11.7

It seemed the lift doors had just clanged shut when screams and angry barking echoed down the shaft.

Solomon hugged both of the kids tight to his sides, covering their exposed ears with his hands.

There were some things kids did not need to hear, even in the horrific new world that had been thrust upon them.

They were both crying and their tiny bodies trembled.

Both of the poor little buggers were terrified.

When the screams eventually stopped – Solomon wished he’d had a free hand to cover his own ears, but was forced to listen to it, for the kids’ sake – he breathed a sigh of relief.

The lift came back down and he had no idea what he was going to be facing, so he pushed the kids behind him and readied himself for a fight.

*

The lift was empty, save for a severed hand, bloody and still twitching.

It looked as though it had belonged to the old women, judging by the jewellery on its gnarled fingers.

Blood still jetted from the soggy end of the stump. And the fingers twitched, seeming to beckon them into the lift.

Seeing no way round it, Solomon got in first, shielding the kids with his body.

*

When the doors opened again it was to display a scene that Solomon would come to describe as hellish.

He wished he’d never seen it, for damn sure.

He’d have rather shoved a red hot poker through his corneas than see it in fact, but it was there now, scarred into him until the end of his days in much the same way as the branding by Reverend Cross would be in years to come.

He felt worse that the kids had had to see it.

They were sobbing, their mouths hanging open dumbly.

He hugged them close for a second, while he assessed whether he’d need his hands to defend himself.

Martin was laid just outside the lift, his throat torn open by one of the dogs on this floor. They seemed to be more of the mutant breed that they’d encountered in the previous room.

The dog was contentedly chewing the skin on his neck.

A vast pool of blood slowly spread beneath Martin’s convulsing corpse.

The terror and agony of his final moments was hewn into his face.

‘Picked the wrong team, Martin lad,’ Solomon muttered.

The dog looked up, blood sluicing down its muzzle.

It growled at Solomon and he readied himself to attack it, but it seemed only to warn him away from its meal.

They passed, keeping a wary eye on it.

Tia was crying, her entire body trembling.

The little boy was covering his eyes with his hands, muttering something under his breath that sounded like, ‘This isn’t real,’ over and over again.

Solomon looked around.

The businessman was on the floor off to their right, curled up in the foetal position.

Two dark shapes were tearing the flesh from his bones and slurping it down greedily.

His remaining eye seemed to stare at Solomon, wishing it could trade places.

There wasn’t much of him left, so Solomon pressed grimly on, after making sure the dogs weren’t going to make a move for them.

The next body was harrowing to see.

The young boy, his upper body intact, terror scarred into his face.

His lower body was a vast bloody mess. Dark entrails poked through the ragged wounds in his belly.

His clothes were sodden with blood.

The dog eating him didn’t even look up at them, so content was it with its offal feast.

The old woman lay close to the boy. As he’d guessed, one of her hands was missing. She was skinless, the dog seeming to savour the wrinkly skin. A red raw mass of sinew and bone remained.

And that was sharply disappearing.

The other little girl had gotten the furthest.

She was half-eaten, her head just a bloody mess now.

Tia and the little boy with Solomon were crying and wailing fit to raise hell now.

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Solomon clamped a coppery-smelling hand over each of their mouths and quickly led them past her.

Past the dogs that were feasting upon her.

It turned out that their pain had been Solomon’s salvation; the dogs were so content with their feast that they didn’t move towards them.

Solomon breathed a sigh of relief as they reached the lift at the other end of the room without incident.

Tia looked up at him with those big, brown eyes and said, ‘You won’t let that happen to me will you?’ Concern was etched into her furrowed brow.

He shook his head and planted a massive kiss on her forehead. ‘I promise, sweetie.’

The lift came down and took them up into the next room.

And it was here that Solomon would get his most shocking surprise yet.

*

As they stepped out of the lift on the next floor – the last floor, if the neon green spray-painted sign on the wall was to be believed – Solomon heard growls that terrified him.

They were low, savage, the hunger of their owners implicit in them.

They were big dogs, judging by the way the growls resonated.

He told the kids to stay in the lift while he assessed the situation.

Three huge, black wolves appeared out of the darkness. They moved fluidly, gracefully, especially for such big creatures.

They appeared to be one with the shadows.

They growled savagely, the sound soon turning into full-blooded barks.

The three of them approached in a rough triangle, the biggest one, the alpha wolf, at its head.

*

‘Fenrir?’ Solomon uttered, as his disbelieving eyes fell upon the wolf nearest him.

The wolf’s ears stood on end, its scimitar-like teeth exposed.

Cords of muscle stood out beneath its dark flesh.

The other wolves approached from the sides.

‘Loki? Tyr?’ he said, confusion distorting his voice.

The wolves seemed to recognise him and came in for a closer look, though they still growled at him.

Fenrir came in and he saw the dark spot on the back of his head that looked like a skull.

The black leather collar and the name tag attached to it confirmed his theory; this was one of his wolves.

*

The tags on the other two’s collars matched the names too.

And the reality of the situation came to him.

His worries were in vain.

His own, loyal pets were here.

He’d raised their mother, welcomed them into the world, then spent every night playing with them and tending to their every whim.

There was no way they could have forgotten him.

