Doc Mortis

by Barry Hutchison

  ‘And the doctor,’ I muttered, ‘is out.’

  It was ten or fifteen minutes before I.C. opened his eyes. It felt like longer.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘You’re awake.’

  He blinked very slowly. ‘Am I?’

  ‘More or less. Probably still a bit groggy from the sedative.’

  ‘What’s a sedavativ?’

  ‘Sedative,’ I corrected. ‘Like a sleeping potion. Doesn’t matter, it’s wearing off now.’

  I helped him to sit up. His eyes flitted around the room like a startled mouse. ‘The bad man...?’

  ‘Gone,’ I said. ‘He’s gone, and he’s not coming back.’

  ‘Promise?’

  I smiled. ‘Promise.’

  ‘And... Toby? Did you find Toby, like you said?’

  His eyes brimmed with hope. His little hands tangled together nervously. More than anything, I wanted to say ‘yes’.

  ‘Um... about that,’ I said, picking my words carefully. ‘The thing is... You see, it’s like this...’

  I looked down, unable to watch his reaction. I drew in a breath through my teeth, and I told him the truth. ‘Toby’s dead, I.C.’

  ‘What?’ The sound that accompanied the word was like a laugh, but it wasn’t a laugh. I raised my eyes to see the corners of his mouth curved upwards into something that equally wasn’t a smile.

  ‘I’m sorry, I should’ve told you before,’ I said, wanting to get it all out at once now, like pulling off a plaster in one sharp tug, ‘but he’s dead. He died the day you came here. The moment you came here.’

  He shook his head. His bottom lip was trembling, his brow creased. ‘It’s... it’s my fault?’

  ‘No, no, that’s not what I meant,’ I said. ‘I mean that when Toby died, that sent you here. He was what was keeping you there. He was the only thing keeping you in the real world.’

  His expression told me he didn’t understand. I tried to make things clearer. ‘Didn’t you find it strange that only Toby could see you?’ I asked. ‘They should all have been able to see you. Everyone... If you were real.’

  His eye twitched. ‘But I am real,’ he said in a voice that was filled with doubt. ‘Amn’t I?’

  I shook my head, afraid my voice would give out on me if I tried to say the words. ‘No,’ I croaked, when I’d composed myself. ‘No, you aren’t. Not like Toby. Not like me. I’m sorry.’

  He pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapped his arms round them, then buried his face so I couldn’t see it. He didn’t ask anything more about the not being real thing, which told me that, deep down, he’d known all along.

  ‘I don’t want to stay here,’ he said, his voice trembling. ‘I don’t like it here. I don’t like it.’

  I.C. raised his head until just his eyes were visible. They were wet and ringed with red. They flitted across my face, unable to meet my gaze. He sniffed loudly, then wiped his nose across his knees. ‘Can I come with you?’

  I shook my head again, just a little. ‘I tried. When you were sleeping, I tried. Twice. But I can’t do it. I can’t take you with me.’

  ‘But... but... but...’ He was shivering now, his whole face going pale. ‘But why? Don’t you like me? I’ll be good, I’ll be good, I promise! Please, don’t leave me, please don’t leave me.’ His voice became a squeak and the final word was mouthed through silent sobs. ‘Please.’

  ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ I said, fighting back tears of my own. ‘If I could take you out of here I would. I’d take you back with me, but I can’t do it. I can’t get you out, and I don’t know why!’

  I leaned back, a thought suddenly occurring to me. ‘I don’t know why,’ I said, feeling a stirring of excitement in my stomach, ‘but I might know a man who does.’

  Chapter Twenty

  FOSTERING RELATIONS

  I prodded the unmoving mound on the floor with the tip of my toe. ‘You alive?’

  At first, nothing, then a groan. ‘I hope not.’

  I looked across at the slumped form of Wobblebottom, half visible in the gloom. His eyes were closed and his mouth was no longer fixed in that demented grin. The huge chest was absolutely still, not a breath entering or leaving his ravaged body. At peace, at last.

  ‘You won then.’

  I stepped back as the mound at my feet rolled over and became something more like a man. Mr Mumbles’s face was a mass of black bruising and barely congealing blood. One eye was swollen shut, and his hooked nose was more crooked than ever.

