I smiled over at Jacob, who nodded so slightly, that had you not been looking directly at him, you would have never seen it. About that time I saw his face go slack, I turned to see that he was looking at the look on Tammy’s face. She looked frightened to the point that she was trembling. I turned around to see what had her attention, and could understand her expression from the bottom of my dark soul. The two dead females, one small, the other large in size, both lay with several thin, long, silver blades through the tender tissue of their breasts.  These two would pay for their crimes the moment we didn’t need them, and by the look in Tammy’s eyes, she would be a big part of it.

Derek and I would always remember finding her tied down with blades shoved into her body just like the dead girls. Even though she had never talked about her time with the sick-minded fat man, I was more than sure the memory of that night was still very fresh in her mind, as well as her heart. Not even the death of the man who tormented her, or the one who placed her there, could ever be enough for what she had been put through.

We agreed to go up, pretending it was the lights and the well dressed, that bothered our ‘kind’, which was now to these completely foolish bloodbreeders, flesh eaters of the dead. How anyone, or thing, could stand within ten feet of us and not gag, was beside me. I was now becoming accustomed to the rank of my own flesh and clothing. The stench of the decaying dead, mixed with the blood filled water that we came up in, which was blended with the lye, put the group of us in line with the worst smelling things that we had come in contact with. We had smelled rotting death at its worst, or so I thought until now.

I looked to the right and saw clean white tiles that covered the back wall of the room from top to bottom, as we followed the two whatever you would call them, to the other side of the huge room of torture devices. It was a washroom, one where you could turn the crystal knob and water showered down on you from the brass spout three-quarters up the wall. I saw them before in the estate in Cuba, and something similar at the beach house back in Corpus Christi, Texas.  I wanted nothing more than to walk in there and wash myself off. I would have been happy with the old washtub back home on the farm. The white, ashy residue of the lye, with streaks of dried blood, was unbelievably itching. And the more it dried, the worse it got. The boy pretending to be a female told us his name was Felicia; and Bernard, who was dressed in black leather was her/his, pet.

Felicia put a finger to his mouth making the “shhh” sound, puckering out his lips, and batting his lashes far too slow, so much so it was unnerving. Bernard smiled, his mouth and eyes were all that one could see, and then he opened the door that pulled back toward us, and led us into a large food pantry. He held his hand up, walking through to see if anyone was in the kitchen, and then waved back in a way for us to hurry.

“Move, move, move,” Felicia hissed, wrinkling up his nose, getting more ugly as a woman by the second. We may have been semi-running behind Bernard up a slender set of steps that were in the kitchen, but my mind was bouncing all around the ideas of why any man would choose to play dress-up as a female. It would be a subject that would be something I would have to inquire about at a later time.

The stairs made three turns before Bernard stopped and cracked open a door with no handle, stuck his head out and smiled back, and waved his leather covered hand for us to make haste. It was hard to tell if the smell was getting any better the higher we climbed since we were taking the horrid smell everywhere we went or if the entire place was putrid. I saw Jacob freeze when he got to the secret door after the boy named Felicia darted out, which of course, stopped all of us behind him.

Felicia came back, sticking his head in giggling. “Don’t worry about them, they have no concerns on what we’re doing. They drink the drug and have no clue we’re even here.”

“What do you see?” I whispered a little too loudly.

“This you will see for yourself,” Jacob smiled and dashed out after the man called Felicia.

“I hate it when he does that,” I replied, waiting my turn.

I noticed Cates pause just as Jacob had, and then take off with Tammy in tow. Derek looked back at me after looking out quickly, grabbed Tanda’s hand, and told her to just look at his back and hurry.  Garvin and Sydney ran for it, never turning around. I got to the exit with Fala behind me. I took in a deep breath then just walked out, seeing why everyone had been shocked at what they had seen. Men laid about everywhere, nude, and doing things I had never seen, nor had I ever been told about. Other than what we had seen in Caden’s estate.

They were wrapped about on each other like lovers, and others were feeding, while some had their mouths on other body parts that I care not to mention. The only females in the room were dead ones or those so close to death they had no mind that they were being fed upon by the undead. The room was filled with nothing but large pillows that covered most of the floor that at least fifteen men drunkenly lay about on, doing the most despicable things that I never wanted to see again.

Fala pushed me from behind making me yelp out loud, but also making me move to the next small flight of stairs across the way. We had to move through a few nude bodies to get to the steps that went up, because two men had made their way to the first two steps, bringing a young female with them. They were feeding from her even though she had taken her last breath and then kissed and rubbed each other’s private parts. I was about to bring my foot down on the back of one of their heads when my body went airborne and I was taken halfway up the small staircase, with Fala’s hands around my ribcage. He didn’t set me back down until we were a few steps from the top with the others. I turned around and slapped his hand, causing him to look at me like I was crazy.

“I know you did that for my own good, but you scared me half out of my wits too,” I said, slapping his hand again for good measure.

“I just didn’t want to be the last one left with them after you went up. I am wearing nothing but this torn cloth,” he replied, and smiled a few seconds later .

“Did you just make a joke?” I smiled back, talking as low as I could in the echoing staircase.

He looked down at himself, raised one brow then lifted his shoulders nodding. I laughed under my breath, about to put my hand over my mouth, making an open mouth―are you kidding me face―then gave him wide eyes. He rolled his eyes then turned his head away from me to keep from actually laughing out loud himself, which would have been a wonderful thing, because it wasn’t something he did often, if ever.

“Are you two lovers going to stay in there, or are you going to join us?” Felicia asked, looking down from the opening.

“We were just planning our own time for later,” I replied, as I started up the last few steps.

“Hum, can I join the fun?” he asked, licking his smeared lipstick covered mouth.

“Have to ask the big guy. He likes real women.” I raised my brows as I walked by, as in, not my fault.

“That was rude…no need to be a bitch,” Felicia snapped, swaying past me.

“Just stating the facts. No matter how much you look like a woman, Felicia, I, being a real woman, can still smell the real man that you are,” I explained, trying to recover the foot that I had lodged in my mouth.

“Do you mean that?” he turned, looking down at the floor then back up at me. “Do I really look like a woman?”

“Why do you think the rest followed you up here? I didn’t mean to be rude, but your beauty shames those of us who have no hope of ever standing in your grace. But, on that note, those with us who chooses the favor of a woman might be a bit offended if they find out your true worth.” I spoke low, sounding just like my mother, taking him under the arm, noticing Jacob and Cates speaking with the other one.