Chương 269: 6.46

A ghoulish creature with many-segmented limbs, a decaying humanoid insect, perched on the roof as it surveyed us with several reddish eyes. Purple Nerd screamed. The monster opened its mouth and shot out its tendril of a tongue, catching the person nearest the building.

"Help!" cried the portly man I hadn't given a nickname yet.

"Please help—urgk!" Fodder Guy got stabbed in the chest by the tongue that wrapped around him.

"Run!" Green-Eyed Hero shouted as he grabbed my arm and pulled me. Frizzy Detective was already far ahead even before Green-Eyed Hero shouted. Purple Nerd froze on the spot while wailing like a tornado warning. Schoolteacher and Beach Man practically carried her away. And just like that, our party was down to six—a pretty good number for a group in a horror movie. Too bad for Fodder Guy getting devoured by the monster this early in the movie.

"I can run by myself," I told Green-Eyed Hero. I detested getting pulled along by someone taller than me like Deen does a lot. Made me feel like a kid. Add that Green-Eyed Hero was freakishly tall. Frizzy Detective, poking his head from behind a tree at the end of the clearing, waved at us to hurry up.

"We should stick together. The jungle is thick." So, this is a jungle? The vegetation was dense, unlike the earlier forest where there was space between the trees. Like, you'd need a machete to cut through the undergrowth, which we didn't have. Lots of vines and other plants grew on the trees, drapes of greenery. A very tropical feel to it. Humid as an air conditioner's exhaust. This was a jungle, alright. Green-Eyed Hero marched up to Frizzy Detective and stared him down.

"Rich of you to say we should stick together after abandoning us."

"Calm down, I didn't abandon you," Frizzy Detective replied.

"The correct course of action when a man-eating monster shows up is to run. I expected everyone to do the same as me. Now, we're here. What's the problem?"

"The problem is—" Green-Eyed Hero started to say.

"The problem is there's a monster eating someone over there." I stood in between them.

"We're next on the menu if we stick around."

"Where to, guys?" Beach Man said. The rest of the group joined us.

"Need to haul ass quick!" Purple Nerd was a sniveling wreck, clutching the blazer of Schoolteacher, who appeared mildly miffed about the whole situation.

"Anywhere but here," said Green-Eyed Hero, leading the way into the forest. Or jungle. Probably really a jungle this time.

"Damn, this is going to be an itchy bonanza," Beach Man groaned.

"Wish I had looted the shirt of the dead guard. You guys think that's a fucking Adumbrae back there? Are we getting pranked or some shit? Some kind of sick joke?"

"It is unlikely this is a prank," Schoolteacher replied.

"All of us were kidnapped and brought to a place where Adumbrae roams. Yes, I do think that was an Adumbrae. Very much not a joke."

"Less talking," Frizzy Detective hissed.

"We'll discuss when we're safe enough."

"We're not safe anywhere," Purple Nerd said in between sobs. Pretty safe to be with me, I thought with a smirk. Just your friendly neighborhood Adumbrae in a wetsuit. I seriously didn't know what to make of this situation I got plopped into. We waded through dense vegetation. Thankfully, Green-Eyed Hero stomped a path for the rest of us. And also, many thanks to my wetsuit for saving me from itchiness. Beach Man was having a very bad time with the scratchy grass and insect bites.

I imagined the insects were worse in a jungle than in the forest. They couldn't bite me though. Being shirtless was the least of Beach Man's worries; he was barefoot. I was barefoot too. Rocks couldn't cut my skin. But I had to pretend to be hurt to not raise suspicion. Green-Eyed Hero offered me his shoes, but they were too big and probably stinky. I settled with wrapping my feet with strips of Frizzy Detective's vest tied with his shoelaces. He wasn't such a bad guy as Green-Eyed Hero made him out to be.

After around half an hour of fleeing from the humanoid insect, we found another boxy building similar to the jail we escaped from. It was just right there, in the middle of the jungle, with nothing else around it. What was the deal with them? Shouldn't the holding cells be connected to laboratories for easy transporting of test subjects? Or they could be right below the arena if these people were supposed to be killed for sport. Super random to plop them in the middle of… a dumpsite for failed mutant experiments?

Not sure if the monster we met was an Adumbrae.

"Should we go in?" I asked Green-Eyed Hero.

"There might be prisoners to save."

"And guards that could kill us," said Purple Nerd.

"Yes, they could kill us," said Green-Eyed Hero.

