Ziploc House

I swung around and dove at the desk and felt my body fly up, up toward the cracked plaster in the wall high above. The saw sang out as it scorched the air, guiding its master for the flesh and bone I carried. The camera was caught on my hand, I couldn't get it off and get the strap in my teeth so I left it and thrust the edge of my arm across the broken boards in the wall as I lunged upward. Up. And Up. My free hand locked into splinters, and my toes snagged the two by fours nailed into the door below. The man that held the saw screamed something as I clambered through the opening in the wall.

My feet shoved me to far forward, as I swept free of the opening I had nothing to take hold of and flopped forward. My camera hand, my right hand, slapped over the metal bar and plastic of the containment wall. I slung my free arm up, just as the bright strobe blinded me, and my hand managed to grab at a sheet of plastic as I flipped sideways in midair. I couldn't see where I was falling, but I discovered the hard metal floor easily enough.

I groaned and rolled over. The side of my hip was numb and my shoulder pulsed, but it was a welcome distraction from the thrum plaguing my body. I raised my arm over my eyes to shield, as the red bulb flashed across my eyes. Am I safe? Is there anything here that will catch me? The faraway clatter of the alarm lingers in the ceiling, a reminder that it doesn't matter. Nothing matters. The danger has been given doors, and more still are built.

Get up. Can't be found like this. Easy pickings.

I slid my elbows under my chest and pushed up and continued to shove myself away, should the Cannibal manage to climb up and crash down on top me. I stared up through the drapes of the torn plastic, but there was no sign or sound from my pursuer. I didn't feel relief in this assumption. I had… he had nearly killed me. He was going to kill me. And eat me.

I rested my head on my arm and stared at the door coated in plastic and nailed tight. So tight, such a safe door. I felt my eyes begin to close, and thought rest might be all right. Just for a few seconds, I won't sleep. I had nightmares. Terrible nightmares, ever since….

"It has strange eyes."

Suddenly I'm upright, alert and scanning the two sides of the hall to locate the speaker. Had I heard the voice? It had been muted and tricky to understand, but that made it all the more real. The quiver in my muscle was fading, while my newfound unease overtook my senses. Along the hall a cart of tall gas canisters had been parked, more or less out of the way. Just beside them was a figure clothed in a shirt and pants, but his face. That's what got me. He was scarred there as with his arms, but cloth had been bundled about his eyes and over his mouth. Not cloth, it was gauze.

"I'll go say hi."

The person moved closer, and closer still, I pushed myself away until my back was pressed to a cold wall.

I held perfectly still as he caught up and leaned low. "Don't be scared," he said, and reached for my face. I flinched, expecting to be grabbed or hit, but I never would have expected him to run his hands over my face and shoulders, patting my body down firmly. I winced a few times when his mangled digits bat at my eyelids, but they never gouged out my eyeballs. Was I dreaming? This is too insane to be real, the only people here were murders. He would kill me too.

"It's different." He sounded disappointed. I looked up as he drew his hands back and sat on his haunches, 'watching' me. "Not everyone's the same. It's not like us."

I coughed, and leaned my face towards my shoulder in fear that any sudden movement would trigger aggression. To my side was a bloody researcher, still in his lab coat with his ID pinned to his coat. His throat was ravaged and stringy bits of tissue draped down his once white shirt. I was sitting… too close to him.

I looked to the patient squatting before me. What had been done to his eyes? Curiosity demanded I decide or discover, but I wouldn't touch him. I pressed my hand under my side and pushed, slowly rising until I was on my feet. The patient mirrored my movements, and stood beside the wall as though he were watching me. I moved my foot forward, and looked to the patient as he 'stared' at my face. I pressed myself to the wall as I slipped by him, and all the time he followed my gaze. He even began following my steps as I tried to leave.

"Where does it go?"

I stopped beside the door from where I had fallen down, coated in plastic and boarded up. My hip still ached, but the tingle was fading. I decided not to answer, and slipped into a guise that I had not heard. He was a foot taller than me, but his voice was light and hoarse. His mangled arms must have made it impossible to remove the rags tightened over his mouth.

"I'll tell you a secret," he said. "Let me tell you a secret."

The nanohazard door was open, and I could turn the corner into the next corridor. There was light, and for a while I forgot the night vision ate up the replaceble batteries. I shut it off before I pause to stare down the metal and plastic corridor, the floor was strewn with more bodies of men in lab coats. They had not been slain by the saw. If they had they would not be left here. They were bloodied, broken, butchered by a thousand tiny pricks. Monsters roamed these halls.

One side of the wall was the asylum coated with plastic, the area I had fallen into was a larger room before… before Murkoff came in. The other side of the room was distorted by the plastic wall built through/ around the room, I could see tables and desks, computers distorted within. A small section of the modern world that lay claim to Mount Massive when it was abandoned years ago. So many years. I tried to think and remember how long ago that was, when was it? The dates. But I couldn't. I needed to keep on track of my current objective, don't get lost in my thoughts. Don't forget I was being hunted.

God, I was being hunted. Like some sort of animal, and I had no way out. Find a way. There had to be a way.

I moved by a pallet stacked and covered with a blue tarp. On its other side was security operative, his chest broken and blood pooled under him. I glanced over to the patient as he rounded the corner in slow pursuit, only following at a distance now. He was well balanced for one that was supposedly blind(folded?)

The corpse clutched a cracked walkie-talkie. I pulled the small communicator from his hand and opened up the back. One battery. I set the black device beside the guard. I'm not sure why I did that. I didn't need it, but I certainly didn't owe security detail anything.

"Let me tell you a secret."

I glanced to my escort as he held back, beside the gas canisters. He might've been afraid to come down this side. I don't know from where he had appeared from, but the bodies were unsettling. Especially if you knew what caused the death. I shuddered and gripped the camera in my hand tighter.

A metal trolley in the corridors center displayed cropped white photos of X-rays on a computer screen, the small tower on the tables top puffed warm vapor. I used a hand to block some of the invading screen from my eyes, as I pressed my foot to the base to brace the cart and push the trolley aside enough that I could squeeze by without a sound. I needed to get away. Such a small flicker, but it reminded me vividly, and I didn't want to remember. The back room, the fence.

