The room she stepped into was dim, three rows of seating arranged like a movie theater on a steep slope facing a bright room behind wire-frame glass. A door opened to the operating theater at the far end, with stairs leading down.
She took another cautious step inside until she could see the operating room below. Everything was bathed in bright white light. Leonard stood over a gurney, holding a scalpel. He wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, the same pair Dr. Hammersmith wore in the photographs. Allison lay on the gurney. She appeared to be immobile but awake, her eyes wide in terror.
A tray of surgical instruments lay between them. Leonard leaned over her, removing a white facemask from Allison's mouth and nose and stooping to turn off the gas tank at the foot of the gurney. He daubed sweat from his forehead with the bloody tissue, said something Lilian couldn't hear and cocked an ear toward his victim's face as if to listen for a response he clearly wouldn't get.
Allison's eyes bulged as his face neared hers. The doctor rose again and smiled, seemingly pleased.
Neither seemed to notice Lilian and the others had entered the theater. Lilian guessed it would be difficult to see up here with the difference in light, which gave the three of them the advantage of surprise. But it would be difficult to get down into the operating room without alerting Dr. Death.
"I'm gonna head for the door," Niko whispered. "When I get there, you two distract him."
That might work, Lilian thought. She and Ben nodded and Niko began creeping around low, keeping as much in the shadows as his massive frame would allow. Lilian stayed back with Ben, watching and waiting for their cue.
Dr. Death reached for Allison with the scalpel. Lilian saw her therapist's eyes follow the blade, which shimmered under the hot lights. Allison squeezed her eyes shut as he jabbed the blade into her shoulder.
"Did you feel that?" the doctor asked in Leonard's voice. Allison blinked hard but didn't reply as a rivulet of blood trickled down her arm. "No, I don't suspect you did. I've injected you with what's called 'twilight sleep,' a wonderful concoction of morphine and scopolamine. It's most often used for childbirth but I find it makes my patients quite… pliable."
Leonard placed the scalpel on the tray and picked up what looked like an antique hand blender. He held it out for Allison to see. "As a student of medicine, I'm sure you're familiar with this instrument."
Tears spilled from Allison's eyes, shimmering in the light of the surgical lamp. Unable to move, unable to speak, she blinked hard once.
"What is that?" Lilian asked Ben.
"A bone saw," he said. "We have to stop him."
"Not yet." Lilian pointed toward Niko, whose shadowy form approached the door on the opposite end of the theater.
"He's gonna cut her open, Lilian."
"Come on," she said, heading cautiously down the steps toward the glass.
On the other side of the operating theater, Niko waved. That was it: the signal. Lilian began slapping her palms hard against the window. Blood streaked on the glass, the sudden sharp pain reminding her of her injuries from the midway. Ben stood beside her mimicking the action, shouting, "Hey, Dr. Dickhead! Hey, numbnuts!"
Leonard and Allison both looked up at the windows. The sorrow in Allison's eyes made Lilian's well up in sympathy.
Dr. Death grinned with Leonard's lips. He peeled off his glasses and wiped them on the breast of Leonard's uniform, blinking rapidly at the change in focus. Then he put them back on his nose and gave his guests a pleasant smile. "Ah, wonderful! It's been quite some time since I've had an audience."
On the other side of the operating room, Niko opened the door a crack. Ben pounded on the glass, whooping loudly. It was almost cathartic, Lilian thought. Whatever had happened to Ben downstairs, beating on the window would be a good destresser.
"Hush now, children!" Leonard said. "The good doctor has an operation to perform. I'm sure you wouldn't want me to accidentally sever an artery."
He flashed a toothy grin and flicked on the saw. Its two rusty, shovel-like blades whirred to life with a deafening whine. Leonard's eyes twinkled gleefully behind the glasses, and in that same moment, Lilian realized it wasn't just Dr. Death inside of Leonard.
Rex Garrote was in there with him.
Niko crept down the stairs. Lilian wanted to warn him. If he didn't reach them in time Garrote would kill them both, she was sure of it. Dr. Death was already smoothing back Allison's hair from her brow and lowering the whirring blades toward her forehead. Allison watched them, her eyes going cross, tears spilling down her temples onto the white pillowcase.
