by Harvey Click
Chapter 18
A bright light was shining in Amy’s right eye when she regained consciousness. She turned her head away from it, and the doctor who had been examining her eye placed a steel wash basin on the sheet next to her face.
“You might need this,” he said.
She did. Her head was spinning, and she vomited into the basin. When she was done the doctor placed it on a small stand near her bed.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“You’re in a hospital,” the doctor said with a faint German accent. He was tall, old and skinny with an unruly shock of white hair and a narrow face with a hooked beak-like nose.
“What happened?” she asked.
“You have a mild concussion,” he said. “You’ll be fine with bed rest. Like many young people you were playing a silly game, and such games often lead to injuries. Football, hockey, soccer, they all cause injuries that we must treat.”
It was a small white room with two narrow beds, but the other bed was empty. She tried to sit up and found that her wrists were strapped to the bed.
“Why am I tied down?” she asked.
“It’s for your own protection,” the doctor said.
She shut her eyes, and when she opened them again the doctor was gone. She didn’t remember that he had ever been there, and she wondered where she was.
She shut her eyes again, and when she opened them the doctor was writing something on his clipboard.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“You’re in a hospital,” the doctor said. He was tall, old and skinny an unruly shock of white hair and a narrow face with a hooked beak-like nose, and she thought she had seen him before but couldn’t remember the circumstances.
“What happened?” she asked.
“You have a mild concussion,” he said. “You’ll be fine with bed rest. Like many young people you were playing a silly game, and such games often lead to injuries. Football, hockey, playing with guns and swords in a woods, they all cause injuries that we must treat.”
The doctor’s white smock was badly stained with what looked like blood and yellow pus. It was a small white room with two narrow beds, but the other bed was empty. She heard screams, muffled by the walls, coming from some other room. She tried to sit up and found that her wrists were strapped to the bed.
“Why am I tied down?” she asked.
“It’s for your own protection,” the doctor said.
She shut her eyes, and when she opened them again the doctor was gone and there was a patient lying in the other bed covered with a blanket. She was beginning to remember things now. She remembered the fight in the woods, though it seemed vague and insubstantial like a dream. She remembered the horrible snakewalker chasing her through the weeds, but everything after that was a blank. The back of her head ached, and when she tried to reach up to feel it she realized that her wrists were strapped to the bed.
“What the fuck,” she mumbled, and the patient in the other bed rolled over and looked at her.
It was the crying man.
“You awaken,” he said.
Amy screamed.
“Be still,” the crying man said, and for some reason she stopped screaming. “You’ve been promised to me,” he said, “but promises weigh less than teardrops in this world or the other, so we shall see, we shall see.”
Amy shut her eyes, and when she opened them again the crying man was sitting at the foot of her bed staring at her. Tears were trickling out of the corners of his blood-red eyes and wetting the thin strands of white hair on his bone-white face. He was naked, and she saw that he was playing with his long flaccid penis with his skinny white fingers.
Amy screamed.
“Be still,” the crying man said, and for some reason she stopped screaming.
“My name is called Xuthal,” he said, his voice hoarse and gurgling with phlegm. “You probably suppose that I cannot love, but I have loved before and so therefore I can again. She was a human like yourself, and we mazzikins rule humans and therefore we may do with them as we will, but I didn’t want to force her to love me, I wanted her to find love welling up from her heart without compulsion or threat. So I wooed her patiently with kindness and consideration. She found me unattractive, of course, as all humans do, and I didn’t want my appearance to cause anxiety in her heart, and so I very gently scooped out her eyeballs with a little silver spoon. It was a spoon that I had stolen from the pleasure palace of the mighty Thad Khan, and I treasured it greatly.”
Amy shut her eyes and drifted in and out of sleep. When she opened them again the crying man was sitting on his own bed a few feet away across the narrow room. He was scratching a deep red sore on his hairy white chest and was still talking, maybe to himself instead of her.
“That’s when I came to understand the unfathomable mysteries of darkness,” he said. “Is darkness empty? No, even emptiness itself is not empty. It’s filled with horrors we can barely imagine. I was younger then and philosophical in nature, but now I have given up questing for answers because now I understand that the universe has no answers, only questions and more questions.”
He took a deep gurgling breath and licked his sharp yellow teeth with a long gray tongue. “Another tried to steal her from me,” he said. “He was a shaid, a most foul and degraded race descended from serpents, uncomely in both body and mind, a race that respects no ordinary custom or code of etiquette. But I would not abide such an outrage. I was younger then and great in strength. I waited till the whoreson knave was insensible with drink, and I shot him full of brain-viper venom to paralyze him for the nonce, and I dragged his helpless carcass to a deep cavern that only I knew about. I pierced his shoulders and his stinking arse and the backs of his horrid legs with iron hooks, and I hung him horizontally face-down by chains above a fiery lava pit, where he roasts and groans with agony to this very day and where he will continue to roast and groan with agony until the lava pit erupts at last and encases him in a fiery brick, and even then shall he continue to suffer forever, for immortals cannot die no matter how terribly they may wish for death. And so the obnoxious and repulsive shaid hangs by my iron hooks and grievously rues the day that he attempted to steal away the love of Xuthal. Such is the fierce and indomitable love of Xuthal.”
