Witness and Worship | An Outlast Document

Chapter Nine ❖ Hunting Season

"We need to get outta here," says Miles, wincing. "I'm getting a headache, and something's telling me it isn't from the stress of this place."

"What do you mean?" I say, even though secretly I'm relieved he's feeling it too. It just means I'm not going crazy.

"Couldn't tell you the specifics of it, but I know sewer gases are noxious in the worst way. Think dizziness, coma, and death."

I grimace. The thought of dying in a sewer is up there with the necrophiliac in terms of prospects I find repulsive. Good news though, we can't be that far off the Administration Block. A signpost points us in that direction, and we're even treated to a handful of murky yellow bulbs in the neighboring tunnel. Perhaps God is real after all.

There's a warm breeze wafting up the tunnel along with the stench of decay, very welcome after the impenetrable cold of before. I wring my clothes out as we walk, not that it really does much good. The grime from the sewer tunnels and the pile of bodies I landed in earlier have soaked into the fabric, tingeing everything a dull, slimy brown. Add my t-shirt and jeans to the list of things I'll trash when I'm home. At least my boots are holding up.

A beam of light flashes from between a mound of fallen debris, dazzling me for a moment. A soft, slightly out-of-tune voice hums a religious hymn.

And of course, rather irritatingly, it's Father Martin.

"Dear dying lamb, thy precious blood..."

Recognition flickers across Miles' face, but I know he never went to church in all the years he visited our home. And from all his blaspheming tonight, I doubt he's ever held a Bible in his life.

By the time we're close enough to call out, the priest is already off again, hurrying away into the darkness where we can't follow. "Till all the ransomed church of God..."

Miles shakes his head. "At least he's going in the direction we need to go."

"But we need to find a way around," I reply, a little grouchily. I know hospitals have all kinds of winding tunnels and nooks and shortcuts known only to staff, especially underground, but I'm beginning to get tired of the wild goose chase.

Miles tries the first door we come to. By this point we're both expecting it to be locked, and I can't help frowning when it swings open. He grabs my arm tightly as we come face to face with an inmate barricaded behind a shelf in the corner of the room.

The patient raises his hands defensively, but steps closer. "You don't have to be scared of me," he says. "I can tell we're the same. You both still know what's real."

We aren't the same, for all his rippled scars and nervous tremors, but he's clothed. That's a start. And he's not trying to harm us—yet—and he's actually attempting a conversation with us. He's about as normal as you can get here, and there's something quite comforting about his presence.

"Do you mind if I film you?" Miles says.

The inmate shrugs. "Go ahead. The doctor's dead, you know that, right?"

Miles nods, his expression gone back to the one he wore when we watched Walker rip a man's head from his shoulders. A sort of grim concern, a complete absorption in the story he's being told.

"Died before he even started working here," the patient says.

I frown. "I pointed that out earlier. Walker, I think it was; Dr Wernicke was apparently his physician or something, but his obituary was dated a year or so before that." Miles glances down at me, then turns his attention back to the patient. "We found it in a file somewhere. The obituary, that is." This to the inmate now, who nods. I think I've said the right thing.