Unable to see anything, Codie willed his eyes to stay open, because Kristen was there in the abyss, her face adorned with a radiant smile.
She would always be with him.
Rubble shifted, as though someone had sat by his side.
The touch of a small palm draped over his knuckles, and Codie smiled.
Cold fingers curled around his hand, and held him tight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
He stalked with purpose through the asylum halls just as his grandfather had done before him. The sense of importance and dominance must have been awesome, the old professor revelling in the fear of his patients. Just as Alex revelled in the fear he had created.
There hadn’t been much terror in Julian’s eyes, mainly disbelief and bewilderment, but he’d basked in it just the same. He had placed his hands around Julian’s throat and marvelled at the warmth in his blood as it pumped from the wound. The heat had meant life, and for a short while Alex had it in the palm of his hands. He’d used the mess to decorate the wall leading to the chapel, deposited some on the stairs, pleased that Codie had picked up on the trail. Things hadn’t gone entirely according to plan, unfortunately, but one had to make do with the best of whatever situation one faced. Codie’s realization that death was creeping through the darkness to claim him had been a marvellous thing to witness.
The expression on a man’s face when they were about to die would be something Alex would never get tired of seeing. He wondered if women looked just as terrified. Kristen would probably look even more beautiful when overcome by a suffocating fear.
He called out to her, softly, his tone full of comfort and friendship. She wouldn’t believe his sincerity, which was half of the fun. The hunt was sweeter than the kill—that’s why cats played with mice before slaughtering them.
He paused at a broad window and gazed out onto the island’s expansive lawn. The thunderstorm’s ferocity had lessened, allowing morning’s light to push aside total darkness. The rain had eased off since the last time he’d looked outside.
“Kristen! Come on, sweetheart, I only want to talk to you.”
The only answer came from the wind screaming at old glass inside the windows. Her mind must be totally gone now. She should be running back to meet him, begging him to drive the orbitoclast deep in her brain and ease her tumult of crazy emotions. If anybody needed the calming effects of a lobotomy it was Kristen Hughes. Having been through so much, and lost so much, in such a short time span, he wasn’t surprised by the rapid decline in her mental state.
He could empathise with her, Alex knew what it was like to lose. The love of his parents had been lost to him at an early age; he’d never understood why their marriage had failed, or why his father needed to leave them, but it’d been his fault. His parents had never told him as much, but he knew. Mother turned her back on him and went instead into the arms of many different men who tried to comfort her. They ignored him, for the most part, but some of them were mean to him: the boy from her other life who had no right to be in theirs. Those who were mean to him would push him to the floor; some would kick him while he lay there. Others would touch him in ways a man should never touch a child, in places where no one should be allowed to touch. Mother didn’t do a thing to help, not even when he told her what the men were doing—she would drink from her bottle and tell him to stop making up stories. She told him to stop imagining these things because it would mess with his mind.
The mind.
Alex became fascinated with it, all the things it was capable of achieving. He loved how his mind gave him anything he wanted, be it an imaginary friend or a trip to another country. How it showed him all the men who had touched him; displayed them with mutilated genitals and throats sliced open. He loved how it showed his mother’s face growing a deeper shade of blue as his fingers closed around her neck and squeezed the unkind life from her wretched body. His mind would show him all the women he fantasized about in glorious beauty, offering him a taste of what he might one day see for real if they allowed him to undress them. It showed him their terror and despair as they cowered in the corner of a dark basement when he enacted his revenge for how they rejected him.
It had been great to see what he could do, but he’d never once acted on what his mind had the power to show him. Until now: until he’d discovered his legacy by chance and the inheritance denied to him. He’d acted only when he’d discovered his true purpose in life and how he needed to control the minds of others, so that they couldn’t control the bodies of people like him.
