Witness and Worship | An Outlast Document

Chapter Three ❖ Life to Come

The man in the wheelchair is emaciated badly enough to put District Twelve to shame. I swallow thickly. He's still twitching, but up close it's a wonder his bones haven't snapped with his feverish movements. His sharp elbows hang on the armrests and I actually feel a chill go down my spine as I observe his protruding shoulder blades.

"Stay behind me," Miles says, and takes a few tentative steps toward the man. He crouches in front of him, his expression pitying as he raises the camera. "We're gonna get you out," he says quietly. "Just as soon as we can get out ourselves..."

I pause, terrified, not moving until I realize this guy isn't a threat. Then I stick close behind Miles, willing myself not to look because I know it'll be bad. But you know how you get an itch, and you're not supposed to scratch it but you do anyway? The same thing takes over, and I find myself glancing at the man anyway.

My skin crawls. He's clearly been abused, or neglected, or God knows what. The skin across his caved-in chest is rippled with scar tissue, his eyes sunken in so badly they appear to be sealed, his teeth jagged and ripping between his bloody lips. He barely seems conscious, but he's making horrible whining noises, like a dying animal.

"Carmen," Miles says, taking me gently by the arm. "Come on."

I knuckle my eyes in an attempt to stop the tears. It's weird. Reading articles about, or even seeing photos of trauma victims, isn't like this. You can distance yourself from the horror then, pass it off as PhotoShop or the work of a twisted mind. But seeing it in person, hearing the awful sounds of suffering, smelling it, is so much different. So much worse.

A faint hiss brings me back to the real world. I look up to see three figures in a meeting room, gazing up at the television. A spray of dark blood is splattered across the surface, the screen filled with static. Miles presses a finger to his lips and ducks down below their eye line, but they don't seem to notice as we scamper across in front of them. I find my fingers crossing automatically, a stupid superstitious gesture that means nothing in this place, but it's an old habit from elementary school. Like not stepping on a crack in the sidewalk.

The first two patients keep their gazes fixed on the screen, caught in a world of their own. The other one seems more withdrawn, huddled away in the corner of the sofa. Miles lifts the camera.

"Miles Upshur, September 17th, eight twenty-eight. A crowd of broken men watching a dead channel. They look like patients. They survived whatever happened here but nobody's home." His tone is ragged, almost sympathetic. I guess even compartmentalizing everything still leaves room for instinctual human compassion.

I follow him into the next open room, not daring to look back at the hideous scars left on the patients. I don't need anything more to fuel the inevitable nightmares.

It's another meeting room, lit only with the glow of a broken laptop. Miles hunts through the files left on the desk while I keep watch at the door.

"Father Martin, huh?" he murmurs, then raises his voice, turning to me. "Does that sound like our priest to you?"

I shrug. "I guess so." Not that it really matters, in my opinion, but Miles is the journalist here. He's more about deduction and analyzing.

"I found the card," he says after a moment, looking down at the floor behind the desk. "These assholes aren't sparing anybody." He picks up the magnet card - from I'm guessing another body, I don't care much to look - and tucks it away in his breast pocket. Then we return to the room with the broken men.

They still haven't moved from their positions. I stick so close to Miles I'm sure he can smell my deodorant - which had better still be working, after the crap I've seen tonight - but he doesn't say anything. He keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the patients, watching for any abnormal twitch, any indication that they've snapped out of their stupor and are after us. But we're undisturbed as we head back to the corridor. Miles shuts the door behind us and turns his attention to the man in the wheelchair.