The basement has a musty smell to it, like old mothballs and a century's worth of dust. It hits Boyd the second the door is opened, the doorway framing a black void of nothing until Erica turns on the little flashlight she carries with her everywhere. She's the first one to start down the stairs with Boyd close on her heels, the cement worn smooth and nearly slippery under his boots.
"This isn't a good idea," Lahey mutters behind them, almost singing it. "This is a monumentally stupid idea."
"You got a better one," Boyd asks, more than ready to commit to any plan that doesn't include basements in old sanitariums. "I'm all ears, Lahey."
"Gimme a minute, I'm sure I can come up with something." The smell gets worse when they reach the floor, bulky shadows faintly illuminated by the flashlight, spiderwebs transformed into strings of silver. "Here, I think the thingy for the lights is over here somewhere."
Boyd sticks close behind Erica, squinting to make out anything other than brief reflections. He steps forward, trying to make out one of the shapes rising up out of the gloom, something that shines dully, reflects the yellow beam. The lights come on all at once with a squeal and crash, the shape suddenly in clear focus.
He scrambles backwards, nearly toppling over his girlfriend in the process of trying to get away from the monster. It's a corpse incased in glass, sitting astride a half-mummified horse, ligament wrapped over fragile bone and yellowed with age. The whole room is filled with the things; a child with a misshapen head, a man with bulbous sores around his mouth, conjoined twins with the one on the right sagging towards the floor. It's like butterflies pinned to cardboard.
"Relax, they're just sculptures," Lahey says, bored. "Hale had them throughout the building but, uh, my grandpa had them brought down here when the remodeling started." He comes over, wiping dust off onto his pants leg as he glowers at the sculpture of a partially dissected woman. She's displayed nude and cut into pieces, half of her chest cavity wide open to reveal dusty ribs with her internal organs displayed on the side. "That was his favorite. He kept it in his office upstairs."
"Guy was sick in the head," Erica grouses.
"That's the understatement of the fucking century."
"Lead the way, dude. You're the one with the knowledge, I'm just here to fight off the mice." Boyd scowls over at her, but she's grinning and he's reminded of why he wants to be with her forever. She fights the mice for him and he grabs stuff off high shelves for her. It's a mutual thing.
"Fine, but I want the record to show that I'm under duress."
"Noted." Lahey actually manages a brief shadow of a smile, accepting the flashlight and starting forward.
The air in the basement is humid, the walls holding a light sheen of moisture that feels slimy whenever one of Boyd's shoulders brush against them. He begins to understand why Lahey says the basement is a maze the further they go, other halls and rooms branching off each other like tree limbs, crisscrossing in places and dead-ending in others. The layout is like something from a Stephan King novel, intricately ridiculous and terrifying.
Overhead, the ceiling is cracked in places, crudely installed electric lights placed between thick slabs of stone that look about ready to crumble. Boyd is just about to point it out to Lahey when one of the slabs breaks free, the bulkier man grabbing the hood of Lahey's coat and yanking him backwards seconds before the stone hits the floor where Lahey had been standing.
"Holy God," he breathes, clinging to Boyd with his free hand. "T-thanks."
"Don't mention," Boyd says, heart pounding out a rapid tempo against his ribs. That could have killed him. The slab itself has to be at least twenty pounds and it had gathered enough force to absolutely shatter where it hit the ground. If Boyd hadn't grabbed Lahey, then the man's skull would have been smashed beyond recognition.
"Let's, uh, let's get this over with." They continue down the main hallway, like Lahey's afraid to leave it despite the trail of red yarn Boyd's been uncurling behind them this entire time. It's tied to the doorknob of the basement door and the ball won't run out for a while yet.
"Why hasn't the basement been renovated yet," Erica asks after a good ten minutes. She's been studying the place for weak spots ever since Lahey was nearly killed and Boyd's surprised it's taken her this long to ask.
"Haven't had the time to hit it yet." He shrugs, hands in his jacket pocket like to accidentally touch something would send him into a nervous breakdown. "Besides, my work crew is terrified of the basement. They refuse to come down here once it starts to get dark."
"That's insane."
"No, insane is wandering around in a dark basement inside an institution that wants to kill us all." His shoulders are hunched around his ears, blond hair glowing faintly under the flickering lights. Boyd's sure that, even if the lights worked correctly, the basement would still be cast in a deep gloom thanks to a decade's worth of dust and cobwebs covering the wire-incased bulbs. "I think the last time this basement was renovated was a few weeks before the fire."
"Is that a fact," Derek asks, rounding the corner directly ahead of them and scaring the bejeezus out of them. Boyd's first instinct is to grab for Erica, pulling her back a split second before her fist could connect with Derek's nose. Honestly, he wouldn't mind seeing this guy brought down a peg or two, but Boyd would really like to avoid Erica getting sued. "A little jumpy, aren't we?"
