Chapter 11
"So he had you doing pretend housework? In that little hallway?"
"Sort of. I was mopping cement and dusting shelves of old junk that probably hasn't been touched since the 70s but…what could I do? Say no?"
Lisa meandered alongside him as he peered through his camera, zooming in on a dead security guard whose skull had been caved in on one side. She and Miles had abandoned the relative safety of the air ducts and had made an attempt to backtrack through the ward…and had promptly become lost in the maze, left to wander through ruined hallways and overgrown courtyards.
"…Would it be okay if I made an archaic joke about men and asking for directions?" Miles asked meekly.
"Apparently I'm not much better at it…I think we've been going in circles. Or squares. Whatever this place is made of."
Miles paused to briefly film a series of large bloody hand prints on the wall, smearing in one direction. Whoever had been being dragged had put up a fight, and there were scratches in the plaster, and what looked like a fingernail that had been torn loose. Lisa didn't want to look closely enough to confirm. They were leading to an ominous set of stairs and a yawning darkness further down.
"What about those stairs?" Miles asked brightly.
"You want to go down? Should we be going down?"
"Well it must go somewhere and we haven't found a way out up here. Hopefully it's better than the sewers I was wading through to get here. I have to tell you, the sewers beneath an insane asylum do not smell too great."
"I didn't want to say anything. I figured I probably didn't smell much better…nngh." She paused and inhaled sharply, placing a hand on her belly.
Miles reached out an arm to help steady her, brows knitting. "Lisa…"
"I'm fine. I'm fine. Just needed to catch my breath from all this walking. My leg isn't feeling too great and my…stomach hurts, I guess." she said quickly, glancing about before lifting her chin towards the darkness of the stairs. "You're right about us not getting anywhere here. Let's try down there."
They descended the stairs, and almost immediately regretted it. There was a rapidly worsening stench, far more powerful than Miles's sewer jeans or Lisa's unwashed body, the familiar reek of rotting flesh. There were bodies everywhere, but whatever this was must have been a doozy, likely a whole collection of them.
"Miles, maybe we should go back up. This can't be good."
"Wait, there's a light up ahead."
"There's a smell up ahead, too!"
"I don't hear anything. If they're already dead, maybe we can get around. Just be really quiet, and let's peek around-Oh fuck!" He rounded the corner and immediately staggered back as if struck, bending double and retching loudly.
Lisa ambled up to his side and stared, momentarily at a loss for words before mumbling, "So…Eddie actually was shaving people."
The scene was positively gruesome. It was a warped parody of childbirth, a bed covered in blood from the body of a man who had been hacked open between the thighs, his torso an infected purple mess of stitched-on flesh, nipples askew and one 'breast' starting to droop where it was becoming detached. A makeshift nurse was strung up next to him, held up by the pipes along the ceiling…and what at first glance seemed to be a baby…
She looked impassively to the half-rotted head of a man emerging from the pelvis of another man.
"It's…supposed to be me. He's practicing. On them."
Miles was busy filming, even as he turned his head and lifted an arm over his nose to try and stifle the overpowering stench. "Ghhh…Okay. You are being way too calm about this. I have seen some massively fucked up shit since arriving here but this is taking the entire goddamn cake. This is supposed to be you?"
"You don't know how obsessed he is about having children. Or I guess, the idea of having children. So he's been practicing. This must be his 'job' he goes to every day. Hunting them down and honing his techniques." She eyed the 'nurse' corpse balefully, its hand stiff with rigor mortis, tenderly wrapped around the hand of its charge in a pantomime of comfort. "Look at it. He's been dreaming of this. He wants everything to be perfect for when we have the 'baby'. This is what he fucking obsesses over, Miles, this is what he thinks it is. That piece of…" She trailed off, lifting a hand to her bruised face before balling it into a closed fist.
Miles gave her a look of concern. "You all right?"
"I know that he's sick. I saw what they were doing to him and what his files said. I know that he never stood a chance from the beginning and maybe somehow in a way this isn't even his fault but…Miles, look at this. Look at me. I hate him. I hate him so much." She glanced away, lips pursing. "I'm not sure I feel bad about hating him. I think I do? But he was hurting me, and kept hurting me, and enjoyed hurting me…and…and I don't even know why I'm telling you all this, and I think I'm going to need a lot of therapy. Real therapy. Not the-" Her voice cracked. "…No. We'd better change the subject."
"I don't really know what to say for this kind of thing. Just that I'm sorry and I'm going to get you out of here. I promised you."
"And I'm sorry for dragging you into it, dragging you down here with all this..."
"You said you had a story. Okay, I'll admit, I didn't expect it to go down quite like this, but you still have one hell of a story. And this is one that needs to be told." He tried to offer her a smile, then blinked and hesitantly reached toward her. "Hey, Lisa…your nose? It's bleeding."
She lifted her fingers to one nostril and looked as they came away red. "No…Shit! Shit! It's happening again, we need to move."
"Tell me what's wrong? What's happening?"
"I don't know what it is! I think it's this thing in me, if it's anything. But I was getting little nosebleeds all leading up to this week, and ever since then they've started getting worse and worse, and I end up passing out and this is an extremely not good place for fainting spells!"
