Raven

by Heather Atkinson

  He was in the canteen when he heard it - a hideous bellow echoing down the black corridor towards him.

  For a moment he was tempted to flee as all sorts of horrible scenarios spun through his head - images of enraged ghosts, monsters and all the things that had scared him as a child. However, when the sound was accompanied by the squeaking of trainers, he realised the source of the noise was an earthly one.

  Gun at the ready, he hurried down the corridor just in time to see Pitbull and the four men, who only recently had been on the verge of fainting, go charging past. The unnatural way their eyes bugged from their heads told him they’d taken some of their own toxic product. Great, that was all he needed, a bunch of drugged up neo-Nazis hooligans on a psychotic rampage. Still, they would provide a good distraction for Aidan, leaving him with Raven.

  Jeremy followed, being careful not to let them know he was there.

  As they heard footsteps and voices coming their way, Raven ducked into the room opposite the one Aidan was standing in, pulling the spare handgun he’d given her, awaiting their arrival. She wished she’d brought the sniper rifle with her but that was still on the roof. Probably the best place for it to be, it was too cumbersome for these confined spaces.

  A group of shadows charged down the corridor towards them, doing nothing to disguise their arrival, bellowing like stags. It was getting even darker in the hospital, although she wasn’t sure why because it was only mid afternoon. Just another of Stonefort’s mysteries.

  The group of charging shadows were approaching the surprise they’d left out for them. From the noises they were making it was clear they were high but what had been done to Stringbean made them grind to a complete halt.

  “What the fuck’s that?” she heard one of them whisper.

  “A naked man,” whispered back another.

  “Why is he lying there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The men were rapidly coming down off their high, leaving them feeling confused and drained. They all looked to Pitbull to show them what to do. He was frowning down at Stringbean, glancing up when he saw movement ahead.

  “Down,” he yelled, throwing himself to the ground as a shot rang out.

  As he’d looked by far the most alert, Raven had shot at him first but the bullet missed its target and slammed into the wall behind him.

  While the men in the corridor panicked, Raven and Aidan ducked back into the rooms they were hiding in, pulled on the gas masks and picked up the gas canisters, which they hurled down the corridor, the objects hissing and belching out their toxic smoke.

  Stringbean, who happened to wake up right at that moment, began to shriek, flailing on the floor, screaming about ants being all over him.

  Pitbull and Luke had the presence of mind to duck into the rooms either side of them, Pitbull tossing his friend a dropped shotgun, which Luke deftly caught before throwing themselves out of the line of fire. Their two friends were less fortunate, caught out in the open, panicking and whirling round in circles, Raven and Aidan shot them down and they fell to the floor, unmoving.

  Stringbean sat up, wiping the blood spatter from his face. “I’m covered in jam. It’s for the ants, the ants are coming to get me.”

  Pitbull swung the shotgun and fired, spraying a volley of shot down the corridor, which slammed into Stringbean, silencing his cries about ants.

  Emboldened by his friend’s act, Luke fired too, forcing Raven and Aidan to duck back into the doorways.

  Jeremy was careful to keep his distance from the frantic gunfire. He sighed. The situation was degenerating. He had to get to Raven before someone heard the gunfire. Yes the hospital was isolated but ghost hunting groups did frequent the grounds, as did teenagers wanting to get pissed somewhere their mummies and daddies wouldn’t find out. Anyone could come along, hear this racket and raise the alarm. He had to get hold of Raven fast before this shower of cretins killed her.

  Fortunately he knew the layout of this building better than anyone. Leaving the fire fight behind, he snuck through the canteen, rushing through the kitchens, just managing to avoid falling over an abandoned mop bucket. He burst through the double doors, charging through the canteen, weaving in and out of the dusty tables, coming to a halt at the doors. The sound of shouting and gunfire had returned.

  Carefully peeking his head around the door, he saw muzzle flashes as the gun fight continued. Raven was ahead of him, to his right, having failed to see him because she was concentrating on firing at Pitbull and Luke.

