We listened for more tapping, but there was some sort of commotion going on beyond the door now. Something crunched. A porter squealed. Something went snap and the squealing stopped.
It lasted all of five seconds, then we heard nothing more from the corridor.
‘What was that?’ I whispered.
‘Something killing something else,’ she said. ‘At a guess.’
I reached for the lock and slowly turned it. ‘I’m going to take a look.’
Ameena touched me on the arm. ‘Be careful.’
‘Thanks. I’ll bear that in mind.’
The door opened a crack. I almost pulled it closed again as a red glow suddenly flooded the cupboard. A row of emergency lights had illuminated along the ceiling of the corridor. They were only just bright enough to see by, but it was definitely a step in the right direction.
I peered round the side of the door and saw two porters on the floor. The one Ameena had knocked down was where she’d left it, only now it was completely motionless. Its button eyes – one yellow, one black – seemed to point different ways, so it was looking at the ceiling and the floor at the same time.
Another porter lay next to it, its body half leaning against the door. As I pushed, it slumped backwards, its head lolling at an angle that was surely unnatural even for one of them.
‘They’re dead,’ I mumbled, stepping out of the cupboard.
Ameena emerged behind me. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘So they are. Who did that then?’
I looked up and down the corridor. The lights reddened the darkness in both directions, but there was nothing moving either way. ‘Not a clue,’ I admitted. ‘But whoever it was, let’s hope they’re on our side.’
‘Well, at least we know we were right. If the porters are here, Doc won’t be far away. The question is, where?’
There was a row of signs on the wall at the end of the corridor. I squinted and read them as we approached. ‘That way,’ I said, pointing towards the mouth of another corridor that led off the one we were in.
‘How come?’
I tapped one of the signs. It read: OPERATING THEATRE.
‘Ah yes,’ Ameena said, and I could hear the shudder in her voice. ‘Of course.’
I held the baton ready as we crept along the corridor side by side.
‘How long was I out for?’ I asked. The question took Ameena by surprise and she only blinked at me in reply. ‘After he knocked me out until I woke up in the hospital. Or… you know, whatever it was. How long was I out for?’
‘A few hours, I think. Half a day, maybe. Why?’
‘Just making conversation,’ I whispered.
She nodded. ‘Trying to forget about the scary psycho man waiting for us up ahead?’
‘Yeah, that too.’
The red lights cast eerie shadows across the walls. Paintings by students from a local art club hung along the walls. A blue-haired clown grinned out from one of them, and I was reminded of Wobblebottom, the clown I’d met in Doc’s other hospital in the Darkest Corners. I tried not to think of him as I pushed on through the reddening gloom.
‘Two hundred quid for that,’ Ameena said. She was looking at a painting of a sheep and shaking her head. ‘Who’d want that on their wall? It looks bored rigid.’
‘It’s a sheep. It’s supposed to look bored.’
‘Not that bored, surely? Poor thing looks suicidal.’
I kept walking and she fell back into step beside me. The corridor was wide, with doors leading off at regular intervals along it. We passed the hospital chapel along the way, and I half thought about popping in for a quick prayer.
But then I heard it from somewhere up ahead. I knew I’d hear it eventually. I’d been waiting to hear it from the moment we stepped through the doors.
‘What’s that?’ Ameena asked. She was straining to hear the music, but I didn’t need to. I’d heard it so many times I could recognise it from just a handful of notes.
‘That?’ I said grimly. ‘That’s “The Teddy Bears Picnic”.’
Ameena clutched her baton in both hands and squeezed it tightly. Even though she hadn’t recognised the tune, she clearly understood the significance of it.
‘Doc Mortis.’
I began to walk faster along the corridor, heading for the source of the music. ‘Doc Mortis,’ I confirmed.
And then I ran.
The route to the theatre was clearly marked, but I didn’t need the signs to show me the way. I just followed the music instead.
The pain in my knee made my teeth clamp together. I hissed through every step until I finally shouldered through a set of double swing doors marked ANAESTHETIC ROOM.
The music shook every surface in there, vibrating the floor and trembling the walls. Ameena came through the doors behind me, but I was already charging for the exit that led into the operating theatre itself.
