Others

by James Herbert

  So I took one step to the side and swiped a hand, cigarette between fingers, at the tall arc light that was there to illuminate the bed for the cameras. It came crashing down, the long stand angling itself between myself and the charging creature. The creature was either too dull-witted from the drugs, or was naturally stupid (a bit of both, I guessed), to avoid the sudden obstruction, for it ran straight into it, taking no evasive action whatsoever, tripping over the metal bar, a flailing claw-like hand smashing the powerful lightbulb. An incandescent shower of sparks shot from the high-powered exploding lightbulb as the whole thing crashed on to the velvet-covered section of floor beside the bed. More sparks flew out and wisps of smoke rose into the air as the material began to smoulder.

  I didn’t wait around. Even as the creature stumbled over the metal rod I was moving towards it, and when it fell to the floor I also went down, stabbing at one of its eyes with the remainder of the cigarette.

  It yowled. Christ, then the beast screeched, an ejaculation of sound so fierce and piercing it stung my heart and I screeched too (after all, I knew the feeling). But I did not draw back. Avoiding those snapping teeth below me by holding its neck as hard as I could against the shiny floor (I told you my arms and shoulders are powerful), I pushed the cigarette butt further into the socket, with my other hand feeling the sclera, the white meat – in this case, the yellow – of the eye, and the black pupil, melt beneath the steady pressure, ignoring the whispery sizzling and the steamy smoke rising from under my fingertips. And still I drove the tiny brand further in, knowing that I stood no chance against this beast otherwise, that I had to maim it as badly as I could, put it out of action before it destroyed me. It thrashed around beneath me, legs entangled in cables and the arc light rod, its clawed hands flailing my head and shoulders. I was vaguely aware of the double doors across the room crashing open, people rushing in, their shouts seemingly a long way off; and out of the corner of my eye I saw Wisbeech rise from his chair, the two orderlies rushing towards me, the nurse’s mouth wide as she screamed something.

  Then I was sailing back through the air, finally tossed aside by the creature who, by now, had gone quite berserk with agony. I landed heavily against the side of the bed and felt hands clutch at me. I glanced up into Constance’s horror-stricken face and saw the sharpness in her eyes, her senses having at last returned, shock no doubt speeding the process. There was no time to say anything to her, for everything had gone crazy: more lights and reflector sheets were being knocked over by rushing bodies, most of these seeming to be rushing at me, everybody appeared to be shouting, the clamour adding to the confusion; and most terrifying of all, the creature, beast, was tearing to and fro, upsetting one of the tripod-mounted cameras, kicking aside chairs and anything or anyone else that got in its way, clutching at the ember embedded in its eye, and howling like some demented thing – which is exactly what it was.

  I figured I had nothing to lose by joining in on the fun. Before doing so though, I hissed at Constance: ‘Cover yourself and get ready to follow me.’ She looked down at the robe, which again lay ruffled around her waist, as if seeing it for the first time. As I pushed myself to my feet she began to struggle into it.

  Bruce, probably wisely, had decided to let the beast run amok for the time being and to concentrate on me, for he was cautiously making his way round the agonized creature, his eyes fearful, until he had a clear run at me. Then he came, tearing at me with all the elegance of an enraged bull.

  Ignoring the rest of the chaos around us, concentrating just on the big guy, I moved slightly away from the bed and waited for his charge. It came fast and furious, less than a second’s waiting time, and I turned my angled body away from him, sticking out my leg and grabbing the front of his tunic with one fist. His height and my lack helped the move, for he pivoted over my protruding hip, his rush and his own weight carrying him forward, the move upsetting his balance. It was a simple fulcrum manoeuvre, taught to me by my pal the bouncer and one which rarely failed when used on big men. Bruce flipped over on to his back but, although winded, he hadn’t lost it completely: he grabbed my leg – my right, the weak one – and brought me down on top of him. Now there was no way I was going to mix it with him in a wrestling match – I wouldn’t have had a chance – so I had to act before he had time to damage me seriously. When I’d fallen he had changed his grip so that his arms were around my lower back, just below the hump, and foolishly he thought a bear-hug might subdue me. He was doubly foolish because he had also allowed my arms to be free.

