“That’s all well and good, but if we can’t get out of here, what does it matter if we lose them?”
“We’ll find a way out eventually.”
Another lull in the chaos, the shrill scream of an enraged Monica filled it. Several corridors away, she shouted, “I’m going to let you all out. The first one of you—”
Barp!
Max screwed his face up as if it would help him hear better.
“—the boy,” Monica continued, “gets their freedom.”
“What’s she saying?” Gracie said.
Monica shouted again. “The boy has the key to get us all out of here.”
Gracie let go of a hard exhale. “So much for their only being about ten of them. Shit!”
The next turn Max took led them up a ramp similar to the one that had taken them down to the room that flooded. It took them farther away from Monica’s madness, but they had no chance of making an escape if they were on the wrong floor. “Do you have any idea where Monica’s keeping Dianna?”
“No. And I think we should focus on getting ourselves out of here first,” Gracie said. “What use are we to Dianna if we’re dead?”
The corridors stretched for what felt like miles. It didn’t matter how many left or right turns Max took, every hallway looked the same as the last. Miles of corridors, miles of cells housing insanity. Miles of withered arms reaching out to them for salvation. Although would daylight emancipate their minds, or would it shine a spotlight on their torment? How many women were like Monica in this place? How many had been locked away years ago and left to rot?
The slope of the next turn caught Max off guard and he nearly fell, his run accelerated by the steep decline. The flagstones uneven, his toes caught raised lumps, his pulse spiking in anticipation of a fall. His arms thrust out for balance, he stumbled several more times but managed to remain on his feet.
Just as they got to the bottom of the slope, Gracie caught up to Max and dragged him back.
Barp!
A crowd of women and children at least fifteen strong raced along the corridor in front of them.
Leaning so close her words tickled Max’s ear, Gracie breathed heavily and said, “I think that’s all of them for now.”
“Thank you.” Max nodded and ran out into the corridor.
The crack of freeing bolts called through the asylum. Not only had Monica taken to opening the cell doors, but all the other women had too. The freeing of the prisoners spread like the disease, starting small and growing exponentially.
The echoes of liberation swirled through the place. They were everywhere.
Another left and right, Max came to an abrupt halt, Gracie slamming into his back.
As he turned full circle, his eyes stinging from trying to see in the gloomy corridors, his burns almost audible with their fierce buzzing, Max said, “I recognise where we are.”
“It looks like every other corridor we’ve been in.”
The cells in this part of the asylum were still locked. Max walked over to a closed door and peered into the shadows.
When the woman’s face sprang up on the other side, he gasped and stepped back into Gracie, who shoved him in response. “You stood on my toe.”
“S-sorry.” But it was her. The same matted hair. The same sores on her face. The same missing teeth. “Gracie, this woman showed me the way out last time. We’re close to the exit. Hi.” Max waved at the woman.
“You’re back,” the woman said.
When the loud tone subsided, the crack of bolts being freed sang through the long and dark corridors. “They’re letting everyone out,” Max said.
But the woman shook her head. “Don’t open this door.”
“Which way do I need to go to get out of here?”
Her pale arm no more than bones sheathed with skin, several sores dotted along it, the woman pointed.
“We can’t go that way,” Gracie said.
The cracks of freeing doors confirmed it. Monica and the inmates were getting closer, coming towards them from the direction the woman pointed. “Shit.”
The opening bolts also came from the other way. They were closing in from both sides. Max said, “Maybe we need to make a break for it anyway? They’re coming no matter which way we run.”
It started low like a distant tsunami, but the sound quickly grew. The thunder of steps drawing nearer. A scream of liberation. A tide of freed prisoners.
Gracie shook her head, looking one way and then the other. “We have no chance getting past that lot.”
The woman in the cell pointed with her bony finger to the cell opposite. She leaned so close to the bars in the door, they squashed her cheeks. Her black hair as matted and greasy as any prisoner Max had met, her dirty stench caught in the back of his throat. The woman spoke in a quiet voice as if she didn’t want the women in the cell behind to hear. “That one’s empty. Why don’t you hide in there? If they’re looking for you, I can’t imagine they’ll search the cells.”
Gracie shook her head. “I don’t like it.”
“Do you have a better suggestion? It might be a good place to lie low.”
“You sound like you’ve made up your mind.”
“I’m happy to have it changed.”
The rush of people drew closer, and Max bounced on the spot, desperate to spend the nervous energy running through him. “Come on, Gracie, you need to make a decision now.”
Her long ginger plait flicked one way and then the other with her turning head. She clearly had nothing. But Max let her come to the conclusion herself, the stampede closing in from every angle.
“Damn it!” Gracie led the way, darting into the dark cell on the other side of the corridor.
She let Max in and tried to close the door behind him, but he grabbed her arm and spoke in a low voice. “Leave it open. We want them to think it’s empty.”
They moved to the back of the cell and leaned against the cold and damp wall. Both of them panted from their run, and Max’s throat had turned dry. He reached down and held Gracie’s sweating hand as the charge of liberated prisoners flashed past in front of them. “Thank you for helping me.”