‘Fenrir, it’s me, lad,’ he said, approaching cautiously in spite of his joy at seeing his three boys again.

The wolf growled, didn’t seem to recognise him.

‘Loki, surely you remember me?’ he said. ‘What about this scar?’ he showed the gap between the little finger and ring finger on his left hand, where the wolf had over-exuberantly snapped at him when he was a pup.

The three wolves seemed to relax as he carefully approached Loki and put his hands on the top of his head.

‘There, lad, it’s just me,’ he said. ‘My Gods I’ve missed you all.’

And everything was going well until Loki growled and sunk his teeth into Solomon’s arm.

*

‘Ah fuck,’ Solomon gasped.

Fenrir had always been the alpha of the pack, while Loki had lived up to his name as a bit of a loose cannon.

Still, they’d always been loyal to him.

He’d been certain they’d never have attacked him.

But they were on the verge of starvation, that much was clear by the way their once-muscled torsos were now wasted away to reveal a xylophone rack of ribs.

‘What the fuck have they done to you, lads?’ he muttered.

The others set in on him.

And he knew that there would be no escaping them; this was a death sentence.

By his own fucking wolves too.

He cried a little at the realisation of what he was going to have to do, but knew it was them or him.

He hardened his mind.

You gotta do this.

They’re probably better off dead now anyway, the way this fucking world is going.

Fenrir moved in now, still bigger than the other two. In spite of his emaciated state he was still a big fucking animal.

Solomon felt the strain of him sinking his teeth into his left bicep.

The force was almost enough to crush the bones together.

He gasped with the pain, especially when Fenrir tore the steaks off with one powerful movement.

Tyr was coming now too and he was eager to feed.

He was growling low in his throat, teeth bared, eyes staring into Solomon’s.

The other two were feeding, for now.

Solomon managed to get to his knees and shot forwards, as Tyr came for him.

He met the wolf head on, their skulls colliding with a horrid crack that seemed to echo all around the cavern.

The wolf was up, fangs tearing down the left side of Solomon’s head.

Solomon cried out in rage as the blood ran down, tangling up in his hair.

He cursed Craven for doing this to him, but he cursed him more for doing this to his beloved pets.

They deserved better.

He could see by the mad look in their eyes that there was no reasoning with them. There was a sliver of recognition, but he had been away from them for too long.

Hunger had become their master.

He lashed out, his right hand hitting Tyr in the throat.

The wolf moved back, letting out a low whimper.

Then he growled again.

The others sat up and began to circle.

If I get this wrong I’m gonna be ripped to shreds by my own fucking lads, Solomon’s racing thoughts informed him.

He darted in on Tyr and hit him hard on the back of the head.

The wolf’s front legs collapsed and he fell forwards on his belly.

Solomon hated himself for what he did next, but knew it was the only way.

He grabbed Tyr’s big head and wrenched it hard to the side.

After a sickly crack, the wolf let out a sorrowful whine and went limp.

Tears blurred Solomon’s eyes as the other two set in on it, already tearing the flesh from its bones.

He ran before they could finish eating.

The kids were in the lift already, the door shut.

Their panicked sobs echoed from inside the tiny metal box.

Solomon pressed the button to open the doors.

‘We thought they’d got you,’ Tia said, rushing out to hug him tight.

Solomon was devastated by what he’d just had to do, but he did his best to hide it.

He had to be strong for the little girl.

Putting on a brave face was of the utmost importance.

The lift began to rise.

*

The doors opened on a dark room pretty much identical to the first room in which Solomon had found himself.

‘Well done,’ Mayor Craven said as the doors opened.

He was standing behind a wall of a dozen armed cullsmen.

This did not deter Solomon, who ran at him, swinging for the fences.

‘You fat cocksucker! Those were my lads in there,’ he hissed, spittle and blood flying from his mouth.

‘Oh were they?’ the mayor said, feigning innocence.

His sly smile motivated Solomon to shove his way past the cullsmen.

He managed to plant the fat bastard one, folding in his left cheek with a satisfying crack.

‘You will definitely regret that,’ Craven said, a pained expression on his face, his pudgy hands clamped to his broken cheek.

Solomon spat at him.

‘I’m gonna feed you to my wolves,’ Solomon roared.

The mayor slunk off, leaving the cullsmen to fight his battle for him.

Solomon fought like a man possessed, but finally the cullsmen managed to subdue him.

*

Solomon woke up in a cage with Tia.

Her eyes were wide, seemingly staring at him in wonder and admiration.

He went to speak, but she raised a finger to her lips.

Cullsmen were standing guard around the cell.

The metal cavern door swung open fast, banging into the wall.

The mayor appeared.

‘Congratulations on completing level one,’ Craven grinned. ‘Not many make it this far.’

Solomon squinted at him. ‘What are you talking about? Level one?’

‘Oh, you didn’t think that was the end did you, Mr King? Oh no. We’re just getting started.’

‘Speak some fucking sense, you idiot.’

Craven let the insult slide for now; he was revelling in the moment too much.

‘Well, level two is very similar,’ he grinned. ‘Except…’ he swept an arm out theatrically to show a cullsman entering the room with a hacksaw and a leather belt. ‘You get to do it without one of your limbs.’