  You might think that a few good punches from me would have earned my release, but you’d be wrong; when you’re floor-wrestling it’s almost impossible to get any bodyweight behind a fist-blow or jab, no matter how well-placed it might be. The answer is to maim or gouge and I chose the latter (I’d done enough maiming already that night and, even though it had been to save my own life – and ultimately, Constance’s – I felt sickened by it). The first move I made was to stick my little finger straight up one of his nostrils, as hard and as deep as I could. Sounds mild enough, I know, but believe me, it isn’t. Bruce probably thought I’d magically produced a Black and Decker from somewhere and was attempting to drill right into his brain.

  He tried to lift his head back and away from me, but my little pinkie went with him (and wasn’t I glad I hadn’t had a chance to trim my fingernails that week). I could have carried on doing that and his grip on me would have soon broken; I wanted him stunned though, wanted to put him out of the way for a while. As his head reared further back and his neck stretched I went for one of the most gouge-sensitive areas on the human body. Pulling my finger free, I stiffened my thumb and drove it into the indent just below the ear and behind the jaw, where muscles, glands, and a cluster of nerves just beneath the skin make this place so vulnerable. He screamed when I dug into the stylohyoid and digastric muscles, separating them so that I could squash one of the spinal nerves no less. It hurt him, oh it fucking hurt him, and he let me go, trying to scrabble out from under me, his hands now grabbing my wrists, straining to pull them away. But I was relentless; I showed him about as much mercy as he would have shown me.

  This all happened much faster than it takes to tell, a matter of seconds I would guess, and the action around us was still in full flow, the beast stumbling around, screeching, wrecking the place, claws still clutching at his injured – his ruined – eye, film crew and PERFECT REST employees still shouting and gawking and attempting to save toppled equipment, and Wisbeech, face like thunder and not quite so handsome any more, pointing my way and yelling, expecting someone to do something about me.

  Maybe my luck so far had made me over-confident, maybe adrenaline charging around my body had got me high, but instead of grabbing Constance and getting the hell out of there, I rose to my feet yet again, leaving the orderly squirming on the floor, his big hands holding his neck, and advanced on Dr Leonard K. Wisbeech. And perhaps I was out for revenge as well, not just for the poor wretches that had been locked away in this place for so many years, used and abused, their unfortunate physiques merely a source of study, experimentation, and pornography, not just for Constance, whose frail little body had also been abused and who was meant to die that night for the ultimate erotic thrill and to ensure her silence, but for myself also, for all the crap I’d taken in the past six days, the nightmares, the intrusions, the loss of Henry, the police suspicion and interrogation, even the bloody beating I’d taken on Brighton beach, which had nothing to do with this but was something I’d had to endure anyway. I’m sure it was all these things, plus every humiliation and indignity I’d had to suffer throughout my miserable life, every jibe, every cruel remark and joke at my expense, every blatant stare – every fucking unfairness that had come my way. I had planned to emulate the beast, to join it as a dervish of destruction, anything to create havoc and confusion so that Constance and I could escape while the enemy was in disarray; but now my rage, my resentment, was directed at one person, this paragon of t
he medical world, this handsomely well-favoured physician whose fine exterior hid a soul as repellent as Satan’s. Wisbeech understood my intent the moment he looked into my eye.

  He began to back away and I followed.

