Yep, this is going to be a two parrter as a) for the next ten days, I won't really be able to work on this and b) it's a biggie. Also, I notice we're nearly on 100 reveiws… YOU PEOPLE ROCK!
cough I mean thank you. Now, let's kick this off with a Dante quote…
Chapter 34: The Malebolge (part 1)
'What's this city?' I asked the master poet.
'You're too much taken by your visual powers,'
Said he, 'for what you see is an optical
Illusion, caused by looking from afar.
Wait for the close up;
It's incredible.'
- Dante's Inferno, Canto XXXI
Even before he'd opened his eyes Jobe already had a pretty good idea of what would meet them. The wailing sound that had been threatening to drive him utterly mad with its high screeching tone had abruptly cut off, taking the rest of the humdrum of hectic voices with it. It was as if some higher being had simply pulled the plug on the hospital, plunging it into perpetual silence.
"Oh crap…"
From the delicate observation that escaped Grace's lips, he guessed he'd been right, and it was with a sigh that Jobe braved himself to yank back his thin lids.
It was just as he'd expected.
Grace, on the other hand was having a harder time swallowing the rapid metamorphisms the once pristine lobby had undergone. First off, it was completely empty save for her and Jobe. To some extent, even the air had gone, replaces by some empty, formless substance that could just support the two lone people who were unfortunate enough to be standing in the twisted room, filling their lungs with a staleness that made you want to retch.
But the change in air was paled by the visual warp that had twisted the room. Grace was aware of how her canvas shoes squelched against the moist floor as she took a step back, much like an appreciator of art who tries to gain a wider scope of whatever painted masterpiece they are surveying. However, what Grace saw was no idyllic scene.
"What the hell happened to this place?"
The first thing that popped into her head was that somehow, the countless diseases housed in the hospital had managed to break free of their human incubators and ravaging everything insight before turning on the building that once stood against them. Well, it sure as hell had succeeded in corrupting the once sterile structure…
Skin, or something like it had sprouted spasmodically from between the cracks of the now filthy tiles, leaving no surface untouched by the paper-thin membrane. Tables, computes, even the line of hardy plastic chairs that had once stood so proud had been tainted by this growth, the 'skin' twisting tautly around them so hard that its all consuming grip threatened to break the imamate captive apart. Even the long, neon lights had been coated, the light filtering through a sickly yellow.
Grace broke her gaze with the nauseating scenery, her eyes only just noting how the living organ that had consumed the hospital had begun crawling over the edge of her shoe, at the sound of the automated doors wheezing open.
Jobe glanced over his shoulders, but the twin panels had already begun sliding back into place, crackling as they struggled against the skin that had even managed to root itself in the door's joints.
"Someone just go out?" He hazarded a guess for the air beyond the glass panels had turned inky black. Day, it seemed, had chosen not to follow them to this other side.
"I don't care if they did, lets just get out of this place…"
Jobe felt something to constrict around his own shoe.
"Good idea."
8 8 8
"Hey!" Jobe shouted into the dark, damp air, already closing in on the figure that had coaxed them out of the hospital.
They stopped, a head of short, blond and dishevelled hair shooting up like a startled rabbit's, the limp form straddled around their shoulders slipping.
Grace took a step forward and stopped, her jaw clucking open for the heavy load the stranger was trying to lug off into the darkness was horribly familiar.
It was Virgil, but she wasn't as nearly as lively as the last time they saw her. In fact, she looked pretty much dead to the rest of the world.
The stranger's partially visible eye shot wide, as if some buzzing drug had been dumped into her system and had bit down on her nerves. With a muffled yelp, they began shuffling back off into the blackness that had snared the hospital.
"Wait! Stop!" Jobe took off after the rapidly melting figure, his thrashing heart beginning to sink when he realised that they donned one of those sickly green costumes that only the ill and insane would be forced to wear.
The patient tripped, her leg finally crumpling under the exhausting weight that she'd been trying to keep alive for what felt like so long. It showed its thanks by dragging her down into the dirt with it. Jobe trotted to a stop, whatching with brows in a raised knot as the patient wriggled out from the disturbingly still body of Virgil and proved what a persistent little soul she was as she tried to scoop up the girl in underfeed arms.
"What did you do to her?!"
She said something, but the garble of rushed words weren't intended for Jobe's ears...or anyone else's.
