Mad—
A flash of white light. Max rubbed his stinging forehead from where he’d walked straight into a wall. Grit from the stones mixed with the sweat on his brow. The asylum as dark as ever, his steps crunched over the dirty ground.
But at least there were no diseased in here. No voices of his dead family. They’d moved aside for a greater insanity. While dark, cold, damp, and stinking, at least in here, Max could be free. Much better to deal with the madness of others than his own subsiding mind.
“Now to find Dianna.” How many floors did this place have? How many cells? How would he find her? Would he get any sense from the inmates if he asked for directions?
Maybe if he spent longer, he’d come up with a better plan. But as much as this place provided respite from the outside, the insidious insanity would spread through him like an infection. It would occupy him like the damp in every pore of this building, and it would drive his mind away. He tried to call out, but his throat locked.
On his second attempt, he managed it. Weak and strangled, but at least he’d gotten it out. “Dianna?” Jumping at the sound of his own voice, he tracked it as it ran off into the building, finding forks and twists and turns, swimming through the dark and labyrinthine corridors.
“Dianna?” Louder this time.
Another scream answered him. A hyena’s cackle. And then sobbing. Hard and uncontrolled. Something primal. Deep, as if it came from the very core of humanity. Suffering since the beginning of time. Loss.
“Just one step at a time,” Max told himself. The muscles in his legs were tense with reluctance, but he moved on, tentative in where he put his feet, the darkness holding a million possibilities that could throw him on his arse. While nodding to himself, he repeated, “One step at a time.”
Another wooden door on his right, Max snapped his hand away before he felt the sting of another splinter. More people cried from deep within the building. Some of them banged. Tormented animals desperate to be free of this lunatic zoo, they threw hammering blows against doors far, far away. How the hell would he find Dianna in this mess?
As quickly as it had swelled through the place, the insane chorus ended as if the broken residents were of one fractured mind. The silence pressed in on him like a vacuum.
Max found a small window in the cell door. It had three vertical metal bars, each one no more than a foot long. They were about an inch thick and coated with rust. A whisper, no more, he said, “Hello?”
His echo mocked him.
A step closer and he smelled the reek of dirt, damp, and human waste. Old and stale. The memory of a resident long departed. Still, he tried again, and still the asylum held its collective breath. “Hello?”
The swelling of his own pulse throbbed through his ears. Max’s forehead touched one of the rusting bars. No matter how many times he blinked, the darkness gave him nothing.
A small shift. The slightest movement inside. A mouse? A rat? Something. “Uh …” Max said. “Hello?”
Slam! The face of a woman hit the other side of the bars.
Max stumbled back several paces, the heel of his right foot catching on the uneven ground. He landed on his arse, the jolt running from his coccyx to the base of his neck. He dropped his hammer with a clang!
While the woman laughed, Max pressed his hand to his chest, his heart hammering as he panted to ride out the panic. He felt the cold floor for his weapon.
Slathering, gasping, and grunting. A feral dog both hungry and horny, the woman laughed again. Tittering and shrill, she parroted him. “Hello. Hello. Hello.”
Max pushed himself to his feet with shaking arms, his hammer at his side as he stepped closer. “Uh—”
“Uh!” she said. “Uh.”
A voice in a cell farther down mimicked her. “Uh.”
Then several more. “Uh.”
Like strange birds inhabiting a cursed tree, they copied Max.
“Uh.”
“Uh.”
“Uh.”
Mad Max. He batted his forehead with the heel of his right hand. He hit it hard enough to jolt the sound of his family from his mind.
“Uh.”
“Uh.”
“I’m looking for Dianna!” Max shouted so loud his throat hurt, and the place fell silent again.
“Di—” the woman in front of him said.
Another voice finished for her. “Anna.”
“Dianna.”
“Dianna.”
Max balled his fists and stamped his foot. “Do you know where she is or not?”
The woman’s sounds grew into unintelligible caws and cries. She fizzed like an angry cat and hissed like a volatile snake. Get the hell away now or she’d bite. She didn’t even know her own self, how the hell would she know Dianna?
When the woman lost control and broke into laughter, Max moved off. This time he used the wall on his right to be as far away from her as possible. Maybe he’d made the wrong choice coming into this place. Maybe he should turn around now and get the hell out of there. Even the diseased with his brothers’ voices were better than this. What the hell had he let himself in for?
But what about Dianna? If she still had her mind, he needed to get her out before she lost it. And what about the other prisoners? There were many shrill voices like cackling caged monkeys, but did they represent the majority? As Max tuned into the chorus of chaos, he picked out some of the quieter instruments adding to the symphony. The smaller voices. The weeping children. The gasping women asking for help. No matter what he felt, he had to get them out. There might not be hope for the most vocal in this place, but there were many who could still be saved.
“One foot in front of the other, Max. One step at a time. You can do this.” But could he? Every step heavier than the last. Which would be the final one? The breaking of his resolve. Even with children needing to be saved, he had his limits.