  I felt strong. God, I suddenly felt powerful. That’s what an adrenaline rush will do for you and you had to use it while it was there, because it never lasts long, your system can’t take too much. Those other people in the room, apart from the beast thing which was now on its knees, rocking backwards and forwards, head held in its clawed hands, and Bruce, who was just dragging himself up from the floor, one hand touching the tender spot behind his jaw, were watching me warily, no doubt impressed by the way I had dealt with both my attackers. Maybe they were equating me with other dangerously crazy monsters locked up in this place. There was something odd about the studio-room, a flickering reflected on its walls, but my attention was on Wisbeech alone. I advanced on the doctor and was satisfied that there was at least some fear in those bleak eyes of his; he moved away and I went with him, angry to the point of rashness, too set on exacting some kind of retribution when I should have been concerned only with escape. It was a cold anger rather than a passionate one, and unfortunately its single-mindedness overrode common sense for the moment. As I passed by, I picked up the heavy swivel chair on which Wisbeech had throned himself while boasting to me of his devotion to others less fortunate than himself, of his brilliance in combining care and medical research with profit, how he had allowed my friend and colleague to be murdered, and how both Constance and I were soon to meet with a similar fate, all spoken with a patronizing civility as he smoked his expensive cigarettes.

  I brought the chair up to chest level, its construction and weight making it awkward to carry; he walked backwards, one hand raised as if to ward me off, and I stalked him. He nearly tripped over cables, but quickly recovered, moving back, his gaze never leaving my face, his pace steady and, almost admirably, without panic. Finally, he could back away no further: he had reached the other side of the room. Although that glimmer of fear remained in his eyes, his voice was calm – and a little weary, I thought – when he spoke.

  ‘Will someone please stop him,’ he said.

  By now, I had raised the chrome and leather chair above my head, the three-pronged base pointing towards my quarry. I stood on tip-toe, my arms and legs quivering as I arched my back as much as my curved spine would allow. At last Wisbeech cowered, lifting his arms to protect himself, and I threw the chair.

  But not at the doctor.

  I threw it at the two-way mirror behind him.

  43

  The glass shattered inwards and light flooded through to the blacked-out room beyond. The hurled chair, its force absorbed by the impact, dropped out of sight.

  I stared at the tiny, mummified creature strapped into the motorized invalid-chair on the other side of the broken mirror.

  44

  At first I thought it was a small, shrivelled ape, so incredibly wrinkled and leathery was its face. An ape dressed in a dwarf’s suit. But then I looked closer and saw that its features were human. Just. The skin was brownish in colour, rough in texture and torn and pitted in places. Long wisps of grey hair hung over its mottled scalp, their ends resting against almost visible cheekbones; the cheeks themselves were so sunken they appeared as shadowed holes (perhaps they were holes; I couldn’t tell from where I was standing). The eyes were little more than twisted scraps of gristle that hung loose in their sockets, the eyelids frozen half-open around them. There was not much flesh to the shrunken corpse’s nose, cartilage visible through what spoiled meat remained, and the mouth below it was long-since gone, crooked, stained teeth exposed in a permanent rictus grin.

  Dominic Wisbeech, Leonard’s older-by-twenty-minutes twin brother, who in life must have been a deformed dwarf, was now nothing more than a poorly-embalmed carcass, its stunted figure attired awkwardly (not because of size or withering, but because of physical deformity) in a shirt and tie, and dusty suit, in grotesque parody of the doctor himself. From where I stood I was unable to see its feet, but I was willing to bet it was wearing an expensive pair of child’s shoes.

  I almost laughed, but it would have emerged as a frightened, hysterical cackle, so I stifled it.

  The dwarf-corpse was bound tightly to the motorized chair, skeletal hands resting in its lap, and the pieces of gristle-like matter that once were voyeur’s eyes seemed even now to be watching us, awaiting the rest of the performance.

  ‘You really are mad, aren’t you?’ I said to the doctor.

  And it was Leonard Wisbeech, himself, who appeared suddenly shrunken. His noble face had paled and, beneath his carefully-trimmed beard, his lips quivered. The anguish in his eyes was almost pitiful.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ I heard someone, perhaps one of the film technicians, perhaps even one of Wisbeech’s own nursing staff – by their shocked reaction I suspected none of them shared the doctor’s secret – say behind me.

