by C F Dunn
Rigid with fright, I fought the instinct to pull away from him, forcing my body to relax and go limp. His arm loosened slightly in response and I wrenched forwards, kicking back with my heel at the same time, trying to connect with his shin. Much stronger than he looked, his arm constricted sharply, choking the air out of me.
“Don’t do that again,” he reprimanded, and a sharp sting in the side of my throat made me gasp and stop. From the corner of my eye, a silver gleam reflected off a blade.
“Now, Emma – be a good girl. Easy, back this way. I don’t want to cut you, not yet.” He dragged me back towards the half-open door of the porters’ lodge, nudging it wide as we passed through. The door collided with wooden racking inside the room with a burst of sound, the contents of the shelves rattling unsteadily.
“What do you want?” I choked. His breath came in short, foul bursts near my ear as he concentrated on pulling me back further into the dim room lit only by a single bulb.
“There, that’s better,” he said companionably, the rough cloth grazing my skin as he moved his arm, partially crushing my throat. He adjusted his grip on the knife, pressing it against the thin skin of my neck. Where his hand compressed my left wrist, his nails dug deeply.
“Now we can have the little chat I always promised without interruption from your friends.” He tightened his grip a little more and I struggled for air, my breath rasping painfully against the constriction. I tried to remember the basic self-defence learned at school, but the little I could recall was overpowered by revulsion and terror.
“Emma, Emma, Emma, mmm.” He ran the tip of his finger down my exposed throat. “We have so much in common, you and I, so much suffering to enjoy, so much darkness to explore.” I felt a warm wetness on my neck as he drew his tongue slowly up past the blade of the knife. I gagged, pulling away involuntarily. The point of the knife went into my throat and the saliva was replaced by a thin, wet trickle of blood.
“You – of all people – should enjoy this and appreciate the historical relevance.” He braced his knee against my leg, bending me back, making it more difficult to inhale.
“Little Emma, didn’t you ever stop to consider whether all those stories of monsters might be true? I’ve watched you so carefully ever since you were sent to me and I’ve seen what you dream. I’ve seen all those pictures, all those demons you keep on your wall, in your shelves.” He laughed – a low, humourless laugh. “Don’t you just wish it were true? After all these years of study, the sewage must have crept into your soul. Can you not feel how it wants to take you, to consume you completely? And yet you persist in wearing this… talisman…” He hooked his little finger under my cross, raising it so that light bounced off its surface as it hung on its chain. “This sentimental symbol, this institutionalized relic of a superstitious age; what do you think He would do in your place, eh? The sacrificial Lamb – do you think He would give His own life to save you – to save me?”
“Especially you,” I choked against his tightening arm.
“Then where is He now – your omniscient God?” Triumph crowed in his jibing voice, riding the currents of my fear. “You see? Nothing – you are alone.” His breath became more urgent against my throat. “Well, let us put it to the test.”
I felt sick as the lack of oxygen threatened my consciousness. Time was running out. With extreme effort I forced the full weight of my body back against his, kicking wildly with my heel, hearing the fabric of my skirt rip as he momentarily lost balance, dropping the knife. With the sudden intake of air I lunged forward to escape, but he was too quick for me. Grabbing my right arm, he cracked it back against the edge of the open door. I heard it snap at the same time as a scream tore from my throat.
Re-securing my left wrist in a quick movement, he picked up the knife. My arm hung limp and useless and I began to pass out from the pain.
“No, no – not yet, Emma, not yet; you must be awake to get the most from this experience.” And he hauled me upright as my legs gave way under me. “Now, you can either do this my way and enjoy it, or…” I screamed a denial in his face. “Your choice,” he remarked with the merest touch of regret. He wrenched my wrist back, partially exposing the veins. I cried out as his fingers dug into my already bruised skin and his right arm trapped me again, the raw edges of the broken bones grating sickeningly. The long curved blade had a finely worked point – a gutting knife – and he placed it at the top of my wrist where it met the jacket and with a swift, sure movement cut downwards, severing the fabric. The rich, frayed edges of the silk framed my pale skin. Exhaling in satisfaction, he replaced the knife, the tip of the blade making an indentation in my flesh – steel against the blueness of my veins – and pressed a little harder; a thin squeal broke from my lips.
