I'm back. Yay! (- Sarcastic?) I know it's been a while, I'm sorry. Writing horror is not my speciality, but if I'm in the mood for it, I feel like it's actually some of my best work. Problem is I'm not usually in the mood.
*NOTE: I done goofed last chapter with one of the mad doctor's lines. He told Scooby, "Back to Gluskin you go". This may confuse some readers, and I apologize for not catching that boo-boo - the correct line would have been, "Back to Walker you go". Also, I wrote "hauled Scooby back into the dazed life" - which elevator should obviously be substituted for life. Oops.
Wanted to clear that up. Anyways, hope you enjoy this chapter, I was feeling horror-y and given the day, I decided I had to put out the next part. Thanks for all the loves and supports, it means a lot. :) Oh, and of course, Happy Halloween!
Daphne got a chill down her spine, an electric shock almost, that raced through her as Fred shoved open the stubborn door. As it happened, it was one of few coincidences in this dreaded place. The bolts were old, the frame slightly bent, and the door was just hard to open on its own. No body of corpses on the other side, no monster waiting to catch them off guard, just a stuck exit.
For that at least, she was grateful.
The grass waved in the wind and the bright moon was currently uncovered by dark clouds. The yellow-white glow of the celestial body should have brought with it rays of hope, but looking upon the great sanitarium, she realized only how massive Mount Massive was.
"This way - at least, my instincts tell me we should go this way," Fred explained, pointing down a sloped plane of tall grass, old trees, and dirt patches where a trail had once offered some slight recreation to the people with half a mind or less.
"Fine by me," She replied, holding onto his arm as he led the way.
She wondered if their choice was the right one. Not the choice to come and rescue Velma's friend, heroic as that intention was, it had put them all in a graver danger than they had ever been in. No, she pondered the wisdom of going back outside. A fork in the path had presented them with a crucial choice: The crematory and documentation wing were closed off, which meant they could bend through the archives and hope something better lay in or beyond them, or venture outside and see what could be found.
It truly was a catch-22: Outside was possible salvation, inside was sure horror...but as outside was an extension of inside, there was surely some measure of damnation here as well. Would you rather be clubbed over the head, or walk into a bat?
The trail stretched out further down the mountain, more trees and denser brush accompanying it, but Fred's instincts led them up the other trail entrance. Frankly, Daphne's instincts were in agreement. The darkness in that area was more malevolent, it was inexplicable other than a deep feeling of dread at the thought of walking down that road. Something was lurking that way. In their minds or in reality, something terrible lay that way.
The next thing she knew, her heart practically exploded.
"WHOA!" Fred was on his chest, and she had fallen to her hands and knees, flashlight rolling into a dying bush.
She scrambled to her feet, searching all direction at once for the threat accosting them, and finding none, she retreated quickly to Fred's side.
"What happened!?"
"Sorry Daph - I tripped. I never even saw the root until we were on the way down."
He shined his light over the spot they had fallen and it was clear, perfectly blank, a congression of dirt lying innocently in the midst of wavy grass. Fred stood up and walked towards the spot in question, shining the beacon all around the area, and walked back scratching his head and trembling a bit more than before.
"I was sure I tripped on a root. As we were falling, I was positive I saw it but...it's gone. I know it was there. Am I going mad?"
"No matter, let's move on, my flashlight went into that bush, help me find it."
The light moved towards the shrubbery, and it took them only seconds to catch the reflecting gleam of light on dark metal. The path went on a ways more, winding down the mountain slightly but raising up again into an area barred off with an electrical fence. Currently, the power was out, but the gate was shut.
They approached it cautiously, Daphne shined her light the way they came, just to be safer. They scouted the perimeter, but the only way inside was behind the closed fence. It wasn't locked, but both of them knew that with their luck tonight, it would stay off only until they were touching it.
Fred grabbed a stick, using it to lift up the latch and throw it back. So far so good. The next part was tougher though. A simple stick would not suffice, and he prepared his hand, thrusting it forward and retracting quickly.
