The Dark
For some reason I didn't feel the rush of exhilaration I had hoped to achieve in reaching the exit. My mind might've been numbed by what I'd been through to allow such a mood, emotionally drained by the experience and horrors of what I had seen. It was such an empty sensation, completely robbing me what of I felt was deserved.
Closure.
But as with all matters tangled in Mount Massive's mockery, I was to be disappointed.
I hesitated, straining to pick out the odd sounds beneath the heavy rain. A flash of light clarified the grounds momentarily and I burned the image into memory. Overgrown grass obscured most of the pathways, a net of greasy branches stretched over the sky. I moved into the cold rain and the dark, stepping carefully down the slippery stone steps. Lightening flashed, and I thought something skittered past overhead. Impossible, given the image wasn't the best on the visor between the green tint and the heavy rain, there was nothing out here. As the flash fades, I could only see the brick path and the overgrown grass before me. I was the only living thing out here.
Or nearly so.
A beam of light cut through the downpour and the glossy branches, sweeping over the yard. There light was too bright on that side to confirm it, but it had to be 'Father' Martin. He's the only person I knew of that used a torch. Pretty sure. He was signaling me from across the yard.
I think if I had the chance, I'd like to strangle him. Get him caught in an elevator, or cut his fingers off with a pair of giant shears. The camera was getting low on power, had to move it.
Strange sounds echoed in the wind, snapping branches or something large crashing through the gaunt bushes along the cobblestone path. Sometimes I thought it was following me, but the rustle would soften at a distance or maybe the rain was picking up force. I ducked down when I thought Chris appeared, but it was only my imagination forming shapes in the NVs haze. No one was out here with me, just Murkoff staff cut up and sitting drenched on benches, staring with glazed eyes at the storm. Did they come out here to die, or did someone leave them like this?
I was soaked before I reached the fountain. So much for getting dry, at least rain was clean. That sound again, something shrieking in the night and I thought there was a form overhead, in the branches as they crackled. I tried to follow it with the camera, but my nerves gave and I whimpered as I knelt to crawl along toward the only visible light. It no longer signaled me. How long had Martin been out in this weather waiting for me? Not long enough.
Leaves scuttling along the ground spooked me, the way they played at the edge of the visor. I stopped in the downpour to get up, and fought to wrangle my breathing under control. My chest ached with my heart thudding in my chest, the wind picked up and I shivered into the soggy embrace of my coat. There was nothing out here but dead people and a psycho guy that fancied himself a priest.
I remained wary though as I moved up the steps, beneath a broken lamp blazing in the inky night. I had to change the batteries in the camera, a tricky choir in the rain. I crouched low and tucked the camera under my coat and popped out the old battery, then slapped in the new one. My camera was keeping me more alive at this point, rather than provide the evidence at my psycho evaluation. I had some difficulty slipping the strap back over my hand, my knuckle was a little swollen and I needed to loosen it in order to get it over. Once it was done I wouldn't need to worry over it for a while. Probably.
No one was waiting for me when I reached the top of the steps. Only the words scrawled in blood on the wall across from me
how alive are you
At my feet on the damp cobblestone and in a diluted puddle of blood, rested a file in a plain folder. Inside was a notepad tinged by the soaking rain, but enough of the note was illegible.
"I don't even know your name. But I've come to think of you as one of my blood, my Paul, I hope you don't mind. And I hope you don't indulge the vanity of self-pity, the fear that your suffering is more than others'. We all must endure this, and you are nearly done. There's no way to heaven but by the cross. And every man needs another to help drive the nails in. I am here for you. I am waiting up ahead."
This actually would have been really comforting, except at the end where he mentions the cross. If he thinks he's crucifying ME, I'll be more than happy to disappoint. I'll die before he gets ahold of me again. Fuck them all. I'm not going through all of this to wind up as some sacrifice!
I tossed the folder down and cautiously crept up the steps at the right to a wire fence, the door and frame wrapped with thick chains and padlocked tight. Stepping back, I examined the gate standing between me and presumed freedom.
In favorable circumstances I'd fly over a chain linked fence. What was it to me? An insult to my dexterity? Right now, too many factors worked against me to attempt the climb. The weather was bad, barbed wire at the top, don't mention my fingers, and I was bleeding again. It didn't look like there was much for me on the other side either, it this just led into another yard.
Damn, where do you have to go to get out of this place?
I judged the fountain to be a center piece of the yard, if that assessment was correct I would locate other pathways leading from it across the grounds. That would keep me from getting too lost, I was incredibly disoriented with the weather and all-consuming black. As I made the return trip, a light glittered in the distance between tree trunks and mist. I kept my attention locked on it while trying not to deviate from the path, it was tempting to tear across the yard if only to find the source.
Overhead the branches groaned and snapped, I ducked down as that noise returned, sounding like pellets in a pipe and shrieking with the crashing thunder. I dove off into the tall grass and kept low, listening and searching for what might be there. A shape slipped through the treetops, but the night blazed with green brilliance, blinding me through the NV. I turned my head down and realized my knees and shins were soaked in the icy mud, but I didn't care. I didn't want to move and alert whatever was out there to my location and have it come down on me screaming mad. I didn't want to see it, I didn't want to know what was there.
