by David Jester
He moved away from the door, allowed it to slam back into place, and ran as fast as he could down the hallway, back into the unknown.
Malcolm opened door after door and saw nothing but tiny rooms, cells with single beds, toilets, and the barest necessities. He continued on, knowing that with every step, with every door he opened onto nothing, his chasers were gaining on him. They were snapping on the lights as they followed, lighting the darkness just as he stepped into it.
He didn’t know what he wanted to find. There would be no savior behind one of the open doors, no one willing to help him, and he certainly wasn’t looking for anything valuable. On finding the dead security guard his objective had changed from wanting to find a good score, to wanting to make it out alive.
As he opened more doors and discovered more cells, he doubted he was inside a clinic. Eddie was wrong. This wasn’t a plush place for the rich and famous to while away their days and forget about their hedonistic habits, this was something much more sinister, something much more clinical. It wasn’t quite a prison, inmates wouldn’t be allowed such an open environment, but it certainly wasn’t a place of rehabilitation and healing.
He stopped when he opened the final door at the end of the corridor, the pounding feet of his chasers were just a few dozen steps behind him. The hallways were thin, short, and twisted, flanked by a sterile white wall on the left and rows of rooms on the right. They were checking the open doors, making sure he hadn’t ducked inside, so he had bought himself some time, but, as he stared at the occupant of this room, he realized that whatever time he had bought, was currently being sold in the eyes of the smiling simpleton standing in front of him.
“Hello,” the man said with a grin.
Malcolm took a step back. There was something mischievous and devious behind those eyes, something far from friendly. It was there, he saw it, but it passed in an instant and changed into something far more innocent, something stupid and naive. He was tall, a good foot and a half taller than Malcolm, and he had a hunched posture suggestive of years bent double, straining under low ceilings and arched over computer desks.
“What’s your name?” Smiler asked.
Malcolm looked down the corridor, to the right where the footsteps continued, to the left where a nothingness of bright lights and seemingly endless corridors awaited him. He looked beyond Smiler, into the cell. It was much larger than the others and much less sterile. The walls were adorned with hand drawn pictures, colorful depictions of an array of characters, like a child’s drawings of his family. He saw books stacked high on the floor, saw pens and papers resting on top of them.
“Will you be my friend?” Smiler asked.
Malcolm stepped away, looked forlornly into the hallways to his left. He could keep on running, but he didn’t know what he was running into. He needed to hide, needed to get his bearings and figure out what to do next. He needed to find his friends and get out of this nuthouse.
“Yes, yes,” Malcolm said with a quick nod. “You can be my friend if you help me.”
“Help you?” Smiler frowned, setting deep furrows in his chubby face. He looked like a toddler trying to calculate an algebra equation. “How?”
Malcolm moved forward and put a reassuring hand on Smiler’s elbow. “Hide me.” He tried to move him, to usher him gently backwards, but he was built like a wall and wasn’t moving unless he wanted to. Malcolm released his hand, took a step back. The pounding feet were closing in. They were just around the corner now, checking the last few doors that he had opened, all of which were tiny and dark rooms that wouldn’t take more than few seconds to cover.
“Come on mate,” Malcolm said, trying his best to fake a friendly smile. “Help me out.”
Smiler grinned from ear to ear and moved to the side, gesturing for Malcolm to enter. Malcolm didn’t need a second invitation; he ducked inside and immediately threw himself under the bed, dragging the duvet down over the side so that he was obscured from view.
He listened to the big man in the corridor. He expected him to enter the room, to help him, but he remained there as the pounding footsteps encroached and then stopped.
He heard his chasers talking to Smiler, grunting angrily. “Where is he?”
He didn’t hear Smiler say anything but seconds later they were off again, bounding down the corridor. Malcolm breathed a sigh of relief, moved the duvet away, and rolled out. When he was about to stand up, to thank the big man for saving his life, he heard the cell door slam shut. He turned around to see that Smiler wasn’t smiling anymore, and the darkness had returned to his eyes.
“Now, friend,” he said, moving towards Malcolm. “I want to play a game.”
Eddie felt like he was running around in circles, seeing the same nothings he had seen moments before. He had avoided the rooms, not wanting to run into more scenes of torture like the one they had encountered downstairs. He kept to the hallways that wrapped around the edges of the building.
He slowed his pace, hoping to catch his breath.
There were banks of windows on his left, looking out onto the garden below. The moon was thin, the light it provided was barely enough to capture the dust that hung in the corridors, billowing under the impact of Eddie’s tired breath. He rested his hands on the window ledge and pressed his nose up against the glass.
In the distance, he could see the forest that they had cut through and parts of the field beyond, but he was only on the second floor, not high enough to see over the menacing foliage that cut a stark picture against the moonlit canvas. The windows opened at the top but the opening was small and had been barred on this side. Even if he could break or dislodge the bars, there was no way he could fit through. He didn’t want to escape anyway; they had come this far and he wasn’t going to let a few drug-fueled nutcases ruin his big score.
He sneered at his distorted reflection in the glass, peeling his face away from the window until he saw himself and not the world outside. He looked angry, and rightly so. He’d spent the last ten minutes running away from a minuscule drug addict with more money than sense, some murderous midget who probably thought he was better than everyone else just because he had money.