"Here we go," He warned Daphne.
He tapped the fence with all his 220 benching arm's ability, and it swung back with the expected creaking, but Fred was unharmed, and the power still off.
"It worked…" He sighed with relief, leading the way inside the fenced area. Without facility lighting, their flashlights were the sole source of identification for this part of the Asylum. Daphne's light caught the plack first, but Fred's soon joined it.
"Crematory," She read plainly, "Well...looks like we're just about back where we started.
She walked towards the door, but Fred grabbed her by the shoulder after a single step, "Wait, look. Another folder."
Sure enough, a few feet to the right of the plack was another pinned manilla folder, courtesy (presumably) of Velma's friend Waylon. Fred read it aloud as Daphne watched their backs.
There's something bugging me, and admittedly I only know this because I happen to be conspiracy buff in my spare time, but I have no doubts that this horror in Mount Massive is due to a wide reaching evil. Maybe it's Murkoff, and its claws are longer and sharper than we could ever have dreamt, or maybe it's something in Murkoff's shadow, whispering, moving pieces on a demonic board.
I have attached several documents, some of them containing significance in only a few buzzwords or a sentence, others chalked full of importance. Detailed messages Murkoff never wanted to see the light of day, about projects centered in a few places - Temple Gate, Arizona, Arkham, Massachusetts, and some place in Wyoming the internet claims doesn't exist.
Good God, how far is Murkoff's reach? How wide does their web run? And who is REALLY in control here: Murkoff, the Walrider, or maybe something else I haven't seen yet? Where does the Morphogenic Engine tie in? It's clearly a tool, but to what degree? Every time I look for an answer, I only see more questions, and time is of the essence, growing shorter with every breath.
"That's the end of it...but, not the most disturbing thing," Fred said, moving closer to the folder and its attached documents, "There's blood splatter on this one. All at the bottom, like the writer was attacked the moment he finished."
He picked it off the wall and felt Daphne's hand wrap around his arm again, a position both were becoming accustomed to, and in another time and place, a position Fred would be delighted to find himself in.
The other documents were here, and they only gave the note deeper horror. The project in Temple Gate, Arizona was declared "a success" and talked about preliminary tests for the Morphogenic Engine, and the total insanity of a rural town. The projects in Wyoming detailed a "loss of sufficient data" and a "totally unexpected end to testing." Apparently, if this location did exist once, it did not anymore. The projects in Arkham, Massachusetts mentioned nearby cities, such as Innsmouth, and referenced difficulty in compiling data due to interference from many sources, namely, "Deep Ones", which even the author of the document seemed confused about; there was also mentions of a cult and an experiment in a university being "inconclusive".
Then the power crashed to life. Electric buzzing filled the air. Fred grabbed Daphne and bolted through the door, leaving the horrible papers to fall lifelessly to the ground.
Scooby woke to fading splashes and ringing ears. He slowly rose, and then realized what had just occurred. His friends were taken captive by a mad doctor, and he had been sent back down the elevator to be found by the monster that had chased them to it.
Despite his full understanding that screaming was equivalent to death, his body and the racing terror overtook his mind, and scream he did. Loudly, and sharply. Loud enough for the monster to hear, and after a pause of only a few seconds, in which his heartrate must have tripled, the terrible splashes resumed, and were drawing closer.
He had only two options, one of which would be easy but still horrifying, and the other would be twice that, but also very hard. If the elevator still had power, he could hope to ride it back to the top. The monster had discarded his prey as lost, why not the mad doctor? But if the power to the lift was once more out, he would have to evade the monster in the dark and the water, where he would be hard pressed to escape alive.
"Little Piggy fell down…Little Piggy get strangled." The monster chanted in its deranged tune.
Scooby mashed the button faster and harder than any button on any machine in his life. This was worse than before because he was utterly alone with the frightening behemoth, his friends far above him, and he could only hope against odds to find them again.
