Disclaimer: I own none of the characters within.

Author's Notes: Sorry for the big delay. I won't even begin with the lame excuses for this one. :D And thanks to all the reviewers for the kindness, the tagging, and the get-well-soon's. Much obliged to all of you. About this chapter: It's kind of grim. If you're a bit on the squeamish side, be forewarned. No blood or anything though. And you thought you felt sorry for Gollum in the last chapter…

            Chapter Eighteen

            Awe, horror, terror, fear, strength, and courage thundered through his body all at once. Sam stood frozen and unmoving, just inside the entrance he had just passed through, hardly daring to move lest some hostile force spot him.

            But there was no one there. 

            Having expected to see the long and endless expanse of Mordor falling out before him, Sam was shocked and confused to see only darkness. Standing there, ears twitching and nostrils quivering, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the sudden lack of sunlight.

            Once he could look around and saw that there was, indeed, no enemy here, he trotted forward and looked to the left and right, seeing only infinite corridors in either direction. Infinite corridors… but that could only mean…

            He was literally inside the wall.

            And then he panicked. He had no escape. Nowhere to go. Planning to end up in Mordor as soon as he breached the gate, he had decided he would run to nearest cover and move East from there. But now… now he was trapped inside. It was as though he had been swallowed by a snake. No light, no life, just an endless path in the gullet of this beast.

            A small whimper escaped his throat, and he trembled. This was bad. That was all that he could register. This was bad. Where was Frodo? And how would he find him while he himself was lost in the bowels of the wall? There was only one way.

            Start looking.

            ~

            So his journey in the dark began.

            Through scent and touch more than eyesight did he navigate, keeping one side of his body pressed against the disturbingly smooth walls at all times. Nose pressed to the cold floor, he smelled a whole history of evil and menace. Only days ago the Nazgul had passed where he now walked. And even more recently an Orc had gotten in and run blindly on a path of destruction before it was gunned down where Sam had just passed.

            A thousand ghosts leered at him from those onyx walls, ghosts of those killed and wronged, and ghosts of horror and murder that lurked here at the scenes of their crimes. Both could apply, for both stalked these halls on a regular basis. Sam had found himself in the Experimentation Corridor.

            Glancing either way, he was daunted when the light grew to a dim glow, illuminating the gaping doorways he passed. And it was his glimpses into these doorways and rooms that showed him all the horrors that Mordor had to offer.

            A wolf carcass several days old lay in a bizarre cradle, its' legs bound to each corner and its' middle ripped open to reveal an empty cavity. Its' organs had been removed, and it now rotted uselessly, forgotten by the one who had experimented on it.

            Stark and terrible, a wolf skeleton stood posed on a garish steel table, its' limbs mounted on artificial joints that it may be positioned in any way imaginable. At the moment it was propped up as though it were in mid-leap, and several odd spinning blades were imbedded in its' side. Sketches for the prototype weapon lay scattered on the floor.

            Lying on an operating table, a wolf was stretched out on its' side with tubes and wires running in and out of it. Sam paused here, his heart breaking at all the death and destruction he was seeing. Living in the Shire, he had only seen calm and natural deaths, and never knew that creatures could be killed so cruelly.

            But then the wolf's eyes flew open.

            Alive!

            Horrified and feeling a screaming instinct to run, Sam scrambled down the corridor as though he had seen the dead coming to life. Alive! Then the wolf was being experimented on while still in a state of living hell. Numbed by this newfound discovery, Sam was startled from his thoughts by a whimper.

            Immediately he connected the sound to his beloved alpha pup, and he sprang forward, heedless of any danger. Frodo! And yet as he hurtled around the corner and into the cold, lonely room, he stopped.

            Eleven sad and rangy wolves stared back at him from their one large cage.

            This was the Stoor pack. Once as happy and jolly as the Hobbit wolves, this pack had lived too close to the East. In the recent expansion of the Hunter they had been swallowed up, captured and taken into these dark halls for even darker purposes. Their numbers had dwindled tragically, and they now grew close to their eventual extinction.

            And all of them stared at Sam with wide yellow eyes that were agonizingly familiar.

            Backing away slowly and shaking his curly head, Sam stumbled when he suddenly collided with the opposite wall. He whirled on it like it had bitten him. With a sidestepping gait to maneuver towards the door, he could not tear his eyes from the Stoors that gazed at him so impassively. He could not read the notice hanging on the cage that read of execution and a death penalty. All he could see was the most terrifying set of eyes he'd ever known multiplied by eleven and watching him with mute agony.

            He fled.

            In his panic and haste he tripped and fell, skidding across the floor to come face to face with a final open doorway. But this one smelled familiar… poking his head inside, he saw an operating table and many discarded surgical instruments, some with stale and aged blood still clinging to them. But what was the smell? He paused, closing his eyes and letting his nose do the work.

            Gollum.

