Doc Mortis Read Online Free

and right, from behind me and from up ahead. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.
    Some of them were close. Closer, even, than Joseph and Ameena. A voice screeched right by my ear and I felt a blast of warm breath on my face. But when I squinted through the dark, I saw nothing there.
    â€˜Wha’s happ’ning?’ I slurred. Pain clawed through my skull like five fiery fingers, beginning where the Crowmaster had scratched me and reaching all the way down into my chest.
    The hospital wasn’t far ahead – I couldn’t tell how far, exactly – but I suddenly felt that we weren’t going to make it.
    Hungry hungry hungry hungry! The voices had been whipped into a frenzy, screeching and howling like wild animals. Ameena and Joseph showed no signs of hearing them, but Joseph made sure to shout when he next spoke.
    â€˜Listen to me, Kyle,’ he bellowed in my ear. ‘When we get inside, there won’t be long before it happens. The Crowmaster infected you with a virus and it’s about to kick into top gear.’
    â€˜What does that mean?’ a voice asked. I couldn’t even say if it was mine or Ameena’s.
    â€˜It means you’re going to slip through into the Darkest Corners,’ Joseph told me. ‘Those voices you hear, they’re from over there. Those... things must know you’re coming. They’re waiting for you.’
    Hungryhungryhungryhungryhungry.
    The Darkest Corners. It was the place all imaginary friends went when they were forgotten about – an alternate reality filled with pain, suffering and unimaginable horrors. A bit like my last visit to the dentist, but without the free sticker at the end.
    I’d been to the Darkest Corners a few times and had barely survived each time. Fortunately, I was able to flit back and forth between here and there just by concentrating hard enough, so an escape route was never far away.
    â€˜He can come back, though. He can just come back. Can’t he?’
    â€˜Not this time. It doesn’t work like that,’ Joseph answered. ‘It’s the virus. When he slips over, he’ll be stuck there. He’ll be trapped in the Darkest Corners.’
    I felt my head spin faster as the enormity of Joseph’s words sunk in.
    â€˜Trapped,’ he added, hammering the point home. ‘With no way back.’

Chapter Three
THE OTHER OTHER HOSPITAL
    I didn’t notice the door flying open at Joseph’s boot, didn’t even realise we were inside the hospital until Ameena staggered and fell to her knees, and we hit lino instead of concrete.
    Joseph was beside me right away, turning my face so I was looking up at him. The five stabbing pains clawed all the way down into my stomach and a shock of agony shook my whole body.
    An indescribable sound burst across my lips – not a scream or a howl, but something from deeper within than that. Something I didn’t even recognise as human. From my head to my toes, my muscles went rigid, amplifying the hurt a hundred times over.
    â€˜Help him! Do something!’
    My jaw was wrenched open and a leather wallet shoved in. My teeth clamped round it, stopping me biting my tongue off.
    â€˜There’s nothing we can do.’ That was Joseph’s voice. He sounded a long way away. ‘It’s too late.’
    â€˜There’s got to be some kind of cure!’ Ameena cried. ‘This can’t be it. It can’t end like this .’
    They were talking about me as if I wasn’t there. Outside, I could hear the other voices still screeching. Hungryhungryhungry . Hungryhungryhungry .
    â€˜Not here. Over there. There’ll be a cure there, if he can find it.’
    Ameena’s face suddenly filled my vision. Sparks of blue flickered like fireflies around her head.
    â€˜Did you hear that, Kyle? There’s a cure over there. There’s a cure in the Darkest Corners. Find it, OK?’ I closed my eyes, but she shook me until they opened