It was just getting to me, the weather and this feeling of isolation in the yard. It made me feel like something was out there stalking me, and only me. I needed to get into some shelter and dry off. Or just get out of this drumming rain for a bit.
I shuffled along ducking beneath the low twigs and pressing through soaked brush. I'm certain the path was at my back but I didn't want to find it just yet, I needed to stay hidden in the undergrowth until it felt safe. I'm not sure what I was hiding from but I needed to stay hidden from it. Recollections of the sewers, people shrieking behind the metal gates as an unseen force punished them. I exhaled a sharp breath and pressed my left hand over my face. Don't go back. Try not to think about it. I murmured something strange, a comforting sort of sound to reinforce my resolve.
I'll get out of this. But I have to keep moving.
Another gate appeared in my path, and I ran my hand carefully over the chain linked fence. A stone wall was built on the other side, crates stacked on the floor. There was a door in the wall. The gate was locked with chains—
The timber above snapped and fell onto my head, and that screech rang in my ear as though it were right beside me. I whirled away tearing through grass and sharp brush towards the stone fountain, not stopping until a light in a doorway appeared somewhere on my left. I flew to it not hesitating before I slammed into the door at full force, and flung it shut with a loud CRACK! I stood quivering under the light, dust swirled in the warm beam as I panted, gazed fixed on that door. The storm howled beyond the weathered wood, sounding eerily like human sobs. What the fuck had that been?
Power in the nightvision needed to be changed out. Already? I just changed the battery. Something was going on here. Much of the same that clung to this place, a lot I didn't understand and what I did get still made no sense.
I switched out the battery and looked at the small tool shed I had crashed into. Some basic things, a few shelves with paint cans, some pliers and wire cutters, and propane cans stacked by the door. There were a few hooks, and one had a silver key dangling on it. It had to be a key to somewhere, maybe one of the gates? I had to go back out there and search them all down. It could be done, but it would be time consuming.
Before heading out I gave my camera a quick evaluation, to make sure it was still in satisfactory working order. I rubbed off some of my bloodstains that had clotted on its side and checked some of the footage, in a dull state. It began to frighten me how little I reacted to my own terror in the night, as though I didn't care five minutes previously I'd been racing across the yard in a panic. I did forget my initial goal was to confirm the camera was still operational despite its abuse, but I'd fallen into a repetition of cycling through all its functions and struggling to adjust the color settings, despite the mechanical flaw caused by being thrown out of a fuckin window. I eventually gave up and stared at the visor as it recorded the floor of the shed.
Time to go.
The handle turned loosely in my hand and I pulled the door back, while keeping my shoulder by one side in case I needed to shove it close. I didn't have my camera up yet so all I could make out was the oily yard with its slumped shapes glimmering under the flash of electricity. The sky was a muddy expanse stretching over the tree tops, it seemed lower than the sky should be, barely brushing above the canopy of jagged timber. There was nothing hostile, nothing visible I wouldn't come to expect with the relentless storm. Complete silence but for the thick water and rumble of thunder.
It was eerie, after I had raced across the yard accustomed to the bizarre sounds, and suddenly there were none. For a moment, I was startled by a black shape hovering near the fountain, but in a flash of light it was gone. Just the guard slouched on the bench, on the other side of the yard. It was him I had seen, very dead and immobile, nothing could change my mind.
I returned to the gate beneath the light, where 'Father' Martin had left his message. I took the padlock but found I was wrong in my assumption. The key was thick, more along the lines of a skeleton key, and the padlock used the more modern thin keys. Damnit.
I climbed down the wall and walked along one side of the yard hunting for a door, or gate that would use the key. There had to be some sort around here, Martin left the key in the shed for me, the mystic bastard. Couldn't just leave doors open, has to lock me in and leave me to the mercy of his 'disciples.' This place was probably Satan's holiday house.
A light on the other side of the yard caught the visor, and I started in that direction in a casual jog. It sounded like a shape was shredding through the canopy overhead, I hunched down as I hastened my pace through a sharp gale of wind and rain. I doubt the light would deter it but the dark didn't seem to do much either. I shoved the key into the lock breathing a small sigh of relief when the latched clicked. My hand fumbled with the slick knob, scraping my finger in the process as I forced it open and threw it shut after me. I moved away from the door and fought back the trembles that clutched my body, just couldn't get myself under control. Beyond the wire door I thought there was a dark mass swimming through the storm, but a boom of thunder killed out any sound there might've been.
Focused and still, I waited for nothing. The water made a soft pit-pat sound as it dripped from the edges of my soaked coat and chin, that gentle sound somehow overpowered the nightmare of the storm and what it concealed. I allowed myself one whimper as I let the tremors take me, tensing my muscles to block out some of the cold.
There was something out there and it was following me. I don't know how to explain it. I don't want to explain it. The very notion I couldn't comprehend this terrified me. What the fuck was it and what did it want?
My mind kept flashing back to the sewers, the wails and sobs of people dying. The sounds. Those sort that couldn't be replicated. They were the kind of sound a person made the moment death took them, and would never be repeated by that individual. Death throes.
I changed out what was once a battery at half-life, and put one with full power in. That should last me. Maybe.
