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  Without warning, and shocking everyone in the room, Dr Adams stepped forwards and smashed his fist into the exposed stomach of Thomas Arkle who bucked against the chains. Thomas remained silent and cast his eyes onto a small spot on the far wall.

  Dr Adams leant in close. Thomas could smell the excitement oozing from the doctor’s pores but felt no fear. He knew his time was up and welcomed the release it would bring.

  ‘For our first session, I have a special treat for you. I don’t think you will enjoy it but I certainly will. I am going to perform what is called an Ice Pick Lobotomy on you. My colleagues over the pond claim that it is groundbreaking and today, I am going to perform the first ever operation of its type in this country.’

  He pulled his head back and glared into Thomas’ eyes which were unblinking.

  ‘You are going to be famous,’ he laughed madly. ‘If you survive, that is.’

  He lifted his arm, still holding the drill. Thomas risked a quick glance. The drill was dirty, remains of god knows what was still visible. It certainly hadn’t been sterilised. Dr Adams caught him looking and laughed, moving the drill closer to his face while perversely turning the handle.

  The two orderlies stepped forwards in unison and gripped his arms firmly. Still turning the wheel, Dr Adams aimed and directed the drill bit into the socket of his right eye. Thomas felt the drill bite into the soft skin and bone of his tear duct. The drill momentarily paused as it met resistance. Dr Adams grunted and applied more pressure, allowing the drill to easily penetrate into the skull. Thomas convulsed wildly as the orderlies struggled to hold on to his massive bulk. His nostrils were consumed by a burning smell and the pain was unbearable. He swallowed back bile as his vision flickered on and off. Just as he thought he was going to pass out, the drilling stopped. Dr Adams returned to the trolley and Thomas instantly fell loose in the orderly’s grip.

  Thomas wanted to cry out and beg for his life, but the words would not come. He watched on as Dr Adams returned, holding a sharp tool similar to a small ice pick and a toffee hammer. The doctor leant in close and inserted the ice pick through the hole drilled in his skull. Thomas’ body twitched as it connected with his exposed nerves.

  Breathing heavily, Dr Adams began manipulating the ice pick against the prefrontal cortex section of Thomas’ brain, severing tiny slivers of the connectors that he believed controlled the psychotic triggers deep within the brain. Facing his finest moment, Dr Adams was fully absorbed in the task in hand.

  It took a minute or two for Dr Adams to realise that Thomas was no longer resisting. He had become limp and silent as the doctor had concentrated on snipping away at his brain tissue.

  Dr Adams stopped what he was doing. Leaving the ice pick crudely protruding from Thomas’ eye socket, he quickly checked his patient’s vital statistics.

  'Shite!' he explained. 'The big oaf has died on me.'

  It took a moment for his words to sink in and the two orderlies stood rooted to the spot, unsure of what to do next.

  Dr Adams’ shoulders slumped. He sighed then broke the silence.

  ‘This is nothing to worry about. We work in the field of medicine, and death plays a major part in what we do. We can learn immensely from this experience and go forwards stronger, more educated.’

  He placed his hands on his hips and walked around the room, deep in thought. The two orderlies looked at each other and pulled a pensive expression.

  Thinking aloud, Dr Adams continued.

  ‘What worries me is that we have a state inspection in two days. The discovery of my specimen will raise questions that I am not yet ready to answer.’ He paused and paced around the confined room, clearly agitated. ‘All records of Thomas Arkle having ever been here will be destroyed by tonight. We will lock this room, tell everyone there has been a gas leak and put up a warning sign. We will do whatever we need to do to stop the inspectors entering. Once they are gone, we will bury the body in an unmarked grave out in the woods. No one will ever know.’

  Satisfied with his plan, Dr Adams nodded to the two orderlies and left the room. The orderlies threw some old sacking over the body and went about performing their task in silence.

  Two days after the inspection finished, Dr Adams and a number of his medical staff, including the two orderlies, were dismissed on the spot, accused of gross medical negligence and of the mistreatment of inmates. New staff were sourced within days. The body of Thomas Arkle remained undiscovered. The placement of the warning sign and a thick heavy padlock, of which no one could locate the key, took care of that.

  In the now-defunct special treatment room, padlocked and ignored, the prone corpse of Thomas Arkle lay. His fingers twitched slightly on the harsh, dusty floor, probing and scheming.

  .

  Chapter 2

  St Mary’s – Stannington, Northumberland – 1976

  His heartbeat quickened as he watched them shower. Three fine specimens. All naked.

  His low grunts of pleasure were masked by the clanking of the ancient pipework as they lathered up their pubescent bodies. A joke was shared and the three young boys giggled. Oh, the joys of youth, thought Alfie Finch. Such innocence.

  Alfie had worked at St Mary’s as a caretaker for over ten years, when in reality, all that time he should have been a patient. No one knew his dirty secret, his fondness for young boys, and because he had always observed them from afar and remained silent at work, no one had any reason to suspect his true obsession. An obsession that drove him wild. A constant battle to resist the urge. An obsession stronger than any drug, that when his resolve inevitably failed, brought him rushing down to the boiler room by the boys’ shower. Here he could peek through the tiny hole that he had drilled many years before. Here he was free. A true voyeur. Sometimes he would spend hours, erect and exposed, often staying long after the boys had left, just taking in the atmosphere and absorbing the smell. Occasionally he slowly fantasised about tenderly caressing their wet bodies. Other times, he would be forced to satisfy his needs like a frenzied demon with only minutes to spare.