"…monsters everywhere…not going to take me back…not going to…"
She mindlessly acknowledged that there was no way she was going to be able to fit the girl around her shoulder's again, so like some primal-minded ant she grabbed the nearest limb and began to drag the unconscious Virgil (at least that was what Jobe hoped) behind her like some grossly over-sized rag doll.
"Let her GO!" Jobe clamped a hand down on the woman's shoulders and he could practically hear the component that had spurred her on short circut. She stood rooted to the spot and her head began to turn o so very slowly, those hediously wide eyes gradualy coming to rest on him. In the split second before she screamed in his face for all she was worth, he got a glimps at the woman's broken visage. Malnourished skin was pulled tightly around her skull, darkening to an off brown in the hollows that nested those staring eyes, the surface of the dull orbs pink with veins. Even through the straggly, thin curtain of graying hair he could see the one emotion that those blood shot eyes possessed.
Fear, pure, animalistic fear.
The patient wheeled away from Jobe, forgetting all about the girl she'd been so intent on saving as she yelled a rush of noise that the man could not even begging to translate. She came to a stop, blasting one final, petrified glare at the man as if he was the most hedious deformity to ever grace the face of earth. Sure, he must look like hell after being dragged through the closest thing to it, but shuerly, he didn't appere so bad to deserve a look like the one this deranged woman was regarding him with.
"Hey, we're not going to-"
But that was all the sickly woman was prepared to listen to, flinging herself into the darkness, letting it swallow her whole as she threw herself to its mercy. Effortlessly, it absorbed her, along with any trace of sound that lingered behinde. In a matter of seconds, she may never have existed at all.
"What the hell was that?" Grace asked, squinting at the darkness as she caught up with Jobe, the man already bent over the discarded Virgil. He breathed a great sigh of relief at the revelation that she was still breathing.
"I have no idea…"
We have missed out on the catalyst of this scene through our loyalty to both Jobe and Grace. For a moment, we shall leave them to drag the unconscious body of the closest thing to a friend either have left and look back, for like the twisted logic that rules this 'other side', time holds no bounds over us.
Let us retrace the lumbering steps of that disturbed patient to the hospital and go back to the final moments of the previous evening and see if we can make any sense of what just happened here…
Michale Drake peeked over the polystyrene rim of the chewed, polostyrine cup, not really tasting the uninspiring beverage that posed as coffee that sloshed with in it, for his attention was far too fixed on the small clock at the other end of the lounge. Five to twelve…
He sighed, for at the stroke of midnight he would have to revert back to the role of doctor and leave behinde the comfortable warmth of the staff room, starting yet another shift of wondering the sterile, facless halls of the hospital.
'A real Cinderella, huh?' He though morbidly to himself, but was helpless to stop a momentary grin to spread across his face at the somewhat buzzard mental image that came to life before his mind's eye.
'God, if they knew what was going on in your head, they'd probably throw you in with the rest of them…'
He looked over the rim, dully noting just how much of his precious time he'd squandered in that pointless meditation…
…only to find himself staring into a pair of dark eyes.
"BOO!"
"Jesus!" He squealed at the shock from both that and the hot bite of coffee as it spilt, seeping verociously into the white jacket compulsory for all the doctors to wear.
The owner of the eyes laughed as Dr. Drake desperately tried to dab the muddy stain from his chest and failed misrebly as the coffee decided it enjoyed this new, once pristine habitat far more that the cup it had just escaped.
"Hahaha, you're a real joker."
"You know it!" The new comer shot back, not waiting for an invite to sit down. Even if he'd been told not to, Drake doubted that Dr. Whittle would comply any way… all part of that fantastic sense of humor, wouldn't you know?
Seeing that he was ulitmatly going to lose the war with the coffee stain that now proudly made its existence horribly clear on the front of his jacket, the doctor sighed. He might as well make conversation with his co-worker, who knows, he may get carried away and accidentally let his break streach out another few minuets…and wouldn't that be a crying shame.
"Say…What was all that noise earlier this evening?"
Whittle let out a bray of harsh laughter, flashing his disgustingly perfect teeth for all the world to see.
"That, my friend, was the arrival of our newest patient!"
Drake brows knitted together.
