Chapter 19: - Fright Night
Yugi couldn't help but worry as she followed the goblin-like butler who was showing them towards the next attraction. The plan had worked, that was true, but not as she had intended. When she'd told the others the plan, it had been her who was going to go through the door and act as a distraction.
That idea had been discarded rather quickly by her friends, who hadn't wanted her to endanger herself. They had argued that since Oneesan hadn't even needed to make an appearance yet, her surrendering already smacked of a trap. Instead Jou had been the one to walk out the door to face down the mercenaries with deadly weapons while Honda covered his back and Anzu stayed between Yugi and the door in case something went wrong.
It had worked. She had been almost certain it would. They were professionals, she and her friends were just kids. There was no way that the pros wouldn't get overconfident, especially when faced with an unarmed opponent. She didn't doubt that Kaiba had bounties on their heads and they would have been focused on that rather than what was really going on around them.
It made her worried though. If professional hitmen had been part of the first 'game,' she almost dreaded to think what the rest of them were going to be like.
The creepy butler and the graveyard they walked into as they passed beneath the 'Death-T 2' sign weren't particularly reassuring. Neither was the sight of a rollercoaster carriage with five seats. She already knew Kaiba had planned on Jou being there with her. Now it was obvious that he had planned for her other friends being there too. Obviously Anzu being hired hadn't been an accident.
She warily took a seat on the ride, her friends following her example, expecting something to happen. When the butler took his seat and restraints shot out of the arm rests and base, arcing over their wrists and ankles, pinning them in the chairs. Fear coursed through Yugi as she tried to free herself, Jou's cussing not helping her panic as something fell into place on her head.
"Each of these seats are working electric chairs," The butler explained, "They've all been used to send criminals to their graves. If you lose, you'll follow in their stead." Yugi tried to settle herself as he talked, using the rules to distract herself from the rising panic, "It's really quite simple. If you make a single sound during this game, you lose. Of course, I'm bound by the same rules too."
That was something at least, though Yugi still expected him to cheat somehow. The games weren't fair after all. She wasn't even sure Kaiba knew how to play fair anymore. As far as she could tell, his sense of decency had disappeared almost completely.
"And here we go." The Butler said, the last thing he said before the carriage started moving, following the tracks through the double doors and into a typical horror house ride. Yugi closed her eyes tightly and tried to focus on anything but the chaos around her. This wasn't too hard until a pair of hands extended from the seat she was strapped to and touched her shoulders.
The completely unexpected sensation nearly caused Yugi to scream in fright, just managing to damp down the reaction as her eyes shot open. She couldn't see the boys, who had taken seats in front of her, but considering that Anzu had extendable hands bothering her too, it was easy to guess that the boys were having the same issue.
The things leaping out of the darkness and the strange noises were easy to ignore in comparison to the mechanical hands, which seemed to be keyed to causing the biggest reaction they could. A lethargy not dissimilar to when Oneesan had taken control of her body when she had been taking the painkillers for her ribs, washed over her and she felt an odd sense of dissonance, as if everything wasn't happening to her.
The drowsiness helped her ignore what was happening. Anzu, however, was in trouble. Yugi glanced over at her friend to find she was moments away from screaming. She wanted to do something to help, but she didn't know what. There was nothing she could do and if she spoke up, she would die too.
Then there was sound from behind her, a surprised noise from the butler that was followed by a loud, agonized scream. A light erupted from behind her, along with a crackling sound that didn't bode well for the screeching butler. Then everything fell silent, the hands retreating and the surrounding sounds dying down.
The drowsiness retreated, Oneesan's presence slipping back into the Puzzle for now. Yugi was torn between relief that Oneesan seemed to trust that she had this in hand and worry because she was certain that Oneesan was probably a better choice to run this gauntlet than she was.
They pulled up outside a huge haunted house looking structure just as a disgusting, burnt smell wafted up Yugi's nose. The moment the restraints came loose she shot away from the carriage, relieved that Anzu and Honda seemed fine and refusing to look at the very back of the carriage. "Jou?" She poked her closest friend, only for the boy to continue drooling.
"You should leave him, Yugi." Honda snorted, "Looks like he passed out."
"I'm not leaving anyone behind," Yugi shook her head, shaking Jou until he woke up. "Hey."
