“Martin,” I hissed and took off.

I knew by the shape of his body that it was him hanging with his back facing us. His body was limp with his arms pulled taut above him. His head hung lifelessly forward, and his feet were misshapen, lying twisted between his spread legs. At first glance I thought he was wearing a red shirt, but he was nude. My mind was grasping for anything other than what my eyes were really seeing. Parts of his flesh were hanging like torn material where the slices crossed one another. His own blood drenched him and pooled on the floor beneath him. I stood there in complete shock, too afraid to move; unable to believe the person I loved was the one that had been treated this way.

“We have to get him down,” Derek said, walking up to him.

“Don’t touch him,” I replied, finally making my feet move forward. “His feet…you’ll hurt him.”

“He’s tore up bad.” Tammy shook her head.

“Go with the others, Renee. We’ll take care of Martin,” Jacob ordered, trying to take me by the arm.

“Get away from me, Jacob. I’m not going anywhere.” I walked up, swallowed my heart, which had concreted itself at the back of my throat, and moved his long hair so I could see his face.

I dropped to my knees and cried out. They had beaten him so badly that, had I not known he was my maker, I wouldn’t have recognized him at all. Cates lifted his body, while Garvin and Derek unbound his wrists. Jacob worked as gently as he possibly could to get the restraints off of his badly broken ankles, while I stood taking his head into my hands. “Is he alive,” I cried softly, praying that someone would say the word that I so wanted to hear. Knowing, that if he weren’t, he would be no more than a mess of gore on the floor, like the one that Fala had just killed. But my mind wasn’t anywhere close to thinking right. Hope filled my heart when I heard him moan my name. “I’m here my love and we’re gonna get you out this place, right now.” He tried to lift his arm and couldn’t, so I took his hand in mine and lifted it to my face, kissing the inside of his palm, telling him over and over how sorry I was. I heard the faint sound of him trying to sooth me with a ‘shhh’ sound before he fell unconscious.

“We have to get him out of here right now,” I snapped, losing all care whether I was heard or not.

“We will make haste, but you must control your feelings, Renee. It will do him no good to have us attacked because of your anger,” Jacob replied, lifting Martin’s body, helping Cates put him over his shoulder.

“You’ll hurt him that way,” I said, reaching up for him.

“We will hurt him worse by holding the wounds on his back.” Jacob grabbed me by both arms and shook. “If you wish to see him live, then get a hold of yourself, manage his head so that it does not fall hard on Cates’ back, but do not lose the reason we come here this night.”

“I…I,” I muttered through my sobs.

“I know.”

Fala took the lead, with Cates behind him and me holding up Martin’s head, matching Cates' speed. I heard Derek tell Jacob that the door at the top of the stairs was opening and he and Jacob both pulled their blades. It was another slave dressed in the same type of black leather mask. He froze when he saw us leaving the room, and ran down a few of the steps reaching for a rope that was hanging from the ceiling. Jacob and Derek threw their blades at the same time, both making contact with the man as his hand locked on the rope. He fell off the side of the steps and yanked down on the rope as his body went over. Derek ran up, pulled his blade out of the man’s stomach and drove it through his heart. The man under the mask turned to ash, as to where the one that Fala had almost decapitated had turned to the black gore that some do.

We moved as fast as we dared with Martin draped over Cates’ shoulder. The moment we stepped out of the room with all the tables, a putrid smell washed over us. It was like that of decaying flesh, mixed with a long-standing outhouse; gagging me the moment the smell hit the back of my throat. “Move quickly,” Jacob hurried us across the small area. Fala took the stairs first, making sure nothing was waiting for us to come back down into the tunnel, with Cates following him. He was about to step down onto the steps when the sounds of shuffling turned us around. Echoes of moaning and the sound of scraping, like whatever was making the moaning sounds was dragging something hard along with it, came from the direction that we had just left. Cates took the stairs carefully, trying not to jar Martin’s broken body. I was two steps behind him at the stairwell entrance, holding Martin’s head up off of Cates’ back, when I heard Tammy hiss.

What I saw when I turned my head was nothing more than a nightmare and all I wanted to do was wake up. There are no words to describe what my eyes saw, because whatever they were seeing was neither man nor beast. It was two creatures that had uneven limbs that were sewn on with heavy stitches that could be seen from across the room. The ungodly smell was coming from them. Tattered pieces of cloth hung from shoulders that didn’t match the other, and where a man’s hands should have been at the end of a masculine arm there were the long painted nails of a female. The closest was reaching out, opening and closing its odd hand as it came closer. Its mouth was hanging open as if it were yelling at us, but it made no sound. The other moved slowly on thin legs that held up a large, muscular torso with arms that hung by its side as if they didn’t work at all. The eyes that looked back were filled with nothing but emptiness. One was blue, one green, and both stared with no life at all behind them.

Derek, Garvin, and Jacob ran back in and began swinging their blades, chopping at the one that was trying to get to the opening. Tammy slid around the edge of the door, blocking my view and began pushing me to hurry and go down. Once Cates’ feet were on solid ground he moved with a speed that was hard to keep up with while holding Martin’s head. I could hear the others running up behind us, and Derek asking the two that ran with him if they had seen the beast pick up its own arm and try to put it back on. Those must have been the things that Alex was taking about when he said the doctor was given the remains to play with when Angelica had finished with them. I kept trying to look behind us as we ran through the tunnel, but I couldn’t see anything other than the faint light growing dimmer the further we moved away. We reached the torn up bodies of the walking dead in the tunnel. When Jacob relit the torch, the pieces that were lying still became active once again, wiggling and trying to reach us. Fingers on hands with no body clawed at the ground, while legs bent at the knee in a morbid attempt to stand.

I heard Jacob say the word ‘hurry’ but it was like he was miles away and I was in some deep well, waiting for someone to pull me up to the surface. We crossed the ten foot opening, getting a relief that I was grateful for. The stars of the night filled the sky and the cool breeze was welcome on my face. I entered the other side, remembering we had to go back through the church, as well as the ruins of the old part of the city. Jacob went up the steps to the churches basement first, where the bodies lay waiting in their carved out stone coffins, mocking us with their timeless gaping smiles. Martin moaned as Cates took the curve in the steps, having no choice but to press his body into the stone wall. “We’re almost home,” I said, caressing the side of his head, getting no response.

Jacob opened the door to our exit in the building of the church and I heard one of the priests scream out, “They return, father.” Jacob took off after him with me yelling not to hurt him. As we exited the stairs, Jacob had the man from behind, with his hand over the man’s mouth. The man was the same one that had been reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Jacob leaned into the man.