Chapter Two: Maria
I had to hold my breath to keep from gagging. It smelled like road-kill down there. Rickers and Fetch flicked on their flashlights behind me. I did the same. The hallway walls were covered in pipes and mildew. The place was obviously unattended.
"What crawled down here and died?" Fetch asked, spitting on the floor.
I debated about doing the same, but decided against it. I was supposed to be the presentable lady, after all. It was one of those smells that stuck in your senses until you could taste it. Trust me, it was no gourmet meal. I moved my flashlight steadily from side to side in front of me.
I stopped when it caught a body, lying on the ground.
"Well, looks like he did, Fetch," I sighed.
Our flashlights examined the man. Dirty blonde hair, a torn white shirt that was covered in blood, a bloody pant leg, and no right foot. The blood had pooled and curdled beneath the pant leg. Poor guy . . .
"It's Dr. Gordon," Rickers said suddenly. "He's been missing for a week."
"What happened to his foot?" I asked. I knew the doctor wasn't one-footed.
"It looks like he bled out."
"Well, of course he bled out," Fetch shivered. "He cut off his damn foot!"
"Then where's the foot?" Rickers asked as he shook his head, disgusted to even have to ask a question like that.
"Come on, we'll keep looking," I suggested, leading the two deeper down the hall.
I stopped again when I noticed another body. This one was tall and black with a familiar face . . .
"Holy shit, it's Tapp, Rickers," I said. "I haven't seen him since Sing was killed."
"What's he doing down here?" he asked, leaning down toward the decomposing body. "Looks like a bullet wound. What the hell happened?"
"It's gotta be Jigsaw," I muttered. "Keep going. We'll call for back-up in a little bit. Something else has to be here."
I led the way again. The hallway ended a little further down. A thick wooden door was on my left. I leaned toward it and listened. I thought I was crazy, but I swore I heard a voice. I looked at Fetch and Rickers.
"Someone's through that door," I mouthed, barely making a sound.
Fetch moved me out of the way and tried to open it. It was no good; it refused to budge against his weight. He cursed and glanced at Rickers. He gestured to the door.
"What do you say, big guy? You wanna go back to your college football days?"
Rickers grinned slightly. I moved out of the way, knowing it wasn't going to be pretty. The two large guys walked until they had their backs to the wall, lined up with the door. They ran in unison and struck the door with their shoulders. It shuddered violently, but nothing really effective happened. They backed up and did it again. It took three tries until the door splintered a little. One more time and they managed to bust through it. The room was pitch black.
The guys tore away more wood until we were able to make through. Rickers went first, I followed him, and Fetch came in behind me. The floor was sticky and I nearly lost my shoe in the mess. Fetch ran into me and I nearly fell over. I elbowed him in the stomach angrily.
"Whoops, sorry," I lied. Sometimes he was so . . . annoying. That was putting it nicely.
Rickers found a light switch and flipped it on. The fluorescent glare burned my eyes. I held my hand up, cursing to myself. I looked around the room. We were stepping in blood. It was everywhere in that room. Fetch made a gagging sound and pointed down. A rotting foot was there on the floor, a thick metal shackle still clamped around the ankle.
"Well, we found Gordon's foot," Rickers sighed.
"Jig . . . saw."
The voice made me jump. I clutched Rickers' arm, nearly hyperventilating from the jolt my heart gave me. The three of us looked to the corner of the room. A man was chained to a set of rusty pipes, his breathing raspy and labored.
"Jesus, he's still alive," I gasped. "Fetch, go call in back-up. There has to be an emergency unit here quick."
He nodded and took off down the hall. Rickers carefully removed my hand from its death grip on his jacket sleeve. He crouched down and touched the man's neck. I stayed back, watching him. He would've been pretty cute if he hadn't been so dirty . . . and covered in blood.
The body beside him had its head bashed in. A broken porcelain toilet tank lid was beside the man that was still alive. It was covered in blood and what I assumed was brains. I walked around the room, looking for clues. I stopped and looked at the broken mirror. The camera still had a steady red light.
"His heart rate's dropping pretty steadily," Rickers said. "He may not make it."
"There's a camera, Rickers," I said. "It looks like it's still recording . . ."
"Well, remember what the others said? The bastard likes to watch them suffer."
I turned to him and shook my head.
"What happened?"
Rickers shrugged. "By the looks of it, the two guys chained went insane. Gordon cut his own foot off to get out of the room and this one brained the other. There's a gun over here, too."
"I can't believe this guy. He chains two guys into a room and expects to have a fucking dinner and a show." I rejoined him and looked at the unconscious man. "Is he responsive at all?"
"No, he's in a coma-like state. He's too weak to stay awake. He's been down here for a couple of weeks, at least. He's gotta be a fighter to make it this far. No food or water for that long . . . any normal man would've been dead."
I touched his forehead gently. He exhaled heavily.
"Still . . . alive," he whispered, barely audible.
"You are," I muttered. "And you'll stay alive if you hold on a little longer, okay? We're getting you help."
"Maria, look," Rickers said suddenly. He pointed to the man's right shoulder. "He was shot right there. It looks like he lost a hell of a lot of blood."
"My God, I guess he had something to live for."
"Want . . . to live," he said weakly.
By the looks of it, I knew it was true.
"Don't worry, you will," I said quietly, taking his hand. "You just have to hold on a little longer . . ."
Rickers examined the paddle lock that was on the shackle around his ankle. "Wow, it seems like a normal paddle lock, but with that thick of a chain, there's no way to break it."
"Maybe the key's somewhere around here," I suggested.
He got up and looked around the room, just like I did. He seemed to find nothing, but after his second sweep, he stopped in front of the bathtub. He reached down and produced a key chain with a small key on it. He raised his eyebrow at me. He tried the lock and it opened easily.
"How could he not check the tub that's right beside him?" Rickers asked, bewildered.
We removed the shackle from the poor guy's ankle. Rickers picked him up as if he was a rag doll.
"Should we really move him?" I asked, worried about him.
"If we keep him down any longer, he'll be dead. Come on."
I followed him through the hallway, stepping over Tapp and Dr. Gordon in the process. He stopped at the ladder that was the only way out that we knew of. He readjusted the guy's body so he was riding piggy-back on him. Rickers looked at me.
"I have to try and make it up there with him. He's too weak to hold on to me, so I want you to follow me up and try to keep a hold of him if he slips off of me. You think you can pull that off?"
"Rickers, I went through the same training you did," I said. "I can lift over 250 pounds. I can handle it."
He grinned. "That's my girl. Here we go."
He gripped the ladder with one hand while holding the man's left arm with the other. He used a lot of his legs, pulling his bulky weight and the thinned man upwards. I went up a couple steps behind him, just in case he did slip. Rickers made it to the top and laid the guy down on the floor of the old house.
The two of us made it up just as the EMS guys showed. I leaned my ear over the guy's mouth. He was still breathing, but it was getting shallower every time he did. They put him in a stretcher, carried him to the ambulance, and were gone in seconds. The scene analyzers went into the house, led by Fetch and Rickers. I couldn't find the will to go back in there. It was just too . . .
I walked out to the alleyway beside the house and threw up forcefully beside a dumpster.
A/N: I'm glad everyone who read it likes this one. I got some good ideas comin', so stay close, oh fans of mine. I'll be back! Probably sometime later in the day! Lol.