Insanity Becomes You [Outlast fanfic Eddie Gluskin]

♡ Chapter Four ♡

I cringed as warm spit hit my cheek, the smell of it had me almost gagging. It was horrendously putrid, the scent reminded me of rotting flesh. My hand hesitantly lifted up to wipe my arm against Frank Manera's saliva before rubbing it away on my skirt. The slimy substance felt almost like acid, and I wanted to immediately take a shower after we were done here.

My eyes cut directly at the man, looking at his straitjacket which was tied tightly and chained snugly against the wall. There was a smug smile on his old, bony face. All be damned - what have I gotten myself into now?

"Pretty... meat." He murmured.

Frank Manera could have been the posterchild of what an insane inmate was supposed to look like. His crooked teeth, and his wild face made him look doubly insane. From what I could tell, he was an older man, with his senile graying hair which very tattered, with some bald spots showing on his scalp. I wondered how long he'd been committed in this place.

"I'm here to help you, Frank." It was all I could do to calmly speak to him, I'd dealt with a lot of nonsense from the patients. I'd been hollered at, felt up, and even had some of the inmates had their... male giblets swung out in front of me... But being spat at was something I did not handle well. It was insulting, and entirely disgusting.

"Why won't you eat, Mr. Manera? Your health is failing you, and we just want to help." I ask him, trying to keep my voice as calm as possible. It would only rile him up further if I were to act on my own emotions. I had to keep it as professional and as polite as I possibly could.

"Food does not sate the appetite. " He growled, staring me down. "But I bet... I bet you taste delicious." He began to cackle, revealing crooked teeth. I cringed slightly as I watched him lick his lips, and my stomach turned. Never had I wanted to be done with an inmate so badly.

"We're getting nowhere here." Dr. Brookes spoke from behind me, staring down at a chart in his hands.

"I thought you said she was fairly successful in her work." Mr. Blaire's scolded his employee. He had been leaning against the wall closest to the door. Apparently, I think this was more of a test than it was an actual patient visit.

"She is... but perhaps I was wrong." The old man sighed, turning his head up to glare at me, as if I was making a fool of him by not living up to the praise he'd given me.

"Well then what use does she have?" Mr. Blaire's arrogant tone began to grate on my nerves. I turned back to the patient who was now humping the air in my direction.

"I want to taste you," He growled, his tongue hung out of his crusty lips, dancing in a circle around them. I gulped and turned back around to my supervisors.

"It's a little difficult when your patient is slightly hell bent on taking a bite of you, Mr. Blaire. This is not the best scenario in which to appreciate my competence." I clarified curtly, adjusting my glasses before crossing my arms. All be damned, all be damned. I did not sign up for all of this - it was completely maddening.

"You should have zero issue with an uncomfortable situation, Meade. You knew what you were up against when you signed your contract. But honestly, I'm ready to terminate you and the damn contract." His beady eyes peered down at me in their usual way as he took a step forward. Instinctively I stepped backwards, not wanting him to come any closer.

I wish I had chosen my stance a little better, and paid more attention to the real danger instead of my jerk of an employer. I cried out as pain raced up my arm; sharp teeth frantically clamped down into my forearm. I turned to see that a hungry Manera had decided to take a bite out of me.

He hadn't been joking about wanting to taste me.

Another scream erupted from my throat, and my arm jerked back as I tried to get him off, but the son of a bitch held his jaw tightly in place, and I could feel his tongue licking me. Jefferson immediately rushed forward, and tore the inmate away, which caused him to take a chunk of flesh back with him. My body began to go numb from the shock, my eyes unwillingly surveying the tattered flesh on my arm.

I looked up to my mentor, and my boss- I'm sure a helpless look on my face. Mr. Blaire sighed, and looked up to Jefferson. "Get a doctor, I guess." They both looked annoyed, as if I were the real trouble here.

As they radio'd a doctor, I watched my own flesh be chewed up in the mouth of Frank Manera.

A staff doctor had managed to bandage me up, and tried to stitch up what he could. But he told Mr. Blaire that I needed real medical attention at some point, lest I bleed out, or it became infected.

"We'll see that she gets - " The room went dark for a few moments, causing me to gasp before the lights came back on, and a siren began to wail, along with red lights flashing out in the hall. "What in the fuck?!"

Suddenly, loud screams came through on Jefferson's radio, different voices yelling that the inmates were loose.

"What's going on?" Blaire was across the room in seconds, snatching the radio out of Jefferson's hands. "This is Jeremy Blaire- what in the fuck is going on?" For a man who was normally very professional and cold, I was surprised to hear how his words were filled with sheer panic.

"The... Walrider... Loose... Variants... killing...Doct-HELP!" The radio sputtered before ending in a static, now the only sound in the room were the sirens coming from overhead.

"Fucking shit, I'm going to have to get control in here." Blaire yelled, before throwing the chair I had been seated in across the room, nearly clocking a bloody faced Manera in the face with it.

"You," He pointed at the doctor, and then at me, "and you, will stay here, with our friend Mr. Frank Manera. Jefferson, please let our dear patient out of his confines to enjoy a snack." Jefferson looked at his boss for a few moments before nodding his head, sauntering over to the inmate. God dammit, how could he listen to Blaire when all of this was going on?!

"You two are another liability at this point, that I just do not need on my hands. Sorry, but you've been fucking fired." He explained before turning for the door, Dr. Brookes following behind me without so much as a glance at me.

Some fucking mentor.

The door shut behind him with a click, and my feet raced for the door only to find it locked. Outside the door I could see doctors and other personnel scrambling for the stairway and the elevator, bloody patients either lying dead on the ground, or were chasing the frantic Murkoff employees.

A loud crack filled the room, and never had I ever wanted to leave this place as much I did now.

All be damned to hell. I clutched the cross pendent around my neck. Maybe now was the right time to believe in God.

Reluctantly, I turned myself around only to watch in horror as Manera grabbed hold of Jefferson, and had snapped his neck as soon as the guard had released him. What a fool that guard had been, thinking that he'd make it out of here alive after letting lose a fucking psychotic cannibal. Idiot.

Manera stared at me with a a long, giddy smile that formed on his bony good were my rational thoughts, I wondered as he leaned forward and took a bite out of Jefferson's plump face.