Grimwood Adventure: Arise, Ghouls, Arise! (Part Two)

OCTOBER 2, 1989
---

Anon pushed his way through the crude double doors and was once again alone in the dark halls of the lair. Many thoughts were going through his head: will Calloway give me a heads-up on what the cadets are up to? Will Miss Grimwood be well under their care--will she even survive? Will I survive these damn caves?

Anon had no time for thinking such thoughts so he pressed on sweeping his flashlight’s beam left and right, searching this new area for the remaining ghouls. This new room was mostly empty save for a few battered and beaten machines that looked as though they’ve been stripped down to their bare shells. The air, Anon had noticed, smelled ashy; then again, Pvt. Grunt had said that this was an old and, hopefully, inactive volcano. The room was calm and quiet, save for the faint sounds of something scratching. After the event with the Spiderbat, Anon searched every nook and cranny of the room for any living creature. All he found was another, slightly smaller passage, sealed off with a tattered burlap curtain. Not wanting to take any potentially fatal chances, Anon stepped forward and swept the curtain aside.
This passage, as it turns out, wasn’t much of one at all. It was almost like a walk-in closet, though the only thing to be found was a cage--a cage containing something human-sized. And furry.

Anon knew right away that he had found Winnie. She was shuddering on the cage’s floor, breathing in ragged breaths. Upon keeling down for a closer look, Anon noticed that, aside from being secured by another padlock, the bars of the cage had a distinct silvery sheen to them, yet everything made of metal that he had seen here was either rusted away or otherwise heavily damaged. The lock was also strangely intact, not to mention strangely built; its design was spherical and its keyhole was squared.
He whispered softly, “Winnie?”
Slowly, she turned over onto her left side to face Anon. Her face looked limp and exhausted, and she stared at him through half-closed lids. “A--anon?”
“Yes, it’s me,” he said reassuringly, “How can I get you outta there?”
“Just the lock,” Winnie replied, “but the key’s somewhere else.” Anon looked confused, “Don’t you have some kind of super werewolf strength? Something to bend the bars open?”
Winnie frowned. “They’re plated in silver--I burn up if I touch them.”
“They do--oh, of course!” Anon said, remembering the ancient methods of defeating werewolves. “Have you found the others?” Winnie asked. “Two of them,” Anon replied, “Phantasma and Elsa are lively--mostly--and are working on some kind of device, I dunno what.”
“Hey, I don’t remember much, but I think I saw Tanis somewhere. Maybe she can help me outta this thing.”
“Where’s that ‘somewhere’?”

---

The time was now 1:58, and Anon was edging his way around the chambers, most of them turning up empty. ‘Just saying ‘somewhere’ doesn’t help much, Winnie,’ Anon thought irritably. How was he ever going to find Tanis, a three-foot cotton-bound child, in this stone maze? Eventually, he came to his first locked door. Crude though they might be, the door was locked quite securely; it was almost as if it was locked from the inside yet it was wedged tightly into the frame. It couldn’t even be rattled. Anon made sure he absolutely could not open the door normally before he took a big (and noisy) risk. He kicked the door in.
The first kick budged the door slightly. The second cracked one of the planks. The third smashed the damaged plank in half, taking its metal latch with it. The clatter reverberated off the walls and empty spaces of the room.

This room was notably different in design than the others. Offset slabs of bare stone made up the walls, and the only objects in the room were a coffee table-sized slab, upon which a smaller, ornately decorated sarcophagus sat; once again connected to a cable feeding into the floor. Anon stepped closer for a better look. This coffin seemed as if it was also made of stone though it was dark in color, and its “lid” was shallowly slotted with two hieroglyphic symbols at each end. As Anon expected, the lid was sealed tightly. He paced around the stone coffin, running his fingers over the flat stone, the beveled edges of the corner pieces sliding under his fingertips. These bevels, Anon noticed, continued down the sides of these corners and even on their undersides; it was almost as if they were their own separate modules.
‘I wonder...’
He tugged to and fro--they were loose. He pulled upward--the let-hand corner piece came loose, now a perfectly squared brick-like object. He turned it around in his hands. It was flat and bare on all sides except the underside; etched into it was the hieroglyphic symbol of a reed.

