Nighmare Asylum-Book One of the Mad Mad World Series

The Downward Spiral-Part 8

Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.-Alice In Wonderland

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Saying my friends know how to make an entrance is an understatement. Even if they're not trying to.

Especially if they're not trying to.

I could have heard Till yelling at the top of his lungs through the reinforced steel door even without being able to hear a mouse tiptoe across a glass floor. I'd had an inkling something was up when I felt the edges of my nerves begin to tingle as if I was running my fingers over something filled with static. Lilly had stopped her ceaseless pacing and was standing under the air vent, head tipped to the side and a look of intense concentration on her face.

"I hear....something," she whispered. "Come over here and take a listen."

I got up from where I'd been sitting, trying to ignore Lilly's pacing, and joined her under the grille. Cocking my head to the side, I held my breath and listened as hard as I could, watching Lilly's face as she strained to make out anything other than the whisper of air through the metal grille.

"Sounds like voices," she murmured. "What do you think?"

I closed my eyes and concentrated as hard as I could, ignoring anything that didn't "ping" my hearing as a voice and not random noise. The static-like feeling wandering over my skin grew stronger by the second as I stood there, hoping against hope that I was hearing were voices and not my brain trying to make words where there weren't any. Lilly suddenly grabbed my hand, pulling me away from the grille. "I heard someone talking upstairs, it's not my imagination! Something about...their car breaking down and needing to use the phone."

The static feeling turned into a shock and I yelped, jerking my hand out of Lilly's grasp. I didn't need to be standing near the grille to hear Ollie yell, "Jack! Don't go in there, it's a..."

The thud of a body hitting the floor was loud as thunder.

Silence.

"Wilkomen meine Freunde! I've waited quite a long time to meet all of you; how lovely for you to stop in!"

"Oh shit," Lilly whispered. "Don't tell me Ollie got it into his head to try and find you!"

"Nope, I think everyone in the band got it into their heads," I replied. I realized the tingling sensation had vanished the second I'd heard Ollie yelling. I didn't have the time to step back and figure out why; I knew I had to get out of the cell and now. Neal wouldn't have to break a sweat to eliminate the rest of my band unless he remembered that he was going to experiment on them. I ran for the door and grabbed the handle, pulling for all I was worth and swearing a blue streak. It didn't budge an inch; I started clawing at the metal, bringing up sparks and putting a few long furrows in the door. If I hadn't been so angry and desperate to get out, I'd have stood back and marveled at the sparks and deep furrows, then wondered what the hell my mutated nails would do to guitar strings. As it was, I was paying not a bit of attention to any of this, all I wanted to do was get to my friends before the mad doctor turned them into lab rats.

"Stop, Richard, you're going to hurt yourself!" Lilly yelled into my ear as she grabbed my arm and began to drag me away from the door. I winced away and tried to pull loose of the grip she had on my arm but she wouldn't budge. "Richard, stop it, now! We don't know what's going on up there, so quit wiggling, settle down or I'm going to snatch you up by your ball hairs."

"My what? Lilly, I have to get out, I have to get out now!" I screamed. "Neal's going to kill everyone, I can't lose my brothers, my best friends! Lilly, let go!"