Tears streamed silently down Seth’s face. He wanted to cry out to his mum, but his voice trapped in his throat. What could he tell them? How could he tell them that Kelly was dead?
When the phone rang, Seth wiped his tears with his pyjama sleeve and ducked back into his room. The snoring from his parents’ room stopped.
Seth decided he would tell them later—after they answered the phone.
Yes, definitely later.
23
The drumming was coming from a point right behind his temple. Unrelenting. The floor was cold, and he rolled onto his side, reaching for his duvet trying to push away the sensation that he had a terrible case of the flu.
Malc remembered he was at the hospital and groaned, sitting up and looking around him,
Except there was nothing to look at. He was in utter blackness.
It was difficult to hold back the scream for help building at the back of his throat but he managed to all the same. He’d been left alive, and that gave him some hope he could still get out of here. He climbed to his feet and inspected his surroundings. Despite the lack of light, from the feel of the wet brick walls, and the smell of damp and earth, he presumed he was in a cellar, something underground. He shivered. Was that where he was, canned up for safekeeping until he was needed?
From several feet away, a scratching began. Malc called hello, not expecting an answer but to get a sense of how large the room was. His voice echoed back. He lifted his arms in front of him, frustrated that he couldn’t see them even when they were this close, and he stepped forward. If he could find a wall, he could work his way around the room until he found the door. Dismissing, for now, the idea that the door would almost certainly be locked, he took more steps, taking a deep breath with every stumble.
The scratching intensified. He’d heard stories of how fearless rats could be when humans ventured into their domain and he prayed the creatures would be wary of him for a while. This plan was working well until something rushed over his foot. He yelped and kicked out.
His hands found a wall, and he exhaled a sigh of relief. Feeling along the wall with his hands, travelling to his right.
The scratching came again from behind and he realised that he’d been mistaken about the rats. He wasn’t alone and there was something else in the dark with him. Something that meant more harm than a hungry rodent.
His hands wandered up the wall and across from where he was standing until his fingers brushed against a shelf. He frowned, then slid his fingers across the shelf until they hit an object. A torch. He took it and pulled it down, feeling for a button.
And then there was light.
It was an old torch with a bulb, not one of these new LED types that could have lit up the entire room, but it was good enough to cast a dim beam across the cellar, picking out the surrounding walls. The room was about twelve feet long and a little shorter across the width. A brick staircase led up to what he surmised was an exit. On the opposite wall, a low archway led into a second area. Cautiously, he crossed the room and peeked his head through. A rusting hulk of metal took up most of the space. Pipework led up into the ceiling. Valves and wheels were spaced at regular intervals and Malc got the notion of an ancient beast, dormant but ready to wake at the slightest provocation. He was staring at a furnace, perhaps as old as the original building, unused for decades, but forgotten about rather than disposed of. To the side, a mountain of junk. The room had most recently been a dumping ground. An old chair, a mop and bucket, a slight table with a cracked leg. Nothing that would facilitate his escape plans.
Ignoring the junk, he returned to the original larger area and mounted the steps. He didn’t think Johnny would be keeping guard, but he’d rather not alert them that he was awake before he was ready. Disappointment greeted him at the top in the form of a solid metal door. He tried the handle, then pushed hard, but the door was tight. There was no way he would be able to shift that.
The torch flickered. Not good. The batteries were probably ancient. He scurried back down the stairs, keen to check out the rest of his cell before he was stripped of light once more. He switched the torch off and on again, then left it off. The room hadn’t been plunged into total blackness this time. There was another source of illumination that hadn’t been there even a few moments ago.
Green light.
A doorway was opening.
Malc swallowed and realised how dry his throat had become. Time was running out. If he didn’t get out of here promptly, he would be at the mercy of whatever came through the door.
He shone the torch at the door. It had peeling blue paint and looked like it belonged in an old 1960’s house. The scratching that he’d put down to rats was coming from the other side of the door. He was due to have company very shortly.
Urgently, he waved the torch from side to side of the room. There must have been something he’d missed.
The sound of scratching was louder now.
His torch flared and died. The room was lit only from the green light from the doorway.
A sigh of air kissed the back of his neck. He bristled as it felt like fingers were teasing the ends of his hair. The scratching stopped.
“Don’t mess with me. I’m warning you. I am somebody you don’t want to mess with. I’m not like the others. I can damage you.” The words were braver than he felt right now.
He tapped the side of his torch and was momentarily delighted when it came back to life. He swept the dying beam across the walls and then wished he hadn’t. The brickwork made it difficult to see unless you knew what you were searching for, but he could see more doors appearing. For now, they were half-formed and still had some way to go before they’d open. He didn’t think it would take long, and then—he didn’t know quite what would happen.
Escape. Think. How hard could this be?
There wasn’t anything he could use to get that metal door open. He’d missed nothing.
A noise above him, and then a murmur of air blew across his face. What was doing that? He stared straight up and saw the grating set into the ceiling; about thirty centimetres across. Could he fit through there? He had no choice. If he was to save the others, he had to. But he had to reach it first.