"Ffffuck…Okay. Okay. We're moving, we're moving now, let's go."
They passed the gruesome birth installation, moving swiftly down the filthy lower halls. At least they weren't moving in circles anymore, but the darkness and the rapidly worsening ache in her head was of no comfort at all. And worse, there was the return of distant voices. Eddie's reign of terror must have lifted so far away from his territory, and the variants had made themselves at home on his outskirts.
This was confirmed when Miles went to open a door, and the two found themselves face to face with three inmates who were standing over the twitching body of a fourth. All heads in the room turned at once, and there was a beat of silence before the variants started shrieking and one of them lunged. Miles managed to throw a foot out, kicking him back and slamming the door, shoulder-checking a nearby metal rack to fall over in front of it and injuring himself in the process.
"OW! Fuck! Fuck me!" He grasped his now-dangling arm, fist clenching in pain even as he went to shove Lisa back towards the open hallways, the urgent banging of the variants trying to escape echoing down the corridor. "Go! Go go go go go!"
"I can't run! I can't RUN!" She answered, hobbling frantically on her bad leg and holding her middle, eyes wide and bloodshot as red still streamed from her nose.
"Shit! SHIT! Okay, go, go, in here!" He had her by the hand now, dragging her behind him as he ducked into a smaller hall and they dove into a ransacked staff office. Even with his clearly injured shoulder, Miles managed to shove one of the bookcases over it, blocking off the door just as the wailing of the rampaging lunatics sounded further down the block.
They were pinned down, as Upshur joined Lisa in her little hiding spot beneath the office desk. She was looking more unwell, a ghastly gray-pale and her breathing was labored, each hiss of exhalation bringing fresh blood out with it. Miles looked frantic, pulling off his coat and holding the sleeve of his flannel shirt beneath her nose, reaching for her emergency bag.
"Here. Here, take your pill, take the water. Come on, girl, you've been tough as hell, this is nothing!" He was speaking rapidly, his attempts at comfort going poorly as Lisa began trembling with the telltale signs of shock.
"This is fucked! God, Miles, it hurts!" She shuddered hard, nearly spasming as she reached up to hold out her camcorder. "Okay..nn… I need you to go on the rest of the way. Take my camera. Between us they should have plenty of footage and ammunition to work with. Take it with you and g-get out of here. Tell…Tell people what…happen…" Her voice was slurring, with a strange gurgle in her throat she hadn't heard before. "Way…Tell Waylon I lo…I lohghh…"
Her eyes were starting to glaze and drift apart, focus leaving her all at once as she wrapped both arms around her painfully swollen belly, moaning.
"No! Lisa, no no no, come on. Don't do this. Don't do this now. I just found you." He grabbed her arm, trying to shoulder her upright before desperately moving to pull her onto his back, flinging her limbs around him. But Miles was no Eddie Gluskin, barely able to take a few steps with the body of the limp woman weighing him down. She was fading fast, eyes rolling back and gasping for air, blood streaming from her nose and the corner of her lips, sluggishly reaching up towards him even as her vision blurred and everything slowly became overtaken by that shrill static ringing in both ears.
"Waylon?…"
"Lisa!" He was shaking her, calling her name. He grasped his head, tearing at the sides of his hair helplessly and glancing between her and the door. Then she felt herself being dragged, and his fuzzy features stood over her in the dirty little office bathroom.
"Stay here. I'll be back. I'm going to lead them away, and come back for you. I'll come back. I fucking promise you, I'll be back!"
She could barely lift her head as he vanished from sight, and she dimly heard the crash of a door, followed by a roaring Miles getting further and further away. "OVER HERE! Yeah over here, you fucked-up fucks! Yeah! Come get me, you pieces of-"
Her neck gave way, and then her head hit the cracked tile of the floor, and she heard nothing.
Her first thought was that she must have died. She saw nothing but black and she was certainly not conscious. And yet, there was pain too. A far-away dull pain that seeped in from all sides of her. If she wasn't dead, perhaps she was having a dream. Maybe all of this was just a terrible dream.
Veins of green and grey crept over her vision and became suddenly aware that she was not alone. There was something there, with her, very close to her…
Something that wasn't really a voice that was inside her.
ALIVE.
"Who…who is there?"
WE.
"Where am I?"
PART OF US.
"Stop it! Who are you! What are you!"
MANY.
"What? Where are you from?"
BELOW.
"What…what are you? Why are you doing this to me?"
TO BRING US.
"Bring you where?"
WE WANT…TO BE.
"…You're what's inside me, aren't you?"
YOU CARRY US.
"Inside me…"
YES.
"So…it's not Eddie's. It's…you?"
YES.
"But you're hurting me. You're hurting these…people…"
There was a silence, almost confusion.
YES. ANGER.
"Why?"
THE ANGER. IN HOPE.
"I don't understand."
NO.
"Please. Can't you stop? You have to stop this."
WE MUST.
"No…"
MANIFEST.
"No!"
