THREE

I never thought I’d be in a situation where I was looting a corpse, but here I was: wrestling armor off a dead guy. Every time the metal clanged against the stone floor, I cringed, scared that a horde of monsters would be banging down the door in the blink of an eye. The bodies around me were cold to the touch—if not room temperature—and as stiff as the stone around them. Other than this, though, the bodies looked like they could have been asleep; there wasn’t a spot of decay on them.

There were certainly better ways to break a sweat.

“So…tell me,” I grunted. Wesley glanced over his shoulder at me from where he was looting a cupboard. Anything that looked even vaguely edible he stuffed in a bag.

“Yes?”

“If the Barrow Bugs—” I shuddered—“only inhabit places that’re abandoned, why are all these…” I paused, unsure how delicately I should word things, and gestured between Wesley and the guy on the floor. “Um. Why so fresh?”

Again, that haunted look shadowed Wesley’s eyes. He returned to his task. “Residual magic can preserve the dead if there is a high enough concentration of it in the area.” Wesley gulped. I shivered. “Necromancers often take advantage of that.”

I went still. I wasn’t the smartest guy, by any means, but the silent implication hanging in the air was impossible to miss. If…if this was real…

“Trust me, I’m not a necromancer,” I rushed out. “I’m—I’m just some guy—”

Wesley chuckled darkly. “Well, ‘just some guy’, this is no ideal situation, for either of us. You’ll recall what I told you about the Barrow Bugs, yes?”

I shuddered at the thought of them, but nodded. “Yeah?”

“I do not know how long it has been since I died. I could have died ten years ago, or a hundred, but I will not know until I escape this place.” Wesley took a shaky breath. “I will need your help, Dave.”

Again, a solemn weight settled around my shoulders like a lead blanket.

My armor clanked as I half-waddled around in a circle, testing out the fit. I had no idea if this was even the way to test armor; if anything, I was closer to testing out a new pair of pants.

“Are you ready?”

I gulped but nodded. Wesley nodded back and slung a pack around my shoulders. The armor itself already weighed me down despite Wesley’s assessment of it being light armor, but with the addition of the supply pack, I nearly collapsed where I stood.

A moment later we were again shrouded in darkness, except for the halo of Wesley’s conjured light. All around us I could hear the clicking and scuttling of Barrow Bugs, but I forced my gaze ahead. I knew that if I looked, it’d be all over for me, and Wesley would be alone in his search for the artifact. I wasn’t sure if he needed my help; for all I knew, I’d be dead weight to Wesley, but if I could help, then I would.

“What are we looking for?” I asked.

“It is a small, locked chest,” Wesley replied, matter of fact. I cringed.

“Oh. So I should know it when I see it, then.”

Wesley smirked. “In a word, yes.”

I had only more questions—What is this place? What’s the artifact? What is it for? Why do you need it?—but I didn’t bother asking them. There’d be plenty of time for that when almost certain death wasn’t lurking around every corner.

A low, pained noise—somewhere between a moan and a scream—sounded from around the corner. It was almost too human but not human enough. I knew a sound like that could fool someone as easily as a mountain lion’s shriek. Only one word could describe a noise like that: uncanny.

Wesley froze, hand trembling as he lifted it higher to shine the light in the scream’s direction. A thin, veil-like shadow disappeared around the corner, and a second later, we heard the moan-shriek again.

“I think someone’s in trouble,” I said. Just like before, my skin prickled, though whether it was the energy in the air or something else, I couldn’t tell.

Wesley shook his head. “No…it is no such thing…” He gulped, clamped a hand around my shoulder, and turned back around, pushing me forward. “Go. Keep going. Do not look back. Whatever you hear, ignore it.”

I gave in to my curiosity and glanced back over my shoulder. Wesley shouted at me and jerked my head back around.

“What did I just say! Have you a death wish, you fool?!”

I shrunk back, thoroughly cowed, but the fear and desperation in Wesley’s eyes didn’t escape my notice.

“Smarter, stronger men than you have been slain by that infernal creature. Do not make the same mistake as them.”

“Are you calling me stupid?” I snapped, unable to hold the words back.

“I am trying to keep you alive,” he forced out through gritted teeth. My only reply was a snort.

Footsteps echoed in the hall behind us. Something about its gait sounded stiff, unsure, as if it wasn’t quite used to walking on two legs. I shivered. Beside me, Wesley’s pace quickened.

“Hurry up,” he whispered to me out the side of his mouth. Blood turned to ice in my veins.

From behind us, another moan-scream, but this time—if I strained my ears—a voice calling out through the gloom in a distinct brogue.

