Page 59 of Into the Dark

He was gone, and Oscar didn’t know how to find him.

Nigel opened eyes that felt crusted shut. His head swam and his lungs ached. Rolling onto his side, he gave in to a violent coughing fit that seemed like it would never end. When it finally did, he lifted his head to take stock.

Darkness. Not even a sliver of light managed to illuminate the scene around him.

Where was he? What the hell had happened? He’d been left behind when everyone else rushed out of the asylum, made his way downstairs after them, the door had slammed shut before he could reach it, and…

Nothing. Whatever had happened next was a blank.

Panic clawed at his throat. Was he still in the asylum? He must be. His whole body ached, he couldn’t breathe through hisclogged nose, his lungs were filling with phlegm, he was alone and?—

No. Freaking out wouldn’t help anything. Clearing his throat, he weakly called out. “Oscar? Dr. Lawson? Is anyone there?”

Silence. But of course, in a building filled with ghosts, that didn’t mean no one heard him. One could be standing right next to him, slowly reaching out a freezing hand to touch his neck…

He slapped his imagination down a second time. The situation was bad enough; no need to scare himself into a panic. He fumbled at his belt, and almost wept with relief when he found the flashlight still clipped there.

The beam seemed dimmer than it should, as if the darkness was pushing back against it, but at least he could see something now. He lay on a concrete floor that sloped gently down to a drain set in the center. There was an old sink with a disintegrating rubber hose hooked up to the tap at one end of the room, and a pair of double doors at the other. To either side, the walls were lined with square doors, one of which hung open to reveal a sort of long tray hanging half out.

It was a morgue, and the doors were for body storage.

Heart rabbiting in fear, he sat up. The morgue was in the basement, which meant he was underground. How the fuck had he gotten down here?

That didn’t matter right now. What mattered was: How was he going to get out?

This was no time to panic. He tried to imitate Oscar’s deep breathing technique, but his lungs rebelled and left him bending over, coughing and struggling to draw air in.

This was bad. Really bad.

Okay, step one: Stand up.

Using the sink for leverage, he pulled himself to his feet, trying not to think of the fluids the rubber hose had been used to wash out of the body storage drawers. Once he was up, he shonehis flashlight to the opposite end of the room, where the double doors waited.

Step two: Get to the exit. Even though that would mean walking past the bodies.

No, that was stupid. A lot of things had been abandoned here when the asylum shut down, but no one would have left human remains behind.

Would they?

“Fuck,” he muttered out loud.

There was still a pouch of salt in his pocket, so he drew it out, poured some crystals into one hand, and held them ready. The EMF reader didn’t seem like it would be of much use, so he left it on his belt. All he had to do for the moment was cross the room to the doors. Once he was there, he’d take stock and worry about what came next.

“One step at a time, Nigel,” he whispered to himself. “You can do this.”

Something banged on the inside of one of the drawers.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-TWO

Oscar satin the command center, head in his hands. Outside, the sun was slipping below the horizon, bringing on full dark. Whatever protection the daylight had offered against the spirits of the asylum would be gone within the next five minutes.

Not that it had protected Nigel.

He didn’t know what to do. His boyfriend had seemingly disappeared into thin air, though he knew that couldn’t be the case. Could Nigel have found some door they’d overlooked, gotten trapped somewhere? But why would he have gone exploring on his own, especially when he knew they needed to stick together?

“This is my fault,” Dr. Lawson said. She stared at the monitors, which showed nothing but the silent corridors of the wards. “I let my anger distract me. I couldn’t wait to confront Patricia, so I didn’t stop to make sure everyone was accounted for.”

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