An Urban Legend By Kayne

“Anyway, so I told that guy, I don’t care how much it’s gonna cost me, what I wanna know is how long it will take me to put the damn thing together!”
Daniel started to uncontrollably laugh at his inside joke as he was speeding down the rainy mountain. He resumed his conversation.
“M’kay honey, well I gotta go… Yea yea yea, I got this. Don’t worry, it will all be fine.”
Daniel pressed cancel on his mobile phone and continued to drive down the slope.
Thunder crashed through a nearby tree as quick as lightning.
Daniel was half asleep, but the lightning made his reflexes jump. He swerved the car to a sharp left which made his car kiss the base of a tall red oak tree.
There was mass wreckage scattered across the mountainous region. Shards of red metal were stuck into the trees nearby as if an explosion had happened recently.
Daniel mumbled in a squeal voice, trying his best to crawl out of the car before the big bang happened. He didn’t want to believe it, but he knew it was bound to occur.
“Somebody help me! Please!”
He got up and limped as fast as he could to the passenger seat and reached for his phone. He grabbed it, and dropped it seconds after. It was pitch black. He could not see a thing. His only chance was to turn on his headlights, and he knew they were beyond repair.
Daniel got out of the car. He limped into a run like a headless chook until he reached the road which he had come off. You could see the skid marks. A good eye would even notice them smoking. But Daniels eyes were focused onto something else.
Daniel stared into the darkness and onto what he thought was a man.
Had he killed someone because of his jumpy reflexes?
He went closer to see if the guy was ok. As he got closer he started to see things on the guy that weren’t normal. This man lying on the road had these jittering metallic spikes coming out of his arm.
Daniel grabbed the man by the arm not seeing these spikes and pricked himself. It started to swell immediately.
“Splinter, that’s the same story as Splinter.”
“What? Just shut up and let me finish, I’m almost at the good part.”
“Whatever, you’re always ripping off ideas and claiming them as your own because you changed one little detail. You never change Kirk.”
“If anyone wants your opinion they can ask you ok Janice? But until then please shut up, as I said I am almost at the good bit.”
So this man was just lying there and Daniel grabbed his arm, Daniel was shocked to see these huge spike things growing into his own arm.
He started to freak out and then that’s when it happened.
“What? He wet his pants?”
“No you idiot, he was abducted by an alien aircraft. That explains the strange metallic spikes.”
Janice got up and got a drink of coffee for herself.
Brett looked at Kirk and said “That was totally lame dude, didn’t freak the cat out.”
Kirk thought of it odd as Brett always referred to Janice as a cat.
“Whatever dude, I’m not good with the horror thing, I rather the whole comedy shift. I’m gonna go use the crapper.”
“Thanks for the further knowledge.”
Brett got up to go see where Janice was ignoring Kirk’s movements.
He found Janice getting some coffee. He decided to use her not knowing where he was as an advantage. He snuck up behind her and silently grabbed his prop knife from the bench. With his right arm he slowly raised it to her head height. He quickly swung his arm around her eyes and jabbed the knife into her abdomen. Fake blood squirted her shirt as the fake knife slid into its socketed Handle.
Janice was in shock, she looked down at her shirt and saw the blood thinking it was real. She then tuned her vision to the knife which looked as real as the blood.
She let out a pitch scream. Kirk had heard it and ran into the kitchen and zipped up his fly. He was in just as much shock to see Janice covered in blood and Brett on the floor laughing.
“What the hell is going on in here? Are you ok Janice?”
“I’m fine, that jerk on the floor thought it would be funny to load a prop knife with cranberry juice and squashed up cherries” she said distressfully as she licked the fake blood of her fingers.
Brett got up from the floor and went outside to use the outdoor toilet.
“This crappy cabin is falling apart Kirk, you should really touch it up a bit.”
“Easier said then done Brett. I’m gonna stay here with Janice, you go do whatever.”
“Whatever man, watchout for The Jackal wont you?”
“That’s pure myth, no proof of existence at all.”
Kirk went inside the cabin as did Brett.
“Hey Janice!” Kirk yelled
“Brett finally has a story for us.”
“Really? What about?”
“Mr. Jackal” Brett interrupted.
“Ok let’s hear it. I got us some popcorn earlier, thought we might get hungry.”
“Ok, but no interruptions. When I start I finish.”
“Just tell the damn story Brett.” Kirk said in a rush.
“Ok, here goes….
There was a man, he was the son of a prostitute. Everyone knew him as, the Jackal. He had these long fingernails and an insatiable thirst for women.
The Jackal’s real name is Ryan Windloch, who was born in 1887 to a prostitute. Ryan had an insatiable lust for women, rape, and murdering prostitutes.
Wanting to be cured, he committed himself to Borehamwood Asylum, which is not to far from here, 20 k’s give or take.
But after attacking a nurse, he was put in a straitjacket and thrown in a padded room. After years of this imprisonment he went completely insane, scratching at the walls so violently that his fingernails were torn completely off.
