Chapter 25 Monster Index
Monster Index
The applause grew louder as they moved through the passageways, leading them toward what looked like a wider chamber ahead. The rhythmic clapping echoed off the concrete walls with metronomic precision, never speeding up or slowing down.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
“That’s not normal applause,” Levi whispered, slowing his pace.
They reached the entrance to a larger room—some kind of observation chamber with a raised platform in the center. Emergency lighting flickered overhead, casting sickly yellow pools across the space.
And there, in the middle of the platform, was the source of the applause.
Jesus fucking Christ.
A humanoid form sat strapped to a metal chair with barbed wire, the twisted metal cutting deep grooves into what remained of its flesh. Most of the skin rotted away, leaving exposed muscle and bone beneath.
Wooden blocks had been screwed into the bones of its hands—crude prosthetics that allowed it to continue the motion even as its fingers had long since decomposed. The sound of wood striking wood echoed through the chamber with horrible regularity.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Wire armature connected to the ceiling kept its arms positioned correctly, pulleys and automated systems ensuring the applause never stopped. Even when strips of rotting flesh fell away from its forearms, the wooden blocks continued their eternal percussion.
Its face was a ruin of surgical experimentation—jawbone exposed where the cheeks had been cut away, empty eye sockets staring blindly ahead.
But somehow, impossibly, it was still alive.
Levi could see its chest rising and falling with clockwork precision, forced breathing courtesy of the apparatus jammed down its throat.
“It’s a lure,” Asher said, studying the room’s layout. “Look at the floor.”
Levi followed his gaze and spotted the subtle difference in the concrete in front of the platform. A pressure plate, designed to look like normal flooring but clearly rigged to some kind of mechanism.
“I bet the door would seal if we stepped on it,” Levi said, noting the heavy metal barrier that hung ready to drop.
“And then whatever’s behind that door would be released.” Asher pointed to a second barrier on the far side of the chamber, this one showing signs of something large and violent trying to get through. Deep gouges in the metal, and a sound like breathing that wasn’t quite human.
The applauding horror’s head turned toward them with a grinding of vertebrae. Its empty sockets seemed to focus on Levi, and the clapping intensified.
Clap-clap-clap. Clap-clap-clap.
“It knows we’re here,” Levi breathed.
“Is there a motion sensor?” Asher studied the wire armature. “It probably responds to body heat and movement. The closer we get, the faster it claps.”
This is what happened to the patients. This monstrosity had once been a person, someone trapped in this place and subjected to Faine’s horrors until nothing human remained.
Levi took an involuntary step forward, driven by some combination of horror and morbid fascination. The pressure plate was only a few feet away, and the thing’s clapping was becoming frantic.
“Levi, don’t—”
Asher’s arms wrapped around his waist, yanking him backward just as his foot was about to land on the pressure plate, and pulled Levi against his chest, holding him safely away from the trap.
“Careful,” Asher murmured, his breath warm against Levi’s ear. “You almost triggered it.”
For a moment, Levi felt only gratitude. He saved me. Again. But then Asher’s arms tightened around him, hands splaying possessively across his chest, and the gratitude curdled into something else.
“Let go,” Levi said, trying to pull away.
“In a moment.” Asher’s voice was soft, intimate. His hands moved, fingertips tracing along Levi’s ribs through his shirt. “You’re trembling.”
Of course I’m trembling. They were standing in front of a rotting corpse that had been tortured into eternal applause, with something large and hungry waiting behind a metal door.
“I said let go.”
“You’re safe now,” Asher continued, as if he hadn’t heard. One hand moved up to rest over Levi’s heart, feeling its rapid rhythm. “I won’t let anything hurt you.”
The possessive tenderness in his voice, combined with the way his body pressed against Levi’s back, made something snap. Levi spun around in Asher’s arms and drove his fist directly into his face.
The punch connected with a satisfying crack, sending Asher stumbling backward. Blood flowed from his nose, but instead of anger, that familiar, excited glint appeared in his eyes.
“There’s my fighter,” he said, touching the blood with obvious pleasure. “I was wondering when you’d—”
“We need to go now!” The shout came from behind them. Maddie and Jasper sprinted down the passageway at full speed, their clothes torn and faces pale with terror.
“The whole fucking building is moving!” Jasper gasped as they reached the chamber entrance. “Walls are sliding, floors are tilting—it’s like a giant puzzle box!”
Behind them, something massive slammed against the far door with enough force to rattle the entire chamber. The applauding horror’s clapping became frenzied, and grinding sounds echoed from the walls around them.
Clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap.
“The building knows we’re here,” Jasper said, his usual laid-back demeanor completely gone. “It’s trying to separate us, trap us in different sections.”
Another massive impact slammed against the door, and this time, hairline cracks appeared in the metal.
“Run!” Maddie shouted.
They didn’t need to be told twice. As a group, they turned and sprinted back into the passageway system, the sound of the horror’s eternal applause following them like a clockwork heartbeat.
Behind them, the metal door finally gave way with a shriek of tortured steel. Something large and wet poured into the chamber, accompanied by sounds that belonged in no earthly throat.
What the hell was Dr. Faine creating down here?
But there was no time for speculation. The building’s automated systems groaned to life around them, walls sliding and floors tilting as the sanitarium reconfigured itself into new patterns of containment.
They ran through passageways that changed completely, past rooms that shouldn’t exist according to any blueprint. The flickering lights cast erratic shadows, and the air grew thick with the smell of ozone and something chemical.
“This way!” Maddie shouted, leading them toward what looked like a stairwell.
But as they ran, Levi couldn’t shake the image of that applauding horror, trapped in its chair and forced to lure victims to their doom. Could the person it once was still think? Or feel?
That could be us, he realized. That could be what we become if we don’t get out.
They reached the stairwell and began climbing, the sound of pursuit echoing from the passageways below. Whatever had been released from that chamber was following them, along with the grinding of the building’s shifting architecture.
“Where are we going?” Levi gasped.
“Up,” Maddie replied. “Jasper found something on the third floor. A room that feels... safe.”
“Safe how?” Asher asked, wiping blood from his nose.
“No automated sounds,” Jasper panted. “No moving walls. Just a regular room with supplies. It’s like the building forgot about it.”
A safe room. Maybe that was what they needed—somewhere to catch their breath, to figure out what the hell was happening here.
But as they climbed higher into the sanitarium’s upper levels, Levi couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being herded. That the building wanted them to find this room.
That Dr. Faine’s experiment wasn’t over—it was just entering its next phase.
And beside him, Asher continued to smile, blood painting his teeth red in the flickering light.