When the lights blinked on, Michael looked around the staircase like an escaped convict who'd been spotted by a searchlight. He could see from midway down the steps the eloquent chandelier smiling broadly and the shiny marble floor looking newly swept; the room looked even shinier and larger now without the middle rug that had been puked on and thrown out. It looked like a different house entirely; no more were the shadows gripping on Michael's shoulders, nor the lingering feeling that someone was watching. There was, of course, still the problem of the smell. And that he couldn't shake. He almost turned back upstairs to confess everything, now that the light had come on, but decided against it when he saw Bleak appear from the library. His hands were buried firmly in his pockets, his head bowed under his draping black hood.
Michael moved swiftly off the steps and hid behind the stairway as Bleak neared him. Had he seen him? Probably not. But just to be sure, Mike slinked deeper into the only shadow big enough to conceal him. Bleak was oblivious as he kicked up the steps, his hands still tucked away and his elbow drifting up the curved railing. It made a sound like sliding ice. Michael waited until the sound was gone and came back out into the hall. He turned left before reaching the kitchen and walked down the steps leading to the wine cellar.
He had to be stealthy, because Sasha had almost caught him crying down there once already. He'd been coming down each time his friends were asleep, but now that "time" wasn't on their agendas anymore, their sleeping arrangements were sporatic and unpredictable. He took this opportunity since everyone was drunk and asleep in Winston's room.
He pinched his nose as he entered the pitch-black cellar. Closing the metal door, he clicked on the light. He almost didn't expect it to work; yet it did.
There she is, he thought. Just like she had been for the past two weeks. The wine cellar was just the way the group had last seen it, except that, in place of empty bottles, a rotting body lay on the table. He could taste the awful smell in his mouth, as if it were planting seeds on the bumps of his tongue and sprouting rotten fruit. It was an oddly sweet smell, and that notion sickened him most of all. Michael reached for the key in his pocket and placed it on the table. The silver key sat right below the corpse's thigh. He'd done this same procedure countless times in the past few days. All to no avail.
A voice in my head, he thought. That's why I'm here. It was true; Michael had heard a voice calling to him the hour just before Wendy died. That voice had read his heart's desire, and had urged him to a task. Who are you? Michael had asked the voice in his head. Abner, it had answered.
He wondered now how Abner could have spoken to him and appeared to Victoria at just about the same time. He let the question go, because his reward was worth it. And since the silver key had been in the kitchen cabinet exactly as Abner had said it would, he knew he wasn't imagining the voice. In the end, Wendy was just collateral, and he knew that the others would be pleased with his decision. Except Bleak, of course. He did a bad thing for a good reason, he convinced himself.
"It's done," he said to the air, or to the voice in his head, growing impatient. He could hear little maggots moving within the bloated body that lay there. Eating. Feasting. "I've waited long enough. Now..." he drifted off. What exactly was he expecting?
"I locked Wendy inside the room just like you said," he whispered. As he said the words, the guilt of what he'd done began to weigh on him again. "Keep your promise," he begged. "Her life for Wendy's. Please," he begged. "Don't make me tell them."
In that moment, the corpse's finger twitched almost unnoticeably. Michael jerked forward, nervously, but didn't see any physical difference in the corpse's body. The corpse's hair was still falling off, her skin peeled away to the tight bone. Her eroded thighs looked incongruent against her neat cheerleading skirt.
"Emily?" Michael whispered.
Emily's bloated eyes reeled up in a frightening second and Michael jumped back. She gave a rotten smile, and the skin of her lips hung like crispy meat from her mouth. The corpse--Emily--turned her neck to look at Michael. He felt nausea cutting cords, pulling levers in his stomach. His heart became a fast-pumping motor in his chest.
Emily sat up and he could see a nest of hair left behind where her head had been.
"Here I am, baby," the corpse said in a gurgling voice. It was Emily's voice. No way he could call her Emily now, though. That monster was not Emily.
"This isn't what we agreed to," Michael said to Abner, wherever he was. "You said you would bring her back--I meant back to life. I meant alive, I meant beautiful!"
"Am I not beautiful to you?" the corpse said. She stood on her bony legs and began to shuffle towards Mike. It reminded him of a toddler learning to walk.
The maggots were fleeing now, visible from her eyes, her mouth, her ears.
"You're not Emily. Bring her back!" he cried. His legs buckled despite his effort to stand, and he fell clumsily to the floor. Emily's corpse reached out to Michael. She gripped his neck. Her fingers felt like cold cigarettes. He screamed out. Her grip got stronger. How is it possible? his mind screamed. This isn't happening!
Instinctively, he pulled an empty wine bottle from the rack of thousands and crashed it over the corpse's skull. She let out a drilling scream but continued choking Michael. He still held the sharp neck of the bottle with his knuckles and swung it. It pierced the corpse's neck. Brownish blood first foamed, then sprayed out of her neck. Corpses don't bleed, they don't bleed, he kept screaming in his mind. And yet she bled profusely. The blood showered over Michael's face and clothes. He spat wildly in the direction of the bottles. The blood and spit dripped over the bottles obliviously.
He shoved her writhing body. She lost her balance on the grimy blood and slipped awkwardly. Her collapsing body made a sound like falling bowling pins.