“Mm, I like that,” he breathed and pushed the blade further.
A low, guttural roar of anger ripped the air, shredding the silence. Staahl’s head whipped up, eyes fixed at a point beyond the door.
“Let go of her!” From the depth of the shadows, Matthew’s voice cut through my haze. Staahl brought his mouth close to my ear.
“Well, well, it looks like someone’s come to join in the fun after all,” he mocked. He jabbed the blade suddenly, breaking my skin, blood oozing in rivulets, staining the border of fabric deepest purple. I pressed my lips together to stop from crying out.
Matthew moved into the doorway where the light reflected off the black glass of his eyes.
“Let – go – of – her,” he repeated with supreme control.
Breath escaped Staahl’s grill of teeth. “Stay back! She’s mine; you’ll just have to wait your turn, doctor.” He forced my wrist back at an angle, the sudden pressure pulling blood from my veins. Rage echoing around the room, Matthew leapt as simultaneously Staahl sliced down my exposed wrist, my skin parting in a crimson chasm from which blood flowed. The impact of bodies flung me against the wall of shelves, and I fell breathless, broken and bleeding to the floor like a discarded rag doll. A muffled sound, struggling, then high against the back wall, Staahl – suspended off the ground like a puppet, his arms and legs futile as he flailed against the air – and Matthew, his eyes glazed with fury, squeezing the life out of him with one hand.
“No! Matthew, no! You’ll kill him,” I heard myself scream through the encroaching darkness, as the room began to fade almost as rapidly as the blood seeping from my arm in an endless cherry flow across the wooden floor.
From a long way away, I heard a thump – like a half-empty sack dropped onto the ground – and then Matthew’s low, urgent voice calling my name over and over again. I opened my eyes but saw nothing but an indistinct shape in the gathering night, ice enveloping me from the inside out until all I could think about was the cold and the dark. I could hear him controlling the alarm in his voice.
“Emma – Emma, stay with me.”
I felt pressure in my wrist as something clamped it and I whimpered, thinking Staahl was back, but Matthew spoke again and dread dissolved in the warmth of his voice.
“Cold…”
“I know, hang on.”
A confused mass of voices erupted in the hall outside, rising and falling and – rising above them – Elena’s voice, shrill and small and frightened. Something tightened around my arm, but there was so much pain that its addition made no difference.
Voices came closer, shuffling for space, crowding in around us until I couldn’t breathe, suffocating me. I began to struggle for breath, kicking out, legs writhing to escape, break free.
“Keep back!” Matthew told them sharply, and then I felt his arms around me, lifting me, and his steady, calm voice commanding, “Stay with me, Emma… Emma…”
But I couldn’t hold back the dark – the peaceful dark – the welcoming blackness which called me, and where he could not follow.
Chapter 15
From Darkness
COLD AIR LASHED AGAINST MY FACE, jolting me to semi-consciousness and the excruciating agony in my right arm, as with
each movement the bones jarred. I hauled jagged breaths into my lungs, vaguely aware of being held against his chest as he ran, of doors crashing open and running, running and then the metallic hardness of a hospital bed beneath my back, and faces talking in broken, disjointed sentences, leaning over me.
“Dr Lynes…”
“Don’t let anyone in, nurse.”
Overhead, lights as hard as arc lights forced through my eyelids and I attempted to turn my head from their glare, but it wouldn’t obey. The world stopped moving and I ached to say his name; but no words formed and, with each beat of my weakening heart, I felt my life pulse away, drop by steady drop.
“Emma…” Matthew called to me from nearby.
Sudden voices filled the air, pushing through the doors into the room, humming and buzzing like a swarm, intruding and demanding.
“Keep them out!” Matthew sounded angry with them – or was it with me?
