The sound did not begin with a warning.
At exactly 02:14 AM and zero seconds, the bronze Simplex audit bell above Door 312 exploded into sound.
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!
The bell did not strike in separate beats. It hammered the air with a savage, mechanical fury, cycling at twelve strokes a second.
Every square inch of the third-floor corridor began to shake.
The vibration tore through the floorboards, straight through the soles of Julian’s boots, and rattled the teeth in his jaw.
Mixed into the thunderous clatter of the bell was another sound, deeper and far more sickening.
From five feet behind Julian’s shoulder, Matron Bell’s hollowed chest cavity opened wide. The six-inch bronze gong bolted into her collarbone resonated at sixty hertz, humming with the terrifying bass rumble of an overloaded transformer.
