31: Exhumed Remains of a Reanimated Nature
“The hell we all standing around for?” snapped Theseus, “Barricade the damn doors!”
What an excellent plan! It was at times like these that Theseus proved his worth as a member of Veritas. With his great strength he pulled a cobwebbed set of shelves over to the door, while Phoenie did her best to help by digging out some broken chairs from beneath piles of foul smelling fungal matter. Half a table later and the mass of rotting wood stood as the only barrier between the group and their assailants. Phoenie had to confirm her suspicions.
“What was the sit-rep on those fiendish creatures?” she asked John.
“I got a reading on their body temperature and it wasn’t normal. It was almost like…” He looked at Theseus, almost like he wanted approval, “Like they’re not even alive,”
“Bollocks,” said Theseus, “That’s fucking bollocks!”
It confirmed Phoenie’s suspicions (as she’d expected): they were trapped in a derelict old mansion with a spectral entity and an army of the reanimated corpses. Things didn’t get much worse – or better – than that! As Theseus prowled the room for an escape route and John sat down to study his computerised encyclopaedia for some scientific excuse or another, Phoenie ushered her girls together.
“So, what are your theories on the situation?” she asked them.
“They looked like dead people,” said Katrina, “But we won’t find out for sure until I develop the pictures,”
Had Phoenie been the type, she would have thrown her arms around her taller friend. “Oh, Kat, you’re so super!” she said instead, “This really is the day we hit the jackpot!”
“Don’t get so cocky yet, lady,” said Theseus, who was peering at the twilight world outside through the gaps in a boarded window, “Looks like there’s some damned wild dogs outside or something. Keep seeing eyes in the trees. Might be wolves. We sure as hell don’t wanna be going out there any time soon,”
“Lots of movement all around,” added John, “I told you earlier we should’ve come during the day. The sun sets in half an hour and I’d advise we leave before then.”
Phoenie turned back to her girls. “Who would’ve thought the boys would be running scared, hey?”
“Well, they do have a point,” said Andromeda, “We’re not in the most hospitable of places and there won’t be much light around once the sun sets.”
Phoenie gave her a sharp look. It was typical of Andromeda to ruin the mood by bringing common sense into play. At least Katrina was still enthusiastic!
“We should break through the roof and climb onto the next floor,” she said, hands flailing with the sound of jangling bracelets as she tried to demonstrate her proposal through mime, “Then we’ll be right near the attic!”
“Doesn’t look like there’s any movement above us,” said John, “But that’s not saying much. I think those people we encountered may have been under the influence of a drug called ‘datura’, which has effects similar to what we experienced,”
Theseus snorted his inevitable content. “And you thought they were zombies, didn’t you?”
Exhumed Remains of a Reanimated Nature, to be precise, but Theseus had no respect for these matters. She watched as he pulled a metal curtain rail off the wall and began to poke around the ceiling for a weak point. As John chipped in to help with his all-seeing (as far as he was concerned, anyway) visor, Phoenie returned her attention to the girls. Katrina’s face was screwed up in concentration and she was stroking the back of her plush toy’s head – sure signs she was lost in her thoughts. Phoenie waved a hand to attract her attention and she blinked herself out of her trance.
