Whispers of the Dead

by Simon Beckett

  You cock your head, listening. They'll be here soon; you only have a few minutes. Adrenalin is tingling through you, but you're over the worst of the shock now, able to function again. When you heard them at the French doors the disbelief was paralysing. You'd thought that leaving the ambulance miles away would've thrown them off, allowed yourself to relax. You should have known better. Your first instinct was to run, but that wasn't an option. You forced yourself to calm down, to think/ And gradually the panic subsided enough to let you see what you had to do. You're better than them, remember that. Better than anyone. You can still turn this round. You have to hurry, though. The eyes stare at you from the bound figure, wide and terrified, as you make sure the gag won't come out again.You don't want any more screams to tell them where you are, not yet. A sense of waste rises up in you as you start. This isn't how it was meant to be, not when you'd come so close . . . But there's no time for regrets. No time for anything. Only what has to be done. When it's over you regard your handiwork with distaste. The eyes are no longer staring at you, or at anything else. Your breath comes in ragged bursts as you listen to the sounds of the intruders getting closer. Well, let them.You're almost through. Only one more thing left to do, and then your surprise'll be ready. Wiping the sweat from your face, you reach for the knife. Paul ran across the foyer.'SAM? SAM!' His shout bounced off the bare walls. The interior of the sanitarium was dark and empty, stripped of furniture and fittings. The windows were shuttered, letting in only slats and cracks of light. I had an impression of space, of dilapidation and dust, as I plunged after him, the phone clutched to my ear. 'Talk to me, Hunter! What's going on?' Gardner demanded, his words fading in and out as the reception wavered. 'We've foundYork,' I panted.'It's an old sanitarium in the foothills, about fifteen, twenty miles from where he left the ambulance. There's. . .' But I didn't know how to describe the nightmare of the garden. I started giving directions to where we'd left the car until his silence checked me.'Gardner? Gardner!' The connection had failed. I'd no idea how much he'd heard, or even if he'd heard anything at all, but there was no time to call him back. Paul had stopped in the centre of the foyer. 'SAM! WHERE ARE YOU? SAM!' 'Paul!' I seized hold of him. He shook me off. 'He already knows we're here! DON'TYOU,YOU BASTARD?' he bellowed. 'YOUHEAR ME? I'M COMING FOR YOU, YORK!' His challenge went unanswered. Our breathing sounded hollow in the cavernous foyer. Either termites or subsidence had undermined the foundations, causing the entire floor to cant drunkenly to one side like a fairground funhouse. Dust coated every surface like dirty felt. Faded wallpaper hung down in swags, and the banisters had been ripped from the once grand staircase in the centre of the room so that its railings stuck up into empty air like loose teeth. Next to it was an old-fashioned lift that had made its last journey decades before, its metal cage rusted and full of debris. There was a smell of age and damp, of mould and rotting wood. And something else. Although it was faint, the sweetly foul odour of decomposition was here too. Paul ran to the staircase, footsteps clomping on the wooden floor. The flight leading to the lower floor had caved in, leaving gaping blackness and rubble. He started to go up, but I stopped him, pointing. While one side of the building looked ready to collapse, on the other was a service door marked Private. The dusty parquet tiles between it and the entrance were crisscrossed with footprints and thin tyre tracks that could have been from a bike. Or a wheelchair. Clutching the wooden spar in his fist, Paul ran across and threw it open. A dark service corridor stretched in front of us, the only daylight coming from a small window at the far end. 