Out For Blood 26

Gregg came back out to Jill. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
Jill was leaning against the wall by the door, her hands were on her knees and she was trying to calm her breathing. ‘Of course I’m not okay, unlike you I don’t get to smell that kind of thing everyday.’ She said scornfully.

‘Luckily I don’t either, and if I did I still couldn’t get use to it.’ Unfortunately for Gregg, he got to see why the stench was there.
Jill felt bad for her comment. ‘Yeah, okay,’ she touched his arm gently. ‘Sorry Gregg, I didn’t mean—’

‘It’s okay,’ he said interrupting her apology. ‘Look, you wait here I need to go check something out, okay?’
Jill nodded.

Gregg left her to go back into the ‘Chambers’, he needed to know if Alicia Vincent was one of the corpses in there. The room was around thirty-foot square and apart from its’ occupants, the place was empty, nothing on the walls not even windows or a door. The roof-space was open and four thick wooden beams traversed the gap between two of the walls.

Gregg was stood in the middle of the room; hanging upside-down from the four wooden beams were six naked bodies suspended by one leg or the other, each one of them had a large rusty meat hook pushed through the gap behind their Achillles tendon and hung by the ankle bone. A narrow line of blood had seeped from each wound, indication that this had happened whilst they were still alive.

Each one of the corpses had suffered deep multiple bite marks to their forearms, inner thighs, torsos’ and necks. Some of the corpses had their ears, nose and lips bitten from them. It brought to Greggs’ mind visions of a feeding frenzy, like Sharks attacking a shoal of Tuna, these poor innocents were set upon by three or maybe four attackers each. All of the corpses were young white females so he knew Alicia was not one of them.

The bodies hadn’t been there very long, but the ammonia was strong and made it difficult for him to breath. He wanted nothing more than to get out of the room as soon as he could, nevertheless he had to look around first. Curiosity and all that.

It looks like Celia Brontroses’ information was bang on the money, it was the first time he had met a so-called “Psychic”. Neither he nor Larry had used one before, but Miss Brontrose had contacted Gregg and mentioned the use of Chlorofom, one piece of information the police had not released.

He recognised all of the corpses from CNN news footage. He couldn’t remember all their names but he did remember one of them. Shanon McLean, she was fourteen-years-old and was abdudcted two days before Alicia. Below each body were small droplets of dried blood, it seems very little had been wasted. Some of the blood had been there for quite some time, it had soaked into the wooden floor and turned black with age, Gregg then realised what had happened in this room, happens with some regularity.

As he walked among the corpses he noticed an iron ring in the centre of the floor, the ring was about the size of a womans Bangle but much thicker. The door it was attached to was about four-foot square and looked to have been opened recently, he noticed there was no dust in the seam.

Gregg knew that if he was to open it he would find a pit full of corpses dating back probably years. But again curiosity and all that. He crouched before the door and fingered out the ring from its shallow pit, then he lifted the door open about a foot, the smell of rotten corpses was abscent, instead Gregg felt a cool gust of air brush over his face sorrounding him with the scent of damp earth.

He opened the door fully and it rested on a chain stopping it a shade over 90° Vertical. Beneath the door was a stair case leading into darkness, he needed a flashlight. Leaving the door open he returned to the courtroom as another clap of thunder sounded overhead.

Jill was sat on one of the benches looking through the satchel; she had put the items from it on the bench beside her. A box of bullets for Hals’ gun, some gun oil and a small canister of pepper-spray.
When Gregg came back into the courtroom she went over to him.

‘Is it as bad as it smells?’
Gregg nodded. ‘Yes, six young girls. Been dead a day or two, the humidity is aiding their decomposition. Which is why you smelt the ammonia so strongly.’
‘So it was like the lady said? Your lead I mean.’
‘Yeah kind of.’ Gregg didn’t see the point in going into the gory details.

‘Was the girl you were looking for one of them?’
‘No, if she’s here they must be keeping her somewhere else. Which means she might still be alive.’

‘Breeding.’ stated Jill coldly.
Gregg narrowed his eyes. ‘Breeding?’
‘Breeding, that’s what that boss lady Ella said about Vicky. She told Hal to see to it she isn’t harmed. That’s why I think she’s still alive, and for the time being safe. I was supposed to be taken to ‘Chambers’ and hooked up, whatever that means.’

Gregg knew exactly what it meant. ‘Listen we need to find a flashlight, I found a cellar in that room but I don’t know what’s down there. There’s no need for you to come, you stay up here, make sure Vicky’s alright.’ Gregg didn’t want her to see the… “Hooking up!”