This story contains many intense scenes and should be read with caution
They slid down a chute and landed with a bruise-inducing thump. Danny looked up in the bright light, with some vague idea of climbing back up but saw the trapdoor closing tight above him.
"Uhhh," moaned Cindy, as she sat up, rubbing her left elbow. "Where are we?"
"Be with ye in a minute," said a loud gruff voice. Turning towards the speaker they saw a giant of a man, standing behind a table, wearing bloodstained coveralls and holding up a meat cleaver. "Jes wait there and I'll take care of ye," he said and brought the cleaver down hard onto the table, chopping through something.
With a shock Danny realized what he was chopping had a shoe attached, glancing around he noticed that the room was filled with boxes and piles of rubbish. On the walls, neatly lined up were large meat hooks and hanging on most of them, the hook going clear through their chest, were fake children. At least Danny thought they were fake until a hint of movement caught his eye and he looked carefully at the last child on the wall. The hand twitched slightly and Danny's eyes widened as he recognized his friend Chris from class.
With a surge of fright he jumped to his feet, wild eyes darting everywhere, finally fixing on a small door across from them.
Crash! The giant meathook on the end of a chain smashed into the box next to Danny's head. Instinctively he jerked his head back, stinging from flying splinters and looked at the man calmly pulling back the hook and chain.
"Don't ye get any ideas of leaving me," he said, coiling up the chain in preparation for another throw, "I ain't about to have my winter larder escape on me. I ken kill ya with my hook here," he patted the meathook affectionately, "but its more fun if you're alive when I hook ya to the wall." He grinned at them showing rotted and missing teeth.
"What'll we do?" hissed Cindy, "I don't want to die."
Danny turned toward her. She was so scared she was physically trembling. Seeing her reaction had a strange effect on Danny, he was still afraid but it wasn't paralyzing like before, his mind began thinking again. A few seconds of furious thinking and he knew what they had to do.
"I've got a plan, " he whispered to her, squeezing her hand hard until she turned her shocked face toward him. "It takes him a minute to pull back the hook, we can escape out that door while he's trying to get ready for another throw."
"I'm afraid," she said but he could see she wasn't as paralyzed with fear as she had been. Encouraged, he continued.
"I know. So am I, but we've got to do this," he whispered forcefully, "you start forward like your heading for the door and then pull back when he throws the hook so you don't get hurt. As soon as its hit, race through the door, I'll be right behind you!"
"Ok," she whispered, and moved forward.
Smash! The meathook crashed into a box right in front of her.
"Uh Huh little girlie," he said as he began to coil back up the chain.
"Now!" Danny yelled and jumped to his feet and sprinted for the door, Cindy followed right behind him.
"Come back here," the giant roared, trying to get his chain coiled up enough for another throw. But Danny and Cindy slammed open the door and raced through into a dim light. As Danny shut the door behind them and closed the latch, hoping it would hold, he heard the giant yell at them, "You don't wanna go in there, they'll get ye and it won't be quick like I would be."
Danny turned away from the door and looked around. They were in a large dark room filled with boxes and crates of all sizes and types, most of them just shapes in the dim light. From somewhere ahead there was a strange chittering sound.
Cindy peered around cautiously, "we're in some kind of storeroom," she whispered, "what's that noise?"
"I don't know," Danny whispered back, "but there is a door on the other side of the room. Come on, slow and silent."
She nodded and they began to creep forward. As his eyes began to adjust to the dim light Danny could make out more of his surroundings, confirming his first impression. They were in a storage room and boxes and piles of every description were all around them. They followed a winding path through the heaps as they headed for the door outlined by light on the far wall.
As they moved further into the room the sound grew louder. It seemed to be low and widespread in front of them, causing them to slow down. Finally they could hear the sound just beyond a large pile of boxes and Danny stopped Cindy with a hand on her shoulder and crept forward. Peeking around the corner he saw a shifting moving mass on the floor ahead.
It took him a moment to identify what it was. Rats! Hundreds of rats, in a huge living pile, crawling over each other, burrowing, biting and chattering at each other. Danny wondered what could hold their interest like that until he spotted a shoe sticking out from the side of the pile. Shuddering he pulled back silently and was about to turn around and warn Cindy when he heard her shriek and grab his arm.
"Something tried to bite my ankle," she said in a rush, feet kicking at unseen enemies. Danny watched as the mass of rats began to stream away from the body and head towards them. Looking around desperately he spied a mound of boxes that made a natural ladder.