I clattered against the metal frame of a bed that stood just beyond the doors. The bed was empty, but the white sheets were stained with blood and other fluids I didn’t even want to guess at.
There was a second bed squeezed into the small room, and this one was occupied. Billy was strapped to it, his eyes wide and staring, his mouth still sewn shut. He moaned and mumbled as he saw me, and nodded frantically towards the leather cuffs that held him to the bed frame.
‘You’re alive, thank God,’ I said, almost cheering.
Billy was definitely alive, but he looked as if he’d prefer not to be. He was a mess of tears and snot and slick, shiny blood. The blood covered the lower half of his face. It looked even redder in the glow of the emergency lighting.
Ameena sidled in behind me. ‘Well, that was easy,’ she said. Her eyes scanned the otherwise empty operating theatre. ‘Almost too—’
‘Don’t!’ I yelped. ‘Don’t say it.’
She mimed zipping her lips closed, then shot Billy an apologetic look. ‘Oops, sorry. I forgot. You know? About the...’ She pointed to her mouth. Billy glared at her. ‘I’ll shut up now,’ she said. She began her lip-zipping mime, then stopped. ‘Sorry, doing it again.’
‘Don’t move, Billy. We’re going to get you out of here.’
Billy’s eyes went to the straps on his wrists again. Moving wasn’t an option for him. I set to work undoing the buckles. The chorus of ‘The Teddy Bear’s Picnic’ continued to chime around us. ‘God, I hate that song,’ I muttered. ‘Find where it’s coming from and shut it up.’
Someone tutted from the shadows by the corner. I froze. Even in those tuts I could detect the accent. It was Eastern European, but not from any specific country I could identify. It was the sort of accent a bad comedian might put on when making racist jokes about immigrants.
It was the accent of Doc Mortis.
There was a soft bleep and the music stopped. ‘You are having very poor taste,’ he told me. He emerged from the shadows, back to looking like his real self.
It appeared as if a nursery school had used his coat to practise finger-painting on, and that the only colour they had available was red. It was more crimson than white, and it stank of death.
His turkey-like neck had the scar again, and the missing patch of scalp was back. He wore his old glasses too, the round ones with the broken lenses. It was as if the Dr Morris version of him I’d seen really was an entirely different person.
I noticed he had a portable CD player clutched in his rubber-gloved hands. He pressed a button on top of the machine and a lid opened smoothly. Doc shook his head, marvelling at the technology.
‘The compact discs,’ he said. ‘Like a record, but smaller. Shinier too. Someone, they took the record and they looked at it and they thought “I can do better than this.”.’
I held the baton ready at my side, and saw that Ameena was doing the same. We moved closer together so we both stood between Doc and Billy. But Doc only seemed interested in the CD at the moment. He had removed it from the player and was holding it up, his stubby fingers splayed round the edges.
‘Inc
redible, do you not think? I have never seen one before, until this day. Someone took the record and they improved it. Made it better than it was.’ Doc’s eyes crept over to me. His rubbery lips parted into a smirk, revealing his yellowing teeth. ‘Improved it, yes? Made it better.’ He flicked his tongue across the teeth. ‘Just like I do.’
‘You don’t improve anyone. You torture them. You mutilate them.’
He waved a dismissive hand. ‘You say tomato, I say tomato,’ he shrugged, rhyming the first one with potato. ‘I make art. Is it my fault that no one appreciates my genius?’
‘You’re not a genius,’ I said. ‘You’re a headcase.’
‘The line between the two, it is thinner than you know. Perhaps I walk along the line, yes? Right along its razor edge.’
‘Or maybe you’re just a sick freak who gets his thrills from hurting innocent people,’ Ameena snapped, and there was real venom in her voice.
Doc looked her up and down, starting at the feet and letting his eyes work their way slowly up until they met her gaze. His creepy smile spread across his fish lips again. ‘This I will not argue with. But who is innocent these days? You?’ He gestured to Billy. ‘Him? Anyone? No, no, I do not think so.’
