There were eight switches on the panel beside the door. I clicked them all. None of the overhead lights came on, but above the second operating table, a spotlight lit up like a supernova, making the patient beneath it jolt in shock. The beam of the light was aimed down, and too narrow to illuminate the rest of the theatre, but it at least took some of the edge off the gloom.
‘I.C., come here,’ I said, not looking at him. ‘Get behind me.’
The boy was quick to do as he was told. I barely even saw him move in the half-dark, and he was at my back in no time.
‘Who is he?’
‘Stay here by the door,’ I told him. My gaze remained trained on the man on the table. I took a faltering step towards him. ‘If anything goes wrong, I want you to run, OK? Run and don’t come back to this room.’
‘I’m scared,’ he whispered.
I should’ve offered him some words of comfort, but none came to mind. ‘So am I,’ I admitted, and I crept forward until I was just a metre or so away from the helpless man on the table.
At least, I hoped he was helpless.
My voice was a croak. It took three tries before I could make myself heard. ‘You... you’re dead,’ I said.
The man’s dark eyes turned on me. I heard the air whistle in and out of his hooked nose. Down by his sides, hands the size of dinner plates clenched and unclenched into powerful fists.
‘You’re dead,’ I said again, more emphatically this time, as if that would somehow make it true.
He didn’t answer. But then he couldn’t answer. He couldn’t say anything.
Not with his mouth sewn shut like that.
‘I know you’re dead, because I killed you!’
‘Doesn’t look like you did a very good job of it,’ I.C. said. He stepped up to the table and pushed the end of the man’s nose like a button. ‘Honk!’ Tendons strained on the man’s neck as he tried to pull himself free of his restraints. I.C. looked up at me and smiled, apparently no longer afraid. ‘See? Still alive.’
‘Get away from there,’ I snapped, pulling him back. ‘I told you to stay beside the door!’
He looked at me. His silvery-grey eyes blinked slowly. ‘I got scared.’
I looked down at him and sighed. ‘Just... just stand over there, then, will you? And don’t go poking at him again.’
‘Why? Is he your friend?’ I.C. asked, as he shuffled a few steps back to where I’d pointed.
I turned my attention back to the man on the table.
The man with the big ears, dark eyes and stitched-up lips.
Mr Mumbles.
‘No,’ I said quietly. ‘Not in a long time.’
I thought back to Christmas Day, just a few weeks ago, when Mr Mumbles had come back. He’d tried to kill me then, half a dozen times, maybe more. He’d choked me, drowned me, come at me with an axe, and it turned out that wasn’t even the first time. He’d tried to kill me when I was younger too, but I’d blocked out the memory.
Mr Mumbles had hurt me, he’d hurt Ameena, he’d hurt my mum. He’d terrorised me. Tormented me. Tortured me. I thought I’d beaten him. I thought I was free of him, but I wasn’t.
But here he was now, right in front of me. Strapped down. Helpless.
And at my mercy.
There was a trolley beside the table, pushed in close. Several sewing needles lay neatly lined up on top of it, big ones on the left, going down to the smallest one on the right. One of them – the largest – was oily with blood. A short length of thread was looped through the needle’s eye, frayed at the end where it had been snapped off.
Another scalpel was positioned horizontally below the needles, as if it was underlining them. Below that sat a pair of long scissors, their twin blades folded together. My hand went to them and wrapped round the cool metal.
‘I.C.,’ I said, ‘turn round.’
‘Why?’
I lifted the scissors, holding them to my chest. ‘Don’t ask questions. Turn round.’
I could feel his eyes on the back of my head. I ignored them, concentrating on the weight of the scissors in my hands. A few seconds later, I heard him turn away.
‘Good boy. Now, whatever happens, whatever you hear, don’t look.’
‘’K,’ he whispered.
Through the whole conversation I had kept my eyes on Mr Mumbles, and Mr Mumbles had kept his eyes on me. He didn’t react in the slightest when I spoke to him.
