The putrid stench of rot hit his nose the moment he landed on the frozen, once-muddy ground. 

The darkness faded—shifting to his hazy, gray vision.

“It stinks of death,” Abe stammered, raising a hand to his face.

“Get used to it already,” Elissa shook her head and continued into the dirt tunnel.

Low light tunneled into the tunnel from ahead, and several figures robed in black rose from rickety timber chairs as they entered a room—the dirt walls around them covered by wooden planks and lined with oil lamps.

“Intruder,” one of them sneered.

“Food,” another said, grinning to reveal rows of dagger-like fangs beneath their dark cowl.

Purple hands with sharp claws extended from their loose robes.

“What the hell are they,” Abe stammered.

“Fouled people,” Elissa grunted. “Weaklings.”

Marching forward, two robed figures leaped at Elissa. Sneering, she swiped her clawed hands across them, cutting through their torsos and releasing a torrent of thick, blackened blood. 

Two in the rear exchanged glances and turned to run, but Elissa flashed beside them in an instant, striking them both down.

One remained, glancing between Elissa and Abe. Turning to Abe, it darted for the exit.

“Kill it,” Elissa shouted.

Stiletto in hand, Abe lunged at the creature as it charged claws first, stabbing through its heart and soaking his right arm in its tar-like blood.

Pulling the dagger free, the corpse fell to the ground.

Abe grasped at his chest. He had expected to feel something, but he only felt hollow nothingness as he looked down at the body, soaking the ground in its black blood.

“They must have a master somewhere down here,” Elissa said, turning to the two tunnels that led from the room. “I’ll take this one, you take the other.”

Abe glared silently at her.

“Come on, don’t tell me you’re as useless as you look?” she said, turning down her tunnel. 

Yeah, yeah, you talk all you want, you psychopath. 

Abe glanced down at the tarred dagger in his hand, and then up at the tunnel. Desire panged within. He was free of the manor now, but escaping didn’t even register. A hunger swelled within him at the thought of impressing Miss Nia.

Sniffing the air, he walked towards the tunnel. The stench of the robed men they just killed filled the air, making it impossible to catch anything else. He wondered briefly if it was intentional, their thick blood smelling as if it had been laced with something earthly to make it more potent.

The tunnel traveled down at a slight angle, timbers pressed into the dirt as makeshift stairs. Gradually, it grew damp and rocky, the stench of rot piercing through the scent left behind by the robed men—increasingly potent with every step.

“This is where it is coming from,” Abe murmured as he took careful steps through the dark.

A peculiar hum droned in the distance. He narrowed his gaze down the winding tunnel but saw nothing.

The humming grew louder, the sounds forming grunts and groans, and soon a cacophony of moaning filled his ears.

Continuing down, the tunnel opened up into a cavern, the lengths of which his fuzzy, gray vision couldn’t make out.

Metal bars lined a platform connected to the tunnel entrance, and Abe gingerly walked towards it.

His eyes widened and his jaw fell agape.

“My god,” he whispered through trembling lips.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of mindless zombies moaned and shuffled aimlessly at the base of the massive cavern, some dozen or so feet down from the platform.

“What the fuck is going on here?” he shook his head and took a step backward.

Turning to his right, he narrowed on where the path led. A closed, steel door with a red valve beside it.

Trepid steps carried Abe to the door. There was no handle.

“Okay,” he mumbled, taking hold of the valve and turning it. “Looks like I don’t have much of a choice.”

Several grinding twists, and a click released on the door.

Gritting his teeth, Abe pushed it open.

Stepping through, he entered what appeared to be some kind of command room. Glass extended across one side, overlooking the army of zombies, beneath which controls and dials stretched. Lockers lined the opposing wall, and tables sat at the center, a map stretched across them, held down by a keyring and a flare. Another steel door with a matching valve continued directly across from the one he had entered through.

Abe glanced at the door, then the glass, and then down at the tables and slowly walked over.

It took him a moment to realize what he was looking at, gradually piecing it together.

“Blueprints, tunnels,” he muttered under his breath, running a finger along the tunnels marked on the map. “The cavern,” he tapped on a large, hollowed-out spot.

Metal groaned and he glanced up. 

Nothing.

There were more tunnels leading from the main cavern marked on the map, with notes marked across them stating “incomplete.”

“What is this… Do these?” He tried to picture the town above, the mansion, and the hill. “Could that be where they lead?”

Metal groaned again.

Glancing up and scanned the room. It was empty, fluorescent light flickering.

Metal clanked and grunted. It was above him. Abe looked up, ears twitching as he followed the groaning metal of the command center’s roof.

He sniffed, hoping his senses would further illuminate whatever moved above, but the rot of a thousand zombies masked everything.

His brow rose as metal shifted again and he took a step back toward the glass at his rear.

The fuck is that

 

*Thud*

 

It had landed. On the ground outside.

His shaky vision fixated on the open door, and the internal valve beside it.

Fuck!

Abe ran for it—if he was quick, maybe he could close it.

Taking the door in his hand, he pulled it shut, metal grinding against metal. But an inch from completion, it halted.

“What the fuck?” 

He pushed harder.

“What the fuck is that?”

Caught at the corner of the door was a slimy, smooth appendage.

“No, wait…”

Metal rang out as thuds cascaded against the door, slamming Abe backward and loosening his grip.

A blurred shape flashed forth, knocking him back.

Tentacles swung it toward him, crashing against his chest before he had a chance to even raise a hand in defense. 