Fuck him, Eddie decided. It didn’t matter what was going on inside the building, it didn’t matter how many nutjobs were running around. He wasn’t going to let them get to him, he was going to do what he came here to do and if they got in his way, then they would regret it.
He felt pumped up on his own rage, felt a torrent of adrenaline rushing through his body and kick-starting every nerve and every fiber of his being. That anger faded, changed into something else when he heard the pattering of hasty feet in the corridor behind him. He stopped in his tracks, silenced his own raging thoughts.
The midget with the snarling expression and cursive tongue was just around the corner and gaining fast. Eddie turned around and dove for the first door he saw. He found himself in a large room, the contents of which he couldn’t make out. He heard the little man closing in so he didn’t risk closing the door, didn’t risk the squeal of hinges or the click of a lock. He hid next to the door, feeling the lip of the frame digging into his back as he turned his head and watched the corridor.
The little man bolted past him, Eddie heard his heavy breaths as he heaved and wheezed, heard his footsteps as they slapped the floor and echoed a thick vibration through the corridor. Eddie then heard the little man stop and he could feel his presence on the other side of the wall.
“I found you.”
Eddie felt his heart stop at the little man’s words. He heard retreating footsteps as his stubby little feet backtracked, back to the open doorway. The retreating steps quickened and then, in an instant, burst into a run as the little man headed straight through the open door.
He stopped when he ran past Eddie, skidding to his haunches, his knees bent and his legs apart. “I’m gonna fucking rip you open you little cunt!” he snarled aggressively. “Where are you?”
He moved towards the doo
r, grabbed at it roughly and then slammed it back against the wall, grunting with pleasure and then sighing when he didn’t feel the resistance of human flesh on the other side.
“Little fucking prick,” he snarled.
He took a long step forward, then another, then he turned sharply, towards the back of the room, with Eddie in his periphery. Eddie didn’t move, he knew the little man would detect movement; knew that darkness, silence, and complete stillness, for now, was his friend. Soon, when his eyes adjusted to the darkness like Eddie’s had, he would spot him.
The little man took a few more steps into the room, a few more steps away from Eddie. “I know you’re in here,” he warned. “I can fucking smell you.”
He scuttled towards the back of the room, leaving Eddie enough room to escape.
“Get out here, you little prick.”
Eddie looked to the door; saw the escape route beckoning him.
“Come on you little fuckwit.”
It was brighter inside the corridor and the light enticed him like the light at the end of a dark tunnel, but something else enticed him more.
“I’m gonna fuck you so bad you little cunt.”
The little man’s back was facing him, exposed in its vulnerability. Eddie peeled himself off the wall and moved towards it, one cautious step at a time; the little man was still searching the back of the room, still sweeping his head and his eyes across every nook and cranny.
“Come on, come out and play. I’ve got something to show you.”
Eddie reached for a chair but stopped, noticing something on the table that glimmered and caught his eye. He reached for it and grinned, then he felt the cold touch of steel on his fingertips. It was a fountain pen, not a knife, but it was solid and sharp; it would do the job.
Just as Eddie picked up the pen and ran the mental images through his head, picturing what he would do to the creepy little man, the room burst into life. He looked up, shocked, and saw that the little man was standing by the other door, one hand on the light switch, the other holding a knife.
Eddie’s smile dripped from his face; the little man beamed menacingly. Before Eddie could react, before he could decide what to do, the little man was charging at him, snarling like a hungry dog. He hit Eddie hard, knocking the wind out of him with one heavy tackle. The little man wrapped his arms around him and tried to stick the knife in his side, but Eddie swatted him away and heard the knife clatter to the floor, along with his own makeshift weapon.
Eddie rocked backwards for a few paces, kicking over chairs and nudging tables before he fell with the little man pinned on top of him. He felt his grubby hands on his face, felt his fingers poking into his flesh, nipping his cheeks, cutting his skin, and trying to claw out his eyes. Eddie tried to keep his grasping hand from doing any damage, but the little man had him and now he wasn’t letting go.
He wriggled on top of him and seemed to be enjoying every gyration, like a randy dog dry humping him. Eddie felt sick under his sweaty, heated embrace. He could smell his sour breath washing over him, could almost taste the disease that oozed from his rotten mouth as he shouted and screamed in delight, spraying Eddie with showers of spittle.
Eddie managed to wriggle some movement and shot a knee upwards, catching the randy midget in the groin. He squirmed, yelped, and paused momentarily. That was all the invitation Eddie needed. He threw himself upwards, propelling every ounce of energy into the movement, and tossed the little man off him. He was fuming; his blood boiled through his body, his breaths came in short, heated rasps. His teeth were gritted and his eyes flared as he stared down at the little man, now on his back, looking up at Eddie with a sly expression on his ugly little face.
Eddie flung himself on top of him and wrapped his hands around his grubby throat. His flesh felt dirty and grimy under his fingers. He stared into his eyes as he squeezed. The little man tried to free Eddie’s fingers, tried to pry them apart, but he had no chance. He tried to squirm, to wriggle and to kick, and he succeeded in inflicting pain with a few lucky blows, but Eddie ignored them. He concentrated on the bulging eyes, on the way his strangled breath and his fragile windpipe felt between his tightening fingers.