The doctors kept him permanently bound in his straitjacket, tying it tighter when he acted out, causing his limbs to contort horribly. Still fighting to free himself, Ryan gnawed through the jacket until the doctors finally locked his head in a metal cage and sealed him away in the dark basement cell. There, he grew to hate any kind of human contact, screaming madly and cowering whenever approached.
When a fire broke out in the asylum, everyone but Ryan escaped.
He chose to stay behind and face the fire. As a ghost, his arms are free from his jacket, and the bars of his cage are ripped outwards.”
“Wow that was actually a pretty good story.”
“Thanks Janice, glad to hear someone is smart about horror.”
“No man, that was freakin of the hook! Where did you think of that?”
“I didn’t think of it. It is a true story.”
“Don’t say that Brett, you know that stuff freaks me out.”
“Well Janice I wish I could say otherwise but the truth is it actually is a true story, no buts, no ifs, no could’ve or possibles. It’s all true.”
“Well, I’m off. I’ll see you guys in the morning.”
“Ok Kirk, you sure you’re good to drive home alone? I can give you a lift.”
“That’s cool of you to offer Brett but I want her to drive me home not you.”
“Huh? Oh I guess I could if you want me to.”
“Oh god Janice, I was kidding. You don’t even have a licence yet and your as drunk as me if not more. Ever heard of sarcasm? You know what never mind. I forgot how blonde you can get sometimes.”
“Hmmm, well seeya Brett.”
“Seeya Janice. Take care Kirk.”
“Yea, bye.”
Brett left the cabin and got into his 2001 mustang. He drove home.
It was pitch black out but not as dark as Brett’s story.
“Hey Janice, do you reckon that story really was true?”
“I’d rather not talk about it. It freaked me right out.”
“Understandable.”
“I’m hungry. You?”
“Yea, I’ll go out and get something. You wanna come or wait here?”
“I’ll wait.”
“Call me if you need anything else then.”
“M’kay. Back soon.”
Kirk left the cabin and got into his white Ute. He drove off with little sound but Janice was aware of him leaving and she wasn’t to keen on going to bed until he got back.
Kirk turned on the radio in his Ute but there was nothing of interest to him so he put in a Metallica CD. It played his favourite song ‘Master of Puppets’. It was a long drive to the shops. About 40 K’s. The cabin he had left from was practically built in the middle of nowhere.
As he was driving he noticed someone running across the trees near him. He passed it as inconceivable as no human could run as fast as his Ute. Hell, he believed no Ferrari could go as fast as his Ute. But he still forgot about the being, after a few seconds of Metallica.
Kirk saw a sign that said “far from home”
He assumed it was a joke but then he saw a street sign named the same.
He drove on another 10k’s. He passed an eerie building. The sign had rusted away and it look like a police station. But Kirk let his mind get the best of him and assumed it was the Asylum Brett was talking about.
He eventually passed the thought of the Asylum and drove on. It was 7:00PM. He had left around 5:20PM so that was a good Hour and forty on the road. He had gone at least 100 k’s by now. He finally had reached the shops, they were empty. No one was present and the shops were closed. It was your average run down the mill ghost town. He could almost feel breathing down his throat.
He went for a walk anyway, in the hope to get some fresh air to clear his mind about the Asylum.
He walked over to the butcher. It was an odd place. There were ribs dripping with blood hanging from the ceiling and some freshly chopped chicken fillets slapped onto a table. There was no one present anywhere at the time. It looked as though no one had been present for years, but objects said differently.
He walked past the butcher and saw a beauty saloon. It was also empty. There was a hairdryer hanging from a leather black chair and orange and pink combs scattered across the ground. It looked like someone had been murdered. There was dark red hair dye splattered across the purple haze walls and bright coloured hairs scattered across the white and black marble tiles.
Kirk walked back to his Ute. He must have stepped over at least six letters from fallen signs.
Kirk left for home empty handed.
As he drove home, he noticed the figure chasing him across the forest at the same road as last time. This time he was sure it was someone or something.
It was a dark figure with a boxed hat and it had no arms that he could see. It was quite a distance away from him but he was sure it was staring at him while it ran, and that sent shivers down his spine.
When he got home, all the lights were out and the TV was turned on. It was just white noise. Janice was in the kitchen eating some nachos.
“Home early?”
“There was no one there. It was a ghost town.”
“That’s barely an excuse for coming home empty handed.”
“You call this home?”
“Well it is after all where I grew up.”
Kirk paused for a second, he had already figured that there was no point continuing, and he always lost these fights.
“Stuff it, lets just go.”
“Go where?”
“Lets go to the asy…. the old run down building just a few K’s down. It’ll be fun, like old times.”
“Um, no Kirk. What the hell. You come home with no food, you look exhausted. You haven’t even grabbed yourself a drink yet and you are asking me to go into an old building with you at night time with no possible human interaction for at least a hundred kilometres.
“Come on, don’t be like that. It’ll be fun I promise, if you don’t wanna stay we can always just come back or something?”
