“What was that?” Bray asked.
“Another rat?” Joliet offered.
“Rats have four feet, not two. And they don’t run on the balls of their feet.” Hawkins took the rifle from his shoulder. “We’re not alone.”
28.
“Stay close. Stay quiet. And Bray”—Hawkins pointed to the fire ax lying on the floor next to Drake—“I don’t think the captain’s going to get much use out of that now.”
Hawkins glanced out into the hall, then shed his backpack. “Where are your packs?”
“First room in the hall,” Joliet said. “With the speargun.”
“Stay here,” Hawkins said. He turned to Bray. “Watch the hall.”
Hawkins tiptoed into the hallway. Bray stood behind him, ax in hand. He passed the first door only after sweeping the room with his rifle. He performed the same check on the room nearest the exit and quickly spotted three backpacks and the speargun piled next to the door. He grabbed everything, then hustled back to Bray. He placed the packs on the floor next to Drake and handed Joliet the speargun. “Stay here.”
He knew Joliet wouldn’t like being told what to do, or being left behind, but it was necessary. Before she could speak, he added, “Someone needs to guard Drake.”
She looked down at the immobile captain and nodded. “Go.”
Hawkins motioned with his head for Bray to follow and crept toward the end of the hall. He quickly checked the last room on the right and found only more barred cells with rotting pallets, disintegrating walls, and a large dark brown stain on the floor that could have only been blood.
At the end of the hall were a staircase leading up and a closed door. Hawkins paused at the stairs. He didn’t want to go up without first knowing if the last room was clear. He turned to Bray, pointed to his eyes, and then to the stairs. Bray nodded, turning his eyes to the top of the staircase and winding up with the ax.
The door creaked when Hawkins pushed it open with the rifle’s barrel. The interior of the room was lit by a single, small window that still held a thick pane of glass. The first items he saw—metal buckets, mops, glass jars, and a variety of rotting containers—mixed with a faint smell of detergent, identified the space as a simple storage closet. But scattered among the common items were more rubber aprons, gloves, and boots, and manacles and chains. Looking closer, he saw that some of the wooden poles he thought were broom handles were actually clubs, many of which held single half-inch-long nails—not long enough to kill, but certainly long enough to add an extra level of agony to each strike.
As disturbing as the room’s contents were, Hawkins felt relief that it wasn’t occupied by anything living. As he turned toward the staircase, that small amount of relief quickly faded. He led the way up, stepping cautiously to avoid the occasional dry leaf. In the silence of what felt like an oversize crypt, the slightest sound could give away their position.
At the top of the stairs, there was another staircase leading up to the third floor, and a hallway that wrapped around the second floor. Hawkins motioned for Bray to once again watch the staircase. There was no way to know if the person they’d heard had headed up, or even if he, or she, were alone. Hawkins would have preferred to have the big man with the ax at his back, but he didn’t want to risk someone getting down to Joliet, and Drake.
The hallway around the corner wasn’t a hallway at all. While the first floor had been divided into a long hall with four rooms on one side, this space was just one large room. Eight metal operating tables stretched down the center of the room. Each table was accompanied by a small, empty supply tray. Hawkins had no trouble imagining the trays’ contents. They were probably very similar to implements used to dissect the loggerhead.
Except the people dissected here were sometimes still alive, Hawkins thought, remembering Bray’s tales of vivisection and experimentation. Was this where it happened? Was this where the people on the beach were taken apart and reshaped? Hawkins suspected as much, but could only be sure of one thing: This was a torture chamber.
Hawkins moved down the center aisle created by the twin rows of operating tables. Details jumped out at him. The tables weren’t flat. They had a slight bowl shape with a drain at the center. Dark stains covered the floor under each table. He wondered if they just let the blood pour onto the floor, but found rows of similarly stained metal buckets lining shelves on the wall opposite the still-glassed windows.