Chapter 5
William walked on Matilda’s left and Artan on her right. She had an arm wrapped around each of them, and each of them held one of her legs, carrying her in a sitting position so she didn’t have to walk. Jezebel down the back of his shirt, the large axe head kept tapping the back of William’s skull.
The pitched roof had been built for drainage. Not only did they have to walk at a slant, but the chunky ceramic tiles made for uneven footing. Every time William pulled Matilda’s leg too high, she winced. The shirt Max had given to Hawk, which he’d wrapped around her thigh, glistened with blood. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
A shake of her head, Matilda said, “You’re doing your best. It’s fine.”
Olga walked ahead of them, leading the way. Only she and Matilda had been to the courtyard before. She had Cyrus and Hawk flanking her.
“Just put me down here,” Matilda said. They were close enough to see the courtyard.
Artan said, “You sure?”
“The less I move, the better.”
And the less William and Artan moved her, the better. Especially William. At least she had the good grace to keep that thought to herself.
After setting Matilda on the tiles, William crouched down and stroked her hair away from her sweating face, tucking it behind her ear. “Are you okay?”
“As okay as I can be.”
“The second we get the power back on, I promise we’ll get into the palace and find something to help with your infection.”
Although she nodded and tried to smile, her fear remained in her deep brown eyes. The longer it took, the worse it would be for her. Before William could promise her again, she reached up and held the side of his face. “You’re doing everything you can. That’s what matters most.” She leaned forwards and kissed him, her lips dry against his.
After they’d separated, William had the salty taste of her sweat on his lips.
There were at least one hundred black panels in the large courtyard. Uniform in size, each one about six feet long and four feet wide. All of them were tilted at an angle of roughly forty-five degrees
. There were about twenty rows of five in the rectangular courtyard. Before it had been taken over as the host for the panels, it would have been a pleasant place to spend a sunny afternoon. Sheltered from the wind, it had the remains of what looked like a fountain in its centre.
Surrounded by Grandfather Jacks’ palace on all sides, the courtyard had windows looking into it. Scores of diseased meandered through the panels, and there were many more in the palace. An open doorway at the far end allowed the free movement of the creatures between the palace and the courtyard. A gate hung open that, when closed, would prevent the diseased’s movement.
Every panel had been damaged, cracks running across them, shards of the shattered tiles embedded in the broken glass. There were holes by William’s feet from where the tiles had been torn from the roof. Now he’d put down Matilda, he held Jezebel in one hand while reaching down to wriggle a tile free with the other. As he lifted it clear, it caught the steel guardrail around the edge of the roof with a ching! A diseased nearby snapped its head in his direction, staring at him as it snarled, its top lip raised, its jaw slack.
A tight grip on the rough tile, William wound it back and launched it like he would a Frisbee. It spun, the corner connecting with the eye socket of the creature, knocking it down. The thing wailed as it lay on its back and threw its limbs around like a spider having a seizure. When it scrambled to its feet again, it had a deep cut in its right cheek that revealed the white of its skull in the glistening wound.
Cyrus snorted a laugh, liberated a tile like William had, and launched it into the foetid crowd. The first time he’d been able to attack the diseased without shitting himself. Maybe he should be allowed this luxury.
Before Cyrus could pull another tile free, Hawk, who’d walked all the way around the courtyard to inspect it, said, “The panels will be fine for now.”
“For now?” William said.
“They’ll still generate power, but after it’s rained a few times, the water will get in the cracks and ruin them.”
“But we’ll be long gone by then, right?” Cyrus said.
Hawk looked over the courtyard and shrugged. “Here’s hoping.”
“Okay,” William said, walking to the edge of the roof, “let’s do this.”
“Y-you’ve seen how many diseased are down there, right?” Cyrus said.
“Have you seen the state of Matilda? Regardless of how many diseased are down there, she needs help soon. Every second spent here is time taken away from finding something that will make her feel better.”
“Where do you expect to find something to make her feel better?” Hawk said. He only held William’s eye for the briefest of moments before he looked away like he knew something.
“There has to be something in the palace, right? Grandfather Jacks lived here for long enough. They must have some medicine of some sort.”
“First, we have to find a way to clear the diseased out of the courtyard,” Hawk said.
“All of them?” William said. “That could take hours. And what about Max? What will he manage to achieve in the pitch black of the asylum? We need to get down there and get the power back on as soon as possible.” He walked along the edge of the courtyard until he came to the metal box at the back. It had cubes inside like Olga had described, wires lying on the stone ground beside them from where she’d torn them free. “Those are the batteries, right? And we need to get down there and reconnect them?”
“That is what we need to do,” Hawk said, “but you need to slow down.”
Maybe he imagined it, but when William looked across at Matilda, she’d already turned several shades paler. The morning sun glistened on her skin. “If I slow down too much, she’ll die.”
“Let’s take a vote.” Hawk raised his right hand in the air. “All of those who want to at least formulate a plan before we go into that courtyard, raise your hand.”
Everyone but Artan and William raised their hands.
“And all of those who want to save Matilda’s life raise your hand,” William said.
