Reid looked back to the body of Robert Wilson on the steel bed and saw that things had changed in here since his last visit. The body had bloated somewhat, but that wasn’t all—those thread-like tendrils that ran from its skin had grown in girth as well as number, no longer resembling fine hairs, and now more like string. Their reach was increasing as well, some even running up the walls to the ceiling above. Whatever mutation was taking place in the room, it was growing stronger, and was clearly far from finished.
‘So why are we here?’ Reid asked.
But it was not Templeton who answered.
Robert Wilson’s eyelids slowly parted, revealing dark eyes below—orbs that swam in black. His mouth opened, and he spoke with a breathless voice. ‘I… see… your… wife… and… child.’
Reid looked to Templeton, who raised his eyebrows and smiled.
The thing that seemed to be speaking through Robert Wilson went on.
‘They… still… burn.’
‘What do you mean?’ Reid asked Templeton. ‘Is this some kind of trick?’
‘It is no trick,’ Templeton said in response. ‘You may want to listen to what is being said.’
‘They… still… suffer. Outside… of… your… world. And… in… mine.’
‘Lies,’ Reid snapped.
‘They… blame… you. You… abandoned… them.’
‘Tell it to stop!’ Reid shouted at Templeton. ‘Enough of this nonsense.’
Templeton just shook his head.
‘It… is… time,’ Wilson said, and Reid was unsure as to whom he was referring. ‘I… grow… stronger. More… of… my… blood… must… flow.’
‘Increase the administration?’ Templeton asked. ‘We will need to draw more from you.’
‘Take… it. Bestow… my… knowledge… unto… others. Increase… my… flock. It… must… be… done… now.’
‘It will be,’ Templeton said, and he turned to Jones. ‘Do it.’
Jones nodded and retrieved a large case from the corner of the room. He placed it on the floor and opened it, revealing an assortment of needles, tubing, clear plastic containers, and plastic drip bags inside.
‘What’s happening?’ Reid asked, feeling utterly confused.
Templeton smiled. ‘It’s time to step things up.’
30
The steep, dark stairwell had taken them down to a subterranean level and brought them out into a long, wide passageway that, to Adrian, had more than a passing resemblance to a dungeon.
The walls were stone, as was the curved ceiling, but the ground they walked on was dirt. Torches were fixed to the walls, and there were grated doors at regular intervals along both walls all the way to the end of the long passageway.
Ominous grunts, moans, and some decidedly inhuman sounds could be heard from whatever lay beyond the metal doors.
‘It isn’t safe down here,’ Sean said, and Adrian had to agree. While he’d never felt particularly safe in the asylum, the fear in him now spiked, and his thoughts turned back to the abomination he had seen outside of his room a couple of nights ago. Were the things inside these cells down here similar creatures? If so, that meant the group were in real danger.
‘I say we go back,’ Seymour said.
The idea was appealing, but going back meant certain capture, so instead, Adrian studied the thick metal bars on the doors—they looked strong and sturdy, and evidently had been sufficient to hold back whatever was inside. As long as that remained the case, were they really in any immediate danger?
‘Go, then,’ Adrian told him.
‘And you’re just going to stay down here, are you?’ Seymour asked.
‘What else am I supposed to do, Seymour? You made it perfectly clear what my situation is. If I go back, then I get blamed for what happened to that orderly—’
‘Well, you did kill him,’ Seymour snapped.
‘Only because you brought him to me. I was happy being left alone,’ Adrian said and pushed Seymour, who backpedaled a few steps.
‘Stop,’ Sean said meekly. ‘This won’t help.’
But Seymour—never one to keep his anger in check or to think things through—ignored him and shoved Adrian in return. ‘Don’t you dare lay your hands on me,’ he said. ‘Typical of someone like you, always blaming others for your mess.’
‘Typical of someone like you,’ Adrian countered, ‘to always use others for your own benefit.’ He lunged forward, thrusting his palms into Seymour’s chest again, pushing him as hard as he could and this time sending Seymour toppling to the floor. ‘I’m warning you,’ Adrian said, ‘don’t push me any further.’
