The Dark Corners Box Set

by Robert Scott-Norton

  A noise behind her made her turn, and she flinched at what she saw. It made no sense, there’d been nothing there before, the other cupboards had been clear. That was what had drawn her to the one she was standing beside now.

  They weren’t clear anymore. More drawings. Each of the cupboards carried the same picture, or rather the same scene. A face, in crayon, large dark eyes, features indistinct. Judy walked across to the nearest and tore down the drawing, holding it beside the original for comparison. It didn’t look like the hand of the same person, rushed scribbling still, but the lines were more angular, the colouring-in more refined. But the symbols around the rim were the same. Pentagrams, animal skulls, and lettering in a script she didn’t recognise.

  She let the paper drop and dashed for the exit on the far side of the room, the one that would take her to the Delinquents’ Corridor. They didn’t have much time. Whatever was happening here was happening faster, and the pressure at the front of her head was growing again. The hospital hadn’t given up messing with her yet.

  The entrance to the basement was through a door in the corner of the cafeteria. It stood alone on the wall. Seth hadn’t noticed any new door arrivals for the last hour, not since the group had got captured in the Delinquents’ Corridor. Johnny pushed open the basement door and beyond was a wider stairwell than Seth was expecting. A draft of cold air breathed up on them and with it the smell of damp and rat droppings.

  Rats, Seth thought. Tonight was getting better and better.

  Seth shone the torch down the stairwell and saw a turn in the stair about twelve steps down. There could be anything down there. He didn’t want to follow Johnny into the dark unknown but if it meant giving Judy more time to attempt a rescue, then so be it. Besides, if Seth wanted to admit it, he was desperate to know what Johnny was playing at. If what he claimed was true, the man had been a victim of terrible parents. What choice would a boy have against such obsessed people? How much abuse would he have suffered before he even got an inkling that what was being done to him was wrong? The Adherents were known for their stern doctrine and once in the cult, there was never any hope of leaving.

  “Are you coming?” Johnny said, leading the way down the stairs. “Watch your step on the treads. The lino’s all peeled up.”

  Seth hurried after his charge, ready for any sign of deceit. “So, what do you want to show me?“

  “It’s simpler if you see for yourself.”

  Seth‘s head was howling at him to get out of there but he still had some collateral against Johnny. He felt for his satchel and the rectangular outline of the book. If Johnny tried anything, he’d threaten to destroy it.

  The basement stairs led out onto a long brick-lined corridor that stretched off into the distance, far further than Seth’s light could reach. Ancient pipework snaked across the ceiling in a system of lead and copper veins, and down here the atmosphere was different. Seth couldn’t ignore the idea that he was voluntarily stepping into the belly of some giant beast. The thought sent a wave of goosebumps crashing across his arms. He wavered on the final step before stepping out into the basement corridor.

  “What was this place used for?” Seth asked.

  “Mainly laundry. An old lift runs up at the far end to help move the laundry around. There‘s a few smaller storage rooms.”

  “And what do you want me to see?”

  “We’re not alone in the hospital. Someone got here before us. I found where they’ve been holed up,” he whispered.

  Together, they trudged along the corridor, their feet crunching on dust and broken tiles. A faint scratching from a spot several metres away indicated they had company of the rodent kind.

  Then there was a different noise. Like a chair scraping across a floor. Seth froze. There was someone down here and it wasn’t one of those entities.

  “Turn your light off,” Johnny hissed.

  “No chance,” Seth replied. Whoever was down here must have heard them coming, Seth thought. It‘s not like they’d been especially quiet down here.

  “Do it,” he insisted again. “Or we don’t stand a chance.”

  A shuffling came from a doorway about twenty metres along the corridor. The acoustics of this space made it difficult to be certain but Seth guessed it was one person. An Adherent? It was clearly someone that Johnny was bothered by.

  “Johnny?” A voice called out and suddenly a torch light was blinding Seth. He recognised that voice.