"Hey, Garrote!" Lilian shouted.
Leonard looked up at her, seething with rage. As he did another face flashed over his, as if she'd made the ghost angry enough to momentarily leave his host's body—but it was Garrote's face, not Dr. Hammersmith's. She was right.
Niko continued toward them. The sound of the blade masked his heavy footfalls, but he was still too far away. They had to keep Garrote distracted just long enough for Niko to take him down.
"That's right!" she shouted. "We know all about your virus!"
"Virus?" Leonard grinned, still affecting Dr. Death's mild accent. "Why, whatever do you mean?"
"Your code!" Ben said beside her. "We know you've been taking over the other ghosts."
Leonard seemed to consider it. Then he shook his head. "Poppycock!" he said and brought the blades down sharply on Allison's forehead.
"No!" Lilian cried, pounding feebly on the glass.
Niko jerked the stun gun from Leonard's belt as a fan of Allison's blood streaked his face. He jammed the weapon between Leonard's shoulder blades and zapped him. But the sawblades had already done their job. Allison had closed her eyes against the curtain of blood washing down her face while Leonard's body began to seize. The shock had made his body rigid, and his finger was frozen on the bone saw's trigger.
Bone, Lilian thought, looking at the white dust rising in a cloud around them. She turned away, unable to look, as the blades crunched through her therapist's skull and sliced into the meat of her brain.
Multicolored light flashed through the glass partition. Lilian dared another look down just as Leonard wheel around with the bone saw still spinning, spattering blood everywhere. She saw Niko throw up his hands and she closed her eyes again, hearing the horrible sound of the bone saw tearing through raw meat and sinew, hearing the big man's shrill scream.
"Niko!" Ben ran past her to the other side of the theater, heading for the door.
She chased after him. "Wait! He'll kill you!"
Ben had already rounded the corner, shouting Niko and Allison's names. He tore open the door and dashed down the steps two at a time. Lilian hurried down behind him, not wanting to look at the grisly scene in the operating room but unable to stop herself.
Niko lay on the floor, drenched in blood, holding up his slashed wrists. Blood had poured over Allison's face and her scalp hung loose from her glistening skull, draped over the back of the gurney. The saw had gouged a black channel out of the bone above her eyebrows. If she survived the wound, she would likely be better off dead.
Leonard stood covered in Allison and Niko's blood with the bone saw still whirring in his hand. He startled, like a man waking from a dream, blinked away blood from behind the gore-streaked glasses and cast them aside. He turned to Niko, looked at the bone saw in his own hand and dropped it in horror. It clattered on the floor beside Dr. Hammersmith's glasses, bits of brain and blood-soaked skull spattering away from it.
"What the fuck?" he said. "What the fuck, Niko? Did I fucking do that to you?"
Ben kicked the plug out of the wall and the saw slowed to a stop. He hurried to Niko's side. "We need some bandages," he said, unzipping his backpack and rooting inside.
"Leonard, brother. It's not your fault. Don't freak out."
"I…" Leonard turned. He saw Allison dead on the table and shook his head madly. "Oh no. No, no, no! All I remember is being in that room, those footprints… ther
e was a man… this doctor… Oh, Jesus, I can't believe this. I can't fucking believe this!"
"Just get some fucking towels!" Ben snapped. He'd unzipped his bag and was pressing folded tissues to Niko's slash wounds but blood had already soaked through them.
Leonard nodded sheepishly and got into action. He tore off his sleeves, exposing tanned, freckled arms and pale shoulders, then brought the rags to Niko and knelt beside him. He handed one to Ben and the two of them began tying them around the deep, oozing gashes on Niko's forearms.
Lilian watched the scene in a daze. It didn't seem real. Time had slowed down. It felt like she was dreaming, or stoned. She approached the woman on the gurney with the agonizing sluggishness of a dream, while behind her the men kept shouting at each other, their voices muffled by the strange soupiness in Lilian's brain. Allison's glassy, lifeless eyes stared up at the ceiling. Lilian tripped over the bone saw, and it clattered against the foot of the gurney.