  Staffy and Doberman appeared at the other end of the corridor, similarly clutching shotguns. Jeremy wanted to call out to Raven to warn her, torn between what he should do.

  He needn’t have worried. Aidan spotted them and fired in their direction, the small pistol he carried much easier to manoeuvre than their cumbersome shotguns.

  Doberman and Staffy ducked into a doorway, Aidan’s shots narrowly missing them. While he was distracted, Pitbull aimed his gun at him.

  “Aidan,” cried Raven.

  Jeremy’s heart was in his mouth as he watched her run forward, frantically firing, perfectly willing to put herself in harm’s way for her husband.

  Aidan whipped back round. “Raven, get down,” he yelled.

  While Pitbull took cover as Aidan opened fire on them, more cautious than his friend, who was still feeling the effects of the drugs, Luke fired, shot slamming into the wall beside Raven, forcing her to veer to the left, towards the stairs leading to the floor above. Pitbull took over shooting while Luke reloaded, forcing Raven to run up the stairs to avoid being sprayed with shot.

  “Aidan,” she called down, not wanting to leave him.

  “Keep going,” he told her when Pitbull and Luke ran after her.

  She nodded and raced up the stairs. Aidan tried to shoot at her two pursuers but was forced to duck as Staffy and Doberman advanced on him, continuing to shoot, narrowly avoiding his head.

  Aidan delved into his pocket and took out one of One Eye’s devices. Closing his eyes, he hurled it in the direction of Pitbull and Luke. It was the only one he had so he had to use it wisely. The device hit the floor with a bang, light shooting out of it. Staffy and Doberman, who already had experience of these devices, closed their eyes too. The device landed between the stairs and Pitbull, who threw himself backwards, dropping his shotgun, hands clamped over his eyes. The gun hit the floor and discharged, the shot slamming into the wall beside Raven, causing her to run faster up the stairs.

  “My fucking eyes,” cried Luke, dropping the weapon, which similarly went off in Aidan’s direction, who threw himself back into the doorway.

  From above came the sound of a surprised cry.

  “Raven,” he yelled, attempting to reach the stairs but he was beaten back into the doorway by shots from Staffy and Doberman. His wife needed him and he was penned in by this bunch of wankers.

  CHAPTER 39

  Raven raced up to the next floor, not daring to pause to get her bearings as she was being pursued by a maniac with a shotgun. Unease gripped her as she realised she was running past the doors leading into the rooms that had belonged to the most violent patients, her own mother among them. It wasn’t clear why this should make her anxious, it never had before. Something nagged at the back of her mind, something she hadn’t thought about for a very long time but that recent events had brought to the surface.

  Shoving the intrusive thoughts aside, she tore down the corridor, only recognising no one was actually chasing her when she realised she couldn’t hear footsteps.

  She dared to peer over her shoulder and saw she was alone up here. That meant Aidan was alone downstairs with four armed men.

  Immediately she ran back the way she’d come, slowing to a halt when a figure stepped out before her.

  “I don’t have time for any more of your shit Jeremy,” she said, taking aim.

  Raven was blinded by a massive flash of light that felt to pierce right into her brain. With a cry, she fell to her knees, the g
un dropping from her hand as her instinct was to cover her eyes. Realising her error, she groped for the dropped weapon but she failed to find it. Frantically she attempted to clear her vision, grateful when she was able to make out vague shapes. At least she hadn’t been blinded, which had been her initial fear. A figure was coming towards her, nothing more than a blur against a backdrop of white. Jeremy. When she couldn’t find the gun, she reached for the knife in her pocket, crying out when she was punched in the side of the face and falling to the floor.

  “I must thank One Eye for his little gadgets,” she heard Jeremy say, although she still couldn’t see him. “Very clever idea. You know how I enjoy tinkering with gadgets.” He kicked her in the ribs, making her yelp. “Aidan’s being kept busy with Pitbull and his men and you’re going to be practically blind for a few minutes. I didn’t want to blind you completely, there is something I want you to see.”