“Fine. But I’m driving.”
“Fine.”
Kirk and Janice left the cabin, they didn’t bother locking it up. No one in their right minds would walk past a cabin in the middle of nowhere and break in. There would be nothing of value. Kirk kept repeating this over and over in his head for reassurance as he did not have a cabin key and neither did Janice. Her parents never left home much and no one lived anywhere near them, Janice would just sit down by the lake and watch the pelicans swim past while her father was in the back chopping wood and her mother was caring after her baby brother who she had not seen in at least 7 years.
Kirk got into the passenger seat of his Ute and Janice rubbed her hands together as she sat down in the driver’s seat.
“Who’s ready to burn some rubber?” Kirk said with a smile.
“Lets see how this thing rolls.”
“Honey, I can tell you now; it don’t roll, it flies.
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
She pulled back on the handbrake and the Ute suddenly rolled backward at high speed.
“Shit, press the button ion and push down!”
“I’m trying, it wont budge!”
“Here, give it here.”
Kirk pushed down on the handbrake and the Ute came to a quick halt.
They both sat back into their seats. Janice had jammed her toe under the brake for a quick second but she could still feel the throbbing pain.
“Shit!”
“What’s the matter?”
“I jammed my toe in the bloody brake!”
“You’ll be fine, just be careful next time. You almost killed my baby!”
“Oh get over yourself, it’s just a Ute. You can always buy a new one.”
“I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.”
“Lets hurry up, I’m starting to change my mind.”
“That’s weird”
Kirk fiddled with his stereo system and listened in closely to the static it produced.
“Just go Kirk!”
“Fine. But I’m putting on Cold Chisel for the road.”
Kirk put the Ute in reverse and drove out from the crowded driveway made from collected leaves and rocks.
As he drove onto the road he couldn’t help but wonder about his stereo system, it had never done anything like that before. Static noises were never produced when he wanted to listen to Metallica, all that should have been produced are some guitar solos.
“Swift!” Kirk yelled as he jabbed Janice’s arm.
“Ah! that hurt you ass!”
“It was a Suzuki Swift, your supposed to hit the closest person next to you when you see one or its bad luck.”
“Hit me again and I break your face, got it?”
“Whatever, what’s a swift doing out here anyways?”
“Oh I don’t know, how about dunno don’t care?”
“I wonder who was driving it.”
“Probably some human out of his mind and thinking its ok to drive without being questioned by maniacs at the wheel thinking their hundred year old Ute is a Ferrari.”
“Seriously Janice, there is no town anywhere near here apart from that creepy empty place.”
“Well doesn’t Brett drive a Suzuki Swift?”
“Yea, but he left. That couldn’t have been him. Could it?”
“Look, I really don’t care. You’re always like this when something happens out of order.”
“No I’m not, I am just smart enough to question things that deserve to be questioned. I’m not so passive like you.”
“Yea your right. You put the Ass in Assertive.”
“Well were here.”
“Are you crazy?! You said it was a building.”
“It is a building.”
“It’s a freaking Asylum you jerk. I’m not going in there.”
“Come on, what are you scarred of?”
“Oh Christ I don’t know, maybe an Asylum?”
“What’s to be scared of? Everyone in here died of with the fire.”
“Exactly, they died. I have this rule where I don’t go wondering into buildings that I think are haunted, and that also carries the context of ‘I will not step within a hundred metres of buildings I think are haunted by crazy people!’”
“Your being a loser Janice. Come in with me, nothing will happen, we will step in and out and you will wanna go back.”
“No, we will step in and you will say, let’s go further and I will say no and you will come up with something that will make me go in with you.”
“Your point being?”
”Ugh, I’m not going in, you have fun.”
“Don’t be a loser Janice.”
“What do you mean by loser? I will lose you or you will lose me? Because you better weigh up your options, if you force me to go in, which is more likely?”
Kirk gave her a dissatisfied look and walked near the gate of the Asylum. He almost tripped on a huge letter ‘A’ lying on the ground. It was still strangely warm.
Kirk came to the entrance of the Asylum. He wiped his hand down the charcoaled door and blew the black dust off the entrance handle.
“I’m going in!” Kirk yelled.
“Don’t forget to come back out!” Janice shouted back from the car.
Kirk ignored the reply and slowly stepped inside the building after opening the black door. It was pitch black inside.
Janice was sitting in the passenger seat with her eyes closed. She was relaxed.
A hand slowly made its way into the window and creeped in her hair.
She screamed wildly and threw her hand backward into the handbrake.
“Shit, are you ok?”
“What the hell!”
“I just came back to get my torch.”
“You’re a complete ass you know that?”
“Yea, you told me.”
“I’m bored. I think I might go in. I haven’t felt a rush of adrenaline like that in a long time.”
Kirk tried to hide his smile and opened the door for her.
“Just, don’t leave me.”
“Oh shut up. You know I wasn’t being serious.”