It looked like some sort of greenhouse, or was once one until the asylum came to be in the early nineties. I moved away from the wall to distract myself with this place, this façade of reprieve. No plants were kept in here, just some pallets and materials for the grounds. Windows along the upper walls flashed with peculiar outlines, like faces watching through still portraits and the unsettling sensation that I was not alone and had never been alone in this place. Just nerves, I told myself. I was cold, soaked, and the lightening hid shapes as it revealed me to those same shapes I hid from.
I gave a loud sneeze and bit my tongue. Perfect.
Briskly, I moved out of the light, into the shadow of the doorway at the other end. I raised my camera and gave the crossing corridor a look over, before I stumbled out into someone. Smelt like people came in here to piss as though the yard was too good for them. In this weather, it might've been.
Looked like most of the material for reinforcing the doors had been hauled from this storeroom, it must've been stocked with lumber before the nightmare began. Two by fours and plywood were leaned against one side of the wall, and on the other was a shelf with a hammer and some dried out potted plants. Pieces of splintered wood lay across the stone path, and nails had been scattered to the sides. A radio had been abandoned on a shelf out here, but the batteries were not the right ones for my camera.
I turned to check what the other side might offer, and stepped through a doorframe into a spare shed. At the far end the exit awaited, nearly missed as I scanned the entrance, skittish as I was. I was spooked by the icy dots of rain that hit my face, only to realize there was a large hole in the roof above. I shut my eyes and exhaled trying to calm myself. Just the rain, it was just the rain. Though I was freezing, I didn't bother to move out from under it, as I looked over the room.
Thin boards lined the walls and some propane tanks were left stacked at the furthest corner. Shelves were dotted with eroded paint cans, and more tools to reinforce doors without restraint. Good to know all that hard work and sweat had paid off in the end. I could just imagine Murkoff freaking out, terrified by the things they created and not understanding any of it. Just trying to get barricades built, doors sealed, and then curl up in the darkest corner while they listened to their colleagues, abandoned outside, get pummeled by the big fucker. And he seemed like such an interesting man.
Slowly, I turned the handle of the door and pulled it open a crack to scope out. Tall brick walls extended from the building on either side, effectively boxing the path in. I heard a noise like… screeching. Nails on a chalkboard, or something? Thick bars stretched from the wall into the dark, at the current range of the NV I couldn't see how far.
A form in the dark. I'm not sure how to describe it, it was an outline at first, then it took a shape. It was insubstantial and had no face, just what looked like a head perched on a rib cage as it fluctuated and shrieked and… headed RIGHT TOWARDS ME!
It was right at my face before I slammed the door and braced my shoulder against the icy steel. A strangled cry came from my throat as my ribs crunched under the force. I didn't see that, what was it? That was impossible, it didn't walk, I didn't see its feet! It didn't have feet, it—
The door shuddered but it was too dark to see, what I could make out was through the visor quivering just beside my face. It… materialized, and crawled 'through' the crack under the door. I only caught glimpses of the fog, I was too lost in fortifying a barrier on something that was slipping beneath it like in a cartoon. This isn't possible, not possible! This isn't natural what's going on here! Was that its head? Was it looking at me?!
When it grabbed at my feet I charged out of there, crashing into the metal gate under the light before I recalled how doors worked. I fled across the yard stumbling through grass, bushes, and finally toppling over a bench I didn't see in the black veil of night. Somehow in my madness I fell to my good shoulder and skid across the stone path, terrible wails surrounded me in the gloom as the lightening blazed and the world came into momentary clarity. I envisioned the patients surrounding me, Chris Walker in the distance stalking through the yard. A shapeless form howled as it hovered over me, reaching out a twisted branch to crush my head.
Strange sounds curled around me, and I knew was making them. I tried to block it out as I twisted to rise but something was wrong, I rolled sideways and fell down again before my legs could carry my weight. Once I was mobile, I raced the rest of the way to a bright light shimmering in the distance like a salvaging beacon. It only occurred to me as I flew up the steps that it was the same Asylum that I had recently escaped. It was the last thought in my head as I barreled through the nearest door, into the dark and dry safety of this horrible place.
I didn't get a chance to fling it shut, my instincts screamed – flee, flee, escape, HIDE!
I crammed my body into the furthest corner between the bookcase and a desk. There I cringed, panting, shivering, wide eyed, and waiting for the thing to find me. I just couldn't understand what I saw. Couldn't comprehend it. I wasn't into the supernatural, I've never see shapes or heard voices….
Up until I came to this crazy place. How could I have been charging all over this messed up Asylum, and only now out in the yard I come across something vaguely supernatural. It didn't make sense. I felt like I just lost my mind. I was fuckin insane. Completely bonkers.
"God help me, I think I've seen the Walrider."
My ears are ringing. That shrieking snarl, when I was face to face with it…. I don't know what happened. There was a flash, I thought it was the lightening, but it felt like I suffered a sharp blow to the head. I thought I'd seen into its face, o god, inside its skull… I didn't feel right. Not bad, I didn't feel good either, but not bad, but something….something doesn't feel right. Like I lost something, or forgot something. Just my nerves, I'm shook up and cold, and probably not in the best of health with all the blood loss.
I wipe some of it from my hands, but with the heavy rain the clots can't hold. Couldn't stop here, had to push on. Find that proverbial light out of this hell hole. No 'illusion' of MKULTRA would stop me.