"I'm okay." Jou put on a supposedly manly pose as he shot to his feet, relief crossing his features a moment later as he realized that the ride was over.
"You're also a wimp." Honda teased, "The girls toughed it out better than you did."
"Ah stow it, Honda." Jou flipped him off, before making the mistake of glancing at the chargrilled butler and hurrying the girls away from the carriage before they could see it too, "At least we all made it to… " He paused to groan as he read the sign above the door, "Oh, come on… Murderer's Mansion?"
"Kaiba wouldn't really put a murderer in there, would he?" Anzu hesitated.
"At this point?" Jou asked, "I'd believe he'd do pretty much anything."
"Well if he hasn't come bursting through the door yet, he's probably not going to attack us straight away and we can't get out of here if we don't progress." Honda reasoned, then decided that he was getting far too blasé about the insanity that was going on.
"I guess we're going… hey Yuge, wait up." Jou complained as Yugi headed for the door. This was a game, they had to progress to win. Standing around doing nothing wasn't productive. He caught up with her just as she opened the door to find that the interior of the building was dusty, dark and coated in cobwebs. To all aesthetic purposes it looked like it hadn't seen use in years.
Yugi knew better and was actually impressed despite herself. The amount of effort Kaiba had put into the settings for each of these rounds was incredible. The only real problem she had with the house was that there wasn't an obvious way to progress.
The door slammed shut behind them as Anzu and Honda followed them in and while Jou struggled with it, Yugi started searching high and low for the exit. Before too long her friends joined her but the only things that were out of place, was that there was no upstairs and there was a piece of paper with the word 'bllood' written on it.
"Hey guys!" Honda called from where he was stood by one of the walls, "I've found some switches." The other three piled over to have a look, each of them reaching through a hole to try and touch the switches.
In hindsight it was a stupid thing to do, because the moment all four of them had their hands in the holes, something snapped into place around their wrists, trapping them. Jou started cussing as Yugi quickly started taking in every aspect of their situation. She didn't have much time before a holographic projection of Kaiba appeared, floating in mid air. They had to turn to look at him, something that wasn't easy with one hand stuck in a wall.
"I was going to warn you that something horrible will happen if you don't escape from this mansion soon, but you seem to have landed yourself in quite the predicament." Kaiba gloated, "But before that little test of brains and luck kicks in, let me tell you a story."
"No thanks." Jou snorted, "We don't need…"
"Oh but I think you'll want to hear this one. About how last summer a ten scouts who were staying at a camp were murdered in one night. Not even a puzzle master could have put them back together, theny were mincemeat." Kaiba interrupted, "The press called the murderer 'The Chopman' but he was never caught. He was, however, recruited by me."
"Why would you…?" Anzu asked, horrified.
"Mazaki-san, cruelty is considered a benefit in Kaiba Corp." Kaiba sniggered, "We scouted him specifically for this theme park of death."
'So specifically to go up against Yugi and Oneesan.' Jou thought with a growl.
"However I wouldn't like to be considered unfair." The CEO informed them with a smirk, "So I'm giving you a fair chance to get out of this mansion without running into him. Those holes your hands are stuck in have switches behind them. One of them is the one that gets you out of here, the others…" The wall slid up and a guillotine blade was revealed, "Will activate the blade and you'll all lose your hands. And if you don't figure out the right switch in five… sorry, four minutes twenty sev…six seconds, it'll fall anyway. There's a hint in this room. Good luck."
Jou started cussing all over again when Kaiba's hologram vanished. Yugi on the other hand tried to work out what the link between the piece of paper she had found and the numbers above the holes were.
'bllood' was the English word for blood, she was certain of it, but how did it match up to the numbers '00', '01', '10' and '11'? She remembered something she had overheard some geeky kids in school about binary being made of 1's and 0's but that didn't help her now.
Then it hit her. The word was misspelled, that had to be the hint, but what, she wondered what the importance of it.
"Come on Yuge." Jou half pleaded as minutes ticked by, "You can do it."
Her friends had faith in her, but she couldn't see the connection between the word and the numbers, it was escaping her grasp. She needed more time…
"Less than a minute." Honda nervously stated, checking the watch he could just about see on his wrist.
