"What fresh hell is going on in there?" Ezequiel grabbed a wild-eyed man by the shoulders, shaking him.
The main hall echoed with panicked footsteps and terrified screams as a knot of tourists burst through the doors, fleeing something horrific inside.
The man's face was pale, bloodless. He trembled as he spoke. "Bug... demon bug bit the musicians." His voice cracked. "They started...changing. Wouldn't die, no matter how much we fought back. Like their bodies were already dead, rotting right in front of us."
He gulped in a ragged breath. "Three more got bit before we could escape. Turning into monsters as we fled..."
Ezequiel released him, the man stumbling away into the small clump of survivors huddled by the entrance.
Ezeqiuel's eyes burned gold, the power of the Abyssal Gift sweeping over him as his gaze transformed.
Pierre and Jezebel found him like that, irises glowing, staring at some invisible horror only he could perceive using his Eyes of Horus.
Jezebel touched his arm gently.
"Easy there, old man. Don't get lost in the shadows."
Ezeqiuel blinked, the fiery light fading. "It's exactly as that fool described. The Joker's planted some kind of demonic insect in their brains.
Controlling them like puppets."
Jezebel frowned. "In who? The musicians?"
"Paula. Guiseppe. Giana." He ticked them off with a disgusted sneer. "Looks like the insect can also infect others through bites."
Pierre looked over at the frightened cluster, a young woman clutching her face as angry red welts blossomed along her jaw.
"Meaning the virus or whatever is already spreading." His voice was grim. "We gotta get the healthy ones contained before this shit kicks off for real."
Ezequiel barked at the shaky group to follow, leading them toward the basement stairs at a brisk pace. Pierre and Jezebel took up the rear, eyes scanning the darkened corridors for any sign of trouble. The air felt thick, heavy with dread.
A low moan echoed ahead. Something lurched into view at the end of the hall, silhouetted in shadow.
A hunched, twisted figure dragging itself along in a parody of human movement.
As it neared, its ruined face became visible - eyes milky and sightless, skin sagging in grotesque ridges, fanged maw lolling open obscenely.
"Oh God..." one of the refugees whimpered.
Pierre tensed, fingering the pistol at his hip. But the mutated thing seemed unaware of their presence, more Ghost than threat as it drifted past.
For now.
Ezeqiuel's face was stony, resolute. "Get them locked down tight in the basement."
Jezebel set her jaw in a tight line and nodded.
The two groups parted ways - the dwindling cluster of uninfected being ushered to the dubious safety of the basement, while the trio plunged deeper into the mansion's convoluted heart.
A cacophony of groans and uneven footsteps surrounded them, the sounds of inevitable confrontation closing in.
Jezebel spared a glance over her shoulder.
The ghoul they'd passed was no longer alone. Two more shambling figures trailed behind, steadily picking up their pace like a tightly coiled spring releasing. Teeth bared in a rictus grin, she aimed for center mass.
"Showtime, boys."
Pierre crouched beside her, back to back as the first wave broke over them in a frenzy of flailing claws and snapping maws.
One of the ghouls fell, pulverized bones protruding through necrotic skin.
But the others seemed unstoppable, driven by something beyond physical constraints. Jezebel swung the shotgun like a bat, caving in another skull before chambering a new round.
"Can't kill what's already dead, right?" She blew rotted brains and viscera across the walls with a sickly satisfied smirk.
Ezequiel ripped the tattered remnants of a shirt away from one of the creature's chests, revealing the ugly truth pulsing within.
A fist-sized insectoid horror embedded deep in the desiccated ribcage, spindly legs undulating with its host's lurching movements.
He seized the parasite in one mighty hand and pulled - a sick crunch of snapped chitin and spurting ichor.
The ghoul crumpled, finally empty.
"Found the bastard's grip on them." Ezequiel crushed the still-writhing bug to paste in his fist, acidic juices burning his skin. "Let's retreat for now."
And so they raced from corridor to corridor because they understood the dire consequences of the bite.
Facing newly infected ghouls, they quickly decided to redirect their route.
They randomly reached an empty and ominous games room, sealing the door behind them with a heavy thud.
Once a garish chamber of twisted amusements, it was now swallowed in suffocating darkness and silence.
The air hung thick with suspense as they caught their breath, pondering their next move - trapped in this haunted mansion's belly while a relentless zombie apocalypse clawed at the walls.
Ezeqiuel's eyes still burned with the dying embers of his unholy Abyssal "Gift." The amber glow carved harsh planes across his face as he broke the loaded silence.
"That twisted son-of-a-bitch is pulling their strings, plain and simple." His voice was a grating rasp. "Stuffing demon bugs inside their rotted skulls to make them dance."
Pierre shuddered involuntarily, hugging himself as he paced in a tight circle. "I have never seen this before in my life..." He shook his head, eyes still haunted. "Ripping right outta their damn chests like something out of a nasty penny dreadful."
"So what's his game this time?" Jezebel's tone was prickly, all business. "Because you know that demented freak always has an angle besides just getting his rocks off on shock value."
Pierre stopped pacing, mouth working soundlessly as he struggled to voice his nagging uncertainty. "Why though? Why rain down this...this hellish circus now, of all times?"
Jezebel's expression didn't waver. "Don't matter much 'why' yet, only 'how.' As in how do we put this fresh genie back in its bottle before more innocent folks get to starring in their own little insect-birth Cronenbergs."
Ezeqiuel's glowing eyes slid over each of them in turn. "Joker wants us squirming. Wants to strip away any sense of safety or control, grind us down until we're begging for the sweet oblivion of death." His stare bored into them with scorching intensity.
"This whole plague, this depraved insect invasion - it's his magnum opus. His grandest magic trick yet where the payoff is our utter despair. And we're all trapped in the haunt, whether we want ringside seats or not."
The weight of his words seemed to suck what little air remained from the room.
Jezebel was the first to recover, jaw set in a tight line.
"Way I see it, we got two choices left - lie down and let that demented prick have his harrowing finale..." Her free hand drifted to the compact shotgun holstered at her side. "Or we put on our own little show, and start giving this Jester here a taste of his own main attraction."
Pierre's Adam's apple bobbed visibly as he swallowed, deciding he'd already seen and endured enough garish horrors for one eternal night.
Ezequiel's smile was a terrible thing - a rictus grin, teeth bared, and eyes burning like smoldering coals stoked from the deepest pits.
Jezebel matched his savage look with one of her own as she racked a shell into the musket's chamber with a bone-jarring chink of metal on metal.
"Well entonces, ring the curtain up on Acto Dos, folks.
This freak wants a show? It's showtime..."