  It was the dreams that had brought him here. The recurring nightmare for the past seven nights where he had found himself working in the children's ward of the infirmary. Caring for the sick and needy, mopping their feverish brows and gently stroking their hair before ultimately pulling their threadbare hospital issue pyjamas down and climbing into bed with them as they slept peacefully, dreaming the dreams that only the innocent could.

  In the confined room, beads of perspiration trickled down his smiling face. Conscious that his climax was approaching, he increased his pace, his eyes unmoving from his oblivious subjects.

  A cool breeze whipped by his ankles, blowing dust gently into the stagnant air. It wrapped around his legs and ascended his body in a twirl. Alfie detected warm breath on his shoulder, ripe with decay and death. As his mind registered he was not alone, a voice whispered in his ear.

  ‘Beast.’

  Before he could comprehend what was happening, two large hands were placed on his shoulders. Looking down, he saw the skin was leathery and wrinkly, pitted with liver spots. Blackened tendrils encrusted with grime for nails, protruded sharply from the fingers. In an instant, Alfie was yanked back by a supreme force of which he had never encountered or thought possible in a human being.

  Dragged back into the dark recess of the boiler room, Alfie wondered why he could not hear his own screams; it wasn’t until he touched his throat, feeling the tiny incision with warm blood cascading down his hands, that everything became clear and he finally grasped the severity of his situation.

  The sharp talons came again, this time ripping away his eyeballs.

  In that moment of truth, Alfie Finch knew that his death would be far from enjoyable.

  Chapter 3

  St Mary’s – Stannington, Northumberland – Now

  In single file, the group of five trudged slowly through the woods. They were all strangers to some extent. No one
dared to speak. They were an oddball group, no one knew the other’s name, only their handles, imaginary names, invented to protect their online presence. Their true identities would never be revealed or discussed.

  The point man and organiser of the group, Top Dollar, cleared the tree line and came to a halt. He stood as the others joined him. Together, they looked down in awe at their target ahead, which was illuminated by the full moon that hovered in the clear dark sky.

  A hundred metres in front, cut into the woodland, standing alone, was St Mary’s Hospital. Over the decades since its construction, this huge architectural masterpiece had operated as a lunatic asylum, an army hospital during both the First World War and WW2, a TB hospital and finally a children’s hospital. It had finally closed its doors in nineteen ninety-five when it had been abandoned overnight. It held many a tale to be told.

  From a distance, St Mary’s resembled a resplendent stately home. The building was constructed with Victorian red brick and had a huge frontage with a circular clock fixed above the entrance. Administration and accommodation wings ran off to both sides of the building; a majestic water tower, resembling a Russian lookout tower in Cold War Berlin, projected upwards from a central area.

  Top Dollar cleared his throat and spoke to the assembled group in a hushed tone.

  ‘Right. Listen up. We only have an hour inside, so make sure you get into the area you want as quick as you can. You have to be completely silent, mind. There are two security guys on watch tonight, but I’ve only been able to bribe one. He will leave the door open and distract his oppo. Don’t bring any unwanted attention to us or the law will be on us in minutes. Does everyone understand?’

  The group nodded in unison and continued with their silent approach.

  #

  The group went under the name of 28 Days Later, an online community who shared a common interest in Urban Exploration. Urban Exploration involved the exploration and photography of derelict man-made structures in any shape or form. Left abandoned, these landmarks often had to be entered by trespassing and posed many dangers to the group members. Some members were photographers and historians, while others were merely attracted by the sheer thrill. The most popular Urban Exploration targets were old asylums, underground tunnels, factories and shipyards, and remains from the Second World War and the Cold War of the sixties and seventies. Many of these sites were discretely hidden but easy to find if you knew where to look and were capable of using Google.

  A visit to St Mary’s Lunatic Asylum was on the to-do list of most members, but of late, access had been impossible, even for the more experienced members of the group due to tightened security. A chance meeting between Top Dollar and one of the security team in a pub in Morpeth had resulted in unofficial access being offered at a price. Top Dollar had been inundated with requests to join him on his mission when he had posted his update online and had decided to auction off four places to the highest bidders. Within hours, he had more than quadrupled what he had originally spent on the initial bribe. The chosen few had travelled the length and breadth of the country to participate in the desirable and possibly last trip into St Mary’s.

  #

  As the group made their final approach, Pretty in Pink, a twenty-one-year-old photography student with pink plaited hair, hung back, discreetly finishing her joint. The others in front of her, who she only knew from their website posts, ambled forwards in unison. There was Hawk, who was the oldest of the group, who she suspected was a historian, his boring clothes and thick-rimmed glasses being the biggest giveaway. Slightly ahead of him was Titch, who was over six-feet tall and carried himself like a hippo on ice skates due to his colossal weight that Pretty in Pink judged to be close to eighteen stone. He negotiated the muddy pathway, gasping for breath. That just left Dan, the youngest member of the group at eighteen. Tall and skinny with a fondness for heights judging from his regular posts from the top of shipyard cranes and high-rise buildings. He skipped behind Top Dollar, keen to make an impression on the senior member.