They all raised their hands.
Olga this time. “Hawk’s right. We can’t save Matilda if we kill ourselves in that courtyard. Remember, I’ve been down there once already.”
It had been easier to argue with Hawk, but when the same message came from Olga, William had to admit it made sense. Like him, she had Matilda’s best interests at heart.
Turning his back on the courtyard, William spun Jezebel in his grip. Perfectly balanced, it twirled in his hands, begging to be used. He halted the swing by snapping his hands tight on the handle and turned on Olga. “So what do you suggest? How long do we wait?”
Olga shrugged. “We need to find a way to get them out of the courtyard.”
“Hardly a plan though, is it?”
“When we needed to disconnect the batteries, Matilda hung down into the courtyard to drag the diseased over, which allowed me to get down there.”
Another wince broke Matilda’s stoic expression, her face turning puce with her clear pain. “But if we do that,” William said, “it will bring more diseased into the courtyard from the palace. We could end up with ten times the number of diseased down there. Was that gate open before?”
Olga shook her head. “No, it was locked. We had to open it to spread the disease through the palace.”
“What was it locked with?”
“A padlock.”
“We’ve not got another one of them, have we?”
Olga looked at her feet.
But a peg might do it. When they closed the gate, a tab of steel attached to the wall would poke through the frame. It had a hole in it where the padlock must have been attached. Wedge something in that and it should hold the creatures back. At least for long enough to allow them to work.
The others talked amongst themselves as William walked to the edge of the courtyard. His toes just inches from the guardrail, several diseased fixed on him, all of them working their mouths as if their jaws ached.
“So now we need to work out how to get them out of the courtyard,” Cyrus said.
If they waited to come up with a plan, they’d be waiting all night. If they could lock the gate, it would stop more diseased entering the space. At least they could then take the fight to the creatures who remained in the courtyard.
“It’s no good,” William said. “We don’t have time for this shit.” A glance at Matilda. She knew him better than anyone. Maybe she saw his plans. Maybe not.
William reached across to Artan and tore the spear from his back. Jezebel in his other hand, he jumped from the roof to screams from both Matilda and Cyrus. As he fell, he threw the spear, driving it through the eye socket of one of the diseased.
Jezebel in a two-handed grip, he threw several wild throws of the heavy weapon and cleared his immediate vicinity of the damned creatures. But he hadn’t moved quickly enough to silence their screams. The diseased inside the palace all turned to him. Surrounded on all sides, they stared through the windows before descending on the doorway between the palace and the courtyard. While the diseased from inside charged at him, those in the courtyard—a hundred of them if not more—zeroed in on his position. The smashed solar panels prevented them from charging in a straight line. Although, the layout of the courtyard only bought him seconds at best.
Chapter 6
“It’s okay, Max. Everything will be fine. One step at a time. Slow and steady wins the race.” Whether clichés or utter nonsense, it didn’t matter as long as he filled the silence. The silence invited the voices back in.
Max slammed his right knee into another wall, a sharp sting streaking up his thigh into his groin. He turned right down the next corridor, stumbling blind in the dark labyrinth.
The screams continued throughout the place, some far away, some from the cells right next to him. Some of the inmates tried to talk to him.
“Dianna?” His voice ran ahead of him and died as if smothered by the darkness. “Dianna?”
Too many
raised stones on the ground to count, Max stubbed the toe of his boot again and stumbled forwards by several steps, his left arm windmilling, his right hand clinging onto his war hammer.
“Everything’s fine.” Max’s heart raced towards panic, sending pains through his chest. As much as he talked to himself, nothing could prevent the images. They’d been lurking in the corners of his head. They now played out on the projector in his mind. It made no difference whether he opened or closed his eyes because the darkness provided the black screen for the hellish showreel.
Diseased eyes. Red, glistening. Snapping maws, many of them with holes torn in the cheeks, the wounds glossed with the milky pus of infection. His hammer caving in skulls, reshaping the faces of the already twisted creatures. His brothers’ faces. Mad Max. He saw his family one after the other. They were themselves momentarily before their eyes filled with blood and their jaws fell loose. Their heads also buckled beneath his heavy hammer blows. Mad Max.
“Dianna?” The echo in the cavernous hallways threw his desperation back at him. He’d never find her in this place. How could he? He couldn’t see anything. Daylight would banish the images, even if he did have to face the diseased outside. But had he gone too far now? How could he find his way out again?
“When I do find her, at least I’ll be able to get out of here. Get both of us out of here. Dianna!”
As he’d done in the last few corridors he’d entered, Max felt his way around the bend, using the wall to guide him, to get an understanding of which direction he should walk. He stepped several paces away from the walls. From the cell doors.
And a good job too. Footsteps on his right. Bare feet on the stone floor, they ended with a crash as the person in the cell slammed against their locked door.
Several women and children screamed somewhere else in the asylum, and Max’s already rapid pulse ran quicker. But he’d given himself enough space. “Nothing to worry about. They can’t get to me here.”
Beyond These Walls (Book 7): The Asylum Page 3