by Paul Berry
Chapter 17
I’m awoken by a loud knocking on the door. It opens and Dr Stone is standing there with a clipboard, wearing his same implacable expression.
‘I heard you created a disturbance in the recreation room this morning?’
‘It won’t happen again.’
‘Make sure it doesn’t. Talking to the other residents is strongly discouraged. It has a negative effect on the healing process. You want to get better, don’t you, Sam?’ The way he enunciates my name sounds like he is spitting something unappetising from his mouth.
‘Is my dad coming to visit me tomorrow?’
‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. He’s agreed it’s in your best interests to be solely under my care for the time being.’ A smile twitches the corner of his mouth. He realises I know he’s lying.
‘I promise to cooperate with anything you suggest. I want to get better.’
‘That’s good to hear. Any bad dreams?’
‘No.’
His smile falters. ‘Are you sure?’ I nod and he stares at me. ‘You must be hungry. Go to the dining room and join the others.’ My stomach cramps in nausea at the mention of food. ‘And try to eat in silence. A repeat of what happened this morning would be unwise.’
The dining room is identical to how it was at breakfast as orderlies push around carts stacked with plastic trays, except now there is a sickening smell of overcooked meat and boiled cabbage. I sit at an empty table opposite Tim. He casually looks up as I sit down and an orderly slaps a tray in front of me.
‘Just water, please,’ I say. He takes back the tray and fills a plastic beaker.
‘Watching your weight, princess?’ He smirks. There is a milky sheen on the surface of the water and I wonder what personal ingredient they have added to it. Across the room the twins eat in unison, raising their forks and chewing as though each is the reflection of the other. Tim continues eating with his head down. Does he want me to go over and talk to him? I am about to get up when there is a crash from his table. His tray is lying in a soggy heap of food. Bert starts shouting and pointing outside.
‘It’s him! He’s here! He’s here!’ The two orderlies standing against the wall watching the room go over to him while the one pushing the cart starts clearing up the mess.
Tim quickly stands up and creeps over to my table. He takes my hand and squeezes it and I feel something pressing into my palm. He goes back to his table and I put the object he gave me into my pocket. As they try to calm Bert down, hysteria spreads throughout the dining room.
‘I see him!’ one of the twins yells, pointing at the window. More trays clatter from tables and metal chair legs squeal across the floor as the cafeteria echoes with multiple screams. Dr Stone’s voice crackles over a tannoy.
‘Please escort everyone back to their rooms.’
‘Everyone shut up! Nap time!’ one of the orderlies shouts, grabbing Bert’s arm. He is gibbering incoherently now. He glances at me and winks, and I realise that he must have planned the diversion with Tim. I follow the stream of residents as we are herded down the corridor back to our rooms.
‘I’ve got my eye on you,’ Smith says, pushing me into my room and standing at the doorway, his hand gripping the frame tightly. He steps in, and I know that if he locks me in with him, something terrible will happen. In the corridor, Bert starts shouting again. Smith sighs. ‘Maybe a dose of Sparkles will shut him up.’ He leaves without closing the door.
Bert screams in pain.
‘Your turn to mop up the piss.’ Smith laughs. He then starts arguing with another orderly and their voices grow fainter.
I take the thing Tim gave me out of my pocket. A flattened chewing gum packet. I tease it open and pull out a single stick of gum and a folded-up piece of paper. I check nobody is watching through the doorway and smooth the note against my thigh.
Meet me in the bathroom 11 p.m. Put gum in the lock.
Doors start slamming down the corridor, the sound growing louder. I unwrap the gum and start chewing it, almost gagging from the taste. Just when I’m about to vomit, I take it out of my mouth and squash it into the hollow where the door lock slides in. I press it around evenly so it blends in with the metal. The door next to my room slams and I jump back onto the bed.
‘Sweet dreams, princess,’ an orderly says, banging the door shut. I hear the click as it automatically locks. I wait until the slams of doors in the corridor grow more distant, then get out of bed. I grab the handle, almost afraid to pull it.