Seymour looked enraged and slowly got back up to his feet. Adrian braced himself for an attack. ‘Or what?’ Seymour asked. ‘You’ll tear my throat open too? Like you did to that orderly?’
‘I might,’ Adrian said.
‘I’d like to see you try.’
Seymour then ran at Adrian, and the two wrestled with each other, each trying to gain the upper hand. As they fought, they stumbled over to one of the side walls of the corridor. There, Seymour managed to get the upper-hand and forced Adrian back until Adrian was pushed into the cold metal of one of the doors.
Seymour then wrapped his meaty hands around Adrian’s throat and squeezed. Adrian struggled for breath, and he heard Sean’s feeble pleas for them to stop, but he had no intention of listening. Instead, he gave in to his anger and brought up a hand. He then pushed a thumb into Seymour’s eye, and the larger man screamed out in pain. Using the momentary relief, Adrian grabbed Seymour and spun them both, now pushing him against the grated metal door, face first. He took a handful of the man’s greasy hair, pulled his head back, and then slammed it into the hard metal.
Seymour cried out again, but this only served to drive Adrian on. Again and again, he slammed Seymour’s face into the unyielding iron of the door.
And then he stopped, with his breath caught in his throat.
Something was moving within the cell before them, and through the flickering of a nearby torch, Adrian caught a brief glimpse of it.
And from Seymour’s whimpering, it seemed he had seen the same thing. ‘Let me go,’ he said, his voice a scared whisper. ‘Please, let me go.’
Adrian realised that he still had the man’s head pushed hard into the metal door, his face pressed into a space between the bars.
The thing inside stepped farther forward, and Adrian backed up as it emerged from the shadows. Seymour, now released, quickly backed away the door as well. ‘What the hell is that?’ he asked.
Not that anyone could give him an answer.
Something large, with no lower half, stepped forward on two massive arms. The thing looked like a creature born from hell, and its head was covered in small, jelly-like eyes that flicked about in all directions. A thick, guttural sound came from the round mouth that opened within its stomach, parting the dark grey skin.
‘It can’t be real,’ Sean said. ‘This can’t be real.’
Adrian knew that it was. This wasn’t a dream or hallucination—something very wrong, and very unnatural, was going on at this asylum.
They stepped back from the door, away from the monster inside, but Adrian needed to see more. He crept to another cell and cautiously peeked inside. There, he saw another one of those things, though he was confident the one he was looking at was dead. And, though it was now little more than a burned and charred husk, it looked familiar to Adrian, with its wide, snake-like mouth, twisted features, and tall, spindly body.
It was the thing he had seen outside of his cell.
Malcolm.
‘What the hell is going on here?’ Sean asked, looking over Adrian’s shoulder.
‘I have no idea,’ Adrian said. He then walked to the other cells, getting as close as he dared to look inside. Within some cells there were only smouldering remains, but in most there were demonic things that were very much alive.
Most retained a semblance of the humans they once were, but whatev
er transformations they had gone through had changed them into nightmarish beings that defied belief.
‘Hello,’ a voice called from one of the cells, catching them off guard. Adrian looked over at the cell close to where the sound had originated. He slowly walked towards it and peered inside.
To his surprise, he did not see another monster, as expected, but a human. An orderly, to be precise, one he had seen in the facility before, though he looked a lot different now. The man’s face had swollen horribly, and his rubbery-looking skin was uneven and had turned various shades of greys and greens, reminding Adrian of mould. ‘You have to help me,’ the trapped orderly begged in a raspy voice.
Adrian felt like he had stepped out of reality and into a nightmare.
‘We need to get out of here,’ Seymour insisted. ‘Now.’
Adrian didn’t like Seymour, but after seeing this place, he could not argue with the man. There was nothing they could do for this orderly even if they wanted to. Coming down here suddenly seemed like a bad idea.
