by Simon Logan
He takes a step towards her, offers a hand. “Here,” he says, “let me help.”
She instantly snaps around the way a fighting dog might.
“Who the fuck are you?”
For a moment Stasko can’t speak, so struck is he by her beauty. Her skull is perfectly shaped and shadowed by stubble. Her eyes are dark yet luminous, her frame strong yet delicate.
“You are perfection,” he says as he crouches next to her, the words a mere whisper.
“Excuse me?”
“When I saw you in the ER I knew that you were . . . but now, now I see you up close you are even more . . .”
He clasps a hand over his mouth to control his emotions.
“Look, I don’t know who the hell you think I am but—”
“You’re the one,” he interrupts.
“Is that right?” she says, getting to her feet. She winces when she first puts weight on the ankle, easing herself away from him. “Well that may well be the case but I’m afraid I don’t have the time right now to—”
She stops when she sees the syringe in his hand.
“Oh for fuck’s sake, not again,” she says just before he stabs it into her neck.
49.
The day, it seems, is nothing but an infinite see-saw between consciousness and unconsciousness.
This time Lady D comes to with a start. Something is strapped across her chest, preventing her from raising herself any higher than a few inches. The harsh whiteness of the hospital has been swallowed by darkness but the smell of disinfectant and antiseptic hand gel is still strong in the air. A multi-coloured cloud hovers before her, following her gaze as she shifts it from side to side. It pulses in time with the pounding in her head but is quickly fading.
She tries to move her arms and legs but they too are held in place, pain igniting across her ankles and wrists. She hears movement—rustling, smothered breathing – then a bright pinprick of light shines at her. It hits her eyes as if it were a solid shard and she pushes herself back into the bed she is laid out on, twisting her head from side to side to get away from it.
A hand grabs her face, squeezing her cheeks together. It turns her towards the source of the light and she can only just make out a figure behind it wearing a disposable surgical smock and mask. Her thoughts tumble into place and she remembers the man who had helped her to her feet before dosing her with sedative.
“Stay quiet,” he says, still gripping her face.
She snaps her head to one side, pulls herself free, then drags phlegm from the back of her throat and spits it at him. “Fuck you.”
The man leans over her, the little pen-light he has tilting to more fully illuminate him. His eyes are dark, his pupils fully dilated. He looks her up and down, running a hand up her leg. Lady D jolts her body, doing what she can to resist him whilst still held by the bonds. Another inch or two and he may be in for an unwelcome surprise.
“Now, now,” the man whispers to her, his hand skipping to her torso then sweeping across her head. “Don’t be afraid, I’m not going to harm you. You don’t have to hide yourself from me.”
And he holds something up for her to see—the bandage-like wrapping that is the final, outer layer of her gaff.
“No . . .” The word escapes Lady D’s lips as a gasp at the suddenly realized exposure.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” the man says, bundling the fabric up into a little ball. “Transformation is natural. It is vital. I know how you must feel.”
“Get me the fuck out of here right now,” Lady D says through gritted, and finely polished, teeth. “You have no idea who I am.”
The man tilts his head to one side, pulls the mask away from his face and lets it hang beneath his jaw. “I think it’s you who has no idea who you are,” he tells her. “But I can help you with that.”
He’s gone for a moment or two then returns with another syringe and a plastic bite plate. He places the plate into her mouth, wrapping the elasticated band it is attached to around the back of her head.
“As soon as I’ve got you out of here and back to my lab, we can begin. . . .”
He removes the syringe’s protective cap and gives it a quick tap and squirt to get rid of air bubbles. Lady D struggles once more but the bonds, cable-ties, she realizes, hold firm, biting into her and drawing blood. She refuses to give up, however, twisting and pulling on them, grimacing as the pain builds, grunting and whining behind the bit.
“Hold still,” the man says, smacking her inner arm to encourage her veins to swell. “We can’t have you thrashing about like this.”
The sharp pain of the needle presses against her; her struggle intensifies, her anger and frustration builds as if it will explode from within her.
And then light floods across them.
“Who the hell . . . ?” the man says.
Lady D turns, looks towards the entrance to the room. A woman stands there, her eyes shimmering with tears, her cheeks stained with diluted eye makeup. Lady D blinks rapidly, urging her vision to clear.
“Get out of my way,” the man snaps, pulling on the gurney Lady D is strapped to, positioning it between himself and the woman. “Can’t you see I have a patient here? She needs to go to surgery immediately, do you understand?”
“You’re not going anywhere,” the woman says, standing firm. “You have no idea who I am do you?”
“I have no interest in who you are,” the man says, jabbing the gurney towards her as if it were a weapon.
In response the woman takes a gun from her bag. Points it at the surgeon.
And her captor may not recognise the woman but Lady D now does. After all it was only a couple of hours since she had kidnapped her.
50.