He put the CD back in the machine and pushed the lid closed with one finger. I shifted my grip on the baton. If he pressed Play that CD player was getting it. If I never heard ‘The Teddy Bear’s bloody Picnic’ again it would be too soon.
Thankfully he didn’t start the disc, and the player lived to play another day. He set the machine down on a stainless-steel table and gave me an appraising look.
‘Your father, he thinks he is a genius, but he is not. He came to Doc Mortis talking of an alliance. An alliance that would allow me back into the real world. That would allow me a limitless number of new patients for my hospital.’
He brought his left hand up close to his face and I saw he was now holding a surgical scalpel. Doc tilted the knife and the red emergency lights reflected off the polished blade.
‘And he did as he said. With my help, of course. He got us back. Here we are. But this means he has outlived his usefulness, I think.’ He studied the scalpel. ‘I will very much enjoy adding him to my new gallery.’
‘Please do,’ I urged, and Doc snorted with laughter.
‘But you first, real boy. I wished to operate on you in the Darkest Corners, but you escaped. Today, there will be no escape for you.’
‘Want to bet on that?’ I said, giving the baton a flick. ‘We’re taking Billy and we’re getting out of here. Try to stop us and you’ll be the one needing to be hospitalised.’
Doc set down the scalpel. He patted the empty bed with its blood-soaked sheets. A shiver of excitement travelled through him. ‘Still warm,’ he whispered, then he giggled softly.
I shifted on the balls of my feet and shot Ameena an uneasy look. ‘Untie Billy,’ I said, then I turned back to Doc. ‘I’ll watch him.’
Ameena set to work removing Billy’s straps. Doc held his hands up in a surrender pose. ‘Do not worry. I will not try to stop you,’ he said, but a dark glee shone out from his piggy little eyes. He turned his face to the corner opposite him. It too was bathed in shadow. ‘He, on the other hand, will do much more than try.’
I realised then that there were not just four of us in the room. There were five. A Frankenstein’s monster of a thing took two faltering steps into the light. It was all stitches and scars, a patchwork quilt of skin and sinew sewn together with thick black wire.
It was naked, but a vast, distended stomach protected its modesty. The gut hung down almost to the knees. Things wriggled inside it, pushing outwards, trying to climb right through the flesh.
Ameena undid the last buckle and Billy rolled off the bed. We took cover behind it as Doc’s latest patient came waddling closer, its ragged, pieced-together hands grasping for us.
‘Do you like?’ Doc sniggered. ‘This is my all new Patient Zero. One of my finest creations to date. Over here, I have so many exciting tools at my disposal. With this, I have only just scratched the surface.’
The behemoth stumbled and bumped into the bed. Its face was made up of a dozen or more parts. The eyes were different colours. The ears were different sizes. Not even the eyebrows matched.
‘A whole ward of the sick and the dying, pieced together to make one perfect specimen,’ Doc cackled.
We backed away as the thing began to shamble round the bed. Its stomach heaved and rolled like the surface of the sea. The effect was horrible, but strangely hypnotic at the same time.
It had moved between us and the door, continuing its lumbering route towards us. I was still holding the baton, but I didn’t really want to get close enough to use it. The smell of the brute alone was keeping me well back.
‘I am very much going to enjoy this,’ Doc said. Patient Zero took another step towards us. A melancholy groan escaped through its mismatched lips, and then it stopped advancing.
A hand, each finger a slightly different colour, moved shakily to its chest. One of Patient Zero’s eyes widened, while the other narrowed. The hand clutched at where its heart was still presumably located. Then, with a final groan, the monster toppled backwards.
As Patient Zero hit the floor, its stomach burst like a water balloon, but a water balloon filled with rats and bugs and something that looked like custard. I retched at the stink, and jumped back as the insects and rodents squirmed, scampered and squelched in every direction across the floor.
Doc stared down at the definitely dead thing spread out at our feet. The smile fell from his rubbery lips. ‘Oh,’ he muttered. ‘Well, that was disappointing.’
He shrugged and the smirk came back. ‘No matter.’ Doc interlocked his fingers, then pushed them outwards until the knuckles cracked. ‘I will just have to take care of you myself.’