            Gollum had been in this room, been on the table, whether months or weeks or years ago he could not discern. But he had been there; his scent still clung to the room, and it was his blood on those tools.

            Overwhelmed now, Sam trotted down the corridor with a vacant and defeated air. Such horrors as he'd never known had now been thrown in his face in one mad and incomprehensible blur. It was too much to digest at once, and he was feeling an overload on his senses.

            Exhaustion overcame him, and he hardly had time to drag himself into a corner before sleep claimed him once more.

            ~

            By the time he awoke twelve hours had passed. When consciousness returned he opened his eyes, but kept his body in a relaxed and dormant position. Peering through the slits of his eyelids, he gazed about for any enemies. None visible. A sniff of his nose, however, revealed that a hunter had passed by three hours ago and hadn't seen him.

            Rising cautiously to his feet, the scent of that one wandering hunter abruptly reminded Sam that he was treading on thin ice. Trapped with the enemies' minions in an endless and easy to get lost in labyrinth, he was the one who was in real danger.

            Now he stuck to the shadows, slinking along in a dreadful silence where every footfall sounded like an avalanche in his ears. Again and inexplicably, there were no foes around that he could see. He was passing through a similar hallway as before, except for one important change.

            All the doors were closed.

            Terrified that he might wander past the room that held Frodo within, his progress was agonizingly slow as he paused and sniffed at the crack under every door, desperate to catch scent of his alpha pup. He smelled guns… metal… more metal… no life. Despair began to seize him.

            Even in this sorrow he felt that tenacious bit of hope in him, the little part of him that insisted Frodo would be behind the next door or waiting around the next corner…

            ~

            As the doors slid open again to release another swarm of hunters, a scrawny form darted between them as they closed, making it inside the catacombs by a hair, his tail narrowly clipped off by the jaws of metal.

            Once inside, Gollum trembled, but immediately picked up the scent of Sam. Sam, he knew, would lead him to master, and master would welcome and forgive him. So he scrambled down the corridors, blindly following that beloved scent trail.

            He was heedless of where he was going, his eyes at level with the floor he scoured, trying to smell through the hunters' footprints to the path left by the Hobbit wolf. Occasionally he would pause and lift his head, giving the instinctive glance about for danger. But always his gaze was dragged back to the ground where he could follow the trail he sought.

            Until a very familiar and terrifying scent reached his nose.

            Instantly, all the fur on his body stood on end, and he cringed even as he fled vainly for cover. No corners could be found; he was in a lonely hallway. Doom was upon him, and he dropped to the floor to make himself a smaller target.

            After many minutes of lying there in terror, he cracked an eye open cautiously. There was no one there, but the scent still was heavy in the air. But if no one was bringing the scent, then he must be at the source.

            A gut-wrenching whimper gurgled from his mouth as he glanced in a doorway.

            He knew the wolf in the cradle. He recognized that now dead wolf with tubes running into its' body. He knew them all. Leaping to his feet, he loped down the hallway, his mind-blowing fear suddenly replaced by a strange surge of emotion. If he was here, then his family was right around the corner.

            Exploding into the room, his happy yip died in his throat as his world shattered around him.

            Dead.

            The remaining Stoors had been gassed, poisoned in anticipation of the capture of bigger and better specimens. They lay sprawled over each in the cramped cage, their eyes glazed and unseeing while saliva pooled around their stiff open jaws.

            Dead.

            Gollum reeled in the doorway, his mind spinning as he threw himself into the room and against the bars of the cage, shrieking in agony to wake his kin. Gnashing his teeth on the metal, his groans and whines did nothing to rouse them. He recognized them… his brother, his father, his grandmother… his mate…

            Dead.

            Madness bubbled in his chest, ripping out of him in the closest thing a wolf can get to sobs. Curling against the cold bars, he moaned again in a final call to them. But they did not hear. In a fit of rage and confusion he smashed his head against the cage, remaining with his forehead pressed to the steel as his panting breath created a fine mist on the scene.

            Dead.

            All of them gone… gone before he could back to them… Another groan, another sigh… but they were gone. No warm yellow eyes opened to greet him. No tail thumped on the floor in welcome. And they never would again.

            Dead.

            His own tail tucked under his legs so far it was brushing his belly; so great was his agony and sorrow. Heart was leaden with a strange sense of numbness. Paws felt like ice… or stone… something heavy and immovable. Whole body felt like he'd fallen off a cliff… or been hit by a snowmobile. Something that left him drained and beaten and utterly exhausted.

            The scent of Sam tickled his nostrils and swayed like a temptress before him, beckoning him away from the horrors of this ghastly metal tomb. Thoughts of Sam connected him with thoughts of master, his spirits lifted slightly at the thought of seeing the alpha pup once more.

            Weary and confused, blind to anything but the idea of finding Frodo again, he left the room of his dead pack.

            He did not look back.

~ To Be Continued