In the hallway, the background hum was even louder, or Jeremy was all the more aware of it. He remembered where it came from. The first floor. He had heard it the other day when the orderlies had hauled him back to his room.
The hallway of the first floor was shrouded in darkness. The hum was unmistakable. Only, it was not the thrum of power cables, not the sounds of a cornered cat. Humans were making that noise. Men and women. Jeremy knew it. He wish he didn’t, but he did.
The darkness was all encompassing. Unlike the normal shroud of a windowless corridor. It enveloped him as he began to walk, the cries of whatever lay in the darkness wrapped around him. It was dizzying.
Unlike the second floor, where Jeremy had been housed, there were no individual rooms dotting the hallway. Jeremy was halfway down the hall before he saw the first door off to his right; a few feet further he saw another, this one on the left-hand side.
The doors were large, heavy, and reinforced. As Jeremy came close to them, he saw that they were made of metal. He looked for the hatch, filled with a strange urge to see what was being hidden from him ... regardless of how horrid it was. At first he saw nothing, but as he looked the door up and down, his eyes found what they sought. The hatch was not in the middle of the door, but at the base. They slide the food inside, Jeremy told himself. They can’t bear to see what sits inside that room, so they slide the food in for it. A new wave of shudders ran through Jeremy. He dropped to the floor, feeling bolder on acting under the cover of darkness. Opening the latch, Jeremy held his breath and peered inside. The moment the latch opened, an arm shot out. Its skin was white and squishy. It looked as if it had been sitting in the bathtub for some time. The hand was missing the middle and ring fingers, the stumps long since healed. There were no nails on the remaining fingers, the blood pulp of fresh flesh was enough for Jeremy to know that whatever it was attached to the other end of the groping appendage, occupied its time trying to claw its way to freedom.
Catching the cry before it left his throat, Jeremy slid back on the floor. The arm thumped and thrashed, searching for the food it was expecting. After a minute or so it fell still and withdrew back into the room.
No further body parts appeared, and Jeremy inched his way closer once more. He knew time was of the essence, but as with Karen, he had to see. He had to know. Peering into the room, Jeremy saw nothing. He heard the occupants shuffling around. It was easy to tell from the commotion that there were several people behind the door. Beyond that however, he was blind.
Standing, Jeremy looked around, struck with a feeling that something was watching him from the shadows. He didn´t think it was the doctor, but something else. He turned around and peered into the dark, but he could make out nothing.
A crash came from behind the door and Jeremy jumped. Before he had the chance to consider the consequences, his hand gripped the handle and he was pulling the door open. He pulled and pulled. The door was heavy, not metal plated, but solid.
With his strength depleted from the drugs, Jeremy struggled to pull the door open. Heaving, he created a gap large enough for himself to fit through, and more worryingly, large enough for something else to fit through in escape. Waiting, Jeremy counted to ten, and when nothing but the amplified groans of beasts in pain greeted him, Jeremy squeezed himself through the open doorway and into the darkness beyond.
It took a little time for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. There were several low powered bulbs hanging from the ceiling, the grime that covered the glass helping to subdue what illuminative qualities they had.
The groans surrounded him. For a brief second the word ZOMBIE flashed in Jeremy’s mind; encased in a giant speech bubble, like the ones used in the old batman shows his father enjoyed watching.
As shapes began to form in the darkness, Jeremy froze. The room was filled with bodies. The stench of their flesh, rotting on their bones was vile. Jeremy’s stomach churned from the mixed aroma of stale sweat, vomit, and all manner of bodily excretions. Something grabbed Jeremy’s arm, the grip like iron. He spun around and came face to face with a man whose lips and eyes had been sewn shut, held closed with what looked to be barbed wire. It curled around in a spiral moving from the upper to the lower lid or lip in a wave of pain. It had been done, Jeremy noticed, in such a fashion that allowed the subject to move their lips and flutter their eye lids just enough to keep the wounds fresh and bleeding but not enough to tear free.
