Chapter 26: The House Of Horrors
Maria after getting caught in a whirlpool underwater she discovers a secret cave that leads to secret passage. The secret passage leads Maria to a place called “The House Of Horrors” which was a haunted house attraction but why was it so hidden from view. Does this house contain more than just “Horrors"?
Maria goes through the passageway and finds the entrance to the House of Horrors attraction. Maria was perplexed to the reason that this attraction was so out of the way from everything else. Little did Maria know was that the attraction was still being constructed and wasn't completely done yet. Upon arriving at the entrance Maria finds herself facing ogres, cultists and gargoyles. While Maria handles the cultists just fine she finds herself having trouble dealing with the other enemies. Then twin shotguns are heard and a mysterious man in a trench coat with a white shirt along with a cowboy hat and twin sawed off shotguns. Maria and this mysterious man take care of the remaining enemies. The mysterious man reveals himself only as Caleb a Wild West gunslinger with a vengeful mind and his love for blood and violence. Caleb says in a low and intimidating voice "The sweet scent of blood, how I love it when they bleed!" Maria in a panic asks Caleb "Don't hurt me sir I'm just trying to get out of here!" Caleb replies with the same tone "Oh so you are one of those stowaways's who doesn't belong here. Listen up honey you help me out taking out my ex-boss or leader. I'll spare you your life." Maria scared responds "Sure I'll help you out; it would help if I knew who I was looking for to help you with." Caleb replies "You see those scums on the floor bleeding, I used to belong to their cult but when I noticed I wasn't receiving my "dues" I approached my boss known as "Darkgaryl" leader of the "Cabal" the same guys you see here worshipping this so called "God" of evil." Maria replies "You're scaring me are you sure you're not trying to recruit me or do something crazy?" Caleb replies "You wanna survive little girl?" Maria in a scared tone replies "Yes I do." Caleb responds "Then work with me here, while we might not have the same overall goals but we have a common enemy don't we?" Maria says "Yes I guess we do, go ahead and lead the way." Caleb says "I was always taught ladies first but if you insist." The two head into the House of Horrors.
Maria upon finding the house of horrors meets Caleb her hero or we should say anti-hero. Caleb is an anti-hero kind of man that although he is helping Maria out but his intentions are not the same to that of Maria's. He wasn't helping Maria out because he has a good heart; to the contrary his heart was as evil as the dead cultists lying on the floor. He simply wants to work with Maria to get his revenge on his leader for a personal vendetta. Despite all this Maria decides she's better off on the good side of this man even with his sinister personality.
Maria and Caleb what appears to be a mouth then when they get inside the walls are pinkish. Almost resembling a mouth of a human being, was this ride a resemblance of the human body? When the two go through the hall they enter the ticket booth/entrance where they take out some frantics and cultists. Caleb says "The cries of my fellow mates dying are sweet music to my ears." Maria replies "Hey man you mind keeping that in your head next time, you're scaring me right now." Caleb responds "Don't fear me, just respect me and you'll be fine." The two see a pool of green slime along with a boat or at least the vehicle being used for the ride. They get onto the boat and the current of the water starts to push the two to commence the ride. The two notices the boat stops in the middle of nowhere after a minute or so, a gate drops down blocking the way for our heroes. Then the wall to their left opens up revealing cultists' aiming for Maria but Caleb makes short work of them with his twin shotguns. Maria enters the room which was actually a control room, she finds and hits a switch when raises the gate. Maria quickly jumps back in the boat before the ride restarts, the ride restarts and the duo's journey continues.
Maria and Caleb keep going until they see a waterfall which signals perhaps the end of the ride. They fall down the waterfall along with the boat and drop into the water. When they resurface they find themselves under the waterfall when zombies rise out of the ground. Maria and Caleb kill off the zombies with Caleb taking an extreme liking to the killing he his doing, like the smell of blood is what keeps him alive. Once the zombies are defeated the duo tries to find where to go next but looking everywhere they find nothing but dead ends. Maria says "Looks like we gotta go underwater!" The two of them head underwater killing off piranha's they see light going straight, they go towards the light see light at the top and are able to resurface. They enter a room with a sinister take with axes, saws, blades and Caleb's favorite which was blood. They is also a dead body being cut up with a table saw, out of nowhere ogres come to attack the two. One nearly cuts Caleb but Maria is able to shoot the ogre on the spot just before the ogre was preparing his attack. Caleb takes out the other ogres and after they are dead he shoots them again, then he takes the blood of the ogres and rubs it on himself. Maria finds a key with a skull etched on it; she saves it for future use. The duo proceeds through the door leading them out of the sinister looking room.
