ten
Down the stairs Kim went. Counting each step she judged that they likely went down both stories the group had explored and then further if the subtle scent of vegetation which permeated root cellars emitting from the walls was any indication. Thoughts of descending to the Underworld starting to play in her head, Kim finally reached the bottom.
Over, or under, the scent of vegetation and good earth a smell like feces and rotting meat carried to her nose. She gagged and pressed a hand over her nose and mouth.
“Gah, is that rotten eggs?” she intoned. Instinct had her sticking out her tongue in response only to gag some more.
“Don’t!” Ben reached for her but it was too late. She was already off the stairs and moving through the room. Only to come rushing back to meet Ben where he’d reached the center of the space.
“Corpse! Corpse corpse corpse!” Her eyes were wide and her mouth moved fast. “I’ve never seen a corpse before. I mean on tv but…”
She pointed into the shadows across the room. Her breath was rushing in and out of her open mouth, faster and faster. “That’s a corpse. It’s a person who used to be alive and now…” Ben grabbed her arm as she started to sway, oxygen deprived from hyperventilation.
By then Dan, Gwen, and Prairie had also gained the rough basement that appeared to have been tunneled out of the earth and never finished. The ceiling was low enough that Dan had to stoop slightly and the floor was uneven beneath their feet. At irregular intervals bare light bulbs hung from cords in the ceiling. When the Magickers hit the space the lights dimmed, flickered, causing irregular shadows that made an already eery scene gothic. The filament in one bulb popped, robbing the space it lit of light.
As soon as Gwen’s feet touched the irregular floor foreign feelings rushed into her. It was as if the very walls of the place were sodden with emotion. Earth, hungry earth that absorbed water and nutrients here had fed on pain. It radiated from the floors and the walls and the low ceiling. One moment Gwen was standing and the next her knees collapsed as the cacophany overwhelmed her senses and she lost her grip on what was real.
As she sloped into unconsciousness Dan moved with speed that belied his size and caught her before she could hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud. His gaze searched out Ben. “Get her out of here!”
Ben hurried to comply, scooping Gwen up in a fireman’s hold and heading for the stairs. Kim bracketed his side. She’d stopped her “corpse” litany but if she stayed down there another minute there was no guarantee the dam she’d slammed down on her response would hold.
That left Dan and Prairie to explore the area. Dan drew out a handkerchief and tied it around the bottom of his face as an impromptu mask which did very little to strain out the scent of decomposition. He’d smelled it before. In his line of work he didn’t always get to be the hero swooping in on time. His nightmares were fueled with the times he’d failed. But, nightmares could not adequately preserve the sheer stink of a decomposing body. Like rotting meat and shit and hot garbage. Even that couldn’t really do the stink justice, but it came close.
Prairie squared her shoulders but didn’t do anything to mask her face. Made Dan wonder if it was something in her training as a nurse that gave her that level of remove or if the colors or layers or whatever she had described as making up Spiritis might have an olfactory component to it. Dan couldn’t imagine it. He didn’t want to. But, his respect for the little mite rose a measure as she cordoned the area with grim intent.
Low cabinets were set against the walls. On top of the cabinets, neatly arrayed in a display that would do a optime nurse proud, were a collection of medical instruments. Hemostats, needle holders, tweezers, and scalpels. A quick survey within the cabinets found sets of bones, stored in plastic bags within. They appeared to be from various species of animals. Dan, as a hunter, was familiar with a variety of skeletons but these seemed smaller than anything he’d hunted except maybe rabbits and they did not have the right shape to be rabbits. Maybe raccoons, although even that didn’t seem quite right, though closer.
Dan made a questioning sound, gesturing at the bones, and Prairie shrugged. “It could be nothing. Ethically sourced. I like to collect bones myself.”
She lifted the necklace of bones she wore in emphasis. Dan decided not to point out the array of medical devices or the jars of questionable things in questionable fluids that were definitely questionably sourced.
It didn’t take more than a minute to find the corpse. It took a bit longer to process the condition of it. Gorge rising, Dan turned away, his fist pressed to his mouth. Prairie stepped up, delicately cataloging the details with clinical detachment.
“It appears to be a woman. Pinned down with what look like railroad spikes, maybe pitons, through her wrists and ankles. Her breasts have been cut off, I think… yep,” she shifted her gaze to the side, “they are over there in that jar. Her eyes have been removed. Fairly neat enucleation. It isn’t that easy to remove an eyeball this cleanly. That’s definitely them over there in that jar.”
Bile battled up Dan’s throat, battering at his back teeth. He swallowed. Then swallowed again.
“You’ve seen worse,” he started to council himself, only to stop because, really, he hadn’t. His blasé assumption he’d seen corpses before so he could handle this went out the window as Prairie continued to catalog. It was when she hit, “appears to have had the skin of the hands and wrists peeled off. I’m not seeing those here but… no, never mind. These aren’t gloves,” that he turned and stared at the wall with tears pricking his eyes.
“Shit, boss,” her voice came from right next to him, causing him to jump. “I’m being insensitive. Let’s just go with someone did some really jacked up shit to this woman.”
“Is her,” he stopped, swallowed bile, “is her Spirit part of the Spiritis here?”
There was a moment’s silence then she said, “I can’t tell. There’s so many layers here. So many layers. A lot of things have died here. I,” she stopped, considered, then said, “I’m going to have to step into the Spiritis, I think, in order to separate all the noise. Doesn’t help I still have a lot of static in here.”
Dan looked down to see her tapping her temple. “What does that involve?”
“I think I’m going to have to go into a light trance. It lets me be here but not here, if that makes sense?”
“As much as any Magick does. Does it have to be down here because, going to be honest with you, I’m not really good with this place.”
“I hope no one would be.” Prairie’s smile absolved him of any guilt over his response. “Appreciate that I am keeping calm but I assure you this stuff is night terror inducing. Whoever did this is some, ahem, fucked up kind of psycho.” Dan goggled at the salty language coming from the gentle girl. Hidden depths. “I’d use ‘human’ but there’s nothing human about this.”
Tears glazed her eyes even as she firmed her chin, radiating conviction. “I think if we go outside and I’m real close to the foundation it might be enough. I can see the Spiritis bleeding into the walls, kind of embedded in the earth. I think it will bleed out around the outside.” She frowned. “A little at least. Hopefully enough for me to work with and not so much it fucks up Gwen more than it did already.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to be here either. Like at all. Want to go?”
Dan followed her up the stairs. As they reached the top Ivan and Siobhan parted.
“Bears are staying in the corner.” Ivan reported as he stepped free of the closet and closed the door behind him, running an assessing gaze over Prairie then covering it by doing the same to Dan, “Gwen, Kim, and Ben went outside. Gwen couldn’t breathe.”
“We should go outside too.” At Dan’s suggestion they all cleared the room, careful to give the bears wide berth. Prairie stopped in the doorway and turned back to the bears.
“Thank you.” She mouthed.
The bigger of the two bears uncurled, raised its head, and gave a very clear nod. Eventually she would come back. Maybe with Dan, maybe not. She’d do what she needed to do to give the woman downstairs her rest and she’d add another finger bone for her necklace. Until then the bears would keep the area safe.
Fingering the bones dotting her necklace she repeated the litany of the names of each victim who she had been unable to avenge.
Someday, she promised herself, lowering the bones back to her chest and closing pulling the bedroom door partially closed behind her.
Someday, she promised the Spirits that clustered close to her. You will be avenged.
Enter The Woods 