“You could have ratted me out to Monica and you didn’t,” Gracie said. “I knew from that point that I could trust you. Although, had I known we’d end up here, I’m not sure I would have been on board. I thought you had a better plan.”
“So did I. I’m sorry. We’ll get out of here.” More people streamed past the open cell. “I promise.”
“I hope so,” Gracie said. “I really hope so.”
Chapter 31
Barp!
Of course the hinges groaned on the wooden door leading from the palace’s basement to the tunnel connected to the asylum. They cackled like an old crow, a prophet of doom, appalled at even the notion that William, Olga, and Artan were about to enter the place.
The dark tunnel had bulbs lighting the way, but they were more spaced out than any of the bulbs anywhere else in the palace. More shadow than light, William’s legs were tense with reluctance and his throat locked tight.
Olga must have picked up on it. Slapping his back, she said, “We can only fight what we can see. I know I’ve said it already, but I can’t hear any diseased, and while I’m going to be ready should any turn up, we can’t beat ourselves before we’ve taken a look. Also, what other routes are there to get to Max?” She shoved past William and took the lead into the shadowy tunnel.
“Anyway,” Artan said, flicking his head at the door on their left, the room where they found the diseased boys who had once belonged to Grandfather Jacks, “I don’t know about you, but anything has to be better than standing next to this room for any longer.”
Barp!
As Artan followed Olga into the darkness, William walked forwards in his mind several times, but his limbs were locked so rigid, it felt like rigor mortis.
The tunnel had a curve, which Olga vanished around. Her voice echoed off the tight walls. “Go back to Matilda if y
ou like. We won’t hold it against you.”
After all Max had done for them, William couldn’t leave him. Matilda and Cyrus would be okay on the roof of the palace. How could he even think about not following the others?
Like every journey, this one started with the first step. The crossing of the threshold into the dank tunnel. It looked like it had been built long before the palace or the asylum. Gloomy, rich with the earthy tang of damp, the floors and walls uneven. William pushed on.
Barp!
William quickened his pace, but stopped almost instantly when he rounded the bend. Olga and Artan had halted in front of a small steel door. It hung open, an inch of light glowing in the crack surrounding it, shining out into the darkness of the tunnel. Olga had her hand resting on the door as if about to push it wide. Artan stood behind her, a slight bend to his legs from where he stood ready to fight, his knives held out in front of him. Whatever came their way, they’d deal with it.
Maybe William had made himself the passenger on this journey already. Freezing before the tunnel had shown he didn’t want to take action. Olga and Artan didn’t seek his advice, Olga shoving the door wide, light flooding into the dank corridor.
The pair of them rushed in, and for a second time, William considered Matilda and Cyrus on the roof of the palace. Maybe he should go back to them. Maybe he didn’t have the stones for this trip.
“Damn!” Artan said from inside the room.
William caught up to them and halted in the doorway. The walls of the small room were made from damp bricks. The ceiling made from the same grey stone they’d seen in many ruins like in the old city outside Edin. A bed took up one corner. A large basket rested against one wall, wooden toys spilling from the top of it like weeds from an overgrown plant pot. The paint had chipped away from many of them, and they were covered in dirt stains from years of use.
Where most of the walls were made from damp exposed brickwork, the wall near the basket of toys had a large sheet of black wood screwed onto it. A message had been written in chalk. Before William could get close enough to read it for himself, Olga read it aloud.
“Dear Grandfather Jacks, I’m writing this on here because you’re dead and I wasn’t the one to do it, so I have to get it out in some other way. How I would have loved to be the one to watch the life leave your eyes. To watch that sadistic and often lustful glow die with your final breath. To watch your old and wrinkled skin turn from pink to grey. To finally see the weak man in the husk of a human body as your last breath left your frail lungs. I remember this room from when I was a boy. You used to call it the playroom. Although there were toys in here, I think it was much more your playroom than it was ours. You’d keep your special boys in here, of which I was one. Sometimes I’d be waiting in this room for days. The door would open at mealtimes, the snap of the bolt striking fear into me in case it was you rather than one of your guards. Often it would be my next meal, but you would always turn up eventually. I hope you believe your lies about the high father, because if you do, your world must have a hell of some sort. And if it does, that’s where you are now, paying the price tenfold for all the trauma and sadness you’ve spread. I’m leaving this room with my head held high. You’re leaving this life stained with the shame of being a bully and a rapist. For once, I’m going to choose to believe in your prophet, and I pray to the high father that you feel every ounce of trauma you’ve inflicted on others.” As she got to the end of the note, Olga’s voice trembled and her words grew weak. “You called me by a different name, which is now long buried. This is my name. The name of a warrior. The name of a man far greater than anything you ever achieved in your life. I hope you feel even a fraction of the pain you’ve caused.” Although she didn’t read the last word, the message had clearly been signed by Hawk.
Closer to Olga than William, Artan rubbed her back. “Come on, let’s go. There’s nothing left in this room.”
