The Crypt Volume One

The Dare: part two

Charlie was hot on Tommy's heels, and together they all but threw themselves down the staircase.

Outside, the mist was parting like two walls of white water. Something was dragging itself across the damp lawn toward Elech Mansion. It had mottled legs but monstrously strong arms. It used them to drag itself forward, inch by slow, painful inch.

A drenched ivory gown covered its body. Limp black hair hung from its skull. Brown talons dug into the earth, ripping out clumps as it clawed and yanked itself forward.

Tommy and Charlie kept running down the stairs. They hurled themselves along so that they were taking two, three, sometimes four narrow steps at a time. But no matter how fast they ran, or how many steps they conquered, the staircase wouldn't end.

"What's happening?" screamed Charlie. "Why are we not getting down?"

Tommy paused and stared wildly over one side of the stairs, then the other. "I don't understand!"

They were back at the top. As though they had never taken a step.

The ghoul, however, was getting closer. Slithering. Crawling. Dragging and clawing. She was coming for them.

"Are we going to die?" Charlie cried, snot bubbling in his nose, tears hazing his gaze.

"Not us, man. We have to jump," Tommy figured. "It's the only way out of here."

"But we must be at least fifteen feet up!"

"Listen," he grabbed his shoulders, "if we don't jump now that thing will get us. Do you understand? It's either a broken leg or that," he pointed to the ghoul.

She was picking up speed, her strong arms powering in long, rhythmic strokes that destroyed grass and churned earth to mud.

The ghoul was close enough for them to get a better look. She was skinny in the torso and her legs were withered to stumps. She looked weak, but those arms would crush and kill. They had done so before.

And then there was her mouth, full of sharp fangs designed to slice right through human skin.

Tommy and Charlie stared in horror as she grinned up at them, hungry for their flesh and soul. The thought of devouring them made her move even faster.

"Now!" Tommy boomed. They both took to the handrail and jumped. The chequered floor rose up fast to meet them as they hurtled down. With a bone breaking thud, they landed. But not on the chequered floor.

They were back at the top.

"No!" Charlie's heart broke with sadness. Slumped on the walkway, his back was blazing from the fall. Cold air raced into the Flower Box, kicking up a dust storm of decay that seeped into his gasping, open mouth. "The door," he realised.

It had been opened.

Tommy cradled his broken arm and screamed at the hair raising sight visible through the small holes in the metal steps beneath.

The ghoul was in the Flower Box. Grinning up from the bottom step, she scraped her talons menacingly along the metal to produce a teeth tingling note that was meant to intimidate them. It worked.

"We're sorry!" Charlie repented. "Please! Don't hurt us!" he begged. "We're sorry!"

The merciless ghoul began her climb.

The boys couldn't go down. They couldn't jump off. They could only go... up. Charlie spied the gold latch of a roof light. "There, Tommy!" he elated. "If we can reach that, we can get onto the roof."

The ghoul was crawling up the staircase, her monstrously strong arms making quick work of it, her mottled legs thudding against each step they were dragged over. Drool pooled down her chin and chest, creating a slimy trail befitting a giant snail.

"Here, I'll give you a boost." Tommy laced his hands together, encouraging Charlie to step onto them. He pushed him up until Charlie was able to work back the latch.

"Got it!" The roof light was just big enough for him to squeeze through and wriggle out onto the tiled roof. When Charlie ducked his head and arms back through to grab his friend, he howled in horror.

The ghoul was on the walkway, backing Tommy into the corner. He had nowhere to go and he knew it. If only he could leap over her and make it to Charlie's outstretched hands, but the walkway was skinny - she would surely catch him.

"Just go, Charlie," he sobbed and stared between his friend and the purple eyed ghoul. "It's my fault anyway - I pushed you into this. And all for a stupid bike!"

"I'm not leaving you, Tommy." Charlie promised and scanned the roof for a weapon.

The ghoul inched forward. Up close, Tommy could see she was covered in light green veins that bulged with a thick, pulsing white liquid. Her legs had huge chunks missing in places, as though hell's beasts used them as chew toys between meals.

In a lightning fast move, the ghoul grabbed his right leg and stabbed her brown talons into it.

"Owwww!" Tommy raged with pain as she dug her other hand into his left leg.

Grinning and dribbling, she plucked her talons out of his right leg and dug them deep into his chest. Her second hand followed, her nails plunging deeply into the skin above his nipple.

"Please! Stop!" Tommy howled in pain and terror.

The ghoul opened her mouth and rolled out a long, meaty tongue covered in pustules that were close to bursting. The smell from her mouth was horrific and distinctive - gangrene.

Slowly, to savour every moment, she licked Tommy's face from the jawline up to his eyebrow. The more he trembled and moaned, the more she grinned, licked, and dug her talons in. His fear was a starter course to her.

Still, it had been decades since the ghoul had last fed and she was ravenous. Opening her festering mouth wider, she gripped him around the neck with her hand and moved her lips over his to begin sucking out his soul.

Luckily for Tommy, Charlie had other ideas.

As the ghoul's lips touched Tommy's screaming mouth, Charlie jumped down through the roof light and stabbed her through the back with a weather vane. Heaving her off and pushing her down the staircase, he grabbed Tommy. "Run!"

Tommy was so numbed by his demonic ordeal that he stood motionless, not even blinking.

Charlie slapped him across the face. "Wake up!"

"Man, did you see it!" He broke into a cold sweat and a babble. "She had her mouth on me and..."

"Tell me later. Right now we have to run." Charlie swung one arm around his waist to help him over to the light. Tommy was bleeding and his arm was broken, but that didn't stop Charlie from boosting him up the way Tommy had boosted him.

It took Tommy longer to wriggle through the roof light because of his injuries. The ghoul, however, was stirring and slithering over the top step as Charlie jumped for Tommy's good arm.

Their hands met as her talons reached for Charlie's calf.

She missed.

Wriggling frantically through the small space and out onto the roof, when the blast of icy winter air hit Charlie he could have cried with relief. Slamming the light shut, he stared down to see the ghoul glaring up with an open mouth and ridden with anger at being thwarted.

"Come on, Tommy. I want to go home," he shimmied down the roof on his backside, loosening a few tiles along the way.

"I'm so sorry, Charlie." Tommy followed, weeping like a baby. "I'm so sorry."

The boys were lucky to escape with their lives. Having left the camcorder inside along with the ghoul, they would have no proof to show the gang they so longed to be a part of.

It didn't matter. Tommy and Charlie never mentioned Elech Mansion again - not even to each other. They feared the ghoul might somehow hear their whispering on the wind, and come find them in the dead of night when the moon was full and mist took over the town like a plague.

They feared she would slither across their bedroom floors to eat them in their beds.

Souls and all.