Page 31 of Dead Vengeance

It’s a heartbeat of warmth, safety, relief, but all too soon, Archer steps back, drops his hands to my arms, and with his face an inch from mine, he’s telling me, “It’s not real. Everything you’re seeing right now is a hallucination. I need you to trust me, and I need you to come with me.”

I can barely process a thing, least of all such bizarre words. “What?”

“Don’t give into it,” he insists loudly, forcefully, like I might want to go back into the clutches of whatever that was. His hand lands on my cheek, and he looks deep into my eyes. “I need you to put your complete trust in me right now.”

I’m not hallucinating. I can’t be. This is real. Solid and real and true. Archer is real and true. I can feel him. And that clicking sound. I can hear it again, plain and clear, all around me, inside me.

I look for the thing that’s making it, for that skeleton face I just saw, that just had a hold of me.

“Liam!” Archer snaps, his fingers digging into my shoulders. “Do exactly as I tell you.”

I drop a slight nod. It’s all the reaction I can conjure.

He takes my hand, and we head for the exit. Or where I thought the exit was. Because now it’s not that. And even though I just told Archer I’d follow him, my feet dig into the floor, and I come to a resolute stop.

The doorway is still there, but the door is closed now, and the little windows that should show a hospital walkway on the other side are pale, terrifying. Fog presses against them, swirling, some phantom breeze disturbing leaves, branches, that scratch and scrape against the glass creating an eerie soundtrack.

Then, just for a second, scuttling along the edge, the huge, hairy legs of what looks like an enormous spider.

“Liam, you have to come.” Archer’s voice is strong, and his eyes, scanning the room over my shoulder, show a fierceness I wouldn’t have thought him capable of when I first laid eyes on him this morning. I thought he was some posh, mad antiques dealer. But Archer isn’t that at all. And the knowledge makes my hand grip his a little tighter, some strange sense of safety shoring up my stomach, even as my feet refuse to move.

“Liam.” His hand’s back on my cheek, and the shock of it cuts through my fear. “Tell me what you’re seeing, honey.”

Did he just call me honey?

Okay, maybe this is a hallucination after all. But I think I like that part. So it will be a shame when that bit’s over. The rest of this, though…

“The hallway’s gone,” I tell him, scanning that forbidding doorway. “It’s… not what it was. It’s trees. Or branches. An-and spiders. I think. Or maybe just one.”

“Spiders?”

“Like…” I check again, but I can’t see it now. “Like a tarantula. A really big tarantula.”

“Fuck,” he whispers. “Are you very scared of spiders?”

“I’m… I think I’m a normal amount scared of spiders. Especially ones that materialise out of nowhere in the hospital. And of why that hallway isn’t a hallway.”

“Hallucination,” he says. Then he adds, “Stay behind me.”

When he turns away from me, he keeps his hand in mine, his arm twisted behind his back, and he holds me close. I’m ashamed to admit how badly I want to sink against his back, like I wanted to earlier today, but maybe ten times as desperately now. Still, that shame doesn’t stop me curling closer to him with every step we take, every inch we move towards to that doorway.

His hand touches down on it, and I brave a peek over his shoulder.

“Whatever we see in here,” he says, “we have to keep going. Don’t let go of my hand, and just keep moving.”

“Why is this happening?” I whisper. “Is it… did we eat something?” Because I don’t remember having a thing other than crisps from the emergency room vending machine and far, far too much tea.

“Not here,” he replies. “We’ll talk about this when we’re out.”

His words send a shiver down my spine. ‘Not here.’ Maybe like someone will hear us. Maybe like that thing…

But it’s a hallucination, Archer said. It has to be. So why should it matter who hears us?

I glance back over my shoulder just as Archer pushes the door open—just as that clicking sound engulfs us. There’s nothing but that dark, empty room behind us. So we walk on and into this… this place.

Hot and humid air curls all around us, the fog I saw through the window reaching out like tentacles to slide over my cheeks and arms. A rich and cloying scent, like some sort of incense, wafts on the air, undercut by… Is that tobacco? And beneath it all, a dank mustiness, like old autumn leaves, forest foliage, and something else. Something I can’t place, but that makes my skin crawl.

The memory of that skeletal touch pokes at me, and I move closer to Archer. But Archer… He leans forward, ducking down beneath a branch.