Kirk and Janice walked toward the opened Asylum door and turned on the torch. It was like the first second of light after a cold night. They both felt relieved and happy for a second. Then they remembered where they were.
“Oh my god!”
“What, Janice you ok?”
“You creep! You made my hair black.”
Kirk looked at Janice watching her hands as she stroked her hair.
“No, it’s just the darkness, your hair isn’t black.”
“You better hope your right or I’ll break your neck.”
“You know you’re not funny?”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
“No seriously Jan, that isn’t funny. It just makes you look bad.”
“I. was not kidding. If my hair is stained with black building paint, I will put my hands on your head and apply pressure until your upper spinal cord makes a loud enough snap and you drop to the floor with blood dripping out of your mouth.”
“Wow, you really are a freak.”
“Shut up, give me the torch.”
“After what you just said I think I might need to use it so I can see where I am running.”
“Funny”
“I thought so.”
Kirk smiled as he walked down a corridor next to the reception desk which was blocked off with tough plastic used to stop gun shots.
“Hey Janice! Come look!”
“What now?”
Janice walked over to Kirk and peered over his neck.
“It’s a trapdoor?”
“No, it’s the trapdoor.”
“Sorry, did I miss something?”
“Remember? The Jackal?”
“You are an idiot.”
“What?”
“The Jackal was in cell #53 and this is cell #08.”
“How do you know? That wasn’t in the legend.”
“I did my research, follow me.”
“Ok.”
Kirk was hesitant to follow her as she had really seemed to change as she walked into the Asylum.
“I’m gonna need the torch.”
“Oh, right. Here.”
Kirk handed her the torch and started to follow her. She was headed for a flight of stairs which lead up into them 2nd story of the building.
Janice came to the stairs and turned to face Kirk.
“What’s wrong?” Kirk asked.
“Nothing, I went the wrong way.”
Janice had a blank face and wide eyes while she stared at Kirk, he was quite tense and worried.
Janice told him to follow once more. He did without question. It wasn’t that he was fine with it. He was just in minor shock as Janice was someone who slept with the lights on in her room and now she was leading him into a haunted Asylum with no lights on and noises such as branches from trees creaking along with the howling wind.
They came to a tunnel of stairs that led down into the Asylums basement.
“We need to go up don’t we?” Kirk said.
“No, we need to go down.”
Kirk was strangely satisfied with Janice’s recent ‘change’ as she would usually give him some sort of speech about how much he doesn’t trust her. Or how he keeps doing things his way. Since he followed her, the answers she gave were short and to-the-point answers.
They started walking down the stairs and as Kirk passed all the cell doors he started to talk about all the people that used to live here.
“Maybe they all ended up here? Surely they had to go somewhere, they couldn’t all just get up one morning and leave. Something must have made them leave. So either it had something to do with this building or it was something else?”
“Follow me”
That seemed to be the only thing Janice was saying, no matter what he asked, she would say follow me, or give an answer without thinking about it for a second. Kirk started to wonder if she had started to go crazy. This place did seem to have that effect. He pushed the thought aside and stopped as Janice stood still with her long hair down her face.
She was facing the opposite direction to what Kirk was. They had been walking down a straight isle hallway for at least ten minutes and yet the stairs seemed to be only meters away from them.
“Janice, you ok?”
… No answer
“Janice honey, are we there?”
… Still no answer
“Baby?”
Kirk put his hand over her shoulder and as quick as he could let go she turned around and grabbed him by the throat.
Janice lifted Kirk up into the air with one hand and squeezed her pale blue fingers tighter around his throat. He swung his fists around and tried to grab hold of Janice’s hand but he couldn’t move them anymore. It was as if he was paralysed. Only his arms couldn’t move, the rest of his body could. He was panicking.
He heard footsteps running down the stairs behind him and in the corner of his eye, he saw Janice running toward him. She was yelling at him. It was defiantly Janice. He turned back to face the thing that was holding him and saw nothing.
Janice grabbed him and slapped him.
“Stop it Kirk, please I’m begging you please just stop it.” Janice cried.
“What are you talking about? Did you see that thing?”
“What? No, just please stop it!”
“Stop what?”
“Killing yourself” Janice’s eyes were bouldering with tear drops.
Kirk stared into her eyes and knew she wasn’t lying. Whatever that thing was that grabbed him, she didn’t see it.
“Just tell me what you saw Jan.”
“I lost you… and I couldn’t find you. I started … to … “
Janice was still crying and found it hard to talk. Kirk assured her it was all going to be ok
“I can’t tell you, I want to…”
“Want to what Janice?”
Janice stopped talking and looked into his eyes.
“Never mind Jan, let’s just get out of here.”
“Ok”
They both turned to walk back up the stairs. But the stairs weren’t there. They were in the other direction.
“The stairs are here Kirk” Janice said with a normal face, but her eyes were still glassy.
“No, I thought they were this way?”
“No, that way leads to the commons.”
“That’s where the Jackals’ cell is right?”
“Yeah I think.”
“Lets go.”
“Kirk you said we could leave.”