'SAM!' he yelled. The shout died to silence. Several doors ran along the corridor's length. Paul ran down it, flinging them back one by one. They banged against the wall with a sound like gunshots, revealing bare cupboards and storage rooms that held only cobwebs. I followed behind him, until we'd reached the last doorway. He yanked it open, and I blinked at the sudden brightness. An empty kitchen greeted us. Afternoon sun slanted through filthy windows, giving the room the murky green light of an aquarium. A camp bed stood in one corner, a sleeping bag rumpled on top of it. By its head were shelves made from breezeblocks and raw planks, bowed under the weight of old books. Congealed pans cluttered a huge wood-burning stove, and two huge sinks overflowed with dirty crockery. Standing in the centre of the room was a scarred pine table. The plates on it had been pushed aside to make way for a first aid kit, from which a length of leftover bandage still trailed. Remembering the buckled steering wheel in the ambulance, I felt a savage satisfaction. It was only when I looked away from the table that I realized one entire wall was covered in photographs. York had created a montage of his victims; black and white images of agonized faces, just like those I'd seen at his house. There were too many to take in at once, men and women of all ages and ethnicities, pinned up on the wall like some sick gallery. Some of the photographs had started to curl and yellow with age. Wallets, purses and jewellery had been heaped in an untidy pile on a shelf below them, tossed aside as casually as the lives of their owners. I felt a sudden, feathery vibration as something sticky brushed against my face. I recoiled, almost knocking over a chair before I realized it was only a strip of flypaper. A swamp darner was caught on it, still alive but hopelessly entangled, its fitful struggles only trapping it more. Other strips hung all over the kitchen, I saw, their surfaces crusted with dead flies and insects. York hadn't bothered to take them down, just hung fresh strips until there was hardly any space left. Paul crossed to where a long-bladed knife lay by the stove. Picking it up, he wordlessly passed me the strut he'd been carrying. It felt flimsy and rotten, but I still took it. Two doors led off from the kitchen. Paul tried to open the first, but it had warped in its frame. He threw his shoulder against it and it gave with a splintering crack. Off balance, he staggered inside and collided with the pale body hanging from the ceiling. 'Jesus!' He stumbled back. But it was only the carcass of a pig, split in half lengthways and suspended by its hind leg from a meat hook. The small cupboard-sized room was an old-fashioned cold locker, but the rank smell and buzzing flies told that it wasn't cold enough. Cuts of meat lay bagged and parcelled on the shelves, and a pig's head sat on a bloodstained platter like a sacrificial offering. Pig's teeth and Wood.York didn't like to waste anything. Paul stared for a moment, chest rising and falling, then went to the remaining door. This one opened smoothly, and I let out my breath when I saw it only led to a small staircase that descended into shadows. Then I saw the wheelchair pushed to one side at the top. It was scuffed and battered, and in the half-light I could make out wet smears on the seat. Remembering what Jacobsen had told me about the bloodstains in the ambulance, I glanced at Paul, hoping he hadn't noticed. But he had. He took the stairs three at a time. I went after him, conscious of the creak and sway of the rickety staircase. At the bottom was a dark and narrow corridor. Chinks of light seeped through boarded-up windows and a set of French doors; the same ones we'd tried from the outside, I realized. The sanitarium had been built on the hillside, and now we were on the lower ground floor. The smell of decomposition was stronger down here, even stronger than outside. But the corridor was empty, except for a single door at the far end. A brass sign on it bore the legend Spa Rooms. Paul had already started towards it when a sudden noise cut through the silence. It was like air escaping from a valve, a high pitched keening that sounded both inhuman and agonized. It cut off as quickly as it started, but there was no doubt about its source. It came from the spa. 'SAM!' Paul bellowed, and charged for the door. I couldn't have held him back even if I'd wanted to. Gripping the length of wood so tightly my hand hurt, I was right behind him as he burst through. There was just time to register a large room with white-tiled walls before a figure dashed through another doorway right in front of me. My heart stuttered until I realized it was my own reflection. A huge mirror was fixed to the opposite wall, its surface mottled and leprous. A row of drinking fountains stood in front of it, their spigots dusty and dry. A murky light filtered in through a row of high, cobwebbed windows, revealing cracked white
