Endurance - Jack Kilborn [89]
“Oh, wow…”
The room was filled with suitcases. A maze of suitcases, stacked floor to ceiling. Some of them looked really old, and were moldering in the dampness. Others looked so new they could have been purchased yesterday.
“How many do you think there are?” Kelly asked.
“I dunno. Hundreds.”
“Do you think…?” Kelly let the sentence trail off, not wanting to speak her thoughts out loud.
“Yeah. I think each one came from a person these psychos murdered.”
Kelly shivered. “I don’t like this place. We need to find my dog. He ran in here.”
“I know. I saw you and followed…”
The flame went off. Kelly pressed herself tighter against Cam.
“Sorry,” he said, flicking the lighter back on. “Thumb slipped. Let’s see what’s around that stack.”
Cam walked around Kelly, taking the lead, and she was sort of sorry he wasn’t holding her anymore. She followed close, a single step behind him. The lighter flame cast wild, flickering shadows, making the heaps of luggage seem like they were swaying.
They rounded the corner, and the smell got worse. Kelly put her hand over her mouth and nose.
“What’s that awful—”
The light went out again.
“Kelly,” Cam said. “I want you to do me a favor, okay?”
Kelly didn’t like his tone. He sounded scared. “What?”
“Take my hand, and close your eyes.”
“Why, Cam? What’s—”
“Trust me. You don’t want to see this. Just keep them closed until I say it’s okay.”
“Cam, you’re freaking me out.”
“Just do it. Please.”
Kelly believed after everything she’d already been through today, there was nothing else that could scare her. But when Cam said please, she gave in.
Besides, I get to hold his hand.
“Okay.”
Kelly closed her eyes, and Cam’s gloved hand encircled hers. They walked slowly, the smell getting almost unbearable. Cam made a gagging sound, and Kelly had to press her shirt against her face.
What could possibly smell this bad?
“We should go back for my mom,” Kelly said. She instantly regretted speaking, because the rotten stench got on her tongue.
“We will. But I feel a draft up ahead. I think it’s a way out. Unh!”
Cam’s hand pulled from hers, and she was left standing there alone. Her eyes sprung open.
“Cam?”
“I tripped, Kelly. Keep your eyes closed.”
But she didn’t. And when the light went on, she saw what Cam had tripped over.
A dead body.
The whole room was filled with dead people.
“Kelly!” Letti called out.
Three doors. Which one did she go through?
Letti hurried to the first door, knocking over a soggy cardboard box, spilling pills onto the dirt floor. She tugged open the door and gasped.
There were a bunch of people standing in the room.
But her brain told her something was amiss, that these weren’t people. She stared a moment longer, and saw that they were all elaborately dressed, some in period clothing. And none of them were moving.
Even stranger, most of them were recognizable.
“Wax figures,” Mal said. “I guess there’s no room for them in the house.”
Naturally, each wax figure depicted a U.S. President. They looked old, and far from pristine. Most were covered in dust and cobwebs. Some had broken limbs and cracked faces. The Richard Nixon closest to Letti was missing his nose.
“Kelly!” Letti yelled again. She took a step forward, toward a particularly ugly statue of George Washington in colonial dress, but someone held her back.
“Hold on,” Maria said, easing in front of her. She held up a scalpel she’d taken from the operating room, and whispered in Letti’s ear, “I’ve seen this trick before.”
Moving quickly, Maria stuck the scalpel into Washington’s belly.
The statue—which wasn’t a statue at all—howled and lashed out at her.
Four other statues followed suit, coming to life and closing in. Maria backed up, bumping into Letti, and they both high-tailed it out the door they’d come in, slamming it behind them. Letti braced her shoulder against the wood.
“Check the other doors! We have to get out of here!”
Mal opened the one on the right. “It’s dark. I can’t see anything.”
The door shuddered. Letti removed the cannula—a large,