by David Jester
“You look worse than him,” Eddie mocked.
“Fuck off you ginger asshole,” Darren spat.
Eddie’s eyes flared in retaliation. He didn’t speak, didn’t give any warning of his intentions before he launched himself at his friend, dropping the lighter in the process. The flame extinguished in the congealed blood, Darren’s vision went to black seconds before he felt Eddie’s hands on his neck, before he felt his friend’s clammy fingers curling around his throat.
He tried to yell in retaliation but his words merely choked out of his lungs; he tried to stop Eddie, to claw at his hands and his fingers, but his friend was far stronger than he had anticipated.
“I’m fucking sick of you,” Eddie yelled, spraying spittle at his friend. “I’m—”
He felt Malcolm’s hand on his back, tugging him away. He forced himself further forward, shrugged off his friend’s advances and kept his fingers around the neck of his other friend.
“Always with the fucking jokes, always—”
“Eddie, get the fuck off him!” Malcolm yelled, his voice low but getting louder.
“—Always taking the piss. Ever since we were kids—”
“Get off him!”
“I’ll show you, you little fucking cunt, I’ll—”
“Leave him!” Malcolm yelled at the top of his lungs and simultaneously whipped his fist across the back of Eddie’s head. Eddie toppled sideways with his hands still on Darren’s throat. He released him, allowing his friend to breathe, as he lost his balance and clattered to the floor, missing the edge of the desk by inches.
Darren fell to his knees and threw his hands to his throat, feeling the swelling as he tried to restore life to his body and his lungs. The anger had gone; he had felt it right until the point he realized that Eddie was seconds away from killing him.
Eddie mumbled on the floor; thrust himself up onto his elbows and then his backside. He stared at the other two figures in the darkness and gave them each a meek smile.
Malcolm was standing above them both, still breathing heavily, feeling an intense and shocked anger rushing through his body.
He opened his mouth to ask Eddie what had gotten into him, when the sound of rushing feet stopped him. All three heads turned towards the hallway at the back of the room, and then towards each other.
“Shit,” Darren rasped through a dry and haggard throat. “Now look what you’ve done, you ginger—”
“Shut up!” Malcolm said quickly, keeping his voice to a stern whisper. He reached over and grabbed the back of Darren’s collar with one hand and Eddie with the other. “Get the fuck up, we’re going.”
“Outside?” Eddie said, clambering to his feet.
Malcolm shook his head, turned towards the door and listened for the footsteps. They were coming down the same hallway they had come from before, he could see the bouncing shadows through the slit in the bottom of the floor. He looked towards the front door, it was locked and the men in gowns had the key. He knew they wouldn’t be able to break through and wouldn’t have anywhere to run if they were caught. He looked towards the other end of the room, to a door opposite the one where the footsteps were echoing from.
“Follow me.” He was moving before he spoke. He was crouching, staying low, but moving quickly, at a half jog. He heard the whispers behind him, heard the muttered calls of resistance, but his friends were following him.
He felt exposed when he left the security area and scuttled across the main room. It was big and empty; a big black hole that could land them in a lot of trouble should the door open as they were crossing.
His heart pounded in his chest, his mind raced. He struggled to hear the sound of the footsteps over the rapid thump-thump of his own chest and the sound of his friends’ footsteps behind him.
Darren was still struggling to breathe, to keep up with Eddie in front of him and Malcolm further ahead. They looked quicker, more agile. Darren was feeling faint and weak. His body was still suffering from the beating his step father had given him, and from his near-death experience at the hands of his supposed friend. He could only watch, feeling a great sense of abandonment and impending doom, as Eddie pushed further away. His lungs were on fire, he felt like his stomach was trying to leave via his throat. He could hear the footsteps behind him, could hear them slow down as they neared the door. His end was nigh, he was sure he was going to be caught; he was sure he would end up like the security guard, his throat smiling for eternity. As he struggled to keep up with his friends, he begged to any god that would listen that the people behind him would slow or trip.
Malcolm made it to the door. He breathed a heavy sigh of relief and then pushed it open, greeting more waves of blackness. He slipped inside the hallway, stood up straight and turned around just as Eddie ducked in behind him. He expected Darren to be right behind him; his heart hit the pit of this stomach when he saw that his friend was still in the middle of the room and had seemingly given up hope of making it to the other side.
The door on the opposite side of the hallway opened a crack, bathing the room in enough light for Malcolm to see Darren’s face clearly. He had stopped completely, frozen rigidly like a rabbit caught in the headlights. Malcolm beckoned him forward, begged him to run towards the door. Darren gave him a meek shrug in reply and then turned towards his fate, just as the door opened all the way and the two figures appeared in the doorway.
Malcolm closed the door, leaving it open just a touch. He felt Eddie’s hand on him, tugging him away, but he couldn’t close it, he wouldn’t leave Darren to whatever fate those sick murderers had planned for him.
He watched the two men in the doorway opposite. One of them was short, stubby, and seemed awkward on his feet; the other was tall and thin, looming a good two foot over the short one in front. They were both ugly, the tall one had a long and thin face with a protruding forehead, eyes that looked lost in his skull and lips that looked like the recipients of a botched botulism job. The short one had a rough, hardened face, dotted with scars and stubble.