He skidded back into a roll and fumbled for his feet, turning toward the table and round it as he tried to find escape.

It shot forward, its feet diving into his stomach as Abe passed by the window, lifting him off the ground and sending him flying through the glass at his back.

Pupils dilated as he felt weightlessness, and then fell. 

His eyes caught a glimpse of the stilled figure as he fell; it was a distorted, hunchbacked zombie, several tentacles of human-like flesh whipping out from his back.

 

He landed hard. Disorientated. In pain. Body reeling.

As the ringing faded and shapes realigned, the moans flooded him.

Oh, shit!

The zombies turned, groaning, and fell. Their weight collected upon him. With their bodies pressed skin against skin, the stench grew stronger. And more piled on. 

A groaning mouth was beside him, its stale, rotten breath against his face. It bit just out of reach from his flesh, slowly inching forward as it shuffled through the ever-increasing mound of writhing bodies mounting atop one another.

Struggling against the claustrophobic weight of dozens of zombies, Abe forced his face to the side and opened his jaw in wait.

It shuffled closer, snapping down again—just out of reach. 

A little further.

It complied, shuffling closer.

Like a mouse trap, Abe crunched down, tearing through rotting nose flesh and snapping bone.

The zombie didn’t care, nor did it feel pain, instead, it widened its jaw to bite. The angle of attack favored Abe, and the aimless teeth snapped harmlessly out of reach.

Biting down again, Abe dug his teeth into its forehead, effortlessly crunching through bone to reveal its rotted brain. Slurping out the contents, the zombie fell dead, but he didn’t feel any stronger. 

Twisting his body beneath the heap, he tried to move. It was useless, and a moment later he felt a bite. And then another. Some of the zombies must have reached him, digging their jaws and jaws into his flesh.

He felt them gnawing at him. It would take a while—the battle beneath the sewers had strengthened his undead hide. And weaklings like these wouldn’t break through it so easily.

The sensation of pain was strange in his undead form, somewhat nauseating. It came at him in waves, but a simple thought could switch it off. 

Fuck it, perhaps it is best to die here. What life lies beyond for me anyway? I never asked to become a monster.

He closed his eyes, pushed the pain away, and lay still.

The darkness he had hoped for didn’t fill his mind. Instead, Miss Nia animated in perfect detail filled his thoughts. She stood over him, foot pressing down against his chest, driving him into the ground. A smirk lined her full lips. His eyes drifted up her stockinged legs, toward her partially parted grown, and the promising darkness beyond. She shook her head and waved a finger.

“Are you so ready to die? Don’t you want to taste it first?” Her words sounded alive as if she was there in the room alongside him, and a pulse of heat flooded his veins.

Abe’s eyes flung open, a rage building within. 

He bit out, crunching through the zombie atop him. Ravenous and possessed, he continued to bite, eating through the zombie’s torso in seconds. 

As the body fell to the sides, squeezed out by the pressure weighting down from above, another fell in its spot.

He kept eating. His bowels were limitless, or so it seemed—crunching through bone and rotting flesh with zero fatigue.

The groaning heap of bodies continued to fall towards his chopping maw. 

Screaming, Abe pushed out as the weight lessened, throwing bodies aside and climbing out through a hole that formed at the heap’s top. 

All around him, zombies clawed up the heap, chopping as they reached out for him.

A jaw bit into his shoulder as he struggled to pull his arms free, and another closed in on his face. 

He swung down, smashing his forehead against the attacking zombie and sending it rolling off the heap. 

Slowly, several others clawed their way up toward him, their snorting noses leading them toward his scent.

Roaring, he ripped his right arm free as another lunged for him. He stabbed up sending his stiletto through the bottom of its jaw and impaling its brain. True death came instantly.

He stabbed another through the eye socket that crawled toward him and ripped his left arm free—ripping the face off a zombie to his left with a swipe from his claws.

Swirling the stiletto around, he stabbed down at the crawling zombies as he wiggled the rest of his body free.

Dozens were already dead, but there had to be hundreds, maybe thousands within the cavern. He had already tasted their brains, and they weren’t nourishing in the slightest. 

Even with his ghoul body, slaughtering his way through so many zombies would be an exhausting task, and he wasn’t entirely sure he was even able to.

Stabbing and slashing, Abe killed another wave of zombies that managed to climb atop the heap.

There has to be something I can use, he scanned the cavern.

He looked up as he sent another zombie falling with a hole through its brain.

A crane extended across the cavern, and from it, a crate dangled—held up by a chain.

It wasn’t much higher than the heap of zombie bodies, but too far to jump. Eyeing his surroundings, he searched for a solution. It was preferable not to find himself at the bottom of a heap again. Besides, he might not get so lucky next time. Had more mouths been able to reach him through the heap, he might have been torn apart before he managed to get out.

Come on, think damn it!

Digging its hands into the mound and pulling itself up, a zombie rose behind Abe, whose focus was locked on the crane.

Stumbling forward, it lunged, jaw wide, but tripped on the flailing arm of another.

Biting down as it fell, it caught him.

“Fuck!” Abe sneered, pulling his hand away as he watched the zombie topple down the mound. He raised his hand to his face. His ring finger was missing.

“You bastard,” he muttered looking down at the zombie. 

But a moment later his eyes widened, “You’ve got to be fucking with me,” he mouthed as several zombies jumped atop it, maws chopping in competition for the finger held in its mouth.