The cursed Castle

We arrived at the abandoned castle sometime later on horseback. I say we, but it was mainly just me and Rachel, my AI companion residing within the insides of my skull.

The time was already approaching midnight, and although I initially wanted to handle the quest while the sun was still up, I was told by Rachel that the castle wasn’t going to be accessible to outsiders until nightfall. So, I eventually had to delay my arrival by a few hours, did a little sightseeing, then opted to instead to swing by at the appropriate time.

The place was rather small for a castle, standing alone at the edge of nowhere. There was a drawbridge that went over a river to the location, and the building itself looked quite old.

In front of the castle was a large wooden gate, which was wide open to reveal the insides of the courtyard. From that distance I could make out shapes on the ground, but I couldn’t see much else as I was still pretty far out.

So, I decided to get closer.

I gave the horse a little tap with my foot in its side, and it began to trot forward. As we passed over the drawbridge, I took note of how quiet the entire place was, and it gave me an eerie feeling.

As soon as we passed through the wooden gates of the castle and entered the courtyard, that feeling almost doubled. The things I once thought to be shapes on the ground turned out to be bodies littering the castle grounds.

They were everywhere.

People. Knights. Watchmen. Women. They all appeared to have been dead for quite some time, with parts of their bodies showing signs of decay. Suddenly, I felt like I had made a mistake bringing the horse past the castle gates with me.

The fact of the matter was, the people on the ground were dead—but not really. The moment I accidentally touched one of them, or the moment I made a loud noise, they were all going to wake up and attack in unison. They were like undead zombies or something similar. The only difference was that they were a little faster than your average brain-eaters.

Rachel had filled me in on the necessary information on our way to the castle, telling me about the monsters, the traps, and its defenses.

"Sword."

I summoned my broadsword from my inventory, then climbed off the horse a second later. The weapon appeared with a glow, resting across my back.

I grabbed the horse by the reins, turned it around, and nudged it to begin walking. I guided the animal outside the castle gates and escorted it over the drawbridge. After securing it by a tree and making sure it was safe, I proceeded back towards the castle on foot, going over the bridge and passing through the gates a minute later.

The moment I entered the courtyard again, I took a deep breath and readied myself for what I was about to do. I summoned my gloves, then unsheathed my sword from my back, holding it in my right hand. And then, I did something intentionally stupid.

I slammed my open palm against the wooden gate repeatedly, making as much noise as I could. One might think what I was doing at that very moment was counterintuitive, seeing how I could have simply slipped past the sleeping zombies and walked into the Castle undetected.

But I wasn't there to attempt completing the quest. I wanted to grind and level up my abilities by fighting monsters and enemy combatants, as many as I could. So I wanted the attention. I wanted the brain eaters to wake up.

At first, I thought I wasn’t being loud enough, as none of the bodies on the ground did so much as move an inch. So, I stopped, and the entire place fell silent again.

"Hmmm…" Rachel said. "Maybe you're not being loud enough."

"Probably." I replied, raising my hand to continue slamming on the gates. But then, something happened.

First, the wooden gates to the castle suddenly slammed shut behind me, locking me inside and causing my heart to nearly skip a beat from the loud noise they made on impact.

Then, I heard it.

A groan, and a shuffle, as one of the corpses on the left side of the courtyard suddenly sprang back to life. I was expecting it, I knew that would happen, and yet, the sight of the decaying abomination waking up from its slumber still made the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end.

It wasn't long before the others woke up too.

They all began groaning and rising from the ground in a haunting UNISON, and the thing that freaked me out the most in that moment was the fluidity of their movement. Yeah, their bodies were shaking a little, and there were maggots crawling in and out of their eyes, nose, and ears. But these guys didn't appear sluggish. These guys weren't typical zombies at all.

They all brandished weapons, with some carrying daggers and others wielding spears and cleavers. I guess they had been prepared this whole time.

As soon as they were standing, they began slowly moving towards me.

“How many are there?” I asked my AI companion as I tightened my grip on my sword in preparation for the pending battle. They were getting closer by the second, forcing me to take a couple steps back while I waited for an answer from my AI companion. The last thing I wanted was for them to box me into a corner this early on in the fight. If that happened, fighting my way out was most likely going to be a pain given their sheer numbers.

Also, fortunately for me, there were no archers among them that I could see. That would have proven quite the problem for me to handle if I were outnumbered, which I clearly already was. But as soon as Rachel answered my question by saying, “Fourteen! There are fourteen of them currently in the courtyard,” I immediately jumped into the offensive. I absolutely couldn't let them box me into the corner.

One of the three walking corpses that were closest to me suddenly lunged forward with his knife. I dodged to the side before burying my sword deep into his stomach. I didn’t wait to see if he was dead or not.

I pulled out my blade with a single yank, then slashed it in a wide arc to my right, taking off the head of the second walking corpse in the process. Maggots flew out of the opened wound in its neck. It was so gross.

The third one tried being quick with his axe as he lifted it above his head to strike me in the chest, but I was quicker. I swung my sword in his direction and watched as the hand carrying his weapon dropped to the ground an instant later. I took off his head soon after.

However, the entire time I had been fighting the three zombies, the remaining eleven corpses standing behind them did not advance. They just stood there, silent, huddled together in a group. Watching. It was creepy.

After I killed the walking corpse holding the axe, the first one I had stabbed in the stomach tried getting back to his feet and rejoining the fight. But it never had the chance. I turned my attention to him and lopped off his head with another clean cut through the neck. As I watched his head fall to the ground, I couldn’t help but notice the absence of a familiar sight. There was no blood with these things.

“Hunter, we have a problem!” Rachel said, causing me to quickly turn around to face what I thought was more maggots filled bloodless zombies coming towards me. But that wasn’t the case. At least not quite.

Where there had been eleven frozen corpses watching me just a second ago, there were now more than twenty. The entire castle courtyard was packed with the bloodless creatures standing in every corner, waiting for the moment when they would all rush me at the same time.

"... Crap." I muttered.

They had somehow multiplied in the time it took me to fight the other three, and they were quickly blocking my entrance to the castle with their sheer numbers. They were now well over thirty, and just like I thought, they suddenly began rushing towards me all at once.

"Crap. Crap. Crap."