"All that noise was just one person?" At the time, he'd been just beyond the entrance hall, but even from there, it sounded as though they were re-enacting 'Cluster's Last Stand' in the lobby, compleat with cavalry and rifles.
"Heh, I wouldn't blame ya, 'Miss Crisp', as we like to call her, was dragged in by two cops and by the looks of them, she'd already had a go at one." Whittle lounged back into his seat, grinning smugly. "It took about five orderlies to get her down stairs."
"Miss Crisp?" Drake echoed somewhat stupidly. The name this mysterious patient shad been dubbed stuck out at him like a blaring, neon light from the mass of words that spewed from the dark skinned docter's mouth.
"Well, let's put it this way. One look at her and you'd think twice before falling asleep with a lit ciggerett in your hand."
Seeing that he wasn't going to get a single laugh from the man (who seemed to have the sense of humor of a hernia), Whittle launched on.
"Seriously though…" The comedy in his tone dwindled and the loud, trademark voice dimmed to a whisper. "From what we saw, that girl shouldn't even be alive."
"What you saw?"
God was he going to repeat everything he said?
"She wasn't exactly comfortable with us trying to examine her. You can ask the ordely she bit."
Drake's eyes when wide. The orderlies were a tough, formidable crew of hardened mercianries and only someone particularly wrathful was ever allowed to land a blow. Or a set of teeth.
"So what did you do with her?"
"What we always do with anyone that psycho, which she clearly was. Pump them full of Valium and let them to cool down somewhere they can't hurt themselves…" The man's overly bright eyes danced over to the clock. "…And by the looks of thing, you're going to get to meet her. Lucky boy."
Drake startled, snapping from the fuzzy state of concentration his mind had accidentally slid into while being blasted by the overload of his temporary companion's assault of words.
"Huh?"
Whittle laughed.
"It's twelve o five. You're late, buddy."
8 8 8
"gggggrrrAAAAAAAGH!"
Thud
Angela hit the white, yet surprisingly soft floor.
"GET IT OFF!" But no one in the dark room heard the scream of anguish, for the girl was completely alone...
…Except for the smothering embrace of the straight jacket they'd wrapped her up in like some explosive present, its claustrophobic hug constantly fighting her every movement. For a brief handful of seconds, she lay still, feeling the panic swelling up inside her like some insane, out of control cancer that no amount of chemotherapy could ever check. The sound of her frantic breathing bounced off the four, equal walls but the sound suddenly cut as it was interrupted by yet another fretful roar, born from the maddening mixture of frustration and fear as the girl tried to fight against the confiding garment.
The outcome of the short battle was the same as it always had been for the last twenty minuets, the straight jacket claiming yet another victory over its captive.
Something of a desolate sob escaped Virgil's lips as she hit her head into the floor, her hair sticking to the salty film of sweat that had congealed on her forehead.
Frustration… it burnt her worse than any flame ever could.
"Just get it off me…" The voice came again, though this time the voice sounded very, very small, almost as if the girl had come to accept that none was going to acknowledge her desperate pleas. After all, none had ever heard them before, why should they hear them now…
'Trapped…'Angela shut her eyes and drew into herself, trying desperately to forget where she was.
"Need a hand?"
Her head snapped up, milky eyes scanning the dark interior of her prisons. There was someone in here with her…
The girl shuffled back from the shaded silloet that had solidified from nowhere before her, trying to pick up on any detail exposed in what little light there was.
"Man, you were always so jumpy…"
She stopped, her back gently pressing into one of the idistuishable walls. There was something so familiar about that voice and her memory raced back to a tone she'd heard so long ago and thought she'd never hear again.
Her brother's.
"Dale?" Virgil's voice didn't rise above a whisper but anyone could hear the tinge of curious happiness that tainted it.
The figure crouched down, some of their features slipping free from the veil of shadows that clouded the room, and Angela saw that it was indeed he. Even from the few stay beams of light that had managed to slip in under the door, most people would be able to see the similarity between the boy and the un-burnt image of his sister we saw Jobe exchange a few bear words with.
"How did- what are you doing-"
"Shhhh." The room's newest inhabitant raised a finger to his lips, their corners raised in a smile but there was something omisinant about it and it didn't suit the boy's rounded face. "I'm not here to talk about that…"
Angela frowned. Something wasn't right.
