Chapter five is up!
This tunnel seemed to stretch longer than the other one. We had been crawling through for about five minutes and the dirt and roots had disappeared. Now we were in a pipe like tunnel with steel surrounding us. " When will we get there?" Eric asked. He was out of breath and I didn't blame him. We had no idea what was up ahead of us. " It can't be much further," I assured him. " We just need to keep going. There has to be an end to this thing." I heard Tim whimpering. What's the matter?" I asked, not turning my head. " The air is so heavy, I feel like I'm gonna be sick." " Just keep crawling," I assured him. " I can see light up ahead." We continued crawling until we came to a grate similar to the other one. This one was covered in rust and it almost looked like blood was splattered all over it.
" Come on," Eric said in a hoarse voice. " Let's go!" To tell you the truth, I didn't want to have to grab that grate. It was covered in really disgusting stuff. I ended up kicking it in. That worked out. We didn't have to worry about falling into a pool of sewage this time. We were in a cellar type of place. There were endless shelves of nothing but cans of oil, ancient bugspray, containers of cleaners, bugspray. " Where are we?' Tim asked as we all entered the room. A single lightbulb illuminated the entire area. " It's a cellar or something," Eric replied. " It's really cold down here." We looked around the place. It wasn't that huge of a room, but it was large enough to be the cellar of a fairly large house. " What's that noise?" Tim suddenly asked. I think Eric and I both heard what he was hearing. It was the same sound that the dog had been making, but this time it wasn't a dog.
Terrified, we all looked up. There was the body of an old woman standing in the center of the room, under the lightbulb. She was covered with blood, her skin rotted and her hair a sick shade of gray. In her right hand, she held a knife which was stained in blood. She slowly began to limp towards us. " I'm not afraid of you!" Eric screamed. I wasn't sure what happened next. Something made me run up to this horrible non human creature and whack it with the steel pipe I had. The creature spit up blood and groaned. I hit it again. This time it fell to the concrete floor and started to moan. Tim walked over and stomped on the body's chest. The dead old woman stopped moving.
We examined this new enemy carefully. It looked like an old woman who had died a long time ago and became a living dead creature. " What is all of this?" Tim asked. " Why are there non human things that try to attack us every time we go through that hole?" Eric shrugged. " I don't know." Blood was draining from the creature's body. The three of us walked away from it. We didn't want to be near it anymore. The body really reeked bad and we weren't sure if it would jump out at us again or something. There was a workbench near a flight of dusty, cobweb filled stairs that looked like they had been there for centeries. There was a chainsaw hanging from the wall, but a severed hand was holding onto it and the three of us agreed to just leave it alone.
Tim quickly grabbed a pistol on th workbench and put a box of pistol bullets in his pocket. Now all three of us had weapons. " We'll be ready for them," Tim said. I nodded. Eric was already half way up the stairs. Tim and I followed. To our surprise, this door lead to a beautiful foyer of a huge mansion. There were lit candleabras illuminatinmg the room along with a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. " Wow!" Eric explained. " Where are we?" None of us knew of any mansin in the area of the hotel we were staying at, so where we were was a mystery to us. There were no windows in this room and it didn't look like here were anywhere. A set of double doors stood in front of the tall stairwell that lead to the second floor. I tried the doors. They were locked. Eric was looking up the red carpeted stairs. " Well, the only way is up," he said. Tim and I once again followed him up. We were only on the stairs for a second when a figure flew by uson the ceiling high above. A whipping sound was heard as the figure dropped down to the carpeted floor from the door we had just come from.
It was a deformed looking figure with pink skin and bloodshot veins. It growled at us right before it started coming toward us. " Get it!" I screamed. Tim ran out of the way as the ceature ran toward him and ended up bashing into a standing candleabra. It growled and hissed as the three of us continued running up the stairs. The creature ran after us, still growling and making other strange noises. Eric and I made it to the top of the stairs to a hallway that lead in two directions. Tim had ripped on the stairs with the creature still chasing after him. " Use your gun!" I urged him on. Tim fired the pistol. The creature jolted and spit up blood, but continued walking slowly up the stairs. " Stay away from me!" Tim screamed as he fired the gun again. This time the creature fell backwards and tumbled down the stairs, all the way back down to the bottom. Tim shrieked as he joined us in the second floor hallway.
" Come on!" Tim said. " We need to get out of here! This place is even worse!" We looked down the hallway in boh ways. There were ebony tables set up about every ten feet in the hallway in both ways with tall vases standing on them. There were paintings that lined the velvet wallpaper. The hallway seemed to be safe. All was quiet as we began walking to the left. There were about ten doors on each side ahead of us. It was pretty much the same if you went the other way. We all huddled together to keep each other safe. We had no idea what was ahead of us. That was pretty much the way it was the whole time. We approached the first door we came to. The door was made of dark ivory wood. I reached for the knob and opened the door.
