Naturally, Edgar followed Barry, who in turn was following the intense smell of lavender and rot left in the zombie man's wake. The trail led right out of the Black Road. They caught a glimpse of the hobbling figure disappearing back into the tunnel that led back to the Tipsy Boglet.
"This had better be worth it," Edgar hissed as he walked alongside Barry towards the tunnel. Yet deep down, Edgar had a nagging feeling it was going to be worth it. Barry had a perfect memory, he knew. For Barry to not remember someone as memorable as a zombie man with a top hat, especially one associated with bad vibes, was indeed strange.
"Well. I did say you could just go on without me," Barry said without looking back.
"You know I wouldn't leave you to do this alone," Edgar chided.
"How considerate of you," Barry replied with sarcasm lacing his tone. Edgar rolled his eyes, choosing not to press Barry further about it.
They made sure to ascend the stairs slowly, since of course, they could only see a dozen stairs ahead with Edgar's phone light. They didn't want to accidentally run into the very man they were following.
Once they reached the Underworld, the dapper zombie was nowhere to be seen. But Barry assured him the scent was still there. So they followed the trail out of the Tipsy Boglet, and towards a side tunnel.
Through a maze of tunnels, the scent led them. It came to a point where they were traversing an area of the Underworld that Edgar didn't recognize. He didn't worry too much, though. Barry was sure to remember the way back.
Eventually, they reached a dead end. There wasn't anything here but the tunnel's walls. Edgar squinted his eyes, activating his aura-sight. Just in case the zombie had a means to make himself invisible. But there was nothing.
Barry's head tilted back as he sniffed the air, following the invisible trail straight into the grey-bricked wall.
"Hidden entrance, I bet," Barry muttered.
"Maybe we should wait until later and come back?" Edgar was nervous of what they'd find within. Plus, the Underworld was the worse possible place to be snooping around. Ever.
"Uhm. No. I need to find out who he is." Barry began poking at the bricks in the wall, the ones he could reach anyways. Edgar sighed and started shoving at the bricks that Barry couldn't reach.
"Why can't you just leave it, Barry? He's just a disgusting zombie with a fetish for dapper attire."
"Oh shut it, you pussy. And that's coming from a cat," Barry muttered. "You know why I can't. It's like I'm a hundred years old and trying to remember every detail about the people I sat next to in first grade... Which I probably could, but the average person can't. Just trust me on this for once, Edgar."
Edgar sighed, knowing there was no deterring Barry at this point.
Suddenly, a brick sunk into the wall beneath Edgar's hand. A portion of the wall slides aside, revealing a dark cave behind it. The smell of mildew and rot reached Edgar's nose.
"Well. That wasn't that hard." Barry cautiously stepped into the opening. The pair tread carefully down the rocky slope leading into the bowels of the cave.
"Spooky," Barry muttered as Edgar turned on the flashlight of his phone. He illuminated the area, which was a plain cave. Lots of stalactites and stalagmites. Somewhere, water was dripping. The pair carefully traversed the twisting passageway the tunnel provided for them. As they went, the smell of rot grew ever stronger. Edgar swallowed his fear, knowing it was far too late to turn back now.
Eventually, a faint golden light illuminated the cave ahead. So Edgar switched the flashlight on his phone off, tucking it into his back pocket. Turning the corner, they discovered the source of the light. A wooden structure was built into the back wall of the cave. Lights drizzled out from the various windows adorning the face of the house.
"What do we do now, Barry?"
"Why do I have to be the one that comes up with a plan?" Barry hissed back.
"Well," Edgar began in hushed tones. "You're the one who decided to drag us here! Besides. You have a reputation to live up to of being able to pull things like this."
"Oh... Yeah. That's right." Barry observed the house for a long minute. Edgar could practically hear the cogs turning in his magically enhanced mind.
Yet no plan ever came. The zombie emerged from the building, urging Edgar and Barry to take cover. Naturally, they hid behind a row of stalagmites. The pair seemed to practically hold their breath as the shuffling footsteps punctuated with the rhythmic tapping of the zombie's cane grew closer, and then faded away in the direction they came. They sat there until the sounds and their echoes completely faded away.
"Well. Looks like we don't need a plan," Barry muttered, trotting off towards the building. Edgar followed after him. Once they got to the door, Edgar reached to turn the knob. Surprisingly, it was unlocked. But he supposed zombie-man didn't really need to worry about locking the door to a home inside of a hidden cave.
