The Madness of Annie Radford Read online

  Copyright 2018 Amy Cross

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, entities and places are either products of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, businesses, entities or events is entirely coincidental.

  Kindle edition

  Dark Season Books

  First published: September 2018

  It began with a moment of horror in a distant forest. Having shot her little brother dead, Annie Radford was sent to Lakehurst psychiatric hospital, where she discovered that the voices in her head might in fact be real. Something terrible was lurking beneath Lakehurst, something that desperately wanted to break free.

  When a strange little girl is found in Iowa, dark forces begin to gather. An ancient evil is stirring, preparing to take on a devastating new form. Teaming up with Elly Blackstock, Annie sets out to find the little girl and keep her safe, but she's not the only one who's searching. Soon, Annie realizes that a face from her past is also involved, and that the wheels of a hidden plan are slowly beginning to turn.

  Horror is the third and final book in the Asylum trilogy. Readers are advised to start with the first book in the series.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue One

  Prologue Two

  Prologue Three

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Epilogue One

  Epilogue Two

  Epilogue Three

  The Madness of Annie Radford

  (The Asylum Trilogy book 3)

  Prologue One

  200,000 years ago

  He was the first to really see it, the first to really understand what it was.

  Nameless, almost shapeless in the dark, he began to crawl out from the cave until he reached a rocky ledge. There, in the light of the moon, he looked down at the path below and saw another figure moving through the night.

  Another like him.

  Remaining completely still, he watched as the intruder came closer. Every few seconds, the man heard the sound of small rocks being dislodged as the intruder began to pick his way up toward the cave. There could be no doubt now; the man knew that his hiding place was about to be discovered, and that he'd have no choice but to fight. He'd fought before, of course, and he'd never been beaten. If he'd been beaten, he'd be dead. He pulled back, keeping his eyes fixed on the side of the ledge, waiting for the intruder to finish his climb.

  Slowly, the man reached out and took hold of a rock. He knew he needed a weapon.

  For the next few minutes, he waited. Now he could hear the intruder's grunts, but he resisted the urge to cry out or to attack first. Finally he saw a hand reach up and grip the ledge. He flinched, almost rushing forward, but again he managed to hold himself back. He knew that if he struck now, he'd most likely not be able to finish the intruder off. Instead, he wanted the intruder to climb up properly onto the ledge, and then he'd be able to use the element of surprise. So he remained still and quiet, lurking in the shadows, and he watched as the intruder finally clambered up onto the ledge and began to crawl toward the cave's mouth.

  The man waited in silence.

  In stillness.

  He knew now that he hadn't been seen.

  The intruder, silhouetted against the night sky, crawled past the man as if he hadn't even noticed his presence. Instead, the intruder seemed fixated on the cave, as if he could conceive of danger coming from no other direction. The man, for his part, knew that the intruder had come in hope of finding shelter, but he also knew that a fight was inevitable. Resources were scarce out on the plains, and the man had spent a couple of years gathering items from the surrounding area. Ever since being thrown out of his tribe, he'd been working on his new home. Now his home was under threat from an intruder, but he knew the odds were on his side.

  He was strong.

  Stronger than any other man he'd ever seen.

  In his right hand, he squeezed the rock a little tighter.

  Suddenly the intruder stopped and stared into the cave, as if he was listening for any hint of movement. His breath was heavy and gasping. He was so focused on the cave, he didn't even notice as the man began to creep up behind him. The man, meanwhile, began to raise the rock and prepared himself for the moment of discovery. He expected the intruder to spin around at any second, but finally he got close enough to strike and he realized he'd been lucky. Determined not to wait a moment longer, then, he tightened his grip once more and then – just as the moon dipped behind a cloud – he decided to strike.

  He swung the rock down, slamming it into the side of the intruder's head.

  The intruder let out a pained shriek and fell forward.

  Acting quickly, the man raised the rock and then struck again, then again and again, until he felt hot blood splattering against his own wrist and arm. He didn't stop to check his enemy's condition, but he heard the intruder crying out and squealing, begging for mercy maybe. He felt hands reaching up through the darkness and trying to push him away, but already he could feel that those same hands were weakening. He pounded the front of the intruder's head, pummeling him as hard as he could manage.. He couldn't risk a reprisal, so he struck several more times until finally he knew that nobody could possibly have survived such an onslaught. He could see nothing in the darkness, of course, but he was certain he'd heard the sound of the intruder's skull cracking open.

  Pulling back, the man waited for any hint that the intruder might still be alive.

  The only sound he heard, however, came from his own exhausted breaths.

  Finally, as if to answer his fears, the moon emerged once more from behind the clouds. There still wasn't enough light, but the man could just about see the horrific blackened mess that he'd made of the intruder's head.

