by David Jester
It turned another corner, passed through a door at the back of the room and entered a small staircase. Eddie followed it all the way, his footsteps steady, not wanting to race and attack in case that was just what it was waiting for.
The staircase was cold but it was brighter there. The stairs didn’t go down, just up on a spiraling, narrow path. Small bulbs, encased in cylindrical plastic fixtures and rooted to the ceiling, lit the gray walls and strangely moist concrete steps.
He gripped the knife harder, ascended the first flight of stairs and then stopped. His feet made heavy echoes with every footfall, and the stairs seemed to go on and on, right to the upper echelons of the building, probably into an attic space. Yet he couldn’t hear the footsteps of the man who had gone before him, nor had he heard them when he entered, when the thing that he chased should have been beginning its ascent.
He strained to hear anything in the silence. He didn’t hear footsteps, but he did hear breathing. It was weak, as weak as the lights that illuminated him from above, but it was audible. It was a slow breath, one that wheezed on its culmination; a high-pitched, extended whistle that faded before the next exhalation began.
He took two more steps, strained his head to see upwards, towards the next flight that awaited him around the corner. He couldn’t see anyone there, but the noise continued.
An inhalation. A whistle. An exhalation.
He reached the landing, turned towards the next flight and strained to see higher. There were at least two more flights. He didn’t know where they were taking him, but he was confident of facing whatever awaited him. He gripped the railing and pulled his hand away in surprise when he touched ice cold metal.
The noise continued. The struggling breath sucked, squeezed, and released before repeating.
Eddie climbed upwards, taking each step one at a time, keeping the knife tight in his fist, so tight that it turned his flesh white.
He climbed the steps slowly, made it to the next landing and then stopped, holding the knife out before him, ready to attack.
A figure sat slumped in the corner, slouched in the shadows provided by the base of the bannister. It continued to breathe; its lungs continued to fight through the motion, continued to whistle as it inhaled.
“You!” Eddie said. “What are you?”
It said something that he couldn’t understand. Its voice was weak and fading by the second.
“Why have you been running from me, what are you hiding?”
It grated and hissed a few words, its voice strangled.
“Are you hiding here, waiting for me?” Eddie wanted to know.
It said something in reply but none of the words made it through to him.
“What are you?” he asked.
Eddie leant forward for a closer look. It was a man, probably in his thirties. He was injured and he looked tired. No doubt from the running, Eddie reasoned. He saw a darkness in his eyes, an evil that lurked behind the white and speckled red. He was grinning sadistically, his lips curled into a sinister smile. He was mocking him, laughing at him.
“What’s so fucking funny?” Eddie said.
“You,” he said with a short laugh, his voice now steady and able. “Standing there with the knife, all paranoid and shit. You look a right fucking picture.”
“What do you mean?”
“You fit the profile,” he explained, dragging himself to his feet, sniggering as Eddie took a step backwards.
“Profile? What profile?” Eddie asked.
He laughed, a deep laugh that stirred up something hateful in Eddie.
“The sad, little paranoid ginger boy with no friends and—”
“I have friends.”
“Really?” he moved towards him, he looked unsteady on his feet but his eyes and his face suggested he knew what he was doing. He was grinning, leering. “Where are they?”
Eddie didn’t reply. He looked around as if to search for his lost friends.
“Exactly.” He laughed. He reached out with a trembling hand, tried to rest to on Eddie’s shoulder, but he batted it away. “They left you. They don’t like you. No one likes a ginger.”
Eddie’s eyes flared. He stepped forward and shoved him back with all his strength. He toppled over and fell backwards onto the railing, the back of his skull clattering the cold, metal banister before bouncing to the floor. He didn’t move and there was a good chance the impact had killed him, but Eddie didn’t contemplate that possibility, nor did he care. He was fuming, his eyes seeing only what his anger wanted them to see. He jumped on him, pinned his body to the floor. He then drove the knife into his chest.
Eddie relished in the sound it made as it cut through skin, crushed bone, and penetrated muscle and organs. He pulled it out, wiped a tear of perspiration from his forehead and a spot of spittle from his mouth.