Don’t be angry with me, I tried to tell him, but it came out as a whimper. The voices had gone, but I couldn’t tell whether it was because the room had emptied or because I had left it further and further behind, and Matthew with it.
His agonized voice drifted through the gathering darkness.
“Emma, I have to control the bleeding; I’m sorry, this will hurt.”
Pain again – searing as it tore at my arm – and I wanted it to stop, but it went on and on and on until the blackness fell again and through it, I heard him calling me.
“Emma, don’t do this, don’t go – I can’t do this again.” But there was nothing I could do to reach him as all the pain concentrated to within a single point located somewhere between my lungs where my failing heart struggled to beat a ragged rhythm in my chest. From behind my eyelids – as if through the window of my life – open shutters began to close, one by one. I wanted to stay but the shutters were nearly all closed and it was time to go. Through the sweet peace of death I heard a howl of misery – but it wasn’t mine.
Piercing light flooded in, blinding.
Close the shutters, I wanted to tell them but all I could do was moan. The light went out; then again like a searchlight in my other eye.
Cool hands formed a frame around my face. “Emma?”
“Is she gonna be all right?” another voice asked – one I didn’t recognize. Matthew didn’t answer. I felt fingers on my neck, feeling my pulse.
“Yes,” he sounded relieved. “Emma, open your eyes.”
No, I don’t want to; let me sleep – there’s no pain in sleep.
“Open your eyes,” he ordered, and I tried really hard but I lacked the control to obey.
“Is she coming round, Doc?” The other man’s voice grated roughly; he didn’t care that it hurt – I could hear the impatience in it.
“I’ll call you when she does; she needs rest now.” Matthew didn’t want him near me, I could tell.
The rough-voiced man sniffed loudly. “Yeah, OK, give me a call – you’ve got my cell number.” A door opened and closed behind him and it became quiet again.
“Open your eyes for me, Emma.”
They wouldn’t open and everything ached, or stabbed, or burned.
“It hurts, Matthew.”
“I know it does – it won’t soon.”
A spreading numbness trickled from my arm, winding its way through my body. My eyes struggled to open, thin lines of light seeping through.
“Matthew?” My voice sounded like a stranger’s. My eyes opened; he was so close, his face troubled, and I wanted to touch it.
“What’s the matt’r?” I asked him, words blurring.
A haunting smile barely touched his lips. “Nothing now,” he said softly, leaning over and kissing me gently. His white shirt was carmine, badged in blood, and I thought I should be frightened but I couldn’t remember why.
“Your arm’s broken; I’m going to set it.”
I vaguely remembered but it didn’t seem very relevant. “Yes,” I mumbled, but I wanted to sleep so I couldn’t do anything to help; I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.
“Go to sleep, Emma.”
“She should be moved to the hospital in Portland.” The coarse-voiced man had returned.
“Dr D’Eresby can’t be moved. There’s nothing they can do for her there that we can’t do here.” Matthew sounded calm but I recognized the undercurrent in his voice. My eyes flickered open; the two men stood by the window through which full daylight fell. The man argued, “They’ve got all the medical facilities there.” He wore a uniform from the police department; a heavy-set man with thick, black hair crudely cut, and a bullish face – used to getting his own way.
Matthew regarded him dispassionately. “She stays.”
Unreasoning panic welled in my foggy brain. “Don’t let them take me away.”
He left the man and came to me, taking in the fear in my face, hearing it in my voice. “Nobody’s taking you anywhere – you’re staying here.”
The officer peered over Matthew’s shoulder at me. He chewed gum in the same way cattle chew cud, his jaw churning.
“I need to ask her some questions, Doc.”
Matthew’s jaw set in a stubborn line. “I cannot allow that. Dr D’Eresby is in no fit state to be questioned; come back later.”
The officer stopped chewing, on the brink of arguing again, but Matthew looked at him without speaking and the man thought better of it, shrugging.
“OK, you’re the doc, but we gotta’ talk to her sometime.”