  He dropped the rock, and then he crawled forward. He meant only to drag the intruder's corpse away from the cave, to throw him off the side of the ledge, but at the last moment he saw in a patch of moonlight that the side of the dead intruder's head was glistening with blood. Leaning closer, the man saw that his strikes had actually scraped away some of the skin and had shattered the base of the skull, leaving small fragments poking out into the night air.

  The man hesitated for a moment, before reaching out and carefully pulling one of the fragments out of the wound.

  Then he dropped the fragment and removed another.

  Then another.

  Then more, until his attention was fully focused on the task. He'd never really seen inside another man before. When eventually he found bone fragments that were stuck fast, he used his fingertips to pull them
away, digging deeper and deeper until finally he'd torn open the base of the intruder's neck and even part of his left shoulder. Curiosity drove him on, compelling him to see what lay at the center of his enemy. And then, slowly, he reached his fingers further into the wound and felt a soft, warm object beneath his victim's skull. He poked for a moment, before resuming his work and starting to crack away the skull's entire back section. He'd never ripped a man open before, but suddenly his interest had become overwhelming. He grunted as the task become harder, but finally he managed to pull away a larger section of skull, revealing the glistening mass beneath.

  He paused, before sliding his fingers deeper on either side and starting to pull. For some reason that he didn't understand, he felt an urgent need to see the contents of the intruder's head, but it took several more minutes before his frantic efforts allowed him to start lifting the bloodied mass free. Finally, however, he held his prize aloft, and he stared in wonder as – for the first time – he saw an entire human brain.

  Within seconds, however, that sense of wonder began to sour, and he felt a wave of fury starting to rise through his chest. What was this thing, he wondered, that had been found encased in the intruder's skull? Did all men have such a thing inside their heads? The mere thought was enough to sicken him, and over the course of a few seconds this sense of horror began to fuse into pure, unbridled hatred.

  He let out an angry groan, unable to fight his instincts, yet he continued to hold the brain in his trembling hands, as if he couldn't bear to look away from such an awful sight. The brain's stem had been broken during the assault with the rock, leaving a trailing section, but the man's eyes were fixed on the brain's surface as he felt the anger and hatred building in his chest. His hands were shaking harder than ever now, yet he couldn't drop the brain, not now. Instead he stared and stared, unable to fight the fury, until finally he could hold himself back no longer. Letting out an anguished cry, he raised the brain higher and then he sent it crashing down against the ground, dashing its side against one of the rocks.

  Then he did the same again, hitting the brain several times before finally letting go and grabbing another rock. Still filled with hatred, he began to smash the horrific thing with the rock over and over, mashing the brain against the ground and screaming with all his strength. All he knew was that such a terrible thing had to be destroyed forever.

  His scream could be heard for miles.

  Prologue Two

  1,000 years ago

  “There it is!” he gasped, his voice filled with grit even as he dropped helplessly to his knees. Rain poured down all around, hitting the ground with unrelenting, ferocious intensity. “Do you see it? Do you see the fortress?”

  Behind him, a second figure stepped closer. Soaked to the bone and weak with hunger, this second figure nevertheless managed to stay upright as he looked ahead into the darkness. He was exhausted, of course, after traveling for so many hundred miles across Europe, but some kind of inner resolve kept him standing.

  “Do you see it, man?” Bohemon yelled, still down on the ground. “It's right there! Are you blind?”

  Alian opened his mouth to say that no, he didn't see anything, that this was yet another illusion on their long and twisted journey. At the very last moment, however, he furrowed his brow as he realized that he could indeed see a shape ahead in the night air, a patch of space that was somehow even darker than the darkness that already awaited them. He squinted, convinced that this shape would resolve itself and prove to be nothing, but if anything the shape actually became clearer and more real.

  It was as if God had chosen this moment to unveil a great truth.

  “I knew we'd find it!” Bohemon stammered, struggling to his feet and then taking a few pained steps forward, while reaching to his waist and finally unsheathing his sword. “I knew it was real! I told you! I swore we'd get here! Now are you ready to admit that I was right?”

  He turned and looked back at Alian, who was barely visible in the darkness.

  After a moment, Alian – leaving his own sword still in its sheath – raised his right hand and made the sign of the cross against his chest.

  “What's that?” Bohemon asked, as he heard a faint murmur coming from his comrade's lips, barely rising above the sound of the crashing rain. “Are you praying?”

  He waited, but still Alian spoke in hushed tones.

  “The Lord guided us here,” Bohemon said after a moment, raising his voice a little in the hope that he'd be heard over the sound of the storm. “We were on our way to join the others on the road to Jerusalem, but the Lord diverted us to this forsaken place for a reason. Perhaps fear now holds you back, my friend, but we must go on.” He paused, before turning and looking at the dark shape ahead. At the same moment, he gripped his sword even tighter. “We have been led here for a purpose.”