‘I’ve seen you every night since Christmas,’ I said, struggling to keep my voice low. ‘Every night I dream about you. About what you did to me. I’ve even started seeing you when I’m awake. I actually made a copy of you. With my mind. Can you believe that?’
I leaned in close and whispered to him. His rotten-meat stench filled my nostrils. ‘I guess you left quite an impression.’
The scissors turned over and over in my hands, glinting in the beam of the spotlight. Mr Mumbles didn’t make any attempt to look at them, not even when I held them up by my head, pointed end down.
‘You tried to kill me, but I killed you first,’ I said. My voice was suddenly shaking and I felt a hot sting behind my eyes. I blinked it away. This was no time for tears. ‘But you don’t stay dead, do you? You keep coming back. You keep coming back.’
‘I need a pee,’ I.C. announced.
‘Not now, I.C.’
‘Pee time. Back soon!’ he chirped.
‘Wait, don’t—’ I twisted at the waist. The spot where he’d stood was empty. ‘Great,’ I muttered. ‘Just great.’
I turned back to Mr Mumbles. His eyes hadn’t moved from me. ‘Still,’ I told him, tightening my grip on the scissors, ‘at least it means we’ve got some time on our own.’
The direct heat from the spotlight had all but dried Mr Mumbles’s eyes out. They were red and bloodshot. But he didn’t blink. Not once.
The scissors shook in my grip. Despite the cold in the room, my palms were slick with sweat. ‘I’m scared,’ I confessed. ‘I’m scared that you’re going to keep coming back. I’m scared that you’ll come after the people I care about. I’m scared that I’ll never be free of you.’
My voice cracked. The scissors felt impossibly heavy. ‘And I’m scared of what I’m about to do.’
I placed the point of the scissors in the centre of his chest. I’d been so fixated on his face I’d barely noticed the rest of him, and for the first time I noticed his upper body was bare. His skin was grey, pock-marked with scar tissue. There were fifteen or more round red burn marks on his stomach. The skin was just beginning to blister round them. I could almost smell the faint tang of scorched flesh hanging in the air.
‘My dad told me I was just like him,’ I said, tearing my eyes away from his wounds. ‘He said I was evil. But I’m not evil. I’m not. You’re evil. You’re the monster.
‘This... this isn’t evil. This doesn’t make me like you. Or like him. This is... There isn’t...’ My grip tightened until my knuckles were white. ‘I have to do this. I have to. If I don’t, you won’t leave me alone. You’ll never leave me alone. I’ll never be safe.’
I raised my hands above my head. The light danced along the blades of the scissors.
‘This doesn’t make me evil,’ I said, my voice barely a whisper. ‘It doesn’t. It doesn’t.’
I locked my wrists and braced my arms. My sights were fixed on the middle of his chest. There were more of the burn marks here, I realised, but older and more faded, just beginning to scab over. Unbidden, my eyes scanned his upper body, finding dozens more of the burns. They were along his ribcage, across his shoulders, up on to his tree-trunk neck, where they vanished beneath the sheen of dark blood flowing from his swollen lips.
The stitches looked tight, tighter than they’d been before. They puckered his mouth into a thin line that was already black with bruising.
I glanced along his entire body, pinned to the table like an insect. For the size of him, he suddenly looked very small.
‘No,’ I hissed, shaking everything but my hatred
away. I raised the scissors higher and swallowed hard. My eyes briefly met his, just long enough for me to see him give a barely noticeable nod of his head.
My mind raced back to Christmas Day, to all the times his hands had been at my throat. He’d appeared so suddenly, he’d attacked without warning. It was all I could do to stay alive. I hadn’t had time to wonder why he was doing it, why he was hunting me. I’d had no idea why he was out for my blood.
But now I did. Now I knew what had shattered our “friendship” and twisted him until his hatred for me was all-consuming.
It was this place.
The Darkest Corners.
And I was the one who sent him here.
In a distant, far-off memory he’d been my friend. My best friend, my only friend. I outgrew him, forgot him, and he’d ended up here. He’d ended up here and they’d made him this... thing. They’d terrorised him, tormented him and tortured him. They’d taken my friend and they’d made him a monster.
