Saul and Derrick starred down corridor of trees to the dilapidated and decaying plantation home of the once illustrious and notorious Dr. Lynch. Engulfed on each side by the cadaverous trees, twisted and bare they reached for the sky, seemingly praying to God for forgiveness for their sins, Saul and Derrick made their way down the dusty dirt road to the home.
“W...w...we should turn back, the...these trees are s...si...signs from God that this place is not a holy p...pl...place, and we will surely find e...ev...evil in there. The trees of the s...su...suicides from Dante’s Inferno were the same in tw...twis...twisted deformity and barren of leaves.” Derrick fearfully stuttered.
“Turn back now then, I am going in there to find answers. I do not need a coward holding me back. If you fear for your life then run away and take your chances with the horrors and evils all over this island” Saul coldly and harshly stated.
CRACK!
Derrick jumped letting a shot from his pump action shot gun ring through the cool evening air, taking a large portion off one of the nearby trees.
“W...wha...waht was that?!” Derrick panicked, exclaimed.
“Shut up and come over here with that light.” Saul scolded.
Saul knelt down to look at the sap that bled from the tree Derrick shot. The black ooze seeped from hole created from the shot gun blast, was the very same ooze from the cell that Saul was in. That sticky, putrid ooze reeking of rotted flesh, death and shit.
“We’re going the right way, be prepared for the worst.” Saul said getting up and staring down what or whoever was in Dr. Lynch’s plantation home.
“What is this stuff, it’s disgusting and what do you mean prepare for the worse?” Derrick, confused, questioned.
Behind the house the sky aflame with blistering crimson reds and fiery oranges of the setting sun. The two men made the mile long walk to the plantation home, both dead silent. Derrick clutching his shotgun made his way nervously turning about to cover all around him not to be sneaked up on. Saul emotionless, cold and fearless, he was a man with a mission and seemed that death itself would not stop him from finding the answers he sought in this place or where ever he would be taken after this.
“This is it. This is the home of the bastard that taunts and tortures me with my past and my pain.” Saul angrily said.
They came up to the front steps of the home. The large square, two story home was in decay and ruin now, nearly sixty years of abandonment and neglect had taken its toll on the once exquisite and extravagant home. Several of the pillars had collapsed, bringing down much of the wrap around porch on the second story with it. The rows of windows were all blown out and cracked from all the years of neglect. The Chinese Wisteria had almost claimed the whole house for itself, except for the peaks of the roof, which stuck out like flailing hands of those drowning in a sea of water. One of the two grand chimneys built in the early 1850’s had collapsed into the house, punching a large hole in the roof and brining down nearly half of the westward wall with it. Saul cut away the wisteria to proceed in, Derrick hung in the back convinced they would both be dead by the end of this night.
“I’ll take the second floor and you take the first floor.” Saul ordered
“Are you sure it’s safe for us to split up?” Derrick asked.
“If anything was here we would have been attacked by whatever sick creation he had waiting for us here by now.” Saul said detached.
Saul proceeded up the unstable stairs, while Derrick checked the ground level for hat he had no idea.
“Why am I doing this for him, he’s going to get me killed. What do I owe to him that he can order me around like this? And what the fuck am I looking for down here?” Derrick said to himself.
Meanwhile Saul found Dr. Lynch’s bedroom. There in the nightstand by the bed Saul found the doctor’s journal. It detailed all he had done to those men and women that passed through the walls of the Rock Island Psyhcriatict Ward and hopefully held the answers Saul so desperately needed to know. As he opened the journal he heard Derrick let out a death enticing scream from downstairs, he quickly shoved the journal in his back pocket, grabbed his 9 MM and raced downstairs.
There he found a Sliver over Derrick, its blades dripping with his blood, he turned around and let loose a blood curdling scream and charged at Saul. Saul fired six shots off his clip; one shattering the Sliver’s knee, two piercing the chest where a heart should be, three in the head and one the Sliver had deflected with its blades. Saul raced through the house, coming to a set of large metal double doors decorated ornately with Lucifer’s fall from heave, the Biblical rapture stories and the punishments of hell as described by Dante in the Inferno.
“Fuck! Locked.” Saul cried out.
The Sliver was now rampaging through the house, tearing though any furniture in the way and ripping all the overgrowth that had consumed the house. As it came closer and closer Saul fired the rest of the 9 MM clip into the beast. Shotgun blasts rang through the air but nothing seemed to stop the creature or even slow it down.
“Is this how it ends, it can’t be, I can’t die her like this I need to finish what I was dragged into.” Saul helplessly said.
Just as the Sliver was a couple yards from driving its three feet of cold steal through Saul’s body, the Sliver stopped dead in it’s tracks. Saul heard a thunderous roar came from behind him, from within the room behind the double doors. Saul turned towards the doors as the trembled and the floor quaked from whatever was behind those doors. He turned back to the Sliver but it was gone, running far from where he and this new beast remained. Saul backed up keeping faced towards the doors, the whole shook as if it was all going to come down because of this monster.
“Shit, what could it be to even have the Sliver running in fear from it?” Saul anxiously asked himself.
Just then the metal doors flew out into the room Saul stood in, and landed with a loud thud, knocking up years of dust and dirt into the air obscuring Saul sight of the monster. As the dust settled the beast let loose another thundering roar, and Saul could not believe his eyes of what stood hunched over in front of him.
It stood nearly seven feet tall, its skin a pale yellow and large pieces of skin missing revealing gray muscles that twitched and twinged with every strained move it made. Its body covered with a crisscrossing pattern of skin sewn together. The hands fused with a large axe on the right hand and spiked mace on the left. Its bald head was held together with three metal straps across each cheek and going down the middle of the head that connected in the back. The spiked collar around the neck kept it from twisting its head, as if it did it would dig those spikes deeper into its neck. Its face was rotted and peeled away showing the gray muscle and bone, its teeth broken sharpened to points, and the eyes a glowing yellow scanning the room. The massive body was ripped with muscle definition and great strength. Its arms as big as Saul’s legs, and its legs as big as Saul himself. It stood there imposing fear on all who saw it, and its will on all those who opposed it.
“What is this thing? Wait the journal..., o shit where is it?” Saul said
It was underneath the monster, and Saul had only two shots left in the shotgun. Saul unloaded the two shells into the thing in front of him as it took a step back and shook its head to shake off the shots to the head, Saul raced to grab the journal. Grabbing the journal Saul raced to reach the door before the monster could recover, he could feel the quaking footsteps coming after him, but as he reached the door he felt the power the monster first hand. Saul was hit with the flat side of the ax, sending him flung through the room and into the wall on the opposite side, knocking him unconscious. The journal was sent flying out of Saul’s hands.
“Good. Leave him, I’ll take care of it” A man behind the monster said.
