Locked in
A part of me wanted to be civil and give the door a gentle knock, even if it was the bathroom. My better judgment warned me to let this be and move on, but stay away from this.
Quietly I approached the glass door across from me, it was locked firmly. I could feel my heart beat with urgency, I didn't want to be near this door when its occupant decided to leave. The other room across from the latrine was open but it was a dead end.
Or it would be if you were physically incapable of climbing up a wall.
It was a small staff lounge, sinks at the far wall and vending machines offering coke across from me. My attention went first to the vent where above it, blood dripped from a crimson stain in the ceiling creating a large moist puddle on a slope of plywood, materials not yet used for barricades or ripped from barricades. I had concerns with that stain, but it was a whole floor above and out of my care. The vent was already torn off its screws, I only hoisted myself up into its safe cradle and felt around for a path. The metal thudded as I bumbled around with cobwebs, but I found a direction that seemed open and began that way. I was about to bring my camera out and check where I was going, when my attention snapped to the loud crash of a door right below the flue I was currently in
"—Rider! Not again!" I didn't get a good look at whoever it was. He crashed out of the bathroom and glanced around the room I had been in prior, I held my breath as he turned and looked directly at the vent I was in. "NO!" And with that he turned, slamming the door shut behind him.
I was baffled but no less thankful, I don't know who he was or what he was on about but I'm certain that might have been a patient.
But he shouldn't be out running around like that.
I decided not to question these issues, not until I had someone that knew exactly what the hell was going on here. All I had were speculations, doubt, suspicions and the dreaded paranoia. None of that would get me anywhere.
The vent came to an end at a large open corridor, as I dropped down I thought I saw someone running along in the adjacent corridor. But the glass was the decorative distorted stuff, I couldn't trust what I thought was there. Though I felt certain I saw movement.
It looked like the upper corridor circled around the lower, wide open floor plan. Wood built the base of the wall, and large glass windows extended to the ceiling. I put my sleeve to my nose and scanned the lower floor, the glass made it difficult to see, but I thought I saw someone sitting in a chair within a square desk. If that were so, I didn't need him spotting me wandering around up here. I went to the nearest available door on my left but found it blocked, or the lock jammed. I don't believe a small trolley made an effective barrier. The other end of the hall was stacked with all manner of furniture, chairs, bookcases, and cabinets. I couldn't fathom the point of all this, aside from becoming a nuisance to my progress. The next door beside me was left ajar, I gently pushed it open—
He lunged at me screaming, and I put my arms up to defend myself only to realize his head was missing. IT WAS FUCKING GONE! I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE HELL IT WAS, IT WAS GONE!
That was it! That had done it! The last thing on my mind was recoding the decapitated body flapping about as I turned on my heel and flew right back up into that vent. I made a tremendous ruckus of sound as I dragged myself all the way to the room, where that person had barged in screaming nonsense. My landing wasn't too graceful, but I did land on my feet before stumbling and slamming into the door.
Only to find that it was locked. Locked! As in, I was trapped in here now? Really? I hit the door, banged my palms against it, determined to devise some way to tear it down. A piece of wood was not going to stand between me and living.
"What do you want?!" A muffled voice harked from the other side.
I stopped. This didn't sound like a helpful man. I knocked again, gently this time.
"Not this time! You took the light, but not me! Can't sleep, doctors waiting there. They made the hurt. The ants in my blood…."
Quietly, I returned to the vent as the pounding commenced on the door. I climbed up into the cold metal and made the trip as before, only with less noise, back to the glassed in hall.
The door had been left open, the body lay beside the frame with thick blood spilling from the tattered neck. From the room emanated an overpowering wave of putrid spoil that caused my eyes to water, but I managed to keep it together. Barely. I stepped by the body and pulled up my camera, the room was pitch black but I wished I could make my way through without the camera. Nonetheless, I recorded everything I was seeing, from here on out. There was no way Murkoff would get away with this horror.
Bodies suspended from the ceiling, bodies lay on the floor, headless, nametags revealing them to be Murkoff Advanced Research. I toggle between shielding my nose from the reek and using the same arm to keep my balance. I try not to step on them, or bump them with my feet as I navigate among the book shelves. It's hard to tell which is a body and which are books flattened into the floor. On the shelves the eyes of dozens of men glitter like jewels, their heads, oh my god….
