First Look: Grave Undertakings, the chilling sequel to Asylum Lake

As the unremembered are raised from the murky depths of Asylum Lake, the search for answers intensifies. Who were these unfortunate souls and how did they come to rest on the rocky lake-bed. One man holds the answers and Brady Tanner, the one-time newspaper reporter, and his ragtag group of comrades set out to unearth the secrets of Dr. Wesley Clovis and his Grave Undertakings…

 

March 4, 1957

Lake View Asylum

 

The soiled rag did little to silence the screams echoing throughout the hospital's dank subterranean basement, but it did keep the young woman strapped to the examination table from biting through her own tongue. Small consolation, however; her sky-blue eyes had already been removed and tossed carelessly onto the morgue's green-tiled floor. Through her muffled cries, blood-filled tears streamed down her face and onto the cold metal table where they collected in a growing pinkish-colored puddle.

Tall and slender, with silver hair falling to his shoulders, Dr. Wesley Clovis stood at the table and surveyed his handiwork. The woman had been stripped naked, her head, wrists, and ankles secured to the table by soiled leather straps. With each spasm of pain her full breasts heaved and the restraints dug further into her cold flesh, causing the white-clad orderly standing at the foot of the table to squeal in obvious delight.

"Douglas, if you would be so kind," motioning toward a cluttered tray of instruments near the table, Clovis directed his assistant, "I've need of my scalpel."

"Indeed," the diminutive orderly responded, moving to the side of the table and the instrument tray. Douglas' unsettling grin widened beneath a pencil-thin mustache, revealing a jagged row of yellow teeth. "You gonna cut her?"

Clovis paused, recasting his gaze from the prone woman on the metal table to the impish man in white. "Yes, Douglas, her blood shall flow, he whispered tersely, and then continued, his voice filling with conviction. "For the life of the flesh is in the blood … for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul."

Twenty minutes later Dr. Wesley Clovis walked from the morgue, his starched-white shirt soaked with the life of the flesh. Although no closer to unlocking the secrets which separated the living from the dead, he took solace in the knowledge that an unlimited supply of subjects remained at his disposal.

As the sound of Clovis' thunderous footfalls echoed in retreat though the cavernous basement, Douglas Wyatt was left to care for what remained of young Debra Moored. Shrugging free from his pristine hospital uniform, the pony-tailed orderly climbed atop the table, eager to explore the woman's still-warm flesh before it grew cold.

EVERYWHERE MAY 2011