"But I've already killed two of them. Actually, we're not going to kill them. We're going to capture and interrogate them."

"By interrogate, do you torture?" said Schoolteacher.

"I'm not going to stand for that, young man."

"There's no torture if they're going to cooperate," he replied evenly.

"If they won't spill the beans… Well, we don't have much of a choice other than to force it out of them."

"They kidnapped us," Frizzy Detective said.

"We're trying to survive. Morality is hardly on the table." Green-Eyed Hero nodded with a smile, warming up to Frizzy Detective.

"Right, you are. Here's the plan." He told us to make noises to draw the guards out. We banged sticks and rocks while remaining in the tree line. No one exited the building. Green-Eyed Hero, standing outside the doorway with his sledgehammer held high, vigorously nodded at us. The others talked loudly while I wondered if this was really a prank. They progressed to shouting before Frizzy Detective stopped them.

"We want to attract the guards," he said.

"Not the monster. Let's come closer." Our group left the trees and approached the jail. Feeling brave, Beach Man snuck to the back of the building and called at the cells, asking for anyone inside who could hear him. Still, silence. No guards or prisoners. No monsters either. Except for me. Frizzy Detective instructed Beach Man to boost him up to the tiny slats. With a mirror he looted from a guard Green-Eyed Hero killed, Frizzy Detective tried to check for people inside the cells.

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"It's empty." Frizzy Detective and Beach Hero transferred to the next set of slats.

"Also empty."

"Maybe this building isn't in use," I said as we rounded to the front.

"I can go in to check. I'm quite fast at running if—""I'll do it." Green-Eyed Hero opened the front door with a kick and charged inside before anyone could stop him, sledgehammer in front as a thin shield. He must've intended to surprise any guards waiting in ambush by barreling past them.

"All clear!" His shout echoed out the door. The tinge of a certain smugness made me think he enjoyed being front and center. The building was empty, but there were signs prisoners used to be there. Cabinets inside the guard room near the front were wide open as if someone searched through them. There were also angry red scribbles on the wall. Survival horror vibes.

"Don't trust anyone," Beach Man read one line.

"That's a lot of exclamation marks."

"They can turn into monsters," Schoolteacher read the sentence written diagonally below it.

"How ominous. Turning into monsters should refer to Adumbrae. They. There are many of them."

"This is hopeless!" Purple Nerd hid behind her hands.

"We're all going to die."

"Dried blood," said Frizzy Detective, picking at the peeling red stuff.

"It's clear what happened here." Beach Man threw up his arms.

"Clear? Yeah, we're fucked—that's clear. You got some hocus-pocus vision to know what really went down with the people in this building?"

"Firstly, the same as us, the prisoners somehow managed to escape, judging from the empty cells," said Frizzy Detective, "and the very noticeable fact they're not around now."

"Come on, man," said Beach Man.

"Anyone can see that."

"Secondly," Frizzy Detective went on, "there were no guards posted in this building or we would've seen their bodies, whether dead or incapacitated. There are also no signs of a fight. Yes, there's blood. But that was intentionally painted on the wall."

"Why would this place not have any guards?" I asked, already forming a hypothesis in my mind. Frizzy Detective shrugged.

"Plenty of reasons. The Adumbrae could've killed them while they patrolled outside. Or the guards could've been ordered to leave because there are monsters. However, given the placement and state of these buildings, I believe the guards are connected with the monsters. They —I don't know who could be behind this—brought people like us to feed the monsters. This would make the most sense given that these cells didn't seem to be intended as long-term.

The guard had left because this building was the next buffet to open. That's my third point."

"If that's the case, the prisoners might not have broken out," I said.

"The doors just opened after a set time."

"We're offerings to Adumbrae?" Beach Man punched a cabinet door.

"That's batshit insane!"

"It's not as insane as you'd think," said Schoolteacher.

"Phrasing it better, it is insane but not unlikely. The Goldenfield massacre, the Memphis cult in Ohio, the Happy Day Ranch killings… I can think of many other examples of people offering fellow humans to monsters. It appears that we're going to add to that list of examples."

"I'm too young to die!" Purple Nerd exclaimed.

"We're sacrifices, got it," said Green-Eyed Hero, nodding as he stroked his chin.

"But that doesn't mean we're just going to let ourselves get killed." He turned to Frizzy Detective.

"The people here left and then…?"

"Fourthly, the escapees encountered an Adumbrae," said Frizzy Detective.

"At least one of them was injured and returned here." He pointed at the blood on the wall, then the droplets on the floor. He chuckled and shook his head.