Inside, the lights were still on. A living room with the theme of sailing greeted them. A fireplace dominated the back wall, adorned with ship figurines, snow globes depicting ocean scenes, starfish, etc. Though the room itself was packed tight. There was barely any room to walk between the furniture.
Papers lay scattered across the glass coffee table alongside a bottle of Texas Pete's hot sauce. Barry hopped up onto said table, careful to avoid knocking anything over. Edgar sat the briefcase down by the door and moved to inspect the papers.
He was just about to pick a paper up when suddenly a scuffling sound could be heard somewhere within the house. Then the pitter patter of footsteps, fast ones at that, echoed through the house getting closer. There was a guttural bark to be heard as well.
Edgar glanced up just in time as a horrific dog-like creature leaped upon him, knocking him right into a sitting position on the couch. It was all Edgar could do to keep the creature from biting his face off as he tried to get a better grip on it's scabbed and bony figure. The scent of decomposing flesh enveloped his nose with sudden intensity, making him want to gag.
Somehow, Edgar got a grip on the canine. Ignoring the terrible aches from the wounds on his shoulders, he was able to hurl the beast across the room and into the fireplace. It landed with a crunch and a crack, crushing several of the carefully-placed decorations beneath it.
Without pausing to think, he whipped the magnum out from his jacket, pointing it at the creature. Just as it was picking itself out of the smoldering embers, Edgar pulled the trigger. A deafening bang echoed through the house, followed by an eerie silence settling over the room. Now that the creature laid still, Edgar could get a proper look at it.
It was a German Shepard, or at least he thought it was. It was hard to tell with most of its fur gone, only leaving behind greasy, scabbed skin. It's forehead had rotted away entirely, revealing a bloodstained skull, with maggots writhing around the edges of the exposed area. Its eyes were a milky white with dilated black pupils. A hole punctured the side of his head, brain matter oozing from within.
"Disgusting," he muttered, tucking his magnum back into his jacket. He glanced over at Barry, who was now pressed up against the far wall, his fur standing on end. The poor guy looked horrified. Edgar couldn't blame him. That dog would've swallowed his head whole if given the chance.
"Barry? You alright bud?"
Barry snapped out of his haze. "Fine," he replied sharply. He trotted out of the room, towards the back.
Taking his word for it, Edgar turned his attention to the papers on the coffee table, shuffling through them. They were notes on something science-y, - that much was clear. Numbers and words far too long to be pronounced, unfamiliar symbols, and circles and polygons connected by lines. These papers might as well have been written in a foreign language to Edgar.
Yet, Edgar decided to take a picture of each page, simply for the sake of collecting the information. Perhaps he could find someone to translate all this bullshit into normal English for him?
Once he had pictures of every page, he laid them back as close to their original positions as he could remember. There was no doubt at this point the zombie man would've realized somebody had broken into his house, but at least Edgar could try to hide what he had poked his nose into.
He then observed the shelves on the wall. Countless nick knacks adorned them. Naturally, they stuck to the theme of sailing, for the most part. However, as a centerpiece among the shelves, sat what Edgar believed to be an actual human skull, a black eyepatch over one eye socket. Edgar might've been mildly disturbed if he wasn't in the home of a zombie, and was just attacked by his fucked up dog.
Sitting on the right-most shelf, a picture caught his eye. A younger, more alive version of zombie man holding a familiar woman in his arms on a white sand beach. Edgar recognized her as Alex. Barry kept a picture of her near his bed that he rarely even slept in. Edgar snapped a picture of the picture. He was sure Barry would've wanted to see it.
Edgar then moved towards the hallway to the left of the door, ending up in a bigger room. Leather strings adorned with beads and feathers hung from the ceiling in drooping arcs. It gave a tribal feel to the room of dusty bookshelves.
"Naturally he has to have the weirdest tastes ever," he muttered as he walked among the shelves. Giving a quick glance over the shelves, he saw a mix of modern books and old leather bound tomes. Edgar plucked an ancient-looking tome from the shelves. The title was something sketchy. "Shadows of the Sea."
Leafing through the pages, Edgar saw a variety of strange runes, and eerie drawings of organs, bones of sea creatures, and tons of other weird shit that he couldn't make sense of. There were barely any words. Just titles every few pages, like "Naga's Curse," and "Sea Witch's Bane." It had a reoccurring theme of something related to the sea alongside something negative. It didn't take a genius to figure out that this was a tome on the darker arts of magic. Voodoo, perhaps? Barry would know for sure.