  Johnny’s arm swung up and around and knocked Seth’s arm aside, the hammer flew from his grip and smacked into the wall with a discordant clang. Then an elbow met Seth’s midriff and Seth was falling backwards, landing on his backside on the chilly floor.

  “This isn’t part of the plan, Johnny,” the man’s voice said and Seth recognised it then as Roy Oswald, Johnny’s father.

  Seth tried to scramble back towards the staircase. He shoved his phone into his pocket, blocking the torchlight, figuring that the light would make him a target and he was on his feet and lurched back the way he’d come.

  The lights flickered on, disorientating Seth. He spun around to see Roy standing beside some kind of electrical cabinet, a gun in his hand. But before he could register the full details of the crazy outfit the older man was wearing, Johnny charged at Seth, a hypodermic needle in his hand.

  19

  Someone was bashing rocks together beside his head, or at least that’s what it felt like to Malc when he could eventually open his eyes. His forehead pounded. Quickly, too quickly, he tried to lift his head and immediately regretted it. He was slumped forward on the steering wheel. His body ached, and he had a severe urge to vomit.

  It all came back to him.

  There had been something on the back seat.

  He spun around, his body screamed at the hasty movement, but he had to see.

  Nothing. The seat was vacant.

  He wasn’t about to put down what he saw to fatigue, or nerves. He’d seen something there, an entity, briefly, on the back seat. It was a warning. A message to keep out of it, to go home and leave Ravenmeols well alone. But, he couldn’t do that any more than he could ignore a sick parishioner. Ravenmeols had been terminal for years but maybe tonight was the night to put the place out of its misery.

  More cautiously now, he raised his head and blinked furiously. His breathing was shallow, and he tentatively felt around his abdomen for any signs that he had caused himself serious damage. He winced as he touched the ribs on his left side. Bruised or broken, he wouldn’t know until he tried getting out of the car and moving around.

  His forehead felt damp, and he rubbed his fingers lightly over the skin, checking for signs of any cuts. But there was nothing. On the face of it, he’d been exceptionally lucky. Just where the hell was he?

  Tentatively, he opened his door and grimaced again at the tenderness from his ribs. He was pretty sure they weren’t broken, but he didn’t have time to worry about them now. He had to get to the hospital and help his friend.

  Wind whipped around his car, almost slamming the door on him as he positioned himself to get out. He hauled one leg out, then the other and sat for a minute, resting from the exertion. The air was full of the smells of the sea and it helped ground him back to the now.

  Things could have been far worse. He mouthed a quick prayer to the big guy upstairs then reached back into the car for his phone. He’d need to call someone for help. Georgia would be livid that he’d left the house without telling her but he would never have forgiven himself should something happen to Seth when he could have helped.

  He’d landed on wet marshland. That might explain why he’d come out of the crash relatively unhurt.

  “Have I got you to thank for that as well?” he asked the night sky.

  The phone should have been on the front seat where he’d tossed it, but he couldn’t see it there now. He failed to be surprised.

  He stood and the ground underneath squelched as he manoeuvred around the car. He placed his hands on the bodyw
ork as he went, using the frame to keep him on his feet. The sky was having a bit of a drunken wobble and he didn’t like it one bit. A car zipped past without stopping. He realised why as he approached the back of the vehicle and saw that the lights were out. The crash might have knocked the electrics out, but all things considered, he didn’t think it was the most likely explanation.

  The passenger door almost refused to open, and he struggled until he thought he might just give up and lie down in the wet ground and wait until morning.

  Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial.

  Malc wasn’t about to give up. The door fell open and he groaned with the exertion. If he could make a call, he could still do this.

  The phone was on the footwell of the passenger seat. It must have fallen there when he’d landed. Snatching it up he absolutely expected the battery to be dead. The devil really didn’t like technology, but it lit up at the touch of his thumb. He had Georgia’s number selected and was ready to call when the first hand snatched at his ankle through the boggy ground. The shock made him drop the handset and he stepped away hurriedly from the impossible sight.

  A blackened hand was reaching up through the earth and reaching for him.

