| ASYLUM A news van sped around a corner on a steep pacific mountain road. Four people were in it. The driver watched the road carefully, he was determined to get the story... Deep in the Rocky Mountains, a large group of people had dissappeared while on a hunting expedition. The big thing about the story was that there were about 30 hunters that had dissappeared, that was a big group. As the news van rounded another corner, it screeched to a halt. Right in front of it were the hunter's vehicles, "Geez, about time." A voice from the back said. "Eric, zip it." A woman said. "Hey, both of you, shut up." the driver said, "I think we found our story." He turned around, and looked at the other three, "Let's go check it out." "What do you mean, all we found is their trucks. Where are the people?" the last person said. "Well, we'll have to go check it out, I think." Alex wanted this story, it had been way too long since his past raise, and things weren't going so well. His girlfriend had left him just a week before over the concern of money. "Come on Jake, grab a couple of cameras and follow me." Jake was sitting in back, he didn't really want to go, it was late, they had already been driving forever, and he was pretty sure that as it happened now they wouldn't be able to get back without stopping for the night. He sighed as he grabbed a few cameras, and handed one to Eric and one to Sally. "Why are we going now? It's too late, and it's freezing out there." Eric whined, "We're gonna die by exposure, I just know it." Eric was about 5'10", a bit overweight, he wasn't the field working type. He had been an editor before, he wasn't ready for this type of thing, he didn't even want to be ready for this type of thing. "Oh come on Eric, be a man..." Sally exclaimed, "Don't you have any sense of adventure?" She didn't even know why she said that, she didn't want to go either. She was freezing inside of the van, she didn't want to get out! But she had to at least pretend she was braver than Eric. She didn't like him much, he whined too much, and was annoying. Plus, he had been coming on to her the entire drive up. "Oh come on, you babies." Alex got out of the van, and started trodding toward the trucks. Eric rolled his eyes as he followed. Fortunatly, the footprints of the missing hunters were still frozen in the mud. They had only been missing for a day or so. After walking for an hour, the road they were following ended, but the footprints were still very clear, because there were a ton of them. Jake wondered how these people expected to shoot anything with that many people. "Wonder what these guys were expecting to hunt...?" Alex said. "Yeah, I was wondering the same thing." Jake said. Soon, the group came to a slight clearing, and the footprints ended. "What do you think happened?" Sally said. "Ohhh, god..." Eric dropped to his knees and vomited on the ground. Jake ran over to him, and immeadiatly withdrew in horror. "Y-you guys have to see this..." Alex and Sally hurried over and saw three of the hunters, they were dead, and it looked like they had been beaten to death. But peices of their flesh had also been ripped off. "What kind of animal would do that??" Sally exclaimed. "It wasn't an animal..." Jake said, "Look, the skin was ripped like that, those aren't from any animal around this area..." There was a look of utter terror in the hunter's frozen faces. Sally's chin quivered, "U-u-uhhhggg..." she backed away, holding her head. "Jesus..." Alex said, he lifted a camera and took a few shots. "L-let's go." Jake helped Eric up and they followed Alex deeper into the woods, they noticed a small path with marks like something had been dragged down the path. The sun had set, and darkness set in. "What are we going to do now, huh Alex?" Sally exclaimed, "It's dark, and we have no shelter, no FOOD, and we can't get back to the van before we freeze to dea-woah." Right as she finished the sentance, the forest opened up to a huge clearing The moonlight streamed down on a large building, and a huge concrete wall surrounding it. Barbed wire covered the top of the wall, but what seemed odd to them was that the barbed wire was facing inside, like a prison. The building was fairly run-down, but still in semi-good condition. "Well, this is how it always starts, isn't it?" Jake said, " 'hey look, there's some shelter. Let's sleep there for the night, then there is an axe murderer chasing us up stairs and cutting phone lines. . ." The group walked toward the concrete wall. "Oh... my... god... I know what this is..." Sally said, in a trance, "this is one of those, um, what are they called?" "It's an insane asylum..." Eric said, not looking away from the building. "It looks like a prison to me, look at the bars on the