by Ian Woodhead
“I’ve got them.”
Heavy footsteps stomping towards them suggested that their luck had just run out.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God…”
“Calm down, Jen. Don’t talk and don’t move.” He stood in front of her, blocking her view.
“Get that door open,” he whispered. “Take your time; make no noise or sudden moves.”
“We’re dead!”
“Believe me Jen, if we’re still it won’t see us.”
He screwed his eyes shut then opened them wide to see if the multicoloured fog he saw before him would clear but all it did was make his eyes water.
Fuck. He couldn’t even wipe them. He didn’t have a bloody clue where the thing was now and he could hardly ask Jen. By the sound of the mutters, she had enough problems of her own.
The water was really pissing out now. Christ on a bike, his fucking eyes were drowning.
“Got it!” she cried.
Damien breathed a sigh of relief and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. The room swam into focus revealing an eight foot tall, demonic looking nightmare charging through the kitchen and into the hallway. He spun around.
“Get that fucking door open.”
“I can’t budge it!”
It was almost on them, he felt its thudding strides through the floorboards. He looked up.
Christ! The bolt was still on! He reached over and pulled it across. Jen jerked the door wide open, the edge slammed into the creatures face. She pulled Damien through the door and ran down the first flight of stairs. The communal door leading into the street was wide open, it wouldn’t follow them outside. It hadn’t done in his dreams, anyway.
Was it behind him? He wasn’t sure and he daren’t look back, he’d lose his balance and fall down the rest of the stairs. Jen got to the door first.
“What have you stopped for?” she screamed. Her eyes flicked up.
It was on the stairs. He expected a huge armour-plated arm to reach down any moment, its talons to fold over the top of his head and pull him back up. He looked down, four more steps. He took his hand off the railing, meaning to jump down the rest and follow Jen out.
When what little strength he had left deserted him, his legs folded like a house of cards. The concrete floor rushed towards him but he was able to get his arms out in front. He crashed down the last step, knocking the wind out of himself. Jen rushed over and dragged him out into the sunlight.
The creature charged down the remaining steps and skidded to a halt by the outer door. It crouched down, opened its huge mouth and growled before retreating back inside.
What was the man in the dressing gown running from? His son or daughter maybe? Or even his wife? He imagined waking up to one of those things and shuddered. Damien turned and used Jen to drag himself up.
“We need to get to Alan,” he said.
Jennifer collapsed into his arms, nearly knocking him back onto the floor.
“Oh God, my own brother was going to rape me!”
Damien supported her out of the gate and over to the nearest bus shelter. His greatest fear now was what he would do if his own brother had turned into one of those things.
Chapter Thirteen
Just how the heck had his supposed friend managed to talk Arthur into this? He stopped by the boundary of Holburn woods and shivered. Arthur would go to hell for stealing his father’s fireworks. Even worse, if his old man ever found out then he’d cane him until Arthur’s arse bled.
He pushed the barbed wire fence down and tumbled into the woodland. His dad would definitely belt him if he found out Arthur had entered the woods. This place was supposed to be off limits. All of Holburn’s kids had been warned about going into the woods. No real explanation had been given but he’d heard that a German bomber had crashed in there just before the war ended, and the place was now littered with unexploded bombs.
He picked up a stick and bashed it against a tree, wondering just how true that story was, this was the first time he’d set foot in here.
Arthur watched a tall boy with short, jet black hair sprint toward him. His friend stopped a few feet from him and took a deep breath before he thrust both hands into the pockets of his short trousers.
“I’ve got some,” said Arthur, eager to show Dave that he hadn’t let him down. His friend hadn’t so much as threatened Arthur but there had been hints of exclusion. Did he really want to end up being hated like the new boy, Ernest?
“Let’s have a look then.”
Arthur unstrapped the satchel and showed Dave the contents. His eyes were like saucers when he gazed inside.
“It was dead easy to steal them, Dave. I bet I could get loads more too.”
Dave smiled at him, “You are such a fab mate. If this works, I may even let you join my gang.”
Arthur swelled with pride.
“The gang’s going window smashing tonight, I bet you’d like to come with us.”
Arthur nodded.
“I thought so, we’ve found out where Stinky lives.”
Arthur guessed that meant Ernest. Their family moved into Holburn a few months ago, he’d heard that Ernest’s dad was a prisoner of war in Germany. Somehow, the story got mangled by the time Dave heard it. As far as he was concerned, Ernest’s dad was a German soldier, which meant Ernest was the enemy. That meant he could do anything he wanted to the boy.
“What do you want the fireworks for?”
Dave grabbed his shirt and dragged him further into the woods, “You’ll see,” he said.
The boy led him into a clearing and found that they were no longer alone.
The tree in the middle had a rusty chain wrapped around the trunk; the other end was tied to a sheep. It didn’t even look up when the boys crashed through the foliage. The blood in his veins turned to ice. Arthur knew exactly what Dave had planned to do but before he had the chance to flee, he caught his arm and pulled Arthur back.
“The sheep has had it already,” he said. “Your dad would have chopped it up and sold the bits to folk in town anyway.”