My legs felt soupy as I made the long trek back to the gate, the only route I knew that might offer a way out. Or lead someplace dry. It took some time to find the gate, I left the door wide open and became confused when I saw the smaller shed through the rain. After further searching, in which time I'm certain I was more lost than I should have been, I did find the greenhouse. I shut the door behind me and listened, primed to bolt if I saw it, or heard that unnatural call it generated. I couldn't fabricate the exact noise in my head, only that it was inhuman and terrifying.
The metal door was untouched, and still in one piece. It had been crawling 'under' the crack. How the hell?
As before, I opened the door slowly and strained to hear. Noises did come, illusions my mind conjured of screams as the thunder rolled, or the rustle of leaves beside the metal bars flipped about. I felt like I was losing my mind. Give me naked thugs, deformed giants, freak doctors with huge scissors - give me a ghost, massive nope factor right there.
I slid through the door and shut it behind me. On the ground swirled dark splotches in clear puddles, another one of Martin's markers for me. I had this insane thought that maybe it was hiding in the blood. What was I thinking anymore?
A soft hiss issued from the other side of the bars, and I threw myself against the set to the left when I thought it was coming back. I saw nothing, no vague outline, nothing. Just the blaze in the sky, sometimes I thought there was a corpse sitting in the distance, washed by rain, or was it the black outline of a tree framed by light? I couldn't tell anymore. If I kept moving, everything would be all right. If I waited, it would find me.
I turned the corner and stepped off the stone path into thick grass, with about an inch of water coating the soil. The mud clung to my shoes and weighted my feet, I wobbled but managed not to fall over. It was a challenge staying on my feet as it was, I didn't need to fall to my hands and stuff mud into the wounds.
A lamp blazed down into some sort of storage yard, from when Murkoff remolded the place for reopening. A lot of materials they couldn't get rid of such as concert barriers and pallets were sorted and stacked. I ducked back from the halo of light when the brittle timber above snapped and dropped into the grass, not far from where I hid. I raised the camera and kept low listening as the sounds moved off, a soft tinkling of metal pellets echoed from the distance. The same sounds I heard in the sewers, when I thought I saw shadows.
Beside the lamp was a ladder fixed against the brick wall. I fastened the camera in its hoister and started up, keeping a tight grip each step I pulled up. The heavy downpour coupled with my muddy shoes made the exercise a difficult one, I nearly lost my footing twice before I had a suitable rhythm down. Overhead, jagged bolts crossed over the black sky, blinding me briefly but I held my climb steady. I've done this hundreds of time, the weather just complicated the task.
The ladder ended abruptly, or it seemed to when I couldn't see how far I had to climb. I crawled onto the roof of the greenhouse, or whatever the building was and fumbled for my camera. I bit the edge of my lip when I tried to force my hand through the strap and wound up jamming my finger on the thick material instead. Carefully, I slid my fingers under the loop and gripped the camera tightly in my hand, trying to ease out the knot of pain rolling in my knuckle. I tasted blood but I think it was worth it, distracting myself momentarily from everything else.
I used my left hand to steady myself as I stood and stepped up the remainder of the slant, onto the flat surface of the roof. It was comprised of wooden shingles roughed by hours of sun and harsh winters, easy to keep traction on even with the thick runoff. I focused on the visor of the camera as I stepped along, the power is more than half done with. A flicker of light reveals the shattered portion of the roof, for which I gather a short dash before I make the leap. In a surge of brightness that follows, I nearly stagger back from a shape below my line of sight, but it's solid and thin and not the thing in the dark.
A man sits on the roof of the greenhouses entrance. I must've looked like a lunatic to him, running everywhere in the dark and hiding in the glass. Or, was he watching it too? He's emaciated and stares into the unyielding storm, silent and still, aside from the brief movement of his hand scratching at his chin. Beside him sits a small walkie-talkie.
I shuffle to the low section of the roof, eyes fixed on him should he realize my presence. I kneel low and reach beside him to pick up the small device without disturbing his watch. My camera is already dimming, I toss the depleted battery aside and put in the one I've just picked up. It's dead as well, which would explain why he's not listening for chatter. I toss that battery as well and put in one of my own.
Half dead, but it'll do.
I pull myself back up to the roof and resume my way. The path comes to an end, above the curl work of barbed wire topping a fence below. As I glance around, I'm certain someone has screamed out there in the yard, but I can't decide which way only that it sounded painful. On my left there's a decorative ledge running along the Asylum's wall, the opposite of which direction I'm almost certain that shrill originated. I step back and get up some speed before leaping. When I hit, my shoes skid over the water coating the slick cement, but I keep on my feet.
Another roof was not far from the ledge to the left, I walk over to it keeping the camera firm in my grip as I leapt to the soaked wood without issue. In the branches I pick up the crackle and rustle of something, but I can never see a definite shape. I pause to crouch down and film open air and the rain, until the echoes have either faded or my mind ceased to fabricate them.