He ran back to the junk pile in the furnace alcove and snagged the chair he’d spotted earlier. The lone wooden back slat snapped away as he hauled it up from the junk pile. Shifting his hold to the seat, he set it underneath the narrow vent and stood on it, reaching for his new prize. Although, from this position, the vent he was struggling to reach seemed farther away. He had to stretch to reach the opening.
The chair slipped, and Malc fell in an undignified heap. Across the room, a shadowman watched. It’s nebulous form blending into the gloom, its features obscured, just angles of shade coming together to form a man. Malc grabbed the chair and clambered back on it, wary of the unstable legs, before reaching for the grating above. It was metal and cold and wet and covered in a viscous substance that Malc didn’t want to know. He tried giving it a shove, lifting it.
The grate refused to move.
No, damn it. This wasn’t how it was going to end. He’d found his way out, he had to make this work.
The cellar brightened as another green light joined the original. A hasty glance told him he had little time. Of the four outlines he’d identified, three had materialised fully. Two were opening.
Shit, shit, shit.
He got off the chair and grabbed his useless torch. No use to him in providing light but it might help him get some movement out of the grate. Using the handle, he bashed it at the grating. The thick rubber insulated against the knocks and prevented it from smashing on the first impact.
Nothing happened. It was impossible. He wouldn’t bash his way out of here using a torch. But, he’d run out of options.
Bash again. And again.
Then a crack. He thought he’d finally knackered the torch, smashed the plastic casing, but then he saw the thinnest line of circular light around the edge of the
grating. It had moved.
With a renewed vigour he bashed again.
Then he heard the scraping sounds.
He dared to look towards the entrance and saw the shadowman had moved several steps closer. Only a matter of metres separated him from Malc.
Malc murmured into the darkness. “Give me a few seconds more.”
The grating moved. Malc pushed up and felt the metal disc lift out of its housing. He reached more, standing on tiptoe to push the disc out of the way. The opening above him was free. Malc stood on the balls of his feet and gripped tightly to the lip of the hole. With gritted teeth, he jumped and tried to pull himself up. His fingers brushed the edge of the opening then slipped away.
There was another shadowman in the room.
He jumped again, reaching for the edge, knowing he wouldn’t make it. Knowing that it would take something impossible to survive.
“Lord, give me strength,” Malc shouted.
Beneath him, the chair tipped, but it no longer mattered to Malc. With a desperate resolve, he hauled himself out through the opening. Time was running out.
24
How big was this place?
Judy had been running for what felt like an eternity. This section of the hospital went deeper than she’d first assumed. She was trying to rationalise it in her mind, trying to map out what she knew of the layout of the Correction Floor with the plans she’d seen earlier. It couldn’t all fit. It was an impossibility. But she was running through that impossibility now, away from the doors she’d passed through, heading towards whatever these treatment rooms were. Corridor after corridor turned her this way and that, leading her deeper into the heart of the building.
At times, she felt able to rationalise this. It was dark; she was tired, and adrenaline was rushing through her body as her flight continued. But when she paused to catch her breath, press herself against the wall and focus, she knew that this wasn’t normal.
The hospital was playing with her.
She was lost.
Water dripped—she thought from her left, along a more distressed section of corridor than she’d yet been down. The tiles on the wall were mainly broken off here, scratches and breaks in the plaster where they’d once lined the corridor. Lesions left in place. Underfoot, the lino was ripped like giant claws had raked its surface, and the pressure on her ears and her sinuses was relentless.
There was no sign of her pursuer and that bothered her. Perhaps he was waiting for her by the entrance, expecting her to give up and return the way she’d come. Fat chance.
God, she was tired. She was panting and sweating despite the cold. Chancing a breather, she stopped running, and leant back against a wall, glancing both ways, expecting Roy to appear with that devilish look in his eye. Her eyelids were heavy. She closed them a moment, anything to take herself away for however long she could risk.
Hands gripped her upper arms with no concern for her comfort. They were about control and they belonged to the two hospital attendants on either side of her. She must resist. She would not go back to the treatment room. How could they be doing this to her? After her last session with Dr Lowman, she’d spent the rest of that day in a euphoric haze. He’d told her that she was getting so much better and had made so much progress and she really wasn’t going to have to spend the rest of her life in an institution.
And he swore there would be no more visits to the Correction Floor and definitely no more sessions would be required in a treatment room.
So why were these two thugs, whose names she could no longer remember, dragging her, against her will?
“Stop! Dr Lowman said I was better.” She twisted, but their fingers tightened. “Ow!”
The double doors were ahead. The Correction Floor beyond. Treatment Room 3 was four doors along the main corridor on the right.
“There’s no need to be afraid.”
“We’re going to take good care of you.”
“Really good care.”
With a sigh like a giant monster’s dying breath, the doors opened, and she stared ahead into the harsh brightly lit corridor. Her stomach curled, and she tried to close her eyes but she couldn’t bear not to see where they were taking her.