Neither of them were looking into the room, neither of them saw Darren standing on the edge of the pool of florescent orange light that spilled out from the brightly lit hallway.
“Fuck you, fuckhead,” the short one was shouting. Malcolm recognized him as the mumbling man he had heard before, his voice was louder, much more annoyed. “I got here first, fuck off before I twat you one.”
The tall one replied with a disapproving, bass-filled grunt, a single note that expressed his annoyance and intent better than any sentence could. He put his hand on the short one’s forehead, held him out at arm’s length and then tried to bundle him out of the way in a patronizing manner. The short one didn’t budge; he defiantly swiped the hand from his forehead and then launched himself at the skinny man. He tackled him hard around the waist and they both clattered out of view, leaving their impression on the door as it swung backwards and forwards, diminishing and expanding the pool of light in which Darren still stood, looking transfixed and waiting for his life to end.
Malcolm yanked open the door without thinking, he took a few big strides to get to the center of the room, to his baffled friend. He grabbed Darren by the arm and pulled him away, towards the door, towards the hallway, before throwing him inside and shutting the door behind them.
18
“What the fuck was all that about?” Eddie hissed venomously, directing his attention at Darren.
Malcolm turned around to hush his friends as he peeked through a gap in the door, keeping his attention on the room opposite. The tall man and the short man were still fighting. He could hear their grunts, the sounds of their bodies clattering into the floor and against the walls.
“Me?” Darren said in retaliation, finding his voice through his pained throat. “What about you?”
Eddie didn’t answer. The two friends exchange a heated stare.
“You got what you deserved,” Eddie said eventually.
Darren shook his head in disbelief. �
��You nearly killed me.”
“You got what you deserved,” Eddie repeated.
Darren laughed softly. He felt his anger return but he kept it at bay for his own safety and for Malcolm’s. He had already risked both of their lives.
“It’s always the fucking gingers.”
“What did you say?”
“Shh!” Malcolm hissed. “They’re coming back.”
The short one emerged, looking beaten and worse for wear, but with a broad smile on his face that suggested he’d won. The tall one hadn’t retreated completely; he lumbered a few feet behind, looking even worse. They pushed open the hallway door, snapped on the light, and lit up the main room.
Malcolm pulled the door closed, preparing to close it all the way. He stopped when something on the floor caught his eye. He felt his pounding heart sink to the bottom of his soul, felt a strain of disbelief on his nerves.
He looked at Darren, slumped down in the hallway to his left, covered in sickly swabs of someone else’s blood; and then at the floor in the main room where Darren had stood. The floor was dotted with spots of blood, smears and smudges that had washed off Darren’s feet and dripped off his clothes.
The bickering men were walking straight past them, further into the room. Malcolm followed their movement, tracing the path he had run, the path that Darren had run. There he saw them: stained crimson footprints, marking a path along the floor, right the middle of the room where Darren had paused, then to the door where they now stood.
“What is it?” Darren whispered, sensing the fear on his friend’s face when he turned to look at him.
“Take your shoes off.”
“What?”
Malcolm didn’t need to explain. He simply pointed to the floor, to the prints that marked their entrance into the hallway.
“Holy fuck.”
“Take ’em off!”
Darren’s feet slapped loudly on the floor, clapping against the cold, hard wood with every stride. He received frustrated stares from Eddie and worried glances from Malcolm, but none of them said anything.
They stopped at the end of the hallway. A sound even more disturbing than the sound of Darren’s feet screeched into their ears and turned their blood cold. It was a hot and cutting scream, of someone in unbearable torment, someone not long for this world.
Darren felt the cold seep through his naked toes, felt it crawl up the backs of his legs, up his spine, and into the deepest recesses of his mind. It was like nothing he had ever heard, like nothing he had ever felt.
“Holy fuck,” he said slowly, feeling his jaw hang open of its own accord. He turned to Malcolm and saw the look of reciprocated horror on his friend’s face. That made things worse. Malcolm was the cool one, the calm one, the one he looked up to, and the one whose sanity and reassurances he sought. There was nothing reassuring on his face now, and, as the scream ripped another hole in the silence, Malcom’s sanity looked like it was trying to flee.
Eddie had turned white. The black hollows of his eyes looked stark against his pallid skin and his red hair. Darren saw the opportunity for a joke but his fear, and the continuing scream, stopped him.
When the inhuman screech died away, it left a resonance in the hallway, a feeling that clung to the walls and the air like a toxic plume.
Malcolm wanted to speak, to tell his friends that whatever was making the noises through the door ahead, was worse than what was behind them. He was going to tell them to go back the way they came, back into the clutches of Little and Large, the brawling idiots who were sure to be on their tail, but he knew they couldn’t go back.
He moved towards the door and reached out, just as another scream rocked the hallway, this one was softer, heavier; the voice was fading, giving up. He closed his eyes, forced the mental images away and reached for the handle with a trembling arm, twitching an anxious tic when he felt the cold steel brush against his fingertip.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Darren said, stepping forward. He pulled his friend away from the door, his hand pressed weakly into the soft flesh above his shoulder. “We can’t go in there.”