Bile began to burn like acid at the back of my throat. My vision blurred with tears as I tightened still further my grip on the scissors.
‘I... I’m sorry,’ I mumbled, and I swung the scissors down, as hard and as fast as I could.
Chapter Thirteen
A COMMON ENEMY
THUD.
The tip of the blades embedded deep into the tabletop beside Mr Mumbles’s head. Only then did he close his eyes, and, for a moment, I thought he looked disappointed. When he opened them again, they were devoid of all emotion, just as they’d been a few moments before.
‘I want you to know, I don’t forgive you,’ I said quietly. ‘I can’t ever forgive you. But... but I don’t blame you, either. What they did to you... I didn’t know any of this would happen. I didn’t know.’
I took hold of the scissors again, holding them the way they were designed to be held this time. I brought them shakily to his mouth. ‘Keep still,’ I told him, even though he wasn’t the one having problems holding steady.
I hooked the tips of the blades round the first stitch, where it passed over the front of his mouth. I was about to snip, when I remembered what happened last time his stitches came undone. ‘Wait, nothing bad’s going to happen if I do this, is it?’ I asked. ‘You’re not going to puke more water on me or anything?’
He mumbled something low and short. It could’ve been ‘no’, but it could just as easily have been ‘yes’.
‘Good enough,’ I shrugged. Chewing nervously on my bottom lip, I steadied my hand and began to cut.
Eight careful snips, and his mouth relaxed. It didn’t open, but at least that was now his choice. I turned my attention to the straps on his wrists. They were leather, with large brass buckles – almost impossible to break out from, but easy enough to undo.
Five seconds later, his left hand was free. A second after that, it was wrapped round my throat, his thick fingers almost meeting at the back of my neck.
I didn’t pull away. He didn’t squeeze. We just looked at each other. For a long time, we just looked.
‘I hate you,’ he spat. His voice was gravel at the bottom of a deep, dark pit, though less slurred than the last time I’d heard him speak.
‘Snap,’ I replied, still not fighting him.
His eyes flared. ‘Don’t tempt me.’
He ran his tongue over his lips, either tasting the blood or assessing the damage, I couldn’t tell which. Then, with a grunt, he pulled his hand away and began to unbuckle the rest of his restraints.
In no time he was free. He swung down from the table beside me and I was immediately cast into shadow. He loomed over me, glaring down, hot breath swirling through his flared nostrils. I looked up into his eyes, unflinching. I was so afraid I thought I might wet myself, but I was damned if I was going to show it.
‘He’s even less dead now!’ announced I.C., arriving back and breaking the stand-off. He gave Mr Mumbles a friendly wave. ‘Hi, not-dead-guy. You’re huge!’
‘How are you still alive?’ I asked.
He gave a grunt. ‘Kill us over there, we come back here.’
‘And if you get killed over here?’
‘We stay dead.’ He scowled, and I was reminded of his expression in the photograph I’d found earlier. The photograph of all three of us together, somewhere else.
‘Have you ever seen this guy before, I.C.?’ I asked.
I.C. nodded his head.
‘You have? When?’
‘Just a minute ago, remember? I beeped his nose. Honk!’ He giggled at Mr Mumbles. ‘You have a big nose, mister.’
‘I meant before that. Not a minute ago, some other time. Have you ever seen him before today?’
‘Nope.’
I turned to Mr Mumbles. He had found his clothes somewhere and had already slipped his grubby shirt over his scarred torso. His overcoat swished around his knees as he pulled it on.
‘What about you? You ever meet this kid before?’
Mumbles narrowed his eyes. ‘You think he’d be alive if I had?’
‘You’d have to catch me first, big nose!’
‘Cut it out, I.C.,’ I warned, all too aware of the danger Mr Mumbles still potentially posed. I dug a hand into the front pocket of my jeans and pulled out the wallet. Flipping it open, I thumbed through the three photographs inside. ‘So, if neither of you have met the other, how do you explain—?’
I didn’t get a chance to finish the question. Before I’d pulled out the correct photo, a light came on at the far end of the room. I whipped round to see three figures watching us from behind a large window. Two of them stood behind the third, towering a metre or more above him.