Another figure appeared, reaching out towards Jeremy with hands that had teeth for nails. They sat loosely in the raw flesh of the nail bed. The area of insertion was infected and swollen with pus.
Jeremy jumped back and into the arms of a woman who groped at him blindly. Freeing himself, Jeremy spun around to see three pairs of arms protruding from the woman’s torso. Her own, which were the ones that had enveloped him, and the other two additions which hung uselessly from her flesh. Both pairs were dead, the flesh wet with decay and dripping to the floor, slowly liquefying on her frame. Maggots crawled over the dead limbs, gorging themselves on the endless supply of meat.
Jeremy wanted to vomit. His stomach retched but there was not enough in it to make the trip to his mouth. Instead he doubled over with a cramp-like pain in his belly and coughed until his throat burned.
The noise seemed to attract the attention of even more of the room’s occupants who came wandering over to inspect the new addition to their flock. Jeremy wanted nothing more than to escape. Two sets of conjoined twins blocked his way. One had been sewn together from top the shoulder down to the knee. Fluid movement was all but impossible for them. Their naked bodies held together in a cleaner finish than the others. There was no infection, but an ugly wound that while healed held an angry coloration. The pain on the faces of both was clear, but their tongues had been removed, most likely an afterthought to the operation. The second pair were another pointless exercise in cruelty. The two people, one man and one woman, were joined by the arms. Each appendage had been severed at the elbow and joined together, the join encased in what looked to be hinged metal tubing. The same type of tubing extended from the groin of the man, whose genitals had been removed, and travelled between the female’s legs, disappearing inside her crotch. The hinge was tubed to ensure that whenever the pair moved, their forced coitus was accelerated. Their tongues had also been removed, and their jaws wired into what looked like a yawn. Thick strands of saliva fell from their gaping mouths as they groaned in equal mix of pleasure and pain.
Jeremy sidestepped the two couples, and evaded the reaching grasp of a floor banished man whose legs had been fused together and encased in human scalps, creating a fur coat that covered his mutated parts leaving only his feet showing. Slipping back through the open door, Jeremy fell to the floor, tumbling into the darkness. He lay still, shivering, his body coated with sweat. He took deep breaths, relishing the clean tasting air.
Jumping to his feet, Jeremy’s mind cleared. He needed to escape. Not to save himself, not to hear what Anja had to say, but because he was terrified. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and the occupants of that room as was possible.
Jeremy breathed a sigh of relief when he stepped into the light of the house. He gave no thought to being seen. He embraced the light and after a quick look to get his bearings, he headed down the stairs to the ground floor.
With every step, the key seemed to grow heavier in Jeremy’s pocket, as if it were the One Ring, smelted and refashioned into a new madness inducing object of desire. A symbol of freedom inside a world of constraint.
At the foot of the stairs, Jeremy was faced with the main hallway. It was all that separated him from the freedom. He could imagine the cool, fresh air on his skin. His body tingled with excitement. It stopped, however, when he heard footsteps coming his way. They grew slowly louder, and Jeremy found himself rooted to the spot. As if he were a victim of whatever it was that happened to people in this building. His feet had been removed and his legs fused to the floor. He could feel the burnin
g around his ankles. It was too real. Too much. His breathing accelerated and his body flashed with heat. Jeremy knew he was going to faint. He shook his head, forced himself to move in any way to could. The footsteps drew closer. Then they stopped. Jeremy was sure that the owner was at the bottom of the stairs. Surely just waiting for him to finish his descent; let him walk into their arms.
Jeremy held his breath, doing everything it could to keep his tenuous grip on consciousness. Sweat stung his eyes, and his head had started to ache. Jeremy was about to make a move when the footsteps started again, and to Jeremy’s relief they seemed to be retreating. He waited until the only thing he heard was their echo and steeled himself to move. There was no other option than to run. The reception desk was unmanned, but the orderlies and who knew what else would be wandering the halls.