"Who am I kidding? Many of them were killed, I bet."

"You don't have to laugh at their misfortune," Schoolteacher sternly said.

"Their fate could be our future."

"There's something I don't get," said Beach Man.

"Why would this injured guy return to this dump? Did he think of holing up here to be safe from the monsters? Only one door. If an Adumbrae enters, there's no escape. We've seen an Adumbrae visit the jail we came from."

"That means we have a limited time here," I mumbled.

"The person who left this message didn't die here," said Frizzy Man, gesturing to the floor free of corpses.

"He must've thought this place was a death trap as well. But why did he return? I hypothesize that his group split up when they were attacked. He hoped to reunite with the survivors, thinking they might come here. I'm not sure if he succeeded—probably not—but he left this message for the others."

"Which others?" I asked.

"Others," Frizzy Detective said, looking with a raised brow.

"His fellow escapees. He's telling them not to trust Adumbrae masquerading as humans. I'm picturing the scenario where his group met someone claiming to have escaped another jail, supposedly, who turned out to be an Adumbrae."

"If so, then this message doesn't make sense," I said.

"He wouldn't need to tell his group about that because they'd already know. I think this is a warning to people from other buildings."

"People like us," said Green-Eyed Hero.

"Ah, that's… more plausible," Frizzy Detective conceded, even if he looked pained doing so.

"Their group must've seen other buildings, like we did, and deduced there were more of us out there. The person who left this message wanted others to avoid what happened to his group—we should be wise not to trust anyone we meet."

"That message applies to us too." I looked around the group with fake suspicious eyes. Dramatic music welled in my head. The camera should zoom on my face right now.

"We shouldn't trust each other. Maybe… not all of us are prisoners."

"The hell are you saying?" Beach Man demanded.

"There's an Adumbrae among us?"

"Oh my god!" Purple Nerd backed away from the group and pressed herself against the wall.

"Hang on, none of that talk," said Green-Eyed Hero.

"This isn't the time to be pointing fingers at each other. We can't afford to fight and split up."

"Yep, splitting up always ends up badly in movies," I said. Frizzy Detective grabbed the door of the cabinet doors.

"It's possible to root out any possible Adumbrae." He yanked off the door after some struggle. The hinges had loose screws. He picked out one and held it up.

"One prick is all it takes."

"Absolutely no fricking way!" shrieked Purple Nerd, who I was now dubbing as Purple Banshee. She really should learn to control her voice.

"No one's going to hurt me." Even if Purple Banshee was annoying, I was grateful she resisted Frizzy Detective's plan. I didn't need to come up with excuses for why I wouldn't want to get pricked. Frizzy Detective laughed.

"I was just joking. Of course, I won't do it. If it turns out that there was an actual Adumbrae, he'd kill us all. We'd be rushing to our deaths if we did test. The best course of action is to be watchful of everyone else while staying together. The trick is to notice the odd one out and escape before the killing starts." His words brought silence to the group. Green-Eyed Hero cleared his throat.

"I, uh, I think we should get going. We can't be here when the Adumbrae checks this building." Everyone wordlessly followed him. This is a hunting field. I have seen a few movies like this. The rich kidnap random people and release them into a jungle, making a sport out of hunting them. I wouldn't be surprised if hidden cameras were watching our every move. The question was if the Adumbrae assigned to this island—I bet this was Blue Island, because it had the Coliseum thingy—knew that I was an intruder.

Would they care enough about their victims to know there was an extra one? Another question was if we really had an Adumbrae among us. Besides me. Green-Eyed Hero's story about overpowering guards seemed fishy. Such a fan attraction to have an interactive event in this theme park.

"I'm thinking we can introduce ourselves," said Green-Eyed Hero.

"It'll make things less… tense. We need to work together to survive. That includes trusting each other. I'll start. I'm Tristan. I'm an all-around handyman from… uh… we can skip specific details. I got this new client. A rich guy. I was supposed to fix his clogged pool. The last thing I remember before waking up in my cell was entering that guy's mansion."

"I'll go next," said Beach Man.

"The name's Carmelo. I was partying with my buddies. Some hot chicks invited us to the VIP section. Boom. Next thing I knew, I'm here."

"We can really say anything," said Frizzy Detective, "and no one can know if we're lying. But sure, I'll play along. I'm Francis, as I've said earlier. I'm an accountant at—" The scream of Purple Banshee interrupted the story. She pointed somewhere to the right.

"A body!"