As I turned the corner and backed up I felt something brush my head. My eyes bulge out of my skull as I whirl around, nearly getting smacked in the face as the man reaches out for me, gasping. He wore a tact vest, body armor, everything, yet here he is jammed on a sharpened stick amongst the bodies of his dead comrades; ripped to pieces on the floor beneath him.
I could literally feel my brain shutting down.
"They killed us. They got out," His voice gurgled but he persisted to keep his words clear. "The Variants. You can't fight them…have to hide. ….can unlock the main doors from Security Control." At this point, whether to alleviate his pain or in some last desperate fight for survival, the solider attempts to pull himself off the spear. "You have to get the fuck out of this terrible place." With the last of his strength diminished, his arms go limp and his head slumps against his chest.
I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do. I'm still filming as I back away from this man, even after I bump into a wall and drop to my ass. I fumble with the camera till it is off then sit quietly in the dark for some time, listening to the buzz of the flies as they have their time with the pile of corpses. No doubt they're exploring their new vessel.
I can't think about that. I press myself against the wall and pull my knees up and loop my arms around them. The rooms not cold, but I feel a chill seeping into my bones that I cannot escape no matter how hard I quiver. How many people have died here? Why?
Don't think about it. I drop my head to my arms and try to ignore the sounds of insects, I try and hide from the decay of human bodies. I have seen terrible shit in my day, taken pictures of people torn to pieces, children cut in half.
Nothing like this. This was indescribable. This was evil. There was something buried here beyond my perception, and it was evil to the core. Whatever had made it had done so with no other purpose, but to prove god was wrong about so many things.
I'm not sure how long I sat there, it might've been hours, it could have been minutes, but I finally picked myself up and shook off the tremors. What did the cop tell me? The way out was through the main doors, but they were locked and I needed to access them through the Security Control.
I managed to find a door that would lead me out of this room, for good. But I paused in a thin blade of light to jot down what I had found so far.
"I'm inside. Bodies everywhere. Blood. Burn marks. Heads lined up like bottles behind a bar, Dead Murkoff scientists hung from the ceiling; their badges say "Murkoff Advanced Research Systems". Murkoff's longtime M.O. has been to profit off the exploitation of supposed charity. Fuck the third world and bankroll another billion. How did Murkoff think they would make money off a building full of crazy people? There's some kind of tactical cop pinned like a pig on a spit. Tells me to get the fuck out and then dies. Would have been a good thing to hear when I could still leave the way I came."
I frown at the last line. Should have listened to my gut instinct, but I didn't. Stuck here in this god damn nightmare, but I didn't plan to die here. Someone had to get out of here and reveal what happened, and direct the blame to Murkoff. I plan on it being me.
Carefully I pull the door open and step out, immediately I crouch low when I hear muttering. It was a rough voice, talking about precautions and status…I can't be sure. I wait until I hear a door slam shut, announcing the departure of whoever was there. I hope to never meet them.
Some of this was beginning to make sense, I reflect on the overturned bookcases and cabinets lodged in the hallways blocking paths. These specialist were called in, hired guns for Murkoff, maybe working for the CIA in a different branch or something. They were fighting these Variants, he called them, and failed. Their final moments of desperation are shown in the furniture that was left askew everywhere.
I didn't want to dwell on what chances I had of seeing the outside world again. If a whole team of trained military men couldn't stop whatever these people they were fighting. What chance did I have? They had guns, I had a…camera.
A hall led to dark unknowns at my right, I felt my way along the wall for a distance before pulling up the camera. A door on the left had been barred shut, but the latrine opposite of it looked accessible. I crept around the corner pushing the door open and peered inside.
There was not much, only a shattered mirror and a toilet with blood coating it. My shoes squeaked as the liquid clung to them. In the toilet was the stump of an arm. Gently, I shut the door and returned to the light of the hall, my camera was flashing indicating the night vision was low on power. Once I changed out the battery I'd be back to two, it was still better than one. Even without power the NV would still work to some degree, amplifying the light source if it was available. This was better than stumbling around totally blind.
A set of bookcases had been lodged in the hallway, but there seemed to be enough space for me to get through. On the other side was a doorway leading into another hall, there might be a way to the lower floor from there. I'd get a better look once I was there. I sucked in my gut and secured the camera in its pack as I—
"Little PIG!"
