The Hall of Decay

The third book in the ShadowLantern series. This one is not yet complete. Continue reading for an excerpt from the book. If you would like to read the rest of this book contact me via the About page. In the meantime, if you’d like, I can send you what I have completed so far.

Prologue

A strange twitching on her cheek is what had caused Miss Ledoit to hurry to the restroom. She had been through law school. She knew how to maintain her composure, but this was different. Besides, she had made the best of a dull moment to make her break away. She paused a moment and opened a small dark brown flask and took a swig of the contents then hid it in her coat once again. She glanced around, only slightly nervous, to make sure no one was watching her. The halls were silent. She didn’t expect anyone, but she still felt somewhat foolish for not having looked first. There was no one around. Even the voices coming from within the courtroom were completely hidden by a series of two doors and the hall to where she now was.
After assuring herself that there was no one around, she pushed open the door to the ladies room. There was no one inside, either. She peeked under the stalls to make sure. Though professionally based, part of being a professional was knowing how to get away with as much of anything unprofessional as possible and still make it seem professional. Peeking under the stalls when no one could see her was one of those things she considered, unprofessionally professional.
Life for Miss Ledoit wasn’t about helping the innocent or defending those in need of legal defense, it was about winning and getting paid. She wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but she wanted to be paid as much as possible, for as little work as possible, which meant she had to play sides. She didn’t feel at all guilty in condemning the innocent or letting the guilty go free when she knew that it would be easier to get her pay that way because, as far as she was concerned, that is how everyone based in law believed and acted. She was just another member of the group.
After peeking under the stalls once more, not for any more reason than for the sake of doing it, Miss Ledoit faced the mirror. She was a tall middle-aged woman. At thirty-five years old, she was still unmarried and still beautiful. She rather liked it that way. No man wanted to stay with her for long, not when they realized that she was very stubborn, very demanding, and very haughty. Naturally, she never admitted to these things a moment too soon. Her brown coat detracted somewhat from the red suit she wore beneath, but it was a very cold day, and she didn’t have any warmer coats, so she had to do with the coat she had. She admired her slimness and the lack of a single gray hair. She managed to stay away from stressful situations as much as possible, which was why she believed that she wouldn’t be getting a gray hair still, perhaps, for some time to come. She was a firm believer in positive thinking. Staying away from stress meant staying away from marriage.
She was wearing a thick red lip gloss and had a heavy coating of mascara. Remembering the drink she had taken outside the door, she quickly rinsed her mouth with water, opened a package of mints, and began sucking on one, then she returned to looking at herself in the mirror.
For all her makeup, she still couldn’t hide the cause of the twitching on her cheek. She had not noticed it this morning, which meant that it must have appeared very quickly during the last several hours in the courtroom. There was a large white zit on her left cheek, just below her cheekbone. She was absolutely horrified at the sight of it. The horror of her brain knowing that this zit existed and knowing that she was meant to be beautiful must have been the cause of the twitching. Just the fact that such a horrible thing could be on her face must have caused her brain to panic! She felt more humiliation than she knew she should ever rightly have to feel. She wished she could march home and hide herself the rest of the day, but she knew that she had to go back to the courtroom, and there was no way of hiding it. What was worse, the zit must have been there for a while, meaning that the people in the room had already seen her with it!
Miss Ledoit whimpered in despair. She didn’t understand how this could have happened! She was perturbed at her facial cream for not keeping this incident away. She couldn’t help it if occasionally a little zit appeared on her face, but most of the time it was very small and was gone before anyone noticed it. This wasn’t the same. She groaned again.
“This can’t be happening to me!” She raged. She began pacing in front of the mirror frantically. “Why? Why? Why?!” She repeated over again. Finally she stopped in front of the mirror and stared at the white blemish on her face. She could feel it twitching even now. She shuddered uncontrollably, unable to admit that she was afraid of pinching it because of its size. Finally, she lifted her cherry painted nails towards it.
She shuddered again, then began to work at it. A violent twitching ensued, almost as if her brain was telling her to hurry up and get the job done, or—she shuddered to think—to leave it alone! She wasn’t about to leave it there! She squeezed it. It began to break. But she stopped suddenly and recoiled in horror as a large slimy string of white emerged from it and fell to the counter top. Blood began to drip from the hole in her face, but it wasn’t the blood that worried her. The slimy white string on the counter was flopping about like a fish on dry land! It turned over and began to ooze along the surface of the counter. She started whimpering in total fear as she watched it. It was a worm! A living maggot-like worm slid across the surface of the counter, then fell off the edge and landed on her bare toes which were visible through her sandals.
Miss Ledoit screamed violently. The gastly blood-curdling scream echoed throughout the halls and the blood from the hole in her face began to drip more quickly.