windows." Jake said. "No, it's a lobotomy factory all right," Eric said, "notice how the windows are say, 5 inches thick! But there are still signs of people scratching or hitting them or whatever. But these places were shut down in like the 60's or something, I thought." He moved up to the large iron gate. "So, we can probably sleep here tonight, and get back to the van tomorrow. That is, if we can get by this gate." The gate was firmly closed, locked with a large safe-type lock. Jake walked forward to Eric, "Are you insane? I think you deserve to be locked up in this place! There was or IS a murderer out there somewhere!" Right when he said it, the gate's lock clicked, and opened up a little bit. "I thought I heard voices out here." a professional sounding voice uttered, a short, stocky man walked out. He was wearing a white, ruffled lab coat, and had small specticles on, which really stood out because of his bald head. "How did you people get out to a place like this?" He asked. "We, uh, we were trying to find some hunters that dissapeared out here somewhere." Sally said. The little man looked puzzled, "Why would you look for people who dissappeared... Well, I guess whatever makes you happy..." The group looked at each other for a second, confused. Alex stuttered "Uh, yeah, so I don't suppose we'd be able to stay here for the night, like in a waiting room or something?" The doctor looked kind of bewildered for a moment, "Well, I don't see why not... Follow me." He turned and walked toward the building's main door. Alex looked at his watch, 1:16 am, October 2nd. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep in this place. The doctor led them into a small room, there was a large reception desk, dusty and a bit run-down, just like the outside of the building. The doctor looked up at them, cracked a thin little smile, and walked out of the room through a side door, clicking the lock behind him. Jake layed there, listening to Eric's loud snoring, wondering how he could possibly fall asleep in a place like this. This place was freaking him out. He wished he had a watch so he could see how long until the sun came up. He saw Alex sit up. "You're awake too, huh?" Jake said. "Yeah, I don't even want to blink in this place..." Alex replied. "How long till we can get outta here?" Jake asked. "It's five after two right now." he replied. "Jesus..." It felt like forever. Just then, they heard a loud thump, as if something had fallen to the ground. Jake and Alex jumped up to their feet. "Oh god, what was that?" Sally shrieked, jumping up also. Eric opened up his eyes, "what are you guys doing?" "We heard something," Jake said, "sounded like someone fell over." Then they heard a loud moan coming from behind the locked door, it sounded like a person in pain. Jake looked at the large wooden door. "Should we open the door?" Alex asked. "Are you fucking crazy??" Sally exclaimed, "Something bad is behind that door, I can tell. Let's just leave it alone. I think I would rather be out in the woods than in this creepy place." "Yeah, I know what you mean..." Jake said, "in fact, I'm gonna get out of here right now..." He walked over to the large main door, and turned the handle. The handle turned, but the door didn't open. "Shit, he locked this one too!" "What?? No, no I have to get out of here, I can't be locked up in here!" Sally was getting claustrophobic at the thought of being stuck in the small room. All she wanted to do was go home, and cuddle up with her boyfriend. She wanted to forget this whole thing. She didn't care about the story, she didn't care about the asylum, she just wanted out. She was one of the most stubborn of all of them, and she still wanted nothing to do with the story, and she was scared... "Tssh, I can open that door..." Eric said, "doesn't look like that tough of a lock, Jake, come here. Ready? On three." Eric stood by the door, and Jake stood beside him. "One... two......THREE!" the two men hit the door, and they heard the crack as the lock broke and the door swung open. Jake almost jumped at the cold air that blew inside. "Oh my god! I LOVE you Eric!" Sally ran forward and hugged Eric. It caught him off guard, he wasn't much of a ladies' man, but the first time he saw Sally's body, he was in love. She released him and Eric looked out into the area between the main door and the locked gate. There were many clouds in the sky, but the moon was uncovered, and moonlight was lighting up the whole area. Eric walked out up to the gate, he looked back and shurgged his shoulders, something caught the corner of his eye. He looked over and saw a child, no more than ten years old. The kid was just standing there, staring at Eric. This made him quite uncomfortable, "What are you doing