‘You?’ I snorted. ‘Without your porters or your monsters to help you?’
‘Kyle, don’t,’ Ameena hissed, and the fear in her voice made me hesitate.
Doc’s grin spread further. ‘Ah yes, she knows about me. She has heard the stories of what I can do.’
His arm flicked, little more than a blur. A sharp stinging pain cut across my cheek, and I felt blood run down over my chin. Behind me, embedded into the wall, a scalpel vibrated to a stop.
Doc twitched his arms and two more blades slid down from his sleeves. He caught them in his gloved hands, but Ameena was already bundling Billy and me out of the doors that led to the anaesthetic room. A scalpel stuck deep into the doorframe right beside my head, but then we were through the doors and heading for the next set.
We pulled Billy along, out of the second room and into the corridor. I hobbled as quickly as I could, but I wasn’t fast enough. I was holding them back.
‘Go! Get away,’ I told them, releasing my grip on Billy’s arm.
‘What?’ Ameena spluttered. ‘Are you mental? No way am I leaving you.’
‘I’ll slow you down. Get out to the car and I’ll catch up. I’ll find you.’
Ameena hesitated, but I shoved them both on. ‘I’ll come back,’ she said.
‘Don’t you dare. Get to the car. Keep Billy safe. If I don’t make it, you’re the only one who knows what my dad’s done. You’re the only one who can make him pay.’
She shuffled awkwardly, then nodded. ‘Don’t be long,’ she said, and then she and Billy were running along the corridor towards the exit.
If you go down to the woods today, you’d better not go alone…
‘Great,’ I whispered as the music kicked in louder than ever. ‘This again.’
The doors to the anaesthetic room swung outwards, revealing Doc silhouetted against the red emergency lighting.
It’s lovely down in the woods today, but safer to stay at home…
‘Here we are, real boy,’ Doc said, shouting to make himself heard. ‘It is just you and I now, yes?’
His wrist snapped forward. Metal glinted in the space between us. Instinctively, I ra
ised my arms in front of my face. The scalpel clattered off the baton and fell to the floor.
‘A lucky escape,’ Doc sniggered. He held up the other knife. ‘No matter. For this one, I will get right up close.’
For every bear that ever there was…
He began to run, not the slow, awkward lurching I would’ve expected, but the sprint of a trained athlete. Caught off-guard, I stumbled back, swinging with the baton as he closed the final few metres.
An arm lashed out and I felt fire across my fingers. A spray of blood hit the wall and the baton joined the scalpel on the floor. I looked at my hand, half expecting to see the fingers gone, but the cut had just sliced through the skin across my knuckles.
The glance to my hand was quick, but by the time I looked back he was right at me, and all I could see were his lips and his teeth and the wiry white hairs that stuck out from each nostril.
Is gathered there for certain because…
My injured knee gave out and I fell beneath him. His own knee jammed against my chest, pinning me to the floor. I drove a fist against the side of his head, sending his glasses spinning across the floor. I hit him again, and this time his face contorted in pain.
Today’s the day the teddy bears have—
The music stopped with a bleep. Annoyance replaced the pain on Doc’s face and he looked over his shoulder in the direction of the operating theatre. ‘Huh,’ he muttered, then a rubber-gloved hand came down hard on my throat and a scalpel flashed before my eyes.
‘Now then, my darling real boy,’ Doc whispered, and his voice came out in a cloud of white fog. ‘No more with the wasting time. I think it best we operate right here and now!’
I squirmed beneath him, kicking and twisting as I struggled to get free. His full weight was on me, though, and there was nothing I could do to shake him off.
‘What will I do to you, I wonder?’ he giggled, and more misty vapour rolled from his mouth. The floor beneath me felt cold. It chilled up through my clothes and numbed my skin.
Doc turned the scalpel over and brought the point closer to my face. I stopped squirming then and tried my best to stay still. The point of the blade was too close for me to see. It was a greyish blur just millimetres from my right eye. Doc’s other hand was still on my throat. Even through the glove his touch was cold.
The Darkest Corners Page 9
