The Mansion Incident

Chapter Eighteen

Jill heard the crackling of a fire nearby and opened her eyes. Attempting to roll over, she winced at the pounding in her head and coughed weakly. Where in the world was she? And then she remembered what happened.

She sat up too quickly, the pain in her head threatening to split it in two, and saw two zombies sitting not five feet from her. She scrambled backwards, frantically reaching for her gun, but it wasn’t in her holster. She must have dropped it when she was knocked out.

She tore her other Glock from the shoulder holster, but the zombies remained motionless, not moving an inch. They were both dead, truly dead this time. And in the flickering fire light, she saw what she failed to notice at first.

Their faces were gone. Something had ripped them off. All that was left was a bloody skull. Jill felt her stomach lurch, but she had not thrown up yet tonight, even with everything that happened so far, and she was not about to start now. They weren’t zombies, they were just dead bodies now, and dead bodies were nothing to be afraid of.

Shakily, she got to her feet and examined her surroundings. It was a cramped little room with wooden walls, a dirty throw rug on the floor, and a warm fire burning in the fireplace. Behind her was a small kitchen table and two rickety chairs. There were two windows that looked out into trees, and two doors. The place reminded her of the hunting camp her family owned up in the mountains.

She didn’t understand how she was even still alive. She touched her head and realized her beret was missing too, probably lost out there somewhere. Her walkie-talkie was gone too, as well as the shotgun, she realized with dismay. They must have fallen off when she was brought to the cabin.

The last thing she remembered was being chased by the person, or creature, with the chains on its wrists. If the creature caught her, why didn’t it just kill her? Why would it bring her to this little house and then leave her here?

She didn’t want to stay and find out. Maybe she was destined to join the two zombies there and get her face peeled off. She went to the first door and tried the rusty doorknob. It wasn’t even closed all the way, and it swung open instantly.

Jill stepped onto the small front porch and looked out into the forest surrounding her. She didn’t see any kind of path nearby and the thought of being lost in the middle of the woods terrified her. How could she find the others, and how could they find her? Gun still in hand, she stepped off the porch and her boots crunched lightly on the gravel spread around the front door.

She looked up and suddenly saw the creature standing no more than twenty yards away, at the edge of the tree line. Jill flinched and swung her gun up, but the creature didn’t move. Her heart pounded in her chest and her breath came quickly as she stood there, gun drawn. The creature made no move to attack. It just stood there like a statue.

Jill got a better look at it. She saw now that it was definitely a human being, not some other kind of creature. A woman, actually, even though it was hard to tell. Her hair, perhaps blonde once, hung down almost to her waist in dirty strands that concealed her face. She wore a ragged blue shirt with one sleeve missing, and a filthy pair of brown slacks. Her feet were bare and caked with mud. She stood with a hunched back like a gorilla, and her arms, which appeared to be too long, hung almost to the ground. Broken chains dangled from her wrists, which looked rubbed raw.

And in one of her large hands was a bunch of mangled flowers. The woman shifted her stance and took a hesitant step forward.

“Don’t move,” Jill said quickly, although she doubted that the woman could understand her. It was easy to see that the woman had been neglected and abused, probably for years. She looked like she grew up in a cave. Jill wondered if she knew how to speak at all. But what bothered her most was the fact that the woman seemed relatively uninjured, despite the fact that Jill clearly remembered shooting her at least three times.

The woman said nothing, but lifted her arm and held up the flowers, as if showing them to Jill. Was this some kind of peace offering? Jill very slowly returned her pistol to the shoulder holster, but left it unclipped in case she needed to draw quickly. She held out her hands, hoping the woman would understand that she was now unarmed, and carefully backed up through the door. She let it swing closed in front of her.

What could she do now? She went to the other door and pushed it open, finding that it led to a narrow staircase leading down into a dark cellar. The last thing she wanted to trap herself in the basement, but she didn’t like the idea of staying in the living room either. Maybe the basement was more defensible. She closed the door behind her and locked it, although she doubted that would make any difference.

She descended into the cellar, expecting to find a mildewy, rat-infested pit full of shelves of canned goods and smelling of compost. She was surprised when her feet touched a solid floor and the air smelled clean. When she turned on the light, she discovered another surprise.

The basement was about fifteen feet square, with a solid cement floor and clean white walls. Nothing was stored there. The basement’s sole function seemed to be an entrance to the metal door across from the stairs. There was no door handle, only a card reader built into the wall.

Except that Jill didn’t have a security card. If Barry was there, he would have one. He took one from the zombie that killed Kenneth. Jill turned around and ran back up the steps, an idea in her head. She unlocked and opened the door and stepped through.

The woman stood in the doorway. Jill froze and reached for her gun, but the woman only looked at her, as if unsure how to react. Her large blue eyes peered out from her mask of dirty hair. Jill drew her gun when the woman bent over, but she only opened her hand to drop her bouquet of crumpled flowers to the floor. She looked back up at Jill and took a few steps back. She looked for all the world like a scared little girl seeking acceptance from an uncaring parent.

Jill was completely floored. She kept her gun in hand, aiming it at the woman, but slowly moved forward until she could bend down and reach the flowers. The woman was clearly offering them as some kind of gift. Maybe by accepting them, she could earn the woman’s trust. Or at least make her hesitate before attacking again.

She picked up a crushed dandelion and looked back at the woman, who didn’t seem to react. She stood up and paused a moment, thinking maybe some kind of exchange was in order. She didn’t have anything that she wanted to give up, but she unpinned her police badge from her belt and gently set it on the floor.

Jill backed away as the woman reached forward and scooped up the badge. She held it in her large hands and shrieked joyously before turning and running out the door and into the forest. In spite of everything that Jill witnessed so far this night, she could not help but think that she had just experienced the weirdest thing in her entire life.

She dropped the dandelion and frisked the two dead zombies, finding what she was looking for with a great sigh of relief. A security card was hooked onto the second zombie’s belt. Jill yanked it off and ran back down the stairs to the door. She slid the card through and the door unlocked immediately. On the other side was another staircase heading down. Jill ran down the steps two at a time, letting the door swing shut behind her, hoping to get as far away from the woman as she could.

But when the door closed behind her, it did not lock.

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