Then he stabbed him again, and again. He didn’t stop until his anger was satisfied, by which time a pool of blood had formed underneath the body and was dripping down the cold staircase, turning it from a drab gray into a deep red.
Malcolm didn’t know where the voice was coming from, but his attentions turned to the ravaged corpses. To each of the mutilated men and women that lay scattered around the room like the offcuts at an abattoir. None of them were capable of talking; none of them were capable of breathing. They were all dead and judging by the smell, they had been dead for hours.
He looked at the woman in the corner, the one sitting in front of television. She was staring at him when he turned to her, her eyes wide open and waiting for him. He was sure she hadn’t been looking at him before.
He thought about asking a question, asking if she had spoken to him, but he was still convinced she was dead.
Then she spoke again. He saw her lips move softly, saw the thin slits of near-purple open and close to repeat her barely audible words.
“Who are you?”
“I—I.” He hesitated and shook his head, not believing what he was seeing.
Her head moved, a low and painful twitch. She seemed to smile, as if enjoying the horror on his face. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said, cracking a pained smile.
Malcolm nodded. She was wearing a blue tabard. Her name on a small plate stitched in the upper right corner above her breast, which seemed to fold over her body as she leaned forward in the chair. She looked like she was preparing to whisper something to him despite him being on the other side of the room. She said something, but she lost her voice halfway through and he didn’t hear anything. He edged forward, careful where he trod.
She didn’t look a day over thirty, although it was hard to tell through her pallid skin, blue lips, and the gaunt look of death that had been etched across her face. She was smiling, it was a strange smile, a smile of agony, of acceptance; a smile from someone who has been through hell and has nothing left to fear.
She spoke again but he still didn’t hear. She leaned back; her movements were so slow and painful that he thought the movement would finish her off. He moved to within two feet of her and stopped, he didn’t want to go any further.
“Can I help you?” he asked, already knowing the answer and praying that she did too.
She shook her head, a movement that seemed to take the better part of a minute.
“What are you doing here?” she croaked, straining to look him in the eye, the curious smile still on her face.
“I came here to rob the place,” he told her.
She laughed and then silenced herself quickly, grimacing and sucking in a fast breath.
“How’s that going for you?”
“Not very well.”
She nodded.
“What is this place?” he asked, glancing around, noting something disturbing lying by her feet. He had seen it before and couldn’t quite believe it then. Now he was close enough to see it in detail and he knew that the image and this conversation would be forever burned into his memory.
She looked into his eyes, allowed the smile to slowly
fade from her face.
“You . . . don’t know?” she spoke slower, softer than before.
He crept forward, still keen to keep his distance. He didn’t want to go near her, didn’t want to edge too close to what lay at her feet. He shook his head.
“Psy . . . chia . . . tric Hos . . . pit . . . al,” she staggered.
He nodded, half to himself. He had already guessed as much—the patients, the staff, the clothes, the rooms. It certainly looked nothing like the plush drug rehabilitation center they had been expecting.
“But, what’s going on? Who did all this?” he looked around, gesturing to the mess of dead bodies. “Are these all staff?”
She shook her head slowly. “Not . . . all. Most.”
“Have they gone nuts . . .” he paused and corrected himself. “Why are they doing this? What’s wrong with them?”
“Not their fault . . . he did this.” She coughed, a feeble, weak, wet cough. “We never . . . had . . . a chance.”
“Who’s he?” Malcolm asked. “Who did this?”
She looked into his eyes again. The smile had now completely gone from her face and was replaced with a look of contentment, a look of nothingness. He waited for her to answer, waited to hear her staggered voice again.
She didn’t say anything.
He thought about checking her pulse, seeing if she was dead or if he could help her, but he knew in his heart that even if she wasn’t dead, there was nothing he could do to help her.