Allison flinched at the sound.
"She's alive!" Lilian cried.
She vaguely heard someone say, "Thank God." It could have been any of them.
The therapist's gaze rolled to the side, toward Lilian, but not finding her. "Lilian?" she said. Her voice was soft and childlike, like someone muttering in their sleep. It was nothing like the woman she'd known, as if the injury had stripped away the years of polish and education and psychological armor she'd used to navigate the world and left her with just the shell of herself, a blank-slate Allison Wexler. The glistening, blood-red flap of her scalp flopped as Allison frowned, swallowed and spoke again. "Lilian?" she said, reaching out blindly.
Lilian took her hand and squeezed it. "I'm right here," she said.
The therapist whimpered, her mask of blood creasing at the corners of her lips. "I can see him down there," she whispered. "He's waiting for us in the dark." The words prickled the hairs at the back of Lilian's neck. "He's in the water. Oh God, it's so red." She squeezed Lilian's hand hard. "Why is the water so red?" Allison's eyes, flecked with small drops of her own blood, locked on Lilian's. "Don't go down there, Lilian. Promise me, you won't go down there in the dar—"
Allison's whole body shuddered suddenly, and her voice trailed away on a final breath, her chest deflating under the hospital-blue sheet.
"Dr. Wexler?" Lilian said, and before she could stop herself, she sobbed, stifling it behind a hand.
Allison was dead. Allison was dead and Lilian had no one to blame but herself.
The same would happen to each of them, one by one, until there was no one left to weep over their unhallowed graves. Garrote would drag them all down into the dark, into the red, red water. Lilian had no idea what the words meant but an image flashed so clear of Allison and Niko and Leonard and Ben, all of them splashing madly in a river of blood in the dark, gasping for air as the disembodied hands of Garrote's ghosts dragged them under.
She turned to Ben and the others, trying to shake the image. They were still wrapping up Niko's wounds. God, there was so much blood! Turning back to Allison, she tried to put the woman's last words out of her mind. Her spirit would be crossing over soon, and Lilian wanted to help her the way Allison had helped the man at the farmhouse. Allison had been so calm, so helpful—and for the first time, Lilian had truly seen her therapist shine.
But they had to leave. They couldn't stay here much longer. Garrote's power grew stronger by the minute. Sooner or later, he would stop playing games and with every ghost in the park under his control the survivors—now only four of them—wouldn't stand a chance.
She let go of Allison's cold hands. Without taking her eyes off her therapist's face, frozen in a nervous smile, her fingers found the bracelet her parents had given her. She unsnapped the clasp and slipped it off, then clasped it around the cool skin of Allison's wrist. The jewelry didn't mean much to her but she hoped it might act as a totem for Allison when her spirit left her body. That she'd understand what it meant and know what she had tried to do for Lilian meant something.
Lilian brushed the dead woman's eyes closed. "We're gonna stop him, Allison," she said, not sure she believed it, only hoping to be a comfort if Allison could somehow still hear her. "Your death won't be in vain."
She smiled, briskly wiped away a tear, and turned back to the others. They were still kneeling beside Niko. His face had gone ashy gray. The torn fabric they'd tied around his injuries had already soaked through with blood.
Lilian stooped and picked up the stun gun. She twisted it, saw the power light was still green. They had a weapon again, something to protect them against Garrote and his ghosts. But she couldn't trust Leonard, not yet. She had to be sure. Creeping up behind him as he kept pressure on the torn fabric around his friend's wound, she prepared herself mentally to pull the trigger. She knew how much these things could hurt. She'd seen videos on YouTube.
Ben saw her approaching and his eyes widened. He must have seen what she was planning because he mouthed "no," shaking his head.
Leonard looked up, his eyebrows rising in comical surprise.
"Don't move," she said, her voice unsteady. The stun gun quivered in her grip.
The big man held up his hands. The palms were covered in Niko and Allison's blood. It wasn't his fault, she had to remember that. But whoever had done this to her friend could still be inside of him. It wasn't worth risking another attack.
