Page 6 of Going to Hell
Hopeful that I’d found a lit haven, I fixed my gaze on the ground and slowly turned.
In my peripheral to the right, I saw a bed. A wooden post rose from the corner nearest me and met with a beam draped with heavy fabric. A golden cord tied the dark red material to the post, making it easy to glimpse the splash of white amidst the darker colors.
Someone lay on top of the mattress.
I turned for the door before I froze, torn. The monster out there or the monster in here?
Think, Ashlyn. What does your gut tell you?
Facing the bed, I lifted my gaze a fraction.
What I saw nearly stopped my heart.
The woman on the bed had been there a very long time. Dust coated her white gown. The delicate fabric swathed her skeleton, except for her head, toes, and hands. Wisps of red-gold hair, almost the same shade as mine, lay on the aged pillow beneath her skull. She looked peaceful, based on the way her hands rested on her chest.
No, she looked human.
I didn’t let that fool me, though. Many of the creatures could change their appearances. It was merely another way to lull their prey.
Pay no attention to me, sheep. I’m no wolf. Just one of your own kind.I silently snorted to myself at that sarcastic thought.
However, my situation was no laughing matter. Why was she here? Human or not, it looked like she’d died in that bed a long time ago. Where in the hell was I?
I openly studied the rest of the room. Other than the huge, four-poster bed to my right, a narrow table waited to the left and a chaise sat against the far wall. Dust coated each piece. Yet, torches burned brightly from their holders on the wall. Exactly how long could a torch burn?
My gaze lingered on the surprisingly grand items on the table. Golden necklaces set with big jewels and bangles decorated with ornate designs lay on the surface, along with a hairbrush and small vials. Based on the shape of the glass and the decorative etchings, they looked like fancy bottles for perfumes or scented oils. Whatever they once contained had long ago dried to yellowed chunks at the bottom.
Above the table, a flattened gold disc roughly the size of a dinner plate hung on the wall. My wavey reflection glinted back at me in the torchlight, and I realized the purpose of the disc. A mirror. This room wasn’t old. It was freakishly old. I didn’t even know when in our history we’d used polished metal as mirrors. My gaze shifted to the straw-stuffed stool in front of the table. The material clinging to it was in tatters, the stuffing long decayed to nothing but a few pieces here and there. The chaise along the back wall wasn’t in any better shape.
I glanced at the bed, amazed it was so well-preserved in comparison, and noticed my shoe prints in the dust on the floor. My gaze flicked between the tracks I’d left and the lit torches. No one had been in here except me in a long time.
Then how were the torches still—?
Something rattled.
In the mirror's reflection, I caught a movement on the opposite wall. The head of yet another skeleton had tipped forward. This one wasn’t comfortably lying down but reclined against the wall.
I turned to look at it.
Cloth pants covered the legs stretched out on the floor. While the man wore no shirt, not every torso bone was bare to my gaze. Bits of dried skin still clung to him, unlike the woman. Also, unlike the woman, he was chained. Shackles encircled his dried wrists. The heavy links anchored to the wall kept his hands above his head.
The head swung slightly to the side.
I made a face, praying a rat wasn’t going to crawl out of him. Voice or not, I’d scream.
However, as I stared, I saw it wasn’t something inside of him making him move. He was moving. His withered skin twitched and plumped. Underneath it, bits started wriggling and knitting together.
My mouth dropped open, and I backed up a step. What in the hell could reanimate? Zombies weren’t real, no matter what the movies said. I knew that because I’d asked. Druids were powerful, but not this powerful. At least, I didn’t think they were.
My gaze darted to the bed as I shuffled back another step. The skeleton there remained in its restful repose.
Another rattle returned my attention to the skeleton that was looking more corpse and less bones as tissue closed over the gaps and re-forming organs. There was no blood. Only gross red. The thinness of his legs under the cloth dissipated as he continued to flesh out. On the crown of his head, the first sprouts of dark hair emerged.
The feeling that I was safer in this lit room rather than the dark hallway vanished, and I silently retreated a few more steps until the reanimated skeleton man disappeared from view. Then I turned and hurried to the door.
Struggling to breathe through my panic, I quietly gripped the latch. It gave a soft clink but didn’t budge when I tried to open it. I looked down in confusion and saw a hole in the solid metal surface. A keyhole? I needed a key?
Rather than overthink the reason why it was locked on the inside, I frantically turned and scanned the table for a key. Finding none, my gaze slid to the bed and the peaceful woman. A stick of metal protruded from the bony cage of her clasped hands. Of course, the dead lady would be grasping the key.