I push myself back to my feet and continue, barely three steps before I reach a piece of plywood lain down bridging the roof to some scaffolding. More evidence of Murkoff's attempted repairs before everything went to shit. Some boards are set over the short space, which I cross as I constantly search the ground and the canopy. It feels like the sounds are following me. I'm almost elated by the notion, despite the pulsing in my veins. Did I want to see it again? I don't think so. But I was curious. The initial shock had worn away, and every scuttling noise I thought was the thing in the dark terrified me. But it also teased my inquisitive nature. I teetered on a delicate and dangerous line, if I drew to near the sun it would burn me. But I couldn't help myself. I wanted to forget why it frightened me, and learn why I should be frightened by it. My heart thumped with the acuity, just a glimpse of the shadow to know I wasn't losing my mind.
I step from the short structure of scaffolding, onto a flat cement ledge. There's no other direction to take, the ground below I can barely find without the zoom. To my right is a thin gutter line, a possible path I'm not comfortable to attempt in the fierce weather. But I could manage it. I set my heels against the wall and shuffle out testing my stability, the edge ends just beneath my toes but I press my back against the cold brick and chance it. I have my camera crammed under my chin at an awkward angle to avoid bumping the wall with my elbow. I can barely keep my balance, and see enough just through the visor this way.
As I slipped around a sharp corner, my leg nearly gives out and I slip a bit but catch myself by pushing off the wall a fraction. I sway in the open air as the wind tugs at my drenched coat, if I budge I will fall and snap my leg, or something worse. It will be painful. I let my body sway until my back gently touches the brick wall, then I continue, shuffling slower this time. The small path ends on a large cement ledge, I drop to my knees to catch my breath. A set of planks awaits a few feet from where I lean over, appearing very sinister in the flash of light and the crack of thunder that follows.
The noises around me have calmed somewhat, and it's just the rain and I. This doesn't comfort me, though it should. I feel unsettled, like the eye of the storm. Using my camera I search for my next heading and zoom in on a slanted roof a short distance, beyond those unassuming planks. I return to my feet and secure the camera in my grip, I take a short dash before I leap.
When I hit, my foot slips over the rain cascading off the rough planks and I topple sideways. I clutch the camera to my chest and jam my elbow against the slant, twisting around to force my body parallel with the edge. I shove my feet against the friction and hold, until I've stopped completely. The night feels cold and silent, except for the rain drumming on my face generating its soft prattle. Water gathers at my side where I've blocked it, filling my coat and jeans with the frigid liquid. I'm so cold.
After a minute I collect my senses and inch away from the edge of the roof, until I can flip over and get up on my hand and knees, and crawl to the top.
When I make it to the other side, I'm dismayed to find no other path to take. This should be good news, but I preferred being someplace high where I couldn't be reached. I examined the distance to the floor from the roof before I put my camera away, then lower myself from the edge of the roof by my hands. A light shining from a pole above cut through the dark, offering some visibility before I dropped to the cobblestone floor. Some crates had been left beneath the roof, as though to protect them from the elements. Steps lead a few feet down towards a dead guard, and a steel door I bet would be locked.
I made my trip down to confirm this belief, and to get out of the rain for a bit. At times it felt colder sheltered from the constant pummel than wandering through it. The guard has nothing worthwhile on his person, not even a candy bar. Not that I want one, but I was thinking about it.
Up a set of steps on the opposite side, sat some neglected sawhorses and another collection of pallets. Otherwise, another dead end. I climbed over the short wall, down to where the ledge sheltered the small walkway and where the guard sat. I could see a path to take if it led anywhere worthwhile, a stack of pallets across from me was fixed beside a dumpster, both positioned under a cut out in the fence. The sounds came again, rattles in the pipes or a frail cylinder cast by the strong wind. I shrank into my coat but didn't bother to raise the camera or seek out the source, I'm not certain at that particular moment what I was thinking, other than I needed to move.
I raised my right hand to my face and blew in my palm, to get some of the chill from my fingers. It wasn't very effective, but the warmth did ease the pain a little. That same sensation came over me, the jolt to my head or some kind of vertigo. I shut my eyes and let the feeling pass, I kept repeating in my head 'keep moving, keep moving' but I wasn't ready. I just wanted to stand out of the rain and stare at nothing, maybe wait for the storm to pass, but I know by the time it did, it would be too late for me. The wind slid under the ledge and I gave in, crossing to the pallets and climbing up to the fence. I couldn't fathom who might have cut the wire, a few pairs of wire cutters and a chainsaw had been missing from the toolshed. I was screwed if Chris Walker was out here with the chainsaw.
I was still so fuckin lost. You'd think I'd be able to find my way around outside, without the walls and abundance of locked doors, but no. I was somewhere, maybe in the backgrounds of the Asylum. I couldn't locate a feasible way out of this place, had to keep heading around searching for one of the locked gates to the front. There had been a few I looked at before finding that shattered gate, but there was the staff parking I had viewed on the one side.
"Have to get out…."
I stopped as I turned the corner. On the ground lay a patient, by a steel door pinned with boards. I gave the handle a rattle and it clanked hollowly on the other side, but the screws in the stone kept it from budging. The patient seemed wounded or sick, I gave him his distance as I moved around to the only route visible. Fence on one side, fuckin big building on the other.
When I reached my jeep I was going to crank up the heat, tear off my coat, and just get my skin warm. And comfortable warm, not hot, not inferno, not hell hot, just warm. I was beginning to loose feeling in my fingers and toes, I was soaked to the bone, and I just didn't feel right. My head was still ringing from when the thing screamed at me, it might've damaged my eardrums. My hearing seemed fine, just that humming I couldn't stand. Felt like it was in my nerves.