  ***

  “It's empty,” Alian said as he stood in the doorway, looking into the barn's interior. “There's nothing here. We've wasted three days on this march. All we can do now is try to catch up to the others.”

  “There has to be something here,” Bohemon muttered, holding his burning torch aloft as he looked toward the roof. “Why would the Lord direct us to come here, only to present us with an empty space? It doesn't make sense.”

  He stepped over to the far end of the barn, yet once again he saw only a rough stone wall. Reaching out, he ran his right hand against the stone, as if he could barely believe what he was seeing.

  “My visions were so clear,” he added finally. “All the way here, I experienced such powerful images of this place. I saw things I could scarcely believe to be real.”

  “Lighted squares on the walls?”

  “Yes!” Bohemon hissed. “I saw lighted squares on the walls, and I saw devices I have never seen before! I heard the most astonishing noises in my dreams, noises that seemed to come from the heavens.” He paused, reliving the sights he'd seen during his fevered rests. He saw banks of computer monitors, along with medical equipment and flashing lights. None of this made any sense to him, of course; he didn't know what a computer monitor was, but he felt certain that he hadn't conjured such sights out of thin air. “I could never have imagined those sights,” he added finally. “Such visions would simply have been beyond me.”

  “Yet here we are,” Alian pointed out, “and the place looks like an ordinary barn.”

  “Did we misunderstand his orders?” Bohemon continued. “We must have. Perhaps our sins are too great, or too numerous, and the Lord has dispensed with our services. If we pleased him once, surely we do not do so now. We must find a way to cleanse our souls, else we shall surely burn in eternal damnation. This is a sign! It's madness!”

  “Perhaps,” Alian said quietly, watching Bohemon's increasingly desperate search, “or perhaps...”

  His voice trailed off.

  “Or perhaps,” he added finally, “it is only madness now. And here.”

  “What are you blathering on about?” Bohemon snapped.

  “Perhaps we are too early,” Alian continued. “By a year. Or ten years. Or a hundred, or a thousand even. Perhaps, too, we are in the wrong place. I have thought about this a lot during our journey.”

  Bohemon turned to him, his face filled with incredulity.

  “Perhaps we call this madness,” Alian said, “because the pattern does not yet fit the scenario. Perhaps this pattern seems like madness for now, yet one day this so-called madness will serve the Lord's will. After all, madness is so very common in the world. It must serve some purpose, must it not?”

  “Are you insane?” Bohemon asked. “Has the journey driven you beyond sanity itself?”

  “I too dreamed several times of our arrival here,” Alian explained, “and in those dreams, I did not see a ramshackle old barn. That was never supposed to be our destination.”

  “You believe we have followed the wrong path?”

  “I believe we did everything right, but that we are too early. And that we are perhaps als
o in the wrong place.” Alian took a step closer, toward the burning torch. For a moment, he seemed mesmerized by the dancing flames. “In my dreams, in place of this barn, I saw a far larger building, one with a huge disc attached to its roof.”

  “A disc?”

  “Like a plate, pointing toward the heavens.”

  “You really have taken leave of your senses,” Bohemon muttered with a sigh. “The only explanation is that we have sinned, and that the Lord has rejected us. I know not how or why, but we have sorely displeased him.” With that, he stepped past Alian and made his way out of the barn, back out into the driving rain. “We must set off at once!” he called back. “We must join the great crusade and hope that in this way our sins, whatever they might be, are washed away in battle. The battle for Jerusalem is the only way in which we can ever hope to be redeemed!”

  “But if -”

  “No more of this madness!” Bohemon snapped. “We march! Now!”

  With that he was gone, off into the storm, sure that his comrade was following.

  Alian, however, stayed for a moment in the barn, listening to the sound of rain battering the high roof. He was almost shivering in the cold, yet somehow he managed to keep still. Indeed, he was at that moment overcome by a sense of realization, as if all his thoughts and dreams of the past few weeks had finally coalesced, and now he felt as if a veil had been parted to let him understand one part of the chaos. For a few seconds, he felt utter clarity.

  “There is a kind of madness that exists in all of us,” he said out loud, even though he knew he was alone, “but this madness does have its purpose. One day a madman will save us all, in a place much like this but far, far away. In a fortress topped by a disc that stares at the heavens. This madness is a curse upon the rest of us, something that waits inside us for the one person who will become its master. One day this madness shall be a blessing, and for that we must all be grateful. Many shall follow the pattern that we have followed, and only one shall find himself at the right place at the right time. Whoever he is, I wish him well on the path that the Lord has laid out. For him and him alone, madness shall be the way.”