Soul Asylum

“You can’t run forever.”

The voice echoed off the dingy, tiled walls in a burst of pulsating static. I cowered behind an old rack of medical brochures, clutching my aching chest. My breath came in such gasping bursts I was afraid it’d give my position away. Though I’d spent the last three years on the track team, the run up the stairwell had been taxing and I doubted I’d make it out alive.

A trickle of blood dripped from my hand as I gripped a long shard of glass. Even though I’d wrapped it in strips of a pillowcase, the sharp edge still cut into my hand. I wasn’t even sure if it would cause the thing that chased me any harm, but I had to try something.

Why did I let Damion talk me into coming to this damned place?

Footsteps.

Ragged breathing, no longer accompanied by the static of the overhead intercoms.

It was in the room.

I fought to conceal aching sobs and waited until the steps faded to silence, then I ran, flicking on my light only when I was uncertain of my surroundings. Curtained partitions and door after door zoomed by. The chipped green metal looked sick against the graffitied, eggshell tiles.

One. Two. Three. I counted until thirty seconds had passed. I was out of time. I hurried through one of the puke-colored doors.

The beam of the flashlight darted around the space only seconds before I shut it off again. Shit. Just another room. An overturned bed with a rotting plastic-covered mattress was the only offer of salvation. I dove behind it, thankful that it wasn’t like the others. Nothing more than skeletal frames of headboards and cleats lined the abandoned hallways.

“Get your shit together, Maggie,” I whispered to myself, waiting for it to start its search for me once again. I was in its territory. We had trespassed into a place we didn’t belong and Damion’s body lying twisted and broken in one of the padded rooms below was proof enough of that.

It seemed like an eternity before the footsteps finally came and even longer for them to fade away.

I counted the moments as I ran, sweat trickling down my bare spine. Why in the hell did I allow Damion to get as far as he did? Well, Hudson got to third base, but that was in the backseat of his mom’s minivan, not in some derelict insane asylum.

Thirty-two. Thirty-three. Shit! I’d gotten distracted. I ducked into a dark room to my right. Something was off. Nothing here looked even slightly familiar. I hadn’t been this way. My stomach churned. I was lost. When did I make a wrong turn? If it wasn’t for the fact that the beam of my flashlight seemed to draw the thing near, I might not have gotten so turned around. Even as I ducked into the room, its footfalls resounded around me, but I risked a quick use of my flashlight.

“Oh, God!” My breath caught, holding back a wave of vomit. The only protection this room offered was a single chair resembling an old-timey rocker with its high back and slatted bottom. But that was where the resemblance ended. I’d never seen one with leather cuffs nailed to the armrests. Deep red stains covered the seat and beneath it a corona of dried blood spread out with scattered fractures like a layer of crimson marble. 

What the hell had happened here?

The bloody plaster crunched beneath my knees as I knelt, hoping I was hidden well enough. The thing’s steps grew closer, falling in time with the speed of my pounding heart.

“You can’t hide forever,” it said through ragged breaths.

Damn it! How did it always know where I was?

I listened for an eternity as it moved through the hallway. Doors creaked as it checked the rooms. 

Finally… silence.

I stumbled from behind the chair and switched on the flashlight to judge my surroundings. Another stairwell lay at the end of the hall. That had to be the way out. Without switching off the light, I ran hard. Mounting the stairs, I swung my way around each bend and propelled myself up each landing.

Around the bend.

Chest heaving.

Around the bend.

Legs aching.

Around the bend.

Lungs blazing.

Another long hallway intersected to the last landing. Two wide swinging doors to my left. The cafeteria? I remember it was on my left as Damian and I went toward the stairs. If I could get through to the other side and take a right, I’d be home free.

I slammed through the doors and gave the room a quick survey before dousing the light.

Twenty-eight. No! thirty-eight! Was it already looking for me? Had it seen me?

I dropped to my knees hearing a rasp of words I couldn’t quite make out but there was something recognizable about the tone. I couldn’t place the familiarity, but I had no time to think about that. The space was wide open and I was far too exposed. Though there were a few round tables overturned here and there, the area was large and if it moved in just the right direction, it would see me.

I was so close now and I couldn’t just sit and wait. I shoved the flashlight into the waistband of my shorts and crawled toward the doors opposite me. Bits of glass from years of broken beer bottles scraped painfully at my knees. Careful to avoid banging into an overturned table or shoving discarded luncheon trays across the floor, I slid my hands in front, making certain the path was clear.

The ragged breathing returned, and I hurried to find a spot to hide. Four metal legs greeted my trembling hands. Though I knew it offered too little cover, I scurried beneath it and waited.

The door behind me fwumped fwumped fwumped as it opened and swung back to rest against the other. 

It had tracked me down once again. My mind raced with possibilities. I could switch on the light and fling it across the room. Would it fall for the trick? Would the gesture give me enough time to reach the exit that lay not far beyond those ugly green doors?

Could I outrun it? The thought teased my brain.

My body ached to flee but fear kept me anchored in place. The sharp edge of the makeshift weapon I’d made bit into the knuckles of the opposite hand as I grasped the leg of the table. No, it would stop soon maybe disappear into another room. I just need to wait for the…

Silence. Sweet silence.

Without survey, I shot from under the table. Without care, I barreled through the dark. I counted the seconds. Within five I was out the cafeteria doors. Five more, and the exit lay in sight. I’d reach it with time to spare! I gave no heed to the pounding of my feet.

My breath, suddenly visible despite the warm summer air outside nearly obscured my vision but I wasn’t going to give up. I ran harder just as an icy chill surged up my spine. The exit was blocked. The thing that stood in my way to freedom was incredibly tall easily the height of the door, but it sagged forward as though deformity kept it in such a hunched posture. Its raggedly clothed body was a patchwork of rotting leathery skin and I screamed. My brain pleaded for my eyes to look away and find some place to hide. But where could I go that it wouldn’t follow? It knew every inch of this building, and I knew nothing.

I was too late.

Within seconds, the thing was on me, moving faster than I thought possible for its size and disfigurement. Rasping breaths escaped a mouth teeming with far too many teeth for anything humanoid. Its eyes tracked my own as I took in the grotesque figure. Eyes. So many eyes.

Weaponless, it reached to take hold of my face and dozens of fingers crawled against my cheeks like fat, wriggling worms.

RUN! I screamed inside my head, but I couldn’t. I was frozen in place, frozen in fear.

Leaning closer, its putrid breath pulled me from my momentary stupor and my eyes locked with its own. No, his… They were Damion’s. The patchwork of a dozen eyes stared back at me, but only one was blue with a grey outline and a speck of gold. Just like the pair that had stared into mine as Damion leaned in for a kiss a few hours before. A roiling pain overruled the confusion as a fire ignited inside my head and spread throughout my body. I could feel clicks and jerks as tendons stretched beyond capability and every joint bent and broke in all directions. Then all was black.

A light appears, hazy in the distance, much like a beam distorted and cutting through the dark. It’s drawing me closer, pulling me toward it. Urging me despite my unwillingness to answer its call. I hear a faint, panicked whisper.

“It’s coming.” The light disappears, casting the room into a darkness of achromatic shapes and shadows.

I cannot stop myself as I move toward where the beam had been and raspy words float from me with a ghostly echo.

“You can’t run forever.”