A vice grip crushed my arm and ripped me out of the tight space, I grunted with pain as what looked like a man, set his hands on my shoulders and sneered in my face. It felt like his fingertips were digging through my coat and piercing into my skin. I panicked and yelped, grabbing at his arms as he fixed his grip and shook me, I was still trying to get him to loosen the hold on my throat as he slung my body up over his shoulder. It registered a moment too late he intended to throw me, I tried to grab him up until my body smashed into something hard and my vision hazed over. I howled in pain as I fell, my legs above me and I had no idea where the groun—
Everything was black. I caught the scent of an old office, moldering floorboards and stale wallpaper. I smelled copper, but that could have been the taste in my mouth. Someone was humming nearby, too close for comfort.
The recent events flittered through my mind little by little. I was at Mount Massive, I didn't want to be here. People were dead, I had to get out. I was pitched through a wall like a human football and…I didn't feel good at this point. I struggled to pull my thoughts back, open my eyes and see what was there. Maybe it was better I didn't.
The humming was close now, I thought I heard someone speaking? My eyes wouldn't obey my command, I was drunk with a concussion but I didn't need to sleep it off. My arm jerked with a misfire of neurons, I managed to get my eyes open enough to focus on my arm and beyond it a bright, glaring light fixed on me. I shut my eyes and maybe passed out for a few more seconds.
When I came around again I felt a presence invading my personal space, with a little less force I managed to open my eyes and turn my head up to that same glaring light. I saw black robes, a familiar pattern, and a face gazing down on me. For some reason I didn't feel comforted, though his voice attempted to sound soothing.
"And who are you, then?
My head dropped back, I couldn't do it. If my mind wasn't shattered by the end of this, then my body sure as hell was. I was barely dropping back into sleep when I felt my visitor jerk at my belt. Lifting my head again, I managed to get my eyes open and focused on him as he pulled up my camera. I could only imagine what he'd want with it, it had all my evidence, but I wasn't in the position to fight him for it.
I'll admit I was stunned when he opened the visor and I presume, viewed what I had already recorded. He took a moment to process this, his face shifted from stun to some form of aspiration.
"I …I see. Merciful God you have sent me an apostle."
What?
He set my camera down somewhere, then placed his hand upon my chest as though transferring his will into me. "Guard your life son. You have a calling."
At this point I was done. It would probably not be recommended by doctors, but I blacked out. My body was in pain, I needed to get my shit together. I didn't spare a moment to consider while lying here half dead, that big fucker could just hop on down and finish me off. If that were the case, I'd be better off unconscious.
By the time I was able to get myself under my own terms, the 'Priest' was gone. Didn't know what to make of his delusions, didn't really care too much for it either, as long as he wasn't near me. I still struggled to get my eyes open but I was able to sit up. I winced to pain along my upper side. It was either a bad sprain in the muscle when I hit, or cracked ribs. From the taste on my tongue, I was going with the ribs.
Beside me was the camera, safe and still in my possession. I took the time to make sure it was still in good functioning order, everything checked out fine aside from some color distortions. As long as it was still recording, that was more than I had expected from the fall. I secured it in its pack, then leaned over to push myself up on my hands. I winced and groaned against the pain in my chest, I was lucky my spine hadn't shattered from that fall.
Looking back up from where I had been thrown (there was a huge hole in the glass) I estimated my chances were favorable for me walking away, but still I considered myself lucky. As I looked around along the corridor I had previously traveled within I noted the crimson scribble on the outer side of the wall
Proclaim the Gospel
The ground floor lobby was much of the same décor as the previous upper level I had explored. What looked like the administrator's desk had blood pools and another of Murkoff lay slain, his organs spilling from his midsection. Flies pestered the area filling my head with the monotone of snapping wings. I looked away avoiding the small shift in the gore, their offspring would enjoy in full their inheritance. Within the small island was the person I had seen from the bottled corridor, but with despair I saw that my fears had been premature. He has been dead for some time.
It seemed wrong to lift my camera now and film their corpses forgotten and mutilated as they were, but I had obligations to fulfill. I didn't want to stop now, there was no telling what else I would find, but somehow I feared this wasn't the worst of it.
Moving around the crimson puddle I entered the block desk and held a sleeve against my nose to ward off some of the smell. The phones here were off the hook, I set one on its panel only to dull out the drone. Another blue file was left out, its pages slipping from the confidential folder. I flipped it over, pausing as a sudden crash echoed from somewhere else in the building, its origins a total mystery. I thought I heard someone shrieking and laughing.