Barp!
Olga filled her lungs and nodded several times as if trying to push her tears down. When she finally turned from the blackboard, William led the way from the room. He had a place in this group. He had some value. He’d made the choice to go to the asylum, so they didn’t need to question him again.
A small wooden door at the end of the corridor, William half expected it to be locked, but when he shoved it, it swung open. It led them into another gloomy hallway.
Barp!
The tone louder than before, they must have reached the asylum’s basement. The screams of inmates and the cries of tortured children came from somewhere deep within the building. Distant as if they were echoes; memories of the madness spreading through this place like the plague beyond its walls.
Cells on their left and right, William got halfway down the corridor before he checked back on the others. Olga had halted and Artan stood at her side. He returned to his friends. “Are you okay?”
Wide eyed, a slight glaze to her stare, Olga said, “They brought Matilda and me down here when they were holding us.”
The floor of the cell glistened with damp. William’s heart quickened to look into the place. What had they done to the girls in there? “Did anyone touch you?”
Olga shook her head. “They were too busy trying to break us. To make us compliant for Grandfather Jacks. They flooded the place and we nearly drowned. We had no control over what they did to us.”
“Come on.” William tugged on her arm. “We need to keep moving. Let’s find Max, Hawk, and Dianna, and get the hell away from this place.”
Barp!
At first, Olga resisted, but then she let William guide her. A sharp turn on their left, the hallway led up away from them. A route to the ground floor. So steep it burned William’s tired calves, but a way out. A step closer to getting their friends and getting the hell out of there.
A dogleg bend in the tunnel blocked William’s line of sight to the ground floor. The screams and shouts of the inmates had grown louder. They’d sounded farther away when they’d first entered the place. Footsteps thundered along the nearby corridors. William halted and let the other two catch up to him. “Can you hear that?”
“Come on.” Olga shoved her way past. “Let’s just keep moving.”
Maybe they shouldn’t be trying to deal with what they couldn’t see, but surely if they could hear something, they should take that as a cue?
Olga rounded the bend first. William caught up to her. She’d halted closer to the top.
“Shit!” William said.
Maybe not every cell had been opened in the place, but from the number of inmates tearing through the hallways, a good proportion of them had.
“So what do we do now?” Artan said. The weak bulbs from the hallway caught the sheen of sweat on his face.
“What we’d planned to do all along.” Olga set off. “Nothing’s changed. We still need to find Max, Hawk, and Dianna.”
Chapter 32
Max couldn’t tell where his ragged breathing ended and Gracie’s started, the echoes of both of them in the shadows at the back of the cell melding into one. Much louder and Monica would hear them, even with the insanity running through the halls.
Pressed close to one another, women and children streaming past the open cell door, they waited. About the only agency they had in that moment. The click of freeing locks worked their way down towards them. Each one, coupled with the barp of the deep tone, served as yet another countdown. Soon Monica would be on them. The gods would decide if she found them or not.
“Why don’t we join the crowds?” Max said. “I could pretend to be an escaped prisoner. It’s chaos out there.”
Gracie shook her head. “You’ll stand out from a mile away.”
“I’m worried we’ve made the wrong choice waiting here.”
“It’s a bit late for that now. It’s the decision we’ve made. We need to stick with it.”
Barp!
Crack!
No matter how Max tried to master his breathing, his lungs tightened. He pull
ed at his shirt’s collar, the fabric coming away from the tacky wound on his chest.
Crack!
They were getting closer. Stars swam in Max’s vision, so he leaned against the wall for support. They’d made the wrong decision. They should have run while they could. Now they were trapped. But with Monica and her crew so close, they had no choice but to wait.
The screams of the formerly incarcerated women around them grew louder. The panic of children mingled with it, swirling through the riotous corridors. Maybe Gracie had a point. What would happen if this mob thought a guard walked among them? A guard who knew the way out.
“It’ll be okay,” Gracie said. “They can’t see us, and it doesn’t sound like they’re going into any of the cells. They’ll just assume this one is empty like all the others.”
Crack!
Monica called, “The first person to bring me the boy will be rewarded.”
Max whimpered.
Barp.
Dizzy with his lack of oxygen, Max shook his head repeatedly. Mad Max. They should have run. Mad Max. He gasped and held his chest. Mad Max.
And then calm. Everything slowed. The same click closed down on them from along the corridor. The same screams and cries. The same tone letting out a loud barp. Max reached across to take Gracie’s knife.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ve already killed, have you?”
“Of course not.”
“There seems little point in you having blood on your hands. If they come in here, I’ll deal with them.”
A proud young woman who could fight her own battles, yet Gracie eased the grip on her knife’s handle and allowed him to take it.
His pulse beating slower, Max nodded to himself. Whatever happened, he had this.
The lights in the corridor outside lit up the ratty Monica as she passed the front of their cell. It spiked Max’s pulse, but he held onto his panic with deep breaths. He had this. They’d be fine.
Crack!
Beyond These Walls (Book 7): The Asylum Page 13