there, kid?" Eric looked back at the others. Jake yelled out at him, "What's up Eric? Can we unlock it?" "There's a kid out here!" he replied. "A what?" they asked. "A kid, over there!" Eric pointed at the kid, he was walking toward Eric, he noticed that it was indeed a young boy, he had a patient's robe on, and his hands were behind his back. "Wh..what have you got there kid?" The boy held his hand forward, and revealed a small 9mm hunting pistol, he was holding it upside down, obviously he didn't know how to use it. It almost seemed like he was giving it to Eric. "Woah kid, you had better give that to me, those things are dangerous." Eric reached for the pistol, and the kid swung his other hand forward. Eric saw the glint of the scalpel that was held in it. His eyes went wide as he felt the warm gush of blood down his hand. He looked down and saw that the child had slashed his wrist. Eric stumbled backwards, the kid also coming forward was still staring at Eric's face. Eric noticed the crude scar on kid's forehead. He kicked at the kid, but the kid grabbed onto his leg and started stabbing the scalpel into Eric's leg. Eric dropped to the ground, he turned toward the group, and just then heard Sally's screaming. He reached out to grab the pistol, and jumped up, staggering toward the others. Suddenly, darkness shrouded the area as the moon was covered by clouds. Eric felt a hand grab the collar of his shirt, ripping a big streak down the back. He turned, pistol-whipping his assailant, which uttered a loud grunt, and a thump of it hitting the frozen ground. He breathed a quick sigh of relief, just as he felt something bite into his arm. Eric screamed out in pain, as he felt the blood running down his arm and whoever, or whatever was biting him was still attatched. He was hitting it hard with the pistol, but it held fast, he put the barrel to it and fired the pistol. It bit down harder and fell to the ground, tearing the flesh from Eric's arm. Then he felt something hit him hard in the leg. He yelled and dropped to the ground, the moon came back out from behind the clouds, and Eric saw that he was not even near the main entrance... he was around the corner, and it was a world different from the front, the windows were almost all broken, the bars removed. Light in the building were flickering, and he heard the screams, and moans of pain inside the building. Even worse, he saw a group of inmates moving toward him, and standing above him, the one that hit him in the leg. It was holding a long pipe, which had splotches of dried blood all over it. A wave of nausea flooded over Eric as the pipe smashed into his forehead. Sally was screaming and crying, Jake was yelling for Eric, and Alex was out the door a couple of steps, when the moon came out again. Eric was nowhere in sight, but the had heard him screaming. "SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!!" Sally kept repeating, "We're going to DIE in this place!" "No, no we aren't, we're gonna make it out, but we can't go this way I think I see more people coming from where we heard Eric." Alex said, "But the lock is broken, so we have to go through the other door over there." "How? That door's locked too." Jake said. Alex walked over and checked the door. Then he backed up, and kicked the door, which swung open after the crack of the lock, flooding the room with artificial light. The three went through the door, stepping into the long narrow hallway. There were no windows, no doors, but the hallway cornered at the end. About halfway down the hallway, they heard a baby crying. "What's that?" Sally asked, scared. "It's a... baby, I think." Jake said. "A baby?" Alex said. They turned the corner, and saw a woman beside the only door out of the hallway. She was wearing a patient's uniform, and also had a scar on her forehead. She was sitting in the corner, with her feet apart and straight forward. A streak of blood led to a newborn baby laying in front of her, umbilical cord still attached. The woman's eyes were rolled back into her head, and her mouth was open. She wasn't moving at all as the three got closer. The baby just layed there crying. Jake approached the woman, she still didn't move, locked in death. Suddenly, the door in front of them burst open, and a man came through, he had a look of anger upon seeing the three. Then he looked down at the baby. He made glances to the baby, and the three people standing before him. He bent down, and took the baby in his arms. He looked back at the group with a look of awe. He then bit the umbilical cord, tearing it off of the child. The baby started screaming in pain. He gripped on of the baby's small hands, and quickly popped the fingers out of their sockets. He put the fingers in his