"I'm afraid we're going to have, to have you committed."

You need to forget. Forget. Forget. I repeat the word in my head, struggling to find a grasp in my memory as pain follows. Soft voice whispering my ID number, reading off my minor history. No. Get away. What am I doing right now? What is my goal?

Prison. I think over the word, its meaning. Prison Block. I'm trying to reach the Prison Block. Yes. Good. But I need to get out of this place. Escape the… the Cannibal.

"The doctor's dead."

I slowly turn around to see that the patient had followed me, and stood just beside my shoulder. I blinked at him slowly, forgetting for a moment his face is bound and he probably couldn't see me. Did he sense me? He just stands there and stares at me.

"But he's still with us," he went on. "When it sleeps. Does it see him?"

I open my mouth intending to answer, but I don't grasp at all what he's mumbling about. He reaches out and snares my arm tightly, and I stagger in place as he leans forward 'peering' into my face. "Does it still dream?"

I make a sound before a word comes. "N-no."

The patient holds his gaze longer, and longer still. He has petrified from the response and I am trapped for eternity in his iron grip. His hand constricts and I nearly cry out, but he releases my arm and brushes by. "I'm sorry," he mutters.

I turn around to follow his path, and back up into the plastic wall as he lumbers too close beside me. He moves to a door and pushes it open and enters.

"White walls, white rooms. White halls," he says. "The light is bright, the walls are white."

There comes from somewhere a crack and shudder as wood is struck, beaten by a shape of skin and muscle. Not the saw. The man with the saw isn't here. I clutch the camera to my chest and listen, waiting for something terrible. I can't hide in the light, I see no place to run and hide. I should find someplace, but where does this noise raise from? Someone is there, that I know, and they want to reach the other side of a door. Which side am I on?

I listen until the final crunch of wood comes and I wait, to meet whatever threat should come. I reflect where I stand is only a dead end, the nanohazard door at the far end cannot be open. The screens inside the plastic walls, on the other side of the room might be able to access the door. I try not to remind myself that I don't know my script, I wouldn't be able to bypass the password screen and get into the stash where codes or commands were kept. My mind is useless there, where once I had excelled. Doomed by my trade.

It's a long wait under the bright red strobe flashing above my head, but no shape lurches from the shadows. Nothing and no one comes out, only the dark shapes. I hear a voice under the hail of the distant siren. I recall the patient still in the other room. I step forward peering through the threshold he had entered, and find a restroom filled with stalls. I can't see where he's gone in the light, but I hear his voice and decide he's hidden in one of the stalls. I step lightly over the rough wood floor and bring up the camera as the light fades. The lamps in this area are dim or don't work.

A nanohazard doorway looms in the visor, open. I enter into the plastic room and scan the few desks set up with computers, chairs. The rot smell lingers thick but I see no bodies, only lockers. I cross the room to a set and open the door, but there's nothing inside. Absolutely nothing. A few coat hangers and a canister of deodorant.

The room is sectioned from another room, large double doors have been left open to the next area. Someone has come through here? The door. I haven't seen a broken door yet.

There are more of the gas canisters beside the open doorway, and some foldable tables. Across from those another computer terminal and a body slumped forward. I creep towards the body and pause, certain I've heard a hiss. Chills seep through my skin, and I rub at my exposed arm with my wrist to wipe away the feeling. The screen on the computer displays an odd image, I press the back of my camera hand to the chair as a voice slithers through my thoughts. Screens. I accidentally saw—

I jerk away, knocking the chair and the body to roll away. The chair hits the side of the desk and the body, slumped forward, slides out of the chair. I stand away from the corpse staring at the screens, the screen with the orange brain map. Dye scan, my mind supplies. I turn to the body, for anything to focus on. Corpses were abundant, I was accustomed to seeing them. I could smell death, the thick blood from his shirt when his veins emptied out. Something glittered in his hand.

If it was more batteries, I could use them. But it was a set of keys, most of them too small for a door. None of them looked like the kind you use for doors. Anyway, they wouldn't open the nanohazard doors. I looted them and stuck them in the pouch with the notepad. Prison Block. Find the Prison Block. Escape first. Escape this place. I didn't need to be here.

The double doors felt very welcoming as I stepped through, always alert for the odd sound. There was light seeping through the plastic walls I could lower the camera, but never put away completely. I nearly lost it once. I'm afraid to lose it. It's a part of me now and I needed it.

I snort at the scent of blood as I walk into a wall of it. The next room has stainless steel tables, tall chairs perched on either side. Along the upper wall, bright screens are mounted revealing previous scans, study. X-rays of people, white film. A steady shiver rolls up my spin as I avert my gaze to the trolleys lined along the clear plastic wall, half are weighted down with spare computers and small towers, another cart has tools of the medical field. Or the scientific.

The table is coated with blood and viscera. But no body. I can't decide if this eased me or not. Was it possible for a corpse to get up and walk away? Would I run into zombies next? I could deal with zombies. It'd be like a third person shooter, get a gun, some gear. Shoot zombies. No one would miss Jeremy if I accidentally shot him. It wouldn't be an accident, but no one would care. It would make my day a whole lot brighter.

I hold my head as I stagger towards a cart and stare out into the corridor. I can just make out the bodies on the floor, I can smell the blood. The blood is in the room with me. Something's not right with my head. Can't focus. I know where I'm going, I remember. I look down at my hand pressed to the carts top shelf, there's a file with a few pages poking through its side. I flip the blue folder open and read through the dark secrets, the truth. Things too horrible, how can they be real?

CASE MM1200715, UPDATE 271

(form note: all material herin to be transcribed according to form 4083, with forensic revisions as benefits ongoing lawsuit 1200715.)

AUTHOR: Ethan Sriskandaraja

NOTES: This is a request for specific legal consultation in the ongoing lawsuit by Melissa Cho against Murkoff Charitable Psychiatry Inc. (USA) originally filed in 2010.