The island outside the windows gusted and swirled; inside the walls it remained eerily quiet. She wouldn’t have gone outside; there was nowhere to hide out there. The row boat provided a lure, some form of sanctuary—her mind might be so far gone she’d convince herself she could swim the strait—but he expected her to be hiding somewhere in the building. He’d been sure she wouldn’t leave Codie, but maybe her love for him wasn’t as strong as he’d first thought. She’d bailed on her boyfriend, for all the good it did. Kristen could run all she wanted; she wouldn’t be leaving the island.
It would be good to have some fun though. He’d seen plenty of horror movies where the victims were stalked continuously, at no time truly knowing where the predator would strike next. He’d like to play that game, and Kristen would be perfect for it.
But he couldn’t lose her, not now she was his only subject left.
“Oh, Kristen.” He kept his voice soft and calming, hoping she didn’t recognize the teasing nature of his taunt. His heart hammered an excited rhythm. This was the best part of the weekend.
The heavens hadn’t erupted in a while, but he didn’t need lightning to pick his way through the asylum. The torch he carried contained a strong battery and it provided ample light. A floor below, all their gear remained where they’d left it. He’d dispose of it later; bury it in the lawn, or in one of the island’s secluded coves. As to his friends—as if they really were ever his friends—their bodies would end up tumbling over the cliffs at the island’s northern end. There were enough corpses there, a few more wouldn’t matter.
Alex hurried along the corridor.
“Kristen,” he called again, hoping his voice would carry down the hall to meet her. “Don’t be shy.”
An arm came from the darkness; only a flash of movement in his light. The abruptness of its appearance shocked him, the speed too quick for him to react. He saw a large slab of brick protruding from the clenched fist in the moment prior to it slamming into his face.
The blow caught him above the eye, sending an explosion of hot pain surging over his scalp. Agony ballooned in his nose, vibrated through his teeth. His skin split along the brow, dust from the rock spilling into his vision. He cried out, and collapsed backwards. A scream of anger had accompanied the hit, its sound distinctly female, and—as he sprawled on the hallway floor—he admired Kristen for the way she’d surprised him. He decided he’d kill her slower because of it.
She emerged from the room, her face twisted by rage. Bringing back her arm she hurled the rock at him, and it thudded into the floor inches from his head. Within a second she was upon him, her weight pinning his hips to the dirt. Screaming, she lashed out with her bare hands, landing blows to the side of his face, punches that barely registered. Alex loved the way she straddled his torso, the act of getting as much power into her hits as possible making her waist bounce over his groin. He moved his head from side to side, absorbing the blows, more concerned about the amount of blood dribbling from the huge cut above his eye. A dull throb pulsed in his brain, stemming from having a rock cracked into his skull, but Kristen’s punches weren’t helping. She started to find her mark, smacking him in the face, and the stimulating nature of their position disappeared under a rising froth of annoyance.
With a quick jab he slammed his fist under her ribs and Kristen’s breath vacated in a loud whoosh. She curled over, her weight lifting from his body. Alex lashed out once more, smacking his clenched fist into the side of
her head.
She rolled off him, fighting to draw in a gasping breath, hands clamped to her side. Moving the other way, Alex scrambled out from under her legs. Using his upper arm to wipe at the wound on his temple, he swept away a large flow of blood. Pain gushed from the cut, focusing his anger and hatred. And he hated her: had always detested Kristen Hughes, and every other pretty girl who thought themselves above him and not worthy of his attention. One day he’d show them all how insignificant they were compared to him—he’d start with this pathetic creature curled at his feet.
“You fucking bitch,” he whispered.
He stood over her; let the torch light drop to display her as she cowered in the grime and dirt like a beaten dog. What the hell did anyone see in her? She reeked of self-importance, only ever caring about how she looked or what brand of perfume she wore. Kristen rolled slowly onto her back, trying to regain her breath. She’d tucked her legs into her belly, fighting to dispel the agony from his punch. She looked a mess, and he’d always known she’d be this way.
Her leg jerked out and up.
The heel of her boot slammed into his groin, squashing his testicles into his crotch. The kick lifted him off the ground, a sickening pain crashing through his gut, spilling down his legs. Alex buckled again, bringing his hands to his balls. On his knees, he retched against the wall, unable to bring anything up. Agony spiralled into his core, sucking loathing into its vortex. Fury ignited harder inside him, exploding through his emotions with as much intensity as the storm outside.
