23. Chapter Twenty-Three The Devil’s Playground
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Devil’s Playground
Tess
We headed down the murky corridor, the floorboards creaking beneath our cautious footsteps. The musty scents mingled with the metallic tang of blood that wafted from a distant corner of the haunted house.
We’d agreed finding a smoker was our best bet for matches. It was the only lead we could think of as we navigated the darkness and uncertainty of the mansion.
As we made our way forward, the light of our torches distorted the familiar shapes of the decaying wallpaper and crumbling plaster. Every shadow, every creak of the floorboards, sent a shiver down my spine.
I strained to listen for any sign of movement or life within the strangely oppressive silence. How many contestants were left now? It was possible most of them had perished in the first half hour on the ground floor. I was lucky to have come across Reaper. Even if I didn’t get out of the house alive, at least my chances of killing Ivan had increased substantially. At times, the distant echoes of whispered voices and muffled footsteps teased, drawing us closer, though my instinct was always to recoil.
As we stepped forward, the scent of smoke finally appeared and swiftly grew stronger, guiding us like a beacon through the labyrinthine corridors. It was a small comfort amidst the shadow and despair, a glimmer of hope that we clung to desperately as we ventured on.
Pressing onward, my nerves fraught with anticipation, we followed the cigarette smoke wafting through the stale air. Like a lingering specter, it led us through the murky depths of the haunted house. The smell became pungent; the sharp, earthy aroma of burning tobacco tickled my nostrils and set my nerves more on edge.
Hopeful, we quickened our pace, following the trail of smoke in silence with nothing more than facial expressions and hand signals between us. But as we rounded the next corner, we found ourselves standing in an empty corridor—the only evidence of any presence at all, just a faint echo of that smoke.
Disappointment pulled me under like a dark curse, the lingering odor of smoke barely recognizable with each step forward. We exchanged glances, silently acknowledging the setback in our search for matches.
I shot Reaper a bewildered expression and mouthed, What the fuck ?
He responded with a frown and motioned to keep going.
We wouldn’t be deterred. We had no choice. It was kill or be killed, and first on that list was anyone getting in the way of catching up to Ivan. We weren’t getting out of here until the bitter end anyway. So, we pressed on, continuing our quest through the haunted house.
Our footsteps echoed through a large, hollow foyer as we ventured further, encountering a pair of imposing double doors at the far end. Curious about potential treasures, we exchanged glances, wordlessly agreeing to explore further.
But as we approached the doors, a sudden chill descended upon the air, sending chills down my arms. When a spectral presence materialized, its blue form shifting and twisting, I recoiled two steps. Reaper grabbed my arm. “Shhhh, it’s alright.”
“Is it?” Eyebrows high, I tried to tell him I disagreed without saying the words out loud. Supposedly, there were entities of all sorts in the hotel, from evil poltergeists to the ghosts of past contestants, to completely innocent spirits who had accidentally been trapped inside. No prizes for telling who trapped them.
“I promise,” Reaper said quietly to me. Then he turned to the specter and, ignoring it, reached for the door handle behind it.
“You may not pass!” Its voice echoed with a deep, otherworldly resonance.
“What are you going to do, spirit?” Reaper asked, pushing forward. Suddenly, he collided with an invisible barrier, his body jerking to a halt before rebounding backward, yanking me along with him.
“It is forbidden for anyone to cross this threshold. For any reason whatsoever.”
We paused, our curiosity piqued by the entity’s cryptic proclamation. Why were we being denied entry? “What are you guarding, spirit?”
“That is for me to know and you to… no. That is not your business.”
I bit my lip and tugged on Reaper’s hand. “Let’s go the other way.”
“No, I think this is a lead.” He turned back to the specter. “Are there any matches in there, by chance?”
The air grew heavy with anticipation, tinged with the metallic tang of fear that oozed from the walls. As the spectral entity hovered before us like a mirage, it finally relented and revealed the truth that lay shrouded behind the forbidding double doors. “Everything you might need is behind these doors… Fuck.”
With a shared glance of determination, we squared our shoulders and confronted the entity, demanding answers. “I thought so. How do we get in?”