Anon, as many of his peers know, wasn’t very captivated by his history class, though in recent days Tanis sought to make a difference in his attention span. She would often urge him to translate ancient scriptures dating back several centuries and guide him by comparing the hieroglyphic symbols with their English-language counterparts. He had to hand it to little Tanis, her intelligence could be matched only by her patience with him. Yet in spite of what she’s provided, Anon still wasn’t fluent with the translations. But he wasn’t reading an entire tale written on papyrus, fortunately for him. If he learned anything from his poring over artifacts, he was sure he was putting together a single word. The lid of the coffin (going from left to right) began with the symbols for a mouth and another reed. If he recalled correctly, their English counterparts would be “R” and “E” respectively.
Anon had a hunch now; perhaps these are meant to be set in the slot? He went around the coffin and extracted the other corner pieces  one by one, inspecting the symbols on each. He found yet another reed, a folded cloth, a lion, and a vulture.  ‘And here’s the part where it becomes an episode of Match Game,’ Anon thought. Pacing around the coffin, he mumbled, ‘What did these symbols mean again? “R” and “E”--got three “E”s. What’s lion? I think cloth is--no, it’s “S” maybe--no...” He could not help but feel really stupid. Tanis could’ve finished this in five minutes!
“Okay,” he sighed, “I think I’ve got it now. Maybe.” He hoisted up the first block, a reed. He oriented it in line with the mouth, and he lowered it gently into the slot. Then the lion, the next reed, the vulture, and then he set the folded cloth into place.

*PLONK*

The sound dully echoed in the empty room, then there was silence. Anon sighed, and wiped his brow clear of sweat, having apparently given up. He leaned up against the coffin and was about to check his watch when he was startled an odd scraping sound emitted from behind him. The lid suddenly moved.
He whipped around and saw the lid was strangely twisted open, its upper-right corner faced northeast, the lower-left corner facing southwest. His heart still pounding from the scare, he crept forward and peered inside. Inside the triangular crevice was a dull and flickering green light, but it was enough to illuminate a little leg bound in cotton. Anon could’ve jumped for joy at this moment, but he used this energy to rotate the slab further. Not much force was needed to push it, and as soon as its right side faced north and its left facing south, Anon shoved as hard as he could and the lid clattered to the floor in a cloud of dust.

Tanis lay motionless on her back, her arms folded across her chest and her eyes closed. The walls of the coffin were lined with various other symbols and the bottom was padded with shreds of white cotton cloth. Strangely, Anon thought she looked very comfortable in this little arrangement. But he knew he still had to free Winnie and find Sibella, so he tried to rouse Tanis from her sleep--at least he hoped she was just sleeping.
“Tanis?” Anon whispered hoarsely. He gently shook her right shoulder. “Tanis!” he whispered again. After a little bit, Tanis lightly shook her head and groaned; she was alive. She slowly sat up, rubbed the drowsiness from her eyes, and stretched her arms out. “I’m so tired,” she murmured. Turning to Anon, she brightened up a little bit. She reached over and hugged him gently around his neck. “Can I go back to bed?” she asked wearily. Anon smiled and plucked her from her coffin. “You can soon--hey, what’s this?” Something hard and obviously metallic was pressing against Anon’s sternum. Looking down he saw a small Ankh on a couple lengths of thread around Tanis’ neck. “Do you usually wear one of these?” Looking down, Tanis replied with an awkward laugh “No. A symbol of life would be wasted on me for-- well, you know why.” Anon chuckled. “Hey, Winnie said you might be able to help her.” Tanis gasped. “The others are trapped too?” “Just Winnie and... Sibella...” His voice trailed off, something coming to mind.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. C’mon, let’s go.”
Anon didn’t bother telling her his luck with the hieroglyphic puzzle--he hadn’t time to lose being critiqued on his translation skills.