  All in all, though, he didn’t actually look any more horrific than usual, just equally horrific in a slightly different way.

  ‘Why are you here?’ he growled. ‘I told you I never wanted to see you again.’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  He shrugged, then winced at the pain it brought. ‘Worth a try.’

  I.C. was clinging to my leg, peeking out from behind my back. I could feel him trembling, a little boy lost in the dark.

  ‘I need your help,’ I said.

  Mr Mumbles snorted and dragged himself upright. He didn’t reach his full height, but bent slightly at the waist, unable to straighten all the way up. ‘We’re even, remember?’ he grimaced, placing his hands on his lower back and clicking something into place.

  ‘It’s just information, that’s all.’

  He rolled his eyes and dabbed at a cut on his forehead with the back of his hand. He didn’t respond for a while, then eventually spat, ‘Well?’

  ‘Oh, right. OK.’ I looked down at the boy. ‘I can’t take him back with me. Why not?’

  ‘He belongs here.’

  I.C. whimpered. I put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it gently.

  ‘You got out.’

  ‘But not with you.’

  ‘With my dad, I know. Is there another way?’

  Mr Mumbles shook his head. ‘No. Anyway, it makes no difference. He’s not strong enough. Not yet. The jump would kill him.’

  I stepped in closer than I’d normally have liked, keeping my voice low. ‘Staying here will kill him too.’

  Mr Mumbles gave a grunt, then a shrug. ‘He won’t be the first.’

  ‘But... he’s just a kid.’

  He roared at me through his bloated lips, and I could smell the decay deep within him. ‘So was I!’ Fury blazed behind his eyes as he jammed a finger against his temple. ‘Not outside, maybe, but in here. In here I was!’

  His chest rose and fell quickly. His face twitched, agitated, but when he spoke again his voice had lost its angry edge.

  ‘And who was there then, Kyle?’ For some reason the sound of my name from his mouth made me flinch. ‘Who was there then?’

  I fumbled for words. ‘I didn’t... It’s not...’

  ‘Look what they did to me.’ He craned his neck back to give me a better view of his scarred face. ‘Take a long, hard look at what they did.’

  I did look, and didn’t turn away, determined not to let him bully me into feeling sorry for him.

  ‘Still,’ I said, smiling as cheerfully as I could, ‘at least you got the mumbling sorted out. That’s something, eh?’

  His face scrunched up into a snarl, then relaxed, then furrowed again, like he was having difficulty working out how to react. His body tensed, his hands becoming fists. I didn’t take my eyes away from him.

  At last, he let out a single big breath, and all the fight seemed to go out of him along with it. ‘Yeah,’ he admitted. ‘There is that.’

  Reaching into my pocket, I dug out the wallet and flipped it open. ‘I want you to see something,’ I said. ‘See if you can make sense of it.’

  He took the offered photograph and raised it closer to his eyes, angling it as he tried to make out the image in the gloom.

  ‘Well?’ I asked. ‘Any idea when that was taken?’

  He stared at the picture – the one showing him, me and I.C. all together. The one that shouldn’t exist.

  ‘It wasn’t,’ he said. ‘That never happened. It’s a trick.’

 
He handed it back to me. ‘Looks pretty real to me.’

  ‘It’s a trick,’ he said, more emphatically this time. ‘Didn’t happen.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I admitted. ‘But why would someone fake it?’

  He didn’t reply. He just snapped the collar of his crumpled coat up round his ears, and I got a definite sense the conversation was about to be over.

  ‘What should I do about him?’ I asked quickly. ‘About I.C., I mean. I can’t just leave him.’

  ‘You left me.’

  ‘Oh, get over it!’ I snapped. ‘I didn’t know what would happen, OK? How could I? Kids grow out of their imaginary friends, that’s just the way it is. They don’t know about this place, they don’t have any idea what happens next. You can’t blame me for growing up.’

  Mumbles looked like he might turn away, but he didn’t. His eyes crept past me, down to the scared little boy at my back.

  ‘Someone needs to look after him,’ I said, more softly.

  ‘No,’ Mr Mumbles said, glaring at me and shaking his head. ‘No. No way.’

  ‘He’s lost here. He just needs a friend.’