Liz peers around the corner of the alleyway she had ducked into after being told by Bridget to leave and get to her safe house. After walking away from the vehicle it had been her every intention to go straight to an old friend who would ask no questions about her need to hide, but with each step she had taken her confidence had waned. She’d eventually turned a corner when she knew that she would be out of Bridget’s sight, before cutting through into the alley and doubling back on herself. She’d kept a close eye on Bridget, the smells of Chinese food drifting from a vent above her, until she saw a pair of headlights in the distance and a station wagon pull up alongside her.
Now she watches the figure within the car lean across and talk with Bridget who, moments later, gets out and climbs into his vehicle. When the door opens an internal light comes on and identifies Stasko as the driver. For several moments Liz fights with herself, suddenly certain that something awful is about to happen, that Stasko somehow knows what they are planning. Her fingernails dig into the soft mortar between the wall’s bricks.
The internal light goes out and Stasko pulls away. The car comes towards her then fizzes past, spraying up water from the pools on the road, the vehicle’s red tail-lights illuminating the shower of droplets. Liz rushes to Bridget’s abandoned car and gratefully finds the key tucked under the driver’s seat where Bridget often leaves it—right next to a small handgun. Liz takes both, starts the engine, the tail-lights of Stasko’s car only just visible in the distance.
She presses down on the accelerator and chases after them.
51.
The doorman is talking to a group of girls as Liz approaches the Wheatsheaf but somehow senses her presence and sticks out an arm to block her way.
“You want in you gotta pay like everyone else,” he says, then smiles at the girls to check they are suitably impressed.
Liz checks her bag first but finds no cash there, then checks her pockets. One by one they turn up empty. The doorman’s patience is quickly dwindling.
“Look, you want in or—”
“Here,” Liz says, holding up a small pile of crumpled notes.
He takes them from her, unfolding them and straightening them one
at a time, clearly taking pleasure in elongating the whole process. Liz refuses to show her frustration, knowing that it will only make him delay further. The doorman rolls a piece of bright pink chewing gum around in his mouth before sighing and stepping to one side.
Liz pushes her way through those lingering in the entrance corridor, blaringly loud punk music rampaging off every wall. Stage lights flash and flicker from red to green to blue and back again, sweeping across those gathered there, strobing. The whole place is jumping, people grabbing one another, headbutting anyone close by, as much a battleground as a venue.
Liz makes her way through as the crowd jostles around her, shoving her in several directions but always back into the corridor again. She pushes herself up onto tip-toes and spots the unmistakable burst of pink that is Bridget’s hair but can’t see any sign of Stasko.
A leering punk looms in front of her, blocking her view. He smiles at her with his sole remaining tooth, his arms held wide as if about to embrace her, chest bare and soaked in beer.
Liz moves to one side but he moves the same way. She ducks to the other side and he follows.
She jumps up and down, looking for Bridget once again and the man copies her, thinking she is pogo-ing and grinning madly now. Over his shoulder she sees the pink hair again and in the same instant someone grabs Bridget.
The man keeps jumping in front of her, blocking her view. And are those flames flickering behind the stage?
“Fuck off!” she shouts, the words lost but the sentiment clear. Something is happening on the stage, the music stopping, just guitar now, but she is only peripherally aware of it.
She jumps again and this time the snapshot is Bridget with a hand around her throat. Liz cries out and charges forwards but the punk catches her, embraces her. She fights to get out of his clutches and then he suddenly lets go. She staggers backwards and the man frowns. He looks up.
Liz follows his gaze just in time to see multiple chunks of debris tumble from the ceiling above and crash into the circle pit. Then the sound of metal rending, of rivets popping, the sounds that echo through the belly of a ship just before the hull bursts and water comes crashing in.
The punk looks at her again, no longer jumping. His face is slack, his eyes wide.
This is just before the ceiling collapses on top of him.
52.
When Liz comes to clouds of dark grey dust swirl around her, carried on the drafts created by the fires that burn everywhere. She’s aware of another, cooler breeze brushing over her and thinks that she has somehow ended up outside the club—then realizes that the entire place is now, technically, outside. The remainder of the corridor she had been unable to get out of is steepled over her and several others.
She rolls onto her back and sees that most of the Wheatsheaf is gone, all except a single wall. There are piles of warped scaffold and chunks of masonry out of which various limbs protrude. People cry and moan. Others shout instructions.
Someone runs past her in a green uniform.
Liz pulls herself upright, wincing as pain shoots up her back. Her ears are ringing. Everything is so distant. Another green uniform—a paramedic. A series of ambulances are lined up on the street outside, a cordon being set up by Policie officers just beyond them, holding back a growing crowd. Lights flash red and blue, just as they had during the gig.
Liz becomes aware of a warmth on her left arm and looks down to see blood oozing down it from a gash in her bicep, distorting her tattoos. She picks up her bag, laying beside her, and slings it over her shoulder.
“Bridget . . .” she says, though deaf to her own words thanks to the ringing.
She crawls out of the remains of the corridor through the wreckage on hands and knees, aware of others getting to their feet and stumbling around, some collected by paramedics, others collapsing to the ground once more. She calls out Bridget’s name over and over, her arms shaking and threatening to give way but she refuses to stop.