The little man turned blue, then purple. His eyes bulged like a cartoon character, flaring white orbs that popped out of his purple face and provided a stark picture of unreality. Eddie continued to squeeze even when the kicking and the squirming stopped, he continued when the eyes faded over and the flesh turned a shade of dark purple.
When he released his grip he felt the pain in his groin, his legs, and his back where the little man had connected with kicks and knees; he felt the stinging grazes on his hands and saw the streaks of blood where he had clawed, peeling off skin and opening wounds. He didn’t mind, he stared at the empty eyes in front of him, ignoring the smell of defecation that began to fill the air as the body expelled its waste for the last time.
“Now who’s the fuckwit?” he asked breathlessly, spitting every syllable. “Fucking dick.”
22
Darren didn’t see the punch, but he felt it. The fist crushed his nose and propelled his head backwards, the rough skin and pointed knuckles connected with his forehead and his eyes, injecting an intense and immediate agony inside his skull.
He toppled backwards, immediately losing his balance and falling on the floor, back where he had been when first stumbling into the room, before seeing the gurgling man in the chair; before seeing the man with the reflective eyes.
He had a split second to look up after the fall, a split second in which he saw his attacker loom over him, but his vision was blurry and his world was shaking. He didn’t see the kick that connected with his ribs, or the ones that landed on his thighs, his groin, and then his head. He was barely conscious when the big man straddled him, laughing as he wrapped his legs around him and pressing his sweating, stinking body on top of him.
For a brief moment Darren worried that he was going to be raped, then he was worried that he was going to die, then his world turned black and his worry disappeared.
Smiler just stood there, as if waiting to see what Malcolm’s next move was. Malcolm took a few steps back until he was pressed against the back wall, then he realized that backing himself into a corner probably wasn’t such a good idea. The emptiness in Smiler’s eyes sent shivers up his spine, he turned his head away sharply, aimed it directly at the stack of artwork on top of the books.
The freshly drawn creations depicted smiling humans, as did the ones he had seen on the walls, but none of these humans were alive and all of them were clearly suffering. They were mutilated, their bodies destroyed by unseen and unknown hands. Malcolm swallowed thickly and glanced at Smiler’s hands which hung by his side, he was flexing his fingers, clenching and unclenching his fists as if in preparation.
Malcolm turned back to the artwork, to the walls. He hadn’t seen it initially when looking in, but these figures, these smiling humans, were also suffering. They weren’t portraits of happy families or loved ones, this was mutilation porn and, judging by the reams of them covering the walls, Smiler was a horny little bugger.
“They let me keep them,” Smiler said, unprovoked.
Malcolm frowned at him, his eyebrows and expression asking the question.
“The nurses,” Smiler explained, his eyes perusing the art. “They used to try and take them down. I didn’t like that. I got angry.”
“I can imagine,” Malcolm said earnestly, hoping to do what he could to make sure that he didn’t make the big man angry.
“So they let me keep them. I drew a lot, didn’t I?”
“You did,” Malcolm agreed.
“Do you like?”
Malcolm turned back to the art, taking his time to study them. They made him sick. Smiler used a lot of over-the-top bright colors, but he was a good artist with a sickening sense of the surreal and an equally disturbing knack for creating realistic faces and anatomy.
“Yes. They’re very nice.”
“D
o you want to help me create some?” Smiler asked, a hint of childish excitement back in his voice.
Malcolm turned to the paper and the pens with relief. He wasn’t much of an artist, but he was happy to do anything to keep the big man happy. “Okay, I don’t see why—” He looked back at Smiler and swallowed his words. He had produced a flick knife and was pointing it at Malcolm.
“Shit.” Malcolm rasped.
Smiler advanced. “You can be my muse.”
He didn’t know how long he had been out, if those images and those feelings were a dream from a micro-sleep, a nightmare from a deep sleep or the reality behind his closed eyes, but when Darren finally peeled open his eyes, he craved to return to the abyss. He was still in the same room, the dim light above and his distorted vision provided a fading, obscured view of the evil that stood in front of him, holding his hands to his hips and leering at him.
Darren twitched upon seeing him, an involuntary and primal reaction of disgust. He remembered the way he felt when he was on top of him. He could still smell his sickly scent that had, moments or hours earlier, been pressed against him. He fought to move, to retrieve his hands from behind his back, but they had been tied and they wouldn’t budge. Every movement caused the rope to dig further into his skin.
“What do you want?” Darren managed to emit a sound that seemed to grate out of his chest before falling limply out of his lips. He coughed, cleared his throat and then repeated himself with equal timidity.
The man in front of him didn’t say anything.
He was wearing pajamas, innocent and childish prints of cartoon characters that would have looked fitting on a five-year-old being read a bedtime story, not on a madman covered in blood and holding a beaten teenager hostage.
He snickered, an abrupt noise that began and ended in an instant. It was excitement, pure childish glee.
“What do you want?” Darren asked again.