Beaumont Bar , Troy Mullins Bartender

[Dogbite10]

…..The thumping of Cory Wright’s boots resonated to a stop in the walls of the stairwell, as his flashlight hit upon a menacing shape up ahead in the darkness.

Cory approached with caution, unsure about whom or what he might find. His flashlight revealed a contorted body slumped in a pile in front of him. It was mumbling something. “D-Da-Dad, Nooo….” Troy’s voice trailed off. Cory crouched down and started to shake him. “Troy, TROY! It’s me Cory, not your dad, Cory! Wake up man!” he exclaimed, as he jostled his disoriented friend harder. Troy, coughed a bit as he started to regain consciousness. “Whaa-Cory, Cory, I can’t, I can’t see!” Troy said, lifting his hand to his face. Cory pointed the light in Troy’s eyes and immediately spotted the cause. Troy had a deep, gruesome looking gash in the side of his skull. His blood had oozed down his face and what hadn’t formed a considerable sized puddle on the ground had coagulated thickly in his eyes. Cory produced an oil stained rag that he had stuffed in his pocked earlier in the day and started wiping the red fluid from Troy’s eye sockets.

Troy’s vision began to clear and Cory handed him the cloth. “Here, press this on your head.” Troy took it abruptly and applied some pressure. “Ouch!” Troy winced. Pressing down on the tear stung his cranium badly enough, but it was the swift movement that caused a deep internal nauseating pain throughout his entire body. After taking a moment to breathe through the feeling, he fought to get to his feet, but lost and landed back on the steel plated floor. “Whoa!” Cory said. “Take it easy!” Then he followed up shortly, “I got tired of waiting around for you, so I decided to come up to the bar instead. Glad I did. So, what the Heck happened to you?” Troy was still fuzzy on the details, “The last thing I remember is getting my foot caught on something a flight up, the rest is a blur, except….” Troy didn’t finish his sentence; instead he put his head down and grimaced.

They sat for a short while in silence, until Troy finally had gathered enough strength to make another attempt to stand. This time Cory grabbed his arm and helped him upright. Struggling for a moment, he regained his balance and slowly walked over to the stairs and glared upwards. He hesitated for a few seconds and then carefully started climbing. Cory and the flashlight followed. As they ascended, Cory scanned each rusted step.

Nearing the top of the flight, Troy spotted something wedged in to the face of the stairs and pointed for Cory to move the light in for a closer look, “Ack!” Cory quickly recoiled. “When you said something caught your foot you weren’t kidding!” He moved the light back for Troy to get a good look. There sticking out from the corner of the step was the unmistakable shape of a severed human hand. The fingers were curled up a bit, except for the middle one, also an unmistakable shape. “Holy Frack! What’s that doing here!?!” Troy bellowed. “I don’t know, but check it out.” Cory said as he grabbed the blood and oil soaked rag from Troy’s hand and scooped up the mangled appendage. “Aw, man, don’t touch that thing!” Troy groaned.

Cory focused the flashlight in and something reflected the beam. There on the ring finger, was a thick gold band. “I wonder how much that would go for?” Cory said, his mind on credits as usual. “Look, there’s something written on it.” Troy squinted a bit trying to get a better look, but his eyes wouldn’t focus in the dim light. Cory pulled the ring off the lifeless hand, holding it up and read aloud, “Et maledictus qui ossa mea movet. Huh, I wonder what that means?” Cory ran his finger over the ring and hit upon something along the inside of the band. “Look there’s more hidden here. ‘5CU111’, must be some kind of code or something.”

Just then, the desolate chamber taunted them with yet another drawn out low pitched groan of metallic flexing. Troy interrupted the moment, starting downward once again. “Let’s go, there’s too many ghosts in here…..”

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