mouth and bit them. Hard. The baby was screaming even more, blood was flowing from the baby's hand, and leaking from the man's mouth. Sally screamed, the man looked up, and displayed a look of utter terror. He bolted through the door and ran down the adjacent hallway, almost tripping over another inmate laying on the ground. He ducked into a room, and shut the door. Sally was still screaming, and jake was trying to calm her down. Alex just looked forward toward where the man had just run. Jake was hugging Sally, who was still sobbing loudly. They walked forward through the door. As Jake passed the body on the floor, he noticed that it was ripped up just like the hunters that they had found. Peices of flesh were torn from it's throat and stomach, and other places were bruised and broken. Jake guessed that the body was male, but couldn't tell for sure because of the damage and blood-soaked inmate attire. As they passed the door that the man had run into, they noticed that it was a cell, complete with a large steel door. There was an electric lock, and a large deadbolt. Alex apprached the door, and heard a crunching sound inside. He figured it had to be the inmate eating another part of the child... He almost vomited at the thought. He slid the deadbolt into place and heard the man on the inside yelling and moaning, then a loud thud against the large door, as the inmate threw his body into it. Alex jumped back instinctivly, and Sally screamed again. The three moved down the hall. Alex approached another door... "Locked... damn... Jake, come on." Jake sighed, and took his place at the side of the door. He glanced over his side out a window, the moon was uncovered, and moonlight was again streaming down to the courtyard. Alex counted to three, and the two men slammed against the door, which didn't budge. "Owww..." Jake said, rubbing his shoulder. "I realized something..." Sally said slowly. She was sitting against the wall, Alex had just noticed how bad of a toll this was really taking on her. Her eyes were bloodshot, dark skin encircling them. The rest of her was pale, and she was shaking with her short, ragged breaths. "What's that...?" Alex asked, in almost a whisper. She stood up slowly, not revealing the lead pipe hidden behind her. When she got to her feet, she swung the pipe as hard as she could at Alex. He quickly ducked, but the pipe found a mark on Jake's forehead. Blood splattered on the wall as Jake crashed through the window. Sally quickly brought the pipe down toward Alex's head, but landed the hit at his collarbone. Alex's eyes flashed red, then a numb darkness washed over him... Jake's head was pounding, along with the pains in his ribs. He was sure a couple were broken. He brought his hand to his head, and ran his fingers over the open slit on his forehead. Most of the blood was dry, but warm liquid still clung to his hand. He breathed in slowly, and shivered slightly. It was cold, really cold. He opened his eyes slightly, and saw the snow falling lightly, some landing on his face and melting slowly. He layed still, hoping nobody was around, even though he knew it wouldn't matter, these THINGS... would eat anything. He wondered how this could happen. This place was so secluded that nobody would ever come up here... that must be it, nobody would ever come check on the place, so if something happened, nobody would know, let alone DO anything about it. The baby stumped him. Why would there be a baby up here? Unless... the people were actually reproducing. But they also killed each other for food. Almost like a food chain. Maybe they had turned into a self contained ecosystem... Jake sat up, and felt the blood rush from his head, only making it hurt worse. He suddenly got dizzy and had to lie back down for a few minutes. He hoped he didn't have a concussion, although he knew he probably did. While he layed there, he wondered what had happened to Sally. He wasn't really surprised she cracked, and he didn't blame her, but she was going to make this harder than it had to be... He had seen Sally take the pipe to Alex on his way out the window, and hoped she hadn't killed him. He figured he was actually a bit "lucky" that she hadn't killed HIM with that shot to the head. He finally stood up, still dizzy, but able to stay up. he looked up and saw the window that he crashed out of. It was about ten feet up, he was glad he hadn't fallen out the second story window, otherwise he would probably be dead. He looked around him, there was nobody except a body laying on the ground. It was ripped up like the others he had seen, peices of flesh torn from the arms and abdominal area. Jake almost vomited again when he saw parts of the intestines torn out. He turned away for a moment, but realized what