"Lilian, he's gone," Ben said. "Dr. Death—Niko already zapped him out of him."
"But what about Garrote?" Lilian said. "How can we be sure he's gone too?"
Ben's mouth opened in surprise. He turned to Leonard, suddenly suspicious.
"Hey. Hey, little lady." Leonard looked up from Niko's side with sad puppy dog eyes. "If it'll make you feel any better I'll let you stun me. Just not while I'm holding onto my buddy's arm, okay? Chain reaction and all that."
Lilian nodded for him to let go. Leonard stood, raising his hands in surrender. "Okay now, do you know how to use—?"
She jabbed the stun gun into his chest and pressed the trigger. Leonard's face contorted and his limbs began to jitter. He fell back flat on the floor and his legs twitched like a dying bug's, like he was breakdancing.
"Jesus, Lil!"
When his limbs finally stopped quivering and fell back to the floor with meaty slaps, he sucked in a deep breath and exhaled sharply. "Goddamn that smarts!" After a moment he pushed himself up with difficulty and gave her a hard look, rubbing where she'd stunned him. "Are we cool now, chica?"
"For now." She spotted a door in the far corner of the operating room that led beneath the theater seating. "We should get moving," she said, scanning the dark theater above them.
Anything could be lurking up there in the shadows—Morton Welles, or another of Dr. Death's zombie patients. The evil sex nun, Emma Lou Whatshername.
"Think you're all right to walk, buddy?"
Niko nodded. "Just help me up," he grunted.
Ben and Leonard slipped their hands under Niko's arms. He groaned as they helped him to his feet. "You cut me deep, Shrek," Niko said to Leonard, who chuckled bitterly.
"Good to see you kept your sense of humor," Leonard said.
Walking on his own, Niko staggered toward the door. Ben, Leonard and Lilian followed.
"She was a good woman," Niko said, stopping at the end of the gurney to look down at Allison.
"I am so sorry," Leonard said, favoring Lilian with a sad smile. "She didn't deserve to go like that."
Lilian said, "It's not your fault."
"I could've fought him off. It was like I was watching myself in a dream. I coulda stopped him!"
"Nobody's blaming you," Ben said. "I just wish we could help her." He eyed the bracelet Lilian had put on Allison's wrist, sniffled and gave Lilian a morose look, wiping his eyes with the back of a hand. "You know, with her transition. It doesn't seem fair just to leave her like this."
"I think she'll do all right," Lilian said. "She's a tough lady. It's Garrote getting inside of her I'm worried ab
out."
Ben nodded. "If that happens, we have to stun her. We have to promise we'll do that for each other, too. Before he gets into us."
Each of them made a promise. Leonard walked ahead and held the door open for them. They all piled out into another dim corridor.
"Now what?" Niko asked.
"Hello?" A male voice came from their right, followed by a blast of static. "If anybody can hear me, please respond."
Static followed.
"That voice," Ben said, scowling down the hall. "It sounds familiar."
Lilian recognized it too. "Demont!" she said. He'd come back for them. Maybe there was a chance after all. Without another word, without thinking, she ran in the direction of his voice.
Away from death, Lilian ran toward hope.
VOICES FROM BEYOND
BEN WATCHED LILIAN run off toward Demont's voice and for a moment he was too stunned to follow her. He'd never seen someone he cared about die before, had never seen a dead person before until today, and the shock of watching Allison die was still raw, like the wounds on Niko's forearms. And now, without a word of warning, Lilian had run off alone. She was going to get herself killed.
And it's all my fault, he thought.
He turned to the others. Leonard was propping Niko up and fiddling with his walkie-talkie. Blood had already spattered the floor around Niko's feet in the few moments they'd been standing there. His face was gray and his pupils were very small. Leonard caught him as he swayed. He needed medical attention, as soon as possible. Ben remembered Guest Services had been equipped with several medical cabinets but they were still a good distance away from there. He doubted they would make it in time.
"Come on, guys," he said. "We need to catch up."
Leonard ignored him, twisting the dial on his walkie. "He must be using a different frequency."
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