Malcolm looked at his friend and then back down the hallway. The door had been blown open a touch and a sliver of light shined through the gap.
“We can’t go back there.” Malcolm said.
Darren released his grip and turned towards the end of the hallway. He ran a hand through his hair, looked around with apprehension. “You’re fucking kidding me,” he said, shaking his head. “What the hell is going on here?”
“It’s fucked up whatever it is,” Eddie said.
“This doesn’t look like no rehab place to me,” Darren noted with a trembling voice.
Eddie shrugged and turned away.
“You think they’re on drugs or some shit?” Darren asked.
Malcolm raised his eyebrows.
“Well, what else could it be?” Darren begged to know. “You think they’re robbing the place?”
“Wearing dressing gowns and white robes?” Eddie wondered. “You think they’re being robbed by the fucking sandman?”
“Well, what’s your fucking answer then, smart-ass?” Darren snapped.
“I don’t—”
“—Will you two shut the fuck up!” Malcolm said, stepping between them to silence them. “It doesn’t matter what it is or who the fuck they are, what matters is that they just killed a security guard and they’re probably gonna do the same to us.”
His harshly whispered words shuddered the hallway into silence. Darren hung his head; Eddie shook his slowly.
“Check your phones,” he said.
“Why?” Eddie wanted to know. “We can’t phone for help. We came to rob the place, they’ll arrest us.”
“I’d rather be arrested than dead,” Malcolm said. He pulled out his phone, stared at the screen and shook his head. “No signal.”
“Same here,” Darren said, looking towards Eddie who didn’t seem as deflated as the other two. “This literally is the middle of fucking nowhere you’ve brought us to.”
Eddie shrugged.
“So, what do we do?” Darren asked eventually.
Malcolm didn’t answer him. Instead he turned back to the door, composed himself again and pushed it open. As soon as he took a step inside, with Darren treading his naked feet behind and Eddie languishing further back, the screaming started again.
19
The corridor stretched out ahead of them with an ominous shine of buzzing lights. At the end of the corridor, before it branched off, the lights struggled to ignite, flickering with a sporadic laziness, illuminating, and shadowing the final stretch intermittently.
Malcolm was the first to enter, the first to feel the force of the screaming as it punctured his ears and reverberated through his skull; the first to smell and taste the stench of putrefaction that hung in the air like a morbid cloud. The hallway was lit, bright, and headache inducing, an overpowering light he had always associated with the sterile environment of hospitals, but this was far from sterile. The floor underfoot stuck to his shoes, as if he was walking on a thin layer of honey. He felt it resist against the soles of his trainers but he didn’t want to look down. He didn’t need to glance at his feet to know he was treading in congealed blood.
He turned around and prepared to warn his shoeless friend who was still coated with the blood of the security guard, but when Darren stepped into the corridor, the blood underfoot that seeped through the gaps in his toes was the last thing on his mind.
The scream was fading; a faint whisper of its former self, but it coincided with a loud bang, one that vibrated through to where the three teenagers stood. They all looked ahead, towards the source of the noise.
To their left and right were corridors that stretched into the blackness, ahead and to their right was a door, it was shut but they could see the light from inside and could see the shifting shadows that obscured it.
A sheet of smeared Plexiglass covered the wall to their right, just bey
ond the door. There was little crawl space below for the teenagers to slip by unnoticed, but the curtains had been drawn on the other side, exposing a slit of light in the center where the two sides of blue and white striped material struggled to meet.
The corridor ahead of them was flanked with doors, all leading to rooms with similar windows and equally gaudy curtains. From what they could see, despite the lights above and the noise in the room to their right, all the other rooms were empty.
“Please, please, don’t do this.”
The teenagers exchanged glances when they heard the startled, strangled plea. It sounded harsh, tired; croaked out of lungs that had all but given up. Darren felt his heart quicken, felt a stab of fear rising inside of him. Something was telling him to run, to flee immediately. It didn’t matter about his friends, didn’t matter about the horrors behind him or the potential doom ahead, his body was working on a primal instinct and that instinct was begging him to run.
He restrained himself. His legs twitched violently, as if trying to break free from the rigid embrace they shared with the floor.
Malcolm was the first to move forward, heading for the room ahead, from which poured a melee of noise and fear. The other two eyed up the corridors to their right and left, preparing to flee.
He didn’t know why he needed to see what was going on, he could make a good assumption that something terrible was happening to someone inside that room and he didn’t need verification, but something moved him forward. He pinned himself up against the wall, keeping to the side of the door, out of view of the smeared glass. He could hear heavy breathing coming from two people inside the room, one was harsh, curdled, tired, and pained; the other was out of breath probably from exertion, but mostly sounding giddy. It sounded like the wheezing, excitable breath of a hyperactive child.
He heard mumbled voices and heard the excitable one talking, but he couldn’t make anything out. The pained one replied, softly at first and then with a throat warbling scream, but his words were distorted and sounded like they were traveling through water.