"I'd like to see you laugh when you have to pick your teeth up off the floor," Erica growls at him. Boyd gives a proud smile, grip shifting until he has a hand on Erica's lower back. She's perfectly capable of reeling in her fight or flight response on her own, Boyd just likes to help her make the right decision depending on the situation. "Hey, what's up with the secret room?"
"What secret room," Lahey asks, then follows her gaze. There's a section of wall that's only partially bricked up a few feet ahead of them, the gaping hole about the right size for someone to crawl through if need be. The bricks making up the jagged edges of the hole are old and beginning to crumble away in places, red dust scattered over the floor with no footprints to disturb it. "I've never noticed that before."
"It's creepy as hell." Boyd moves to stand directly in front of it, running the pad of his finger over one of the bricks and holding it up to the feeble light. It's covered in the dust, rust-red and smelling faintly of damp, growing things.
"The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne the best I could," he murmurs, wiping the dust off on his pants leg. "Where do you guys think this leads?"
"Nowhere good, I'm sure. Let's keep moving before we hear someone calling out for Montresor." They take off again with Derek and Lahey in the lead, Erica trailing behind at a more careful speed so she can make sure nothing else is about to fall on their heads. Boyd hangs back as well, a protective instinct flaring to life with an almost overwhelming speed. He hasn't felt it this strong in ages, not since his little sister disappeared and his father looked at him like he was less than mud.
You were her big brother, a traitorous voice in his head hisses at him. You should have been watching her, should have died to keep her safe.
A small, warm hand slides into his and squeezes, the bright grin Erica sends him enough to dispel those old thoughts. What's done is done and he can't change the past. It's best to just move forward and live his life the way Alicia would have wanted.
They wind up in an office of sorts, the white squares of tiles on the wall stained brown with water damage and probably something a little more disgusting. There's a desk on the right side, one of the legs splintered and lying nearby like it had been thrown, the desk sitting at an odd angle. Beyond that is a door covered in a metal grate, rusted in places and protesting loudly when Derek swings it open to let them pass through.
The next room holds an exam bed with leather restraints, three of the walls covered in old equipment that looks like it would have been old even in the thirties, covered in layers of dust and spiderwebs. Boyd doesn't like this room, it makes his stomach clench painfully as he realizes what this room used to be.
"Electroshock therapy," Lahey confirms and Boyd raises a brow in his direction. "This was where Corrine Hale performed her experiments on the patients."
"What happened to her," Derek asks, drawing a heart in the dust that covers a metal box mounted on the right wall.
"She escaped before the lockdown, her and four others. All the real sadists with the exception of Peter. There's a few of these rooms all hooked together down here because Corrine liked to zap patients in multiples of eighteen. She liked the way the lights would flicker." There's a moment of tense quiet as they look around, Derek's hand falling back to his side after writing Stiles' name below the crudely drawn heart. "Well, I vote we keep moving."
"Seconded," Erica says, quick to shuffle back out into the hallway.
Lahey and Erica lead the way together and they wind up standing in front of a heavy metal door, the black writing on the front too corroded for Boyd to make out. Beyond it, in a room far larger than any of the others in the basement that he's seen so far, is a…. Well, he's not entirely sure what it's supposed to be. It looks like a metal chamber that sits in the direct middle of the room, thick tubing running from it to vents in the walls.
"What the hell is that," Boyd asks, honestly dumbfounded.
"It's the saturation chamber," Lahey says, lingering in the doorway and anxious to be out. Boyd ignores that for the moment, wandering over to the door of the chamber. It's like something out of an old sci-fi movie, dark iron with a wheel to turn in order to open it or lock it from the outside. The door looks like it belongs on a submarine rather than in the basement of a mental institution.
"What's a saturation chamber," Derek asks, running his hand along one of the thick black cables that twist into slots in the wall.
"It was supposed to treat schizophrenia. It would bombard the patient with scary images at a rapid pace meant to fix their brains. If you ask me, I think Hale could have used a few hours in that thing." He shrugs and leans in the doorway, arms crossed tightly over his chest to hide the way his hands are shaking. "It was supposed to scare them into being mentally well."
"I use medicine for that," Boyd says, setting the ball of yarn on a grimy table to take a look around. He sees a flash of yellow hair in his peripheral, Erica heading back the way they'd come by herself. Boyd follows her, not wanting her to get lost when he's pretty sure there are mice just waiting to leap out and eat him like he's made of cheese.
His fear of mice is irrational, he knows this. Does that knowledge keep him from holding Erica's hand when he hears the scurrying of little claws on cement? Fuck no. He holds her hand like he never plans on letting go.