Apparently she didn't have it. There was something about the two ll's in the word blood, something she had only worked out because they had been using the word in English class just yesterday afternoon. But what was it? Unless…
"Yuge! The blade!" Jou yelped as the blade started falling.
"Anzu, hit your button!" Yugi yelped, praying she was right. Anzu reacted without thinking, having been waiting like a tensed coil for Yugi to tell someone to act. She hit the '11' and the blade stopped for a moment, before the chain it was attached to pulled it back up.
The moment their wrists were free, Jou wrenched his hand from the hole and picked Yugi up, crushing her in a hug. "You did it!"
"Jou…can't breathe!" Yugi gasped.
"How did you get it?" Anzu asked as Jou swiftly let go and Yugi took a deep breath of air.
"I was too focused on the meaning of the word to start with." Yugi admitted, "But it had to do with the shape. 'b' can be seen as '1' and '0', 'oo' as two zeros and 'd' as '01' but it isn't spelt with two l's so that was my first clue, then I saw the arrow on the bottom of one of the l's so I figured that the exit was in the basement."
Honda and Jou looked at each other as Anzu praised Yugi's ingenuity. Both boys were well aware that they would never have thought about a word like that in a million years. Without even having to say a word, the thought passed between them that if anyone had to progress to the end of these games, it was Yugi. If they lost her they didn't stand a hope in hell of surviving.
A panel in the floor slid away to reveal a trapdoor with 'exit' written on it. Yugi went to go first, only for Kaiba's warning about the Chopman to ring in Jou's head. Instead he pulled Yugi back a little so he could open it first and look around.
It looked like there was no one down there, so Jou slipped down first, helping Anzu and Yugi carefully next with Honda taking the rear. The corridor beneath the mansion was darker than the mansion itself, and it was difficult to see more than a few feet in front of their faces. Something that aided in the increasing paranoia that was taking a hold of them.
When an arm came out of nowhere and dragged Jou into a side room, the entire gang jumped a mile. Before they could recover a door has slid into place, cutting them off from their friend.
"Jou!" Yugi yelped, darting over to the door, which looked like a wooden prison door with bars in.
"I'm okay." Jou replied, sizing up his adversary. A huge jigsaw of a man that looked like he had been assembled from more than one person. Weapons hung from the ceiling, but Jou was aware that if this was the Chopman, his better option was to run, something that wasn't an option. Not with the door sealed and a chain attached to his wrist.
A screen appeared on the Chopman's chest with a visage of Kaiba on. Before he could say a word however, Jou opened with. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were into some kinky crap Kaiba. I mean seriously, you have an obsession with bondage." He held up his shackled wrist. "This is the third time in the last twenty minutes."
Getting the chance to make the jab was totally worth the glare he got from the CEO and the shocked 'Jou!' from Yugi. His confidence wavered though when he realized he was chained to the monster.
"It doesn't matter what you think." Kaiba growled, "You lot are all living pieces on my chess board and with this, I'll have captured the Knight. Chopman, feel free to destroy him."
"Oh fu…" Jou winced as the Chopman pulled a chainsaw down from the ceiling. "I have to get this off." He tugged on the handcuff, still trying to work out when he had gotten shackled in the first place and if it really was oil on the floor under his feet.
"Game Start!"
Jou let out a started yelp as the Chopman yanked on the chain and pulled him off of his feet. He narrowly managed to roll out of the way of the chainsaw, which lodged in the concrete pillar, giving Jou a chance to get away.
A flash of light over by the door caused Jou to glance in that direction in time to see Yugi blank out for a moment before coming to and yelling, "Jou! The candlestick!"
He darted over, grabbing it and taking the candle off, only to find that there was a small point he could use to pick the lock. Once he was free of the cuff he attached it and the candlestick to the door, with a lit candle still attached and when the Chopman finally freed the chainsaw from the pillar and attempted to yank Jou back over, he wrenched the door free.
Jou slipped out as the floor, which was in fact coated in oil, caught fire and the group sped away hastily. The room and the murderer within who was shackled to the concrete pillar and the door, was consumed by the flames.
"Don't look." Jou advised Yugi as she tried to turn and see if the murderer was following them, nudging her onwards instead. "Kaiba's brain with that guy's brawn might be a match made in hell, but you don't need to see him sent there."