There was another door, up some steps on the right. Same as the previous, locked solid. Don't know why I bothered checking, force of habit. I did want to get some place dry for a bit, but anyplace in Mount Massive I'd soon come to regret. Miserable place this was, would never wish it on my worst enemy because, I'm not that kind of guy.
Trager's too good for my enemies.
The lightning blazed and I spied another tall fence ahead, with a patient plastered to it shuffling against its side. I observed him through the visor as I approached, he seemed near oblivious to me. "I can see his ghost."
What was it they were so fixated to find out here? When I was close enough to see him clearly, I found that he had been coddling the gate for so long his face was a bloody mess and his nose was missing.
It reminded me of lizards in the pet store, if they wanted to get out they'd rub their nose on the bars until their lip had worn away. Pitiful to see a human like this, out here in the rain.
For a span I recorded beyond the fence, to pick up what it was he saw or to confirm my doubts, I wasn't sure. Sometimes I thought there was something, a glimmer and shift in the lens, the film was always clear and never faltered. I could hardly remember what it was I thought waited out there, only that it could stare back, and this made me uneasy. The patient mumbled something as he moved closer to me, and I only recalled that we were standing completely exposed to the storm.
Well, I realized I was standing in the rain. I didn't bother the other man as he sought to see his delusions.
The fence ended at a wall, to which brick stairs led to a higher patio. Across from the steps two benches were poised, on one sat a man in a straightjacket and chemical scarring marred his face. His eyes glistened in the NV when he noticed me. I turned to climb the steps, halfway up he called after me,
"Be as one of us."
I hurried to the upper level through an open gate, one of the first in a long while. Blood and gore was in my immediate path, I continued in that direction passing various guards and doctors of Murkoff, in a splattered display of death. It looked like they had fallen out from somewhere, their bodies twisted and guts spilling out and glass everywhere. Had they been thrown out of a window? Or had they found their own way out?
The door across from the dead had a plate reading Prison Block and the doors had been boarded up. The most opportune way out for some of them, I suppose. I located another open area in the fence, a few pallets stacked to give a clear step up over the sharp edge. A bolt streaked across the sky illuminating the immediate area, but below the light could not reach but for the thin tree limbs reaching high.
Before I risked getting lost in that lower area, I returned to where the gate entered the patio space, and took the path that had been open on my left. It was a large area beneath an eve, where I could get some time away from the storm. A few old drums, possibly gasoline like the ones in basement, had been discarded here. The walls had tall, thin windows cloaked by tattered curtains, I could make out no sign of cracks of wear to indicate anyone might have tried to escape this way. Bags of trash had been discarded by a large dumpster, and before it stood a man in a straightjacket struggling to get out.
The dumpster, after the stagnant decay that had been shoved into my sinuses, smelled wonderful in the cold storm. But the linger of rot was here, and blood had pooled at the patients feet.
"Bleed for me."
It was time to leave.
I climbed the pallets and braced myself for the fall before I let myself down, the soft earth compressed under my weight, but the jolt still traveled up my ribs. I stepped away grunting and stretching to get the soreness from my muscles, I was moving through the tall grass before I had my camera up.
The front grounds had really been let go, but this was beyond neglect. Thick bushes grew everywhere catching my pants and whacking my fingers as I navigated what seemed to be the clearest path, but everything was overgrown. The grass was up to my chest, and large concrete blocks dotted the yard, hidden until I was directly upon them. A thin vapor spilled from them, maybe from the lower levels of the Asylum, the basement? I turned my camera to examine the interior and found thick metal bars, and a warm draft that lifted from within.
I'm sure the yard might have been open to the better behaved patients during good days, but when Murkoff took over the patients never had 'field' days. They only needed to keep the front lawn looking decent for appearances, and let everything else go to hell. There were even pallets and large propane tanks stacked along the wall. Even for an asylum, this place must have looked nice when things were kept neat. But Mount Massive was shut down for scandal, so there was no telling if this place ever had 'nice days.'
The grass began to thin out as I neared a small pool of water in the middle of the yard, with a charming little bridge built over it. Large stones had been set to boarder the small pound, but even in the dark I could identify the thick grime that grew along the waters edges. If not for the rain cloaking the miasma of still water, I imagined it wouldn't be all that lovely.
Labored breathing pressed through the drone of rain, alerting me to duck down or be seen. There was no guarantee I wouldn't be seen. A blaze of lightning followed threatening to reveal my location out of spite, and in it I saw the shape of the big fucker as he wandered the yard.
It would've been too good if he didn't show up. I knew something was wrong.
Without hitch he continued on his way, pausing to glance over his shoulder as I paced through the water gently. It wasn't very deep, but he would pick out the odd sound given the contrast to the persistent shower. I paused with the bridge between us, the big fucker looked in the other direction and began that way. I breathed out a soft whine, even as the sky lit up with another blaze. The big fuckers back was still to me, I was safe for now.
I checked the camera as the light dimmed. Another battery went in, my last one, a full one. I had no idea how much further I had to go out here, but for the time I needed to see.
