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       "Fear. How I've missed your sweet scent."

       The mouth snapped open and her head shot forward. Kenneth screamed, trying to back away as the teeth sank into his groin. Kenneth felt his most tender of areas being chewed upon and the scream was quickly choked off by vomit. The teeth gnawed and Kenneth began to keel over, the sensation of his scrotum rupturing under the vice-like grip too much to bear.

       The Carol thing started twisting her head from side to side like a dog with a bone, savaging Kenneth's midsection until the tendons and veins severed. Hot blood splashed her beastly visage and her deformed body shook with an orgasmic pleasure.

       "Don't be a hog," Sue sang. "There's enough for us all."

       Sean saw them coming. Colin, Sue and three more of the hideous half human, half animal hybrid creatures.

       "Move!" Sean yelled, dragging Darren over the rubble and towards the spiralling staircase that would take them even deeper.

       "Oh, Seany," Colin called after them. "Don't you want to play?"

       Sean almost fell on the first step, miscalculating the narrowness and steepness of the swirling pathway. Darren didn't wait to help his friend, all loyalty abandoned as terror took over. Sean regained his balance and set off at a run, taking the steps two at a time. The skin on his palms were quickly rubbed raw by the stone walls he used for balance.

       "Darren!" Sean called, hearing his colleague's footfalls growing fainter. "Bastard," he cursed.

       "Kenneth tasted good," Carol's voice floated down the stairway.

       "A bit on the fatty side," added Colin.

       "I prefer my loins tender and lean," Sue screeched, her abnormal head appearing round the curve of the wall. "Sweet meat." The head was followed by her body, a twisted, tumour ridden husk.

       Sean turned and the Sue thing locked its hollow eye sockets onto him. For a moment he felt the will to live drain away. Nothing mattered but to drown in the cold darkness of the cavernous orbs that stared at him. The Sue thing leaped forward and, as the eye contact was broken, Sean felt his mind return to his body.

       As the creature came down on him he swung the torch. The blow connected with the Sue thing, the stairway filled with the sound of breaking bone. Sean side stepped and ducked at the same time, the creature falling over him and tumbling downwards with a scream of anger.

       "That wasn't nice." Sue's place was taken by Colin.

       "Oh fuck," whispered Sean.

       "Don't you like my new look?" asked the Colin thing, running clawed hands over its chest and bloated stomach.

       Sean couldn't answer, his gaze fixed on where Colin's head should have been. All that remained was a gaping neck wound surrounded by the tattered remains of the scientist face. Drooping loosely from the neck was the leathery muscle of Colin's tongue and it twitched as the thing spoke.

       "The ladies love me now," said the Colin thing.

       "Oh yes, we do," Carol confirmed, lacing her monstrous arms around Colin's naked waist.

       The Carol thing licked at the clumps of flesh clinging to her face, the tongue snaking its way up her scabby cheeks and probing the void of her left eye socket. She lapped greedily at the gruel puddled inside.

       "Yummy," the creature muttered softly.

Behind her the other three aberrations appeared, totally naked and covered in what could only be Kenneth's earthly remains.

       "Oh fuck," Sean repeated, turning away from the undead insanity with little hope of escape.

       "Now he wants to play," laughed the Carol thing, pushing her way passed her male counterpart and loping off down the stairs.

       Sean's heart pounded in his chest, the sound of his own blood banging in his ears and drowning out the echo of his laboured breathing. More than once he missed his footing, sliding on the smooth steps and falling rather than running. Behind him came the excited panting of the others, things that were no longer human and craving the taste of his abstract terror.

       "We're coming to get you, Sean," taunted the Colin creature, the threat followed by a low, sinister growl of hunger and lust.

       Sean knew he was going to die; it was only a matter of how and where. All he could do was postpone the inevitable. He rounded the next curve in the staircase and it opened out onto a small landing. He stopped in his tracks and stared at the bulbous carcass blocking his path.

       "Look what you did to me," screamed the Sue thing, its arms and legs broken at viscous angles. "How could you hurt a lady?" It tried to raise its head on the ruined neck.

       "You're no fucking lady," Sean laughed, his mind losing its grip on reality.

He took two steps forward and looked down at the twisted beast. It writhed around on shattered limbs, attempting to grab Sean's legs.

       "You ugly cunt." Tears flowed from Sean's eyes, his laughter going into overdrive.

       "You'll soon be like us," threatened the Sue thing.

       "Shame you won't be around to see it," Sean replied, raising his boot and smashing it down on the grotesque face.

       He grimaced as the cranium gave in under his weight, gagging at the vile smell that accompanied the ejaculation of steaming fluid that sprayed up his legs.

       "Nooooo!" Sean had to clamp his hands to his ears to block out the scream of anguish. "You'll pay for this outrage," shrieked multiple voices, sensing the loss of one of their own.

       Sean didn't wait for them to fall upon him and carried on ever downwards, his thoughts of escape given a sliver of hope at the appearance of light below. It wasn't much, but he could see the faint flicker of candles and he sped towards them without thinking what might be awaiting him, all he could picture was the creatures behind him and what would happen when they finally caught up with him.

       "Sean?" Chappell shouted from the light.

       "Where's Darren?" Sean managed between gasped breaths, all his attention focused on making it to the bottom of the staircase.

       "He's here," Chappell replied. "Hurry."

The light grew brighter and Sean ran from the staircase, entering a vast chamber formed within the rock. The candles burned low, the tiny flames surrounding the area and casting a dancing glow of yellow and shadow. Sean looked around, searching franticly for any sign of Chappell or Darren.

       "Chappell?" Sean asked, crossing the uneven floor.

       "I'm here," came the soft reply.

       Sean paused in the centre of the chamber and looked at the huge circle at his feet, a solid stone seal about fifteen feet wide. At some point it had blocked the well-like hole beneath it, but now it sat askew. Sean shone the dying beam of his torch down, but it did little to illuminate the shaft.

       "What is it?" Sean asked, all fear forgotten as he crouched and traced a finger over the intricate carvings.

       "It's where they come from," answered Chappell.

       "Who?"

       "Them." Chappell stepped out of the shadows and pointed towards the staircase.

       The creature's stood snarling, but paused at Chappell's appearance, the growls turning to hiss-like whimpers of fear. Sean looked at them and then turned his head to look up at Chappell.

       What Sean saw was enough to finish off what was left of any sanity he may have had. Chappell stood, naked as the day he was born, his torso bleeding from the inscriptions he'd carved into his own flesh. The ancient words scrolled across his entire body, the natural canvas his skin, the ink his blood.

       "What have you done?" Sean gagged.

       "I've saved myself." Chappell looked down at Sean and revealed his final mutilation.

       "Your eyes." Sean cried.

       "Gateway to the soul." Chappell raised a hand and rubbed at the rough stitching that held his lids together.