THE MURKOFF CORP. United States Office
WARRANT FOR SEIZURE CASE NUMBER: 294758104
In the Matter of the Seizure of: MOUNT MASSIVE PSYCHIATRIC CENTER
MURKOFF PSYCHIATRIC SYSTEMS Mount Massive Wilderness Area
Country Road 112
Affidavit(s) having been made before the BOARD OF DIRECTORS by MURKOFF HARDLINE SECURITY (M.H.S.) who has reason to believe: CATASTROPHIC SECURITY FAILURE OF PSYCHIATRIC CENTER WITH IMMINENT DANGER OF ENVIRONMENT CONTAMINATION
We are satisfied that the affidavit(s) and testimony establish sufficient evidence to require urgent action on the part of M.H.S. and grounds for the issuance of this warrant.
You are hereby required to grant M.H.S. full access to all facilities and surrender complete authority to its agents. By acceptance of this document you (and any surviving relative) surrender all claims of litigation against the Murkoff Corp. or its subsidiaries for the actions of M.H.S or the circumstances which required their actions, regardless of responsibility.
Environmental contamination? This document was not indicating the mentally ill patients, was it? How could bureaucrats go about calling escaped lunatics 'environment contamination'? That was too sterile a term to use. Though I wouldn't put it past them using a phrase like that, but it didn't add up here. They weren't that clever.
The tactical cop was a part of the squad called in to scrub away the incident, the MHS assigned to Murkoff's watch, orchestrating 'accidents' if people got too close or causing a lot of damage if something went bad. I couldn't imagine normal human beings holding off this MHS while they attempted to retake the facility, given these 'Variants' were lunatics and some might not give a damn if they were shot to pieces, they were still mortal. How could they slaughter a whole team of expertly trained killers? I had heavy doubts that they had come here to take care of the big fucker specifically, but he was a high suspect on my list.
I flipped the page over finding no date, nothing to indicate when this was sent. But I already knew Murkoff had been here for years doing whatever it was that they were doing. Something had happened in this facility that someone didn't like, and they had attempted to stop it or fix the problem. With fatal results.
I went over the two pages, even the lame blank page with the lone 'Responsibility' printed at the top. What a waste of trees.
Across from the administrative desk awaited the main doors, with some sort of lock bolted into them. I crossed over to them in no hurry, the MHS cop made it clear that they were inaccessible. Where was it I needed to go to open them? My mind was still fuzzy from that fall, and I was brushing bits of glass out of my hair. When I pulled my hand away it was bloody, but I wasn't too concerned as it was already sticky and drying. Head wounds tend to bleed a fuck lot, and glass only made it worse. Again, I was very lucky.
More bodies hidden in the shadows became visible as I neared them. More employees bloody and broken, limbs twisted in unnatural ways that made my skin crawl to stare at. To me it looked like someone had buried mini explosions in their stomachs, the results splattering their entrails in all manners of heinous over the floor and nearby furniture. The body nearest to the door looked as though he had fallen and been dragged a short ways. A set of footprints led from red pools to the doors. Had the staff been trying to escape?
I tried the doors out of habit but like from the outside, I found them nearly cemented shut. It was some sort of electrical lock, hopefully the mechanism for it still worked as most everything in this place seemed to. Who paid the electric bill?
My arm ached, not broken but sprained. As I explored the visible rooms over I massaged it. That damn leather face had nearly ripped my arm clean out of the socket. Suddenly my rib cage didn't seem so sore.
All the windows that I could see were covered over with a thick grade of chicken wire. I entered one room with a man left to rot in a fire place, aside from his presence the office was orderly and untouched since the time the shit hit the fan. I made sure to shut the door behind me then pulled back the curtains to examine my possible escape. I'd feel better if I had one back up plan, even if it was a meek false hope.
When you lock a lot of mentally disturbed people up under one roof, you wanted to make sure they didn't spill out and irritate the lucid folks. Or 'environment contaminate' the area, as Murkoff liked to put it. Mesh wiring would settle this concern, nothing Murkoff needed to fret over. It seemed to work too well.
Many moons ago I watched a movie, "One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest." I'll spoil it and say the big guy escaped the psychiatric ward by throwing a toilet through a window. Maybe my big guy had seen it too, but that was a trail of thought I did not want to entertain tonight.