  She kicked out when a hand grabbed her arm but she completely missed and received a punch to the stomach that folded her in two. Pain shot through her abdomen as she was pulled to her feet, her arms wrenched up her back in a classic police move. He dragged her towards one of the cells, coming to a halt in the doorway.

  “Look,” he said.

  “I can’t look,” she said, drawing on her infinite reserves of calm and patience. “You blinded me.”

  “Look,” he snarled, shoving her further into the room.

  She blinked once then twice, her vision beginning to clear. The room was tiny, nothing more than a prison cell, the walls padded and covered in disturbing stains. A tattered mattress lay on the floor but Raven barely took all this in, her attention immediately drawn to the window.

  “No,” she gasped, attempting to walk out backwards but Jeremy tightened his grip, savagely twisting her arms, making her cry out in pain.

  “You will look,” he snarled in her ear.

  “I can’t,” she said, screwing her eyes shut.

  “Because you’re pathetic and weak. Look or I’ll dislocate both your arms.”

  Realising he was perfectly capable of this, she forced her eyes open, now regretting she hadn’t been blinded as she faced that taunting window. On the surface it was just an ordinary window, apart from the steel bars covering it. But Raven didn’t see the window as it was now, she saw it eighteen years ago, with that hideous alarm screaming through the building. Her mother had failed to appear for her visit with her daughter. Raven could recall waiting downstairs in the dayroom, growing increasingly uncomfortable as the time had ticked by. Back then her mother had been free to come and go from her cell, she’d behaved so well in the intervening months since she’d stabbed Jeremy’s dad in the arm. They’d thought she was improving. Looking back, it had been a ploy to give her the freedom to commit the atrocity she no doubt had planned all along. When the alarm sounded, Raven had just known it was to do with her mother.

  Ignoring the orders of the staff to stay put, she’d covertly followed nurses and orderlies alike to the rooms. When they’d all come to a shocked halt in the doorway she’d pushed past them…

  Bile rose in Raven’s throat. She could still see the blood and brain matter plastered to those bars as though it had just happened, smell the coppery stench, accompanied by something vile and foul, which at the time she had been unable to identify but now knew to be the stench of death. She could still see her mother’s body slumped on the floor, her face destroyed. She’d repeatedly slammed her head against the metal bars with such force her skull had split open. Even then she’d still kept going, her head cracked open like an egg and everything spilling out of it, stuck to the bars, the walls, in her mother’s beautiful hair, plastered to the ugly brown clothes they’d made her wear…

  One of the orderlies had vomited down himself, one of the nurses had fainted and one had just stood there, shaking and crying. Only one nurse had the presence of mind to shoo that terrified child out of there and slam the door shut.

  Now Raven understood the significance of that shadow of a child she’d seen entering this room earlier. It hadn’t been a ghost. It had been herself.

  “I know you still see her, smell her,” said Jeremy. “What was it like seeing your own mother’s brains splattered around the room?”

  “Stop it,” she screamed, writhing in his grip but it was impossible to free herself.

  “It drove you insane. Cool, calm Raven, the woman the hardest men in the north of England respect, lost the plot after seeing that and had to be locked up.”

  “Liar.”

  “Your weak mind made up a story because the truth was too much for it to bear. It probably wouldn’t be allowed to happen today - a child who had suffered such a huge trauma being locked up in the very place where she’d suffered. You were here two months before a social worker found out what had happened and sprung you. I remember you, a crazy little thing, rambling and rocking back and forth. We all thought you were permanently gone.”

  She ceased struggling as the impact of his words penetrated. “You saw me?”

  “Yes because I was sectioned at the same time. I lost it when my dad killed himself. I wasn’t as bad as you, my mind didn’t collapse beneath the weight of it like yours did.”

  “No, this isn’t true. I’ve never been sectioned.”

  “You were, only you blocked it out. See for yourself.”