"Did it work," he asks, stopping ten feet away from the other two. He counted his steps, a little trick that helps him keep everything straight in his head. As long as he knows how many steps he's taken, then he can always find his way home. When he doesn't get an answer, he looks over his shoulder and finds the room empty. "Those assholes left us."
"What?" Erica turns and strides back into the chamber as though she's expecting Derek and Lahey to jump out and shout boo. "Oh, what the fuck? So much for sticking together." Boyd picks up the ball of yarn, holding it in a sweaty palm. "Let's head this way, maybe we can catch up with them." She gestures at a doorway to the left with her flashlight, the beam turning cobwebs silver.
"You really think they went that way?"
"It's the only way out of this room other than the way we came." Boyd frowns, looking around one more time before heaving a sigh and following her through the doorway. The hinges are black when he gets close enough to notice them, bits of wood clinging to them from where the door must have been violently removed.
Beyond that is two stairs, the stone worn smooth from decades of being walked on, hundreds of shoes scuffing against it until it looks purposefully done. Erica is in the lead, as she should always be, and she takes the small set of stairs to a slightly higher floor, red-painted nails scrapping lightly against the wall as she goes down a new hallway.
The lights are off in this section of the basement, the bulbs blackened in their wire cages above locked doors. Boyd knows they're locked because he's already tried to open four of the damn things and they don't budge in their frames, the wood fat and swollen with damp. The knobs are cold under his palm and there's something black growing along the walls in thin rivulets.
"Jesus, this place is creepy," Boyd says, voice pitched low. There's something down here, he can feel it deep in his gut and by the way the hairs on his neck stand up. Something's watching them. And, not once the entire time they're down there, does he think the cold, searching gaze belong to someone.
"Where'd they go? The only footprints out here belong to us." Boyd glances down to the floor, the thick layers of dust only disturbed where they've walked. Ahead of them is untouched, like snow or ash.
"Maybe we took a wrong turn somewhere."
"But it's just been one long hallway so far. Unless that room had a secret doorway, then Derek and Lahey didn't come this way." She stops in the middle of the hall, rubbing a hand over her forehead. With a sharp sigh, she turns on her heel and she looks ready to talk but her mouth gets…. Stuck? Erica Reyes never gets stuck like that, she's the one that's willing to say whatever pops into her head and damn the consequences.
"What?"
"The yarn…?" That's about the time he feels it, the faintest of tugs like someone's pulling on the string behind him. He gazes slowly at the ball in his hand and follows the previously limp string he'd been dragging along behind him. It's pulled taut in the air and he can feel the ball beginning to unravel the harder the yarn is tugged.
"Derek," he shouts," this isn't funny! Knock it the fuck off!" There's another insistent pull and Boyd gives a vicious pull of his own, holding the dwindling ball with both hands. The yarn goes lax for an instant and Boyd thinks maybe Derek and Lahey will round the corner at any moment, but then he's flying forward to the ground and something is dragging him back down the hall.
"Boyd!"
"Help! Eri, help!" He can distantly hear her chasing after him, but the noise dims as he flies down the set of stairs and around a corner faster than she can keep up. The concrete is rough against his belly, leaving it raw and red where his shirt has been rucked up. He's swung around another corner and the ball of yarn goes bouncing out of his grasp, unraveling in a mess of tangles with blood seeping into it from where it had cut into Boyd's hand.
"Erica," he calls, standing slowly. He pulls his shirt back into place, not wanting to think about what kind of bacteria might be comingling with the cuts on his chest and belly right now. "Eri, where are you?" There's a flash of movement to his left, faint blue lights that turn a grisly red before vanishing altogether in the oppressive darkness. "Derek, is that you? Look, man, this isn't funny!"
"No moves left," a voice hisses, a garbled thing that's half-growled. It reminds him of the monsters hiding under beds, the boogeymen in the closet, of dark things that want to create ruin. Chaos, strife, and pain.
"Who's there?" His voice echoes, terrifyingly loud as it ricochets off the walls like a bullet. "Hale? Lahey? Get out here!" There's darkness beyond the gate in front of him and the hinges are squealing like someone's trying to open it, but there's nothing. It's black as pitch and the squealing of metal against metal drowns out all sound until suddenly Erica is grabbing him by his arms and spinning him to face her.
"Are you okay," she demands, looking him over and wincing when she sees the state of his hands. "What the fuck happened?"
"I don't know." His voice is a pitiful rasp, a little boy scared that something will get him if he's too loud. "I don't know, but I want out of here. Get me out of here, Eri." She wraps a sturdy arm around his waist and leads him to the door, a string of nonsensical chatter leaving her in a rush as she tries to comfort him.
Behind them, the Darkness continues to ooze past the gate with a metallic shriek.