“Yeah and I also promise we would see the Jackals cell.”
“What cell? His cell was burnt down along with this place, there is bound to be nothing but crisps of burnt metal.”
Kirk stared at her unconvinced and started to walk toward the Commons.
“If you wanna go back to the car Jan, be my guest. But your gonna be going alone because I’m gonna go see me a Jackal.”
Janice turned and started up the stairs.
Kirk walked toward the commons further yet and found a set of stairs that lead straight to the supposed Jackal cell.
As he walked up the stairs he started to get pictures in his head of crazy people with straight jackets on. It creeped him out but he still ventured fourth into the dark stairway. As he got to the top of the stairway he saw a long corridor with rows of cells. He thought one of them had to be the Jackals.
Just as he started to walk, an old woman walked out from the first cell. She turned and locked the cell door. She was holding an empty food tray that had scraps of bread crusts and crumbs on it. She turned and stopped. She stared right through Kirk and opened her eyes wide. She dropped the food tray and started screaming.
“No! Josiah stop!” She yelled.
Kirk was frozen in shock, he started to squeeze his hands tightly together. He couldn’t move. Suddenly the old woman started to sprint toward him. Her keys dangled from her pocket as she ran. Kirk was breathing deeply. His heart started to hurt. The woman’s eyes were filled with agony and veins. She ran straight past Kirk and toward the window. She reached it and threw her hands outward. She started yelling again.
“Don’t worry Josiah, I will help you. I can help you.”
She suddenly screamed
“No!”
Then she turned and faced Kirk. She mumbled
“It’s your entire fault.”
And she simply sat on the window and fell backward like a diver on a boat.
Kirk was out of his shock, he ran toward the wall. There was no window. It was gone. He rationalized and came to the conclusion that it must have been a hallucination.
“This place must just be getting to me.” He groaned.
He started walking forward. He past door 2. Then he past door 3. He walked on for twenty-three minutes before he came to another two corridors. One ran off to the left and the other to the right. The moonlight lit up the right corridor and a red carpet was intact for the left. He decided not to choose and to continue walking onwards. He walked past door 578 and on the opposite side 579. He could see a dead end a long way upwards. He could faintly see the numbers but he couldn’t quite make them out. He decided to jog over to it. The jog turned into a run. The run into a sprint. His ego fuelled him to get to the door. He didn’t know why but he had a burning desire to open it.
When he came to the door he noticed the two doors beside him. Door 664 and 665. The door in front of him was the last one. Door 669. He was confused at the skipped numbers but he tried to open it anyway. It was locked. He was furious. In a rage he slammed his fists into the door hoping to knock it open but to no avail. He slammed his right fist into it one last time and knocked the last number in place. Its hinge was loose. He looked at the newly formed number and the door creaked open.
He was overcome with joy and excitement but that quickly faded as he entered the dark room.
Kirk felt as though he was being watched, by many people. He could almost see someone staring at him through an old window straight in front of him. It looked like the lady he saw earlier but he dismissed the thought of it and started to look around.
It was hard to see anything; Janice had taken the torch with her to the car.
He started to look for the light switch on the wall but there was nothing. He looked on the opposite side and as he ran his fingers across the wall like a moth to light, he heard a faint click. He had found the light switch. But it didn’t work.
He tried to think of ways to get light. The moon was on the opposite side of the window so that was no help.
“There’s got to be some sort of generator around. There always is in a place like this.” Kirk whispered to himself. It helped him stay calm.
He breathed in deeply and knew what he had to do. If all the movies he had seen were even remotely realistic, then the generator would be in the basement.
The one place he didn’t want to go was the place he had to go. He started slowly walking toward the door to walk out of the room. He half expected it to slam shut as he was walking toward it. The door started to close a little, Kirk overreacted and pounced at the door. It was just the breeze coming through the window, he knew that but he didn’t want to take any chances of the door not opening back up again. He came to the corridor. It looked slightly different, the three way intersection was gone, it was just one straight corridor. The stairs were out of sight, all he could see where more doors. He started to run ahead.
The more he ran, the more noise he made. The more noise he made the faster he ran. The noise started to scare him so he ran faster, as fast as he could possibly run, then after that he went even faster. Nothing happened, He ran on for a long time. He had forgotten to wear his watch but it wouldn’t have helped much given the fact he couldn’t see his wrists. In fact he couldn’t much see anything. He just kept running.
He had been running for at least half hour before he stopped and sat down beside a door. He had left the backpack with food in the car. He was thinking about Janice, What if she got lost? What if she hurt herself? These thoughts were haunting his mind. Then he started to reassure himself
“She would’ve made it back, she is probably in the car pigging out on all the food now. He started to get angry at the thought. Here he was starving in a creepy burnt building and there she was in his beautiful Ute eating out on all his favourite foods.
He stood up against the door and look straight ahead. It was the opposite side door. He looked strangely at the number.
“No, that can’t be right.” He mumbled.
The number he was staring at was 665. He turned to look at the door he was leaning against, the number was 664.