the hunter was holding. He turned and saw a rifle in the disfigured hand. "YES!" he couldn't help but say it aloud. He didn't know much about hunting and what kinds of rifles were out there, but he recognized the firearm as a regular .22. He searched the hunter's body, to his own dismay, and found a box of ten more bullets. He wasn't sure how many were in the gun, but he knew he had at least ten. He thought of going back to help Alex, if he was still there, but he figured that he was probably gone... Jake was the only one... So he was going to get out. The only problem was the wall, there was a barbed wire "cage" at the top, facing in, to keep the "residents" in. The wall was about 20 feet tall, but the hunters were dragged in somehow... He walked into the shadow cast by the wall, and walked around, looking for where they could get over or under the wall somehow... somewhere... He walked the total length of the wall, not finding anything... the wierd part was that there were no people at all inside the wall, and he could hear people on the OUTside of the wall. Maybe there was something connecting the inside of the building to the outside? He went to the back of the building, where he had seen a smaller back door. He went into the door, looking around, and was surprised. This place was like none of the others he had seen in the building. There were a few hospital rooms, and at the end of the hallway he was in was another large room. He headed down the hall, glancing into the rooms. They hadn't been cleaned in awhile, but they weren't bloody or as trashed as the rest of the building. As he walked down the hall, he noticed the halogen lights in the room at the end of the hall, and heard a shuffling, like someone walking around. He stood at the edge of the wall, so he wasn't completly obvious, and looked inside. The short doctor from before was moving around a woman that was laying on a table. He had a scalpel in his hand, and was examining her. She was strapped to the bed, and had a gag over her mouth, and she was trying to scream. the doctor let out a giggle, as he started cutting random slices on her face. He cut across one of her eyes, and blood started pouring from her face. He pointed the scalpel at the eye, grabbed under her head, and rammed her face onto the scalpel. About three fourths of the scalpel was inside the woman's eye, and she had stopped struggling and was just laying there. The doctor started laughing hysterically, and walked over to the counter, which was also covered in blood from the used instruments sitting in a small tray. He grabbed a large suction tube, and stuck it into the hole he made with the scalpel, and took out the woman's gag. He walked back to the counter and flipped a switch on a machine connected to the suction tube, which started vibrating quickly as it started sucking blood, flesh, and frothy air. The woman let out a bloodcurtling scream. The doctor, startled for a second, walked over and pulled out the suction tube, then rammed it in again... hard. Blood stained the table the woman layed on, her clothes, and the doctor's hands. The doctor turned his back to Jake, and he ran out, spinning the doctor around and hitting him with the butt of the rifle. The doctor fell to the ground, blood seeping through a fresh cut on his forehead. Jake held the barrel of the rifle right at his nose. The doctor was dazzed, "Wha- wha-?" "What the FUCK were you doing to her?!" Jake shouted. "She- she was dead! I have to embalm her! It's my JOB!" he said back. "No! You killed her, you fucking killed her, THEN you were going to embalm her!" Jake yelled. "Stop yelling! They usually stay out of here because there is nobody here but me!" "Why do they stay away from you?" Jake asked. "Probably because I have neat tools." The doctor looked over at the counter where the bloody instruments were. "Tools??" Jake yelled, amazed that he could say those killing objects were tools. "Let me up please..." the doctor said, totally calm. Jake picked the doctor up and brought him to a table, strrapping his wrist to it. "Hey, what are you doing, boy?" he asked. "Well, I want to ask a few questions, since it's obvious you're the only one here who knows what's going on." Jake said. "Umm... actually I don't." the doctor said, "I don't have any idea how this all started..." Jake hit him again with the butt of the rifle. Blood splattered down to his lab coat. "Th-the whole thing was my fault, it was... Ok, I'm lying, it wasn't my fault, but I didn't do anything to stop it. One day, the door locks were opened, and I don't know how, but they were opened. All of the staff went to keep the inmates under control, but I went and hid in the sewer tunnel. Nobody ever goes there. And when I cam back out, all