Apocrypha Sequence:
DEVIANCE
Shane Jiraiya Cummings
Copyright © Shane Jiraiya Cummings 2011.
ISBN: 9780987076830
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Except in the case of short-term lending, if you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
All characters in this book are fictitious.
No reference to any living person is intended.
* * *
CONTENTS
Introduction
Hear No Evil
The Cutting Room
Interlude, With Lavender
Dark Heart Alley (An Urban Fable)
Wrack
* * *
Introduction
Welcome to the Apocrypha Sequence, a collection of themed stories outside the continuity of my 'regular' collections, Shards (flash fiction) and the forthcoming The Abandonment of Grace and Everything After (short stories and novellas). The stories in the Apocrypha Sequence lie somewhere in between. There is some overlap between the Apocrypha stories and those in my collections, but this is because I have cherry-picked stories from my body of work to suit the themes present within the Sequence. For each book in the Apocrypha Sequence, I chose a story or two from my collections, a couple of previously uncollected stories, and the odd original or two. Each volume in the Sequence is a remix. You might find a story from this volume elsewhere (by itself or in one of my collections), but its inclusion in the Apocrypha Sequence gives it a more appropriate context—and in some cases, demonstrates its place in a shared world of directly-linked stories.
Apocrypha Sequence: Deviance explores the darkness within the human heart. The first three stories are set in the same hospital, Stratton Memorial, a place where the scales of life and death have tipped in the wrong direction. The morgue is in the sub-basement, a long, dark corridor infrequently visited by the living but a favoured haunt of the dead and depraved. The four examination rooms in Stratton Memorial's morgue have seen more than their share of death. The remaining stories take the Sequence beyond the hospital and into a city just as dark. There, disturbing fantasies of sex, drugs, and violence may become real, and when all else seems lost, redemption might be found in the darkest corner of the soul.
Read on and enjoy this volume, and if you crave more, please seek out the other three volumes that comprise the Apocrypha Sequence. Details about the rest of the Sequence and my other e-books can be found at the end of this volume.
— Shane Jiraiya Cummings
* * *
Hear No Evil
Blaine awoke to a world of crushing silence.
He cracked open his eyes as though they were encrusted from years of disuse and squinted at the harsh artificial light. The whole room was blurry and white.
Raising his arm, Blaine noticed a thin tube snaking into his vein. He watched with sick fascination as droplets of clear liquid trickled down the length of the tube and disappeared beneath his skin.
He gagged but nothing rose from the pit of his stomach. His airways burned as he sucked in a deep breath. His mouth was dry, his tongue swollen.
The length of his body was weighed down, pinned by lethargy. His limbs ached, but everything was pretty much intact—except he couldn't hear a single sound.
The silence pressed in on him like invisible hands crushing his skull. He experienced no tinnitus whine, no high pitch buzzing rattling through his head, no muted warbles. The noises of the world had been shut off with horrific totality.
The unforgiving light soon subsided, bringing the room into focus.
He was in a bed, that much was clear. Crisp white linen held his torso and legs taut. A heavy curtain, the colour of autumn green, rained down from ceiling to floor on all sides, enclosing the space around his bed.
His gaze wandered again to the tube in his arm. He followed its transparent line to a plastic sack, half-filled with more clear liquid. He tugged his arm a little, aware of the needle embedded under his skin. The sting was a sharp reminder that this was all real.
His hand brushed hard plastic on the bed. Arching his stiff neck, he found it to be a small corded remote control with a single red button.
A cough escaped his chest, rattling up his burning oesophagus. His heart thumped harder as the coughing fit turned into a prolonged spasm, but the sound of the cough failed to reach his ears. Its absence left him violated.
Like his racing heartbeat, the coughing rose through his skull as vibrations. Vibrations but no sound. He reached for the controller near his hip. An unexpected spasm bounced the controller from his groping fingertips and off the bed. He never heard it hit the floor.
He fought to gain control of his cough. Once he did, he calmed himself by taking deep breaths. Every breath was fire and needles.
Exploring his face with a tentative hand, he discovered the coarse texture of bandages. He gingerly followed the line of the bandages to the side of his head. His ears were covered. They were hot under the binding mounds.
He breathed a deep, painful sigh, also silent to his bandaged ears. Logic seeped back through his fears: he was in a hospital and his ears were wrapped in bandages. He couldn't hear anything for that reason. The thought was oddly comforting.
In a bid to regain the lost controller, he strained over the side of the bed. Agony wracked his joints and muscles as he dipped his head closer to the floor. The smell of jumbled disinfectants flared in his nostrils.
The heavy curtain flew back, startling him. He hung limp over the side of the bed, squinting up at the figure of a petite woman standing in the light. The sights of a hospital ward played out behind her—more green curtains, the glimpse of an identical bed across the room. The woman hurried to his side, placed firm, pleasantly warm hands on his ribs and back, and helped him back into bed.