He turned to look behind him. He already knew what was there but he didn’t fully believe it yet, He stood there and stared at the wall behind him, the crooked door creaked open yet again with the numbers 666 right before it slammed shut. Tears dropped from Kirk’s eyes. He didn’t care anymore, he just wanted to get out. Then he remembered the window in the room. He looked toward the door and put his hand beside the handle to try push it open. The light flickered on as soon as he touched the door. He was yet again overcome with happiness. He opened the door and stepped in, he immediately felt the dread overwhelm him.
He dropped to his knees and breathed in deeply, he had never been so happy for not being an asthmatic. Janice had Asthma but she hadn’t had an attack in over three years now. He slowly got up from his knees and felt a stabbing pain in his right shin. He looked at the blood streaming down his foot, It was unbelievably painful and yet satisfying. He ripped his nails down his shin eager to remove whatever had stuck into him. He felt some metal poking out from his shin and he pulled as hard as he could.
“Damn it! Damn it to hell!” he screamed.
He must have knelt on the metal, it looked like an old piece of light from the roof, must have fell with age. He quickly noticed then how serious the injury was. The metal had struck through his shin and was poking slightly out toward his upper right thigh. It didn’t go straight through but he could feel a bump where the metal almost came out of.
He tried his best to pull it out but the unique shape of the metal made it hard. It was really thin from where he could see it, the part that hadn’t yet pierced his shin has very thin, and the part that had gone through was very bumpy and thick. He wouldn’t be able to pull it back out where it pierced without breaking a bone.
He knew what he had to do but he didn’t like it. He pull some cloth from out of his pocket and put it in his mouth. The cloth was old and dirty but he didn’t care much of it now. He bit down hard on the cloth and reached for a nail that was nearby, it wasn’t a small one. He wasn’t great with nail sizes but he knew it must have been at least three inches in length and about a centimetre in width. It was rusty and old, he had the risk of tetanus. But then he had the risk of bleeding out to death. He didn’t want to die in an Asylum while his girlfriend sat in his best car and ate his best Ute.
He got a firm hold of the nail and slowly raised it above his thigh. He closed his eyes and quickly jabbed down. His strike was hard and painful, and he had missed his target.
“Argh!!!” He screamed and mumbled at the top of his lungs, he got angry. He jabbed again, missed. He threw the nail in anger and held his thigh crying and screaming. The nail had gone straight through, both times. He looked at his thigh, he could see the bump where he had ment to hit and the two holes about three centimetres away from it. Adrenaline started to surge through his body, he looked at his thigh and threw his hands toward the bump. He didn’t feel much pain anymore. He started punching into his thigh where the bump was, his punches were on target and hard. He couldn’t even feel his arms moving, one fast hard punch after another kept rolling in toward his thigh, the bump had turned into a pulsing lump and he started to punch even harder. He wasn’t looking at his thigh but he kept punching. He started to get a strong headache which made him punch harder into his thigh. The lump was gone and replaced by a steep crater in his leg that gushed more blood then before he had started punching. He could see the metal and decided to rip at it.
The metal came out fast and painlessly. He was still crying. He cried and cried. His headache got worse and he cried harder. His leg lay there limp gushing out blood. He knew he was about to pass out. He ripped the cloth from his mouth and continued screaming. He tightly wrapped the cloth around his leg and within seconds the cloth was dripping with blood. He was in a daze. He lay down on the ground, many small pieces of scrap metal rubbed against his spine. He past out. When he awoke, his headache had faded and his leg was stitched. The cloth was on the floor next to him, it was completely white. There was no evidence that he had ever bled a single drop of blood. He walked over to a mirror on the wall which he had not remembered was there. He looked into it and saw his face. It was covered in scratch marks, his left ear was bleeding and his leg started to throb a jolting pain. He fell to the ground and started to scream once more. He had gained a cramp in his injured leg. He held his leg tightly. The pain started to fade again. He slowly and carefully dropped onto the ground and started to cry. The tears gathered near his eyes and each dropped around the earlier made tear marks.
The tears stung his face as they crossed his scratches. He got up of the floor and looked into the mirror once more. It was gone. He had started to get furious at everything constantly changing and disappearing. He walked toward the door rubbing the left side of his face where the biggest scratch appeared. The scratches weren’t bleeding but they still looked fresh. And he couldn’t stop thinking about his leg. Did Janice find him and go back to the car? He wasn’t even hungry anymore,
“Maybe I did see her, maybe she brought me food and I just can’t remember?” He walked out into the corridor in shock at what he saw. He saw everything as it was before he had first entered the Jackal’s room. He ran toward the stairs and suddenly stopped. In the corner of his eye he saw the window. He slowly turned and started to look at the window. His smile morphed into a frown as he looked at the window. He saw the old woman, this time her eyes were much more red and she was crying blood. Her face was contorted and twisted as if she had fallen from a building. She stared at him and groaned.
“It’s your entire fault.” Kirk whispered.