“There’s no getting past me.” The entity remained steadfast in its refusal to divulge its secrets, its gaze unyielding as it barred our path with spectral authority.
Undeterred by the entity’s ominous warning, we resolved to uncover the truth at any cost. “What do you want?” asked Reaper.
“Nothing. You said it yourself. I’m a spirit. What could I want?”
Reaper tapped his chin. “Hmmm. Fear, pain, blood, tears…”
The spirit perked up at some point during Reaper’s list. “Say it slower,” I suggested.
“No, I don’t care,” said the spirit.
Reaper held up a finger. “Fear?”
“Nope.”
He raised a second finger. “Pain?”
“Why would I want pain?”
Reaper held up three fingers. “Blood?”
The spirit crossed his arms and turned away. “Ahhhhh, fuck.”
Reaper’s smile spread wide across his face, dark and malicious. “You want blood, little specter? I can get you blood. ”
The ghost grimaced and tried not to look at us. We ignored his tortured demeanor and waited for his response. The atmosphere grew heavy with anticipation until, finally, he peeked. “Okay, fine. You have three choices. You can hand over your most beloved to me.”
I gasped. “Our most beloved what?”
It peered at me with a sneering air as if I was the stupidest person he’d ever had to deal with in his afterlife. “Relation. Friend, family, pet.”
“No!” I yelped. I would never give up Addie. She was all I had, and I’d rather die than put her in any danger. It was out of the question completely.
Reaper gave a sharp nod. “I agree. What else?”
The specter rubbed its hands together, a glint in its eyes telling that this was its favorite option. “For the past hundred years, there’s been the spirit of an annoying child running around here. It’s maddening to hear it sobbing and whining all the time. I want you to find it and trap it in the basement for the Zagreiver.”
“What’s that?”
“Devourer of souls,” explained Reaper.
I gasped. “No way!”
“It’s not a happy soul. You’d be doing it a favor.”
I thought about that. The soul of some child, trapped in this place for who knew how long. Surely, someone should have helped it by now. But no. Not a single compassionate soul had passed through in all that time. The thought of this sad kid lurking endlessly didn’t sit right with me. An end to the poor child’s suffering would be better than its continued torture, but I couldn’t do it. “No. What else?”
The spirit groaned begrudgingly. “You both bring me the head of a contestant. ”
The magnitude of its words coiled around us like a boa constrictor, filling me with a sickening sense of horror. I didn’t like it, but I knew I’d have to kill people in here. I had to get used to it. I stretched my fingers, wiggling them to try to loosen up. Or at least make a start at it.
“We can do that,” Reaper declared. He turned to me. “That’s what we’re here for anyway, right?”
I nodded, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. The room seemed to spin as I struggled with the burden of our decision. Fear and uncertainty seeped from every corner, joining with the metallic tang of blood that seemed to stain the very walls of the haunted mansion-turned-hotel.
Warring with the impossible decision and with a heavy heart, I knew that any choice we made would come with dire consequences.
With dread coursing through my veins, I agreed to the last option. But as we prepared to rush off to complete our grisly task, the asshole specter stopped us. A chilling command that made my skin crawl. “Each,” it intoned, voice dripping with malice and hanging in the air like a death sentence.
Realization hit me like a gravestone, filling me with a sickening sense of trepidation as the extent of the entity’s demand seeped in.
Reaper and I exchanged a silent glance of resignation, and without a word, Reaper stepped forward, confidence and determination etched in his face. “I won’t be long,” he told me. Then he turned to the ghost. “You must agree to keep her safe while I’m gone.”
The ghost frowned at first, but the expression quickly morphed into an ironic, malicious grin. “I’ll try.”
“I’ll find a way to end your miserable, tenuous existence if she’s harmed. ”
“I should be so lucky. As a contestant, she should be capable of protecting herself.”
That’s when the light in my eyes flared a bright white. Reaper at the end of a long tunnel of shadow, covered in blood, gripping the hair of a stark white head dripping with crimson liquid, its eyes hazed and unseeing, tongue hanging out. Reaper was stalking toward me, a triumphant look in his eyes.
I nudged him with my elbow. “It’s fine. Go.”
Reaper peered at me, a glimmer of understanding relaxing his shoulders. “I need to make sure you’ll be okay. Are you sure? What did you see?”
