Chapter 54: Infested
"Oh no you don't!" I muttered through gritted teeth, nearly losing it when the door didn't open immediately. I had come too far and done too much to fail at the seemingly simple task of unlocking the door.
I took a deep breath and pulled it together before I turned the knob as far as it would go and thrust my weight against it. Fortunately, it was merely stuck, and as it finally gave, I burst into the hallway, nearly stumbling.
I immediately looked around at my surroundings, and my heart sank. It didn't look the way it had when I was there last—it looked worse. The stuff on the walls that looked like ground meat was more red and glossy and now it was moving as if worms crawled just underneath the surface, causing it to look even more rotted and disgusting than it had before. Not to mention that the room felt humid, and there was a perpetual hissing sound that seemed to come from everywhere.
"No way," I muttered under my breath, shaking my head as if denying it would do any good, "No way … not here … too." You'd think that I would have learned not to get my hopes up by that point, but I had subconsciously held onto the idea that getting the door to open would somehow get me out of that nightmare … but all it did was take me back to the alternate version of the apartment again. I hung my head hopelessly.
I heard familiar footsteps and when I looked up and saw who was approaching, my mood lightened a little. "Eileen …"
"This is our apartment building," she remarked, as she approached me, "but … now it looks like some kind of nightmare."
"Yeah, I know," I muttered as we embraced and held each other for a brief moment. I didn't know quite how she'd gotten there, but at the moment, I didn't care.
"Will we have to search the entire building?" she asked, apprehensively.
"I hope not," I replied. "At least I know where to go—I think there's something we need in the super's room … so we should start there." I looked to the right—the direction that lead to the stairway that would've lead to the lobby—and saw that it was blocked off by bars. "Somehow," I added.
Since it was the only way that wasn't blocked off, we went to room 301.
As I opened the door, however ...
"Receiver!"
On top of everything else, the place was now infested with double-heads. I quickly drew my gun and fired repeatedly. It charged at me, and managed to get to me before taking enough hits to kill it. I moved to the side (Eileen was smart and moved to the other side) and managed to dodge the blind swipe it took at me. I quickly moved around behind it, and finished it off with a couple more shots as it was turning around.
If those creatures weren't so slow and awkward when it came to turning, I thought, they would have been the death of me fifty times over by now.
Once the threat was gone, I immediately noticed the sound of a woman's constant sobbing—it didn't come from any specific direction, but seemed to echo throughout the room. Eileen and I exchanged a glance, as we noticed it roughly the same time and both wondered where it was coming from. I remembered hearing it coming from the portals in my apartment. I didn't know what it had to do with any of this—all I knew was that there are few sounds more heartbreaking to me than that of a woman crying. But I took a small amount of comfort in the fact that at least it wasn't Eileen crying this time.
Before we had time to say anything to each other, I suddenly heard a stomping coming from an area of the floor that was cut out to make room for a stairway.
"Damn!" I hissed as another double-head appeared. I dealt with it similarly as the last one.
I barely had time to catch my breath, when ...
Stomp, stomp stomp ...
I groaned and when I turned around, what I saw was startling. I had expected to see a Double-head appearing at the top of the steps, although what I saw turned out to not be too far from that. It was identical, in build, to a double-head, but it was missing the cloak, and it nearly appeared skinned. It was more of a pale flesh color and its musculature was visible, looking almost Giger-esque with all the intricate details—a sharp contrast to the smooth-looking chalk-like skin of the double-heads. It had two heads, as well, but I couldn't make out any facial features. Its torso ended halfway down, tapering toward the end to a small spot where some sort of fleshy bulbous organ dangled, looking grotesquely like genitalia. These creatures pretty much confirmed what I'd imagined the double-heads looked like under their cloaks when one fell on top of me.
The thing turned and began to move in my direction, and as it did, I regretfully got a better look at the thing that I thought was an organ of some kind. In the front, it had a protrusion at the top, with a gaping hole directly beneath it, and two dark spots about halfway down with a small protrusion between the spots and the hole. It was a somewhat rotted human head dangling between the monster's arms/legs that hung slack with the mouth open, the eyes nothing more than dark pits. The sickness I felt upon noticing this was nearly indescribable.
On a whim, I aimed my gun directly at the dangling head, and fired—it took a couple hits to get it on target, but once I did, it ruptured in a shower of blood and bone fragments.
The creature screamed, and fell to the floor, twitching in agony.
I approached it and looked on with morbid fascination as it continued to twitch and blood pooled under it. The shot was apparently painful, but not fatal, and it wouldn't be dying on its own any time soon. As I stomped on its back, breaking its spine, it let out one final cry and shuddered briefly before becoming still and silent.