"Come on," he told her, while he grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the pile. In a second they were scrambling up the moldering pile of debris, as rats by the dozens arrived below them and began climbing and jumping after them.
Danny reached the top of the pile and watched in horror as the rats followed them up the pile coming closer with each second. Looking around wildly he saw a stable-looking pile of wooden boxes within jumping distance. Squeezing her shoulder tightly until she turned away from the rats below, Danny pointed at the pile of boxes. Cindy nodded in agreement and they both stood up and jumped just as the first rats reached the top.
Cindy made the top of the box with relative ease, landing halfway on it and needing just a second to squirm fully up and over the lip. Danny slipped as he jumped and didn't get much of a push-off. He landed without enough of his body over the top to move and could only freeze, afraid that any movement would start him sliding towards the edge. It wasn't until Cindy grabbed him by the belt that he began to breathe again.
"Why did you have to scream?" Danny asked. They were sitting on the top of the box, back to back while down below the pile was ringed by tiny expectant faces all looking upward at them.
"The rat was biting me, what was I supposed to do, kiss it?"
"If you had, we might not be in this fix."
"Well I think under the circumstances, a scream was what anyone would have done," she said with conviction.
"I want to get out of here," Danny said in a small voice.
"Me too," Cindy replied, all the strength gone from her voice, "if we could just get to the door. It looks solid enough that if we got through it and shut it behind us we would be ok."
"If," he said dejectedly, "if, if, nothing but if's. None of it will get us to the door safely, we would need to be able to float to do that."
"Wait, that’s a good idea," Cindy said, excitement creeping into her voice, "we can make it to the door without touching the ground by jumping from pile to pile.
"Yea right"
"I mean it, look around," she said excitedly pointing towards the piles around them, "if we jump to that one, and then the one over there we are almost to the door."
Danny looked up finally, a tiny germ of hope blossoming inside him and began to critically study the layout of the room and the locations and distances of the piles.
After several hair-raising leaps and scrambles to stay above the level the rats could get to, they had arrived at the last pile. They were right next to the door but the floor below held hundreds of rats, there was no question of jumping down and trying to get through the door.
"So what do we do now?" Danny asked as they sprawled precariously on the top of a large pile of shifting cardboard.
"I don't know," Cindy replied, nervously eyeing a particularly brave and agile rat that was working its way up the pile towards them.
She grabbed a big sheet of cardboard and flipped it like a frisbee towards the rat. Instead of hitting it, the cardboard flipped over in midair and sailed down to the floor, landing with a large WHACK. The rats scattering for a second, then surging back over the cardboard to fill the area again.
"I've got it!" Cindy exclaimed, "did you see that? The rats backed off from a thrown piece of cardboard. If we throw a big pile down right in front of the door and jump down we'll have enough time to get out."
"I hope," she added.
Danny eyed the brave rat and several of its cousins that were making their way towards them, "well, lets do it now then."
They both grabbed as much cardboard as they could manage and threw it down towards the rats next to the door and then jumped. The cardboard landed with a WHACK and their feet on it a second later caused another one. The rats crowded back for a split second. As soon as her feet touched the floor, Cindy opened the door and raced through it, Danny following right behind and closing the door behind him.
They stood still in the brightly-lit hallway, waiting for their hearts to slow and listening to the frustrated scratching on the door behind them.
The hallway was long and narrow with a door at the far end and one on the right side about midway. Both doors were tightly closed.
When they reached the side door, Danny reached for the doorknob and then hesitated, "do you think we should open it?" he whispered.
Cindy thought for a second and then nodded, "just an inch, maybe there are stairs out of here."
Danny slowly and silently turned the ancient knob and opened the door a crack, his eye glued to the slit.
"Well, what do you see?" Cindy whispered impatiently, "is it a way out?"
"Look for yourself," Danny whispered and backed up while opening the door about a foot.
A wave of searing hot air swept over them, pouring out from the room within. The room was lit a weird red color by an enormous glowing mound of coals at least fifteen feet wide and ten feet high. The mound was inside of a giant heater of some kind as large ducts rose from the heater to disappear up into the ceiling above. The access door to the heater was wide open, allowing them a clear view of the coals within and allowing the heat and light from the coals a direct path towards them.
Despite the intense heat the room was not empty. A figure stood with its back to them, shoveling coal from a large pile into the heater. Danny was amazed that someone could even survive in the room for very long, he was sweating intensely where the superheated air was rushing past him from the opening. But the figure had a jacket on and worked with the speed of someone trying to stay warm.