  He growled. ‘Don’t we all?’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘And he can do things. He can freeze things with a touch. Admittedly only when he’s paralysed with fear, but still – that’s got to be useful, right?’

  I guided I.C. out from behind my back, so he was standing between me and my old imaginary friend. ‘There was no one to look after you when you arrived and that was terrible. Really terrible. And they tortured you and hurt you and made you... different.’

  Mr Mumbles’s one still-functioning eye swivelled down and found the boy looking back up at him, his face wet with tears. I wasn’t sure if I.C.’s sad, wide-eyed expression was real, or if it was just an Oscar-worthy performance. Either way, it could only help my case.

  ‘There was no one there for you,’ I said. ‘Be there for him.’

  Mr Mumbles’s broad jaw moved, his teeth grinding together as if he was chewing the idea over.

  ‘Who’ll feed him?’ he asked at last. ‘Food doesn’t come cheap.’

  ‘What? You buy food?’ I asked, taken aback. ‘Don’t you, like, just sort of, you know, eat... each other?’

  I.C. gasped and drew closer to me. ‘You ain’t eating me, big nose!’

  Mr Mumbles’s voice was like the grinding of tectonic plates. ‘Eat... each other?’ he said. ‘We’re not all monsters.’ He looked down at his scarred hands, flexing and unflexing his fingers. ‘Just some of us,’ he added quietly.

  ‘Right, yes, sorry,’ I said, suddenly embarrassed. ‘Course you don’t.’ I opened Joseph’s wallet, knowing there was no cash inside, but feeling compelled to at least look like I was checking.

  ‘Money for food, money for food,’ I muttered, but I was pretty sure he could see through the act. I came clean, opening the wallet right out for him to see. ‘I don’t have any money.’

  He snatched the wallet from my fingers and pulled out the three remaining photos. One by one he flicked through them, transfixed by the scenic images.

  ‘They’re just photos,’ I said, as if he hadn’t figured that out by himself.

  ‘They’ll do,’ he replied, finally tearing his eyes away from them. He let the wallet fall to the floor and stuffed the photographs in his inside coat pocket.

  I looked down at I.C., and I.C. looked up at me. ‘So, what, you’ll take care of him?’

  ‘I’ll do what I can. No promises.’

  ‘Wait, I’m staying with big nose?’ I.C. asked.

  ‘Stop calling me that!’

  ‘It’s just for a while,’ I said, kneeling down so I was the same height as the boy. ‘Until I can figure out how to get you out. He’ll keep you safe.’

  I.C. looked like he might burst into tears again. ‘You’ll come back?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Promise?’

  I thought about the one photograph I still had. The impossible photograph. The photograph that hadn’t happened.

  Hadn’t happened yet?

  I slipped the picture into I.C.’s hand and folded his fingers over it. ‘Promise.’

  I.C. wiped his tears on his sleeve. ‘How do you know he isn’t going to kill me?’

  I looked up. Mr Mumbles met my gaze. ‘Because,’ I said, ‘he’s an old friend.’

  ‘OK, runt, let’s move,’ Mumbles said.

  I.C. wrapped his arms round my neck and pressed his cheek against mine. His skin was cold. At least now I understood why.

  ‘See you around,’ he said, when he eventually pulled away.

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied, my throat suddenly tight. ‘See you around.’

  ‘One thing,’ Mumbles said. ‘Your dad. He can be... persuasive. Make you do things you don’t want to do.’ He looked away from me, then briefly looked back. ‘Be careful.’

  I.C. released his grip on my neck and turned away. His voice sounded lighter than it had been for hours, as if all his fear had simply melted away. ‘Right then,’ he said, ‘where to, big nose?’

  ‘I told you, don’t call me that!’

  ‘It’s not my fault you’ve got a big nose! So, where to?’

  I heard Mr Mumbles sigh, watched him turn and head for the door. I.C. skipped alongside him, looking up.

  ‘To find my hat.’

  ‘Oh, right. Is it a nice hat?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can I hold your hand?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Please!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘But it’s scary, and I’m only small.’