“Granted, but it will be when I say so.” Matthew turned back, assessing me with a slight frown.
“Sure, OK, but you let me know, huh, Doc?”
He declined to answer and the officer hesitated, wondering whether to press for an acknowledgment, but Matthew appeared to have forgotten him, and he gave up.
The door closed behind him and Matthew straightened. He smiled.
“How are you feeling?”
I thought I hurt less, but it was debatable, my body and my mind all jumbled up so that discomfort and fear and anxiety wallowed in the same miasma.
“Foggy,” I mumbled indistinctly.
“That’s the morphine. Can you tell me where the pain is worst?”
The ache in my right arm balanced out the tight burning in my left. My throat felt painful all over and I found it difficult to breathe, each shallow breath sending arrows of fire through my chest.
“I don’t know,” I said, confused by the different messages my body sent me. “My throat hurts.” I didn’t dare swallow.
“It’s badly bruised, but nothing more,” he said, putting his hand gently around it as if to draw the discomfort. The burning ache began to diminish a little. “Is that any better?”
“A bit – mmm.” My eyes closed again as the sting distinctly subsided and I let the medication take over, slipping back into unconsciousness.
Smiling, mouth whip-thin, Staahl stood over me, his colourless lips as curved as the tip of the blade he used to slowly carve my heart from my chest. I opened my mouth to scream at the same time as a wave of pain hit me unawares and I gasped, drawing air through my burning throat. My eyes flew open and Staahl vanished, but Matthew sat beside me as if he had never been away.
“Tell me where it hurts,” he asked, concern colouring his voice.
I shook my head although it hurt to do so. “Everywhere.”
He frowned, and in that instant it seemed that he reached inside me to locate its source; but another surge hit me, and his eyes widened momentarily as if he felt it. He leaned to adjust something attached to my arm. The slow spread of morphine brought sweet relief and, as the scorching subsided, I had a brief period of clarity in which I remembered my terror.
“Staahl…” I choked out.
“He’s in custody, Emma, he can’t get to you.” He brushed a piece of hair away from where it tickled my cheek, his fingers briefly resting in its place.
“He’s alive?” I croaked as I pulled the memory of the room back where I could see
it, Staahl dangling limp, high off the floor.
He looked puzzled. “Yes – but the police have him locked up – you’re safe.”
“No, I mean, you… Staahl… you were going to… kill him.”
Matthew’s face grew still. “No, Emma, I just needed to get him away from you.”
My brain began to blur and the memory dulled as the morphine numbed it. I fought against the stupor for as long as I could.
“I saw – you had him up against the wall; you – you were going to… throttle him.”
His eyes became black coals as the morphine took full effect and I couldn’t tell whether the veil that fell over his face was an attempt at concealment or a figment of the medication.
“I wish you had,” I murmured, regretfully.
I had no sense of passing time but when I awoke again, late sunlight streamed in corrugated regularity through the blinds of the west windows, striking white lines like lasers across the floor and walls. Everyday college noises filtered through the insulated glass but, in the room in which I lay, all was quiet – too quiet. A noise came from behind me.
“Matthew?”
A woman’s voice answered. “He isn’t here at the moment.” She appeared around the head of the bed where I could see her clearly; she seemed familiar.
“Where’s Matthew?” I tried to sit up, groggy and confused, but a spasm coursed through me and I could no more than lift my head from the pillow.
“He won’t be long. Are you in discomfort?”
“Always.”
She had long, treacle-coloured hair held back from her face so it flowed in a line down her back.
“Can you tell me where it hurts?” the young woman asked; she could be no more than nineteen, perhaps twenty, but serious and unsmiling, and that made her seem much older. She checked a fine, clear tube running into my left arm above where bandages encased my wrist. Replacing lost fluids, a transparent liquid from a suspended bag fed the tube with the regularity of a ticking clock.
“You sound like a doctor,” I said, trying to breathe shallowly in case the stabbing returned. She suddenly smiled, her face changing and taking on a humorous aspect.