  Malc clutched the cross on his chain and reeled back around the car, aiming to get off the boggy land as fast as humanly possible.

  What was being sent to test him now? Malc’s priority was to get to the road and hail down some help. He knew he needed checking over at casualty, but all these deterrents were doing was making him more determined to get to Ravenmeols.

  Wet muddied fingers clutched his ankle and he almost fell. With a desperate tug, he yanked his ankle from the monstrous grip and stumbled along the rough ground.

  Swerving like a drunkard on the way home from the pub, he dodged another hand lying in wait to trap him, but then the moonlight appeared from behind a cloud and caught the outlines of dozens more hands between him and the road, lying in wait.

  Malc took a deep breath and shoved to one side the discomfort of his injuries. There’d be time enough to deal with that later but if he didn’t cross this minefield now, there would be no later.

  Avoiding them seemed pointless. But Malc wasn’t intimidated. He’d learnt that sometimes you needed to accept the crap that was put before you and deal with it head on. He moved as rapidly as he could, and at the first hand, he aimed a kick. It flinched but at least it didn’t try to grab him. He aimed to the left, where the hands weren’t, only to be disappointed when fresh hands appeared in his path. The ground underneath was squelching and whenever he paused, he felt his heels sinking into the ground.

  So, he stumbled some more, and kicked out at the next hand. He slipped at the next and almost fell, but that would have been disastrous. He imagined them dragging him into a boggy grave and that spurred him on.

  Another kick. Another failed grab. He was getting nearer to safety. A few more.

  Another car sped by, it seemed to slow, perhaps seeing the car on the bog, but it quickly sped up again. Malc shouted, but against the whipping wind, and the music he could hear from the driver’s stereo, there was no chance he’d be heard,

  He kept at it, kicking and stumbling his way to the roadside whereupon reaching it, he crumpled in a grateful heap and brought his feet up out of the wet ground.

  Sitting upright, he figured he was three miles away from Ravenmeols. He sluggishly got to his feet and broke into the most painful run of his life.

  20

  On the Correction Floor, Judy didn’t think she’d ever been so scared in her life. The pictures had bothered her. A reminder of the people that had once been here, yes, but also, the same man drawn again and again. A message through time. No, a warning. She glanced behind her as the doors to Ward 8 closed without a sound.

  Now, back at the top of the staircase she’d travelled up with the rest of the ghost party, she looked over to the door on the far side, the one that marked the beginning of the Delinquent’s Corridor.

  There was one disturbing detail that was different about the door to the Delinquents’ Corridor from the last time she’d been here.

  The door was ajar.

  Her breath caught in her throat and in its absence she could hear the blood pumping around her ears. Her first thought was that Johnny must have been in there and left it open after leaving. But, could it be possible that the others had somehow made their escape? Got out from the cupboards and away from the darkness that had constrained them? Possible, but not likely. She didn’t think the hospital was done with any of them.

  Go and take a look.

  She glanced down the stairwell, thinking she’d heard a noise. Seth should be down there somewhere. Why couldn’t she hear him talking? The hospital was deathly silent.

  What harm will it do? Go and take a look.

  She listened to the voice in her head and took a step closer, her feet shuffling on the worn lino, her nose catching the scent of the mould in the ceiling tiles and the disturbed dust as she moved. The crowbar was not needed to get into the corridor anymore. That hurdle had been graciously removed for her. Judy dropped the crowbar.

  Hurry.

  She crossed the landing and stood before the entrance to the corridor. She reached for the handle and pulled open the door.

  The blackness screamed at Judy, a nightmare vision that screeched and clawed at her senses. She flung her hands to cover her ears but it made little difference, the noise bore through her skull. Ahead of her, the corridor extended into the far distance, seeming deeper and narrower than it had earlier, impossibly so. The air was thick with the rolling blackness, tumbling in great swirls before her like a storm front. And in the midst of this turmoil, figures, the rest of the ghost party, lined up in an orderly fashion, not moving, like they were waiting at the post office. Their eyes were wide open and they were looking straight at her but not seeing her. The blackness roped around them, tore under their legs and raced around their torsos, threatening to unbalance them. They may have been released from the cupboards but they were not free yet.

