55) Mad House

Looking down the slope made up of loose gravel I could see Hiram fiddling with his flashlight, and hear the scruff of boots on top of old linoleum heading my way.

Turning onto my side I looked up to see a wide eyed man looking down at my head sticking out of the Dungeon entrance, which to him would be a solid wall of darkness before he aimed his rifle at me and nearly blinded me with the flashlight on the end of it. “On your knees!”

...yeah. How about, no.

Pushing against the front wall of the elevator shaft inside the Dungeon with both of my hands, I slid down the gravel until my head was below the gray wall that marked the barrier between the real world and the inside of the Dungeon.

While I was pretty pissed off that someone had pointed a loaded gun at my face, at the very least the guy didn’t shoot it before the light from the Border Patrol guy's rifle abruptly jerked up into the air.

Another set of guys in black uniforms had grabbed the first one and dragged him back out of site. I could hear conflicting orders, one scratchy set on the load speakers demanding “Drag them out if you have to! I don’t care, yank the detonators!” and another voice, a live one, yelling, “We’re leaving! Now! Our asses, my call! Move! Move! Move!”

Yeah, good call. The guys taking the risks should get to decide if it’s worth their lives, not someone well away and out of danger. These guys took a job, not an oath.

Or maybe they did take an oath, I think real cops did.

I heard a snickering laugh behind me as there was a dull sound like distant thunder and a flash of red light around as everything above me blew up, plunging us into darkness broken up by a flickering red light coming from below us.

Cringing, I realized nothing had come through the barrier that marked the entrance to the dungeon, even the sound of the explosion and the flash of light from the plastic explosive going off had both been dulled to the point of merely being loud and bright, rather than deafening and blinding.

Laughing like a madman, Hiram reached up to grab my foot and began shaking it around, “Did you us see that Harry! I blew-”

I kicked him in the face with my other foot as hard as I could, sending him rolling down the rest of the slope and clutching at his face into an area dimly lit by a soft, flashing red light.

“Ow! ‘Why ‘ou kick me ‘or”

“Because you almost blew my head off you fucking idiot! Did you even look to see if I was all the way inside!”

I glared down at the Sabatour as he lay at the bottom of the slope, still clutching at his face with both hands as he shrugged. “What’s the problem?” He sniffed and felt at his bleeding nose. “You’re good.”

Sitting up he began collecting the scattered parts of his flashlight as he wiped away the smear of blood that had run down his face and wiped it on his pants without even looking at it.

I seriously think there may be something wrong with him. More than just being old, something mental.

Looking up I could see nothing above us outside of the Dungeon, just absolute darkness. Shining my light up revealed the bottom of a pile of broken masonry, twisted metal, and still swirling dust.

Great, I’m trapped in here with an idiot...

And a whole bunch of monsters, with the idiot sitting there with his back to them.

Scooting down the slope I could see we were at the bottom of the elevator shaft with the gravel partially bunched up against a set of battered, rusty doors before spilling out into a hallway with the three coyotes standing guard. Their heads looking up as much as around.

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They had to sort of lean over, halfway to dropping to their sides in order to look up. I guess walking around on all fours made it hard to tilt your head back.

Ignoring Hiram’s irritated look as my movements sent bits and pieces of what looked like bits of cement and trash into him, I twisted around to finish half sliding, half crawling past him and out the open door, before getting to my feet and looking around to see what the dungeon looked like.

Picture a nightmare version of the same abandoned, vandalized, and falling apart old hospital we had first come into, then make it larger, like you were a child.

But only going up.

The hallway was about eight feet wide, just like the real one, but stretched up, unnaturally elongated, to well over twenty feet tall. With the upper reaches of the hall going up several feet above the hanging light fixtures which were protected inside thick wire covers on the bottom and a solid metal above them at the ends of the peeling pale green painted pipes that held the wiring coming down from above.

Up above the lights, the molding that separated the walls from the ceiling jutting out over a foot, with a large gap between what I could only call a ledge and the dark, unlit top of the hallway.

The red light I had seen was coming from above the elevator doors, where a red exit sign was flashing, not as if on purpose, but as if shorting out.

I could smell the ozone, and something else.

Something nasty. Like diapers without any of the baby smell.

Hiram summed it up as he stood up next to me and started shining his light up at the roof. “Smells like elder abuse. That’s why I kept working until I hit seventy two. I wanted to either drop dead while working or to be able to afford a nice place to retire in.”

I nodded about halfway through that so I could just pretend to listen to him, but I was a lot more alert than a week ago. Keeping track of the idiot's prattle and my surroundings at the same time was so easy I didn’t have the option to just ignore him.

I was also up three points in all my rankings in here. The Hermit thing. I hadn't noticed the effects until now due to the whole gun in my face followed up by also getting blown up thing.

So instead, I had to distract him. “I don’t see any of them.”

The Grinning man began walking down the hallway, dancing around the coyotes which glanced up at him before twisting out of his way. Wylina glanced back at me as if asking, “Are we supposed to let him go first?”

I nodded. Worst came to worst I could heal him. ‘Could’ being the right word.

Twisting around and walking backwards Hiram kept talking. This time about something worth listening to. “The Dungeons have all seemed to learn to hold back from the entrance once the first few groups of people go in and back out. If they rush someone right inside the entrance the people just back out. Hey, now there’s a tall door.”

Walking up behind him I saw him looking at a nearly twelve foot tall door that was nearly invisible as the filthy peeling varnish on the aged wood looked the same as the dirty peeling paint on the walls. At least in the dim light inside the dungeon. It was only when we had gotten close to it, or Hiram shined the brighter light of his flashlight up and down the walls of the hallway that you could see the difference.

Reaching out I rubbed away the dust and grime from the metal square on the wall next to the door, only to see a set of strange symbols engraved into the sign.

All of them were about the same size as what real letters would be on a sign that size, but all squiggly with slash marks through them here and there.

A flash of light made me wince as the Sabatour took a picture of it.

I gave him the nasty look he deserved as he laughed to himself while looking at his phone, he started saying something to me but stopped as I reached up for the tarnished brass door knob that stuck out just above my head.

“Uh, Harry?” I heard a shotgun klick klack sound. “Maybe…”

Oh yeah. Gun. I pulled my Ithica out of my storage. The Magiced up gun rested firmly in my hand as I checked to make sure it was loaded. Then pumped a round into it.

I had loaded it with three rounds of birdshot first, then two solid slugs in case the birdshot wasn’t doing it, then buckshot for the rest to put stuff down or keep it away until I could reload.

Which made me wonder why I hadn’t picked up a second shotgun. There was plenty of room for it in the magical storage and a second already loaded gun could be a lifesaver in an emergency.

“Hirum?” He stopped talking when I interrupted him. “Remind me to get a second shotgun as a backup.”

I felt his grin from behind me. “Hey, great idea Harry-”

Then I reached up to turn the knob.

Which, to my surprise, was unlocked. I hadn’t even been sure if the door was real.

As I pushed it, I found out the door wasn’t just real, but in about the shape you would expect an old wood door in an abandoned hospital would be.

Stuck for one thing, like the wood had swollen. Which made sense as the air in the place was damp.

“Is it stuck? Don’t worry Harry, I got it.”

Stepping back, the Grinning man kicked the door, putting a crack in it, and making it groan, but not actually opening it.

Sighing, I leaned away and threw my shoulder against the door as Hiram kicked it again.

Reeling back from the door as it burst open, I gritted my teeth at the pain in my shoulder. What the hell had I been thinking? How was I going to shoot a damn shotgun when it felt like I had just broken something…

The coyotes growled, all three of them, and I looked past the open doorway.