  ‘What’s the answer, Wisbeech?’ Although goading him, I was genuinely curious. ‘Some deep psychological desire to keep your brother alive, at least in your own mind, so that you can continue your sick games in the pretence they’re for his amusement? Or are you so full of guilt because you couldn’t prevent his death – you, the great researcher into physical aberrations, the distinguished doctor of so many letters you probably can’t remember them all yourself – that your mind won’t accept it? Christ, did your parents fill you with so much guilt-shit it warped your brain?’ Even now I’m not sure what the truth with Wisbeech really was and I don’t think he knew himself. Probably all aspects played their part, but I think the main factor was that Leonard K. Wisbeech was born of abnormal mind, just as his twin was born of abnormal physique. Right then, that night, in that crazy-house, I could only shake my head, not out of pity, but in disgust, and mutter: ‘Yeah, you really are fucking mad.’

  Nurse Fletcher suddenly appeared between us. ‘You’ve done enough damage, you little freak!’ she spat at me. Her hand snaked out and she raked my face with her fingernails.

  I staggered backwards and my feet abruptly left the ground as someone grabbed me from behind. I smelled the irritating odour of his aftershave and knew it was Bruce who had sneaked up behind me and was holding me there in a bear-hug, my feet dangling at least six inches off the floor. He was cursing me, thick, Stallone lips close to my ear, mumbling something about what he was going to do to me for causing him pain and squeezing me so tightly I could feel my lungs being compressed and the muscles of my upper arms squashed against my own body. I tried to kick back at him with the heels of my shoes, but he was wise to that one and stood with his legs apart, crushing and cursing me all the while. Just to add to the joy of it all, the head nurse, who would have been at home in Kesey’s Cuckoo’s Nest, ran at me and started slapping my face, the slaps soon becoming punches.

  She was a strong woman, and her blows had a lot of power: my senses began to spin yet again. Events of the night, including the many shocks, were taking their toll on me and I could only struggle weakly, the tricks I’d learned about defence and attack only vague and useless recollections: my arms were pinned to my sides, I was unable to draw in air, and my head was losing awareness because of the battering it was taking. I was dimly aware, though, of the smell of smoke fumes vying with the stink of Bruce’s aftershave and I could see blurred, orange flames across the room, eating up the velvet drapes I hazily remembered had covered the bed and wall behind, the floor itself; and I could hear distant shouts and even screams, crashing sounds and running feet. But my brain could no longer cope: none of it made any sense at all to me.

  That is, until the pressure around my chest was released and I fell to the floor. A body slumped beside me, its descent slower, and when I turned my head I saw it was Bruce, the end of a glass shard from the broken mirror/window protruding from a point between his shoulder blades, dark blood bubbling from its edges like red spume. He was screaming and trying to reach the lo
oking-glass dagger with one hand, his fingers scrabbling against his fast-staining tunic.

  Other hands pulled at my arms and I rolled over to find Constance on her knees, her lips moving as if shouting something at me, something I couldn’t hear properly, not just because of the pandemonium around us, but because I was still confused, my faculties not yet quite together. I blinked at a prickling in my eye and realized it was smoke. That brought my senses tumbling over each other to get themselves organized.

  Constance was wearing the grey robe and the metal walking-sticks lay next to her on the floor. Standing over me was Mary, supported by a terrified-looking Joseph, one of her hands clutching the other, blood streaming through her fingers. Her horrified gaze was on the injured orderly who writhed in agony beside me, and I realized that it was she who had rescued me by finding the glass dagger among the fragments and plunging it into Bruce’s back. She was rigid, in shock, and despite his own terror, Joseph was doing his best to comfort her, stroking her upper arm and talking quietly to her, although I doubted she could hear his words over the clamour.

  Helped by Constance, I struggled to my feet and only then was I properly able to take in the mayhem around us.

  The creatures, those shocking beings from the netherworld below, whose cell doors I had deliberately unlocked before leaving, had done exactly as I had hoped: they had followed after us, climbing the narrow stone steps and finding their way into the studio. I learned later that Joseph and Mary, who had remained hidden inside the storeroom, too afraid to follow me, had fled before the creatures as they had emerged from the stairway.