  Join us.

  She stepped into the corridor. Tendrils of blackness lifted away from the rolling storms and tentatively touched her skin, checking her out. A sudden cold filled her, a dread that made her want to throw up the terrible fear that had needled inside her.

  What harm can it do? You belong here.

  Jemma. An image of her daughter came to mind and the weight pressing against her thoughts eased. What had been happening to her?

  Stay.

  “No.”

  This was a trap. She spun and charged for the exit, slamming her weight into the door even as it was inching closed. Gasping, she made it to the landing and the door banged shut again, cutting her off from the turmoil and the others. She staggered to the stairs, thinking that she would have to go and find Seth. Whatever was happening here was too much for any of them to fight alone.

  Footsteps were making their way up the stairs.

  Her stomach pitched and she pressed herself against the wall. She wanted to believe that Seth had set out what he’d intended to do and taken charge of the situation with Johnny. That being the case, he might know what to do to free the others.

  It wasn’t one set of footsteps, it was two, and another noise. Alternating between thumps and a dragging sound. Voices next. Two people that she recognised instantly.

  Johnny and Roy Oswald.

  “We should have got someone else. That man has proved to be a risk to us. We must begin on time. It’s nearing Midnight.” Roy said coldly. He was talking about Seth, he had to be.

  “Loomis was a good choice. There was no one else,” Johnny replied.

  “Or so we thought. We did well with Mrs Doyle.”

  Her heart skipped a beat and bile rose in her throat. They were talking about her and if she didn’t move, they were going to find her waiting helpless at the top of the stairs.

  “Yes, she’s more special than we thought.”

  “But tha
t also increases our risk. We can’t let her…” Roy’s voice trailed off. Judy willed her heart to just stop beating for a minute. She held her breath. There was no way they could know she was so close. No way.

  “Hello,” Roy called out. His voice laced with a deadly confidence. “If that’s you, Mrs Doyle, you’d do us all a favour by showing yourself. I know you’re probably scared right now, but this doesn’t have to go down the way you think. There’s still a way out for everyone. I promise you, I don’t mean you any harm.”

  Like hell, she thought. The moment she revealed herself, she was going to find herself at the wrong end of one of those knives she’d seen in the back of the van.

  And where was Seth?

  “If you’re hoping your friend is going to save you, I’m afraid you’re mistaken. Mr Loomis is currently disposed.”

  So, not dead then.

  She had limited options. Nothing could make her go willingly back into the Delinquents’ Corridor. So, that left a return to Ward 8. Whilst there had been activity on the ward, she hadn’t felt an immediate danger.

  “Mrs Doyle, please don’t make this difficult. I wouldn’t want to have to send my friends after you.”

  His friends? The shadowmen, right.

  Their torchlight criss-crossed the dark, and Judy kept well back against the wall, keeping out of reach. The torch beams were moving, their angles shifting. They were heading upstairs. In a matter of seconds, they’d round the corner onto the first landing and they’d spot her immediately. Whatever she was going to do, she had to do it quickly.

  As quietly as she could, she found the discarded crowbar on the floor at the top of the stairs, and then she dashed to the doors of Ward 8 and ducked back inside, praying that whatever entities had been present earlier, remained as docile as before.

  Only seconds ahead of her pursuers, she had no time to block the doors. Her plan was to run through the ward and back to the secondary staircase, and from there, lose herself inside the hospital. Hide it out. Wait for them to get tired so she could find her way back to Seth or a way out of this nightmare. Jemma was staying at her friends but she’d be ringing her in the morning and would get alarmed if she couldn’t get through to her. The sad reality was though, that even if Jemma was worried, she was unlikely to do much about it until after school had finished and she got home to an empty house. She’d assume Judy was sleeping after a long night on the ghost hunt.