Arthur didn’t object when he ripped the rucksack off his back nor did he run when his arm was released.
“You can’t back out now.”
Arthur just stood there, watching him jam the fireworks between the sheep’s neck and its makeshift collar. The back of his own neck was slick with sweat. His heart was being squeezed in a vice. He wasn’t going to stop him.
Dave pulled out a box of matches, pushed open the drawer and took a single match out then told him to run. Arthur’s mind did somersaults, his feet were stuck, and he couldn’t move his bleeding head. Oh no! He started to light the fireworks.
“This is going to be the biggest bang you ever heard! You’d better run Arthur; it’s going to go off like a bomb!”
A bomb! Arthur shot up in bed, his ears ringing and dripping with sweat.
“Sweet Jesus!” he exclaimed. Arthur had never experienced anything like that before; he could still feel his heart being squeezed. That was no simple dream, he felt like he really was there in those woods. He wiped his forehead, then brought his fingers close to his nose. He could still smell the bloody smoke.
Could it have been triggered by the medication? No that was bollocks; he’d refused it all, even the big pill that the patronising bitch had tried to force down his neck last night. She told him that it would help him sleep and to calm you down. That translated to, we don’t want you screaming yourself awake in the middle of the night, pissing yourself and disturbing our card game.
He swung his legs out of the bed and planted them on the cool tiles. Arthur thought he had buried that particular stain on his childhood memories years ago but the fun and games he went through yesterday must have dredged it back up again. He hadn’t thought about Dave for a long time; as far as he was aware, the grumpy old bastard still had the newsagents on the high street. It didn’t seem right that Arthur should be put out to pasture whilst Dave still played shopkeeper.
Arthur rubbed his hand
down his face and pushed the dream back where it belonged. So much for the old soldier routine he’d put on when they had brought him in here. He remembered getting sick to the back teeth of hearing the endless tirade of the same sugar-coated consoling remarks gushing from all the nurses, peppered with the occasional ‘would you like a cup of tea?’
In the end he had upset one student nurse by saying that after twenty years of gutting pigs, seeing a dead kid’s body was a walk in the park.
Speaking of pigs, those two coppers were supposed to be coming back this morning. God knows why, he’d told them everything he knew yesterday. He had noticed how they’d stayed in the background until his sister Maureen had pissed off. They no doubt saw the ear bashing she had given to that porter who had brought him up to this ward.
How the hell did she get here so fast? The woman was at reception, browbeating anyone and everyone a couple of minutes after he had arrived. It hadn’t taken her long to find out where they were holding her baby brother.
Arthur blamed the strange environment, the endless questions and the confusing instructions, that was the reason why after all these years, his sister had finally managed to get one up on him.
Oh you poor thing, let those nice people look after you. A holiday will do you good. Never mind about your doggy, I’ll keep him company until you are better.
And like the fool that he was, he’d handed his house keys over.
Maureen didn’t waste much time in finding a crap excuse to leave once she had got what she came for.
Oh hell, the conniving old cow would have turned his house upside down by now. He’d kick the hag out into the gutter where she belonged when he got back. If she’d done anything to his dog then he’d throttle her.
He was missing his dog; he found it hard to believe that considering how much of a pain in the neck it was. This must be the first morning he’d woken up without the bloody thing giving his face a good wash. He chuckled at the thought of Maureen waking up with the dog’s wet tongue halfway down her tonsils. She hated dogs almost as much as she hated him.
God, it was warm. Had their heating packed up? Probably had to have it cranked up to maximum for all the old duffers on this ward. The soles of his feet were the only part of his body that weren’t sweating. He’d open a bloody window if the damn thing didn’t have child locks on them. They wouldn’t want all the senile old farts to forget that the window was open and fall out, Pointless looking, really.
He sighed. Perhaps a quick look wouldn’t hurt; anything was better than just standing here, drenched in sweat and feeling like he’d just pissed himself. He walked over to the window wishing he had something else to change into. It was getting hotter, he was sure of it.
Opening the window was not an option; the bloody thing was a sealed unit, shit. He was going to pass out if it got any hotter. Well, he couldn’t stay here, that was for God damn sure. He snatched the hospital dressing gown off the visitors chair and hurried to the door, hoping that the corridor was a bit cooler than here.
The first nurse he found was going to get both barrels. He wrenched open the door, his slick hands almost slipping off the handle and staggered out of the boiling room. The contrast in temperatures caught his breath. It was like a bloody fridge out here. Arthur threw the dressing gown over his sodden pyjamas thinking it may have been a better idea to have found his normal clothes first. There was no way he was going back in there, the place was now like a furnace, how long would it be before something in there caught fire? The place would go up like dry tinder, bloody shoddy workmanship that’s what it was.
He’d been so preoccupied in not turning into a roast joint, he hadn’t thought about what time it was, he just assumed that it was early morning.