After securing my camera in its pack I went to the desk and tested the heavy chair left there. With a little straining I could lift it up a few feet, but the sharp pain along my side canceled this thought, and I collapsed over the arm. Yes, I think a few ribs were cracked.
In my defense I did give it another try, this time sliding the chair along the floor and pushing it up against the wall. I supported the bulk of its weight on my good side, leaned back then propelled it forward into the glass. This time I toppled over the chairs legs and rolled over, the burn in my chest took its sweet time subsiding before I could lift my head and gaze upon my work.
Not even a scratch.
Murkoff might've installed shatter proof glass in the lower wings, I couldn't know. Whatever, I wasn't getting out this way.
I returned to the lobby and looked around. There was an elevator, but I doubted it would work, and in the unlikely hood it did just to spite me, I didn't need to use it. There was a corridor to the right I hadn't explored, near the broken gate of the door was a plate labeling directions to the nearby areas. Electric room, Library and the MHS cop, Recreational Hall upstairs, Cafeteria upstairs, and a Chapel. I raised my eyebrows to the ideal of a church in this place and thought again of my 'friend', and felt the chill of unease ice through my veins.
Security was labeled first on the plate, and indicated down this hall.
Before entering full into the bright light, I checked around the opening of the segregation gate. My mind lingered elsewhere, where had the Priest gone? I had some shred of desire to meet the guy and get some sort of answers to my questions, even if they were full of Biblical praise or damnation.
As I moved deeper into the hall, I stumbled and ducked into the nearest room on my left as someone dashed across at the far end. I peeked around the corner and saw whoever it was banging at a door until it gave, then he dove inside. This might've put me to ease, but there was too much blood on the floor to improve my mood.
I reflected on my thought patterns lately in an introspective way, and decided I was either in shock or I was at the threshold of insanity. I needed to keep my wits about me, needed to think critically and keep myself from getting killed like the tact cop.
My foot squeaked on the tile, startling me out of these thoughts. I spun around falling to my ass to find I had been knelt in another pool of blood. What in hells name happened here?
Crouched low I shuffled forward and reached up to pull the stall open. You weren't even safe on the crapper, another body slumped on the toilet with fresh blood spilling down the drain. The words WITNESS were sloppily painted on the pristine tile wall behind him. I wasn't too anxious to speak with this 'Priest' now.
"I'm already beat all to hell, picking broken glass out of my scalp, couple cracked ribs. Nearly killed by a deformed giant, looks like somebody tried to fuck-start his head with a cheese grater. He throws me through a wall, knocks me unconscious. I wake up and some doughy old man with a face like an alcoholic kiddy fiddler in a homemade priest outfit calls me his Apostle. Not a job I asked for. There are words scrawled in blood everywhere. I'm getting an ugly feeling in my gut that the "Priest" is writing them, and for my benefit."
I shivered as I wrote down the title, "The Witness" and lowered my camera. This body was fresh, the blood still swirling down the drain I stood over. How long ago had he been alive? How long had I been out? So many things could have happened to me while I lay unconscious. I had to get out of here.
Across from the public bathroom was another open room. Entrails and pieces of human anatomy were strewn over shelves that had once held boxes full of files. I pulled my collar over my face as my shoes squeaked over the floor. There was another door beyond the industrial shelves, barricaded on my side, and two bodies strewn on this side of the room. They must have tried to lock themselves in here, but it didn't seem to help much. Another thing that was beginning to disturb me.
Where I went my shoes agitated the viscous pools of blood, I was leaving footprints almost everywhere. I wasn't too comfortable with this, but this didn't immediately alarm me. What did was the lack of footprints.
A lot of these people looked as though they were in great pain, torn to pieces by some force. They had been fighting to escape, struggling to keep something away. The big fucker? I couldn't express the level of anguish when I ruled him out.
There were no footprints. Someone had killed all these people, but where was the culprits footprints?
I plucked up the battery on the table and went ahead to change out the old one. I wiped blood off it before I put it in, then checked the camera once more for a bit of comfort rather to certify its continual function.
Down the hall was a heavy metal door that looked important. My suspicions were confirmed, the bold word SECURITY was labeled on the front. The small red light on the magnet panel already informed me the door was locked, but I checked the handle anyway. There must've been a system shut down when everything went to hell, through the glass at the side I could see another staff member slumped in a pool of blood. Security operative, looked like he managed to get locked in but even the isolation didn't' save him. This perhaps frightened me most of all about this place. There was absolutely no safe haven to hole yourself up in.