I pressed my lips together as I gathered my thoughts. “I saw your psychotic smiling face returning with a head. I was fine. Go.”
He smirked. “Alright then. Watch out anyway.”
“I will. Hurry.”
As he disappeared into the shadows, leaving me alone with the malevolent poltergeist, a sense of isolation tugged at me. The air crackled with an electric energy, the faint scent of sulfur lingering as the poltergeist’s malevolent presence lingered.
Every nerve in my body screamed in protest as I stood alone in the suffocating quiet, the emptiness of my insane companion’s absence leaving me breathless.
With a trembling hand, I waited, bracing for the horrors that awaited me, if not now, when he returned. Knowing my survival depended on my own ability to confront the evil that lurked within the haunted house’s twisted corridors.
While he was gone, I held a dagger in my hand, its cold weight anchoring me in the moment. My fingers trembled as I curled them around the blade, the metal biting into my flesh with a sharp sting. Blood welled up, warm and slick, trickling down my hand and pooling on the floor beneath me.
I whispered the words to a defensive spell, my voice barely audible over the pounding of my heart. Each syllable felt heavy on my tongue, resonating with ancient power. The air around me shimmered and hummed, charged with an electric energy that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. Green sparks crackled in the air, sputtering like tiny, supernatural fireflies.
The specter hung in the shadows, its translucent form becoming more defined. The space seemed to darken around us, the darkness deepening and closing in, as if drawn to the magical energy I was summoning.
The scent of my blood mingled with the musty, decaying odor of the hallway, creating a heady cocktail that made my stomach churn. Each green spark illuminated the dirt and blood-speckled wallpaper with a sickly green glow.
My pulse beat strong in my hand, the enchantment flowing through the blade, filling me with a strange, buzzing warmth. The magic took hold, wrapping around me like an invisible shield. The air grew thicker, charged with tension and anticipation, as if the building itself was holding its breath.
As the final words of the spell left my lips, the green sparks flared brighter, surrounding me in a protective aura. The specter’s eyes shone with admiration, seeming to brighten in recognition of the power I summoned. I felt alive with energy, my hand bleeding, but my spirit fortified by the magic coursing through me.
But the tension settled like a suffocating fog as I waited anxiously for Reaper’s return, every passing second like an eternity. The minutes stretched on endlessly, each heartbeat echoing hollowly in the cavernous depths of the corridor as I tried to cope with the incessantly gnawing anxiety in my gut.
Finally, just when I feared I could bear the suspense no longer, Reaper emerged from the dark, his swaggering gait just as I had seen. In his hand, a severed head, its lifeless eyes staring blankly, a silent witness to the horrors of the haunted mansion.
The head dripped slow, even drops of blood, the metallic scent hanging heavy in the air and clawing at my senses. I recoiled instinctively, the sight threatening to overwhelm me as I struggled to suppress the rising tide of revulsion from deep in my gut.
“Very good,” the poltergeist chimed with a sinister grin, its sharp teeth like the glint of polished steel. Its gaze fixed upon me with an intensity that sent a shiver racing down my spine, the realization of its expectation pressing down upon me like a crushing curse. “Your turn.”
“Here,” said Reaper. “Use this.” He shoved a hard but warm object into my hand and closed my fingers around it. I glanced down to see a dagger, much larger than either of mine, the blade carved with strange sigils. I must have appeared as panicked as I felt because he raised an eyebrow. “Trust me, take it.”
Despite the terror making my blood run cold through my veins, there was also a warm glow growing inside me at his offering. It wasn’t enough, I was still going to piss myself, but it was remarkable. “Thank you.”
“Move quietly and hide if you hear anyone. When you find someone you think you can take, if they’re alone, ambush them.”
It was a good plan. “Alright.”
He seemed like he wanted to say something else, but he snapped his jaw shut and gave a curt nod .
With trembling hands, I steeled myself for the ordeal that awaited me. This task would test me like nothing had before. With a silent prayer on my lips, I stepped forward to face my own depravity. I had to push all the goodness in me aside and let it flow freely. Heart pounding in my chest, I stalked down the corridor into my greatest challenge yet.