Evil Beneath Us

by Laybourne, Alex

  Chapter 15

  Jeremy slipped into the room and the first thing to strike him was the sudden drop in temperature. The cold air rushed over him in a stream. There was also an odour in the room, a sweet and heady mixture that caressed the palette upon the initial meeting and struck it thereafter, growing more powerful with every breath. It was not a horrid smell, but rather an intoxicating one. The scent of climax and that of despair, mixed together. Jeremy had never come across such an odour before and knew, should he live, that he never would come across it again. It was appealing and revolting in equal measure.

  Jeremy had no fear now that he was in the central core. There was no turning back, and so he pushed on with no idea what lay in wait.

  It was gloomy in the room, the lighting kept low. The aroma that had first hit Jeremy when he entered showed no sign of lessening, but neither did it worsen. Jeremy understood what it was. Fear. The room was filled with decades’ worth of fear. It hung in the air, so thick that its resistance could be felt when moving through it.

  Jeremy was right about the room consuming the central column. What he was not prepared for was the construction that occupied the space. A large column extended from the center of the space, rising up into the ceiling where it fanned out to form a large circle that spanned close to the entire surface area of the layer above Jeremy’s head. Wires looped from its surface while tiny lights blinked and shone.

  The level Jeremy had entered was not the working floor, but rather a small balcony, the floor a cattle grid design, with a simple railing. Each door led to an individual balcony with a steep set of stairs descending down to the working level.

  Peering over the edge, Jeremy saw the subjects and what intrigue he had felt for the methods being used left his body in a rush. The wires that connected to the top of the pillar descended the column and attached to each patient. It must have been this that fed the machines in the control room. Jeremy reasoned, his mind breaking down what he saw into manageable chunks.

  The patients were strapped into place in a semi-seated position facing the pillar. A wire was inserted into each arm and a third entered through the top of the skull. Karen’s image flashed in Jeremy’s mind. She had lain there. She had been strapped down and forced to stare at something with the intention of killing her. All for some villains quest for something he could never understand. Jeremy felt sick. They used people up, draining them like batteries, shunting them through the system like cattle. A fresh wave of anger flared in Jeremy and it shocked him.

  Jeremy descended the stairs to the ground level. He stood among the patients, and felt hot tears streak his face. The room was empty save for the patients, who sat with blank expressions on their faces. It was too late for them. They were unresponsive to his presence. Jeremy doubted anybody came down here, only to change the bodies.

  Walking around the pillar, Jeremy took it all in. The smooth surface, the deep, barely audible hum. Was it that that so held their attention?

  Jeremy’s eyes detected movement off to his right. Panic swept through him. It surged with such force that the world slowed down. He was caught, the game was up, his fate sealed. They would strap him down and use him up. Turning to face his assailant, Jeremy tensed. There was nobody. He was alone. Then it was there again; movement. His eyes caught it. Relief was instant, but it left him trembling as it washed away the fright. It was one of the patients fighting against his restraints, jerking in fit.

  Jeremy had not yet walked a full circle around the pillar, but he estimated that there were fifteen people attached to the central column. It was easy to see whom the newest member of the family was.

  The patient, whose name Jeremy did not know and whose number he could not remember, was fighting against the restraints. It was more of the body’s attempt to reject the intrusive electrical currents that were flowing into and through the body, rather than any express attempt to find freedom.

  Blood seeped from the fresh puncture wounds created when the large diameter cables were forced through the man’s flesh. His eyes were wide with an expression of amazed terror. As Jeremy watched, the man’s thrashes lessened. He could see the understanding, the knowledge leach from the stranger’s features. He no longer saw the world around him, for he was slowly being exposed to that which lay beyond.

  Moving without thinking, Jeremy rushed to the stranger’s side. Images of Karen struggling in the same spot, her frail body torn apart as a result of the images shown her by the pillar. Jeremy wrenched the gag from the man’s mouth. It was covered with blood, and Jeremy saw that it was not there to stop his screams, but to stem the bleeding. The patient’s tongue had been removed, and from the look of the bloodied stump, it had not been done with any degree of surgical skill.