Another boarded up door. A room I would never enter, but I didn't think I was missing much. I continued on, taking smaller steps recalling the person I had seen smashing the door. Which one was it? The last one on my right.
I entered the doorway to my immediate left. Inside was more of the usual office structure, a coffee table set off center of the room with chairs placed around it, overhead a bright light illuminated the cozy setting. They might've brought some of the less volatile patients here for meetings and group therapy. At the far end of the room was a desk, it's surface littered with bloody pages. Behind it was another victim, his blood still seeping down the front of folders stacked neatly behind his crushed skull.
Had he been alive shortly before? I brought up my camera and filmed as I knelt down and put my hand around his wrist. Obviously he was very dead, but I could feel the stillness of death clinging to his skin, the warmth as it evaporated.
The Variants. Was that what the cop had referred to, the former patients of the Asylum? How could they be responsible for all of this? How could they manage so much death and trauma?
There was the big fucker. His face had probably been normal once, but that was stretching speculation.
A few patient files were scattered on the desk, excerpts from a Petty's file, an admission for Samuel. I pulled out another Confidential file and opened it on the desk, clicking picks of each page.
From: Helen Granat
To: group8416
Subject: Project Walrider On Site Inspection
Dear Sirs,
The full report pending, no immediate action is required on the part of The Murkoff Corp. The profit potential of PROJECT WALRIDER remains staggeringly high.
The four fatalities contain enough ambiguous data to make any litigation, if evidence is correctly managed, impossible. PROJECT WALRIDER remains a dangerous initiative, and there will almost certainly be further casualties. As with the others, however, family and government interest in the patients is so low as to make any chance of legal actions vanishingly unlikely. Violence among patients is increasing as the Morphogenic Engine Therapy gets closer to producing working models, but a combination of physical and chemical restraints has proven sufficiently effective to assure continued control and profit.
Respectfully,
Helen Granat
Murkoff Legal Mitigation Dept.
I read through the document twice, nothing of its black and white made sense. The Morphogenic Engine I read in another report, that name stood out. Therapy. Mind control was a possibility, something they were testing on the admitted crazies. Four people had died for data retrieval, and no one cared. Admittedly, it didn't make a single difference to me that these people had died it what appeared to be early experiments, but it was wrong either way. Behold the results of their studies.
I shut the folder and crossed the room to the open doorway, barely recalling the dead man as I stumbled back from the frame like it was on fire.
The probable murderer had forced his way into the room before me. As I turned to find the other exit, I picked up on muffled sobs leaking from the other side.
"We didn't choose this. Why should we have to pay for it? Why do we have to die? Walker will kill us all just for being sick. We're still people. We didn't choose this."
The room was left as it was, and I made my way back to the main area. I wasn't sure who the man was talking about, but I noted the name Walker. The patients seemed to have their own demons to deal with, an issue I wanted no contest with. In an hour I made no progress, and it seemed if I couldn't find the card key I wouldn't be able to access the Security room. There must've been something I missed, in a desk or obscure location where the card key was kept safe. If not, I didn't know what I would do if I could not force my way out a window.
I walked the perimeter of the lobby checking in the dark edges and possible doorways I had thought locked on my original pass. The elevator was always an option, maybe I could reach the second floor and find an alternate way to the window I had initially entered through.
When I approached the panel I gave it a firm push, but nothing happened. Power was cut from it during an emergency? Most likely. Or it was jammed. I smashed the dial with my fist, hurting my side in the process. As I leaned over to relieve the ache a wail echoed out, and a man fell past my line of sight. I could hear him for some length before a meaty thwack ended his cry.
Stunned by this excerpt in my life I retreated to a cluster of shadows and wandered a bit aimlessly, trying not to visualize the shock on the man's face. I tried to fool myself and assure he had been another corpse and that I imagined the scream, but I didn't want to pretend. Maybe I was taking this too hard, most everyone in this place was either dead or insane. What was one more?
I leaned against the wall and looked up, catching the hairline crack of a doorway I must've passed over ten times. How did I miss this?
I pressed it open fully and stepped inside, there was little light but for what was shared by the glow of rows upon rows of monitors. Another office for the grunts of the facility to work. I didn't bother with the camcorder as I navigated my way around the upturned chairs, I had to dislodge my feet when they became stuck on the stained floor. Much of the same as every other office in this place. It felt as though my mind was going numb, there was too much to take in for a lone sane man.