Dimming flashlight in hand, Anon and Tanis quietly made their way back to where Winnie was located. Along the way he was thinking: ‘This is weirdly becoming easy. Wouldn’t more of those specters or those spiderbats have shown up already? Either that witch is testing me, or she’s really awful at keeping her lair secure.’

---

When they finally arrived at Winnie’s cage, she was still laying on her side. Weary but unmistakably impatient, she said “What took you two so long?” “I was busy figuring out a puzzle--I’d make for an awful Goonie,” Anon replied with a smirk, “Now, about that lock...” He took out his pocketknife and folded out the awl. He felt around inside the keyhole for any pins or teeth as there would in a normal lock; there were none. “Man, this thing is weird,” he finally groused, “what say you, Tanis?” Peering over the silvery structure, Tanis inspected the lock closely. “Not sure why it is round... keyhole is square...”
“Could you hurry it up, please?” Winnie groaned, “I need to stretch--and I really gotta ‘go’.”
Tanis nodded, not really paying attention to Winnie’s bellyaching. As she continued to study the lock, Anon looked down at the Ankh around her neck. Then it occurred to him. “Tanis, let me see this for a minute,” he said as he removed the pendant from her neck. “Eh? Why?” she asked, confused. Anon said nothing but his mind kept repeating ‘Please work,’ as he inserted the Ankh into the keyhole. It fit!
Anon turned the key counterclockwise until the lock clicked open. He grinned over at Tanis, who was just as pleased herself. “Symbol of life!” he beamed as he set the lock aside and swung the cage door open.  Almost immediately Winnie sprung up and bounded out of the cage and out the burlap curtain of the closet-like space. Anon was about to ask where she was going, but was answered by the sound of liquid trickling onto stone. “Ew!” Tanis said in disgust. Anon wrinkled his nose and said “Well, when you gotta go, you gotta go.”
After about a minute the trickling sound stopped, followed by the sound of crackling joints and the relieved sigh of “Oooohhh, much better...” Then as fast as she exited, Winnie scrabbled back inside the closet and into Anon’s arms, happily nuzzling him and lapping his face all over. “Oh, thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou!” she squealed, “It was so cramped in there!” Wiping his face free of slobber, Anon cuddled her. “No problem,” he said with a smile.

2:17. Try as he may, Anon couldn't get much more than static from the radio; either Elsa really drained the 9 volt or she absolutely fried it. Frustrated, he replaced it on his belt and pressed forward down the corridor with Tanis and Winnie in tow. ‘I hope Calloway hasn’t given up on us,' he thought.
 “Let’s see,” he muttered, “that, no... tha--here!” Anon pushed open the door that belonged to Elsa and Phantasma’s chamber. Upon stepping in the sound of tinkling metal and ratcheting tools was heard in one corner of the room which was sealed off by a ragged length of fabric. Phanty was pacing (or rather gravitating) back and forth when the three entered.
“Anon, you’re back--HEY!” Overjoyed, she scooped up Tanis and Winnie in a tight hug. “Thanks for bringing them back, Anon. You’re...” Phanty thought for a moment, then said “You’re so ‘ghoul’!” Everyone including Elsa groaned as her cackling filled the room. Anon simply smiled. “We have one more to go, so let’s not start cheering too soon.” He turned his attention to the noisy corner. “What’s Frau Doktor up to?”
Elsa promptly stuck her head out of the curtain. “I am making something,” she said simply, fiddling with a screwdriver. She continued, “I will be pulling no punches in ze event zat we should be attacked on all sides.”
Anon wasn’t quite sure what she meant, but he was confident in that whatever she was doing she wouldn’t let them down. “Anything we can do?” he offered.
“You need to find Sibella,” she said, “go on. I will catch up to you in a while.”
“And leave you here alone?” Anon said, reluctant to leave any of his friends behind.
“Ach, as if I’ll be caught off guard in zat way again. I’ll be fine.”
Anon knew Elsa was headstrong and that reassured him. He nodded, and with three ghouls following he exited the chamber.

