House of Spooks (COMPLETE)

Chapter 14

I awoke and immediately felt out of breath. My head ached and it felt like needles were being pushed into my sides.

The others had made it down, too. Expectedly, they were huddled around me, wondering why I was on the floor in pain. I looked around at my surroundings once my eyes adjusted. We were deep underground, probably. There were cobblestone walls with torches lined up on each side.

"Are you alright, Devon? We think you blacked out because of the awful smell down here." Samantha said, helping me up to my feet. I felt lightheaded and dizzy. I didn't know if I could go on with this.

"Yeah...where are we?" I asked, squinting to see if I could find any sign of daylight."

"No idea. But let's keep moving, I sense that we're close." Collin said, moving along in front of us.

I cleaned my glasses and sighed. We walked along the cobblestone corridors, following the torches and seeing where we would end up. The smell of perfume only got stronger.

Samantha sniffed the air. "Petrichoir. Camilla's favourite perfume. We're getting closer."

I heard laughter through the thick walls. Whoever it was, they were loud and rambunctious. It sounded like two people but I wasn't sure.

We got to the end of the lengthy hallway. We stood before a cherry red door, with a golden plated sign that read "Equipment Room."

"So many doors to go through." I said, rattling the doorknob but with no luck, as I learned it was locked. "Sam, can you do that bobby pin thingy again?"

"Hm, I can try." Samantha said through her gritted teeth holding her cigarette in place. "Allow me, dear."

She pulled the bobby pin out of her hair once again and stuck it into the lock, jiggling it in different directions. Eventually, a click came from the lock, and the door creaked open.

I peeked through the open crack, seeing almost nobody in sight. "I think it's clear."

Carefully opening the door, the scent of what seemed like chocolate and the Petrichoir perfume Samantha mentioned. I felt like I was about to pass out again.

This wasn't an equipment room at all-- it was some kind of freaky mind control room. There were chains and leather instruments littering the floor and walls, and a single large bed being the central attraction.

"What the fuck?"

"This is...strange. Camilla was gifted in the art of seduction but I never g--"

Our meeting was interrupted by a large, deafening bang of a door slamming. "Shit, hide!" I whispered loudly.

My first option was to hide under the bed, but instead I saw a bulky coffin-shaped chest that could be a carrying case for a human body. I quickly jumped into the chest while the others hid cleverly in ways I couldn't.

The chest was oddly uncomfortable, one reason being the massive amount of kinky leather shit poking into my back, and because I felt like I was being buried alive and I could barely breathe. She wouldn't look in here, right?

The sound of stilettos resonated through the hallway leading up to the other door in the room. The door bursted open, and the whimpers of a woman could be heard.

"Sit on the bed and shut the fuck up!" Another woman's voice shouted. "I'll be back for you, honey."

The door slammed shut and the heels scurried the opposite direction they came. Slowly, I lifted open the lid to the chest.

A familiar face of a girl greeted my eyes. Her teal hair was messy and unkept, and tears marked black with mascara streaked down her cheeks.

"C-Celine!" I whispered.

Looking up from her bruised hands, Celine glanced toward the chest. "Devon, we have to get out. Please help me."

"I... I'll get you out of here. I have some friends that'll help us out."

My companions emerged from their odd hiding places. Collin quite literally unfolded himself from out behind a dresser, Samantha reassembled herself from different drawers of the dresser, and Mabelle's frail body materialized out of thin air.

I climbed out of the claustrophobia-inducing chest and rushed over to Celine, embracing her in a tight hug and sobbing my eyes out. "Babe, I... I can explain who these people are later. Are you okay? Anything hurt?"

"No, nothing at all. She never beat me, only taunted me, manipulated me."

"Manipulated how? What the fuck did she do to you?"

"It's nothing, I--"

"Please. Tell me."

"O-okay...."

~

I held Celine's hand in mine for a few minutes and talked with her about what Camilla's intentions were. It upset me to hear, but Camilla was a cold-hearted bitch, was all I heard.

"Okay, we have to come up with a plan. Is there a back exit anywhere?" Samantha asked Celine, dumping her cigarette in the glass bowl on the bedside table.

Celine nodded. "Yeah. The goons use it to dump garbage out. But I'm not sure where they are now, I-- who are these people again, Devon? Not too sure I trust anyone with hands departed from their wrists."

"Oh, uh....this is Samantha, she's a cool French mob lady. She hates Camilla's guts, and vice versa. This is Collin, he's short and gay. And then this Mabelle, she's a blind lady and she's cool too."

"Ah...h-hello, everyone." Celine stuttered, getting up to her feet.

"So, what's the plan, guys?"

Samantha waltzed over to the chest and pulled out multiple chains. "It's complicated but I think we'll manage. We're gonna need some things from the chest. We're gonna set some traps."