The door opened and the doctor came in. “What are you doing here?” he said sharply. “How did you get in?”
“Locks mean nothing to Xuthal,” the crying man said.
“Get out!” the doctor said. “She must not be disturbed, especially by the likes of you.”
The crying man stood up and smiled at Amy, his wide mouth gaping open and his gray tongue snaking out to lick his wet lips.
“I must hence,” he said, and he left the room.
“A troublesome creature,” the doctor muttered. “He shouldn’t be allowed free reign like that, roaming around and disturbing my patients. Sometimes I think this place is a zoo.”
He peered into her eyes with his light and said, “Much better. Are you beginning to regain your memory?”
She didn’t answer. The doctor wrote something on his clipboard and said, “I believe you’re ready to take a little broth now. I’ll have some brought to you in a few minutes. Does that sound nice?”
She didn’t answer, and he said, “Yes, I think one full day of bed rest and you’ll be fit as a fiddle.”
“How long have I been here?” she asked.
“Oh, not long, not very long at all,” he said.
“That will be all, doctor,” someone said. “She’s coming with me.”
It was the bald man with gray eyes, the one who had sat and watched her behind the cabin at Clarkton. He was wearing a gray suit and had a short sword in a scabbard at his waist. He was a big man with broad shoulders and a smooth, clean-shaven face that could blend equally well into a crowd of truck drivers or university professors. His only remarkable features were his eyes, which were the color of limestone and looked just as hard.
“Oh no, that won
’t do at all,” the doctor said. “She needs a full day of bed rest.”
“That’s too bad,” the bald man said. “The magus wants to see her.”
“Then let him come here,” the doctor said. “I refuse to release her.”
“He doesn’t like this place,” the bald man said. “It’s too unsanitary. And as for you refusing my direct order, let me remind you that you’re highly replaceable.”
“Oh, I scarcely think so,” the doctor said, standing close to the bed as if guarding his patient. “You’ll not find another with my skills.”
“Bring in the cuffs, Walter,” the bald man said.
Another man dressed in gray stepped into the room, also wearing a sword. He was much smaller than the bald man and had a pinched, mean face with a sparse brown mustache.
The bald man pushed the doctor aside and pulled down Amy’s sheet. He unbuckled the straps holding her wrists and snapped on a pair of steel handcuffs while Walter snapped steel leg cuffs onto her ankles.
“Give her some slippers, doctor,” the bald man said.
“I told you, she’s not to be moved,” the doctor said.
“Shut up and give her some slippers.”
“I’ll have to find a pair.”
“Hurry up.”
The doctor left the room, and while he was gone Walter lifted the hem of Amy’s short blue hospital gown. “Oh boy, look at that nice landing strip,” he said. “I’d like to land my big Jumbo Jet there.”
“Cut it out, Walter,” the bald man said.
Walter dropped her hem, but now it barely covered her crotch, and he kept staring with his little mustache wriggling like a caterpillar until the doctor returned with a pair of disposable slippers.
The bald man grasped her handcuffs and pulled her to her feet. Her head reeled and she nearly lost her balance. She needed to pee but decided to hold it when she saw the commode chair sitting in the corner of the room; she knew the men would stand and watch her.
The bald man led her out of the room with Walter walking behind her. She knew what he was looking at, with his little mustache wriggling, because her hospital gown hung open in back, but there was no way she could hold it shut with her hands cuffed.
She hadn’t been thinking very clearly, and it was only now that she realized they were in the factory. It had been remodeled to resemble a shabby hospital, with doors on both sides of the corridor, and behind the shut doors she heard moaning, crying, and an occasional scream.
The bald man stopped in front of one of the shut doors and turned to her. “I’ll give you a little tour of the facility, just in case you have any notion of being unruly or recalcitrant in any manner.”
There was a ghastly groaning coming from behind the door, and when he opened it Amy saw why. A heavily pregnant woman was lying on a bed writhing and moaning in agony, her face running with sweat.
“Are you a doctor?” she asked.
“No,” the bald man said.
“Please bring me a doctor,” she moaned. “I can’t bear the pain. It feels like it’s trying to claw its way out!”
The bald man smiled and shut the door. “Do you need to see more?” he asked.
“No,” Amy said.
“Good. I like a quick learner. She’s right that it’s trying to claw its way out. In a little while it will rip her open like a paper bag and emerge. The baby will already have sharp teeth, and its first meal will be big juicy chunks of its mother’s body. You don’t want to find yourself in her position, do you?”
“No,” she said.
“Good. And if you behave properly you won’t. We have pleasanter plans in store for you, if you’re willing to cooperate. Are you going to cooperate?”
Amy didn’t answer.
“Say something,” the bald man said. “When you don’t answer, you’re not cooperating.”
“Yes, I’ll cooperate,” she said.
“Good. We have a children’s ward too. Do you like children?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’ll show them to you.”
Amy’s head was aching and reeling, and her legs felt as weak as gelatin. She heard snarling and shrieking as they continued down the corridor and turned a corner to the right. This corridor was lined on both sides with narrow barred jail cells, and inside the cells were monstrosities more hideous than any of the demons she had seen.
