The Dark Corners Box Set

by Robert Scott-Norton

  “You can’t hurt me,” Malc said.

  He took another step. She mirrored him.

  “You have no substance.”

  Another step. Mirrored.

  Her arms were bruised. Purple shadows on her dirty skin.

  “You aren’t really here.”

  The apparition ran for him, lifting its head and howling. A tempest personified. Malc turned and ran.

  He ducked inside the first room on his right and collided with a wheeled cage used for throwing dirty sheets in. The ancient thing squealed as its rusting casters scraped on the tiled floor. The laundry room accommodated space for rows of industrial washing machines and dryers and offered few places to hide.

  Grabbing the edge of the cage, Malc used his momentum to twist it around and launch it at the screaming apparition on his heels. It collided and sent her sprawling on the floor.

  Not hesitating, Malc leapt over her and out into the corridor, snatching the door handle and pulling it shut behind him. No key in the lock, but no matter. He raced for the stairs, taking two at a time until he reached the main floor, then he paused and listened. No indication she was coming after him. He shone his light back behind him and saw the empty stairwell and he took a deep breath.

  Definitely a disturbed building. The entities that inhabited this place were confused and unstable. He was convinced that the Adherents’ presence had left the building with a resonance that enabled the worst of the other realms to fester. He knew to expect more.

  26

  Judy had to get away from here before Roy caught up with her. The crowbar still felt solid enough in her grip, but her hands were hot and she doubted she’d have the guts to swing with enough force to whack someone out.

  The Correction Floor was one great maze of confusion. Its salacious tendrils were needling into her mind and causing her to see things that weren’t there and muddling with her perception. She peered at her watch. It was already ten minutes to midnight. That was her deadline and when the ritual would take place and the others…

  They would die.

  This hospital would not let anyone leave alive tonight. This jaunt that had started out as a bit of a laugh, had become a dangerous game that she wasn’t expected to win.

  At the end of this passage, began another row of boarded-up windows—she was back against the perimeter of the building. She tested the edge of the board with her fingers, feeling for some give. If she could get one of these boards off—

  Who was she trying to kid? This floor was four stories up. If she succeeded in opening a window, she would have to scale down the outside of the building to the ground.

  Not going to happen.

  Frustrated, she gave up on the board and rubbed her sore fingertips together. Things might be different if she could get to the roof. If she could get to the roof, there might be a way down. She thought she remembered seeing flat sections at the top of the building when she arrived earlier that evening. And if she could get out onto there, perhaps there would be a better way down. A fire escape, maybe.

  The lights above her flared into life again.

  And he was back in the hospital, back when it was alive, with blinding bright lights above and the smell of powerful antiseptic in his nose, a smell competing with the stench of his clothes.

  Hands were gripping his upper arms, and he knew there would be more bruising there later.

  “Let go of me!”

  The cries went unheeded, and he continued trying to resist, dragging his feet, making the attendants feel every ounce of his weight.

  “Where are you taking me?” But he already knew the answer. The corridor expired at Treatment Room One, Lowman’s personal favourite, and the man himself was waiting for him inside.

  One glance around the room confirmed his nightmares. Tonight would be arduous and protracted. The treatment chair had been prepped and the leather straps lay free and unclasped. Towels had been set in a tidy pile on a trolley against the wall. A second trolley with a tray of medical instruments caught the glare from the blaze of the adjustable light fitting above the chair. Lowman grabbed the handle of the lamp and eased it into a more central position. Noticing the arrival for the first time, he paused and put down then goat’s skull he had been holding.

  “Good. It’s you.”

  Shit. That made it worse. The attendants hadn’t been given specific instructions. They’d chosen him for tonight’s activities. Perhaps he shouldn’t have stabbed Grumpy with his fork at lunch. He wouldn’t see a fork again for a few months, not until he’d been re-appraised, and he’d be sitting at the more closely supervised table at mealtimes. The sensation of it penetrating the attendant’s skin had been worth it at the time, topped off by Grumpy’s scream of pain.

  The attendants led him inside the room and closed the door behind them. One turned the key and pocketed it.

  The patient’s eyes were pinned on Lowman. There was something different about the doctor tonight. A change in his posture and bearing. A confidence that made him want to run.

  And Lowman looked ghastly. In the two years that the patient had known Lowman, the doctor had aged considerably. The skin on his face was like that of a man in his fifties, and dark blemishes that might have been liver spots had developed. And that red band on his neck that looked nasty and inflamed. He was struck with some serious disease and the patient was suddenly terrified that Lowman intended to spread that disease, to contaminate him with it.

  “We should get started,” Lowman intoned. And the heavy arms of the attendants dragged the patient to the chair, leaning hard on him to line his wrists up with the leather straps. But the patient would not make it easy for them. He lifted his head and struck it against Grumpy. A cry of surprise and shock then the other attendant smashed his fist against the patient’s cheek. It was enough to put him off balance for the time they needed to truss him to the chair, then with his wrists secured, they turned to his feet. The patient relaxed, recognising that whilst things were useless right now, there was little point in wasting energy—he would need his strength for what was to come. Besides, there may come another opportunity and he wanted to be ready, and conscious, to steal the advantage.