At the end of the room was the inviting glow of an open doorway and bright lights within. It was for file storage, shelves and shelves loaded with boxes of files old and new, just like from the good ol'days. To my left was a small alcove for another office, maybe the records keeper. On my right the light had burned out, but there was little else of interest. As I felt my way along the shelves back to the light, I knocked out a folder that had been teetering on some open boxes. Immediately I felt silly, I had started to pick up the pages off the floor. To what purpose? Good civil instinct I suppose.
The name Walrider caught my eye, the Project name that Murkoff had been working on. I shuffled the folder and the files into the light and put the pages back in order.
MURKOFF PSYCHIATRIC SYSTEMS
PROJECT WALRIDER
Mount Massive CO
Case Number: 136
Patient Initials: CLW, "Walker"
Consultations Dated: 2013.05.28
Initial Date of Patient Consult: 2011.01.28
Patient Age: 32
Gender: Male
Observing Physician: Dr. Rudolf Wernicke
(notation by Dr. Walsh)
THERAPY STATUS:
Morphogenic Engine activity plateaued at roughly 2000 ppm. Unsafe to progress beyond stage 3 hormone schedule.
DIAGNOSTICS:
Spirometry revealed light-to-medium bronchial accumulation. MRI scans consistent with patient's reported dreams.
INTERVIEW NOTES:
Walker was interviewed in restraints, following his self-inflicted mutilations. Restraint have had to be altered to accommodate his enormous size.
Extensive dermal eruptions as consistent with failed Morphogenic Engine cellular activity. He claims the skin ripped from his forehead allows for a truer way of seeing, seems to have some boyhood experience with Tuatara Lizards and their parietal eyes. He has expresses anxiety about his flesh, specifically around his lips and nose. Attending orderlies should be advised to watch for further self-mutilation.
The mental traumas he sustained while serving in Afghanistan seem to be retarding progressions of the M.E. Process. His predominant fixation, amplified by therapy, is a manic exaggeration of military security protocol. A continuation of both chemical and physical restraints is highly recommended.
It was all here. Restraints, mutilation to the face, they even made note of his huge girth. This was a Chris Walker's file, most if not all the experimentation he had been subjected to for this Project Walrider. A soldier from the war gone loco and sent to Mount Massive, then mutilated beyond recognition. What a way to support our troops.
The story was very tragic, but the man threw me out a window, I didn't have a great well of sympathy for him.
I stacked the files and dropped them into an open box. When I got out of here I would do more research, the people loved a story in which tragedy befell a war hero wronged by the government he fought to defend. Unless…the reason he was locked up here was because he went coo coo on tour and killed a bunch of innocent people, then his details would be discreetly mentioned, if at all.
The door had been ripped off the frame, I peered around the side and saw the metal grate that had thwarted my eyes in the lobby. I turned around, and ducked down when my eyes focused on a man some distance down the corridor, seated in a wheelchair. At first I thought he was another nameless corpse, but he was moving, or maybe it was a trick of the light. I inhaled and exhaled, I had a feeling this was not a corpse.
I crept away from the safety of the door and hugged close to the wall, eyes fixed on the man. He was moving, irregular jerks and twitches that made my heart beat faster. And the smell. He reeked ten times worse than an outdated tramp crumpled in one of New York's nameless allies. As I drew near my eyes picked out the specific details of his physique. He was grotesquely emaciated, it looked like much of his muscle mass had already rotted away, the kinks in his spine in full view and his hips nearly puncturing the thin skin just above the filthy pants he wore.
I knelt on the other side of him, pulling up my camera to film. I missed the record button the first few times as I gawked like a fool. You can never comprehend a severe case of starvation until you have actually witnessed it. This man's malnutrition caused his eyelids to sink into his skull, like a living mummy. And his teeth, what remained of them, stuck out at jagged angles between chapped and bloody lips. The sounds he made didn't resonate the way a human voice should, they were distressed and ill, the whimpers of something barely clinging to life.
No one was here to take care of him. Or Murkoff let him reach this point on purpose.