There was no indication of where to go, but for some light up at the top of a stack of pallets and propane tanks. Chris couldn't climb after me, he could fall after me, but he was a shit climber. At least, he's never jumped up after me, yet. For all I knew he could fly.
As quietly as I could muster, I sprint over to the stack and pulled myself up. I heard no sound from the big guy, he must still be enjoying the weather. I slipped up to the high ledge, another one of those tall thin windows greeted me, but of escape there was no evidence. I wasn't too keen on going into the Prison Block anyway.
A small rain trail led along the wall to the left. The water wasn't washing over it quite so hard, but I had to take the awkward angle with my camera again to keep from losing my balance. I'd prefer to put my camera away and not risk dropping it, but it was more disorientating being unable to see where my feet were and the wall pressed into my back.
I passed over a fence topped with coiled barbed wire and came to another sharp corner, on the edge of the building. Rather repeat my earlier slip, I stuffed the camera in its pack and carefully lowered myself sideways. Little by little in the dark, until my right hand touched the ledge. I made sure I had my hand on it before I pivoted, and dropped, snapping my left hand onto the edge as well, and let my weight settle on my arms. A small grunt snapped from my throat as my ribs sang in pain, but I wasn't falling backwards this time. I strafed along the wall, turning the corner easily and kept going until I felt the path at my hands end.
I pulled the camera free and checked what was under me. Just the floor, it was a distance from my feet but not far enough to break my legs. I let myself drop and turned, wary of my surroundings and what may be lurking. The sky blazed causing me to cringe down, in the resulting flare I thought there were shapes closing in but through the visor I saw nothing too hostile. Nothing alive at any rate.
There was a small gazebo near the center of the yard, with steps leading up to it. The aged wood creaked underfoot as I moved around the center, benches were situated around a small garden area full of black dirt and twigs, at one point it was probably filled with flowers or a hedge. What looked like a doctor was laying on one bench, his coat tinged with dampness and his back to me. I didn't bother with the body and kept moving. I crossed over and crept down the steps, back into the tall grass and into the dismal rain.
Overhead twigs crackled and fell, I crouched low scanning the lens along but couldn't locate the cause. It could have been the limbs heavy with water after a long drought, they sometimes snapped during a heavy rainfall, but that seemed like such a pissy excuse. I wiped the water from my face and cringed at the sensation of my missing finger, I was not getting used to that any time soon. I picked myself up and continued, slowly as I listened for more movement, my camera scanning the dark sky as lightning flared. It seemed to have moved off for now, if there was ever anything there. Maybe I was just as cuckoo as the patients, and seeing things in the dark. Suggestion was a powerful tool.
There was nothing to guide me, no remarkable land marks that I could identify aside from the gazebo. The stone paths were so overgrown with weeds, it was impossible to distinguish them from the tall grass. I just kept going, relying on the fence that surrounded this area to direct my way. Maybe I'd find a place where patients had escaped from. Or maybe they already had, there was the break in the fence I first came through, that led to the open window. Wasn't there a document that referred to them as 'environmental contamination?' It still sounded wrong.
It seemed to take an hour or almost to get around the yard, stopping every so often at shapes in the visor, static in the camera, sounds in the woods. Not animal sounds, but the strange chatter and wail of the thing I could not describe. Lurking somewhere and watching me clearly as I staggered through the unforgiving foliage. At some point I did find my way around, into an area I thought led into the woods, but instead a patient was staring back at me from a cobblestone path. It startled me, and I staggered away.
I knew my hands were bleeding again but I couldn't bear to turn the camera and view the damage. My blood felt as thin and cold as the rain, but I'm certain it was my blood. It had a differing consistency than to water streaming over my skin, but I refused to check.
Finally, at long last I spotted a light source. I could hardly believe it but I moved towards it, my battery was getting low and I couldn't be stumbling blindly around in the dark. The harsh brush tore at my shoulders and hands as I made my way towards what looked like a wall, or walls on either side topped with chain wire fence. A set of steps led down into a lower area, maybe another basement. There was evidence to indicate this as a possibility but I doubted it. I didn't care where the stairs led either, I just needed the reassurance of a firm direction. The sky blazed with a wild flash, blinding me momentarily before I saw a pair of eyes glimmer in the dark.
Shit!
I spun away racing back along the fence as Chris gave a howl of rage, initiating the chase. Where had he come from? Was that a gate to the connecting yard? I didn't care to know, my concentration was absorbed in not buckling under my terror. Branches slashed at my torn fingers in my frenzied escape, it sounded as though he was close behind me. I turned my head to check, running right into a tree that knocked me down and slapped the camera from my loose grip.
"You got nothing left to live for." He was right on top of me. Where was my camera?
The tall grass had hid the bright visor, but not well enough. I snatched it up as the big fucker came crashing into my vicinity, the chains clinked very close to my face in what might've been a grab attempt. I lunged just out of his path and saw, in a beam of lightning the gazebo. He can't climb! He can't climb!
I was just beyond his reach as I clambered up the rail and flopped over the side, I groaned as my ribs pulsed with pain but it bought me a moment. He shoved his arm through the gaps in the rail, but the chain caught on the rotten boards preventing him from grabbing my scalp as I lay stunned. But I wasn't safe yet. With a nasally snarl, Chris charged around toward the steps. I lifted my camera and watched through the NV feed as he set his dead gaze on me.