  The bramble bushes that clawed at their skin gradually thinned out and gave way to clumpy grass littered with roots. A security fence, ten-foot high and imposing, had been pulled slightly aside by the security guard. They slipped through the narrow gap and pressed themselves up against the walls of St Mary’s, keeping to the shadows as they waited to see if their approach had been detected. With only the sound of Titch’s heavy breathing, time stood still.

  Top Dollar smiled and gave the thumbs up. Bent double they scurried along the wall in search of their entrance inside.

  All doors and windows on the ground floor, except for a single entry point for the site security team, were solidly boarded up. The thick wood, nailed into the thick concrete was emblazoned with the words ‘Wadds Was Here’.

  The multitude of lead tiles covering the expansive roofs had proven to be too tempting and had been stripped bare and stolen within the first few weeks of the asylum closing. Other riches were to be found inside; soon gangs and individuals from near and far had removed anything of value that could be sold on with no questions asked. Piping and radiators had been the first to go. The people involved had not relented until they were satisfied that the old building had been stripped completely bare. Even the ancient electrics had been plundered, with the copper wire painstakingly unpicked and straightened for selling on. If it had weight, it had a price. By the time the council had reacted and installed security, it was too late. St Mary’s had had her insides gutted.

  A flashlight shone through the darkness and Top Dollar stopped dead with the rest of the group almost colliding into him. Top Dollar let out a breath as the light source revealed the friendly security guard who was dressed in the standard black cap and luminescent vest of all security guards worldwide. He lightly shook hands with Top Dollar and they whispered together. The security guard nodded and glanced briefly at the group before directing them to the secure doorway located at the side of the main building. He held the door open as they trooped in and closed it behind them. Locking it, he pointed at his watch for the benefit of everyone who was inside.

  Excited, they all stood together in the main hallway. Stairs led off upstairs and two further corridors ran either side waiting to be explored. The group started preparing their kit, mainly expensive cameras, lenses and filters. All professional. All prized by the owner. This was the first time they had spoken. In hushed tones, they complimented each other’s kit and wished them good luck. One by one, they left the hallway, each with his own destination and plan in mind.

  With her camera slung around her neck and an aluminium tripod in her hand, Pretty in Pink fitted a head torch to safely and quickly guide her through the dark warren. She activated it just as Top Dollar was heading up the first flight of stairs.

  Her eyes adjusted to the new light and she involuntarily shuddered. The light picked up Top Dollar’s footprints, clearly visible in the layers of dust that had multiplied over the years. She almost screamed when, as she watched, the footprints turned from dust to blood with heavy red globules dropping from the soles of his boots.

  Chapter 4

  Pretty in Pink shook her head, unsure of what she had just witnessed. The movement caused the batteries to move, turning off the torch and sending her back into an instant blackness. She could hear her own panicked breathing as she shook the head torch in her hand. The light flickered momentarily on and off before jumping back to life and lighting up the hallway once more.

  She looked towards the stairs in trepidation and smiled to herself as she saw the thick dusty imprints on the stone steps. She reminded herself not to have a joint the next time she did something spooky like this, before carrying on.

  #

  Pretty in Pink had been correct with her guess; Hawk was indeed a historian, a shy reserved history teacher who worked at Cramlington Learning Village ten miles from their current location. He was the only one of the group who was from the local area. With a blueprint of the
asylum supplied by a contact at the local council, he scurried as quickly as he could along the bottom corridor of the East Wing, taking care not to step into the holes and gaps created by rotting floorboards.

  Unbeknown to him, snaking inches above the floor, a slight breeze followed his path, blowing the dust away in all directions.

  Up ahead, Hawk detected whistling. He stopped and listened further. The tune sounded like The Candy Man song from the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Strange, he thought.

  ‘Guys, is that you?’ Hawk called out. There was no reply.

  Cautiously, with a pounding chest, Hawk walked further to investigate. All of the rooms were vacant with doors open, hanging from their hinges or entirely missing. The rotting floorboards underfoot groaned with his every step.

  At the end of the corridor Hawk found the last door firmly closed. Counting to three in his head, he flung the door open and stepped inside. The room was empty. The wind outside shrilled through a broken window; the breeze of the night could be felt through the shattered pane. Hawk sighed, releasing the breath he had been holding. Maybe it was just the wind. What else could it have been?

  He could taste the toxins from pigeon droppings that literally covered every square inch of the small room. He coughed and hacked up a thick lump of black phlegm which he spat out onto the floor. Rummaging through his rucksack, he pulled out a thin mask and fitted it over his face.

  Hawk consulted his blueprint and surmised that he was in one of the old classrooms. This was not what he was looking for. His aim had been to find the chapel first. He looked around the room, further shining his torch. There was an old blackboard with faint chalk scribbles, still fixed to its castors, pushed up against one wall, and several textbooks were discarded on the floor close by.