But as Arthur walked down the deserted corridor, he began to have serious misgivings about his original estimation. He passed a discarded IV stand, complete with a full bag, leaning against a radiator. That wasn’t right; it shouldn’t have just been left here. He looked around, unsure of what to do. Maybe the nurse had run off an on urgent call, the patient who this was for must be wondering where the hell they had gone. He looked around the equipment in the vain hope that there was a name attached but there was nothing. He really should take this to the nurse’s station, if he could remember where the hell it was.
He left it on the floor, it wasn’t his problem. Somebody was bound to come back for it. He looked around the corridor. He’d seen noisier graveyards, where the hell was everybody? Even if it was like five in the morning, there should at least be somebody about. He glanced at his wrist, forgetting that he had left his watch on the dresser. Where were the wall clocks?
Arthur stopped by the door to the next room. He tried to peer through the mottled glass and into the dark interior but could see nothing, at least the glass was cool so at whoever was in there wasn’t going to be broiled alive.
The name scrawled on the hand written plate screwed to the door was Ida Hurst. The name didn’t ring a bell.
Arthur bumped into one of his old customers last night when he eventually stumbled across the patient common room. Polly Freeman always used to buy the same meat, week in, week out. Two pounds of mince for Wednesday’s Shepherd’s pie, a bit of skirt beef to treat the old man and a bird for the Sunday roast. She was a bit of a tease back in the day, he never knew whether she fancied him or thought that flashing a bit of leg and winking would get her a larger portion.
Fifteen years later, time had not been kind to her. He hadn’t a clue at first who this strange woman was. The folk parted to let her through, she remembered him all right. Mrs. Freeman had gone to great pains to introduce him to everyone and Ida Hurst wasn’t among the crumbling wrecks glued to the communal television screen.
Arthur turned the handle and pushed Ida’s door open, feeling like some sort of pervert. If the old dear started to scream when she saw his leering face then he’d just have to turn on the old charm and either say he was in the wrong room or pretend he was a doctor. With a bit of luck the old bat would be too doped up to notice he was even there.
The curtains were drawn but enough light filtered through the material to make out a large form under the covers.
Ida Hurst sure was one large woman, not quite the little old lady he had originally imagined, that gave him an idea.
He took a couple of steps into the room and closed the door behind him, thankful to be out of that freezing corridor. It was doubtful that he would be disturbed; if it was five in the morning then the duty nurse would be either deep into her stupid romance novel or dozing. He took off his dressing gown and hung it on the door handle. The pyjamas were next; he let them fall to the floor. The old woman would have a bloody stroke if took this moment to wake up and peek out of her covers.
He heard loud slapping noises outside the room, he almost pissed himself. He ducked down under the windows, the noise of his heartbeat was sure to give him away. The lovely Ida chose this moment to groan and turn over. His head snapped to the side, Christ almighty, all he wanted to do was steal the bitch’s dressing gown.
The nurse or porter or whoever they were stopped outside the room, he snagged the dressing gown off the handle and concealed as much bare flesh as he could while running through a limited list of reasons to be in here if they did open that bloody door.
Maybe she was just stretching her legs or making her way to the common room to fetch another book. He hoped to God that the IV wasn’t for the fat cow in that bed.
A shadow fell over him. She had her hands on the glass and was tapping with a pen, at least that’s was what it sounded like. It also sounded as if the woman had a bad cold, which would explain why she was breathing like a horse.
At last she moved off, hopefully not too far, as he still needed to have a word. He hurried into his dressing gown, the rough material itched like buggery, but it was far better than feeling like he was wrapped in wet bandages.
He saw the lady’s dressing gown hung over a chair. He picked it up and held
it out in front of him. This couldn’t be hers; it was tiny, like a child’s. Arthur dropped it and hurried over to the door, he glanced nervously at the huge form as he passed it. No way was he going to look under that blanket, instinct told him to get out of there as soon as possible.
He crept into the empty corridor. For some reason, Arthur had no wish to catch up with the horse breathing nurse. Before he shut the door, Arthur looked around the darkened room, trying to see the one object that all private rooms were supposed to have, a clock.
It was on the wall opposite the bed, it looked about as old as most of the patients - plus this relic had been encased inside a steel cage, as if anybody would want to steal the bloody thing. It was just past midday.
No, that was bollocks; no way could it be that late.
He slammed the door shut, stuff the stealthy exit, if it was noon then the lazy bitch should be up anyway. He twisted open the blinds on the corridor window opposite and bright sunlight streamed through the window. The sun was high up in the sky. The unease that crept into his bones earlier now had a firm grip. No amount of self delusion could convince him that this hospital should be this bleeding quiet.
He decided to check out the common room, that clock worked for sure. Polly had pointed it out last night, she said the only reason they had clocks in every room on this level is because our age group was obsessed with time, we are too concerned with our own mortality and one more minute gone on that clock meant a minute closer to the undertaker. What a morbid cow, he always remembered her as being so cheerful.
Arthur passed a couple more rooms, both empty and both room clocks saying the same time of past twelve. In the second one, he walked over to the window and looked down onto the car park to see if he could see anyone. The only logical explanation was that they must have had a fire drill and somehow forgot to rouse him and Ida. The alarm didn’t go off because the electric must be on the blink, hence the dodgy heating in his room.