She passes the body of the doorman, his arms spread out beside his head, the night’s takings spilling from his bomber jacket pocket, then spots a flash of pink a few metres away. She drags herself over to the prone form, almost hidden beneath the figure of a transvestite in a gold lamé dress.
“Bridget?”
She reaches out and touches the other woman’s arm.
She pushes aside the Tgirl’s body, rolling it off Bridget. Bridget is covered in a thick layer of concrete dust and charred embers, one leg twisted at an unnatural angle.
“Bridget?”
No response.
She cries out for help and catches the attention of one of the paramedics who quickly finishes tending to another casualty and hurries across. He stops next to Liz, looking down at Bridget next to her. Shakes his head.
Before she can say anything he rushes off again, then there is the sound of one of the ambulance’s sirens blaring into life and the screech of its tyres. Liz cries out to him but he either doesn’t hear her or doesn’t care.
“Please . . .” Liz begs. She reaches out to Bridget’s still form, this time noticing how cold the other woman is when she makes contact. She looks around, desperate for someone else to help her despite knowing that it’s all too late, calling to anyone who will listen to help her. She lifts Bridget’s hand and peels one of the purple gloves off, the latex already torn in places. She strokes the soft skin of Bridget’s palm, pressing it to her face.
Then looks up—and spots Stasko. He is being lifted onto a gurney by a pair of paramedics who then strap him into place and wheel him towards another waiting ambulance.
A vicious fury ignites inside Liz.
She places Bridget’s hand back down and forces herself to her feet, her knees threatening to give way at first, then stabilising. A gust of hot air washes over her from a nearby fire, the image of Stasko being loaded into the ambulance shimmering and diluting in the heat distortion.
Liz bears down on the pain and staggers towards the vehicle but isn’t even close when its siren comes to life and it speeds away from the scene. She keeps going regardless, holding out one arm towards it, as if she could simply pluck it from the road, until someone catches her wrist.
A young paramedic, smeared in blood and dark, grimy dust.
“Miss, you can’t . . . please . . . are you okay? Are you hurt?”
She stares past him at the ambulance vanishing into the distance.
“Where are they going?” she asks him. “Where are they taking him?”
“St. Michael’s,” he tells her, noticing the wound on her shoulder. “Let me get someone to look at that for you—”
She pushes him away, clutching her bag close to her, but he won’t let her go. He calls to another paramedic loading up an ambulance, asks if they have room for one more. There’s a short argument which Liz is only vaguely aware of, still staring at the point where Stasko’s ambulance was last visible. She breaks free, ignoring the pleas of the paramedic and making her way towards, then through, the cordon. The Policie who guard it see her coming and let her through, watching her stagger off across the street.
Her mind somehow spinning and numb simultaneously, she continues on across the junction to the corner where she had left Bridget’s car. Gets in and takes the key from her bag and starts the engine.
An ambulance reverses away from the smouldering remains of the Wheatsheaf and into the junction then the wheels spin as it changes direction and plows forwards. Liz throws the car into first, ignoring the old gearbox’s resistance, and goes after it.
53.
She abandons the car in the hospital’s parking lot, the drop-off points at the building’s entrance jam-packed with ambulances hurriedly unloading their bloodied cargo. She puts the gun into her bag then walks inside, vibrating with adrenaline, knowing that if she were to give in to her body’s demands and slump into a heap then the pain which lurks at the edges of her consciousness will flood in and
consume her.
So she keeps going, following the main flow of traffic into the ER, feeling as if she exists on a different plane of reality than everyone around her. She approaches the circular reception desk, stepping around and between the frenzied medical staff. A large whiteboard hangs above it, names and numbers scribbled on it.
She scans it until she finds Stasko’s name, grateful that he had been carrying some form of ID, then takes note of the bed number. She goes to the nearest bed, reads its number, then tracks her way towards where Stasko would be. She stops, and sees the man being helped from the bed by a medic. They have a brief conversation then Stasko walks across the ER, obviously looking for something specific. He stops at bed thirteen, finds it vacant, then turns around. For a moment he appears to be lost then his expression changes. He’s staring at something across the busy emergency room but Liz can’t quite tell what. Then he’s moving again.
Liz hurries after him, keeping her distance. She chases him deeper into the hospital, always making sure to remain a corner or junction behind him, then hears a crashing sound up ahead. She slows, grateful that they are now well away from the busy emergency room and in the quieter passageways of unused examination rooms and locked offices.
She can hear him up ahead, carefully peeks around the corner. He’s helping a woman to her feet, then says something to her. Liz watches as he withdraws a syringe from one of his pockets and flicks the cap away. Plunges it into the woman’s neck. Then she continues to watch as he slips an arm under the woman’s and hauls her to her feet then drags her into one of the nearby rooms.
It’s only then that Liz recognises who it is that Stasko is taking away and realizes that it is not a woman after all—instead the man who had abducted her earlier, the one Bridget had tricked.