of my friends were dead, and the people were out, wreaking havoc. So I came over here and have manage to stay alive from the frozen food storage." "Wh-wha...? How long has this place been like this?" Jake asked. "Uh, when it started, I was around 17 years old..." "17?!" Jake was startled, this guy looked almost 60 years old, "so this place has been like this for 40 years??" "Well, the inspection people never come around, so they never see how bad this place really is." "These places were shut down sometime in the 50s..." Jake said coldly. The doctor didn't react. Jake glanced up, and saw another table in the corner of the room. Sally layed on it, obviously dead. Her upper torso was crudly ripped open, almost looking like an autopsy. Her organs were in a pan beside the bed. Blood trailed from the pan to splatters on the floor, and covered Sally and the bed. Her face was frozen in a look of torture, and she was strapped to the table, like the other woman. "She... she was still alive... You sick, mother fu... sick mother fuck..." Jake stumbled backwards, suddenly dizzy, and dropped to his knees. He looked back at the doctor, who had a large smile across his face. "You don't like my autopsy? I found out how she died! Seriously, some people just don't have the stomach for this kind of thing..." Jake stood up quickly, and fired the rifle into the doctor's chest, then again, and again. He stood, entranced, pulling the trigger of the rifle, continuing after the eight gunshots, clicking the trigger again and again. He snapped back, and looked down at the doctor, his face covered in blood from the cut on his forehead, and his chest was torn open from the gunshots. He turned away from the doctor, and approached Sally, gently closing her eyes and mouth... Alex heard the voices, they weren't going away, just pressing into his brain, not letting him think, incoherent, loud, and he couldn't understand... Where was Jake? Where was Sally? Where was Eric? Has this whole thing even happened? He couldn't remember all of what happened. He didn't know where he was or how to get out, there was only blackness... Only the aching sound of the voices, and the memories of the moans and screams he had heard. he didn't even feel any pain, just emptiness. Plain. Simple. Emptiness. Was he alive? Was he ok? Was he dead? So many questions... no answers... His eyes shot open, he was in a small room, suddenly the pain returned, aching in his head. His shoulder was broken, he couldn't move his left arm, and there was blood caked all over his left side. He was stiff and couldn't move very well. How long was he unconscious? How did he get to this room? He struggled to sit up in the small cot he was in, he checked his watch... 4:42 am, October 3rd... He turned and looked around the small room, it looked like a hospital room... For a split second, he thought he had been saved, and was in a hospital, but the realization quickly dissintegrated when he heard the now familiar moans and screams of the asylum's residents. They sounded distant, though, he wondered if there were any people in this place. He got to his feet, slowly, and because of all of the pain, he figured he was a sitting duck if there were any people in this place. He moved out of the room, and into a small hallway. At the end was a large room. He looked down the other hallway and saw an open door leading outside. That was the last place he wanted to be right now, putting together the peices of Eric's death. He shuffled into the room at the end of the hallway, and saw the doctor. He was moving around the room looking at a body on a table, it was Sally. He sw the doctor using a large instrument, looking like something you'd cut a lock with. He proceeded to cut her sternum, separating her chest. Sally was in pain, she was trying to scream, but only blood came out of her mouth. The doctor hadn't yet seen Alex yet, and he struggled to get under the sheet of another table. It hurt to move... He let his breath out slowly, hoping the doctor wouldn't hear him. Then realized that the doctor was talking, he didn't even hear him talking before. "...and it wasn't MY fault, if those guards would have done something to stop me... I mean, I had a gun, but they had guns too, but they didn't shoot me! I guess that means that it was ok that I opened the locks. I knew all of the inmates at that time, none of them wanted to hurt me. I thought it was great, they didn't need to be locked up all the time! But now they aren't good anymore... Everyone died except me, and that's only because I found a great hiding place in the sewer ducts. That worked for awhile... but they eventually saw me going in, and followed me. So now, all I can do is stay in here, they usually don't come in here... I