The door slides open, the metal chisel of the lock scraping over the gum.
‘The freaks are locked in for the night,’ a voice echoes.
‘These freaks might be the only thing that save our lives,’ Dr Stone says irritably. I slide the door closed and press my ear against the crack, their voices growing fainter.
‘What about the new one. Fresh meat for the grinder?’
‘There’s something different about him. Tomorrow I’ll begin to explore his full potential.’
‘That little shit gives me the creeps.’
‘Take Bert downstairs. His outbursts are causing unnecessary distractions.’ I press my ear harder against the crack. A door is unlocked and I hear Bert’s muffled pleas.
‘I was only playing. I’ll be good.’
There is a scream and then silence.
If I don’t get out of here tonight, I’ll be taken downstairs, never to be seen again.
Even worse, I’ll never see my dad again.
The minute hand on the wall clock ticks just after seven. Four more hours. I pull back the curtains and stare into the courtyard, imagining my dad standing in the snow, opening the window and reaching in to pull me out, then taking me far away from this nightmare.
But I’m on my own, as always. My dad is not coming for me; nobody is. I sob into the pillow, wishing I’d never gone to the disco and stayed at home eating pizza and watching horror films.
Sam, a voice whispers in my mind.
The dark thing inside me reaches up, encircling me in a comforting embrace. I close my eyes and let it take control.
My teeth start elongating behind my lips. I open my eyes and see my nails extending into talons.
Feels good, doesn’t it? Allow me in … completely. We’ll have so much fun.
‘No.’ I push it back into the pit of my stomach. It growls in anger.
I’ll sleep for a while. But not for much longer.
My teeth and nails retract and I wrap my arms around my chest, feeling as though my body is a stranger plotting against me. I pick up the sketch pad and sit cross-legged on the bed, propping it between my knees. I start drawing what I imagine the creature looks like, a hungry entity with tentacles and ragged wings. In my mind it opens a sleepy eye and starts grinning. I sketch a box around it, the sides impenetrable steel bars encircled by chains and locks. Its eye droops closed and it falls back to sleep.
‘Try escaping from that.’ I keep glancing at the clock.
Eventually it is five minutes to eleven. I close the sketch pad and take a deep breath.
Be calm, be calm, be calm.
I listen at the door and everything is quiet. I look back at the bed and stuff the pillows and my bag under the covers, arranging them into the vague shape of a body, hoping it might fool them if they decide to check I’m still in the room.
I turn off the light and slowly open the door, wincing when the hinges squeak. I poke my head through and look up and down the corridor. Empty. I pick out the gum in the lock, slowly close the door until it clicks back into place and creep down the corridor. If Dr Stone or one of the orderlies appears, there will be nowhere to hide. I reach the bathroom door.
It doesn’t open.
They must have locked it along with the rooms. I start panicking, then realise I haven’t pushed the handle down. Shadows stretch along t
he wall at the end of the corridor and there are voices. They’re coming. I open the door and slip into the bathroom, slowly closing it behind me. I stand behind it as the voices get louder.
They stop outside the door.
‘Which lucky volunteer is joining Bert downstairs tonight?’ a voice asks.
‘Volunteers,’ Smith says. ‘The twins.’
‘Both of them? Shouldn’t there be three of us?’
‘Don’t worry. We’ll just give them a zap if they start playing up.’
‘This time you clean up the piss.’ They start laughing and move away down the corridor. I look around the bathroom. Everything is monochrome, pallid moonlight streaming through the rectangular strip of window under the ceiling. I put my hand on the light switch.
‘Stop,’ a voice whispers. Tim steps out from one of the cubicles. ‘They might see the light from under the door. I take it the chewing gum worked?’ I nod. ‘My brother taught me that trick when my mum used to lock him in his room.’
‘How are we going to escape?’
He points at the window. ‘They haven’t locked it. Probably thought no one could reach that high.’
