Maleficium: Duo (Devil's Playground 2)

They opened without any resistance into a dimly lit lobby. The powerful aroma of bleach and fruity disinfectant seeped out to greet us.

“Damn that’s strong.” Dion coughed and covered his nose with a forearm.

“And fresh.” I stepped inside, checking to see if anyone was around a second time before allowing Dion to follow me in. Once he entered the lobby, the doors closed softly behind him.

Left and right would take us down different halls, both completely dark.

All the light came from straight ahead, a sure sign that’s what way we needed to go. Of course, this hallway seemed to go on forever.

A set of clicks had me peering over my shoulder. “What was that?”

“I think it came from the door.” He reached back and pressed down on the handle. “It locked.”

“Not surprising,” I mumbled. “Let’s keep moving. It’s not a good idea to linger.”

We walked forward shoulder to shoulder, keeping to the center of the hall so that we could watch either side. None of the classroom doors were open. I expected someone to jump out at any second.

Our shoes were mostly silent on the grubby tiled floor, occasionally making a small squeak.

Arrows began to appear amidst writing on the faded walls, painted in uneven splotches of red.

“Something wicked…” Dion read aloud. “Something wicked what? They just left it hanging.”

“This way comes. Something wicked this way comes,” I clarified.

“Heard it before?”

I shrugged, cautiously peering inside another empty classroom as we passed by it. “The phrase seems to be a common thing around here.”

“Exactly how long have you been stuck in this place?”

That was a good question.

“This place specifically? For as long as you have. In Goetia? I honestly can’t remember. A few days? A week? I’m not sure.”

“And you don’t know how to get out?” he fished.

“If I knew how to do that I wouldn’t be here right now.”

“Good point. Me and my girl were on the way to a resort when they got us. An ice cream truck forced our car off the road.”

Oh, yeah. How could I forget the Sweet Tooth replica? I was more shocked that thing was driven beyond the city than I was that they’d used it to hunt someone down. But why him?

“Were you staying at Royal Palms by chance?”

“Yeah. You too?”

“Yup, except I was leaving to go back home. Me and my friends were on a shuttle bus that ended up crashing. Then we wound up here. Well, somewhere like here.”

“Damn. This is all kinds of messed up.”

What an understatement. He hadn’t even seen anyone die yet.

“That means save.” He motioned to the word Servatis that’d been written multiple times on the left side of the hallway.

“You know this language?”

“Kind of,” he replied briskly.

Interesting. I stored that tidbit of information for later. A loud bang echoed from somewhere in the building, causing him to nearly jump out of his skin.

“What was that?”

I swallowed a laugh and looked behind us. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

We kept going, passing by a few display cases that’d been set up. There were pictures inside of them, some visibly older than the others. Each photo was accompanied by a name and the year the picture was taken. You couldn’t miss the variation--nearly the same names with different spellings. Both mine and my sisters were amongst them.

Lana. Lilly. Lamia. Lilliana. Lilith.

“You alright?” Dion asked, studying the side of my face.

“Yeah, I think.” I replied quietly.

This was weird.

Even weirder was that all the women pictured had dark hair and looked to be about the same age as us when these were taken. Another photo continued the trend with Mel’s full name.

Melanie. Melaina. Meladia. Melantha.

These women all had different shades of hair. Some were brunettes and some were blondes like she naturally was. Gracelyn’s name was on a photo sitting between someone named Eve and a guy named Hades.

Board of Infernal Syndicate hung above the cases on a large golden plaque. I was going to go out on a limb and say that wasn’t the name of the school’s sports team. Forcing myself to leave the odd display behind, I nudged Dion and continued walking.

Passing through another set of doors that had been wedged open, the arrows directed us to go left.

I followed them with my eyes, stopping where a tin sign hung from the ceiling.

Media room.

The double doored entryway sat back between two solid brick walls. We approached cautiously, each going to a window so that we could see inside. There were rows of bookshelves taking up one side of the room. A few feet in front of the shelves stood a projector aimed at a medium sized projection screen. Dead center were two girls tied to wooden chairs by thin padlocked chains.

“Mel?”

Her head lifted, and she stared as if she’d heard me.

“You know her?”

“That’s one of my friends,” I replied absentmindedly, chewing my lower lip.