  “You can go,” Lowman told the attendants, and they complied without question. The doctor had an unrivalled level of command in the hospital. Staff would bend to his every whim with no question and patients lived in terror that they would get called up to the Correction Floor.

  After the men had left, and the door had closed behind them, Lowman pressed a needle to the patient’s neck. A sharp scratch then an unpleasant cold sensation bloomed from the injection site. The patient noticed the light above was now swaying ever so slightly from side to side. And when he looked across at the door he’d come through, he saw that was farther away than it seemed possible. It was so far away now that it wasn’t even in the room.

  Judy blinked and put her hand against the wall she’d stumbled back against. More hospital tricks. But this hadn’t just been like watching a screen. She’d seen all of this from the point of view of the patient. She had been him. And this felt like a real memory, not some terrible fiction. She knew the man who called himself Lowman. It was an instinctual recognition like when you bumped into an old school friend years after both promising to keep in touch and never doing so.

  Lowman.

  The name filled her with a sense of something frightful. Standing on the edge of a building and realising that one footstep would be all it would take to end this.

  The patient’s eyes swam around his head. His vision was now well and truly messed up and there was no point in even trying to resist. Perhaps if he remained compliant this time, Lowman would go easy on him, send him back downstairs before dawn.

  The doctor bent down so his blistered lips were inches from the patient’s ear and he said two words that changed everything.

  “Hello, Judy.”

  Judy looked down at her hands and yanked at them, trying to free them from the straps.
>
  What the hell?

  The raw metal of the examination chair chilled her skin. Burnt incense assailed her nostrils, clashing with the cloying antiseptic that had been used too liberally.

  “No!” she screamed and thrust her body forward, pulling against all the restraints. There was no way. This was a tangled nightmare. More tricks from the hospital. She wasn’t really here.

  “There’s no point in fighting. Not even the strongest patients could ever get out of these straps. I had them brought in especially. I was never happy with the ones the hospital supplied.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “Nothing yet. But there’s plenty of time.”

  “But I wasn’t here. I was somewhere else.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you were. But I have a unique relationship with Ravenmeols. It’s not relevant where you were. What’s more important is that our paths have crossed.”

  Judy’s breathing was shallow and rapid. “That injection. What did you give me?”

  His heavy eyebrows slanted. “I didn’t give you anything. You’re getting all confused.”

  But her limbs felt heavier. As she turned her head to observe her captor, her neck muscles resisted, every inch a struggle.

  “Let me go. Please.”

  “I can’t. And even if I could, would you really want to be released back downstairs with the general population? What would they make of you? You’re not even on any patient lists. You would just vanish through the cracks. Be a plaything for a while, then when they’ll all done with you, you’ll be begging me to bring you back up here.”

  “But, I don’t belong.”

  “No. That’s where you’re mistaken. We all belong here.”

  “I don’t. Whatever you’ve done to me, you’ve got to undo. Send me back.”

  “I’ve done none of this. This was all your doing.”

  This had to be a nightmare. She’d had vivid nightmares before and they always felt real until the moment of waking. But the straps on the wrists and ankles—the edge of the leather digging into the flesh. She could feel her pulse against the wrist straps, sense the blood rushing around her head.

  It didn’t feel like a dream.

  “Who are you?”

  A scream came from somewhere beyond the confines of the treatment room. Another poor patient at the hands of the hospital staff.

  “That’s a more complicated question than you realise,” he said finally.

  “You’re Dr Lowman. At least, that’s what I remember.” The patient she’d been minutes ago had been adamant about that.

  Lowman nodded. “I do tend to go by that name. It makes life simpler.”

  “You’re an Adherent of the Fourth,” she said emphatically.

  A smile sliced across his face. “You know of us?”

  “I know you’re a dangerous bunch of cranks that only came together because of your own inadequacies.”

  He shook his head, amused by her response but not accepting any of what she was saying. “There are no inadequacies amongst the Adherents.”

  “But you think it’s acceptable to hide in the midst of a mental hospital.”

  “I suppose to the unworthy, the uninitiated, that might appear an unusual choice. However, this hospital has two things going for it.” He scratched at a welt on the side of his neck. Judy averted her eyes as a stream of thick yellow pus trailed from the wound. He appeared not to notice. “Hospitals like this offer a steady supply of bodies. Sometimes our rituals require the use of people.”

  “These people are innocent.”

  “That’s not an important distinction.”

  “It’s important to them, and their families.”

  “It was their families who got them shut in here. Don’t kid yourself that anyone on the outside gives a damn what happens inside these walls.”