Inside was a bedroom with purple walls and a large bed. A man was at a door on the other side of the room, pounding on a door. " Let me in! the man was shouting. " Aren't you hungry?" " No, stay away from me!" a woman's voice sounded from the other side of the door. " Go away!" " I'm not leaving until you open the door!" the man screamed again. The three of us watched the man continue to pound on the door. " Just let me in!" the man screamed again. " Please, just..." He noticed the three of us standing there. " Oh, I'm sorry," the man said. " I didn't notice you there. If you wouldn't mind, I have some buisiness to take care of, so please come at a later time." " We're looking for a way out of this mansion," Eric said. " Could you tell us how to get out?" " No, there is no way out of here," the man said. " Now, if you will please leave me and the lady in this room alone, I... wait!" The three of us looked at the man, confused. " No, stay!" the man said. " Welcome to our world!" Suddenly, the man began to transform. He turned into a bloody corpse looking thing.
" Come!" he said. " I will taste your blood!" Tim fired the gun at the man as he came charging at us. Blood shot out from his chest, but it didn't stop him. I whacked him in the head with the steel pipe. It stopped him for a moment. He growled and screamed as Eric stabbed him in the throat with he piece of glass. The man fell to the floor, crying out and jolting around. In a few seconds, the figure disappeared. All that was left was the piece of glass still laying on the floor. Eric picked it up and put it in his pocket. " Now we know we're not in the real world," I said. Tim sighed as the three of us went up to the door the man had been pounding on. " Ma'am?" I asked. " Who is it?" the woman asked. " What do you want?" " We're not going to hurt you," I said. " We're here to help you."
A few moments later, she opened the door for us. She was a short woman and she looked very scared. " Come in," she said. " Be careful." She let us in and she closed and locked the door. We were in a small library now. It was lit by a chandelier overhead. " That man.." the woman began. " He was my server. He would bring me my meals everyday. I've been here for a long time." " How long?" Tim asked. The woman shook her head. " I've lost track. I tallied each day on the wall, but I stopped after a month." " A month!" Eric explained. " You've been here that long?" " Yes," the woman said, wiping a tear from her eye. " It's so scary, nothing but horrible creatures and enemies live here. I haven't been out of this room since I came here." " Do you know where this house is in location?" I asked. " No," she said, shaking her head. I was transported here by a portal that appeared in my bedroom. Something I did woke spirits up. That's what he told me, anyway." " Who's he?" Eric asked. " Henry," the woman replied. " He usually comes here everyday, but he didn't come yesterday and he didn't come today. It must be late at night now, but there aren't any clocks here. I've lost track of time."
We all sat around on a couple of green couches. There were dozens of paintings on the walls of this library. The woman continued, " My name is Maria. Who are you guys, anyway?" " Well, I'm Randy and these are my friends Eric and Tim. We lost one." " I'm sorry," she said. " Henry came everyday. He would tell me about all of this stuff. I'm not so sure what he was talking about, but he was nicer than everyone else. I'm actually sad that he hasn't shown up in a couple days." " What did he tell you?" Eric asked. " What did he say?" Maria gulped. " He said that when an enemy catches you here, they won't kill you, but they'll lock you up like they did to me. I'm really scared being here. I'm really glad that you guys came here because if you hadn't, that man out there might have hurt me or worse." " Well, we're here to help you," I said. " Do you know a way out?" Maria sook her head. " No, I was transported right into this room when I went through the portal. There was a horrible looking creature in here. It attacked me and I couldn't remember anything for a while. I woke up several hours later, locked in this room. They brought me food, but they never told me anything. Henry was the only one, but I don't even know who he is."
" Did Henry ever tell you how you woke the spirits?" " No," Maria said. " He never told me, but I think it was th ritual I did. I lit candles around my mother's picture and I was trying to talk to her from Heaven, but I think I accidently woke up the spirits here. Henry gave me this key." Maria pulled out a key from a pouch in her dress and showed it to us. It was a golden key that read, " Garden." " He told me to use it wisely because it was my only hope to get out of here." Tim nodded. " We'll help you out of here. First, we need to find the entrance to the garden. Henry must have meant that there was a way out from there. We'll find the way out, Maria, I just know we will." We all rose from our seats. " Will you take me to the garden?" she asked. " Yes," I said. " We will." The four of us went back out into the hallway very carefully. The hallway was empty like it had been before. " Come on," Tim whispered. " Let's keep going down the hall." Eric and I nodded. Maria closed the door behind her quietly. The hallway stretched on longer until another hallway stretched to the right. " Where now?" Eric said in a whisper. This hallway went on to intersect with another hallway that went in two directions. " This place is like a maze," I explaind. " we'll be lucky if we even find the door that goes with this key."
" Let's try the door up ahead," Maria said. " Henry actually gave me a map of this whole house one time, but only for a few minutes. The garden is behind the house and we're nearly behind the house, so maybe this door will lead us there." " Okay," Tim said. " Let's hope we don't end up entering a room full of enemies." All of our hearts pounding, Tim opened the door. We all had our weapons in case. This room had a small spiral stairwell that lead back down to the first floor. " This is probably the way to the garden," Maria said. " It seems like the room I saw on the map." " Let's go," Tim said. He was already walking down the stairs. The rest of us followed him. At the bottom of the stairs,there was a single door at the far end of the room. The four of us approached the door as Tim tried the door. It was locked. We had the answer moments later when Tim put the key in the lock. The door swung open.