Counting to ten, Jeremy gripped the key in his left hand, bent his knees, lowered his shoulder and charged across the hallway, praying silently that he was lighter on his feet than his brain told him. His footsteps slapped on the floor and each one sounded like an alarm going off announcing his presence. The lighting above his head was a searchlight locked on him.
Jeremy reached the door and fumbled the key. He missed the lock at the first time of asking. Cursing under his breath he held his trembling left hand with his right, steadied it and guided the key into the lock. He opened the door, and slipped into the cool night air.
Chapter 10
It was dark out, and whether it was luck, pre-arranged circumstance or a mixture of the two, the lights that surrounded the main entrance and the circular gravel courtyard had not yet turned on. Jeremy pulled the door closed and slid to the floor. He need to take a moment to catch his breath, to gather his thoughts, and to cry. He wept silent tears; tears of relief as well as tears of anger. He was angry with his parents for leaving him. He was angry for Karen, and for those people locked on the first floor. He wept and waited. Hiding in plain sight was a phrase that had always resonated with Jeremy, and he reasoned that should his escape be noticed immediately, they would charge into the dark, their minds too focused on his flight to stop and check behind the door.
Nobody came, and with darkness his friend once again, Jeremy headed towards the long driveway. He stuck to the grass, not wanting to walk on the road. He didn’t know if there were cameras watching the entrance, but the least he could do was stay on the grass and hope for the best.
At the end of the driveway Jeremy stood, stumped. He had forgotten about the remote operated gates. They were definitely camera guarded. Luckily there was a long hedgerow the skirted the edge of the property, on the road side at least. The first part of the camouflage used to hide the goings on in the house.
It didn’t take Jeremy too long to find a gap in the fence through which he could squeeze. Save a long scratch on his left forearm from a hidden inner layer of thorns, Jeremy was relieved to be on the road and unscathed.
“I did it,” he said in disbelief, as a powerful sense of elation rushed through his body.
It then hit Jeremy that having escaped his captors, he was still stranded in the middle of nowhere. He had no idea where he was, and as soon as his disappearance was noticed and the building searched, it would not only be Dr Marshall and his orderlies chasing him, but the police also.
Whatever was happening in that place, it needed to be stopped. But Jeremy understood how well Dr Marshall played the kind and caring physician. He would need proof if he were to do anything. The police were unlikely to accept the word of a murder suspect, especially one who was an escaped inmate of the same place being accused of such things.
Jeremy needed to find Anja. He needed to get to her, to hear her answer his questions. Together, they could do something. He knew it. Anja was beautiful, the police would listen to her. She worked there too, she could tell them things that they would believe.
Having chosen a direction in which to move, Jeremy started walking. Despite his circumstances, he was unable to wipe the smile from his face. The wind, the sounds of the night. There was nothing sweeter in the world.
The sound of an approaching car caught Jeremy by surprise. The glow of the headlights as it came around the bend spurred him into action. He threw himself to the floor in the long grass beside the road. He hid as best he could, pressing himself down into the sweet smelling ground.
The car sped by, slowing only to navigate the following bend in the winding road. It left the fugitive prone in the dark.
Jeremy was not sure how long he had been walking, but the sun was beginning to tease the horizon when he saw the first signs of refuge. In the distance a small rural town appeared. A collection of roofs. A few scattered hints of light behind closed curtains. The sight added a little speed to Jeremy’s movements, and before long he was on the outskirts of the small village. Everything was quiet. He didn’t want to wake anybody, or draw any more attention to himself than was necessary, but he needed help.
Jeremy found what he needed a few hundred meters further along the road. A bright red, impossible to miss old-school British telephone box. It was covered with overgrown weeds and wild grass on all sides, but the door opened, with a little effort, and the phone looked to be in good working order.
To make the circumstances even more fortuitous there was a poster hanging above the receiver for a free-phone taxi company. They claimed to offer a range of services and pick up options for parties of all sizes. The paper was yellowed with age and the tape holding it up would not survive a good gust of wind, but Jeremy had no choice. Dialling the number, Jeremy listened to the ring and looked out of the window for any signs of his pursuers.