The woman’s neck cracked as she looked at him and she looked as though Mistakes are made and blood is payed. No one is to leave or the world burns!”
She fell down in the same way before. This time it seemed as though something pulled her down. Kirk stood there and watched. He didn’t understand why but he felt no fear. He walked toward the window and found a piece of paper. It had lots of writing on it. He didn’t feel like reading right now. He put it into his pocket and continued walking down the stairs. As he walked he couldn’t help thinking about the note. Every second it ate at him.
He thought it was important but a voice inside his head kept telling him to not read it. He soon thought of it stupid to talk to himself over about something like this and just make a decision. After all if the note wasn’t that important he could always throw it away. He took the note from his pocket as soon as he reached the bottom of the stairs, He unfolding it and unfolded it until finally the writing was visible. He started to read it. The writing was written in red pen which seemed to have leaked all through the paper. In a flash the writing turned black and the stains were gone. He was puzzled at his vision and began reading the note.

To Silvia,

‘As you may be aware, I am soon going to be leaving. I hope you understand that I just cannot stay in this place any longer. I am beginning to hear voices in my office. Just yesterday it may sound crazy but I was writing you this note and as I wrote it burst into flames. And yet I did not get one burn on my hands. I’m beginning to think this place is making my mind quiver. I cannot stay here any longer, I need to get out of here. Please understand that I say this in the highest of respects, I really do hope you consider quitting. I know you think no one should leave but I think it will do you some good. No one has left this place in over 43 years; I think the time to leave is well past due for me. I truly hope to see you soon, please pass this onto Gregory. He will want to know. You guys have been such a treat to me. I have left you my office and Gregory can have anything he wants in it. You two can fight it out to who gets the chair. Don’t forget to keep room 66 locked. It has caused me great havoc when I forget to lock it. ‘

The note was torn there, Kirk was startled to see that the letter six was hanging loose as it was on the door. He shook the paper and it was knocked back into place. Then all the lights seemed to turn on simultaneously.
Kirk shot up from the hard ground. He looked at his shin, it was still bleeding. The cloth wrapped around the flesh wound had sucked up so much blood that it had started to wear out and tear apart easily. Most of the blood had stained to his leg, he could barely see this with the fresh blood slowly streaming outward. His forehead was soaked in sweat and his shirt was uncomfortably cold.
He started to think about the old lady in his dream, if it was a dream. He remembered the note well, he reached into his pocket and found nothing, he tried the other one. The note poked out from his left pocket as he slowly pulled it out. He was shocked to find the note in his pocket, it made him feel better though. At least now he knew it wasn’t a dream. When he opened the note he saw nothing. It was empty. Not a word was on the piece of paper, it was almost as if it hadn’t been written yet.
He knew he had to get out of the Asylum as soon as possible, no matter what the cost. He got up and walked toward a large window inside the Jackal’s room. He peered outside and looked down. The building was a lot taller then he had remembered, it was at least another two stories high.
He ran toward the door and kicked it open, he was impressed with the sudden surge of strength he had, but he knew it was temporary. He ran down the corridor as fast as his legs would move and he stopped at the stairs. He turned. He faced the window. He remembered. He walked toward the window. He pulled out the note, and he dropped it. He dropped the note down from the window and watched as it slowly twirled and flipped as the wind curved around it. He kept staring at it, watching, hoping something would make sense. Nothing did, nothing ever did. He looked down at his feet and thought to himself.
He thought about everything that ment something in his life, the things that made him matter, the things that produced willpower in him. The things that mattered to no one else but him. He could only think of one thing, and that one person was enough. After all, no one would love her but Kirk. He reached into his pocket expecting to find a photo of Janice, but nothing was in his pocket. A tear dropped from his face, a familiar feeling. He just wanted to hold Janice one more time, and right then he knew, he was going to get out of that place and nothing was going to stop him.
Kirk looked in awe the window, there was nothing in or outside it. The window was still there but the note had long been blown away from the dirt filled ground that used to be alive with fresh green grass and flowers as far as the eye could see. Now it was just a bitter wasteland.
Kirk sped toward the stairs and flew down like a dodge viper on a newly made, smooth road. He leapt from the bottom and landed on solid ground once more, he was at another corridor. He remembered his first encounter here. The invisible force that tried to kill him, Janice saved him as usual. He walked slowly down this corridor, he wasn’t to far from the exit now. He didn’t want to make to much noise running. His throat started to burn, he started to get anxious. He couldn’t get the thought of being strangled again out of his head, so he ran, he ran again.
He reached the exit door in no time, now all he had to do was go down one more flight of stairs and past the reception desk and he would walk out alive.
He got to the stairs, walked down slowly. Gradually he got faster, he couldn’t hold it in. He ran down the stairs in the hope to get out within the next second.
He reached the last step and crashed down with his left foot. He was overwhelmed with happiness. He saw the reception and turned to see the exit door. There was a man standing in front of the door. Kirk was angry. He didn’t care what it was, he walked toward the exit door and raised his fist. The dark man turned and faced Kirk.