At the time of Ms. Cho's termination, the psychosomatic effects of the Morphogenic Engine on female employees and patients that had been well established. (Already more than seven female employees and patients had reached fictitious half-term pregnancies in a matter of weeks before miscarrying the nonexistent children, five of them fatally.) Female employees were moved to higher floors in the facility, then to other buildings, and eventually off of the Mount Massive facility.

The critical secrecy of PROJECT WALRIDER necessitated secrecy in the motivatin factor for the re-assignments and terminations, resulting in perceived injustice from several terminated parties. Ms. Cho has succeeded in acquiring a court-ordered FOIA of the documents surrounding her termination. Those documents will need to be generated and post-dated, providing ameliorating information while skirting the relevant secrecies of the project. Please advise.

ETHAN SRISKANDARAJA

Consultant MM214

It sometimes happened. These things. Doctors said it couldn't be helped. It sometimes happened. The body did things we didn't always understand, and for all our science and advancements, we were still cavemen struggling to understand the complex machines we were. We thought we could understand every molecular spec, but it was all pretend. We never grew up.

We didn't talk about our third child. We had a name picked out, had a baby shower. We kept our youngest sons hand me downs from infancy, because we couldn't afford to buy anything new. He was going to be 'the hand me down' kid, and we'd love him/her all the same. It was too soon to find out if the baby was a girl or boy.

Christ, if they knew, why didn't they warn us? I told them! I said, "My wife is expecting our third kid, so I'm leery about leaving for residency." And they said, that asshole Jeremy, he said, "It'll be fine." He ASSURED me. Said, "Bring her by."

Bring. Her. By.

His exact words.

Did he KNOW? Was this part of his twisted plan? Or did he get some sick pleasure out of this?

More bills. Just more bills to get paid. I was trapped. Couldn't be there, couldn't even speak to my wife. Couldn't drag her into this. Somehow, I did.

They wanted me. Jeremy wanted me. Knew I would be easy to manipulate, I had shackles. A family. He thought I would comply, thought I wouldn't do anything stupid. But I did. I remember that. The emotions strong, my antipathy for everything Murkoff was doing. I was smart enough to pay attention, I saw what was happening. I knew where we would wind up.

Look at this place now. They thought quieting the ones that cared would save the company. Maybe in the short term it'd work, but long term? Short sighted, corrupt, greedy, corporations. Everything bad has to fall. Avarice eats up its food, the walls of its cage, and then it eats itself. Until there's nothing left but a void. Nothing left to hate.

I wanted to take the file with me, have it grasped in my hand when I died. If the Cannibal got me, I wouldn't have hands to grasp it with. I was about to fold up the main page I read through and put it in a pouch, but the camera. Could I film the page and have it clear enough to read later? For Lisa to see? Let her know, it wasn't her fault, it was no ones fault. She did nothing wrong.

Our oldest son, he sometimes still asked where his 'newer' brother (sister) was. We bought him one of those kid books, the ones that story out and make explaining these things to kids easier. Comfort a bit, child and mom, even ragged dad too. When Lisa did recover she talked to a girl friend of hers about it, hoping for that comfort in flesh. Her friend didn't understand. "It happens. You didn't fail as a woman. There was something wrong with it and your body was trying to do the right thing." Lisa's pregnancies had been, before, by the book. No complications. The… uh. I'm— I'm losing myself, again. Lost focus, lost my train of thought.

Camera. It clicked when I held down a small gray button on its top. I peered at the tiny picture that identified a negative? Polaroid. Picture. I didn't need to do anything specific, if I could read it through the visor. If the visor could read it, a snap would work.

Where was I? Where was I going? It was important that I get to… I had to reach the Prison Block. All right. I didn't know how to reach it from here. Good.

I was being hunted.

A door on the far side of the room had been torn out of its frame. I moved closer, listening for the distant warning ever present. Vibrations rolled through my chest, or was I shivering? I moved, setting one foot on the crushed door and stared on its surface. It was torn outward, someone had been in the room and bashed the door down. With their fists, I bet. I leaned around the frame, the hail of alarms seeped over my shoulders as I moved beyond the frame. The hall I was in is near silent. I keep beside the wall as I moved to the right.

Plastic walling has been torn through, the edges ragged as if chewed by some animal. I examine them carefully, feeling some connection occur between the blackened material, and the suggestive scent of scorched timber. Burnt wood from a fire. A kitchen.

The Cannibal!

I've made a complete circle! Have I missed something? I didn't look hard enough, got distracted by terrible memories. Oh god, Lisa. I'm trying not to fail you, but I am. If there's no solution, if the equation is False. I can't get out. I can't escape.

This wasn't an equation. Walls of mortar and wood stood between me and outside, not walls of numbers. I can figure this out. The patients made doors. Could I make a window? Could I teach a window how to be a door?

I turn from the plastic ravels and peer at the dark opening of a door frame, beyond the blown out door. The Cannibal would be roaming, and I was out in the open. I needed to move, conceal myself somewhere until… until…

Just get out of the open. The door creaks as I step on it, the broken shape flattens when my weight settles on it. I have the camera in hand when the sound comes, a siren. It's not a siren. It's the rasp, the hiss of hydraulics in a rotary. It's a saw that causes my skin to quiver. It doesn't come from the drape of darkness I've paused at. It's right on my back and slithering into my ears.

"I will have your meat."

My eyeball rips out of its vein in order to see just over my shoulder as I twist about. He's standing right there in the light, blood drenched, wearing only the blood from his victims. I hit the side of the doorframe as my legs respond, delivering me a whisper beyond the saw as he slings it out. The Cannibal shrieks but I cannot distinguish between the roar of the weapon, or his own ragged voice as he shrieks. It's all noise, all dangerous.

I don't take the corner, I dash straight into the side room and fly under the sad beam of light. I don't trust its soft reach and stuff my eyes into the visor, the ugly green illuminates the obstacles reaching for my shins. Upturned desks, chairs, a filing cabinet, all whisk through the visor as I spring side to side, struggling not to lose speed in the jagged movements. He's close behind me, so close. Screaming through his red beard, teeth gnashing like some monster in a fairy tale. This can't be real! How can this be real, it's too god awful to be real!