The elevator seemed conflicted again, and once more it jumped upwards about a foot and half - nowhere near enough to keep out of the monster's grip, and then it stalled and stopped, and held him there like a treat to be caught.
"Rome on, rome on!" Scooby whimpered, hiding his eyes behind one paw while the other continued to mash the up button.
The dreaded splashing was very loud now, and Scooby could even hear the deep breathing the monster let into the foul air. The lift groaned and creaked and shot up another foot or so, still not enough, but progress at least.
The splashes went away, and the terrifying thrashing sound of boots on metal came quickly to Scooby's ears. The lift was stuck again, and at a crucial moment. Scooby darted to the back of the cage, pressing himself against it as the monster's arm reached in to grab him. A few angry swings later and Scooby had not been taken yet, but the once human creature was determined, and he took his arm out and placed his head and upper torso in. It was a tight fit for him, but he would be able to reach Scooby unless -
The lift sprung up and caught the monster between its lower end and the stone shaft. It roared, angrier than before, and just maybe injured, but most definitely angry. The groaning returned, and lasted ages, and in desperation Scooby risked kicking the beast in the head. His kicks did little, but in the end, the monster fell - too heavy, too strong to be crushed, it finally tore half of the bottom of the elevator out, and Scooby clung to its walls as he rode up - safe for the moment.
The gurney rolled into an old wing of the mansion, and the mad doctor hummed briefly as Shaggy and Velma tried to squirm out of their constraints. The black and yellow (once white) tiles were scuffed and some were missing, but made the nerve-wracking pat-pat-patter of the doctor's feet all the same. Their ride had a loose wheel in the back left, and the doctor applied extra force to make it move as he wanted it to.
The walls were stained with blood outside the elevator, and some was leaking down an open ventilation shaft. Mold was slowly growing, obviously encroaching upon the wing, spread out in blots from the corners and bottoms of the floor.
"Say...you with the lanky build...haven't I seen you before?"
Shaggy shuddered and moaned under the doctor's looming face and tried even harder to break free.
"Yeah...you're that...shit priest's prophet or some such nonsense, aren't ya? A holy man. Well, antiquated, but respectable. Unfortunately you picked a very unrespectable place to be."
The teens were wheeled into a hallway with wood planks, a fresh, large blot of blood pooling in the center of the lane, an agonized man with open bowels and chin painted in crimson slurring cries of torture.
The doctor seemed annoyed, like his dog had made a mess on the carpet in front of guests. He even slapped the naked, dying man over the head as they passed him.
"SSshhhh! Pipe down, you weren't putting that tongue to good use anyways. Hollering bloody murder."
They turned into a room full of cots, some vacant, other occupied by the corpses or soon-to-be corpses, and a blood and gut trail leading a room on the left with a bright, flickering light. The doctor made an aside as he took them into the bright room - a washroom with showers on one side and several sinks on the opposite end, plus a toilet and urinal in the corner.
"Truth be told...I was just tired of licking my own stamps. Ah, but here we are. Alright, here's where we put your noses on that grindstone."
He pushed the gurney into the center of the room and moved towards the urinal, where a collection of rusty and bloody instruments lay in a pile, an intrusion of cockroaches climbing in and out of said urinal.
"You have to understand, what's going on here, well...it's the fad ahead of the curb. I used to a big wig here, until I decided it was time I got my hands dirty on the field. I needed to really grasp the concepts we were enforcing, had to live the experience…" He trailed off as he inspected a surgical saw with broken teeth near the end, and a crack in the middle, ultimately, discarding it.
Shaggy was working himself up on getting free, and was making slight progress, but Velma was entranced by the doctor's voice, unmoving, unblinking, terribly beholding him.
"And you know what I found out once I got here? People like the kind I used to be, like Father Martin, like Billy Hope...they've got it all wrong. Money is a purer form of faith than religion, easier to hold onto, but money can't last. Look at the gold standard, capitalism has been on the verge of death for decades. Now you might point towards the other end of the spectrum, but that's not here or there, and I'll tell you why…."