Her tight-fitting uniform and hat proclaimed her a nurse. A tidy crop of raven-black hair contrasted with her white clothes. She was probably in her late twenties—and cute. Her mouth moved quickly around a crooked smile, but he had no idea what she was saying. His world remained deathly silent but for the steady beat of his heart.
She noted his bewildered look and curled her lips into a laugh. Once he had settled himself back under the sheets, she moved to the base of the bed and picked up a small rectangular board and pen. With economical strokes, she wrote on the board and held it up to him.
Hi, Mr Blaine, my name is Nurse Stevenson
A meagre wave of his hand was all he could muster.
She rubbed at the mini whiteboard and scribbled something else.
You were in an accident but you are OK
He closed his eyes and expelled a painful sigh. He hadn't tried to recall what happened, why he was here. Now, he focussed his memory.
He was a boilermaker. He remembered his last day at the site. They were putting up the skeleton of a mall on the edge of town, one of those suburban super-complexes where middle-class teenagers flock for their brand name clothes, iPods, and mindless entertainment.
On the mall site, he'd just finished welding some girders. In the background, he'd heard two of the apprentices messing around. If they were his apprentices, he would have kicked their butts for clowning around. As it was, he took the time to raise his mask and shoot them a glare before getting back to the task at hand. He remembered hearing them ignite a blowtorch, mere steps away from the store of gas tanks.
&nbs
p; The fireball rocked the site; it was the loudest thing he'd ever heard. The boys were blown apart before his eyes, an instant before he was thrown skyward. The whole thing happened in a single heartbeat.
"How long have I been here?" The words croaked from his lips. His rusty vocal cords worked but he hadn't a clue if the words were loud enough for Nurse Stevenson to hear. She inclined her head, seeming to ponder the question. At least she heard him.
A few seconds later, she held the whiteboard up again.
A week
"What about my hearing?" he croaked.
She nimbly wiped her last words from the board and wrote a new sentence.
Your hearing will return soon. I will get the doctor.
The relief rippled through him with a sigh, despite his burning throat.
A scream rang through the room. The scream was blood-curdling, knifing a chill through his body. It was a long way away, but he heard it with horrifying clarity.
"What was that?" He arched his head to the side, listening for the scream again.
Nurse Stevenson seemed unaware of the scream still echoing in his ears. Her mouth flapped in rapid succession, but he heard nothing. Registering his blank look, she returned to the whiteboard.
What is it?
"I heard a scream," he said far too loudly, pinioning her with searching eyes.
Impossible, Mr. Blaine. U R deaf.
He continued turning his head from side to side. The world was now cocooned in silence once more.
"I ..." he stammered, his voice dead to his own ears.
I didn't hear anything. I'll get the doctor, the board read. The nurse vanished through the curtain.
#
Time passed. Blaine pulled into himself, balling his body under the sheets. He tuned his focus to listening for more sounds. Screams. Any sounds at all. He was deaf, of that he was certain. And yet that scream, that awful scream, was as real as the nose on his face. Why didn't the nurse hear it?
Unable to maintain his vigil, he yielded to sleep.
#
A firm shake ended his dozing. A tall man in a white coat continued to shake his arm. He didn't like the man—the doctor—there was something about his eyes, they were too guarded, too unyielding. It was irrational but the feeling lingered.
The doctor, a dark man of sharp lines and even sharper cologne, moved to the end of the bed and took the small whiteboard in hand. In scrawling style, he wrote:
Hello. I am Dr Radisich.
Blaine propped himself up to face the doctor at close to eye level. The pain was still there but lessened each time he tested his neglected muscles. He wasn't an invalid, despite the hospital and the deafness. In front of this doctor, he needed to prove it.
Blaine's resilience and stamina had always been his strong points. He was a veteran of the Amity Valley Football Club. He liked to test his physical limits through rock-climbing and dirt-biking.
"Doctor." The word spilled from his lips in an over-loud tone.
Save your words Mr Blaine, you are shouting, wrote Doctor Radisich.
"Sorry," he whispered, too softly this time.
You were involved in a workplace accident and have lost your hearing.
He nodded, waiting for more information.
Your hearing was damaged by the explosion. You were lucky to be wearing a facemask.
Nodding again, he remembered the shockwave blasting his face. It could have been much worse.
Your hearing will return in time but we don't know when. You must be patient.
A scream pierced the silent room again. Doctor Radisich carried on, intent on writing something on his whiteboard, totally oblivious to the shriek. Blaine bolted upright, swinging his head from side to side in an attempt to locate the source of the noise. Goosebumps sprang up over his arms and chest. The scream came from somewhere behind the doctor, still distant but closer than before.
It was a woman's scream. Her desperation tugged at his heart.
Are you alright, Mr Blaine? the doctor wrote quickly, noticing his strange behaviour.
He shook his head violently. "Screaming. I can hear screaming!" To his ears, his words were no more than a sick parody. His tongue and throat worked, but nothing came out.