The stone door of the crude lab had long been sealed since Anon had found it, yet in close proximity to it was a hint of light. Taking this as a good sign could be unwise, but neither Anon nor the ghouls wanted to leave any stones unturned or any doors closed. “You’re getting bad vibes from it too, huh?” Winnie whispered hoarsely.
“Yeah,” Anon said as he began to advance down the corridor, “but we can’t just hang around doing nothing. I know you all don’t want to be here for much longer, and neither do I. Calloway and his bunch have probably lost their patience, but I know they wouldn’t just dump us. So let’s not keep them waiting, let’s get Sibella back!” With that, Anon turned on his heel and strode down the corridor. The ghouls stared after him for a minute. “He’s gutsy, isn’t he?” Winnie remarked.
As Anon drew nearer to the illuminated chamber, he could hear the ghouls tittering behind him: “I think he does too... that’d be totally ‘ghoul’ seeing them together... no, wait--do you think she likes him?” Anon knew exactly what they were talking about. “Actually,” he thought sullenly, “I think she likes guys in uniforms.”

Torches lined the walls of the chamber, highlighting an ascending set of stone stairs. The four stood looking up the seemingly endless steps where the torchlight extended only so far into the void beyond. “Better up than down,” remarked Phanty as they started upwards. “I’ve been down,” Anon said with a lopsided smile, “it’s awful.”
Upward past the torches and into the darkness, step after stone step. Anon switched on his flashlight, its beam much weaker than before. The weird thing was, though, was that the further he climbed the more isolated he felt; yet when he looked over his shoulder, Tanis, Phanty, and Winnie were still following close behind. This feeling lingered as he approached the stairhead.
Once at the top, there was hardly anything to be seen easily under the flashlight’s dying beam; as he stepped off the stairhead he aimed the beam towards the joint between the walls and the ceiling. This new chamber seemed to be a rotunda of sorts with a low ceiling and no windows to speak of. There were no furnishings here, save for multiple decently-sized mounds of rough stone and another frame upon which a figure was secured. It was arms down, palms outward, and very pale. It was wearing a maroon cocktail dress.

Sibella looked limp and sickly to Anon upon approaching her. Her skin, once the pretty lilac hue he had known, was now a pallid grayish color. She looked almost drained--realizing this, Anon examined her arms; small punctures at the wrists and the anterior of the elbows displayed prominently on her skin. Casting the light down to her feet, Anon saw lengths of translucent tubing. He knelt down and scrutinized each of them with his free hand. All were yellowed with age and the insides were flecked with coagulated blood. Disgusted, Anon wiped his hand on his pant leg and stood up. Looking back at Sibella’s face, he noticed that ever so subtly her lips were moving. She was just barely conscious. A wave of relief passed over Anon. “Hey, you guys! I found Sib--” He turned around, expecting to see the three ghouls behind him. There was no one there.
“So, you've made it this far,” a voice oozed out of the darkness. Immediately, a deep whoosh reverberated off the walls and the rotunda filled with light; because he’d been in almost total darkness this whole time, Anon shielded his eyes from the sudden brightness. He whipped around trying to find the source of the voice, but he and Sibella were the sole inhabitants of the chamber--‘Where are the others?!’

He turned to the entrance of the chamber, a sort of narrow rectangular hole in the floor like in a house’s attic, but in its place was a stone slab. He was trapped in here, and he was not alone.
“I’ve yet to meet you,” the voice crooned again, “are you Anon?” The hair on the back of Anon’s neck stood up, he didn’t know weather to stay silent or respond. He couldn’t locate where the voice was coming from--it sounded as though it was coming from everywhere. Then, the most subtle sound of scraping and the rustling of cloth on stone behind Anon made his blood run cold. Heart quaking and hands trembling, he slowly turned to face the source of the voice. It stood roughly five feet tall (six, had it not been hunched over) directly in front of Sibella and four arms outstretched. “I’m sure that you are, she cried out for you many times.” Though he stood as if bolted to the floor, the mild fear inside Anon turned into a hot anger.
The shape seemed to notice this, and emitted a low chuckle. “Shall we get acquainted?”

TO BE CONTINUED