tiles from floor to ceiling. Signs proclaiming Treatment Rooms, Sauna, and Turkish Bath pointed off towards the warren of shadowed chambers that led from the room in which we stood. But we barely noticed. York had left his victims in here as well. A sunken plunge pool, perhaps six feet square, stood in one corner by a darkened archway. York had turned it into a charnel pit. The bodies nearly filled it. From what I could make out, they were in varying stages of decomposition, but none so far gone as those outside. The smell was indescribable. The sight checked Paul, but only briefly. He quickly crossed to the doors marked Treatment Rooms and tore open the nearest one. Inside was a small chamber that must once have been used for massage. Now it was York's darkroom. A reek of chemicals greeted us. Developing trays and containers of photographic chemicals cluttered an old desk, and more photographs had been clipped to a length of cord suspended above it. Pushing past me, Paul ran to the next chamber. The smell told me what was inside, overwhelming even the darkrooms pungent chemicals. I was overcome by a reluctance to look, a sudden fear of what we were going to find. Paul, too, seemed to feel it. He hesitated, his face deathly. Then he opened the door. More of York's victims lay on the tiled floor, stacked one on top of another like so much firewood. They were fully clothed, apparently just dragged in here and left, as though he'd simply lost interest and dumped them in the nearest space to hand. The body lying on the very top might have been asleep. In the dim light from the doorway, the outflung hand and spill of blond hair looked pitifully vulnerable. I heard Paul give a sound halfway between a sob and a cry. We'd found Sam. It was as though all the breath had been sucked out of me. Even though I'd told myself Sam was probably already dead, that York had no reason to let her live, I'd not fully accepted it. I grabbed hold of Paul as he flung himself forward. 'Don't. . .' I'd seen the photographs of York's victims. Paul didn't need to see Sam like that. He strained against me, but then his legs gave way. He took a faltering step backward and slid down the wall. 'Sam ... Oh, Christ. . .' Move, I told myself. Get him out of here. He was slumped on the floor like a broken toy. I tried to get him to his feet. 'Come on. We need to go.' 'She was pregnant. She wanted a boy. Oh no, God . . .' My throat ached. But we couldn't stay there, not when we didn't know where York was. 'Get up, Paul. You can't help her now.' But he was past listening. I would have tried again, but the tiny chamber suddenly darkened. I jerked round, only to find that the door had swung shut behind us. I quickly pushed it open again, half expecting to see York standing outside. No one was there, but as the grey light from the doorway reached Sam's body, I saw something else. A glint of silver beneath the tangled blond hair. There was a clenched feeling in my chest as I stepped nearer to the piled bodies. It grew tighter as I gently moved the hair aside. I felt myself sway when I looked down at the familiar face. Oh, God. Behind me I could hear Paul starting to weep. 'Paul. . .' 'I let her down. I should have--' I gripped his shoulders.'Listen to me, it isn't Sam!' He lifted his tearstained face. 'It isn't Sam,' I repeated, letting him go. My chest hurt at what I was about to say. 'It's Summer.' 'Summer . . . ?' I stood back as he climbed to his feet. He approached the body fearfully, as though not quite believing it even now. But the steel ear and nose studs were enough to convince him it wasn't his wife. He stood with the knife held limply by his side, taking in the bleached blond hair that had tricked us. The student was lying face down, her head turned to one side. Her face was horribly congested, the single bloodshot eye that was visible dull and staring. I'd assumed Summer hadn't come to the morgue because she was upset over Tom's death. And instead York had been claiming yet another victim. A tremor ran through Paul. 'Oh, Jesus . . .' Tears were streaming down his face. I could guess at the turmoil he was feeling: relief, but also guilt. I felt it myself. He pushed past me out of the chamber. 'SAM! SAM, WHERE ARE YOU?' His shout reverberated off the tiled walls of the spa. I went after him. 'Paul--' But he was past restraint. He stood in the centre of the spa, the knife clenched in his fist. 'WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH HER, YORK?' he yelled, his face contorted. 'COME OUT, YOU FUCKING COWARD!' There was no answer. Once the echoes had died, the silence seemed to condense around us. The slow drip, drip of an unseen tap counted away the moments like a distant pulse. Then we heard something. It was faint, the merest suggestion of a sound, but unmistakable. A muffled whimper. It came from one of the other treatment chambers. Paul ran and flung the door open. Battery-powered storm lanterns had been arranged around the walls, though none were switched on now. But enough light fell through the doorway to see the unmoving figure in its centre. Paul's knife clattered to the floor. 'Sam!' I groped for the nearest lamp and turned it on, blinking in the sudden brightness. Sam was tied to an old massage table. A camera had been positioned on a tripod by her head, its lens pointing directly down at her face. A wooden chair stood next to it, echoing the arrangement we'd found in the mountain cabin. Her wrists and ankles had been secured by broad leather straps, and a thinner one had been fastened round her throat, tight enough now to dig into the soft flesh. It was connected to a complicated arrangement of steel cogs from which a wooden winding handle protruded. York's Spanish windlass. All that registered in the first seconds of reaching the small chamber. You're too late, I thought, seeing the tautness of the strap circling her neck.Then Paul shifted to one side, and I saw that Sams eyes were wide and terrified, but alive. Her swollen belly looked impossibly big as she lay bound to the table. Her face was red and tear-streaked, and a thick rubber gag had been forced into her mouth. She sucked in a gasping breath as Paul took it out, but the strap round her throat restricted her breathing. She tried to speak, chest working as she gasped for air. 'It's all right. I'm here now. Don't move,' Paul told her. I went to unfasten the straps holding Sam's ankles, and my foot slipped on something wet. I looked down and saw dark splashes pooled on the white floor tiles. Remembering the bloodstains in the ambulance, I felt cold, until I realized the fluid wasn't blood. Sam's waters had broken. I tore at the ankle straps with a new urgency. Next to me Paul reached for the windlass handle. 'Don't touch it!' I warned. 'We don't know which way it turns.' As badly as we needed to get Sam out of there, the windlass strap was already digging into her throat. If we tightened it by mistake it could kill her. Indecision racked Paul's face. He started casting around on the floor. 'Where's the knife? I can cut--' An ear-splitting bellow drowned him out. It came from behind us, from beyond the darkened archway by the plunge pool. It rose in pitch, sounding barely human as it reverberated off the walls before dying away. The distant tap dripped in the silence. Paul and I stared at each other. I could see his mouth frame a question. Then York lurched through the archway. The undertaker was barely recognizable. His dark suit was filthy and stained, his hair matted. The cords on his neck stood out as thick as pencils as he screamed at us, brandishing a long-bladed knife in both hands. Even from where I stood I could see the blood on it, staining his hand black in the poor light. My limbs felt numb and heavy as I grabbed the wooden strut I'd dropped. 'Get her out!' I told Paul, my voice unsteady, and stepped out to face York. He came towards me at a shambling run, roaring as he slashed the air with wild swipes of the knife. The strut seemed pathetically flimsy_ in my hands. Just give them time. Forget everything else. 'Wait!' I yelled. Or thought I did; afterwards I was no longer sure if I'd actually said it out loud. 'Drop the knife!' The shout came from the corridor leading to the stairs. Relief surged through me as Gardner emerged through the doorway, Jacobsen close behind. Both had their guns drawn, levelling them at York in a two-handed grip. 'Drop the knife! Now!' Gardner repeated. York had turned towards them. His mouth hung open, panting. There was time to think he was going to do it, that this was going to end here. Then, with an incoherent scream, he lumbered at Jacobsen. 'Stay back!' Gardner yelled. York yelled something unintelligible but didn't stop. Jacobsen seemed frozen. I could see the pale fixity of her face as he bore down on her with the knife, but she didn't move. There were two loud cracks. They were deafening in the tiled confines of the room. York seemed to trip. He stumbled sideways,