‘But we’re not tall enough.’
He goes into the cubicle and brings out a square mop bucket. ‘They’re very careless, leaving cleaning things lying around for anyone to take.’ He turns it upside down under the window. ‘Luckily we’re both skinny urchins or we’d never fit through.’ He stands on the bucket and grasps the edge of the window, sliding it across. It stops halfway and cold air whistles though, instantly cooling the sweat on my forehead. ‘It leads out to the carpark. The next challenge will be to get over the gate, so we’ll have to improvise.’
‘Why did you not escape weeks ago?’
He shrugs. ‘I kept having this weird dream. Something in it told me to wait. This voice from an eye that was blinking in a star.’
He reaches up and grabs the window frame, pulling himself up and pushing his shoulders through. He wriggles out and I hear his sweater rip. I am now alone in the bathroom. For a second I hesitate, feeling an urge to go back to my room and crawl under the covers.
‘What are you waiting for?’ he whispers through the window, his mop of hair bobbing over the edge. I step onto the bucket and the metal buckles slightly under my weight. I grasp the frame and pull myself up but crack my head against the top. I let go and knock the bucket. It scrapes loudly against the tiles. I hold my breath and listen for footsteps outside the bathroom. I rub my head, already feeling a bump beginning to swell.
‘Hurry up,’ he says, his voice starting to constrict with panic. I pick up the bucket and place it flat against the wall, stand on it and grab the frame, using all my strength to lift myself up. My head passes through the window. He reaches up and grasps the tops of my arms and drags me out. I collapse onto the tarmac beside him and he helps me to my feet.
I follow him as we slip round the edge of the building, keeping to the shadows. The snow hasn’t stuck to the tarmac which glistens in the moonlight like black oil. Jupiter Hill is surrounded by tall railings interspersed with brick balusters, impossible to clamber up without grappling hooks.
He suddenly puts his hand on my chest to stop me and shakes his head. Pooling in front of us is light from a window. He crouches down and we crawl under it, the tarmac rasping painfully against my knees. If anyone decides to look out, we will not have the shadows to hide us. We stand up and skirt round to the dimly lit glass entrance. The reception desk behind it is empty and Dr Stone’s Mercedes is still parked outside. The only way out is through the devil-tail gates.
‘We’ll have to climb over,’ he whispers. Criss-crossing the gate’s railings are horizontal bars that can be used as foot rests, rather like a playground climbing frame.
‘What about the spikes?’ I ask.
He pulls off his sweater and shivers in his t-shirt. ‘As long as we protect our hands, we’ll be fine.’ I look back at the hospital, expecting a siren to start blasting from it.
‘Come on, Sam, move. We’ve almost made it.’
The moonlight reflects off one of his palms. It is slick with blood. He must have cut it open on the window frame when he climbed through.
I stare at his hand as the blood starts to drip off his fingertips.
The thing inside me awakens.
‘What’s wrong?’ Tim asks, a vein below his jaw twitching as blood pulses through it.
‘I’m starving,’ I say.
‘What?’
I lunge at him, knocking him off his feet, and pin him to the ground. He tries to punch me with a free arm, but I grab it and slam it onto the tarmac. There’s a dull crack as the bone breaks and he cries out.
He looks at my face and starts screaming.
My skin quivers and thin black tentacles twist out in front of my eyes. I lean down to his neck, strings of saliva dripping from my mouth. The tentacles greedily slide over his face, probing his nostrils and behind his lips, transmitting his sour taste into my mouth. I look into his eyes and see terror radiating out.
‘Stop,’ he wheezes, barely struggling now. I pull away, disgusted, clasping my palms to my face and feeling the tentacles squirming against them like scalded worms.
Twin barbs of pain lance the side of my chest.
My body spasms and I fall off him, convulsing. Smith is standing over me with a taser. Another orderly drags Tim away screaming, clutching his broken arm. Electricity surges through my body and I bite the inside of my cheek as my jaw clenches involuntarily.