The doorframe swoops around my shoulders when I dive out, skimming through the next. Then, ahead, I see light. Bright burning in the distance. I pump my legs harder, but it doesn't feel as if I've gained speed. I lower the camera as I leap over the mattress and feel air coil under my heels as I'm rising up, up toward the frame above the desk.

The desk shatters beneath my weight, and I fall. No.

No!

The next thing I know, I'm upside down. For a moment I believe I'm dead and being carried, slung over the shoulder of that thing! But I'm not dead. I can see him, upside down, yes. He's still charging my way, gray smoke pours from the saw as he charges towards my face. I bite down on the camera strap stuffed in my mouth, and my hands grip a thick board above me, more wood. The Cannibal swings out of my sight as I thrust my head up, breaching the light. I've thrown my body high over the frame and now I crash into the wall of brick above the Crematorium's door. The lamp above the hall snaps as I fall over it, but it doesn't go out. It falls and hangs beside me as I roll over, struggling to shove off the churning ground.

I cough at the dust that ignites around me and turn my head, to where a sudden crash comes. The door with the boards holds as the Cannibal slams into it with his shoulder. I crawl back from him as he takes the saw and whirs the motor, scorched wood and sawdust fills the air as he begins to cut through one two-by-four braced over the door on his side.

There's no choice. I can make a window, or I can make a door. Both are the same, but one accepts different company. I remember. There's a small knife in one of the pouches. It's worthless against a man wielding a bone saw, but I can use it to cut the wrist of the corpse shackles to the gate. Or, I can try and break the mechanism in the handcuffs. It probably won't work, but I've run out of halls and run out of time.

As I fumble with the belt, camera forgotten and still crammed in my teeth, a set of keys tumbled out from one of the pouches. I don't hesitate to snap them up and look over each silver tooth, glinting in the slow rocking of the lamp I've broken. It begins to click in my head, this equation I've struggled with. The keys are too small for doors. I want to open a window. Am I insane? Maybe only insanity can thrive in this place. It is exempted from the punishment the ruined have wrought upon their suppressors. If I play mad, I might just walk out of here. If I let myself go completely, I can make a window a door and find a work around.

The Cannibal works to trim away the door, but there's still a board on my side he's set the saw into. I don't glance at him as I try one key, then the next. Sometimes it fits, but it doesn't turn. Most don't fit at all. If you're not sure of something, start from the middle.

It's the thirteenth key. The adjacent locks click open, and the body folds over as I pull the gate back. I hold the handcuffs as I drag the gate shut and slip one hand out to hold the cuffs, snap them over the outside of the links. Lock myself in, lock the danger out. I look up at the snarl of outrage and see that the Cannibal has given up tearing through the door with his saw, and is only satisfied now to beat at the mangled wood with his fists. His eyes are locked on mine and I am able to hold his gaze for five seconds longer than I believe was possible, before I turn to retreat into the shadows of the hall.

He still calls after me, his voice cannot fade enough as the black consumes my color, my presence, and then, the plucking twinge works its way into my muscles. I almost miss the Cannibal, but the feeling passes quickly.

"I'll find another way!"

He shrieks over and over. I look back, but the dark movement has clouded my path. Squirming inky veils struggling through the green tint, seeking a way to me. "I'll find another way!" He's across the ocean, speaking in another tongue and trapped in a box. Yet he is beside me, whispering his Truth into my ear.

I shudder and turn to walk away from the brick arch leaking through the black veil. The metal grate that has fallen through the threshold digs into my feet, but I don't move off it. I stand behind the rail struggling to pick out the steady contours of my surroundings that are real. There are lights dotted beside brick walls, and the air is hot and thick with char. I remember that I've been cold for too long, and my skin aches in the contrast. It hurts, and the heat has an almost oily quality, humid but thick and viscous as if seeping through my rags and into my skin. The sensation is wrong, I have to keep moving. Deeper into the quagmire.

Sounds resonate from my right. I turn the camera and scan a chain linked fence, reminiscent of a place… dark. Back of a room. Deep in the closet.

I coil my fist into my jumper as I watch across the wide expanse of a room. Across the dust on the floor I see the remains of a broken man dragging himself, beyond the blocky links of a tall, reaching fence. Not a window, not glass. It is a fence. He mutters, makes promises to himself.

"Exit. Almost." The voice fades, and the body betrays. What was left of the man deflates, and becomes a corpse. Soon he would be cold, soon he would be forgotten.

Or not entirely. I have the camera, I had filmed his last moments. When what is left of me is found, then others will know. I'm not happy with this, not really. I don't think he deserves to be remembered. Was he one of the people that sent me behind the glass? It was half or half, he was or wasn't. The ratio was stacked in his favor, only a handful….

I need to stop getting distracted. I can't focus, have to keep moving. Batteries. Did I have anymore?

I step carefully down the metal steps, the next step more painful than the one before. I stumble off and check over the area I'm in. Pallets stacked to the side, a few metal containers with pipes and a hose. I smell old oil, might've been spilled. The air is heavy with soot, and the grease clings to my toes making them sticky and foul. I've walked through blood. How much blood…

Is in the human body?

A door stands partially open right in front of me. I swat it open and listen to the harsh clatter of wood on brick, and allow the echo to drive away the vibrations that tingle through my skin. It's the cold, and the warmth. Like being reborn. Not really, it wasn't invigorating either. I sniff at the air and smell blood, but there's nothing dead. Nothing rotten. Industrial shelves are built beside the wall, and the room is in shambles. Bricks have fallen from the ceiling, along with cords from something machine like, thick cords and tiny ones. Lockers line one side of the wall, but I don't check them. I can't bear it, to raise my hopes and throw them down again and again.

I exit the room and wander towards the strong smell of oil and gasoline. Barrels line the metal fence, along with more pallets, and overlapping stacks of bed frames. Storage. And storage. Or forgotten refuse. The battery in the camera is holding out, and I've forgotten again where I was going. I don't dwell on the issue for long, before I'm staring at the cold corpse through the fence, its hand outstretched to a large arch. Further beyond the brick archway is a sign, with big, red letters. Bright glowing letters. EXIT.