Michael slapped his forehead frantically and felt a strange sensation in his throat, unaware that he was screaming. He forced himself to stop, his eyes blinking rapidly like passing carousel horses.
What had he done? Wendy died for that? That...hideous....
Realizing the smell again, he doubled over and began vomiting. The vomit mixed easily with the brownish blood, clouding together and forming a vulgar pool. His hands sat like islands in it.
Idiot! I deserve this, he cried in his mind, tears now joining the sea of muck bellow him. I deserve this and everything that's coming to me.
***
Victoria rose from bed to find everyone still asleep, scattered around Winston's room. Her head throbbed and her tongue clapped clingingly to the roof of her mouth like an adhesive. A typical hangover, she knew. She still felt buzzed as she made her way to the corridor. All she could think about was water. She froze when she saw that there was light in the room. A small lamp attached to the wall near the door lit a small corner of the room. How was that possible? They'd been in darkness so long that she almost thought she was dreaming again.
She was startled by how silent the house was. Her current buzzed state exaggerated the silence, made everything sharper and clearer, and she cringed at the sound her footsteps made. Like a child on her way to steal from the cookie jar, she thought. Except, she didn't quite have a destination aside from getting water, which she could've gotten from the bathroom upstairs. She just felt the sudden urge to move about, walk around.
Is Abner behind it, she thought and stopped. She felt afraid to think any thought, make any move, with any confidence or assurance that it was she, and not a spiritual influence, thinking it. Victoria shrugged off the notion and continued to walk. If I die, I die, she thought, suddenly angry. But I'm not going to let Abner scare me half to death about my own damned thoughts.
Ah, the bravery granted by alcohol. She almost smiled.
She didn't feel quite brave enough to go downstairs, though. Every death so far had occurred down there (except for Icarus's which could have been anywhere). And that smell. She could smell the odor still from the top of the staircase. She tried to describe it in her mind but couldn't. It was too repulsive and grotesque to deserve a name. It deserved only a sound for a name. The sound of vomit hitting the toilet bowl, that's the name it deserved.
She was whipped back from her drunken stupor to reality when she heard someone trotting up the steps. She'd noticed earlier that Mike was gone and almost expected--no, hoped--that it was him. Who else? As she mouthed the name, Bleak's face stopped in front of her own.
""Bleak," she said. Ah! Run-run-run! her mind screamed. Bleak was the last person she wanted to face right now.
"Hi," Bleak said.
But what was that in his voice? Calmness? More so, exuberance? Almost as if he was going to look for her anyway. Victoria couldn't decide whether to move out of his way or stay in front of him. When Bleak continued staring at her, an unfamiliar smirk on his face, Victoria moved against the wall.
"I'm in your way, aren't I?" Victoria said.
"No," Bleak said quickly. "Actually... Is anyone else awake?"
Victoria thought about it. She knew everyone in Winston's room was knocked out, but then there was Michael. He'd been missing for a couple of hours. "No," she said. "But I don't know where Mike is."
"I was coming to see you, anyway."
You were? she thought, dumbfounded.
"Yes."
She must have spoken the words aloud. She looked around the room torpidly.
"There's a room I want to show you," he said. "A secret room. We found it...Wendy and I...a while ago."
Her throat turned to sandpaper at the mention of her name. At the memory of Bleak's tantrum earlier. What had changed? she wondered. Had he come to his senses and realized that Victoria was innocent? It seemed unlikely, but the evidence was in front of her; Bleak was completely docile now.
"Okay," Victoria said. "Where is it?"
Bleak led her downstairs and Victoria gasped when she saw again the beauty of the first floor. They'd lived in darkness so long that she'd forgotten how gorgeous the house really was. Gorgeous in a gothic, morbid sort of way, of course. But compared to the blind darkness she had grown accustomed to, the house was spectacular.
"How are the lights back on?" she asked.
"That's part of the surprise," he said without looking back.
Then came the smell. Christ Almighty, she thought. How long would that smell stay? She got an urge to throw up and stopped. Bleak looked back.
"What?" he said. "The smell, I bet."
"Yes-Bleak, I can't," she gagged.
"Please," he said, sounding desperate. "Just hold your breath; we're almost there."
Victoria trapped the filthy air inside her mouth and followed Bleak quickly into the library. When he shut the door, she looked around.
"What are we doing here?" she asked.
"The secret room is in here." He continued walking and waved her on. "Come. I'll show you."
Victoria followed him. As she breathed heavily once more, she was relieved to find that the smell was fading. But in her mind, at least, it was strong as ever. It was the kind of smell one could never forget.
Bleak led her to the back of the library, to the shelf he'd uncovered before. The door was closed shut now, and Victoria looked at him, perplexed. She was almost going to ask him why he'd brought her here when Bleak turned the hidden knob and the shelf began opening as a door does.
Victoria felt cold shock. "No way..." she said. "We have to show everyone!"
"Wait," Bleak said. "Let me show you the inside first. Trust me, it can't wait."
The room was dark as she entered, the only illumination coming from the library. She had to step over a small ridge in the passageway.
"Is there light in here?" she asked.
The room was silent and cold. She took one more step and was completely inside, dank darkness surrounding her.
"Bleak," she said again, turning. "Bleak is there--"
She momentarily saw something like a lead pipe coming at her and felt it crash against her skull just before she faded into complete blackness.