‘Well, well, well,’ said Doc, his unidentifiable accent crackling from a speaker somewhere within the operating theatre. ‘This is cosy, yes?’
Mr Mumbles’s reaction was instantaneous. He roared and ran at the glass, his coat flowing out behind him. He’d covered three metres when Doc raised a small device, about the length of a pen, but four or five times thicker. He clicked a small button on the end of it and Mr Mumbles made it no further.
His roar became a howl as he dropped to the floor, his back arching, his muscles standing in knots. I heard a crackle of electrical current and smelled smoke in the air.
Click.
Doc pressed the button again and Mr Mumbles fell silent. His broad chest heaved, his breath laboured and rattling. His eyes were open, but rolling back in his head. A string of drool hung down over his chin, mixing with the blood that was already there.
‘Now,’ Doc said, tucking the device into the breast pocket of his white coat. ‘Where were we?’
‘That’s him. That’s the bad man,’ I.C. whispered. He was behind me again, peeking out at Doc and his two porter henchmen. Though he was barely touching me, I could feel his whole body shaking.
‘I warned you, didn’t I?’ Doc asked. His voice was light and he wagged a finger playfully, as if he were telling off a mischievous two-year-old. ‘I told you I would be very upset if you escaped, and what is it you do?’ His face darkened. All playfulness vanished. ‘You escaped. Naughty boy. Naughty, naughty Three-Nine-Six-Two.’
Down on the floor, Mr Mumbles groaned, obviously still in pain. I was surprised to find I didn’t enjoy seeing him like that.
‘Perhaps it is my fault. Perhaps I did not spend enough time with you. Getting to know you. Letting you get to know me. Perhaps you did not take me seriously. Perhaps I did not give you enough reason to.’
He reached down to the console in front of him. He must’ve pressed some button or flicked a switch, because a moment later a door next to the window slid open. ‘Now, I will give you reason,’ Doc said. ‘I will show you why it is important that you take me seriously. Come.’
I looked down at Mr Mumbles. More groans, but no other movement. Pity. Even if he did hate me, it was obvious we had a common enemy. I could’ve done with the extra muscle.
‘Oh, do not worry about Patient Forty-Four,’ said Doc, beckoning us forward with a
wave of his hand. ‘He will be... taken care of. As always.’
Behind me, I.C. yelped with fright. A porter stood at his back. Its long arms were out at its sides, its button eyes – black ones, this time – gazing directly ahead. Stepping forward, it ushered us towards the far end of the room, and towards the door that led through to Doc.
‘I am about to show you something. Something very special.’
Doc had led I.C. and me along several corridors, a porter on each side of us, and one bringing up the rear. Now we stood outside a wide set of double doors. They were shiny and clean, freshly painted in a warm shade of orange. Their pristine sheen was in stark contrast to the filth and decay of the rest of the hospital.
Above the door a sign had been nailed clumsily in place. It was made from a rectangle of dull grey metal, with two words stencilled on in black paint:
THE GALLERY
I only half noticed this sign, though. I was more interested in the rusted one fixed lower down on the wall, beside the door. It identified the next room as Ward 10.
A tingle of excitement crept over me. If I remembered the map correctly, Ward 10 was beside a door that led to a corridor that joined two parts of the hospital together. The next building over contained Wards 11, 12 and, most importantly, Ward 13.
Ward 13, where the cure was waiting for me. Ward 13, where I’d be able to get home.
I glanced over to my left and immediately spotted the door. It was a plain wooden one, with no markings on it. I felt as if it should’ve looked more important, somehow. More special. Freedom waited behind that door. All I had to do was get to it.
Doc coughed impatiently and I gave him my attention, for now. He was standing with his back to the double doors, his hands clasped behind his back, his glasses perched right on the very end of his nose.
‘As I was saying...’ He gestured to the door behind him. ‘You are about to see something spectacular. No one has ever seen within this room and lived to tell the tale.’ He looked at us both in turn. ‘You shall not be an exception.’
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