I can't find it in me to care. I look back to the body, the man that had minutes before had a mission, a solution to his equation. It had been False. Where did he go wrong? Was there a way to avoid the same mistakes he made?

In the tall reaching fence was a large gate, but the door was held shut tight by large chain and padlock. Beneath the fence dark fluid, and a large puddle. I try and remember a conversation, and work out how the scene may have played out. But it's too much to remember.

My foot catches the metal frame of something, it bends under my feet as I kick it off. My toes still throb despite the warmth, but it means I'm not suffering from frostbite. I still had feeling in my toes. That's good.

I circle around the large pillar center of this side of the room, glancing over the pallets and wondering if I could stack them someplace and climb up. But the tall reaching fence extends over the side of the chimneys, and up to the ceiling everywhere else. I take one more lap around the pillar before diverting off, to an open gate in the fence. The gate is furthest from the corpse, and enters into the front of the crematoriums oven. Lights here work and I lower the camera, surveying what is visible. The area is large and hot, filled with brimstone from hell and death, despair and revelations. Metal gates boarder around the large oven lined in the brick, black smog seeps from the iron doors.

Painful recollections fill my head, as did the warped front of an elevator pulsing into my sinuses. I lick my lips as the pain swells into the center of my frontal lobe. There's blood. I smell and taste blood. It almost breaks the tearing pieces of skull, as I reach up and touch my lips. They're sticky. I rub it between my fingers and raise my hand to view the residue. There's specks of blood, but not a lot. I'm hit hard with the memory, burning wood and a door. And grief.

I push the camera into a pouch and spit on my sleeve, to take some if not all the blood staining my chin. My nose stung but it wasn't hurt. Too lucky. My luck would run out when I reached my most desperate moment. How much longer could I go on, how many chances did I have? A cat has nine lives. Nine chances. I haven't died once, I don't think. I wouldn't recall if I did.

Makeshift containers fashioned from steel crates sit off center of the room, a thick layer of black ash huddles around the base of the congregation. They boxes are filled with large pipes, materials used for the furnace? I could smell gas, and the scorch of clay. I move closer to steel doors, and jar back from a dull thud in the room, near me. I didn't get a direction from where its origin, but there was a plain wood door on the far side of the room. I keep to my side, and proceeded to check over each small cast iron door hissing steam.

If I press a button beside the door, a tray would slip in or out. I watched the body of a security operative disappear into the wall of yellow flames before the black door ground shut. I panicked and smacked the panel again, but nothing happened. I tried two more times and nearly gave up, but the door did swing open and the tray snapped out. I covered my nose and moved back from the burnt skin. Nearly all his clothes had been reduced to ash, his skin crusty and steamy black sludge dripped from his body.

Barbeque. Christ, he smelled like charred hamburger meat. I was gagging on dry bile as I staggered around the pallet of boxes and made way towards the door, off to the side. The door creaked open and I saw the glint of something, the instant before the door burst apart and a red blotched shape swept out onto me. I put an arm out and it took the blow, but the force was enough to send me spiraling to my side. I hit the hot metal frame of a… the tray, from the furnace. The scorched body I sent into the oven, he was lying on one. The thought came to me, as rough hands clamped around my sides and heaved me skyward.

I flail, legs kicking out on impulse and arm slapping against something wet. For an instant I was weightless and flying through open air, I caught a glimpse of eyes and the jagged wound in bricks before bright white slashed my sight. The impact of coming down over sharp metal knocked the wind out of me, and I sputtered incoherent babble while working to drag my numbed elbows along hot metal. A grip locked onto the front of my chest, nearly digging sharp fingers into my skin. I chocked, realizing it would be very easy for someone to peel skin off muscle.

A soft cackle rang in my ears. He sounded so pleased, too amused. He was too fucking happy.

"The meat is mine."

I opened my eyes and saw his face. Blood. Different shades, not all of it from the same body. Layers and layers of gore. I hear the low whine of his tool as he brings it up, the saw spins as he grips the trigger and lowers it towards my face. I can only think of how bad he smells, of the rot and disease he must carry. He's going to die. But he'll gut me first and then I'll die.

He's still chuckling gleefully as he brings the saw closer to my face. I get one arm up to grip his arm, and dig my fingers nails several inches into his skin. He doesn't react, The Cannibal. He only presses harder, squeezing the trigger and I feel its breath at my neck as I lift a foot and press it to his shoulder. I won't let him! I WON'T! My other arm snaps to his hand and I squeeze, I feel his knuckles buckle in my grip. I take a breath and hold it in my throat as my fingers dig into his skin, and I push at his shoulder with my foot. The blades mere inches from my thigh, it would destroy me if he jerked back and cut my leg. But I will not die first.

His gaze loosens from me, and the pressure of the saw gives way under my grasp. The Cannibal lets his eyes pick over the area we are in as if he has just realized our surroundings, and he takes in every minuscule detail. I lower my leg as he withdraws the whining weapon, and as he lifts his grip off my chest I try and throw myself up.

The Cannibal jerks at the tray I'm on. I get myself sideways before he braces on arm over my chest and hosts the platform in the air. I gag at the heat filling my lungs and skull, but it's not X-rays or white walls. He's in my face, close to my face pressing a finger near the tip of my nose.

"You stay there." He whips away striking the wall. The panel! "And cook!"

The arch of the brick scraps my head as the tray grinds backwards. The velocity is too sudden, I can't get my legs under me before the black door cracks shut. Steel door. Doesn't swing unless the tray is moved. The tray won't move unless instructed to, from outside.

My voice rattles as I choke on the heavy heat filling my throat and lungs. I clamber across the tray to the doors and kick with my heel, but they're fastened tight. The heat builds up fast in the tiny space I occupy, and sweat begins beading on my brow, running swollen lines down my cheeks and chest. I kick the door a third time, loosing hope for my survival. When I drew back for another try, I turn on my side and chance a glance back into the opposite end of the oven. Orange light and dark contours poke through, curious to the ruckus caused. Its a crack, a wearing in the bricks from years and years of use and no maintenance. It was thin enough.

It was a slither of chance.