  “Hello … hello, can you hear me?” Jeremy asked in a voice too loud for a whisper but quiet enough to show a reluctance to announce his presence to the room.

  The man gave no answer. His lips were still wet with saliva, but when Jeremy reached out and shook the man by his shoulder, his body was limp.

  Standing that close to the patient, Jeremy could feel the power that was coursing through their bodies. He could feel it when he touched the man. He could almost feel his senses heighten, the way they had when Simon had been leading him through the other side.

  It was a sensation that Jeremy wanted to feel, he longed for the chance to feel that way again, but he knew it was dangerous, and so stepped back from the chair, from the pillar.

  Jeremy understood then the enormity of the test at hand, how powerless and insignificant he was. He felt lost, and was unable to stop a rising swell of despair from sweeping through him.

  The walls of the central pillar were raw brick, there was no need for them to be anything else. Unlike the smooth column that seemed to serve as the conduit for everything. Stepping back even further, as if seeing more of the scene would automatically help him see the bigger picture, Jeremy formed a plan. It was a concept really. Nothing was certain, but he had to do something.

  The pillar was the key to it all, and looking at the construction, it became clear in Jeremy’s mind that it was not the result of Dr Marshall’s creative process, but rather something that simply existed. An anchor between the worlds.

  It grew here, Jeremy said to himself as the idea dawned on him. The pillar had grown through the veil, passing through one inch at a time and forced its way into the human realm. It had called to Dr Marshall, pulled by his desire to see more. It was his partner. It was his weakness.

  Before the ideas could further develop, another body twitched, including the newly arrived subject. Unlike the first spasms which had been an attempt to reject the cables and new information it was being shown, these were the convulsions of death. Something was wrong. The twitches grew into a fit. Blood oozed not only from the cables’ entry wounds but from their other orifices: ears, nose, eyes, and mouth.

  One by one each patient followed suit, moving around the pillar in a wave. All around him alarm bells rang. Not only in the central room, but through the building. It resonated through the walls. Jeremy knew he had to escape. He had to find a way out.

  It was too late.

  Raised voices and the thundering sound of sprinting feet carried down to him. People were descending the steps from all four entrances.

  Refusing to panic, Jeremy waited. He could see the panic in their movements, and had the presence of mind to use that to his advantage. Their first and only concern was with the patients. Something was happening to them, and possibly to the pillar. They were not looking for an intruder. Jeremy stood against the wall behind one of the flights of stairs as they all piled down. He watched the large nurse wobble down the steps, moving at a pace faster than her frame was designed to handle. She was followed by several of the orderlies that Jeremy had been introduced to. There were several others whom Jeremy had never seen before. He thought of Anja, of the mask she wore, and for the first time wondered how many of them were from the other side of the veil.
/>
  As Jeremy had gambled, none of the figures rushing into the room paid him any mind. Jeremy would have bet that if anybody had seen him, they would have been quicker to ask for his assistance or issue a command to help than to question his identity.

  Dr Marshall entered the room last. At which point everybody else was busy trying to stabilize their patients. His face was set in an expression of pure rage. His skin darkened to the colour of thunderclouds ready to burst.

  “What the hell is going on here?” he roared, looking around the room as if he expected the guilty party to step up and admit their culpability. “Get these patients under control,” he ordered. He had stopped before Jeremy, equally oblivious to his presence. “We have come too far to lose everything now. We are too close. You hear me!” He continued to bellow.

  “We’ve never seen a spike in activity like this before,” the black nurse called.

  Every time Jeremy saw her, his impression became clearer. She was the second in command.

  “Let me see.” Dr Marshall’s demeanour changed. He strode further forward, but the anger had melted from his movement. He looked at a print out that was handed to him, pulled from the side of a patient’s chair. “My good god,” he exclaimed, eagerly tapping the screen. “This is it. The time is coming. We need to prepare ourselves.”