He opened his eyes and glanced ahead. The torch lay on the floor, but it pointed towards Kristen as she crawled on hands and knees, desperate to flee. Ignoring the raw discomfort in his groin, Alex pushed away from the wall.
“Come here, you whore!”
He reached her, and hooked his fingers into the waistband of her sweatpants. When he yanked her back, she gave little resistance as she sprawled onto the coating of stones and dust. As he crawled up her legs, Alex thrust his hands under her torso and pulled hard, flipping her onto her back. She squealed in fright and desperately lashed out with clenched fists. Using his forearms to ward off the blows, he slapped her hard across the jaw. A whimper pressed through her lips, the momentary lull in her anxious retaliation allowing him to close his hands around her neck.
He pressed down, squeezing his fingers together, his breath coming in harsh gasps of excitement. Kristen’s hands clamped around his forearms and tried to shift the weight from her throat. Hooking his feet over her legs to stop her struggles, he squeezed harder. One of her hands came up to his face, fingers searching for his eyes, but he looked away. It didn’t hurt when she grabbed a handful of hair and pulled. Defeated, her hand returned to his wrists, her attempts to prise his hands free becoming weaker.
The torch’s beam reached her face, and in the soft glare he noticed her eyeballs turning up in their sockets. The fight faded from her, withdrawing to where her breath lay trapped inside her lungs. The pain she’d inflicted upon him drifted from his memory, and Alex focused on her flickering eyelids as death made its way through the darkness to claim her.
Masonry shifted in the hallway, somewhere behind him. He ignored it; just the storm’s hard wind probably, finding a lesion in the old building to disturb some grains. A voice rippled on air down the corridor, from the passage ahead.
Alex snapped his head up, searching the gloom. Codie, perhaps? Had he not yet died and was making one last desperate attempt to find her?
Just beyond Kristen’s failing body, at the dim edge of light thrown down by the flashlight, a mound of stone and dirt bulged outwards. A weathered crown of ashen bone emerged from the filth, light sinking into the deep holes of eyeless sockets. As if liquid, debris rippled away from the cranium, grains of dirt spilling from exposed nasal openings. Its fractured jaw hung open, teeth jolting loose from the bone. His grip slackened on Kristen’s neck, breath catching in his throat. He stared at the skull, transfixed in shock as it rose from the hall floor.
Blood trickled down his cheek.
It coated the side of his face in a chilled sheen, and it took him only a moment to realize the blood shouldn’t be cold. It shouldn’t be on the opposite side of his face from the injury, either. The blood shouldn’t be sliding into his mouth, leaving behind no taste; shouldn’t be pushing through his hair to pull it into clumps.
Anger gave way to a rising dread.
Ahead, a body scrambled through the grimy floor, pushed up by wasted hands coated with stringy muscle and loose skin. Slithering at the edge of the torch light, figures detached from the shadows, the hall echoing with haunting moans. Outside, the rain continued to pepper the island, but Alex thought the sound of tapping on the windows came from something more ethereal.
A cold wetness glided over his face, digging into his nostrils, dragging his head back. A dark shape curled down from the ceiling, the blackened silhouette dripping like thick lines of blood from the floor above. The outline morphed into a figure, humanlike, appendages lengthening from its mass to form hands reaching for him through the darkness.
Alex screamed; his voice echoing in the enclosed space. Fingers gouged at his eyes. Obscurity wrapped around his face: not the concealing cloak of blindness but the searching extremities of spectral hands.
Finally, his fingers left Kristen’s neck and the weight of countless spirits hauled him backwards. Alex cried out, begging for them to stop, knew his demands wouldn’t be answered. He heard Kristen suck in a desperate gasp of air.
On his back, he forced his gaze to her, watching as she struggled to her feet. She screamed in terror, her stare not focused on him but on shadows flowing over the wall; fixated on the corpse clambering from the floorboards. Kicking out, she evaded the grasp of a skeletal hand and staggered down the hallway, vanishing into the dark.