I clamber over the growing yellow flames poking through the grill, and perch on my knees before the opening in the withered brick. I locked my toes in the hot grate and swung my fist out smashing into the side of solid rock. The rock shifts, silt fell out into the fire beneath my feet. For my strength my efforts seemed to be worthless, I would be cooked decades before this wall crumbled. There is no choice, if I am to survive and save the camera I carry. I wrench out, slamming my fist to the brick once more and feel nothing, no shift. Again and again, harder and harder. No choice. I have no choice! I strike at the bricks with no hope, no thought of escape. I'm passing time before I die. I'll leave a mark and save the camera if that's my destiny, but I will not burn to death without first trying. A wounded groan slips between my teeth when I accidentally bring my elbow to the solid wall, but I don't let up. I focus on the cool air, and the direction the steam hisses out. The heat rises and twists through my skin and bone, the flames snap at the thin jumper. I wanted to flinch away, but I cannot afford the time.

The furnace is hot and getting hotter. It would peak at its utmost temperature in so precious little time. I choked as my breath labored, struggling for oxygen, but the smog ate it up faster than my lungs could draw it in. My breathe heaves, I've lost my thoughts to the motions of my body. Harder and harder, you can't stop until you're dead, until your skull is a blackened marble.

A brick snapped out when I crashed my fist into the stone. That's it. More! Harder! Hit HARDER!

I hauled my body sideways on my knees, braced my toes into the sharp grate and swung with my all my weight coiled up into the assault. It was very little weight, but the speed at which I delivered the force of it was enough. The side of my shoulder made impact with the solid bricks and I kept going, spilling out the backside of the furnace and into a blanket of frigid air. I gasped at the soot that spun around my face and pushed up on my arms, but my strength faltered and I crumpled to my side. I feel the cold gritty cement under my palms, in a matter of seconds I'm dry and trembling in the suddenly thin air. Its hard for me to decide what has me shaken more, the contrast of the icy air or my close call. The tremors under my skin refuse to calm, its hard to steady myself as I raise off the floor. Bricks scattered in fear of my wraith as I crawl away, but I still feared the fire would find me and drag me back to hell.

"No! NO!" His voice echoed, carved against the interior flat walls of the crematorium. I paused to listen as he bawled out. "You were mine!"

I shifted to my feet and look around, but I see nothing. There's light from somewhere, I see pallets, but no slinking shapes in the fog of my memories. Just the dull haze as the pain fades, my hands ache from the flames that lapped at my skin, my feet throb as the cool air soothes them. I fumble with my hands once I am upright, trying to crack my knuckles but it hurts to rub the skin.

I thought of the body I had sent into the oven. His charred skin, hair singed off, clothing reduced to ash. What would I have done if my means of escape was not the Solution? If the brick had not been weakened by neglect, and years gone by? Dead. That was the answer. I would have been cooked alive, body blackened and muscles made into something edible. Would Lisa heed my words on paper, would she have trust in my shaken handwriting? She could be stubborn, I loved that about her. It made her resilient and strong, but sometimes it was her worse vice.

Dental records would not be enough. She might just demand to see what was left over.

Left over.

The camera had fallen from my hands when I had escaped. I managed to remember it in the suppressing dark before I had moved away. The plastic case was warm to the touch and the night enhancer still worked, nothing damaged, the heat had not reached it. I absorbed the heat for it, the camera would work and it would remember for me. It had to, I'm certain. It'll keep me going, at least the enhancing visor would. I can't see what lurks without it.

I limp along the furnace towards a source of light already present. I count the bricks in the wall until the dark haze gobbles them up, and then I am standing beside the corpse. The man was crawling and alive mere minutes before. He's beaten and blue, his clothing riddled with cuts and blood still bubbled from the openings in his skin. I rub my warmed sleeve at my chin, it stills feels cold despite the inferno beside me. I'm trembling as I linger in the large archway of the door, and stare at the gleaming revelation of escape.

There's a distant echo in my mind, or was that somewhere in the walls? Brick walls that scratch with sounds digging through sealant, creeping through ancient cracks in a hungry quest to find the ones that still moved about. Those that were still alive to fear and hide from shapes clustered in the shadows.

The light dangles from its cord high in the ceiling. My shadow dances over the walls as I move to the door, and try the handle. The door firm in the door frame and I'm not surprised. In fact, I anticipated this. Nothing in this place should be so predictable but it was, and I was growing to hate that fact. Could probability be so second nature in the nest of lies? It was improbable that I was still alive. I was still alive, more or less. Give or take. Most of me is still here, I'll get the rest back later. Whatever kept me alive and kept me going would be what survived, I was calculating this. A bet, even.

Large pictures hung along the wall, each depicting some person. The canvases of most has faded, ruined by the persistent drift of soot and dry conditions but in some way preserved, like the victims of long ago Pompeii. The room is filled with dozens of old chairs, many of which in varied stages of decay and collapse. As I walk the center of the aisle I realize it's a sort of church? I raise the cameras enhancement and view a crucifix set between long drapes of tattered, moth eaten cloth. A large desk sits on the flat of the rooms back, or is this considered the front? In the corners behind the desk are white podiums meant for something, but I view nothing nor the remains of suggestion. Statue or plants, or are the small white columns decoration enough?

There's an embroidery sigil on the front of the pedestals. I move around the desk to examine the sign, a little of them and a little more. The same sigil is fixed to the front of the miscolored desk. I don't recognize the sign as anything from Christianity, but it could just be a random decoration. I'm trying to overthink this.

A folder is crammed against the backside of the desk. Bent and gritty from waiting, forgotten. I pick it up and fit the pages back into the folder as I return to the light dangling at the opposite end of the room.

(Excerpt from the recordings of Bruce Newhouse, MD. Employed by Mount Massive Hospital 1958-1965)

Father Clarke-

Far be it from me to lie to a man of God, so let me at least say that I will do my personal best to improve the safety of your working conditions. I and the rest of the staff truly appreciate everything you do for our patients, and if you feel threatened by anybody in particular, simply let us know and we can either increase chemical restraints, or administer a lobotomy or similar calming procedure.