She awoke with a horrible scraping gasping noise, body spasming and back arching. The black and green buzzing film that had overtaken her head faded, leaving nothing but a pounding ache that seemed to thud in time with her heart and the weight in her belly. It was no longer speaking to her, but she could swear that she feel it was watching her somehow, as she struggled to pull herself from the bloody floor. She managed to sit, coughing noisily as she grasped her middle with both arms.
Was it a demon? Some sort of science abomination? Was it even real? Had that been just another hallucination? Something her rapidly-deteriorating mind had concocted? Was it one of the signs of insanity that plagued this place?
She took a breath to calm her nerves and wheezed it out, the metallic sting of blood sharp in her nostrils as she wiped away flecks of dried red-brown. She couldn't have been out for very long. The blood was still too bright to be old. However long it had been, Miles was still gone, and she was still stuck in this place, and judging by the feeling in her gut, she was dying.
She managed to slowly wobble to her feet, grasping the side of the sink as she turned the faucet, splashing water onto her bloodstained face and swallowing more pain pills. Something seemed to shift ever so slightly in her insides, not quite a kick, barely a flutter of movement from something not really yet living. When she looked down, there was another smaller stain of blood on the fabric that had been between her legs.
What had it said? It was trying to manifest? But inside her?
"Fuck…"
She finished cleaning herself up as best she could, rummaging through the office and putting on a too-large windbreaker jacket over her stained maternity dress. Well, this all merely solidified the fact that she needed out of here. She needed a doctor, and fast.
Lisa padded softly over to the doorway, peeking out into the dimly lit halls. There was no sound save for the faint buzz of a dying lightbulb, and she lifted her voice to softly call "Miles?" several times. There was no answer, and she couldn't wait. Reluctantly, she slipped out into the walkway and started retracing her steps to continue her quest of trying to find a way out.
Every time she saw the outline of a body or a blood splatter, her mind surged in the beginnings of panic, expecting it to be Miles. But it was nearly as bad when she found absolutely no trace of him at all. There was no telling where he might have gone; perhaps caught, or lost again, or something worse. There was no way to know.
The only positive was that there seemed to be less patients. Most likely that the majority of them had been killed off in the days she had spent captive, though that meant that the ones who had survived were likely forced to be reckoned with, and she was more careful than ever to avoid their notice.
It may have been slow going, but there was still no small elation when she saw the first signs of familiarity, halls and rooms that she had been in before. And then, finally, a sign that pointed to the cafeterias, the lobby, and the exit.
The door to the cafeteria was hanging open, broken off its hinges, and half-stacked with debris, as if someone had tried to fortify it before being broken through, and the tables were littered with gore and dead bodies. But she didn't hear any signs of struggle inside. Perhaps the cafeteria's battleground days were over, as hungry inmates had emptied it and left to scavenge elsewhere.
Sure, the bodies looked as though large pieces of them had been removed and what skin was left looked like there were human teeth marks all over them..but at this point, that was nothing surprising.
She was quiet as a mouse as she made her way her way between the tables, bare feet padding softly, black with filth as she avoided broken glass and chunks of unidentifiable meat that were crawling with maggots. The main kitchen was in even worse shape, buzzing thick with flies as she skulked her way through, finding the doors back to the hallway locked tight as she turned to make her way through the pantry before she heard it…
Above the buzzing of flies, there was a higher-pitched metallic buzz.
"MEAT!"
The squeal of the buzzsaw revved loudly as he appeared in the doorway nearby, the man she had only glimpsed from afar so many days ago. He was a skeletal thing, disheveled and wild with a shaggy beard and tangled mane of hair, gangly and naked save for his blood-spattered underwear.
His feral gaze locked onto her even as she started to back away, lifting his buzzsaw.
"Meat! Beautiful, lonely flesh, all mine! You-" His ranting paused suddenly, buzzsaw screeching to a halt. "Wait. The girl! You're the girl!"
Lisa was already running, heart pounding and leg protesting as she hobbled at top speed through the ruined pantry rooms, with the scrawny man close on her heels.
"Wait! Wait!" he called to her, waving his saw, and looking more and more frustrated when it was clear she had no intentions of waiting on him.
"Girl! The GIRL! She's here!"
She tried to duck to one side, limping rapidly through another storage room before she spotted another open door, ignoring his screams for her to stop. She took a glance behind her, trying to see where he was coming from…and then slammed hard into something that stepped in front of her path. It felt like she'd run into a brick wall. With a grunt, she staggered and fell back, landing hard on her rear. Her eyes traveled up and up, expression slacking with shock as her gaze met the piercing red and blue peering back at her.
"Mr. Manera, would you kindly stop frightening my wife?"
She was vaguely aware of the buzzsaw guy slowing to a stop behind her, but he no longer mattered. With a rustling of shopping bags, the enormous man in the vest and bow-tie adjusted his cargo to one arm and reached out a gloved hand to her. Wordlessly, she took it, and was effortlessly hauled back up to her feet.
For a long moment, she and Eddie stared at one another. She was a bruised and battered mess with dirt and blood staining her jacket and dress, and he loomed over her with a look of both confusion, concern, and rapidly growing anger.
"Darling…What are you doing here?"
