Page 93 of Gothikana

Looking around, he caught one of his colleagues and told him he’d be unavailable for a bit, indicating for Corvina to lead him.

Corvina wanted to let Vad know about the development, but not having seen him on campus since yesterday, she had no idea where he would be. But he knew Ajax and she trusted him, so she had to make it work.

They entered the sunlit forest and Corvina pointed to the right, in a direction she hadn’t taken since that day. ‘That way.’

The woods looked unreal bathed in the brightness of the sun. The trees stood tall, a plethora of earthen colours from browns to greens and colourful flowers dotted in between, azure sky peeking from between the branches. Without the constant grey and the fog, it looked like something out of a fairy tale. And yet, darkness clung to it.

Ajax followed her down the incline by her side. ‘What’s with the shack?’ he asked, jumping over a log and helping her over it.

‘We went there once,’ she told him the truth. ‘Troy and our group. He just wanted to explore the woods once, and we randomly headed in this direction.’

She picked up her skirt, walking around a hedge of weird-looking flowers, and descended down the incline.

‘Did something happen?’ Ajax asked from a few paces away, turning to look back at her with eyes the same as Troy’s had been.

‘We saw something,’ she reminisced, remembering the long silhouette they had encountered that day. ‘A long dark silhouette behind the windows. It was moving. But Troy noticed the lock on the door. Whatever it was, it had been locked in.’

Ajax let out a breath. ‘Fuck, this place would give creeps to the bravest bastard.’

They kept a quick pace, the castle having disappeared behind them above the thicket.

‘And why did you want to check it out now?’ he asked her as they almost neared the place.

‘Just a hunch.’

Ajax slid her a look but didn’t say anything as the shack came into view in the distance.

‘Is the lake close to here?’ she asked as the smell of decay that she’d always associated with the lake infiltrated her senses again.

Ajax paused and looked to the left. ‘Just about there, I’d say. Maybe a five-minute walk. Why?’

Corvina felt her heart begin to pound at the realisation that the rot had always been coming from this place. While the lake had hidden horrors, there was something else in the shack.

They finally stood in front of the little brick and wood cottage, and Corvina’s eyes fell on the door. It was unlocked.

‘Are you sure it had been locked last time?’ Ajax asked in a low voice, pulling out a knife from his boot that Corvina hadn’t even seen.

‘It was Troy who noticed the lock,’ Corvina told him. ‘I didn’t look at the door.’

‘Then it was locked,’ Ajax said as they crept closer. ‘Troy was always good with details. Which means someone has been here recently. Stay behind me.’

Corvina felt her stomach tighten as Ajax cleared the space around the shack, coming back to inch the main door open. The pungent scent of rotten flesh assaulted them immediately.

Corvina covered her nose as nausea rose, trying to block it out, Ajax wincing at the awful scent, pushing the door open completely. A small room came into view, with a kitchenette and a fireplace, a seating area, and two doors leading to the back.

Corvina ventured in slightly, the phantom ants that had always crawled up her skin doing so with a magnified intensity at the sight.

A body lay on the floor, flesh charred, with scavenging insects feeding off it.

Corvina felt the vomit rise up her throat and ran outside, spilling her breakfast in the bushes, panting as the vision of that ugly, ugly death imprinted itself on the forefront of her mind. Wiping her mouth, she steeled her spine and went back in to see Ajax covering his nosewith his hand, examining the body, completely unruffled, which made her wonder how many corpses he must have seen.

‘From the decomposition, I’d estimate she died anywhere between the last five years and a few months,’ he spoke, his eyes scanning the body.

‘She?’ Corvina mumbled, trying to get her eyes to stay on the burned body long enough to observe.

‘Definitely female.’ He nodded. ‘And the burns are post-mortem. See the legs.’ He indicated the portion of the body beneath the knees. It was a pale grey and swollen. ‘Whoever it was began to burn the body and then stopped. Either they were interrupted, or they only wanted to burn the upper half.’

He turned to her. ‘Are you sure you saw something moving here that day?’

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