Don't underestimate the contribution your sermons offer our patients. Especially considering the depth and necessarily chaotic nature of hypnotherapy, our patients need the bedrocks of God and family. Not all of our poor unfortunates have the families to call upon, and so the burden, (and calling,) is yours. We are all of us relying on your faith and hard work.

DBNR

Dr. Newhouse, MD

May 20, 1961

Rumors. It was always just rumors, spook stories. The executives tied deep into Murkoff never let it slip, but they never denied anything either.

I… don't recall how much of Murkoff I remember. How can you know what you don't remember? There are pieces in my mind that feel familiar, that I should be aware something that was once common knowledge. I don't know if it's the dreams, the paranoia, or my own suspicions. I used to listen to the doctors over lunch (sometimes their dinner). It was hard not to listen. They would prattle on about their research, some activity that excited them, gave them hope for progress

Sometimes it frightened them too.

I take a few pictures before I'm aware that, I am taking pictures. What for? I don't know. Residue from last time when I… I took pictures of something. The camera ate up what I saw, what I witnessed. I would feed it the horror I am subjected to, and in turn it would protect what was left of me when nothing of me was left to remember. My mind was going. If I stay here, I'll be lost.

I leave the house of false hope and trail along the wall, passing a large pipe connected to the ceiling and its end vanished through the cement of the floor. Overhead pipes branch and angle, dispersing the gas through the separate chambers of the furnace. I reach a door left ajar and nudge it open. The interior is foul, thick with the heavy sent of gas. But there must be bodies in this room, hidden or left over. I use the night vision to scan the room over briefly before I turn to the wall, and view the metal panels. Column of two, a dozen in a row. Morgue. It's a morgue. To store the bodies before they are burned.

A lone table rests center of the room, a few rusted tools lay atop it. I step a little further into the room, until I can see the back wall and the large wash basins there. The other side holds lockers but I won't bother to check them. I leave and shut the door, and cough up the residue of sour air that clings to my throat.

I pass a large storage crate and keep moving, entering a chain link fence. I hesitate, fearful I'll emerge on the other side and the Cannibal will be there. The heat is still vivid on my skin, my arm and hands detest the cooler air. I'm careful to peer around a cement pillar, but there's no sound aside from pipes hissing and the roar of the fire bellowing. It draws my mind from the tingle, from unnatural sensations working around in my muscles.

A sharp hiss sends me stumbling back but nearly immediately I've calmed, I know the harsh shrill of the saw better than anything. It's only a pipe, foul steams spits from a loose bolt or gasket, or something. It's hot, and I avoid further burns by creeping under it and continue to a door that seeps out of the gloom. The frame is wrapped, I have to shove my shoulder against it to jar it loose.

There's very little in the room. The gas is noxious and I feel my head spinning as I move along the fence set up to block off the back of the room. Beside the door rests the large containers of gas for the furnace, and the back of the room is reserved for tools and maintenance to the crematorium. Shelves of steel bolted to the walls, a large pipe for distributing the gas from the vats. I walk along the fence searching for direction, a vent to deliver me. There is nothing. It's a dead end, but it's safe here. I don't linger long before I exit.

The other side of the crematorium is visible beyond the chain link fence. I see the makeshift pallet crates built to store piping, and I see the tray visible with the charred body I had pulled from the oven. There's no evidence of the Cannibal and the door he had burst from is shut.

I return to the back of the furnace, where I had first tumbled from the wall. Where did I go? The night vision was dimming and so I changed out the battery. This didn't help me, only extended my sight and capacity to see. There was no place to go, no path or danger but I had nowhere just the same. Inactivity would destroy me if some other presence didn't.

The exit is locked, the door boarded up from the opposite side. Was there anything beyond the door, or did it just open up into another section of the asylum? Into a hospital? I doubt it, but this place had a habit of insulting your worst nightmares.

I whirled around when a shriek struck out against the brick walls. I had to turn the camera up in time to view a flailing shape fall, the body screaming before it collides with the brick roof of the oven and cut off. The walls echoed with the cry perpetually, as the glass walls of my cell had clamored with my own shrill consecutively. When I…

I stagger and fall against the furnace, the brick radiates with the heat broiling inside. I tremble and press the camera to my temple fighting to hold off, to evade shapes twisting. Skulls swell and stretch into fetus like structures, bulging eyes like bird eyes and suddenly there are wings coiling about my face. Suffocating wings filled with soot. I gasping for air and smell only the gas and oil thick in my skin, and bodies cooking in the oven. I buckle forward trying to vomit, but there is nothing in me. I convulse a few times making horrid sounds that do nothing to ease my sudden sickness. Its impossible to lean this far forward, nearly folded in half. I topple sideways and brace my arm over a pipe.

It's smooth and warm, but it's not a pipe. Still dazed, I cradle the camera to my chest as I look up. From the angle of the light I can make out the sheen of rungs in a ladder. A ladder that leads to the top of the furnace, where the body had fallen from the chewed up wound in the ceiling.

Rather scale the rungs immediately I wait beside it, and let my body have the moment to recuperate. I didn't think I would get more than three steps before I'd fall. While waiting, I gripped the base until my knuckles were white, to verify the ladder would not run, would not frighten and retreat into the shadows where it had been hiding. I didn't want to hurt it, just wanted to climb it then it could be on its way.

Christ, what am I thinking? I've personified a ladder. But the dark metal was somehow comforting, crawling from the shadows when I had nearly been left lost. Had it always been here? Or had I missed it when I moved to view the corpse?

I looked to where the body lay stretched under the dagger of light, arm stretched to the promise of Exit. Even when he had believed he had reached sanctuary, he did not make it. The thought caused me to shudder, that I could be at the very breath of freedom, and still collapse. His liberation had been an illusion, but in his heart he had believed he was free.

Climbing up the ladder was easier than I envisioned. If I had been truly sick to my stomach I might not have had the capacity to reach the top without a pause or effort. When I reached the top, I found the man that had fallen. His body was twisted and broken among huge pipes that fed the furnace natural gas. A few cracks from the fires constant pecking, had allowed a few of the yellow flames to peek through the top. I stood on my heel as I examined above, the edge of the hole worked into the ceiling hanging over the furnace. Whatever had caused this calamity, natural or disaster, it had a small compliment and my thanks, but I hoped to never meet in my state the truth that had caused it.