“Dr Lowman said I’d been good. That I didn’t need any treatment this week.” She swung her head to her right, hoping to catch the chin of an attendant, but angry hands manhandled her onto the correction floor instead.
“Arghh,” she cried. Her arm was being twisted behind her now, swift retribution for her resistance.
Quickly, they dragged her along the corridor. The harsh fluorescent lighting above seemed to pulse like a heartbeat. A pressure built up in her ears. Every step was another step deeper into the nightmare.
He was waiting for her in the doorway of Treatment Room 3. A lopsided grin twisted onto his face as she was thrust in front of him. His breath stunk of coffee and cigarettes. She knew the smell well.
“Dr Lowman, they’ve made a mistake. You said I didn’t need any more treatment.” Her voice raced from her suddenly parched throat.
He stepped back and nodded to the attendants to bring her in. Behind her, the examination table was ready. The room was dark, lit only by the black candles he’d positioned on the equipment trolley beside the head of the table. The air was heady, something from the candles she knew. And in moments she wouldn’t be able to think clearly.
And as the attendants dragged her, kicking and screaming onto the examination table, Dr Lowman was readying the straps that would hold her down.
“Why me?” she howled. “Why me?”
The doctor leaned in to her face so his features filled her entire vision.
“Because you need to be corrected.”
Judy slumped to the floor. What the hell was that? A waking nightmare? A vision? Was this something the hospital was somehow forcing her to see, or part of this ability she was developing? Seth had told her she was sensitive. She’d been able to see the doors hadn’t she? But if this was what lay in store for her, she didn’t want it.
That dripping was louder now. Closer despite not moving.
And then a drip landed on her neck. She flinched, then spun away from the wall, glancing up into the dark corner she’d been standing beneath.
More water dripped on her face. Ice cold. The roof must be leaking. Judy stepped further along the corridor, seeing the dripping as a sign to get moving. Her feet splashed in a puddle. There must be a significant leak if the water had had a chance to build up like this. She bent and peered along the length of the corridor, and despite not being able to see the full extent of the water damage, she could see the corridor was in a seriously bad way. Perhaps an inch of water stretched along into the distance.
More water dripped on her head and she turned to look up, certain that she was about to have part of the ceiling land on her. Rain fell on her face so hard that it felt like she was staring straight up into a shower head.
The man with the hose was enjoying this. Another blast from his hosepipe and he slipped and fell on the tiles. There were others around him, more patients, just like him—
I’m not a patient.
And they were all getting the hose treatment. All naked, all men, just like him.
The attendants were laughing at the dry edge of the shower block. He couldn’t place their names, the men in the white coats never stayed for long at Ravenmeols.
A stream of ice water hit his chest, and he turned and deflected the blast onto his back. Still painful.
The tall man on his left with the sticky-out ears, had given up and had curled into a ball, tucking his head under his arms. This delighted the attendants who saw the pathetic figure as a fresh target, a challenge. The hose spent more time on him than on the others, giving momentary respite.
And in that respite, he saw the bastard Lowman lurking at the doorway, an ugly thin smile on his face.
Judy stumbled and found herself sitting on the dry lino, looking at her boots and shivering at the vision.
What did they do here?
A door closed somewhere nearby. Hinges squeaked. Roy.
“Judy,” his voice taunted, “You’re done running.”
25
Malc stayed in the shadows for a moment longer, catching his breath, thinking through his plan—ha, what plan? He’d come here on a hunch that Seth had lied about coming to the hospital and without the protection of the rest of his colleagues at the church, he was stuck facing down a potential realm incursion on his own.
Malc couldn’t let that happen. He had to get up to the Correction Floor, past whatever demons they mobilised to block him, and free these people.
Easier said than done.
He had one thing on his side. Johnny hadn’t been expecting him to show up and that could have rattled him. He also hadn’t been killed. Did that mean Johnny was scared to do so or did he have an even more insidious fate for him?
Malc only wished he felt more confident. He touched his ring and murmured a hurried prayer.
A chill wind drove down the basement corridor and Malc resisted the urge to duck into one of the side rooms. The hospital would do this to him. The Adherents had weakened the walls between realms so much and invited this activity. There would be worse to come.
He took out his phone, looking at the no service label, wishing for bars to appear in its place, then accepting he wouldn’t be able to summon outside help, he settled for the torch option and illuminated the corridor.
A patient was standing twelve feet away. A woman. Her hair, long and unkempt, formed a curtain around her head, making it impossible to see her features. Her nightie, soiled and torn.
Malc swallowed.
He turned but his light lit up a tiled wall. No exits that way. He had to go past her. At six foot wide, the corridor didn’t seem large enough to dart past her. Malc took a step forward, and the woman did the same. Was she corporeal? The light from his phone focused on her torso and Malc tried to ascertain whether it was going through her. Was she solid? He brought the light down to her bare legs and when he saw the lack of a shadow behind her, he knew his answer. The thing was a remnant from the hospital’s past, an echo of personal suffering.
The Dark Corners Box Set Page 16
