CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

HOLLIE

It smells of stale drains and air that hasn’t moved in years.

As I descend the final few steps, I notice there’s a tunnel ahead. I look back anxiously, but it’s too late. The floor tile slides into place, knocking out the last of the light and sealing me underground.

Taking a shaky breath, I turn on the torch and carefully lower myself, squeezing into the narrow, damp space where the walls are moist and shiny with something living.

The tunnel seems to go on forever and I’m hyper-aware of every sound and movement – the drip on my neck, an uncomfortable sensation beneath my hands. Have I slipped through a portal into another universe? That’s what it feels like as I clamber out of the crawl space, wheezing.

The air is thick with mildew, my lungs are having a hard time pulling oxygen in. Dusting off my knees I look up, my eyes running over the ancient steel structure.

Where am I? Luca said it was the back way in. It feels like a cathedral inside a mountain. Nobody’s been here in decades.

Moving the torch in circles, I shine the beam against the walls. The paint is peeling, there’s the faint echo of dripping water. Small rivers of rust drain from the ceiling to the floor and in the weak light it looks as if the building is bleeding.

I make a slow full turn and stumble over a cracked tile. The floor is uneven, swollen from where the earth is pushing through. At the other end of the high-ceilinged room are swing doors but I can’t see where they lead.

The doors squeak, pushing open, the eerie drip drip chasing after me into a corridor where there are at least a dozen doors with frosted-glass windows so smeared with grime, it’s impossible to see what’s behind them.

I try the first door on my right; the handle rattles and breaks off in my hand. Christ, this place must be nearly a hundred years old. I have better luck with the next: the door whines on its hinges like an arthritic joint. I give it a hard shove and it judders open.

Icy air and the smell of mould and old paper rushes towards me. It’s as cold as a freezer compartment but it’s not the temperature that’s making my hairs stand on end. Instinctively, I cross my arms, pulling the thin material of my hoodie closer to me.

I pick my way around the boxes of abandoned paperwork, broken medicine bottles and urine-coloured tubes snaking across the floor.

Shining the torch over an old newspaper, I see it’s a copy of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung dated 1925, yellowed and stained with age. Underneath, there’s a patient file. I flick through the pages; I’m trying to make sense of what I’m reading, but it’s all in German. I recognize some medical terminology – a provocation test, that’s a subcutaneous injection, a test to see how sensitive your lungs are, but the chemicals, the allergens they were testing with . . . I swallow hard. They’re toxic.

Digitalis. A known poison. Why would they be testing this on people?

All at once the temperature in the room feels like it’s dropped by five degrees. I look up, my eyes pulled to the wall at the far end of the room where there is a chalkboard and a list of surnames, various nationalities, faded and rubbed out. Patients?

To my right is a standing light arching over a chrome operating table. Looped around both ends are leather restraints, darkened with time. I move towards it. No, it’s not the ageing process, they’re stained with – I swallow again – blood.

Oh God. What is this place?

I breathe in sharply as I take in the room with fresh eyes. It’s a hospital of some kind, that much is obvious, but what they were doing to their patients fills me with dread. I dimly recall Tinx saying it was an allergy testing centre before it became an observatory.

Parked nearby is a trolley with rusted surgical tools lined up in neat rows, coated in a skin of dust. Scalpels, amputation saws, forceps, clamps, scissors. I can almost smell the tang of disinfectant and blood.

I pick up a cranium saw, my stomach loosening as the horror of what it must have been used for takes hold. I can almost hear the screaming.

What does this have to do with allergies? Was that just a cover for something illegal? Barbaric.

Before I know it, I’m shivering violently and my nerves are skittering. I don’t believe in spirits but something about this room is making my hair stand on end. I tuck my chin into my hoodie, wrap my arms around myself and make a rapid exit, shutting the door on the sordid past. My footsteps ring out as I pick up my pace, hurrying past the last few rooms.