They open the door at the same time though an axe zombie was waiting for them. The zombie takes a hack, both of them dodge the attack then Caleb shoots the head off the zombie. Maria says "Is this supposed to be a ride but it seems more like hell and you like this?" Caleb says "Revenge is the sweetest thing in the world!" Maria says "Ok... then." They head to the hallway which is full of frantics and ogres which they take care easily. Maria then finds a launcher used for fireworks and a gallon of gasoline, Maria says "These items could be useful." Caleb replies "You're right just stick the gasoline inside the launcher and then shoot it, just try it." Maria follows Caleb's guidance and after mixing the two together she sees an ogre shoot the weapon. The weapon shoots out a fireball which explodes on contact exploding the ogre on contact. Maria is impressed with the new weapon and before she could thank Caleb he says "You're welcome!" like he knew she was going to say thanks. The new weapon was called the napalm launcher which was a Victorian version of a rocket launcher. The duo continue down the hallway find a forest area prop full of cultists and frantics, the duo uses the fake prop trees as cover. Then they use the peek a boo technique to take out each enemy one by one going as far as attracting the enemy one by one. After that they go down a ramp killing more cultists and zombies along the way. Then they go on to a graveyard looking prop under construction for the ride, but the zombies popping out of the fake tombstones and dirt were anything but a prop. One of the zombies grab Caleb but a relaxed Caleb took the zombie, rips his head off and steps on it. While Maria can’t help but to be freaked out about Caleb’s actions, she knows at least he’s on her side to a certain degree.
Maria finds a switch behind one of the fake tombstones presses it and it opens a wooden door in the hallway. They notice that the other side of the hallway is boarded up with wood indicating a continuation of the hallway still under construction, so our heroes are forced to go through the door. They enter a room full of boxes and cultists; Caleb notices several boxes on top of the cultists. He suggests to Maria to shoot the rope above the cultists, Maria shoots the ropes holding the boxes. The boxes fall and crush the cultists; some boxes were filled with props and others with building materials. Caleb says in his sinister tone “What goes up must come down, too bad for my fellow mates they are going down instead of up.” They open the door in front of them which leads them to a trash bin where zombies await them; Maria uses her napalm launcher to blow the zombies away. Maria and Caleb go on the edge of the trash bin in order to go over the wall; behind the wall was a resemblance of a garden that you would find just before entering a cemetery. Maria and Caleb would have to endure a combination of enemies including cultists, frantics, axe zombies and ogres. Caleb says “This promises to be quite the blood bath.” Maria begins to blow enemies away with her napalm launcher while Caleb blasted the baddies with his twin shotguns. Indeed the scene did turn into a blood bath to Caleb’s satisfaction and in no time the area was cleared. The duo moved on and seen some explosive barrels in their way Caleb shoots them causing the wall behind the barrels to collapse. When the wall collapses completely a secret path is revealed to the two, where it went was anybodies guess. At least Maria wasn’t going in alone, although she still doesn’t trust Caleb completely.
Maria explores an incomplete haunted house attraction and finds at least a conditional ally named Caleb who has his own agenda at the end of the day. However the two work together well getting through the haunted house attraction. Maria still feels uncomfortable with Caleb due to his careless and at some point's sadistic nature when it came to taking what were his former allies. Maria needed to be careful that she wouldn’t be a casualty to Caleb’s true intentions which was to kill the former leader oh the “Cabal” who was “Darkgaryl”, is “Darkgaryl” the same gargoyle that was seen on the blanket on that dead body back at the Phantom Express? Meanwhile the two find a hidden path but just like Angel they have no idea where it will lead them to, the two of them head in hoping for the best.