There was no easy way to climb up, and the gargantuan pipes were too hot to set a foot on. A wood frame exposed from the cement offered some grip, and rebar thrust from the eroded cement made the climb possible. I stuffed the camera in the pouch and zipped it shut, then jumped and grasped the wood frame beneath the ceilings wound. The old board creaked in my grip but it seemed to hold my weight enough that I chanced to swing a leg up, and loop my foot through the links of rebar. I took a few breaths to brace myself, then hauled up my leg and used it to hold my weight as my arms pulled me the rest of the way up.

I scratch my arms over the cement as I crawled across the floor, and tugged my leg out of the rebar. I lay for a moment panting, trying to loosen my muscles from the exertion. I was getting the hang of this, I would get through it.

The pipes ran from the base of the floor, framed by metal and wood built around the tangle of metal rising higher and higher into the cyclone of brick above. I fished out the camera and checked my surroundings, there wasn't much aside from the dark pipes coated in dust. I reminded myself that the dust was most likely from people. Coprses disposed of in the most economical and sanitary way possible. To maintain high standing profits, of course.

I stumbled around the base, on the uneven floor reinforced by large metal beams fastened into what remained of the brick floor. Debris had fallen from somewhere, rotten and scorched wood. I looked up and saw only the inky black coil about the range of the enhanced vision, and the edges of a makeshift wood floor further above. Large crates had been stacked beside the large pipes, and I carefully climbed up. I pause to listen as the air hisses, it's just a draft. Natural occurrences. Heat and gases within the furnace, nothing to panic over.

The crates wobble as I stand up to view my range. The makeshift timber wall of support is adhered to smaller pipes and frame work, above it I can see the scorched wood and smoke thickening into heavy bellows of black ash rising out of the crumbling stacks of the huge chimneys. My eyes water and I hack as I get a lungful of the soot. The crematorium, the bodies burning. Dry ash sticks to my moist brow.

Fire is used to cleanse. I don't feel as though it aids my already filthy jumper.

Not far above my head is a ledge of wood, the sides worn away. Where I stand I have little confidence that I could make the jump and drag up, but where else did I have to go? I looked down and marveled at how high I was. It didn't seem high when I was crawling up, but now it did. Or it was the perspective. I'm not going back.

I stuck the camera strap between my teeth and tried not to touch it with my tongue. I leap and catch the ledge under my arms, and for a moment my legs dangle in open air. Don't overthink it, don't. I swing a leg up over the side and use it to leverage myself up. I clawed away from the side and took the camera from my mouth, and shuffled over the worn wood. The platform creaks under my weight but it as a whole felt steady, it was just noisy.

The frame structure built for the maintenance crews didn't appear sturdy enough in most areas to carry my weight, and I wouldn't trust it above a thirty foot drop. A small space was left beside a support brace, constructed along the wall curving wall. I held the side of the wood frame of the chimney as I placed my foot to the brace and scooted along. If I was careful and didn't lose my balance, I could creep along. But to where? Where was I going?

Prison Block.

When I reached that place, what would I do?

I sat down on the platforms top before tackling the ledge, to gather my resolve and look through the notebook. There was a radio, I would call for help.

I put the notepad and the camera way, then, trusted my balance to the cement brace. It was easier than I thought. I just went slow and tried not to look down. I had to pause to hack at the harsh smog filling the large chimney, and fought my mind not to envision where the foul smell originated from. Don't dwell over it. Keep moving. Steady and slow, don't look down.

The chimney hissed as the fires burned deep in its heart. There arose a rasping, hissing shrill coming from the top of the furnace. Little by little the sound caused my mind to panic, the bright blooms of white igniting, the stretching membranes pressed into my eyes. No. Here? It was HERE?!

Not far from the walls ledge another stationary platform was built. Hang on. The rickety boards were covered by plywood, a few crates and pipes lay about to cause demise if I'm not careful. Calm. Stay calm! I forced myself to stop before I began to sway on my thin perch, my toes slipping over the edge of the cement path. It was here somewhere but I couldn't see, I held the camera beside the hot wall and I refused to trust my balance to take my fist from the wall. Its grating wail rattled through my brain, vibrated inside my skull. Somewhere below me, or all around me, I couldn't decide.

Looking down, I debated if jumping now would be less painful. If that was an acceptable escape. I had to fight my muscles not to lock up, and keep me from tumbling head over heels into the flames poking through the oven far-far below. The body jumped, he found escape. It was the only way.

The rasp faded, and the strange twirling carousel of pain slipped from my skull entirely. I scooted the rest of the way along the thin ledge and toppled over the loose plywood, and managed to crash over a small crate waiting beside the crushed edge of the platform. The span of parched timber tore off, down and down to the section of floor that had crumbled away. It was barely visible below now, in the swirling haze. I sink to my knees dangerously close to the edge, a board compressed under my weight and moaned, cracking. Falling. One of the two-by-fours beneath me did snap free, and spiraled off into the gloom. A distant clatter raised, subdued.

Another dead end. I turned my eyes from temptation and found above, a black sinkhole of shadows mingling in the ceiling - or floor above where - where cement had decayed in the intolerable conditions of the furnace. Some of the crates and timber reached high enough to it, if I stood on top of the crates.

Internally, I groaned to myself. I counted myself among some form of good fortune, overlooked as I was when the shade, it was the shade, swooped by. But was I certain that I saw what I thought I saw? I didn't actually see anything. Just the flash of suggestion in the steam, and the wounds of my mind fabricating a suitable horror. It was trapped in the plastic quarantine area. It couldn't escape that place.

Could it?


School's been kind of a dick. My classes consist mostly of graphs and 'how to be a punctual asshole.' I whole heartily apologize for the unreasonable lateness of this chapter.

Weylon tries not to fuck up the camera, but he's really bad at not fucking up the camera. Miles can drop his camera down two floors of the asylum and still find and use it. All Weylon has to do is touch the camera and its shorts out. He's master the night vision and how to take pictures though, wee...