He went silent again as he picked up a pair of sheers, ones that could only have been used on shrubberies they were so long and old. He flicked a smudge of dirt off the end, and examined them further in the light.
"Death is the best form of currency. Chaos is the natural state of affairs, if you wanna climb that next rung, you gotta knock the guy above you off. You have to rob Paul to pay Peter. You can't bring your money under the sea of blood, you can't give your song book to the monsters. Only...death...saites Cthulhu."
The name brought dark flashes to Velma, her mind's eye beheld, briefly, the true forces at work in the Asylum. Everything was misdirection, the strings they saw were being pulled by more strings, and those strings by men, and those men by tentacles.
She saw Mount Massive, under that sea of blood, and it was such a deep sea that even the highest point of the mountain looked up to see the surface world as mere shadows, blotted out by endless red water. And in the distance, behind the sharks and the whales and undead creatures of eons past and not yet come, sat a city that was beyond humanity.
Old it was, and endless, and bearing many names and many faces, and it saw all that the world had done and made, spied on them with lenses, laughed at the futility of it all. Its streets were filled with shadows that glorified their crypts and waited patiently for their god to rise. Old Cthulhu was asleep now, but his breaths flew all the way to Mount Massive, to the places beyond it, and she saw they had destroyed the places before.
But perhaps most terrifying of all was that Cthulhu was only a fragment of the master web being woven by creatures of his magnitude. Horrors truer and bloodier than her own reality awaited, beyond stars and past gates of eternity. All the universe in its unfathomable brilliance was but a chess board, spaces that humanity could hardly conceive of were being trampled upon by pieces of the game, where monsters that only accepted death and utter despair played.
Cthulhu's awakening would be the end of man's world...but just the next phase in the campaign for all of existence, and that war had been waged for a long, long, long time. And upon her nanosecond of understanding the scope and true fate of her own life and all the world she had once thought grand, Velma Dinkley died.
The power now restored, Fred led Daphne further into the crematorium and morgue. They rounded the corner and burst into a cafeteria flipped on its side. They weaved through tables and bent under the hole in the wall to escape - the doors were barred. The hallway was not so new, wooden and brick, and decaying since before the Asylum went to hell.
"Fred! Freddie, stop!"
The boy turned into a side room and shut the door behind them. Daphne found the dusty bed and sat down.
"I think...we're OK now," She huffed.
"Yeah."
Fred slumped against the wall and ran his hands through his hair, "We should have left when we had the chance."
"We can't leave the others…"
"I know," Fred said.
Daphne wasn't sure if it was fear or defeat in his voice, but she frowned and went to him.
"We'll make it."
"I want to think so."
"We'll make it."
"Daph, I-"
"We. Will. Make it."
They weren't looking at each other, they didn't have the nerve to. They stared at the old room, fallen bookcase, torn wallpaper, leaking in the ceiling, and forgot it all existed. Their arms found the other's body, and they sat down against the wall, listening for their own breaths.
For a while, the sound of breathing was comforting, but a third pair of lungs added to the chorus from behind the door they hadn't come through. It was shut, but neither had bothered to lock it. The new breathing was deep, raspy, pained, and close. Right on the other side of the wood, someone was listening just like them. Their hands squoze, their eyes locked onto the second door, then the first.
Fred stood up quietly, Daphne followed a pace behind. The second door moved slightly with the breaths, and as Fred moved to open it, the doorknob shook. Fred skirted back and ran into the door foot first, yelling.
A skeleton with loose hanging flesh and scared eyes recoiled into a fetal position as the door swung him onto his back. He was trembling and moaning and the pair backed away. A survivor, an isolated soul hiding from the dark. It had just dawned on them when the other door swung open to a terrible roar.