‘I agree,’ Adrian said, then turned back to face the stairwell they had descended, ready to flee this place, but a voice from behind stopped them.
‘Well, well, how did you all get out?’
Adrian’s heart dropped. He recognised that voice. He slowly turned around to see Director Templeton at the far end of the ward, emerging from a large door. He was accompanied by Dr. Reid, Jones, Duckworth, and three another orderlies.
‘Shit,’ Adrian said.
‘Shit, indeed,’ Jones agreed. ‘Shit, indeed.’
‘Please wait,’ Sean said, holding his hands up in supplication. ‘We’re sorry.’
But Adrian could see the look in the director’s eyes; there would be no mercy here.
No forgiveness.
The group, led by Jones, started to walk over to them.
‘I’m afraid it is too late for apologies,’ Director Templeton said. ‘And you, Mr. James,’ he added, pointing to Adrian. ‘I’m especially disappointed in you. I thought we had made real progress.’
‘Rubbish,’ Adrian said. ‘Whatever it is you’re doing here, it certainly isn’t helping people.’
The director shrugged. ‘Believe what you will. I have little time for this.’ He turned to Jones. ‘Handle the situation, will you?’
Jones nodded, then commanded the rest of his men, ‘Restrain them.’
‘Fuck,’ Seymour said from beside Adrian. ‘What have you gotten us into?’
Adrian ignored the insinuation, focusing instead on the advancing men. He felt his heart begin to race again as his adrenaline spiked.
Tonight had not turned out as expected. He had gone from being resigned to a continued existence in this miserable place, to an unwilling participant in an escape attempt, and now it appeared he would be fighting for his life.
And it was a fight he would probably lose.
Still, he clenched his fists and raised them up.
‘We can’t win this,’ Sean said.
‘I know,’ Adrian replied.
Seymour let out a growl of frustration. ‘This can’t be happening,’ he said. ‘I was so close. I refuse to be trapped in here any longer.’
‘You don’t have any choice, fat man,’ Jones said.
Adrian heard Seymour’s breathing deepen. ‘Fuck you,’ he spat back.
Instinctively Adrian, Seymour, and Sean huddled together as the group of orderlies started to surround them.
‘This isn’t going to go well,’ Sean said. Adrian knew he was right, but there was nothing they could do to change that. It was going to happen, regardless.
Once the group was fully surrounded, Jones gave the order.
‘Get them.’
And the assault began.
The orderlies rushed in, all armed with their coshes. Adrian swung a punch, connecting with the cheek of the first guard to reach them. It was enough to knock the man back, but Adrian felt pain shoot through his hand. Through his peripheral vision, he saw two orderlies tackle Sean and easily wrestle him to the floor. Unfortunately for Seymour, he had Jones to deal with, and the large orderly beat him down quickly with vicious blows to the head.
The remaining orderly dove into Adrian and tried to restrain his arms, but Adrian managed to pull them free and gouged at the man's eyes. He then grabbed the orderly by his uniform and, remembering how he’d pinned Seymour up against the door earlier, attempted to do this same again. He pushed the orderly back, managing to overpower him, and slammed the man into one of the gates in the wall.
His plan was an absurd one, but Adrian was hoping that the thing within would perhaps take care of the orderly he was struggling with. But as crazy as the plan may have been, when the orderly started to scream in pain, Adrian knew it had worked.
He backed off the guard, who remained stuck in place at the metal door. Looking past the orderly, Adrian saw why.
A thin, purple stalk had penetrated the man’s torso, and it snaked its way down his form, wrapping around his leg and holding him in place. Adrian took another step back as the orderly continued to cry out in pain, his screams growing higher in pitch as blood oozed from the wound in his gut. Adrian moved to the side, and could now see the creature from which the tentacle originated—a gelatinous thing that clung to the metal door. The spindly vine had emerged from a puckering mouth, but the open maw had stretched in size, and Adrian saw it had clamped around a portion of the man’s back that had protruded through a gap in the bars and was pulling him inside as much as it could.
