“Well, fuck that noise.”
Javier listened to his words echo. Wherever he was, it sounded like a wide-open space. Grinding his teeth, he slowly got to his feet, taking his time and trying to keep his balance. His legs felt a little wobbly and his head light, but he had neither the time nor the inclination to allow that. Javier had been in bad situations before—situations nobody knew about. Not even Heather. They’d happened when he was younger, before his family had moved to East Petersburg. Ancient history. He’d lived through them, and he intended to live through this one, as well. He forced himself to move forward, trailing his hand along the wall so that he had a frame of reference in the darkness. Javier told himself that he didn’t need the cell phone anyway. Using it to light his way at this juncture would have been foolish. The last thing he needed to do was advertise his position to the cannibalistic freaks.
He made a silent vow to buy Brett a new phone as soon as they got out of here, and then wondered if he’d ever see his friend again long enough to keep that promise.
Water dripped down on his head. Javier glanced upward and then felt foolish. He couldn’t see anything. He made his way through the subterranean chamber, determined to find the girls and Brett if he could, but to also find a way to escape. It had to be down here somewhere. Brett had overheard the killers say so. Javier stopped in his tracks, chilled by a sudden terrifying thought. What if Noigel and the guy wearing a woman’s skin had just been fucking with Brett? What if they’d known he was hiding in the kitchen and rather than killing him right then and there, they’d toyed with him instead, leading him to believe that the basement was the only way out of the house?
If so, there was nothing he could do about it now. Javier seriously doubted that he’d be able to find his way back to the basement stairs, even if he did find Heather and the others. He started walking again. His back felt tight and his neck was stiff with tension. He ignored the aches and pains, doing his best to listen for any possible sound, but other than the occasional drip of water, the area remained deathly still.
***
Paul woke up in transit and captive. He’d been trussed upside down on a long, metal pole. Steel, judging by its texture and weight. It would have probably fetched him a nice price at a scrap yard. Rough cords cut into his wrists and ankles, chafing his skin. He bobbed and swayed as his captors carried him along, trekking through some sort of underground tunnel. Paul was staring at the ground, so he raised his head a little and glanced at the walls. They seemed natural, rather than man-made. A cave, maybe? He’d never heard of caverns beneath Philadelphia, but the idea wasn’t so surprising. Pennsylvania was riddled with limestone caverns and shafts, as well as abandoned iron ore and coal mines.
As his full senses returned, he wondered how he was able to see if he was indeed in an underground cavern. Then he felt a slight breeze on the back of his neck. Despite his terror and confusion, the sudden gust of air momentarily soothed him. When Paul opened his eyes again, his wits had returned. For a second, he wished that they hadn’t, because with his wits came memories of what had transpired—his trip into the sewers, falling through the hole, landing in that foul pool of liquefied bodies and sewer water, and finally—the things that had been waiting for him there in the darkness. Paul raised his head and stared at his captors. His mouth went dry. He drew in breath to scream, but before he could, a particularly hard jostling knocked the air from his lungs again.
They were all around him. He counted at least eight—two on each end of the pole he was dangling from (he saw now that it was some sort of sewer pipe and iron rather than steel), their muscles bulging, grunting with effort as they carried him along. In addition to the pole bearers, there were several more beings scampering along ahead of them, as well as at the rear of the precession. He tried to figure out what they were. Humanoid, certainly, but Paul wasn’t positive that they were actually human. They varied in size and shape, and each was cursed with unique birth defects. Some of the mutations were almost mundane, while others were utterly horrifying. One of his captors was bare-chested and covered by a thick mat of curly black hair, out of which peeked four dime-sized nipples. Another seemed to have double the amount of joints in his legs, arms, and fingers. Paul stared at a misshapen lump of flesh jutting from the thing’s left shoulder, and then realized that the lump of flesh was staring back at him with one small, watery eyeball—a second head, a Siamese twin, not fully developed. What looked like a ragged pink scar was really a tiny mouth. A third creature, a female, appeared relatively normal, but she was obviously pregnant with either quintuplets or a giant lone fetus. Her distended belly stuck out before her, glistening, the bare flesh a sickly, swollen kaleidoscope of purple and black hues. Her massive breasts slapped her ribs as she walked. Clear fluid dripped from her mauled nipples. He wondered if she’d given birth before, and if so, whether it was her offspring that had chewed her nipples like that. Her wild thatch of pubic hair was filthy and matted. She gibbered as she loped along, a thin line of drool running from her mouth and dangling to a spot directly in the middle of her obscene cleavage. Her facial features were similar to that of someone with Down’s syndrome, but her expression was cruel and savage.
Despite the variations in height, weight, and physical characteristics, they all shared a few similar traits. Their skin pigmentation was a mix of gray and alabaster. They weren’t Caucasian or African-American or any other race he could think of. Nor did they appear to be of mixed racial heritage. These beings were something else, but he didn’t know what.
“H-hey,” he stuttered, working up enough saliva to speak. “W-what is this?”
An albino dwarf with pink, rheumy eyes and six fingers on each webbed hand darted forth and hissed at him. Its breath smelled worse than the sewer had. Its teeth were black and broken. Paul screamed, and the thing slapped him in the face. His jaw stung, and he bit the inside of his cheek. Paul’s fear gave way to sudden anger and humiliation.
“Hey, you little shit! What do you think you’re—”
Growling, it slapped him again. Then it grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked hard. Paul screeched as his hair came out by the roots. The dwarf scampered away, clutching its prize. The procession never slowed.
Paul began to sob. He was embarrassed by the reaction, but he couldn’t stop himself. Snot bubbled out of his nose and curdled on his lip.
“Let me go,” he pleaded, hoping they understood him. “Listen, I’ve got a wife and kids. Please let me go. Please? What is this? Tell me!”
“This is where we live,” the thing with two heads answered. Its voice was deep and somber.
For a moment, Paul was too stunned to reply. “W-what?”
“This is where we live. All of us.”
“I d-didn’t know. I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was trespassing. I thought the house was deserted, you know?”
Paul heard the plaintive, whiny tone in his voice, but he didn’t care. “I was lost. Just looking for directions. I didn’t know that . . . p-people lived here.”
They walked on in silence, not answering him; not even bothering to look at him. Paul heard distant howls from somewhere up ahead. They sounded inhuman.