Aftermath

he might be able to use the depth of the mire as a kind of primitive gauge.
    “What are you thinking?” Lorna asked, concerned that he’d stopped.
    “Just trying to work out how the dead would have moved through here.”
    “Me too,” she said. “Those bodies back there…”
    “… must have been some of the first to get through. They must have followed Jackson in. Presumably he would have had quite a crowd behind him.”
    “If they were in large enough numbers,” Harte said, “then there’s a chance some of them would have been trampled like we saw outside.”
    “That’s what I was thinking,” Michael agreed.
    “So the deeper the shite,” Lorna said, “the better?”
    “Exactly.”
    Caron was still green. Her stomach rolled at the thought of more dead flesh. “You want to go deeper?”
    Michael didn’t say anything. Instead he shone his torch down and began feeling around with his boots. He tried to picture Jackson’s arrival, how his bluster and noise would inevitably have caused a huge swell of the dead to try and follow him into the castle. He worked his way around the edge of the room, torch in one hand, feeling the wall with the other. The rest of the group remained still and watched him as he kept moving, prodding the ground, taking one tentative step at a time. He knew he was onto something, because the depth of the muck was increasing now. He’d barely been splashing in it initially, but it was already up over the toes of his boots. And now it had almost reached his ankles. He moved again, and now it was halfway up his shin.
    And then the hard wall Michael was holding onto for support disappeared. He stopped and felt his way around the edges of the entrance to another passageway, initially obscured by shadow. He shuffled closer, feeling the unimaginably foul gloop around his feet rising with virtually every step.
    “This is it,” he said. “It has to be.”
    “Can you see anything?” Lorna asked from close behind. He shone the torch deeper into the passage.
    “Not a damn thing, but we have to be close now.”
    “I can’t keep going,” Caron whined from the back.
    “Shut her up, would you?” Michael said wearily. “She’s doing my bloody head in.”
    “Give it a rest, Caron,” Lorna yelled at her before lowering her voice and adding. “You don’t have any choice.”
    “Everybody ready?” Michael asked. Absolute silence.
    “Just do it,” Kieran reluctantly said.
    “Single file. Hold onto the back of the person in front, okay?”
    Michael didn’t wait for anyone to reply. As soon as Harte grabbed his shoulder he began to move along the passageway he’d uncovered, his boots crunching and slipping through the rapidly deepening mess. He frequently lost his footing when he trod on submerged bones and he did his best to sweep them away to either side. He crunched through rib cages and pushed skulls away like footballs.
    “Shit,” Howard cursed when he tripped and almost dragged half the group over. His frighted voice was amplified by the narrowness of the corridor they now followed. “This is madness. We should turn back.”
    “You can if you like,” Michael said, finding it increasingly hard to concentrate, almost having to wade through the decay now, “but I’m getting out of here.”
    Lorna gagged at the ice-cold mire which was now close to reaching her waist. The stench was all-consuming. It felt like it was coating the insides of her nostrils and throat.
    “We don’t even know if this is the way Jackson came,” Howard said, continuing to complain. “There might have been another way. We might have missed a turning or something…”
    “He’s right,” Harte reluctantly admitted, almost losing his balance again. “Maybe we should think about going back? Those bodies will cause a distraction up there and we can—”
    “As long as I can keep moving forward,” Michael said through gritted teeth, “then there’s still a chance we’re going the right way.”
    Still feeling his way ahead with outstretched hands, Michael suddenly stopped. The rest of the group bunched up behind him.
    “What is it?” Lorna nervously asked. He didn’t answer. His legs felt weak. Was it a dead end?
    “Michael? What is it? What’s the problem?”
    “Wait a second,” he said. In front of him he could feel another huge mound of decay. He turned around and passed his torch to Harte. “Do me a favor, try and give me some light.”
    Harte and the others who still carried