Free The Darkest Corners by Barry Hutchison

in one half of the room, with a boxy old TV set squashed into the corner.
    Three men and one woman sat on the chairs, reading magazines, doing crosswords, or just dozing gently in their dressing gowns. None of them looked up as I stumbled in.
    The other half of the room was as blank as the hallway outside. There was a single window on the otherwise featureless wall, the blinds pulled half closed. I could see a darkening evening sky between the slats, but nothing more.
    Some random pieces of medical equipment stood in the bare half of the room. A blood-pressure monitor. Some sort of ECG machine. One of those things they use to shock stopped hearts back into action. A defibrillator, that was it.
    â€˜What is this? What’s going on?’ I demanded. Still no one in the day room looked my way.
    â€˜He convinced you that you were in hospital. Your mind started filling in the details,’ Ameena said. ‘But then it stopped.’
    â€˜Details? What do you mean details?’
    â€˜This,’ she said, gesturing around us. ‘The whole thing. The whole hospital. It’s not real.’ She frowned. ‘Well, no, that’s not true. It is real now. But it wasn’t back then.’
    â€˜What are you talking about? Back when?’
    â€˜Back then. Back before you created it.’ She paused a moment to let that sink in.
    â€˜Created it?’
    â€˜You still don’t get it, do you, kiddo?’ she said. ‘You still don’t understand what you’re capable of. The stuff Doc Mortis stuck in your neck – that needle – it was designed to make you open to suggestion.’
    My hand went to my neck. Was there an ache there? I wasn’t sure.
    â€˜Your dad doesn’t usually need that sort of thing. He can be pretty damned persuasive all on his own. But you were too stubborn, so he had to drug you first.’
    â€˜Drug me…? I don’t… No, none of this is happening.’
    â€˜He convinced you it was all a dream. Convinced you that you were actually safe in hospital, and that none of the rest of it had really happened.’ She smiled sadly. ‘And, man, I bet you wanted to believe that, kiddo. I bet your mind raced to believe it, to picture it, to imagine it was all true. But your mind isn’t like anyone else’s. You wanted it to be real and so it became real. The hospital. Your mum. All of it. You created your own little safe haven. Your own happy ending.’
    My mouth was dry. ‘No,’ I croaked. ‘No, that’s not true.’
    â€˜Sorry, kiddo, but it is. Every word of it.’ Ameena looked down at the floor, considering her next few words carefully. ‘He needed you to use your abilities. He needed one more big push to bring the barrier down and let the Darkest Corners in. He couldn’t force you to do it, so he tricked you instead.’ She cleared her throat gently. ‘ We tricked you instead. We tricked you into opening the door.’
    â€˜There is no door,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘There is no Darkest Corners.’
    She pointed in the direction of the window. ‘Take a look.’
    I followed her finger, but didn’t move. Not at first, anyway. Then, ignoring the pain in my grinding knee, I took a small, tentative step towards the window. Ameena gave me a nod of encouragement when I turned to look at her, and then I was there, standing before the blinds. I took a deep breath. I pulled the string to open the slats all the way. And then I looked, and the blood in my veins turned to ice.
    What had I expected to see? I wasn’t sure. An empty street. One or two late-night wanderers, maybe.
    But not this. Never this.
    There were hundreds of them. Thousands . They scuttled and scurried through the darkness, swarming over the village like an infection; relentless and unstoppable.
    I leaned closer to the window and looked down at the front of the hospital. One of the larger creatures was