‘That’s enough,’ Dr Stone says, appearing behind him.
Chapter 18
‘Take him to the room,’ Dr Stone says. The orderlies pick me up under my armpits and march me back to Jupiter Hill, my heels dragging limply across the tarmac. I try to struggle free, but their arms are like tree trunks.
‘Keep doing that and I’ll break your fucking nose,’ Smith grunts.
‘Be careful,’ Dr Stone says, his lips arcing in that mocking smile. ‘We don’t know what else he’s capable of.’ Rage crackles and I feel the creature inside desperate to take control.
‘I wish it was you I was ripping into,’ I splutter. Dr Stone slaps my face. The ring on his finger glances off my cheekbone and pain explodes around my eye.
‘By the time I’ve finished,’ he says, ‘you won’t even remember your own name.’ The lights in the reception are now blazing, and he swipes the door lock with his card. ‘Are you going to be a polite young man now?’
I nod, tears of pain rolling down my face, my eye beginning to swell shut. They drag me down corridors until we stop in front of a metal door etched with a design of an eye encircled by a snake swallowing its tail, the same as the one from the Vega College emblem. Over it hangs the sign ‘Treatment Room’. Dr Stone grabs the handle and slides it sideways as though it belongs in an abattoir.
The room is white and clinical like the rest of the hospital and in the centre is a wheelchair. The orderlies push me into it and strap my wrists tightly to the arms, two more restraints pulled around my ankles. As another strap is being fastened around my middle, Smith’s face is close to mine. I stare at him and grin, my teeth sticky with blood.
‘You smell nice,’ I say, feeling the creature inside furiously scratching behind my eyes to be let out.
He takes out a stun gun and jams it into my crotch. ‘Try anything and I’ll keep my finger pressed until I burn a hole in your ballsack.’ He yanks the strap painfully tight under my ribs and stands next to the other orderly in front of the door. They both fold their arms, their biceps bulging under their white shirts. Dr Stone pulls up a stool and sits in front of me, his hands neatly folded on his lap.
‘You probably have a lot of questions, Sam. I’ll be happy to answer them, but first you must answer a few of my own.’ I turn away.
‘Look at me.’ He grabs my jaw and t
wists my head to face him. ‘Now, this is the unpleasant part. If you don’t answer my questions satisfactorily or if I think you’re lying, I’m going to punish you. Have I made myself clear?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you ready? First question. Do you know this man?’ He pulls out the faded newspaper picture of Adam from his jacket. He must have stolen it from me at the hospital.
‘It’s Adam. I met him on the night of the disco, in the park.’ He reaches into another pocket and unfolds a sheet of paper. It is the picture I drew of Adam.
‘Very artistic. You’re quite talented, in an obvious way. And it proves you’re not lying. This time.’ I struggle against the restraints and the leather grinds painfully against my wrists.
‘Why are you doing this? I’ve done nothing to you.’
‘Adam killed my son. He was about your age, a little younger. Him and his friends used to go to the park to drink, talk about girls, red-blooded teenage boy things. He ripped them apart, left their remains for the woodlice to crawl over. Adam has also extirpated several employees of Jupiter Hill, so you can understand why they feel a certain amount of animosity towards you.’
‘But I didn’t know Adam then.’
‘I don’t care. You’re the same foul thing, a stain on this world.’ He is clenching his fists so tightly his knuckles protrude white under the skin. He relaxes his hand, his face returning to its mask of calmness. ‘Where did Adam take you after the disco?’ He stares at me, trying to pull out the answer.
I hesitate. ‘I don’t remember. Maybe it was a house in the town centre.’ The smile disappears from his lips.
‘That’s not the truth, is it, Sam?’
Smith hands him a knife. The handle is made of bone with symbols carved into the blade. He pulls his chair closer. If my arms weren’t restrained, I could tear out those beautiful green eyes. ‘This knife is very special. It’s extremely painful to monsters like you.’