wish they'd all leave through the sewer pipe... They do sometimes, but they always come back... I wish I could just be alone, and not have to worry all the time..." He was talking to someone, himself maybe? The outside door shut. Then came the familiar moan of one of the inmates, female, he thought. "Gurtrude, what are you doing? This is my area, remember?" Alex peeked out from under the sheet, and watched as the doctor walked over and hit the woman with the pipe Sally had hit him with earlier. She collapsed and he proceded to strap her onto the table Alex was under. The woman must have been unconcious, or dead, either way, she wasn't making any noise. The doctor walked back over to Sally, and continued talking. "So you see, my dear, it wasn't completly my fault! The guards let me walk right by, if they had stopped me, then would I have opened the locks?? I don't think so!" Alex looked out the other side of the table, and saw another door out of the room. He hoped that he could get out before the doctor turned around... He rolled out, and got up and bolted to the door, throwing it open and slamming it behind him. He reached down to lock the door, and realized that it locked from the other side. His head and shoulder throbbed, almost to the point of making him pass out. He looked around in tunnel vision, small spots of light and color appearing all around him. He closed his eyes, and shook his head, clearing his vision for a moment. He was in a small room, there was a ladder going down into darkness, and a door at the other end of the room. He grabbed onto the ladder, not even thinking, and started to decend, but felt his arm give way, dropping him to the concrete floor below him. He layed on the ground for a while, letting the pain pulse around his body. He sat up painfully, and looked around the room. There was only one shaft of light coming down from ladder hole. It didn't matter, the room was bare, except for the large broiler in the corner. He stood up with quite a bit of difficulty, and shambled over to the broiler. He found the knobs to operate it, but when he turned them, nothing happened. "Well... guess I'm not going to blow the place now..." Alex muttered. He sat down, and rested against the ladder. He breathed in hard, and then realized that he wasn't the only one down there. A slight, raspy breathing came from the area around the broiler. He squinted, trying to see in the darkness, to no avail. He got up, grabbing the ladder, but it jumped onto his back. He fell to the ground, while it grabbed onto his arm and bit him. The pain of the bite was nothing compared to the pain in his shoulder as it was shaken and jarred. He grabbed it's hair, and flung it off of him, jumping to the ladder again. With the last of his adrenalyn, he scurried up the ladder, but it grabbed him, hanging onto his back. He was halfway out of the hole when it bit the back of his neck. Alex shouted out as he felt it's teeth passing through the flesh, and cracking the bone at the base of his neck. The world flashed red, and suddenly Alex was laying on the concrete floor at the base of the ladder. His entire body was twitching and numb. He felt the blood pouring from his mouth, as he looked up and saw the figure of a child dropping on him from above... Jake had been sitting in the corner, a blank expression covering his face. He felt like HE was going insane. None of it felt real, it all felt like a bad dream. He knew it was real, however, and now most, if not all, of his friends were dead. Dead... He wouldn't see them when he went back to work monday... Never again. He hadn't thought of it like that before. Eric... His best friend... was dead. Sally had done something awful, but he didn't blame her. He was surprised he hadn't snapped yet. He heard a shout, and a loud thump. The shout had almost sounded like Alex. "Alex??" Jake snapped up, and threw open the door into the small room with the ladder. There was a crunching coming from the hole. "Ohh god..." Jake didn't even want to look. He peered into the hole, witnessing a child taking bites from Alex's stomach area. Jake pulled up the rifle, shaking as he fired into the child's head. Jake slid down the ladder, and checked on Alex. He was moving his eyes, still alive. Blood was pouring from his mouth, and the rest of his body was convulsing slightly. Alex looked at him, eyes drenched in blood, and gurgled, trying to speak. Jake closed his eyes, entrapped with the dread inside of him. "ss... sewww... aghh..." More blood gurgled out of his mouth. "Wh- what?" Jake stammered. "...err... sew..." blood erupted from Alex's mouth, pooling with the rest under his head. He stopped moving his eyes, and stared blankly at the ceiling. Jake's head dropped, as he closed