The van roars, the engine screaming in agony as we aim the grill directly at the electrified fence. I grab two canisters of ‘The Punchline’ and pull the pins with my teeth.
“SMILE, DOCTOR!” I scream, the green gas beginning to hiss out of the canisters, swirling around me like a toxic shroud. “THE DEALER IS HERE TO COLLECT THE DEBT!”
We hit the fence with a bone-jarringCRASH, the sparks flying like a thousand tiny suns, and the world turns into a beautiful, screaming chaos of green smoke and violet light.
The green gas doesn’t just drift; it claims.
It pours out of the van’s shattered windows in thick, oily ribbons, crawling along the asphalt like a living thing. It hits the first line of guards at the perimeter—men with high-and-tight haircuts and rifles they think make them safe. They don’t even have time to scream before the “The Punchline” finds the wet membranes of their eyes and the pink lining of their throats.
“Watch the show, boys!” I howl, standing on the hood of the steaming van, my purple coat snapping in the wind. “The first act is always the most… revealing.”
The lead guard, a brick of a man named Jones—oh, I recognise that jawline from the files—drops his rifle. He isn’t looking at me. He’s looking at his own hands. To him, the skin is melting, turning into a swarm of black, buzzing flies that are eating their way up his arms.
“Get them off! GET THEM OFF!” he shrieks, his voice hitting a register that would make a soprano weep. He starts clawing at his own forearms, his fingernails digging deep, red furrows into his meat, trying to peel the hallucinations away.
Next to him, another guard turns toward his partner. But he doesn’t see a fellow officer. Through the haze of my green gift, he sees a towering, faceless demon with Hallow’s blue-and-red pigtails and a mouth full of jagged, rusted needles.
“Monster!” the guard babbles, his eyes weeping blood as the gas fries his synapses. He raises his sidearm and presses it against his partner’s temple. “STAY BACK, YOU BITCH!”
BLAM.
The partner’s head snaps back, a spray of crimsonpainting the white security booth behind them. It’s beautiful. It’s like a Jackson Pollock painting, if Jackson Pollock had a thing for high-velocity brain matter.
“Ooh! A plot twist!” I clap my hands, hopping off the hood and landing in the centre of the toxic fog. I breathe it in—deep. To me, it just tastes like peppermint and victory. My brain is already so far gone, the gas just feels like a warm hug from an old friend.
All around the gate, the “The Punchline” is doing its work. The guards aren’t a team anymore; they’re a collection of panicked animals trapped in their own worst nightmares. One man is curled in a fetal position, sobbing because he thinks the shadows are made of teeth. Another is firing his shotgun into the empty air, screaming at “the ghosts” to leave him alone.
“You see, Knuckles?” I gesture broadly at the screaming, self-mutilating chaos. “People spend so much time pretending they aren’t afraid of the dark. All I did was turn the lights off.”
I walk past a guard who is trying to eat his own tongue. I stop, reach into my pocket, and tuck a Joker card into his belt. “Chew slowly, pal. Digestion is key.”
The sirens are wailing now, but they’re drowned out by the sound of the asylum’s internal alarms. The high-pitched skree-skree-skree is the perfect backbeat to the carnage. The searchlights are swinging wildly, cutting through the green fog, making the whole scene look like a sick, strobe-lit rave in a slaughterhouse.
I look up at the fourth-floor windows. The Soft Room.
Somewhere up there, in the silence, Hallow is listening to the world catch fire. She might not know myname yet, but she can hear the punchline. She can feel the foundation of her cage beginning to crumble under the weight of my arrival.
“Higgins!” I shout, spotting the kid through the haze. He’s made it to the secondary blast doors, clutching the canister on his leg like a holy relic. He’s shaking so hard his teeth are probably rattling out of his gums. “Open the door, Higgins! Daddy’s home, and I brought the fireworks!”
Higgins fumbles with the keypad, his fingers slick with sweat and terror. The green gas is nipping at his heels, beginning to whisper his own secrets into his ears.
“Don’t let the voices in, kid! Just hit the buttons!”
With a heavy, mechanical groan, the secondary blast doors begin to slide open. The belly of the beast is exposed—white tiles, fluorescent lights, and the smell of bleach trying to hide the scent of suffering.
I pull my serrated blade and let out a long, jagged howl of pure joy.
“CURTAINS UP, DOCTOR ARIS!” I scream, sprinting toward the opening. “THE AUDIENCE IS WAITING, AND THE CLOWN IS OUT OF HIS CAGE!”
Chapter
Thirteen
HALLOW
The silence has a flavour. It tastes like the dust of bones and the sour, chemical tang of the padding that lines my world.
I’ve been in the dark for so long that I’ve started to invent new colours. There’s a shade of bruised violet that happens when I squeeze my eyes shut too hard, and a jagged, electric yellow that streaks across my vision whenever the phantom hum of the machine echoes in my skull.