Once it was over, and I moved away from the monster's corpse, Eileen grabbed onto me for comfort, disturbed by the scene. I held her for a moment to comfort her, but it was really only for her sake. I didn't enjoy killing the monster the way I did, so much as I had become so desensitized to violence that I just didn't care about the level of brutality I used.
The stairs lead to a room where everything appeared rusted with giant holes punched through the walls, which appeared to have curled inward from the force like metal. The hallways were lined with a chainlink fence that had several of the sort of black and yellow metal signs you might see at a construction site with the word CAUTION! with various messages written over the normal text in blood. They lead all the way down the hall.
It's starting
Soon
Any time now
Very soon now
Soon it will begin
The ritual … the ritual
They were unsettling, and I took Eileen's hand, almost without thinking about it.
Now that we were on the second floor, we went back out to the hall, following it until we came to a dead end where it was blocked off by bars. On the other side of the bars were what looked like bodies wrapped in fabric, then tied up with straps and hung from the ceiling. Apparently Walter Sullivan was on the other side of the bars as well, because I heard his laugh and the click of his gun being cocked.
Fortunately, we had gone through the next door before he had time to shoot at us. I never saw where exactly he was so either we were damn lucky, or he never intended to shoot in the first place—most likely the latter since he could have easily picked us off if he'd wanted to.
We ended up in Room 202, the one with the paintings. I stopped for a second and recalled that when I was there earlier was when I realized that even when I had my freedom, I wasted it, and I wondered if the point of that place was to make me realize that. I had learned so much since then—this place had absolutely nothing to do with me, it was all about Sullivan. Even the recurring theme of confinement—it was probably because he often felt trapped, not only in the Water Prison and orphanage, but he probably felt trapped, spiritually as well, for most of his life. Maybe part of the reason he locked me in my apartment was to inflict what he'd gone through on someone else.
By this point, there was no doubt left in my mind that he influenced me somehow, that he was the reason I rarely left the apartment even when I was able to. But when exactly had the influence began? When I moved in? When Frank gave me the tour and I first saw room 302? Or did it go back to the very first time I even walked by the building?
A shiver ran through me. Possibly, not being able to pinpoint where my own free will ended and his influence began-the fact that it was a seamless transition that I never noticed—was the most disturbing part.
Shaking off these thoughts as best I could, I decided to search the place on a whim, and I ended up being glad I did. I found the last sword in the bedroom. I had a feeling I'd be needing it, so I picked it up and brought it along.
Back in the living room, I found that there was a big hole in the wall where the large unfinished painting had once stood, as if someone had pushed it aside and made a hole that was about the same width as a doorway, but it went all the way up to the ceiling.
We went through it to find that it lead to the alcoholic's room, 203, which had nothing of interest, so we followed the hallway to the door and ended up back in the hall, which lead to the stairs.
As soon as I went through the door, I was greeted by my old friends, the Patients—two of them, this time. Fortunately they were far away and slow coming at me, so I pulled out my gun and dealt with them mostly from a distance, stomping on them once they fell.
The way to the stairs themselves was blocked. On our way to the door to the opposite hall, another Patient came around the corner and intercepted me. I had already put my gun away, so I decided to use my axe this time.
It swung its weapon. I blocked the hit with the handle of my axe—the force behind the blow caused a shudder to run down my arms. It pushed down, and the damn thing was so strong, my arms nearly gave. But I was able to hold out just long enough for it to give up on that swing, and try another one.
As it pulled back its weapon, I was able to pull back my axe more quickly, and I delivered a good swing, knocking it off its feet. Once it was down, I finished it off with a stomp.
I paused to catch my breath.
"You're getting good at that," Eileen said in a tired voice.
I shrugged a response. Maybe she was right—the monsters were giving me little trouble at this point and had become more annoying than anything else. Unfortunately, every time I let myself get a little cocky, I'd end up paying for it. Then again, being confident without overdoing it wouldn't be a bad thing.
I looked over at Eileen. She wasn't looking so good, and I was beginning to notice that she wasn't making an attempt to help me fight the monsters anymore. I was okay with that—I had never expected to have her help in that area, even though it was a nice surprise and ended up being an asset at times—but it made me worry. I could tell that she spent a lot of time being concerned about me, and while I wasn't sure how healthy it was to be more concerned about me than herself, I'd come to think of it as part of who she was. The fact that she had possibly stopped thinking that way made me wonder what was going on in her mind to cause it.
She raised her eyebrow at me, probably wondering what I was thinking about all that time I was looking at her.
I wanted to say something—possibly ask her if she was okay, but I quickly realized that would be a stupid question, and it wasn't as if I could do anything about it if the answer was no. Instead, I held my hand out.
She smiled, meekly, and took it.
"Let's keep going," I said, as I pushed the double-doors open.