"Barry," Edgar said in a normal tone. He knew the familiar would have no trouble hearing him. A few moments later, Barry entered the room.
"What?" His tone was sharp. Edgar could tell that Barry was just as disturbed as he was. He crouched down, showing the book to Barry. Barry swiped his paw from right to left, flipping through the pages. His expression becomes darker.
"It's voodoo, right?" Edgar asked, knowing that he was indeed right.
"Indeed. This man is a Witch Doctor. Somehow, he managed to turn himself into an intelligent zombie too. Meaning he's either really dumb or far smarter than I'd like to admit. That explains why I only get bad vibes. But that doesn't explain how I feel that I know him." Barry turned away as Edgar snapped the book shut. He didn't get what Barry meant by him being either really dumb or really smart, but he was sure Barry knew what he was talking about. As he placed the book back on the shelf, Barry trotted towards the back of the room, where a desk sat.
Alongside the desk, the room was decorated with the stuffed form of a leaping cheetah in the corner and lots of dreamcatchers hanging from the ceiling. There was one for every color of the rainbow, and then some. On the desk, sat a thin, sleek black laptop. Barry hopped onto the desk, giving Edgar a look of expectation.
Edgar sat in the office chair, pushing back the laptop's lid and pressing the power button. As the two waited for the computer to go through its start-up process, Edgar turned to Barry.
"Hey. I found this picture in the living room," he told Barry, bringing up the picture of the picture he took earlier on his phone. He showed it to Barry.
"...That's her," he whispered, his voice heavy with sadness. "...And that's him," he added, his voice suddenly hardening with pure hatred. Edgar had only heard this tone from Barry a few times. It was usually directed at the Council of Nine for what they had done to Alex. "He must've done something to her. Something terrible. Something I would have killed him for. He must've cast a curse of memory loss on me. That's the only explanation."
Edgar tucked his phone away after Barry was done glaring daggers at the picture. "Then what do you propose we do?"
"We get my memory back, and then depending on what I see, we kill this asshole for good." Barry stared at the screen, where there was a swirling circle of dots. It was still loading.
"And how do you propose we do that, Barry?" Edgar intertwined his fingers, looking at Barry expectantly. The familiar was much more knowledgeable on all things magic than Edgar could ever hope to be.
"Well. Maybe there's a tome here with an idea? A smart man would keep information on how to countermeasure his own spells." And with that, Barry hopped off the desk and began walking among the rows of shelves.
Edgar turned his attention back to the computer, cursing under his breath. It was prompting him to type the password. Above the password box, the phrase, "Hello, Elias Thorpe" was written in the signature neat font of Windows 10.
Sure, he could use a computer easy-peez. But he was no computer nerd, and he certainly was no hacker. So naturally, he typed in "password." It was denied, but it was worth a shot. At least he got the zombie man's name. Elias Thorpe.
"Elias Thorpe. Does that ring any bells, Barry?" Edgar asked as he shut the lid of the laptop. From somewhere among the rows, he heard Barry's reply.
"Not really. Is that his name?"
"Yeah," Edgar replied, standing up and pushing the chair back into a place. He went to go help Barry search.
After about five minutes or so, they found a tome that might help them. It was called "The Depths of the Mind." Flipping through it, Barry did catch a glimpse of a ritual that might work. But the pair decided to look further in detail later when they weren't in the middle of breaking and entering.
Luckily, the tome was very compact, and Edgar could easily fit it into the jacket pocket opposite to his magnum.
They exited the room. To their right, was a kitchen which they figured the zombie dog must've been resting in. They also figured that there was nothing in that kitchen they wanted to see. So they moved towards the hallway they had yet to poke around in.
There, they found a pair of stairs leading into a basement of sorts. Using his phone for light, they slowly descended the stair. The first thing they noticed was the intense smell of body odor and chemicals that now mixed into the stench of rot.
Halfway down the stairs, Edgar heard a faint sob. He froze, debating on if he was brave enough to face whatever was down here.
Just do it, he thought to himself as he picked up his pace.
As soon as the final step gave way to a cold stone floor, lights snapped on. Edgar's jaw dropped at the horrifying sight that laid out before them.
ns 15.158.61.6da2