his eyes again. They were all dead. This was no dream, this was no nightmare... It was all real, and he couldn't control it. Pure and utter chaos, with nothing, not a single light of hope now. He had a gun, why not just take a little control? Get a handle on everything... He raised the gun, and angled it on the ground, leaning his forehead on the barrel... No, he dropped the gun to the ground. He could still take control, it's possible. What did Alex say? He couldn't tell... It didn't matter, Alex was dead now. He stood up, picked up the rifle, and made his way back up the ladder. What could he do? There was nothing, nobody. It was him... alone. He walked through the door at the other end of the room. Blood. Everywhere... It looked like a cafeteria, but blood stained everything, the walls, the turned over tables... everything. Jake gripped the rifle tightly as he made his way through the cafeteria. He swung open the kitchen door, and looked inside for a second. The kitchen was also trashed. He started to step out, but smelled the sourness of rotten food. Not meat, but rotting vegetables of some sort. It was one of the worst things he had ever smelled, but also heard running water. He walked to the sinks in the corner, and saw one that extended to a large pipe that ran under the building. The water was running through it. He didn't think much about it, until he noticed the flashing lights. There were lights in the tunnel! Maybe that meant there was a way outside! He stood over the hole, gaining the courage, and slid himself down into the hole. He slid about three feet, dropping into the large pipe, and landing in about a foot of sewage. He looked toward the lights, and saw the end of the pipe, leading outside! There was an inmate, shuffling toward the end of the pipe. Jake pulled up the gun, and clicked the trigger. Nothing. "Shit..." Jake mumbled, remembering putting the box of bullets down in the hospital room. The inmate turned and noticed Jake down the pipe. It made a low grumbling sound, almost a laugh as it started shuffling toward Jake. Jake sighed, and walked toward the inmate. It reached out to grab Jake, but he dodged to the side, and swung the gun, hitting it in the head. It cried out, and ran down the pipe, stumbling and falling out at the end. Jake heard it splash in some water below. He walked over and peered out of the pipe, seeing the inmate crawling out of a pond, toward a police car. A police car!! Jake jumped down into the pond, and swam as fast as he could toward the police. He splashed out of the water just as the inmate grabbed one of the policemen and tackled him to the ground. "NO!" Jake shouted as he ran over and pulled the inmate off of him. The inmate stood up, and a gunshot sounded as blood sprayed from it's eye. It dropped to the ground, blood gathering under it. Jake turned to the policemen, and got kicked in the gut. He dropped to the ground, and was kicked again on the ground. One of the policemen got down and cuffed him, then picked him up and threw him against the police car. "He doesn't look like one of 'em..." "Yeah, but he came out of there..." "Maybe he was one of the hunters that were killed?" Jake layed on the ground, listening to this. Who cared if he was one of the hunters? Why weren't they helping him? "Even still... maybe we ought to help him...?" The other policeman looked like he was contemplating. "Sir, what happened to you?" Jake layed on the ground, "We... got lost, and found this place..." "We? What happened to everyone else?" The officer said. "Their fucking DEAD! What the hell does this have to do with anything??" Jake spouted. "Well, it's pretty obvious, isn't it?? Good god, you come up here, with the discovery of a lifetime, and now you're saved! This is great! You're going to go tell all your friends and the newspapers and all that, now aren't you?" the officer said. "Hell yeah I'm going to tell everyone! What the hell do you think I am??" "You see, that's the problem... These people here are our relatives... and we don't like people fuckin with our relatives." What?? Relatives?? How could that be? The baby... the baby died. The ecosystem isn't perfect. Their best bet is to get out of the asylum, and have sex with, or rape, a normal person... Jake realized it. This was bigger than anything he had ever seen. How could this place stay hidden?? So many people must know about it! Another gunshot fired from the officer's pistol. All feeling was gone from Jake's body. He actually had a moment of peace while he felt the blood run down his face from the hole in his forehead. His muscles relaxed, and it all went black... It didn't matter, any of it... just his feelings. The quiet. The emptiness... The feeling of his own insanity taking hold... |