“No, Kristen!” Alex screamed, his voice distorted by phantom fingers curled around his tongue. “Don’t leave me. Please save me!”
The light faded, died out under the weight of shadow figures swarming over his kicking form. His back scraped along the hallway’s floor, small stones and rubble digging painfully into his shoulders. He thrashed, fought against their clutching hands—winced as spearing shards of pain burst through his flesh when their nails scratched at his skin.
This can’t be happening! They’re not real; ghosts aren’t real.
Alex’s screams mingled with their hungry moans.
And they dragged him into the darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The hallway stretched ahead of her, deep with shadow and littered with debris. She ran as fast as she could, but had to pick her steps carefully for fear she’d twist an ankle. If she stumbled now and became lame, then the asylum would claim her.
Her breath came in ragged gasps, the agony in her side from Alex’s punch restricting her breathing. A deep ache settled heavy in her throat where his murderous hands had gripped her. It hurt to swallow, but she figured it was better than being dead. They’d allowed a killer to come to the island with them, and everything had spiralled violently out of control. When he’d called her name earlier, telling her that he wouldn’t hurt her, that all he wanted was for her to be close to Codie because he needed her now more than ever, she’d almost stopped and gone to him. Codie did need her now more than ever, and she wanted nothing more than to sit with him and hold him tight. But Alex was a liar, he would hurt her, and so she’d kept going.
She hadn’t even stopped at the second floor when a lightning flash revealed a small girl in a tatty nightdress sitting in rubble scratching figures in the dirt.
The ghosts had become just another part of this nightmare, and not even the most frightening part of it. What scared her more was not seeing Codie again, never being able to feel his touch against her skin. The thought had crippled her, made her stop, and Kristen had almost succumbed. After all, what point would there be to carry on without Codie? What had she to look forward to? An abusive mother and a lifetime of haunting
dreams—she doubted she’d have anything more to do with Codie’s family, either, because everything about them would remind her of him. Only, when she’d turned around to go to Codie’s side, she didn’t feel ready to die. All she found was the urge to continue, to survive; to not let this maniac she’d once called a friend win the battle. She’d told herself to stand and fight.
And she would have lost, had the asylum’s dead not come from the shadows.
A cough erupted up her throat, bringing pain into her bruised skin.
She continued to hold the torch in her grasp, although its light had all but died. Its beam was strangled by the darkness until the shadows claimed it. But she held fast to its solid body, the feel of it giving her some comfort should she need a weapon.
A shard of masonry dug into the sole of her shoe and she stumbled. With a squeal she reached out to the wall, halting her fall. A dull throb floated through her ankle but thankfully she hadn’t twisted her foot. Pushing away into the centre of the corridor, Kristen pulled her cell phone from her pants pocket and activated the flashlight application. She cursed, having wasted valuable seconds trying to find herself more light.
Kristen quickened her pace.
Movement fluttered in her periphery vision: shadows spilling from an open doorway, darkness rolling over itself like liquid. In the shaking light from her mobile phone she saw crooked fingers, black as the night, clawing at flaking paintwork. The darkness behaved how she’d witnessed upstairs in the operating theatre; as if the building was unleashing all the blackened tortured souls of this island’s existence.
With a cry she hurried down the hallway, anxious to get to the open space of the expansive lobby.
Halfway along the corridor her light picked out the shape of an emaciated man, sitting against the wall. The colour had faded from his old dressing gown, the material pockmarked with the holes of time. The man’s mouth hung open, in a gape she assumed to be a call for help, until she realized the jaw had detached from the head, only a sliver of putrefied skin holding it in place. A skeletal hand reached out to her, fingers clutching at the air. Kristen shrieked, leaped to one side to avoid his reach, and smacked her shoulder into the opposite wall. Her sweater pulled tight around her shoulders, blackened fingers hooking into the garment, brushing in cold strokes across her face.
Highland Cove Page 16