“Good evening, C.B. Taxi Services, how can I help?” A tired but genuine sounding voice spoke through the receiver.
“Oh … um … could I um … could I get a taxi, please?” Jeremy stammered, cringing at the sound of his own voice.
“Sure thing, honey. What is your location?” If the woman on the other end of the line had noticed the timid character in Jeremy’s voice, then she did not show it.
“I’m in the phone box on Douglas Street in Little Reedham.” Jeremy let out a long relieved breath as he read from the location card that was screwed into the wall of the booth.
“I gotcha, sugar. Now where are you headed?” The voice was all business. It was always just business when the late night calls came in. For nobody knew better than the drivers that the women who booked their calls, that darkness was the siren’s call that attracted all sorts. The pulse of the night-heart and the pull of the moon working in perfect harmony.
“Forty-Seven Chester Street, Apartment B …” Jeremy paused, his tongue still in his mouth. He had no idea where Chester Street was, or how he was going to finish the address.
“Forty-seven Chester Street. All right, we will have a car over to you in about ten to fifteen minutes. Thanks for calling CB Taxi Service.” The line went dead without Jeremy having time to give an answer.
The ensuing period, which lasted a lot longer than the time quoted, or so Jeremy convinced himself, was the most fraught, panic-filled experiences of Jeremy’s life. Every sound the night made, every cracked twig or early morning chirp made him jump. He had left the phone box and stood in the dark, his back pressed against the trunk of a large tree. Jeremy’s body was starched with terror, his fight or flight response in overdrive as he fought the compulsion to collapse and wait for it all to be over. Several times he thought he heard the same groan as had emanated from the room on the first floor. What else had they made? Had they set one of their creations on him?
To Jeremy’s left two cats began to fight. Their dispute shattering the relative silence and breaking the final strand of nerve Jeremy had remaining. He ran from his cover, his legs turning to lead beneath him. He stumbled, and fell to the ground. A sharp pain seared in his calf, and the rough surface of the road scraped the skin from his palms and cheek as he collapsed. There was a new sound, a high-pitched squeal. It was unlike anything Jeremy had ever heard. He tu
rned around and gave a cry when he saw the grill of the taxi inches from his face. Climbing to his feet while walking backwards, shocked and confused, he stumbled once more. He found his feet, looked around nervously and jumped into the back of the waiting car. As he slid into the seat a gust of wind whipped down the street, and on it, carried like the laugh on an exhaled breath, was a sound that Jeremy would never forget. It was the sound of a thousand insects crawling over one another, their bodies clacking together. It was the excited sound of death stretching its fetid maw in anticipation of an easy meal. Jeremy had out run it again, but he knew that one day, his luck would run out. Slamming the door, Jeremy fell into the back seat and slid down as low as he could, hiding from view.
The driver said nothing, and did not even look at Jeremy in the rear-view mirror. He simply pressed the key for the meter and pulled away.
A cramp-like sensation burned in Jeremy’s calf, but he had no time to think about it, for his body was shutting down. His head went first, and he tumbled into the turbulent waters of unconsciousness, where the shadows offered anything but sanctuary.
Chapter 11
Jeremy had no conscious recollection of arriving at 47b Chester Street. Nor was he able to recall to mind the way the taxi driver, an overly compassionate man, had carried the unconscious, bedraggled young man from the back of his taxi and up the steps to the door of the apartment. He did not get to hear how the man refused to accept payment for the trip, but made Anja promise to take care of the kid, because it looked like nobody else intended to.
Anja had been sitting and waiting for Jeremy to arrive. Her own nerves were just as frayed. She had not needed to feign the look of shock and concern on her face when she opened the door to see Jeremy in a strange man’s arms.
Jeremy floated inside the dream world, lost. His entire body itched as if something was crawling beneath his skin. He was hot, burning up with an intense fever. Sweat stung his eyes and a rich roasting stench seemed to exude from his every pore.
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