"Then," She rasped, her voice grating painfully. "What are you here for?" The alarm bells suddenly kicked into life. Was there any plausible theory that could explain her brother's miraculous appearance?
Dale rose from his squat, comfortably sliding into the darkness like a tailored made suit.
"I'm here to talk about you. Do you have any idea how I felt when read about what happened, what you did to him?"
Angela said nothing, pressing her self into the wall that little bit harder in hope it would swallow her up. She didn't want to talk about that, especially with this thing that posed as her brother. Sure, it may talk like him, mirror all his movements and even breath the same patterns but it wasn't Dale. Not by a long shot.
"Oh, so you're just going to say nothing, huh? Like you always did?"
The shadow leapt back, narrowly dodging the gnashing teeth of the girl as she erupted up from the floor and lunged at him. His words had found the big, red button and gave it one hell of press.
She staggered, catching her distorted balance.
"What about what he did to me? Did you even know the things he put me through?"
Pause.
"Of course I did."
Angela froze, her body stiff with shock. Had she just heard him correctly?
"I had my suspicions for a long time, Angela." His voice caught in his throat, but the words were void of remorse. They were filled with disgust. "Do you know what it's like to watch a friend die?"
Virgil said nothing, her face still wearing the mask of growing horror. How?
"Because that's what I had to do. Jesus, every morning I'd look at you and ask myself what you had left inside? You just withdrew from the world…it was like you were hollow, a ghost or something, not a person…"
'I think I'm going to be sick…'"…Not my sister, and I always wondered why you flipped out like that…" He trailed off, his eyes tracing the uniform lines of the padded walls. "Until I saw for my self."
The girl's eyes went wide, for that last sentence charged through her body like a thousand volts of electricity.
"What?" The dry word wilted even before it escaped the confines of her mouth.
"I was coming home from a friend's or something. You guys weren't expecting me home for another hour or something and I… I…" He choked, a hideous, heart wrenching noise. God, this thing even cried like her brother. "Saw you two…"
No details were needed. These curt few words said enough, leaving Virgil with the sensation as though the floor had just given way beneath her.
"After that...it was just so obvious, and I kept on asking myself how I couldn't have noticed it before… and that was when I realised that almost everyone else knew what was going on as well."
"What?"
Dale let out a mirthless shot of laughter.
"Didn't you notice the way people looked at us like we were some kind of freaks? The whole goddamn town caught on long before I ever did!"
"But…" Angela stammered. This was all too much for her brain to handle; the grey organ felt like it was about to explode within her skull. "If you knew, why didn't you do anything?"
Dale dropped his head, slipping just that little further back into the shadows that had born him.
"I…" The words caught in his throat like thick tar. "I was afraid."
If it weren't for the coarse straight jacket the girl had been manhandled into, she surely would have leapt upon this manifestation of her sibling that had spawned itself from memory and ripped it limb from limb. However, thanks to the jacket, all she could manage was a hollow echo of his closing word, trying to hold herself together as her veins throbbed with hot rage.
"Afraid?!" That was so rich; did this thing happen to share her brother's terrible sense of humour and comic timing along with every other trait it had mimicked so perfectly?
"Oh come on, Angela! What could I do? Rat on him and risk losing the only family and security we had left? Hell, maybe I should have confronted him and won myself a long trip to the hospital for my efforts!"
He sighed bitterly.
"I thought maybe if I just ignored it, it would go away, but it never did. So I left. I just couldn't take it any more. It was making me sick, just looking at you and knowing made me want to die."
"So… That's why you left?" A tremor grabbed Angela, shaking the girl as if she were ill. Anger wilted, giving way to hopeless depression. The girl dropped her head, in hope that this familiar apparition wouldn't see the tear that escaped from the corner of her eye, for now, she was able to embrace the painful, irrefutable "Because you were ashamed?"
"Yes." Came the flat answer, the empty word crushing into the girl.
"I'm sorry…" She looked up, but the shadow had gone, crawling back into whatever part of her fractured mind had summoned it into existence, leaving her utterly alone again.
But then, hadn't she always been?
Angela would have contemplated on this though if it hadn't been for the click of a key snapping the lock to her room open.
A/N: We'll be getting on to the freaky stuff next instalment.
Rodarian, I appologise profoundly for the spellings and things didn't really pick up in this chapter… and Kaiyun, I'm honered I could be of service.
