Page 113 of Dead Serious: Case 3 Mr Bruce Reyes

Realising there’s nothing else, I rip the lid off the box desperately and grab the first thing my hand touches, which turns out to be a tibia. I use it to whack at the vine holding onto my ankle and there’s a loud sizzle. The vine immediately releases my leg and recoils as if burned, smoke rising from its skin.

“Holy fuck, they’re magic!” I yell.

“Tristan, I need them now!” I hear Bruce yell. “Can you stop playing Fred Flintstone? My leg bone is not a bloody club!”

“Sorry!” Leaving the lid discarded, I clutch the box to my chest and then shove it up onto the dais where Bruce is now standing.

“Tristan!” Bruce eyes the bone still clutched in my right hand.

“Oops, sorry.” I drop it back into the box, just in the nick of time because the minute it’s out of my hand, I feel one of the vines wrap around my middle and yank me off my feet, sending me skidding back away from Bruce.

I can just about make out Dusty by the gateway, trying to skewer a vine with one of her stilettos which she’s yanked off her foot and now brandishes like a weapon.

I struggle and squirm, but the vine pulls tighter, squeezing me painfully. I look to the left and see Sam fighting against his restraints. To my right is Danny in a similar predicament.

Turning back toward the dais, I watch as Bruce straightens up from his hunched, exhausted posture. His expression when he glances back at me is almost serene. The open box of bones sits at his feet.

“Stop,” he says simply.

He doesn’t shout or raise his voice, but it reverberates through the entire cavern. The vines don’t seem to like the vibrations and recoil slightly, loosening their grip on the rest of us. Not enough to break free, but enough that we’re no longer in danger of being crushed to death like we’re a boa constrictor’s prey.

“You do not belong here,” Bruce continues calmly, and again his voice is so powerful I can feel it echo through my body.

It may be a trick of the light, but Bruce seems to be glowing, surrounded by a bright white nimbus. The dark shadow rippling in the gateway like an oil slick hisses.

“You made a big mistake unearthing my bones,” Bruce tells the darkness. “You forced me to confront the one thing I’d been trying so hard to forget, and by doing that, you woke all the parts of me that were sleeping.” I can’t see his expression from here, but I can hear the amusement in his voice. “Now I remember everything.”

The darkness in the gateway hisses again and undulates. Shapes appear—hands and a face pressing against what resembles a black rubbery membrane, like whatever is beneath it is trying to break through.

Bruce begins to glow brighter and brighter. The box at his feet starts to rattle and shake. Suddenly, one of the smaller bones flies out, hurtling toward the gateway like it’s magnetised. The small bone adheres itself to a thick muscular vine, which sizzles and shrieks as the bone melts straight through it and attaches itself to the stone archway beneath.

Bruce glows brighter.

Another bone catapults through the air, striking the gateway, scorching through the vines, and binding to the stone. More and more of them are sucked toward the gate, toppling the box over with their momentum, but they keep going until every single bone has attached itself to the stone archway, leaving the vines all tattered and bleeding black ooze.

Bruce is now glowing so brightly it hurts my eyes. The vines holding me vibrate like a plucked string, and a sound fills the air. A hum, growing louder and louder in intensity until I have to cover my ears. I can no longer see Bruce, just that blinding light as he moves into the gateway.

The vibration is gaining in strength and the hum is now a vast roar building to a crescendo.

Suddenly, everything goes quiet for exactly one second.

Then a roar bursts outward, like a shock wave tearing through everything in the room. I curl up on the ground, my eyes closed, my ears covered. The squeezing hold on me suddenly disappears, allowing me to breathe in, and something wet and slimy splats against my skin, but all I can think about is Danny. I want to cry out for him, but the sound is so loud.

Then… silence.

All I can hear is a panting breath and I realise it’s my own. I feel a hand on my face, and I slowly release my ears and open my eyes. Danny is there, his face smeared with oily black gunk, his eyes filled with concern, and I can’t describe my relief that he seems to be okay.

“Danny,” I gasp, pulling him close. His body shakes in time with my own. That was fucking intense. “Are you okay?”

I pull back to search him for injuries, then notice his crutches are nowhere to be found. He must have dragged himself across the floor to reach me.

“I’m okay.” I swallow hard, my heart still pounding. “Are you?”

“I’m okay.” He grasps my jaw and kisses me roughly.

“I’m okay too, if anyone cares?” Sam’s dry voice echoes across the cavern, and we glance over to find him sprawled on the floor, covered in the same icky black mess as we are.

Danny frowns. “What the fuck happened?”