The orderly’s screaming drew the brawl behind Adrian to a temporary close as everyone watched the gruesome, macabre scene unfold.
After another scream, Adrian could make out a powerful sucking sound coming from the creature’s gulping mouth. It took Adrian a moment to realise what was happening, but the situation made a terrible kind of sense as the jelly-like body of the monster began to expand.
At the same time, the orderly began to wither.
Blood spluttered from the man’s mouth as he continued to flail.
He was being pulled inside out, the contents of his body—blood, guts, and organs—now slurping through and pooling in the transparent mass of the feeding entity.
‘Andrew!’ one of the guards cried out, shocked to see what was happening to his friend, who continued to squirm in vain. The writhing stalk had a firm hold of the orderly, and the mouth proceeded to pull his innards from his body. It continued to feed even as Andrew’s movements slowed.
When it had eventually taken its fill, the vine worked its way back through Andrew and back into the mouth, which closed with a slurping sound. There was a large hole in the man's stomach, showing a hollow, red pit behind, and his body sagged and drooped unnaturally. He tried to take a step, somehow still alive, but his knees buckled, and he tumbled to his side, sliding along the wall and falling motionlessly to the floor before an adjacent door.
Adrian was sickened by what he’d just witnessed—the way that thing had fed was so bestial, so inhuman. Not evil, just instinctual, like the way a spider would feast on a fly—uncaring and impartial. The blob slowly worked its way down the door; its sticky skin, which now gave off a red hue, rolled down the metal bars before it pulled itself along the floor and disappeared into the darkness of its cell.
So caught up in the vile sight was Adrian that he didn’t hear Jones approach from behind. The first he knew of it was when the orderly had knocked him to the floor with a mighty blow to the side of the head. His vision spun, pin-pricked with white dots.
Adrian barely had time to roll onto his back before Jones started to kick him viciously, every swing connecting to the head, side and stomach. Adrian begged him to stop, but Jones would not let up.
‘I’ll kill you,’ the orderly said, gritting his teeth. ‘I will fucking kill you, you pathetic piece of shit.’
Adrian had no opportunity to fight back, the attack overwhelming him completely. He felt his consciousness begin to slip away, and the last thing he heard befo
re blacking out entirely was the voice of Director Templeton.
‘Be calm, Mr. Jones. He is more useful to us alive.’
Another kick to the head, and darkness claimed Adrian completely.
31
‘Adrian, why?’
The voice rang out all around him, coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
It was sad, full of hurt.
And all around him was that nightmarish hellscape.
Demons as small as bugs, and others taller than the smooth black mountains, roamed across the land.
Up above, in a sky speckled with stars that moved and pulsed, many swirled together and formed that great eye in the cosmos. An eye that seemed to look down directly at him.
‘Why?’ the voice cried out again, sobbing. It seemed to echo from somewhere. He turned. Was it coming from that vast expanse of bubbling black liquid?
Then he heard a different sound.
Mocking laughter that boomed loud enough to fill the sky around him.
As Adrian came back to consciousness, he immediately sensed movement—a forward momentum—before he opened his eyes. His head hurt, badly, and a throbbing pain jack-hammered around inside his skull, strong enough to make him nauseous. Adrian had no idea as to the extent of his injuries—a concussion, or maybe even a cracked skull.
He could make out a constant squeaking sound among the loud moans and cries of the damned. He was apparently in some area of the asylum, but the screams here seemed louder and more intense than his own ward.
Adrian slowly opened his eyes.
The squeaking sound was coming from the thin wheels of the uncomfortable wheelchair he was restrained to.
A corridor, different from the one he had grown used to in his own ward, moved by as he was pushed forward. The walls here were a dull grey plaster and the floor a combination of mismatched tiles streaked with filth and even… blood.
As well as doors, the walls were punctuated by large viewing windows filled with wire-mesh glass. Some rooms here looked much larger than Adrian’s own, but it soon became clear that these were used for more than just accommodation.
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