I rolled to my feet, and threw myself over the rail to sprint in the direction I thought that light had been. Chris swung himself over the rail, I know this because I felt the ground tremble when he came down. I kept on my feet locating the steps and shot down them, taking the corner on my right and stumbled down more steps and nearly toppled forward. The deep rumble of the big fucker echoed on the confining walls, he would be on me in the next instant.
At the corridors end was what looked like a wall, its appearance draining the remainder of my blood… until I caught sight of the lower side. The cement had been chiseled out and rebar ripped back. I knelt down and crawled through, as Chris gave his disapproving roar at my neck. I hadn't stopped yet to flaunt it, I was on my toes running up the narrow corridor back into the storm. An open and better kept yard greeted me at the top of the slop, but I didn't stop to admire it.
Across the yard a large set of double doors waited, boarded tightly with planks and plywood, tall glass framed the sides spilling comforting light onto the grass. I still raced into them and tried the handle, confirming this was not for show. The plate beside the door read Female Ward, though I wasn't sure of this. I knew there were female patients involved with MKULTRA and the sleep therapy, but it wasn't clear to me if they were involved with Project Walrider.
It was asking too much that I would never find out. But due to the wandering patients and contamination, I think I should have seen women by now. Or… could I not recognize them as being female? My head ached from the revelation, I needed to get out of the rain. I was borderline hypothermia, I had to get dry.
If I couldn't find my way out of this yard soon, I didn't doubt the big fucker would find his way to me. I walked along the fence that stretched from the building, and found an opening into another yard. A fountain sat in the center surrounded by benches, the strong stench of copper from it overpowered the open air. I had turned the NV off, but the camera was still running, it always was. I stared at the garden piece full of blood, so much I couldn't be sure if there ever was water in it to begin with. The heavy rain drops hit the surface, but the thick black clots held tight. I immediately felt sick and took a moment to sit down at a bench, off to the side.
"So much blood in the water I can smell it. Like putting a penny in your mouth when you were a kid. The whispers are making more sense, I'm looking for static. It's like an itch."
I stuffed the pen and notepad back in my pocket, and stood to resume the search of the lawn. Some fresh air would help, put some distance between this grotesque shallow red pool and myself. Get it off my mind if only for a second.
Steep hills lead up to high fences and what must have been the brick walls of the outer courtyards, polished and slick with rain and higher than the Tower of Babel. Was there no way out of this place? Did the world outside cease to exist?
Stupid thoughts. Miles, you idiot. Keep it together, I'm gonna make it out of this. Just takes time. Stay alive, and find that way out.
I returned to the fountain. Bodies bled out, in all manners of decay, on this side the wind picked up enough to give me a whisper of the spoil that seeped from the corpses. A still functioning lamp spilled light on the poisoned well. I didn't feel safe standing in the open like this. But I turned the camera anyway to sounds in the trees overhead, and the odd outline of something at the roof. Or was it another of Murkoff, ready to end it all and escape this hell?
I walked along the wall of the building to get out of the rain for a moment. Stacks of pallets had been neglected here, like much of all Murkoff's tools, as its people. The light above reflected off glass, but one window failed to cast its sheen. I jogged over and examined it from the ground, before I hauled myself up the precarious stack of pallets to the high window.
That sickening-familiar scent of old moldering wood, rank dust, and the trace of sweet humid rot swept over me as I entered through the shattered frame. The new reek of scorched, sodden wood saturated the air. At the edges of the NV I could catch glimpses of walls tinged in charcoal, where the fire had reached forth to spread.
Damn it, how did this happen? Like a tar pit, the more I fought the harder I stick.
There was nothing on my left, just glassed in walls around some office or lobby. Thinking on it, that might be the barred entrance of the Female Ward. The dust within was thick enough I could view it settling over a neglected wheelchair, tipped sideways. It was a depressing sight. I turned to my right, clinging to the lamps outside the windows to offer some guidance as I shut off the NV for a short while. I was ready to raise it if something caught my attention, or if that haunting wail returned. I shivered as a light pierced through collapsed beams, slanted across my path. I looked up to what must've been an upper floor and its doorway before the fire spread, all of it black charcoal and some of it cinder now. Steam was still rising from some of the white ash of the timber causing the air to fog thickly, but the light cut through blinding me briefly.
It was Father Martin, nested in a doorframe of the second floor, flashing his light to signal me. This was getting old.
"You saw the Walrider, didn't you?" He gave pause as I moved closer, presumably into his line of sight. I adjusted my collar ready to cover my nose with it, but postponed the action to glance around and turn my gaze back up to him. I tilt my head, only vaguely interested in what he had to preach. "You're beginning to understand, but not yet." He gestured his finger upward, dramatically. "Even Abraham had to cast his eyes to the ground. But soon, soon. This way. Revelation is at hand." With his speech concluded, he spun away and disappeared beyond the gate.
Okay, thanks. How was I supposed to get up there?
Big Thank yous to all my readers and reviewers. It really does mean a lot to me when you take the time to say "Awesomes" or "Error 404 Miles is broken" I aim to keep this up and keep you entertained. But please don't stay up too late, and don't forget your homework *shot*