Cindy was about to say something when Danny clutched her arm and silently pointed towards the legs of the worker. Cindy's eyes widened as she noticed that his legs ended not in feet with shoes on them but in hooves and that the pants worn had a strange knee-looking joint on the back side above the hooves.
Looking closer Danny thought he could see small horns on the head silhouetted by the firelight buthe couldn't be sure. Signaling to Cindy, he silently closed the door, breathing with relief as the cool air returned.
"Who was that," Cindy wanted to know.
"I don't know, and I don't want to know," Danny replied, moving down the hallway, "I don't think I would go in that room even if there was an exit. Let's check this door, its got to lead out of here."
They opened the door slowly and the first thing they saw was a spiral staircase leading up at the far end of the room. A quick look around showed them a stone-floored room with dozens of stone statues of different types but no movement.
"It looks ok," Cindy whispered, "come on."
They walked into the room, carefully closing the door behind them. When nothing jumped out at them Cindy began walking straight towards the staircase, Danny tagging along behind.
He slowed slightly to look at a statue as he went by. The statue was a perfect replica of a child around ten years old, in costume and a horrified look on his face. The next one showed a girl in a Halloween costume, perfectly carved and also with a horrified look on her face. Glancing around, Danny saw that all of the statues were the same type, each was of a trick-or-treater and each had a horrified look on their face.
Getting a little scared by all of the statues, Danny tried to hurry and catch up with Cindy, only to discover that his feet wouldn't speed up, feeling more like they weighed twenty pounds each and he was walking through molasses. Looking down he got the shock of his life. His feet had turned to stone! Perfectly carved granite blocks were attached to the ends of his legs. Each lace and stitch in his shoes were reproduced.
"Danny, what's happening?" the raw panic in her voice tore Danny away from the sight of his own feet. She was standing a couple of feet in front of him looking down. Where her feet and shoes should have been were perfectly carved blocks of rock. Watching carefully, Danny could see the rock slowly creeping up her legs, slowing turning her legs and princess costume to gray.
"RUN!" Danny yelled at her as he tried to get moving, the panic sweeping through him giving him strength to shuffle along, "we are turning into stone!"
"I can't" she wailed, body surging wildly as she tried to get more than a slow sliding shuffle out of her legs.
His movements became more difficult and Danny looked down to see that the rock now covered his knees and they no longer flexed. Looking up in desperation he saw they were getting close to the staircase but were slowing down. Without warning a wind began to swirl around them, slowly growing in intensity although they were inside of a closed basement room.
Fighting forward, still slightly behind Cindy, Danny noticed for the first time that there was a small table in front of the staircase. On the table were two small bottles and they were filled with a golden sparkling liquid.
"Try and get to the bottles," he yelled above the rising wind, "I bet they have the cure in them."
"I'm not going to make it!" she screamed. Looking at her Danny saw she was right, she was only a couple of feet from the table and the precious bottles but the rock had reached her waist, cutting all movement and she could only twist and stretch her upper body now.
He tried to move past her, only to discover to his horror that he also could not move. Looking down he could see that everything below the waist was solid rock, perfectly carved. The wind continued to grow, rising to a howl now, swirling around them. The bottles on the table shivered as a gust hit them. If it gets any stronger, he thought, the wind will knock the bottles off.
The thought gave him an idea and by swinging his arms and bending forward he was able to tip over. Tipping forward he fell against Cindy and pushed her with all his might towards the table. Finally falling face down on the rock floor.
Cindy felt herself being pushed forward and as she fell she grabbed the bottles from the table, cradling them with her hands as she hit the ground. The lack of any sensation and dull thud as her body hit scaring her more than anything else. As the wind screamed around them she drank the golden liquid from one of the bottles.
Danny lay where he was, head laying sideways, unable to look up, his body refusing to move, only his arms below the elbow and his head from the neck up now worked. The wind screamed in his ears making it impossible to hear anything else. He could only hope that his last-ditch effort had pushed Cindy close enough to the bottles so she would be saved.
It was with surprise and disbelief that he felt her hands on his face and the second bottle of liquid being poured into his mouth. The effect was almost instant, and he could feel the life returning to his body, surging down until within just a couple of seconds he was normal again. Curiously the wind died down at the exact same instant and in the sudden silence they looked at each other.
"Are you all right?" Cindy asked, her voice hushed in the quiet.
"Yea," he said staggering to his feet, "let's get out of here."
They both turned and ran to the staircase, climbing up into the darkness and away from the room of statues.
End of Chapter 2, click here to read chapter 3