They were children, naked screaming snarling growling shrieking children. They weren’t quite human and they weren’t quite demon, but some terrible in-between mixture. Some were still infants, crawling on the filthy floors or hopping like toads, and some were older, maybe two or three or even four years old. Some were covered with hair and some were utterly bare, their slimy skin paper-white or pale green. Their faces and bodies were different in their deformities, but they all had sharply pointed teeth that snapped ferociously as they glared through their bars with inhuman eyes.
In one cell there was a boy maybe four years old with two heads. One head was entirely human, with curly blond hair and soft blue eyes. The other head was larger and had a hairy, horrid, bone-white face that looked like a much younger version of the crying man.
In the next cell a muscular horror five feet tall threw himself snarling at the bars. He reached out with a long arm, grasped Amy’s gown with a four-fingered claw, and pulled her up to the bars. She screamed and wrenched away, but now her gown was ripped open at the left side.
“They grow quickly,” the bald man said. “This one is our oldest, and I believe he just turned four yesterday. Happy birthday, Ezekial.”
The snarling monster threw itself against the bars and reached through them trying to grasp Amy again. They turned to another corridor lined with more cages, and at the end of it stood the crying man.
“What are you doing here?” the bald man said. “You know you’re not allowed here. Return to your quarters.”
“Some of these are my own children,” the crying man said. “Who are you to tell Xuthal that he’s not allowed to see his own children?”
The bald man pulled his sword and said, “Return to your quarters at once or I’ll have you tortured. Walter, call security.”
The crying man licked his sharp yellow teeth and smirked. He ducked into the next corridor while Walter punched a number in his phone. “Xuthal’s roaming loose again,” he said. “He’s somewhere in the children’s ward.”
There was a steel door at the end of this corridor. The bald man unlocked it and flipped a light switch. Amy smelled damp dirt and saw wooden stairs leading down.
“You go first,” the bald man said.
“Why do I always have to go first?” Walter said. “You know I hate these damn things.”
But he drew his sword and started down the steps. The bald man shoved Amy, and she followed Walter. The steps were steep and difficult to manage with the leg cuffs.
At the bottom was a crude tunnel hollowed out of rock. The ceiling, supported by timbers, was so low that she had to hunch down. An electric cable ran along it with a bare bulb hanging down every twenty feet or so.
She heard nonsensical chattering up ahead, meaningless words mixed with obscenities, and looking past Walter’s shoulder she saw a babbleboon standing in their path up ahead. Something moved beside her, and she saw a listener grinning out at her from a shallow alcove in the rock.
“Goddamn,” she said.
“Don’t worry, they’re under control,” the bald man said behind her.
“We better hope they are,” Walter muttered. “All it takes is one little bite and you’re screwed.”
“It’s good that you’re cooperating with me, Amy,” the bald man said. “If I left you alone in this tunnel for one minute, just imagine what a feast there’d be.”
The ceiling became high enough that she could stand up straight, but up ahead she saw a harpy hanging upside-down from a support beam.
“Shit, what do we do now?” Walter asked.
“Duck down and go under it,” the bald man said.
“It won’t hurt you if you don’t agitate it.”
“Shit, I can’t go under that goddamn thing!” Walter said.
“Shut up and do it,” the bald man said.
Walter got down on his hands and knees and crawled as quickly as he could. When he was well past the thing, he stood and brushed the knees of his trousers.
“I’m never going through this fucking tunnel again as long as I live,” he said. “I told you we should drive.”
The harpy was hanging there upside-down staring at Amy with its red bat eyes, and she was too frightened to move. The bald man shoved her, and she fell face-forward onto the hard floor. She looked up and saw that the harpy was agitated now, shaking its big bat wings and snapping its long teeth.
“Go!” the bald man said. The toe of his shoe slammed into her butt, and she scrambled forward on her hands and knees until she reached Walter, who was standing there laughing.
“Look at that nice sweet ass sticking out,” he said.
She got up and rubbed her skinned knees. There was a wide shaft in the ceiling with iron ladder rungs in the rock wall leading up to a hinged steel trapdoor maybe twelve feet above her head. Apparently it was their escape exit, probably leading to the concrete blockhouse, and she wondered how the wheelchair-ridden magus would be able to get up there.
“Keep moving,” the bald man said.
Centicreepers four and five feet long with human faces were scuttling up and down the walls, and a babbleboon hanging by one hand from a beam said, “Lung fuck panic wind,” as she ducked beneath it. They finally reached another set of wooden steps at the end of the tunnel, and the bald man climbed them and unlocked the steel door at the top. As Amy was climbing the steps, Walter, who was behind her, reached up and groped her beneath her gown.
When they were all up, the bald man locked the steel door behind them. They were in a dank old basement lit by a few bare light bulbs on the low ceiling. It had been fitted with half a dozen narrow jail cells with cinderblocks for walls and steel bars in front. They were all empty except one, and Amy recognized the man sleeping in it on a narrow wooden shelf attached to the wall. It was Mack Riley, the drunkard Dilkens had arrested.