Several minutes passed before I came back, raised my camera and stumbled backwards until I collided with bookcases stuffed into the hall. I didn't notice the open door beside my shoulder right away, my focus held on the doomed man in the wheelchair. Movement from the nearest one snapped my attention to them, three figures fully engrossed in a world I had no desire to enter. I pressed myself against the opposite wall across from them waiting for a response, I'm not sure what I expected, but they never looked up. Or, they never gave me the time of day. Their vacant expressions remained fixated on the television mounted to the wall.
A spray of black blood was dried to the surface, snow was the main program. I turned my camera onto them, no response. Cautiously I entered the room, pausing with each whine of the floor as it groaned about my weight. They never twitched, their attention fully engrossed in that damn television. I paused in the doorframe watching them, assured they wouldn't find interest in my 'sudden' appearance.
"A crowd of broken men watching a dead channel. They look like patients. They survived whatever happened here but nobody's home."
That last line should have put my nerves to ease, but it felt empty. I put my pen and notepad away and crossed the room, ducking beneath the straight gaze of the first patient. He didn't even blink.
The other two seemed more withdrawn than fixed on the screen, I gave a wide space to the next nearest as his eyes kept track of the wall behind me. His face was mangled beyond recognition, I couldn't tell if they were burns or some sort of surgical infliction. I couldn't see the furthest man perched on a couch near a fallen bookcase, I didn't bother to either.
Aside from the patients, the room had little too offer. I tiptoed around once I was comfortable, testing their senses. I was convinced that they were vegetables, and made sure to search the room thoroughly before I turned myself towards the only open door at the back. It looked like more barricade fail, but this time the patients had torn the door free and gotten inside. I ducked down into another hall, and felt around. There was only a locked door blocked by more shelving, but the door ahead of me had been left ajar.
Some sort of meeting room, I deduced. There was no point in wondering, but it helped pry my mind from the atmosphere of this place. A large table blocked my path, circular and dull, covered with papers and folders, and a shattered laptop. I flipped through some, recorded a few names. One I caught on chance was the mention of a Martin, with Father capitalized and quoted. Sounded exactly like my guy.
There were no mentions of Murkoff's 'special' project among these folders, or the Morphogenic Engine that frequented others. I turned my attention to the desk with its pitiful light source and noted the corpse, a man that had suffered a twisted neck. He was the same as all the broken personal around here, but clipped to his pocket was a magnet key card labeled in large words SECURITY.
This seemed too convenient, but it made some sense. No one could get out because they didn't have access to the control room, because the one with the card was dead in a room.
I dithered for a moment studying the dead man, before I reached out and quickly snatching the card pinned to his uniform. I went around the other side of the table nearly tripping on a box of files, I gave them a sharp kick regretting it instantly as pain bit my side. I was getting out of here, I was going to escape this. I had everything I needed, more than what would be essential in court. I was going to nail Murkoff with this so hard.
It would be just my luck that the men in the next room would finally notice me and rally a mob to…kill me. They had no weapons I don't think, they'd settle to beat my face in with their fists. Anything that could go wrong would, I needed to live by this rule now.
But it wasn't to be, my fears were unfounded and the men remained where they had been the whole time that I was absent. Except, I think the patient sitting in the back was on the left side of the sofa when I had come through. I didn't bother to check the camera, I just wanted out of here. I shut the door gently behind me and let the knob turn out of my hand. At least I'd be able to hear if they finally got their wits about them.
There was still the patient in the wheelchair. I doubted he'd be able to get up, he was the literal sense of skin and bones and it was painful to look at, but I didn't take any chances. I secured my camera in its pack and put my back to the wall inching by–
"—OUT! PLEASE! The doctor is dead!"
My head hit the floor when he lunged from the chair, he began crawling up my legs shrieking, as I lay there stunned. His reek was so sour my vision blurred, what was he going on about? I tried to drag myself back but he pushed on my sore leg and reared up, reaching for my head. I took his arm and tried to get a leg up, his other arm fumbled blindly for my face.
"Rip them clean! You have to help me!"
I shoved my wrist under his palm removing his bony fingers from my eyes and managed to catch his forearm before he smacked me. I had to brace my back to the floor and shoved with all my might. He flew up smashing against the wall and crashed down to his side, he wasted no time scrambling away from me.
Meanwhile, I crab crawled backwards from him, while he whimpered and hid against the edge of the wall. My heart was thudding hard and spots dotted my vision, damn it, damn my instincts.
"Don't hurt me…."
Fuck this place. I needed to get out of here.