  Judy’s fear twisted to rage. “You’re slaughtering them.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Enough. We should begin.”

  “I’m not who you think. I shouldn’t be here.” She yanked at her straps but they were too tight.

  “You’re not the man that was brought in here, that’s for sure. Hank was never much of a talker. Where exactly have you come from?”

  What could she say? It was crazy.

  “I’m from your future. I’m part of a ghost hunt but I’m trapped on the Correction Floor. I found myself here. I think I’ve landed inside this patient.”

  Lowman barely reacted, his stone face gave nothing away. “You’re still right where you were. I’m not real. This is an echo.”

  “An echo? And what does that mean?” A memory? An imprint left behind on a building.

  “I’ve already gone. This body has failed me. I must have transferred to a new one. I can feel the body of a new host close. The hospital amplifies the signals and I can hear what she says.”

  Lowman’s features darkened. A viscous saffron liquid oozed from his nostril. He wiped it and inspected the stain on his shirt. “The more I control, the more it breaks down. This host barely lasted a year.”

  “You’re not Lowman.”

  “I’m Adam Cowl.”

  The founder of the Adherents. He was at the hospital before it closed. “You died a hundred years ago.”

  His left eye twitched. A tear of blood emerged. “Did nobody tell you, Adherents never die. You’ll soon understand that better than anyone.”

  Judy fell back out of the vision and lurched forwards, raising her arms to protect against the impact.

  Whatever was happening to her needed to stop. Her limbs ached worse than after that January spin class she’d endured. An echo was what he’d called it.

  A door burst open far too close. This room only had the one door. Judy closed it gently, flinching as the hinges protested, then it shut, she sought to keep it that way. Her hopes for a key in the lock were dashed but her hands found something better. On the bottom edge of the door, her fingers found a bolt. The roughness suggested rust and the difficulty in rotating the bolt confirmed it.

  Being locked in one of the treatment rooms was never part of the plan but keeping out of Roy’s clutches was more important than ever.

  “Move,” she urged, and her fingers dug between the wooden door and bolt, easing it free of decades worth of immobility. She wanted to cheer when it finally twisted and she rammed it around and secured the bolt in place. At the top of the door, another bolt.

  The door handle jerked, and the door rocked as someone tried to open it.

  Judy pushed against the force. Not now.

  “Judy, is that you?” Roy’s voice was full of fake kindness.

  With one hand gripping the handle, she reached for the top bolt and struggled to get it to turn.

  The door handle moved but Judy resisted. A laugh from outside. The suddenness of his next attempt shocked her and she let go of the handle, wincing. The door thudded. Pain cut through her shoulder. She slammed back and with a desperate effort turned the top bolt into place.

  “There’s nothing that will help you in there,” he said and charged the door a second time. The bolts took the impact, and the door held firm.

  The door may be standing between her and Roy but she was now trapped in the centre of the Correction Floor with no hope of escape.

  Something clicked behind her. A door unlatching. Judy spun to see a thin crack of light had appeared on the far wall of the treatment room, in an innocuous space against a rack of shelving. Her first thought that it might have been an Almost Door evaporated as the previously concealed door groaned open on ancient hinges.

  Are you for real?

  A rush of fragranced air hit her and she recoiled. Incense.

  She barely registered the banging had stopped on the door behind her as she took tentative steps towards the new opening.

  Her pulse raced. She braced herself for more shadowmen. Her head spun. There was something bad in that smell. She steadied herself against the wall, squinted against the gloom. Flickering lights resolved themselve
s into candles, in the distance, and between her and them were outlines of bodies.

  Her throat ached for water.

  She kept her nerve, then stepped over the threshold into a nightmare.

  27

  He was expecting some resistance on the main floor but when Malc stepped out into the corridor by the kitchens the place was deserted. Getting up high was his priority, and he needed to find another staircase that went up. He found a crack in one of the wooden boards covering a window and saw the courtyard outside. He was in the far east wing of the hospital. The Correction Floor was at the top of the building, only he didn’t know exactly which part.

  Damn. He checked his watch again, saw he’d wasted a couple more minutes and got moving towards the centre of the main building. There should be a main staircase up through the building and it would make sense for that to be located close to the main entrance.

  The air was fuggy and smelt like the drains had overflowed. He held a finger under his nose and continued, trying to be focused on the task at hand. The man who’d attacked him could be anywhere. And he would certainly take steps to incapacitate Malc should he be detected. Malc fingered the cross around his neck and promised that he wouldn’t let fear rule his decisions.

  He picked up the pace again and ended up at the main entrance. This was where the team had settled in as a base of operations. There were crates of supplies, food and equipment on a set of tables by a wall. Chairs were scattered in a mismatch of styles. An old tired armchair, a double leather sofa and a bunch of hard plastic chairs like you’d find in school. Shallow balconies ran towards the top of this space, vantage points for school masters and nurses alike. Both sets looking to maintain order in difficult circumstances.