  ‘If I say yes, will you shut up?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Right, fine,’ Mumbles grunted, and as his big hand wrapped round I.C.’s, I focused on a spark, and brought myself home.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  CONFESSIONS

  It took me twenty minutes to find the room. It was a private one, just beside the entrance to a communal ward on the third floor of the main building. I’d passed it three or four times before I remembered Joseph had told me the room number when driving me here. Armed with that knowledge, I’d set off to find room forty-two.

  The door had a large window set in it, taking up almost half the space. I could see Ameena on the other side of the glass. She was on the end of the bed, her back to me, watching over the bandaged figure tucked beneath the sheets.

  Ameena turned as I entered. She didn’t speak, but her relief was etched on her face. Around us, the room was a chorus of machines that beeped and clicked and wheezed. Machines, I knew, that were keeping my mum alive.

  ‘How is she?’ I asked. My voice was a whisper, as if I was afraid I’d wake Mum up, when, in fact, that was exactly what I hoped would happen.

  ‘Stable, I think,’ Ameena said. She indicated the clipboard hanging over the foot of the bed. ‘Couldn’t make much sense of it.’

  I picked the clipboard up and looked over several pages filled with graphs and charts and handwritten notes. I couldn’t make sense of it, either, and I quickly clipped it back to the end of the bed.

  ‘Where’s the kid, then?’ Ameena asked. ‘You find him?’

  ‘Found him,’ I replied. ‘He’s safe. I think.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Long story,’ I said. ‘Tell you later.’

  She gave a shrug that suggested she didn’t really care, then slid down from the bed. ‘I think I’ll go get some water,’ she said. ‘Give you a bit of time.’

  I flashed her a thin smile of thanks as she passed me on the way to the door. I waited until the door was closed before I turned to my mum.

  She was a mess. As much of a mess as Mr Mumbles had been. Her head was bandaged, the face below it swollen and stained with purple bruising. A thin tube ran across her top lip, below her nose, two strips of white tape holding it to her face.

  Another tube dangled from a clear bag that hung from a metal pole. The tube was attached to a needle that had been inserted into her left hand and bandaged securely in place. It w
as the same sort of tube that had been drip-feeding the chemicals into Wobblebottom. I had to remind myself that this stuff was helping Mum, not hurting her.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ I said, imagining a reply in the clicking, wheezing and bleeping of the machines.

  I half sat, half leaned on the bed beside her. Her right hand lay on top of the covers, palm upwards, fingers curled over like the legs of a dead spider. I lifted it, squeezed it gently, then sat it down the other way up.

  I didn’t know what to say. After everything I’d been through to get here, I didn’t know what to say. ‘I’m sorry,’ was all I could think of, but it didn’t seem nearly enough.

  In the end, I stopped trying to think of anything, and I just told her how I felt, like I would’ve if she’d been awake.

  ‘I’m scared, Mum,’ I said. ‘Everything’s out of control. Marion’s dead. I nearly got stuck in the Darkest Corners. There’s still my dad to worry about.’ I covered her hand with mine and gave it another squeeze. ‘I hit him in the face with a brick, by the way,’ I told her. ‘You’d have liked that.’

  I almost expected her to smile at that. Of course, she didn’t. ‘I don’t know what’s happening to me,’ I said. ‘Or what’s going to happen. He says I’m going to end the world, but that’s one thing I do know won’t happen. I won’t help him. I’ll never help him.’

  The door opened and Ameena was back. She quickly closed the door behind her. ‘Cops,’ she said. ‘They’re coming.’

  ‘What? How do they know I’m here?’

  ‘They don’t. I overheard them, they’re just coming to check on your mum. They think you attacked her, and they think you’ll come back to finish the job.’

  ‘What?’ I spluttered. ‘They think I did this?’

  ‘And they still think you killed Marion too,’ she said. ‘Never rains but it pours, eh? We’ve got to get you out of here.’

  ‘I can’t just go,’ I replied, getting up from the bed. ‘I can’t leave her alone. Who’ll protect her if my dad sends someone to finish the job? There’ll be no one to look after her.’

  ‘You think they’ll let you stay?’ Ameena snapped. ‘You think you’ll be able to guard her from a prison cell?’

  ‘They won’t send me to prison,’ I said, my jaw setting in determination. ‘I won’t let them.’