  The doctor continued to talk, but Jeremy used the sudden change in the situation to slip up the stairs, out of the room, and into the corridor.

  Jeremy sprinted as hard as his legs would allow, oblivious to direction. Jeremy initially ran beyond the exit. Stopping so fast he almost fell, Jeremy tuned and ducked thought the small doorway, which led directly onto another stairwell.

  Taking the stairs two and a time, Jeremy bounded upwards. Reaching the top, Jeremy found himself at the end of a T-junction corridor. The corridor ran for fifteen or twenty meters before coming to an abrupt end. From his position, Jeremy could not clearly see the side branching arm that formed the main part of the ‘T’. That corridor, as Jeremy later observed, also appeared to end abruptly.

  Jeremy knew he had to find a way out. Whatever was happening, he wanted no further part in it. His body wanted to run, to hide and wait for it to be over. He walked the corridor, searching desperately for an escape route.

  The walls were smooth, as if made of one continual piece of material. Jeremy moved slowly, and jumped when without warning a portion of the wall disappeared, revealing a hidden room. Jeremy stepped over the threshold and the door closed instantly. A light came on once the room was sealed and all Jeremy could see was blood. It covered every inch of the room. Varying shades, spilled across a long running period of time.

  “You are too late. She didn’t know anything. I would have gotten it out of her otherwise.” A figure in a white jumpsuit spoke up. He had his back to Jeremy, and was clearly expecting someone else; Dr Marshall no doubt.

  Jeremy gave no answer. His heart rate slowed. His fear ebbed away, and once again, a sense of calm and acceptance washed over him.

  The figure turned, perturbed at the silence his normally vocal partner offered. The first thing Jeremy saw was the man’s skin. If it indeed could be called a man, certainly not with any standard definition of the word. The skin was grey and shrivelled, the features shaded with blood. The creature’s head looked as if it had been held underwater for a week or two before being allowed to take part in the fun and games. The creature had two eyes and a mouth, which ran vertically, and no discernible nose. A row of sharp, piranha-like teeth lined both sides of its strange looking oral cavity. The creature gasped in surprise. “You should not be here!” he exclaimed, raising an equally water bloated hand and pointing at Jeremy.

  Jeremy was saved from having to offer an explanation for his presence in the room, for as he opened his mouth to speak, the ground beneath them rumbled. Plaster and dust fell from the ceiling, although on reflection Jeremy believed it was more likely dried blood. A chorus of screams echoed up through the floor. The entire building shook and both Jeremy and the creature he stood opposite to struggled to maintain both their balance and their composure.

  An expression formed on the creature’s face, contorting it in ways it was possibly not meant for. The only word that came to Jeremy’s mind was shock.

  “It doesn’t matter. You are too late.” It sneered, setting off at a run. The creature pushed past Jeremy, shoving him hard enough to knock him to the floor. The creature disappeared into the hallway and was gone.

  With the room empty, Jeremy was able to see the reason for the creature’s presence, the source of the blood. Jeremy had found the rooms where they were allowed to conduct their experiments. There was a body strapped to a table, although what remained of it made it hard to believe it had ever been a living creature.

  The skin had been removed, and long strips of it had been plastered to the wall like decorations. Bones had been snapped, removed and reinserted into the body, in all manner of ways. It was torture driven by rage, not by the desire to create something; something like the creatures on the first floor.

  Yet there was one section of the victim that had been left untouched. Neatly severed and placed on a shelf above the table, as if presiding over things. The face was unmistakable.

  Chapter 16

  The long hair, the big green eyes, stretched even further through pain. Anja stared down at her dismantled body, and Jeremy felt his stomach revolt. He dropped to his knees, the wind knocked from him. The room continued to shake, and beneath him he knew that the end was coming and that there was nothing he could do. But he could have saved Anja. He could have helped her. Instead, he probably delivered her to them when he made her drive him to the dunes.

