for the first time and saw the splashes of red staining her white Saint Martha’s shirt next to the blackish-green from the corpses at our feet. She swayed a little bit as she stood, cane in hand and back to me, snarling at the darkness before us. Remembering how I had been grabbed before, I spun and put my back to hers. The blood wasn’t important, she was standing, breathing, and I wasn’t alone.

More time, that’s what I needed. My parents were avid campers, portaging all through the National Parks on their holidays, and had had me in Scouts for years, so I knew a thing or two about first aid. She wasn’t going to die, not any time soon, and I didn’t see any open wounds. There was just the blood. But not enough to be worried about. I don’t think.

Panic tried to tear its way out of my chest. Razor-sharp claws rending at my heart as I imagined the sound of Mary sighing before the cane slipped out of her fingers and her body slumped to the ground. Leaving me alone in the dark just as it started to whisper.

Grinding voices rose beyond the beam of my flashlight, muttering together. I could feel their excitement breaking against me in waves, their voices growing together – whipping themselves into a frenzy. Behind me, Mary shuffled, muttering something angry I couldn’t hear. The muttering was constant, continuous, matching the intensity of the horrible, echoing voices surrounding us.

They were on all sides, closing in step by wet, slapping step. Claws scraped against the cold stone floor, gurgling sounds that reminded me of laughter rang out, echoing back again and again, pounding against my ears. There was nothing we could do against them, there were so many and – I shuddered at the memory of how strong the scaly monster’s hands had been. Despite all the ones that Mary had taken down, there were still so many of them. Nothing we could do…

“What’s the battery percentage on the phone,” Mary asked.

“Huh?”

“The battery, Amy! How much charge do we have?”

“Thirty-six.”

“What about yours?”

“Huh?”

“Your phone, how much charge?”

“It was in my blazer, do you still have it?”

“Yeah hang on,” I could hear her shuffling around in fabric from behind me, but didn’t dare take my eyes off the darkness that lurked beyond the pitiful light from Mary’s phone. “Shit,” she said, “that’s actually brilliant.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Look, quick, switch mine to airplane mode same as yours was. It’ll help save the charge.”

I did what she said, glad someone was thinking clearly enough to consider these things. My mind was still full of the blood I had seen on her uniform, trying to understand where it had come from. There were a lot of options, it was bright red not dark, which I think meant it hadn’t come from a major artery; and there wasn’t a huge amount of it. At least, I didn’t think there was? I would need to have a closer look, make sure she wasn’t badly hurt.

Wait, my mind went suddenly blank. If there was an open wound of some kind, then I needed to clean it and bind it as soon as possible. God only knows what kind of filth is inside the scaled monsters around us, and if it gets into her bloodstream? If just touching something they weren’t supposed to could do something big to Ester and Sasha, what the fuck could monster blood do?

Mary was quiet for a long moment, and in those few short seconds my thoughts ran a mile before falling flat on their nose. She was hurt, didn’t seem injured because my brother had explained the difference between those words – injured was another way of saying ‘coach I can’t play anymore today.’ She was an athlete too so she would know the difference just as well as I do. Meaning that I would at least have to help with the cuts and bruises, what would I need for that? Bandages if I can get them, take off the filthy clothes and clean out the wound before… take off…

“Ok,” she groaned and I jolted out of curious fantasy back to the less explicit present. Tearing my eyes away from the darkness just at the edge of the flashlight beam where I could have sworn I’d seen something nearly transparent undulate to look back at her. She was leaning on the cane now, beagle’s head locked in a bloodless grip, my phone held loosely in one hand. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You stay close, and we’re going to try and find one of those giant torches. I’ve got a book of matches from the hotel in the breast pocket, maybe if we get the fire-”

“Mary watch out!”

A violent crack! Rang out, and a wet slap followed on its heels as one of the scaly monsters hit the stones hard. Mary brought the silver dog down again, screaming with rage, with enough force to actually imbed the beagle’s snout in the creature’s squishy-seeming head. Pulling it out, she roared defiance at the darkness, now filled with shuffling that sounded uncertain to my ears.

The darkness was moving, writhing, heaving. There were more monsters out there, I could all but feel them. Watching us. Glancing down at the monster that Mary now stood over, howling into the darkness like some kind of Amazon warrior out of legend. What I saw barely registered, noted by a mind overwhelmed with sensory information as interesting rather than horrible.

For the first time, I saw a beast that wasn’t naked. For the first time, their lack of coverings caught my attention. For the first time, details of their faces jumped out at me. The dead monster at Mary’s feet was wearing the shredded remnants of a black jacket, not part of a Saint Martha’s uniform. Over the left breast pocket of its – is tunic the right word? It looked almost military-style, but still like it was made for someone our age? – over that pocket a cherry blossom was embroidered. Not a symbol I put any connection to.

“Follow me,” Mary brought my attention slamming back to her as she took her first step towards the darkness ahead of her. “Mr. Sage went this way.” I wanted to protest, to suggest that we needed to try and find a way out instead; but, she looked straight into my eyes and said it again, the most powerful command I think exists in any human language. “Follow me,” and I did.

-0-

"A Community Story [Challenge]" By: Donna Fox (The whole inspiration for this entire series)

"Descent: A Community Story Challenge" by: Yours Truly

"Descent (Part Two)" by: Mackenzie Davis (who is amazing, and everyone should read)

"Descent (Part Three)" by: *politely raises hand* me

"Descent (Part Four)" by: this guy right here.

"Descent (Part Five)" by: some guy named Alex, seems cool.

"Descent (Part Six)" by - drumroll please.... me!

"Descent (Part Seven)" by: is he still doing this? Yes! I am :)

"Descent (Part Nine)" retrieved from the jaws of the Archive itself by: the last shreds of my sanity XD