An angry scream competed with the whirring of a buzz saw, and a naked, bearded man coated in blood laid eyes upon all three of them, "Feed me! FEED ME!"
"Run Daphne!" Fred shouted and grabbed the buzzsaw, wrestling with the psycho.
Gah-God damnit!" The naked man cursed, headbutting Fred away and taking a swipe at the blonde's back that tore his shirt and a thin red line across his back.
Daphne was long gone through the identical second room, and Fred sprinted after her. The buzz saw killer paused only to run the spinning blade through the third man's throat and take a handful of gore into his mouth before giving chase.
Daphne decided on the path, Fred threw every possible object between the killer and themselves. Every time she led them through a door, Fred slammed it after them, every loose gurney or shaky piece of furniture was thrown into the middle of the path. Thanks to his instrument, even when Fred locked a door it only held for so long, but slowly, the whirring became quieter and quieter until they heard the faint screams of frustration and the buzz saw powered off.
The brick walls of the main crematory facility sounded off with every slow footstep, as they looked through the older parts of the facility. The stone was older than the wood, and much of it was cracked and splintered. One wall was partially downed already.
The waiting area was empty save for a lone gurney, which sat motionless before a light which was half fallen from the ceiling, hanging by its cords. They covered their eyes as they went past and around the bend.
The ovens were stacked in rows three on each row and with five columns. Their hands immediately found their noses.
"Phew...gas leak…" Fred commented as they stepped up to the door.
If it was merely stubborn, it was much more so than the last one. Despite several attempts Fred and Daphne were no closer to opening it than running up into the sun. Daphne put a finger to her lip and announced her pregnancy with an idea.
Fred caught on quickly, "It's probably going to be easier than forcing that door down," He admitted.
They slammed against the oldest, palest, softest looking slab of brick, and soon loosed one of the stones. It slid out with a slam and the rest of the wall caved in around the hole, crashing in a storm of dust.
They bent down and exited through the wall, coming into the cool air of the outside again, and the waiting buzzing of the naked man and his saw.
"FEED ME!"
Fred and Daphne bolted back through the hole and sped back the way they came - but the cannibal found Daphne's leg and tripped her. Fred skidded to a halt and ran back to defend her, and the men traded blows, with Fred taking an advantage early on.
Daphne picked herself up and grabbed a prone fire extinguisher, watching as Fred and the naked man wrestled for control of the whirring saw. The blade was indifferent, eager to draw blood from anyone's skin, spinning fast and loud and hotly.
Despite his muscles and determination, the chanting of the hungry man was getting to Fred, and he felt the saw lowering towards his face.
"DINNER BELLS RINGING! TIME TO FEED ME! DINNER BELLS, DINNER BELLS, FEED ME FEED ME FEED ME!"
Daphne steeled herself and threw the extinguisher into the cannibal, hitting him across the head and saving Fred. While the cannibal hollered and recovered, Fred took the saw and threw it down the hall, turning his attention to their pursuer.
"Fred, let's go!" Daphne pleaded.
Fred threw his arm around the naked man's throat, taking him into a choke hold, "No! I'm not running from him anymore! I'm not going to give him another chance to find us!"
The cannibal squirmed and gasped against the python force of Fred's bicep and when he began coughing violently, turned to his last option, sinking all the teeth he had left into Fred's arm; he cried out in pain and let the killer free.
Without the saw, the killer's eyes were deeper than ever, and sharper too. He grabbed Fred by the head with both his hands and thrashed him against the nearest oven door, then once more, and then a third time until Daphne kicked him between the legs.
But the killer had awakened a primal rage, and hardly felt the injury, spinning around and grabbing Daphne with one hand, while still keeping hold of Fred's throat with his other.
"Nothing like a little...BARBECUE!"
He threw Fred back against the oven door, so hard it opened right up. Daphne was lodged in first despite her desperate attempts to flee, and Fred hadn't recovered by the time he was stuffed in with her.
"YUM!" The killer grinned as he slammed the oven door on them.