He gave her corpse a sympathetic, pitying look and then he turned away, hoping to erase her image from his mind, to forget about the softly spoken woman with the gaping wound in her stomach. He wanted to forget because he knew why they had mutilated her that way, he knew why they had hacked open her abdomen and dug out the insides, and he knew that the fleshy, bloody mass that lay on the floor at her feet, wasn’t one of her organs or part of her flesh, it was something that had been part of her for several months, something that would have been part of the rest of her life but now wouldn’t see the light of day.
He struggled to fight his emotions, to hide his heartbreak and anger. He didn’t know what would possess someone to do something so vile, but he knew that he wanted them to suffer as much as they had made her suffer.
25
Darren cringed when the first punch was thrown, when the sound of fist meeting flesh and bone sucked a hole in the air and sent a shockwave through the room.
The man in the cartoon pajamas rocked backwards, raising his hands to his face. He held his balance and stopped himself from falling over, but he was disoriented. Rat Face moved forward after throwing the punch, after breaking the silent staring contest that had seemed to go on forever. When Cartoon Pajamas stumbled under the impact of his knuckles, the rat-faced man hit him with a succession of quick jabs and then put all of his effort—twisting his body and throwing his back—into a right hook.
Through hazy vision and a struggling disbelief that the fight had started and he was already on the losing side, Cartoon Pajamas managed to anticipate the slow and heavy punch enough to duck out of the way. The fist glanced him on the nose, the knuckles grazing the fleshy nib, but the full force of the punch missed him. The wild punch caused Rat Face to lose his balance, to stumble forward, following through on his own attack, at which point Cartoon Pajamas sensed his opportunity and tackled his adversary to the ground.
They hit with force, Rat Face’s upper back hit the floor first and took the strain of two brawling bodies against one hard floor. He grunted, lost his breath, his voice, and his advantage in one fell swoop. Cartoon Pajamas kneed, punched, grappled, clawed, and kicked like an angry dog, staying tight on top of his foe and doing his best to keep his aggressor’s limbs from returning any of attacks.
Darren grimaced, hearing the punches and the kicks, almost feeling the sharp knee that Cartoon Pajamas drove into Rat Face’s groin, an attack that caused him to emit a high pitched squeal.
“I’m gonna fucking kill you!” Cartoon Pajamas said, frothing at the mouth, struggling to control his stamina as his movements slowed and softened. Rat Face took everything that was thrown at him and looked like he had taken all he could take. He was protecting his face with his arms and his hands but his rodent-features had still suffered several blows and severe swelling, with cuts on his lips, his nose, and across his cheek.
“He’s mine!” Cartoon Pajamas hissed breathlessly. “I told you to—”
He stopped. He was in the process of throwing a punch towards his adversary’s protected face, when he heard a noise that attracted his attention. He paused, his hand hovering in the air.
Rat Face slowly peeled his hands from his face, looked first to the fist above him and then toward the doorway.
Darren hadn’t heard it at first; he had been too caught up in the fight, in the sights of violence and the huffing, puffing, squealing, humping sounds that accompanied it. He heard it now though. He heard the footsteps, heavy, bouncing footsteps, as if someone was running, taking great leaping strides. He also heard the laughing; a stuttering, bone chilling laugh, not quite despair, not quite happiness, something much more sinister and much more complex.
The noise increased. With every footfall that echoed thickly through the corridor and into the room, the laughing grew in volume and intensity.
Darren wondered who else was going to join the violence, who else was willing to fight so they could torture and kill him. He didn’t like the look of Rat Face, didn’t like that fact that he was so quick to anger and seemed to take an instant and deep dislike to him; he also didn’t like what Cartoon Pajamas had done to the last guy who had been in the chair where he now found himself, nor did he like the sinister look in his eyes, but, as he listened to the quickening footsteps and the loud, sickening laughter getting closer and closer, he expected that he would like the new guy even less.
“It’s him,” Rat Face said, sounding scared, his voice breaking. A small bubble of blood ballooned when he spoke and popped when he closed his mouth.
Cartoon Pajamas nodded and looked around, horrified.