Dr. Radisich moved his lips rapidly but their meaning was lost to him. He turned and thrust his head through the curtain. Moments later, a male nurse appeared. Nurse Stevenson was close behind. Their entrances were sudden and intrusive.
The doctor disappeared while the two nurses hovered by his bed. Nurse Stevenson stepped forward and slipped her petite hand inside his. The warmth of her skin was reassuring; she stroked his arm the way an owner strokes a pet just before it's put down.
The doctor soon re-emerged, a needle prominent in his hand.
Sighting the needle, he tensed. As the doctor drew closer, he struggled, attempting to get to his feet. "You have to do something! She needs—"
Springing forward, the male nurse held Blaine by the shoulders with practiced ease. Blaine was a big man, bigger than the nurse, but the nurse was fit and had all the leverage. Nurse Stevenson pleaded with her eyes while holding his arm. The needle was injected straight into a valve attached to his plastic IV tube. Within seconds, the fight fled his body, his strength ebbed away. Sleep soon took hold.
#
A scream—desperate and hysterical—ripped him from a fractured dream. The scream had grown in intensity.
He ran his hand over his face and head and could still feel the bandages. He hadn't dreamt everything; he was still in the hospital, although many hours must have passed since they drugged him. The lights were dimmed but the green curtain still surrounded his bed.
The scream continued, pulling at the very fibres of his heart. Every few seconds it died off, returning with force moments later.
He ripped his sheets off and threw his legs over the side of the bed. Waves of dizziness threatened his resolve as he rose, but he quickly regained his balance.
He was compelled to act.
Testing his weight, he placed his bare feet on the floor. The concrete was freezing. His pyjamas offered little protection from the chill air wafting through the ward. His arm bound him to the IV bag. Without hesitation, he ripped the slender metal from his vein, which burned for long moments afterwards. Another wave of dizziness assaulted him as he stood. His body was fatigued but flexing his limbs gave him the confidence to move.
Another scream jolted through the hospital.
He wobbled forward, unsteady, at first, until he settled into a rhythm. Drawing the curtain aside, he found his room deserted. Another three curtains, all in matching shades of green, partially hemmed off sections of the room. A solitary four-paned window, with bars on the outside, provided the only feature to the room. The sky outside was dark.
He left the room and entered a long cluttered corridor. Following the sound of the screams, he turned to the left and took off at a jog. He rushed past the nurses' station, a reception desk located at the crossroad of two corridors. The nurse, a chubby dark-skinned woman with glasses, looked at him with curiosity but didn't interfere. She said something as he passed, but he didn't hear any of it. Like her words, his footfalls were silent to his ears as he squeaked along the linoleum.
As he ran past open archways, he glanced into each room. Most rooms in this ward were like his, housing four beds, each curtained off for patient privacy at this time of night. The curtain colours changed—some rooms had that same drab green, while others had curtains the colour of rust or faded summer blue. One room, with blue curtains, was full of co-opted acrobats—burned and scarred souls suspended from wires and slings above their beds. The man closest to the door was bandaged and squeezed into a full- body pressure suit. Poor bastard.
As Blaine jogged down the corridor, some of his strength returned. An old man with a sunken jaw stared through him from his wheelchair. The wrinkled geezer glided on in the other direction.
He dived into the elevator at the end of the passage.
It was cavernous, with doors on both sides. In bewilderment, he studied the buttons. The screams came from somewhere ... deep.
He pressed the button for the lower basement. The elevator jolted downward, the sound of the gears and pulleys lost to his ears. Endless heartbeats later, the elevator ground to a halt, with the door behind Blaine springing open. It took him a few moments to realise, as the metallic sliding sound failed to alert him.
A high-pitched scream, more intense this time and wrought with pain, rang through the dark corridor before him. She was close.
With scattered debris such as a broken wheelchair and empty metal shelving, it was clear this section of the hospital was rarely used. Blaine jogged into the darkness, passing several double doors indented with small glass windows. The rooms were devoid of light. The smell of sterilised death clung to the place, masked by potent industrial chemicals that made his head spin. Signs above the doors told him all he needed to know. He noted each as he passed: Morgue Examination Room One. Morgue Examination Room Two ...
Another scream tore through the hospital.
It came from room four, just up ahead. A dim light shone from underneath the reinforced door.
He tried to contain his ragged breathing. His heart raced as he exaggerated his last few steps. He had no idea if he could be heard. Any noise could give him away. Approaching with caution, he glanced through the viewing glass. Black tape had been plastered over the glass, but a section had curled up, allowing Blaine a glimpse into the room.
A man with dark hair and a white coat was inside. His back to the door. Something shiny in his hand. The man's silhouette was familiar, but with the dim light and his face turned, he couldn't tell.
He was fixated on someone in front of him. With his view blocked, all Blaine could see were two bare feminine arms, each bound with wire to metal shelving. Rivulets of blood trickled from her wrists down to her elbows.
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