Soul Juice by Tony Northover

Author:Tony Northover
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tony Northover
Published: 2022-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Level Twelve

There is good news, bad news, and even worse news, Sarah tells me.

The bad news is that she does not possess a key to the central lift. The good news is we don’t need to take the lift: we can find our own way up. The worst news is that she has something else to show me. Admittedly that does sound like the worst thing in the world at the time, though not until I get close enough to smell it. When I do, its reek is as foul as can be, and looks a damn sight worse.

“Maybe this is a mistake,” Sarah says. “We should go back the way we came.”

“Too late. I can smell it! What is it?” I ask.

Does suffering have a fragrance? If it does, then that is what I sniff out long before we enter the dark cavernous room. Or do I mean cadaverous room? That would fit too. It is a stomach-wrenching stink, totally rank, like rotten meat left out in the sun. It is the stench of a lot of bodies that have not been washed for a long, long time. But it is more than that: within the scent of stale sweat and charred rotting meat, is the overwhelming, unbearable and choking malodour of despair.

“Why?” I ask Sarah in total bewilderment. Why has she brought me here?

“You need to see it. You need to know what is behind this place. So you have no illusions. It will help you make the right choice. I think,” she says.

The heavy wooden door with an iron grill at head height is unguarded and unlocked. I pull it open with more force than is strictly necessary, old habits die hard, or not at all. I am trembling as I enter. It is as if the odour has infiltrated every pore of my body and is now somehow infecting my soul, making it sour and corrupting what is left of it; after all, it has been heavily pruned, hacked and mangled over the recent months.

Black shapes line every wall. Heavy chains bind them, holding them in place, or would do if they bothered to strain against them. I step over bodies on the floor, chained to rings of steel that have been driven into the stone. They are all curled up and unmoving. The aroma is now unbearable.

“Oliver?” Sarah says, and I turn to look.

I have only seen him once. At his execution. Yet here he is, alive, certainly not well. They haven’t killed him. His head is bowed down and his face is covered within a metal mask with no eyes or mouth-hole. A low muffled moan comes from behind the mask.

“Why isn’t his body healing?” I ask. My head feels light and I see colour spots in front of my eyes.

“Blood,” Sarah says. “They don’t allow them any human blood.”

“They need it to heal?”

“A thimble-full a day will do. But cut off the supply and the body goes into degeneration.”

“Then what?”

“A living death, like all these people you see here.

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