“We’ve disobeyed him,” Rat Face said. “He’s set his fucking lap dog on us, he’s going to—”
“Fuck off!” Cartoon Pajamas said, finishing the punch he had been threatening for the last few seconds. He stood up quickly, looked from Rat Face to the door and then back again.
Darren also turned to look at the door, just as a behemoth of a man skidded to a halt in the doorway. He looked just an inch or two shy of seven-feet tall. He had a tire of fat wrapped around his waist, his cheeks filled like the pouches of a hungry hamster—but that fat concealed a lot of muscle and he was as broad and as strong as he was tall. He had a short crop of hair that had been gelled to a point at the front, and a simple but bright smile that spoke of gleefulness, idiocy, and outright insanity.
He was wearing a white coat, the sort worn by doctors, but underneath he seemed to be wearing striped pajamas.
“I’m sorry,” Cartoon Pajamas said, stepping slowly away from the big man in the doorway. “What are you—”
“He isn’t yours,” the newcomer said. His voice wasn’t the booming, powerful voice that Darren had expected; it was soft, timid, almost a squeak, and it culminated with a giggle.
Darren wondered just what the hell was going on, who the man in the doorway was and why the others seemed so afraid of him when he looked like he wouldn’t hurt a fly.
“I’m just having a little—” Cartoon Pajamas tried to speak, to defend himself and his actions, but the big idiot in the doorway interrupted him again.
“This is wrong. The doctor told you to leave him alone.”
“I know but—”
“The doctor said to leave him alone,” he repeated, his voice still timid, still weak and pitiful, yet Carton Pajamas seemed to be scared of it. He looked like he was trembling and Darren noticed him glancing around, looking for an escape route or a weapon. Rat Face was still on the floor in a daze. He made no attem
pt to get up, perhaps thinking that if he lay still and silent, he wouldn’t be seen.
Cartoon Pajamas charged at the big man. The action was quick and unexpected. He didn’t make a noise as he ran, didn’t announce his intentions with a war cry or even an alteration in his breath, he just sprang from his standing position, head down, and charged straight at the behemoth in the doorway. He had a knife in his hand, Darren hadn’t seen him pick it up, hadn’t seen him retrieve it. He held it forward like a phalanx, hoping to puncture his foe, but the small knife looked feeble against such a mountain of a man.
The big man knocked the knife away with a brush of his hand, swatting a fly. He took the tackle without a change in his expression. His torso sucked inwards under the impact and he moved backwards an inch or two as Cartoon Pajamas pushed with all his might to clear some room and to give himself the same advantage he had enjoyed over Rat Face. But he was tired and he was much weaker than the big man.
The behemoth put his hands on Cartoon Pajamas’ neck and pushed down. He fell straight to the floor, face-first. Darren heard the crunch as teeth chipped and bone broke, he heard the groan, and watched as Cartoon Pajamas tried to lift his face from the floor, right before the behemoth planted a firm foot on the back of his head and held him there, keeping his face against the cold, hard floor.
Darren watched the big man’s face and never saw his expression change. He was looking at Rat Face now, who was still trying to look inconspicuous on the floor. He studied him as he forced his weight onto his foot, crushing Cartoon Pajamas’ skull between the heel of his boot and the hard floor.
Darren sucked in a lungful of air, felt every last hint of warmth leave his body and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Cartoon Pajamas stopped squirming, stopped moaning; a pool of blood began to spread out from around his head. Darren felt sick, he turned his head away; there was already one dead man in the room, already one sickening image he didn’t want to see.
He watched the behemoth walk calmly over to Rat Face. Rat Face immediately realized he had been seen and that his poor attempt at playing injured hadn’t worked. He tried to reason with the behemoth, as Cartoon Pajamas had done, but he wasn’t interested. He picked Rat Face up by the hair, as if plucking up a kitten by the scruff of the neck. He planted him on the ground and wrapped an arm around his neck and face. Rat Face continued to moan, to beg for his life, but the behemoth wasn’t listening and, in one quick movement that ushered a sickening echo and made Darren gag, he snapped Rat Face’s neck.