“Is that how you greet all your friends?”
Kirk looked strangely at the figure, a huge smile overtook Kirk’s face.
“Brett?”
“In the flesh.”
Man am I glad to see you, look man we gotta get outta here now!
“Why? It’s such a nice place don’t you think?”
“Hah, yea man if you’re a rotting corpse.”
Brett looked at Kirk and smiled.
“A rotting corpse Kirk?”
“Yea man, look I’m not kidding, we really have to go.”
“No kidding.”
Kirk walked toward Brett and attempted to leave. Brett’s arm shot out of nowhere and smashed into Kirk’s head, Brett looked at him.
“What the hell man! What's with the punch?”
No one can leave here Kirk, not you, not me, not anyone. The difference is, I just took advantage of the moment.
“Are you crazy!? I’m leaving and you can’t stop me, I have to talk to Janice.”
“Why Kirk, she is right there.”
Kirk looked at Brett strangely and slowly turned around. He looked and saw nothing, then in the corner of his eye he saw something drip. It splattered against the ground and formed a red circle. He looked up at the chandelier and bellowed. He dropped to the ground and held his face. He looked up again and saw her. Her body was impaled in an impossible position on top of the chandelier.
Brett looked at Kirk on the ground, he smiled.
“Come on buddy, cheer up.”
“I’m gonna kill you!” Kirk screamed
“Yeah? Get in line kid!” Brett laughed again looking at Kirk.
“You know it’s a pity you didn’t get here sooner Kirk. She was just hanging to see you.” Brett let out a more intimidating laugh.
“You’re not Brett! You can’t be Brett. Brett would never do anything like this! This is bad, why would you do this? I’m gonna tear your heart out!”
“Wrong again pal, you can give it your best shot though. I can’t say you’ll find much, but I love the idea of a good treasure hunt. Tell ya what pal, I’ll go first.” Brett raised his arm and threw his fist into his chest, blood poured out everywhere. There was twice as much blood as there was when Kirk had hurt his leg.
Kirk looked in disbelief, he couldn’t imagine what he was seeing with his own eyes.
“You’re a suicidal idiot!” Kirk yelled.
Brett looked at him smiling while he searched around in his stomach.
“Hey! Kirk come on man, words hurt.”
Brett pulled out his hand and opened them.
“Bummer, I couldn’t find anything, oh well maybe you’ll have better luck than me?”
“Burn in hell!”
“Been there, done that.”
Kirk sat on the ground screaming over Janice’s death.
“Hey, Kirk buddy? Can I ask you a question?”
Kirk continued screaming not paying attention to what he was saying.
“I’ll ask anyway, it’s kinda important. Do you think she will affect the resale value of this place? Because I’m a bit low on money and I may have to rent out.”
Kirk stopped screaming, he stood up and charged at Brett. His fist dove right into Brett’s left rib cage. Brett looked at him.
“My turn!”
Brett smashed his hand into Kirk and sent him flying across the ground.
Kirk started to spew up blood. Brett laughed.
“Oh no! I think I broke something.”
Kirk cried and held onto his chest. He knew he was going to die, but after everything he went through, he wasn’t going to die alone. He stood up and walked toward Brett, Brett’s eyes had a yellow tinge to them. Brett smiled and said
“Wow, I wish I had guts like you. You’re a real trooper Kirk. To bad you don’t see things my way. Kirk’s face was emotionless. He walked toward Brett, and stood in front of him.
“I’ll let you go first Kirk, wouldn’t want to inconvenience you in any way after all, you’re my guest.
Kirk looked up at Brett, into his eyes and smiled.
Brett’s smile grew larger.
“Brett can I ask you something?”
“Sure bucko, go ahead!”
“Do you know anything about this?”
Kirk reached into his pocket and grabbed the note. He knew it was there, because he had dropped it out of the window, and nothing was ever aloud to leave the Asylum, nothing. Kirk handed Brett the note and Brett took it and read it.
Kirk smiled.
“See you in hell.”
Brett looked at him confused.
Kirk kicked Brett with his right foot and knocked Brett toward the Door, Brett fell out onto the ground outside the door. Brett’s eyes grew red. Kirk could see the flames spiralling in his eyes. Brett fell to the ground screaming. Brett stared at Kirk, Kirk stared back.
“Now now Brett, You’re not supposed to leave the Asylum after hours.”
Brett smiled at Kirk and laughed. Brett’s eyes dimmed down to a grey. Kirk looked at Brett, he smiled.
“I think I’ll go now.”
Brett laughed at him.
“I don’t think so pal.”
Kirk looked at Brett in terror. Brett stared at him seriously.
“Out with the old, in with the new.” Brett laughed.
Kirk ran toward the door, but they slammed shut in front of him. He turned around for an exit door but there was nothing. He decided to try for the front again, but it was gone. The doors in the Asylum had disappeared. As did all the windows and vents. Kirk looked in a shattered piece of glass below him. His eyes were tinged yellow.