The home made morningstar came out from under his tattered overcoat. Jack’s left hand adjusted the stolen sledge hammer that stayed strapped across his back. Maybe I could still smash through that layer of rock that appeared over the door, but I just got here. I only hope Alex and his friends can keep their cool until I get through this. But then, he wondered how anyone could keep their cool while they knew their friends were being tortured.

The walls undulated with horrid patterns of grays and blacks. Faces would appear, melt into skulls and then try to push in at him. Twirling fathoms breathed on his nape and tugged at his clothes.

Jack began to do what he always did when confronted by an unknown evil, he got pissed off. “I’ve fought a lot of you damn Xemmoni in my travels. So what are you the haunted house, nightmare species? What happened did a Nezzoroth knock up some Gloom bitch and you are their ugly stepchild?”

A loud moan blasted at him strong enough to move his hair. Angry voices chattered just behind his ear. “Is this where the girl crawls out of the TV and I just drop dead from fright? Dumb asses.”

He headed past the elevators. “Screw that. I want to keep my feet on solid ground as much as possible—Thank Yig.”

Ahead of him, he could just make out the emergency staircase sign half-covered with black veined ichors. As Jack headed toward it, the hallway became dark and started blinking between black and blacker. A figure stood in the hallway. It was there one minute and gone the next. I had to go and mention The Ring, he thought as he realized it was the shape of a small girl with dark locks that hid her face.

An uncontrolled fear welled up inside his gut. The figure was not large, but it eluded an unholy menace. A helplessness assaulted him It made him want to drop his weapons. How could his weapons hurt something like that?

The oscillating vision approached closer. It stood fifty feet away. Then twenty. Then Ten. Jack looked into those eyes filled with hate and knew true fear—a panic like he had never experienced.

A voice seemed to whisper. “It is all useless, In the end nothing can withstand death. It claims us all. It is claiming you now, Jack!”

It blinked forward again, but with a yell, Jack lashed out at it. It had been a gut instinct, not really more than his reflexes thinking before his mind.

The form crumpled like a small girl should. “Oh crap. Is this some normal girl that was possessed by these pukes?” Blood gushed out of the side of her head. He hurried to check her breathing and that was when her teeth snapped at his face.

“Damn it! Once a Xemmoni, always a Xemmoni.” The girl stood up and stretched her arms out toward him, but even as she did so, her body began to rot and disintegrate before his eyes. It was a gruesome scene as the child went through months of decomposing in moments.

“You killed her, Jack, an innocent.”

“Bullshit! You’ll have to work better than that. I also swear that if my mother has been harmed in any way, I’ll take this whole building apart if I have too.” I just hope Alex and his friends can hold out…

Another image appeared on the wall before the door to the stairwell. Burning yellow eyes hovered in the face of an ebony ghost that leaned away from the wall and grasped at him. “Don’t even think about it,” Jack said, while pushing through the vision. It felt like passing through cold smoke, but he made it to the stairwell unharmed.

“Screw this place. Face me if you dare!” He yelled up the stairwell. “If not, stay the hell out of my way.” His feet hit the stairs and he let his morningstar lead the way as he headed toward the eighth floor. “I’m coming Ma and I almost feel bad for anything that tries to stop me.”