falling into the big wall mirror. It shattered as he collapsed on to a drinking fountain, dragging it to the floor in a cascade of plaster and silver fragments. The echoes of gunfire and breaking glass slowly died away. My ears rang painfully. A faint blue mist hung in the air, a bonfire reek of cordite overlying the stink of decomposition. York didn't move. Gardner hurried over. Still pointing the gun at him, he kicked at the hand holding the knife to knock the weapon away, then quickly knelt and felt at York's throat. Without urgency, he stood up and tucked the gun back into his belt clip. Jacobsen was still holding her own gun outstretched, although now it was pointing down at the floor. 'I -- I'm sorry' she stammered, as colour rushed back into her cheeks. 'I couldn't. . .' 'Not now,' Gardner said. There was a sudden sob from the treatment room. I turned to see Paul helping Sam to sit up, trying to calm her as she coughed and gasped for breath. He'd cut the windlass strap, but a livid red line circled her throat like a burn. 'Oh, G-God, I thought ... I th-thought. . .' 'Shh, you're all right, it's all right, he can't hurt you now' 'I c-couldn't stop him. I told him I was p-pregnant, and he said . . . he said that was good, that he wanted to wait until, wait until . . . Oh, God!' She doubled up as a contraction rocked her. 'Is she OK?' Gardner asked. 'She's in labour,' I told him. 'You need to get an ambulance.' 'On its way. We were heading back to Knoxville when I got your message. I put the call in for back-up and paramedics right away. Christ, what the hell were you thinking? But I'd no time for Gardner's indignation, or to ask how they'd managed to find us so quickly from my garbled directions. Sam's face was screwed up in pain as I went to her. 'Sam, an ambulance is on its way. We're going to get you to a hospital, but I need you to tell me if you've any other wounds or injuries apart from your throat.' 'N-no, I - I don't think so, he just put me in here and left me! Oh, my God, all the bodies outside, they're all dead . . .' 'Don't worry about those. Can you tell me when your contractions started?' She tried to concentrate as she panted for breath.'I don't... in the ambulance, I think. I thought it was some mistake when he came to the door. He said I should call Paul but when I turned my back he .... he put his arm round my neck and . . . and squeezed . . .' She was describing a chokehold, I realized. Done properly it could cause unconsciousness in a matter of seconds, with no lasting aftereffects. Misjudged, it could kill just as easily. Not that York would have cared about that. 'I couldn't breathe V Sam sobbed. 'Everything went black, and then I woke up in the ambulance with this pain . . . Oh, Lord, it hurtsl I'm going to lose the baby, aren't I?' 'You're not going to lose the baby,' I told her, with more confidence than I felt.'We're going to get you out of here now, OK? Just sit tight for two more minutes.' I went out into the spa, pulling the door to the treatment chamber closed behind me. 'How long till the paramedics arrive?' I asked Gardner. 'Out here? Maybe another half-hour.' That was too long. 'Where's your car?' 'Parked out front.' That was an unexpected bonus. I'd thought they'd have come across the hillside as Paul and I had, but I was too concerned about Sam to wonder about it for long. 'The sooner we get Sam out of here the better,' I said. 'If we get her to your car we can meet the ambulance on its way.' 'I'll get the wheelchair from upstairs,'Jacobsen offered. Gardner gave a short nod, and she hurried out. Grim-faced, he considered the corpses in the plunge pool. 'You say there're more outside?' 'And in here.' With a pang of regret, I told him about Summer's body lying in the other treatment chamber. 'God almighty' Gardner looked shocked. He passed a hand over his face. 'I'd appreciate it if you stayed behind. I need to hear what happened.' 'Who's going to drive them?' Paul was in no fit state, not with Sam as she was. 'Diane can go. She knows the roads better than you do.' I looked at the corpses lying on the floor of the spa. I didn't want to stay there any longer than I already had. But I'd trained as a GP, not an obstetrician. I knew Sam would be best served by someone who could get her to the ambulance as soon as possible. If I belonged anywhere, it was here. 'All right,' I said.