  He dragged her deeper into the room, Raven’s heart hammering, stomach rolling over with nausea, the stench of her dead mother’s brains as real as it had been all those years ago.

  He forced her head down to the bed. Papers had been set out on it, all ready and waiting, papers clearly describing her admission, a photograph of herself aged fourteen, wide-eyed and terrified, wearing the ugly brown uniform of the Stonefort patient.

  Jeremy struggled to maintain a hold on her when her legs went out from under her.

  “No,” she whispered, a tear sliding down her cheek. “It’s a lie. I was admitted to a normal hospital, my stepdad beat me up…”

  “All lies you dreamed up to protect yourself from the truth.”

  “I remember the hospital, I escaped from it so I wouldn’t have to live with him anymore.”

  “That never happened. You were admitted here. The social worker got you transferred to a different hospital, which you escaped from.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head.

  Even as she spoke vague memories returned - being dragged kicking and screaming from her home, her stepdad looking on dispassionately…the neighbours standing out in the street to watch…being shoved into the rough, itchy brown uniform…held down by strong arms, unresponsive dead faces staring down at her as she was strapped to the bed before being sedated. These memories lay beneath the image she tried to grasp onto of her admission to hospital after her stepdad supposedly attacked her, the lie laid over reality like a hologram, disintegrating beneath the force of the truth.

  “My stepdad didn’t hurt me?” she said, more to herself than him.

  “No,” replied Jeremy. “But I did.”

  Her body went rigid. “What?”

  “What was I supposed to do? The daughter of the woman who destroyed my family strapped to a bed, helpless. I stole a scalpel. It was an easy thing to do, the staff were so careless on the non-violent ward, they were always leaving lying around objects mental patients should never have access to. I’m sure they did it on purpose in the hope we’d all use them to kill ourselves. I used the scalpel to cut open your shirt. But the staff caught me. When they saw your body all exposed, they thought I’d intended to sexually assault you. But I didn’t. I was going to cut your fucking heart out, which is what your family did to me. I got put in the solitary cells for that, another punishment from your fucking family…

  Raven tuned him out as the fabric of her life split apart. All the lies and false memories she’d carefully constructed around herself over the years dissolved, revealing the truth in all its stark, horrifying glory. Her mother had bashed her brains out all over the
room, she hadn’t died in the privacy of her bathtub by slitting her wrists, like she’d told herself. In her mind the face of the hospital nurse breaking that news to her melted away, revealing her mother’s body, her head split in two and that rancid stench…

  Her stepfather hadn’t touched her, although he’d never been fond of her, his dislike of her hadn’t been a lie. The violence she’d imagined had stemmed from being torn from the only home she’d ever known and forced into a place she was terrified of. The image of the nice, clean hospital with kindly staff gave way beneath the grey, imposing weight of Stonefort. Her stepfather’s face liquefied, morphing into Jeremy’s younger, angry face, his hands ripping open her clothes, his skin touching hers…

  Her body shivered and shook as everything fell away, revealing the core of rage lying at the very centre of her, exposed like a raw, pulsating nerve that she finally had to face after avoiding it for so long, the nerve that only Aidan had been able to touch…

  “I’ve spent a long time studying you,” said Jeremy, his voice finally permeating her thoughts. “Being a police officer opens a lot of doors, people are willing to talk to you, to tell you everything you want to know. Marcus Moore in particular was very happy to talk to me, although that’s probably no surprise to you. In fact you should take it as a compliment. He’s terrified you’re going to kill him. I went to him seeking information and he was very pleased when I said I wanted you out of the way. Of course he told me about the contracts he was giving you. As Patrick Bryce was your other main employer, we tried to get him on board too. He was tempted. That anal prick doesn’t like what he can’t control, but in the end his bottle gave way and he wussed out. It drove him crazy wondering how I was finding out about the contracts he was giving you. It was a simple thing to place a bug in the air vent above his office. I’m amazed neither of you thought of that.”