“Wes…ley…”

Wesley gasped beside me. He stumbled over his feet and swore. The furious clomping of his boots on stone sounded like an all-too-familiar struggle not to run.

“Wes…ley…”

Bile rose in my throat. I gulped it back down. When I was a kid one time, I dreamt that I lived at the mall and my parents were store mannequins, like the creepy ones from the clothing store commercials ten years ago. When I wanted to leave the mall for good, my mannequin-parents chased me around, calling my name with their arms outstretched.

That’s what the voice behind us reminded me of now.

I looked up at Wesley. His eyes were wide, and there was a grim set to his mouth like a barely-restrained primal terror.

“Next right, third room on the left,” Wesley muttered to me, again from the side of his mouth. I nodded stiffly.

We rounded the next corner. In the dying light of Wesley’s magic, I caught sight of a tall, burly figure in a shirt, trousers, and dark apron. Overly-long arms stretched toward the ground. His hand was curled around some kind of tool, but I couldn’t make out what it was. As if sensing my attention, the creature’s head jerked in my direction. I blinked, and for a second, the figure seemed…

…taller?

I hastily averted my eyes, only to catch Wesley staring in some strange mix of awe and horror.

“He didn’t look like that…” came Wesley’s shaky whisper through the dark. “That’s not—that’s not how I…”

“Wesley?” I dared to give him a shake. Wesley gulped and backed away from the thing that stood in front of us.

“We can’t stay here,” he said, voice thick with unshed tears.

“What’s that—”

“We need to go.”

Wesley whirled around, nearly speed-walking down the long, dim corridor. Against my better judgment, I glanced over my shoulder one last time. What I saw made my blood run cold. The figure—too thin, too long, too not-like-us—stood in the middle of the hall with its head thrown back and mouth wide open, emitting a low, gurgling groan. With an image like that firmly lodged in my head, I couldn’t get to the third door on the left fast enough. And yet, it seemed like a thousand miles stretched between each door.

“Finally,” Wesley hissed under his breath. Another low groan echoed from the dark as the soldier beside me fumbled with the keys.

“Can’t we just bust down the door?” I said, hating how high and thin I sounded.

“And break the lock? Or the door itself? That door is a barrier between us and that—that—” he paused. “It is the difference between life and death. Just like that dagger in your hand.”

Wesley returned to his task. I stared down the long hallway. My skin crawled with each scratch-draaag-scratch that echoed off the walls, the high ceiling. I knew what I was hearing. I’m sure Wesley knew, too.

Ker-CHUNK!

The door swung open and Wesley shoved me through before whirling around and slamming it shut. The lock turned over, and a loud THUNK sounded as Wesley dropped a large metal bar into place. We both froze, listening to the scratch-draaag-scratch outside the door. It paused, letting out a haunting moan-scream, before moving on. The sound faded to nothing. We both sighed in relief.

Wesley stepped away from the door. He murmured a word in a strange language, and the room flooded with light as candles and torches ignited. Just like the torch we’d lost, these, too, were lit with green fire.

I turned in a slow circle, taking in my surroundings while Wesley muttered to himself. Against the far wall to my right was an ornate fireplace flanked by broken busts. Trashed bookshelves lined the walls, and surrounding us were red plush chairs and sofas, all overturned, torn, leaking their stuffing. Ruined books, torn pages and other papers, and inkwells littered the bloodstained floor. Whatever left the blood behind was no longer here.

A shuddering half-sob escaped Wesley’s chest. I glanced over to see him running a hand over his lightly-stubbled mouth.

“What happened here?” I breathed.

Wesley didn’t answer. Instead, he dove into his task, starting with the desk in front of us, toppled over and missing its leg.

“Come on! You wished to aid me in my task, yes?”

“Oh! Uh—yeah.”

Not quite knowing where to start, I chose a random debris pile and started digging. As I searched, I caught random snippets of what I could only call “lore” on the scattered papers I tossed aside: poetry, history, military tactics, inventory logs, and the like. That last one stilled my hand, and I held up the meticulous chart for Wesley to see.

“Hey, Wesley! Look!”

The soldier jumped and whirled around to face me. “Did you find it?! Oh—”

“It’s an inventory log. Think we might need it?”

Wesley came over and took the torn-out list. His lips pressed into a thin line and his brows knit in a brow as he quickly scanned the page. Sighing, he shook his head and handed it back.

“No. This is just rations.”

I kicked a pebble at my feet. It skittered across the floor and disappeared into the dark.

“Damn.”

“Keep searching. It has to be here.”