The final door has been left ajar and I glimpse an operating table, more leather restraints. Some medieval breathing apparatus. A primitive-looking toilet, cracked and stained.

The churning in my stomach intensifies as I step around an abandoned wheelchair. Made out of wood, it’s early twentieth century. I feel like the ghost of whoever once sat here is still haunting this corridor. A shiver bolts down my spine and I can’t reach the second set of swing doors quick enough.

Finding myself in a stairwell, I peer over the railing into an inky pit and hesitate. Goosebumps are crawling down my neck. Where the fuck does this lead? I flash the beam down but the torch is only picking out the first few steps.

This is a terrible idea.

My feet echo as I climb down. My breath mists in front of me; it feels like I’m sinking deeper into the bedrock, entering a subterranean world that’s been co-existing this entire time. While I’ve been upstairs, running around chasing my tail, something ghastly has been thriving right under my nose.

I come to a hard stop in front of another set of swing doors where there’s a bright light creeping around the edges. It could be a scene from a horror film and I can smell bleach and cleaning products and there’s the faint buzzing of electrical equipment.

I inch the door open, my eyes straining under the glare of the overhead lights, and I let out a small gasp.

I’ve been transported from early 1900s asylum to a modern-day hospital ward.

The rhythmic bleeping of machines, the tick ticking echoing down a stark white corridor.

Then, the sound of footsteps overlapping. Plimsoles squeaking across the linoleum floor.

Shit.

The murmur of voices is drawing nearer and I dive into an alcove, pinning my shoulders to the wall. I hold my breath, pulling the toe of my trainer out of sight in the nick of time.

The high-pitched squeal of wheels turning fills the corridor. Two women dressed in green hospital scrubs hurry towards me; one is pushing a man on a stretcher bed while the other follows closely behind with a saline drip.

Rez?

He’s alive. His chest is rising and falling but I can’t see his face.

I follow at a distance, lurching between the recesses in the wall, trying to keep up without being seen. My heart is hammering so hard it could leap out of my chest.

They turn sharply into a much shorter corridor, ramming the bed into the next set of twin doors. They swing like saloon doors in a Western. I count to five and follow.

I’m thrust back into darkness. Instinctively, I drop to my knees and crawl behind the first thing big enough to hide behind. Some sort of electrical equipment that hums and warms my back as I press against it.

There’s noise all around me. People talking over each other. A loud whirring, a ventilation system of some sort. I take a few seconds to catch my breath, to let my heartbeat slow down, and then inch my head around.

What the—

My pulse jump-starts again as my eyes run over the mass of machinery and flashing lights. I’m in a dome-shaped room, the size of a chapel, hidden deep within the bedrock. The room might be a century old but it feels as if I’ve crawled into the future, inside a spaceship preparing to take off.

Cast in an eerie blue light at the far end is a control deck. Wide, stretched-out dashboards glow red and white with LED buttons, at least fifty monitors and a cinema-sized screen running the length of the wall.

It’s a cacophony of monitors bleeping and screens flashing with data. There are grids, charts, graphs, all spiking and falling as they’re fed information. It’s a futuristic level of technology, like nothing I’ve seen before in the medical world.

The nurses I was stalking come to an abrupt stop and half a dozen more rush around the man, like vultures to a carcass.

Is it Rez? My stomach swoops at the thought. How do I get closer without being seen? It’s also impossible to identify who any of these people are. I can’t spot Ariel but she must be here somewhere. What is this place and what do they want with him?

A taller figure steps forward, I think it’s a man, and he’s holding a pair of surgical scissors. He lowers them towards the man on the stretcher and cuts open his gown.

All at once, there’s a burst of activity. Nurses swarm around him, attaching electric probes to his chest. Seconds later the ECG machine comes to life with the rhythmical beat of his heart.

What the fuck is going on?

There’s a loud clanging. The sudden roar of a turbine engine makes me startle. It sounds like a plane taking off and my eyes are pulled to the centre of the room, to the machine that’s flickered into life, and my heart jumps into my throat.