Doc Mortis. Barry Hutchison

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СКАЧАТЬ this time. It doesn’t work like that,’ Joseph answered. ‘It’s the virus. When he slips over, he’ll be stuck there. He’ll be trapped in the Darkest Corners.’

      I felt my head spin faster as the enormity of Joseph’s words sunk in.

      ‘Trapped,’ he added, hammering the point home. ‘With no way back.’

       Chapter Three THE OTHER OTHER HOSPITAL

      I didn’t notice the door flying open at Joseph’s boot, didn’t even realise we were inside the hospital until Ameena staggered and fell to her knees, and we hit lino instead of concrete.

      Joseph was beside me right away, turning my face so I was looking up at him. The five stabbing pains clawed all the way down into my stomach and a shock of agony shook my whole body.

      An indescribable sound burst across my lips – not a scream or a howl, but something from deeper within than that. Something I didn’t even recognise as human. From my head to my toes, my muscles went rigid, amplifying the hurt a hundred times over.

      ‘Help him! Do something!’

      My jaw was wrenched open and a leather wallet shoved in. My teeth clamped round it, stopping me biting my tongue off.

      ‘There’s nothing we can do.’ That was Joseph’s voice. He sounded a long way away. ‘It’s too late.’

      ‘There’s got to be some kind of cure!’ Ameena cried. ‘This can’t be it. It can’t end like this.’

      They were talking about me as if I wasn’t there. Outside, I could hear the other voices still screeching. Hungryhungryhungry. Hungryhungryhungry.

      ‘Not here. Over there. There’ll be a cure there, if he can find it.’

      Ameena’s face suddenly filled my vision. Sparks of blue flickered like fireflies around her head.

      ‘Did you hear that, Kyle? There’s a cure over there. There’s a cure in the Darkest Corners. Find it, OK?’ I closed my eyes, but she shook me until they opened again. ‘Find it and come back to me.’

      ‘You’ll be better there,’ said Joseph urgently. ‘Not like this. The hospital will be barricaded, so you’ll be safe from the things outside. At least for a while.’

      He nudged Ameena aside and leaned in close to me. His face was a mess of flickering sparks. They scurried across his skin like insects.

      ‘But it’s not what’s outside you need to worry about, it’s what’s inside. There’s someone in the hospital. Someone worse than anything out there. Worse than anyone you’ve had to deal with so far. You’ve got to stay away from him. You hear me, Kyle? You’ve got to stay away from—’

      I never caught the end of the sentence. The entrance hallway exploded in a shadowy spray of blacks and greys, and a tumbling torrent of electric sparks came crashing down on top of me.

      The last thing I heard before I passed out were those voices, louder and clearer and more excited than ever before.

       Hungry, hungry, huuuuuuuungry!

      The clanking of metal woke me. I leapt to my feet, startled, no real idea what was going on. The wallet was still wedged in my mouth. I spat it out, and realised at once that my body no longer hurt.

      I prodded gently at my head. The Crowmaster’s scratches were still there, but there was no pain. Nothing. In fact, other than a dull ache where my knees had hit the hospital floor, I felt in perfect health.

      Relief made me snort out a laugh, but another metallic crash soon wiped the smile from my face.

      The sound was coming from the door, or rather, where the door should have been. Sheets of heavy corrugated iron covered the entrance, wedged in place by thick metal poles and thicker wooden beams. Rolls of barbed wire were strung across the entire barricade, cupping it like a sling and keeping it pressed against the door.

      Everything – the metal, the wood, the wire – shook as the creatures on the other side of the door hurled themselves against it. I could make some of them out through gaps in the blockade, battering against the small windows with clawed, misshapen hands. The glass looked to be long gone, but a wire mesh and half a dozen strong bars stood in its place, keeping everything outside from getting in. Everything except their voices.

      They giggled and shrieked. They spat and swore. They hissed and howled and hollered like all the demons of hell. And all the while, the barricade shook and the chanting continued:

       Hungry, hungry, hungry!

      I turned away and tried to get my bearings. A putrid, mouldy stench caught me right at the back of the throat, and I had to pull the neck of my jumper up over my nose to stop myself being sick.

      I was in a long corridor that stretched away into the distance, ending in shadow. Fluorescent strip lights hung from the ceiling overhead. Most of them didn’t seem to work, but four buzzed and flashed erratically, casting a cold, flickering glow along parts of the corridor.

      Those bits of the corridor I could see were in bad shape. The tiles on the lower half of the walls were filthy, cracked, or crumbled away completely. Above them, on the top part of the walls, it was impossible to tell what colour the paintwork had once been. Damp had seeped through it, marbling the surface with shades of black and brown. Large flakes of the ruined paint had peeled off, revealing patches of raw brickwork below.

      Doors lined each side of the corridor. Some stood open. Others hung in pieces, the wood rotten and decayed. More light flickered from beyond some of the doors, suggesting this corridor wasn’t the only one to have power.

      Dark puddles covered parts of the floor, fed by the constant drip-drip-drip of water that leaked through the decomposing ceiling tiles. At least, I hoped it was water. The rest of the floor, where the puddles didn’t reach, was a mess of debris and junk.

      Soiled bandages and dirty syringes lay scattered around my feet. The half-melted head of a plastic doll stared up at me from within a nest of surgical gauze. I swung back my leg and booted the thing as far along the corridor as I could. I’ve found you can never be too careful when it comes to creepy-looking dolls.

      Hungry, hungry, hungry! the voices behind the barricade screamed. Hungry, hungry, hungry!

      That was it. I’d seen and heard enough. I had missed some of what Joseph had told me, but I remembered him saying I wouldn’t be able to get back. It was time to put that to the test.

      I’d become pretty good at flitting between the Darkest Corners and the real world. It didn’t take much effort now. I used to have to really concentrate, but now I could make the jump just by thinking about it for a few seconds.

      Still, I was taking no chances this time. I shut my eyes, tried to block out the crashing and howling from the entrance, and focused like I’d never focused before.

      It happened in a heartbeat. The decaying walls around me appeared to heal, as the real world rushed in to replace the festering wound that was the Darkest Corners.

      The СКАЧАТЬ