Witness and Worship | An Outlast Document

Chapter Eight ❖ Shadowplay

"You're kidding," I say. "The sewers? Isn't that super dangerous?"

"Pitch black, any number of patients roaming around, a cloud of noxious gases? Not at all," says Miles grimly. He takes a deep breath and climbs down into the darkness.

I hesitate before going after him. It's a grimy crawlspace, and all work I did to clean myself up is wrecked in seconds. Soft, damp earth squidges between my fingers and cakes on my knees. I can hear Miles up ahead, but I can't see him and I'd rather not risk bumping into anything, or worse, falling. I pull out my phone and switch it on, illuminating the area. Rusting pipes run along the walls, dripping putrid water into the muck.

Miles isn't far away at all, turning back to check where I am. In the pale light of my phone, he looks almost like a deer caught in the headlights. "All right?" he says.

"Yeah," I breathe, crouching so I can duck below a cluster of pipes and clamber even further into the passage.

It occurs to me that this is the kind of place where the victims of a horror movie are cornered to die, and if a patient is pursuing us at this moment we'll have no way of escaping. I grapple to get rid of the thought, but a pit of unease settles in my stomach.

I drop down another step. How far down does this place go? A pipe beside my head hisses, making me jump, and despite my swollen nose the smell of rot is getting stronger.

Miles jumps down into some kind of hole, his boots crunching on something as he lands. "Watch your footing," he calls up to me, his breathing ragged.

It's only a few feet, and I scoot forward on my backside to lower myself down. My shoulder complains a bit at the exertion, but I barely notice it as I push myself into the sewers after Miles. The thick, warm stench of stewing feces and body parts makes me gag, and I'm sure if I squint hard enough I might be able to make out the faint green stink cloud.

This place is huge. Massive, if I'm feeling in the mood to make puns, which I'm not.

"Try not to breathe too much, yeah?" Miles says. "Hydrogen sulfide poisoning is pretty low down on my list of priorities tonight."

He doesn't need to tell me twice. Every inhale is like the hottest, most humid summer I remember, where every breath was suffocating. Except multiply that humidity by five and add a constant fog of rotten egg. I think I'll lose my lunch again before I asphyxiate.

"We can't stay down here long," Miles says, trooping on ahead. "And the sooner we get out of these shit-fumes, the better."

I pull my collar up over my nose and follow him. Dank, dirty water pools in the curved surface of the sewer tunnel, only a couple of inches deep. I don't trust it to stay that shallow for long.

We don't bother with the dark paths. There's no way Father Martin was able to get through on his own without help, and neither of us is eager to test that theory. Instead, we splash through the murky yellow glow of an overhead light probably used for whoever maintained this place. A waist-height barricade dripping sludge offers almost no issue, although Miles insists on vaulting it while I clamber over a little more awkwardly.

"You know that doesn't make you look any cooler, right?" I grumble.

"Oh, you wound me," he says drily.

The tunnel ends at an intersection, and again it's easy enough to figure out where to go. One path is blocked off by a massive cave-in, rubble strewn around like someone's already tried to dig their way out. I wonder if it's the corpse propped up against the wall a few feet away.

At least this one I can pretend is sleeping.

"We're going to have to crawl through," Miles murmurs, nodding to a much smaller tunnel paved out of the wall on the far side of the intersection.