  “Anja, I’m so sorry.” Jeremy wept as he approached the table. Drawn to it, to her. Whoever the creature had been, he had been thorough. He had enjoyed his work. Then Jeremy remembered what he had said, ‘She doesn’t know anything’. They had taken her because he had escaped. They had tortured her to find him. Anja was dead because of him.

  Jeremy’s eyes were drawn one final time to Anja’s ample bosoms. They had been split open, and the snake-like creatures that had dwelled there were revealed. The separated portions of flesh had been pinned back into her sternum, meaning the creatures remained exposed. They had been skinned, and coiled up back inside their mammary hollow. The skin had then been used as ribbon, tying Anja’s hair up in a strange style that made it look like a fountain exploded from the top of her skull. Jeremy’s tears fell fast, scalding his cheeks as they ran. Turning away from the mangled form, his eyes came around to meet Anja’s. He saw a tear run down her face. Wiping his eyes with his hands, Jeremy moved in for a closer look. He screamed when Anja’s severed head blinked, and sent more tears scurrying over her delicate face.

  “You’re … you’re still alive,” Jeremy stammered in disbelief.

  Anja could give no answer, as her vocal chords had been severed during her decapitation, but she blinked once more, and her eyes moved slightly to get a better focus on Jeremy.

  “What can I do?” He knew how stupid the question was before he heard it back. Anja’s eyes stared at him, then darted away, looking at the table, before returning to him. She repeated this motion several times, her eyes growing red with tears.

  Jeremy looked back at the table, and was once again shocked by the bloody mass that occupied it. Part of him could not accept that it had ever been Anja. He felt dizzy and turned back to Anja’s head. Their eyes met and Jeremy could see not only her pain, but the torment she felt at having been found in such a state.

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Jeremy’s voice was broken with sorrow. It was everything he could do to force the words out into the open without breaking down completely.

  Anja repeated her glance towards the table, but before Jeremy could take another look, a fresh tremor rocked the building. It was as if someone had fired and artillery rocket into the sub-basement. The force was so great that it caused Anja’s severed head to roll from its
perch and crash to the floor. Her nose shattered with a loud crunching sound as she landed face first on the blood-stained floor.

  Jeremy hoped that she was dead. That her otherworldly ability to survive without her body was a temporary issue and that the fall had finally brought her peace. He didn’t want her to suffer any more pain.

  The rumble subsided and Jeremy stared at the head on the floor. His body shook and he was fairly certain that he had urinated at some point, only he could not recall when. Jeremy bent down and picked Anja’s head up. He placed it on the table beside her body. Blood smeared her features and hid her identity from him. He felt better about what he had to do. “I’m sorry.” He wept as he bent down and kissed the top of the head. Without waiting for a second thought to enter his mind, Jeremy took the scalpel from the side of the table – the implement he was sure Anja had been trying to draw his attention to – and slid it through her temple, deep into her brain. He left the blade in place. Not wanting to take the risk that removing it would somehow offer life the chance to return. Her eyes were closed, and Jeremy hoped that it was over for her. Turning his back, Jeremy wiped his eyes and ran, saying a silent prayer as he moved.

  Jeremy ran from the room and back into the corridor. He turned to the right and continued running, the stairwell he had ascended was behind him. He reached the end and hammered on the walls, searching for another hidden doorway. There had to be one.

  “Open up. Open up,” he roared as he drove his fists into the wall. Before long his blood smeared the white walls, and his hands ached from the assault he had launched, but no door appeared. Turning, he made his way back down the corridor, remembering the side arm he had run past. Another tremor hit and this brought with it a loud snapping sound. The ground seemed to drop away beneath Jeremy’s feet as if the foundation of the building had sunk deeper into the ground. He caught his balance and the thought struck him, cutting through the panicked jumble of thoughts. Could anybody outside the house feel the tremors, or was it solely focused on this building?