A Vagrant Story

by Paul Croasdell

  “So you peeked. That’s a shame. The sewer rat couldn’t mind her own business, had to go rooting through someone else’s boxes.”

  “You killed John’s sister … you caused all this. This is all your fault!”

  “John? John … John … John. Doesn’t ring a bell I’m afraid.”

  “Annette’s brother.”

  “That one’s equally forgettable.”

  The figure neared more on every word, until he stood within arms reach, staring down at her. There was no way around. There would be no escape.

  “T-these pills … my friend had these same pills. Did you give them to him? Why would you-”

  “The reasons why won’t matter to you, not for much long-”

  Sierra took her cue. In one spurt she drove her knee into the doctor’s groin, allowing the chance to worm round his hunching figure. She didn’t get far before his recovery. He jump tackled her down. Despite her squirming, the wriggling, he still managed to keep hold of her foot in one great grip.

  “You little slut!”

  He stood up at once, still holding her foot and twisting her body so she wriggled upside down. He started his counter with snapping kicks, each one increasing intensity until evolving into hard smashing blows. Sierra could only hang in the air, dangling like a punch bag. She took the kicks until his cursing and damning became a hazed mumble in her ringing ears.

  The doctor, trapped in all his furious ranting, failed to hear the roof access door open and slam shut. He only stopped the beating to acknowledge those stampeding footfalls booming toward him.

  “Who’s there?” he asked, still holding the girl.

  Rum emerged from the haze like ghost on the moors. Body taut, fist tightened, legs tearing through snow, he yelled, “Get off her you freak!”

  Without hesitating in his assault, Rum delivered that one previously held back smack to the doctor’s face. He followed up with blows of twos and threes and odd double knees till the doctor let his upper body crumble. Only then did he release the girl.

  When Sierra did crawl to the safety of Henry and doctor Adam, Rum stood fit and ready for a second bout. His foe on the other hand, raised a palm for surrender, one quickly read by his brother who eased Rum down.

  “Please stop, I can talk to him.”

  “Talk to him? No brotherly chat’s gonna calm this psycho down.”

  “No wait!” the fouled doctor cried. “I give up! Please, I was only trying to tell her how unsafe it is up here when she … she attacked me.”

  Sierra didn’t need to shout about his lies. Her body language told everything. Not that she could shout in her current state.

  The blonde haired doctor approached his brother, hands held up in defensive neutrality. “Stop lying. I’m not letting you do this.”

  From his hunched down state the doctor nodded most knowingly, and from it pulled himself to full composure. “I didn’t see you there, Adam, good brother.”

  “This isn’t right.”

  “You brought them up here? You promised you wouldn’t tell anyone.”

  “You promised you’d stop all this.”

  “I wanted to. She found my boxes. I couldn’t help it. It’s not my fault. If my trust in you meant anything, dealing with this girl would have been a whole lot easier. Now things will get messy.”

  “I don‘t want your trust. I won’t let you do this anymore.”

  “You’ve let me do it long enough. Now some bums are going to change that?”

  “It doesn’t matter who they are.”

  “Really? I‘ve killed more of their kind in the infirmary and you never bat an eye.”

  “That’s not remotely … You didn‘t mean…”

  “Are you sure? I‘m not.”

  The doctor named Adam took one step closer to his brother. “Say all you want. It stops tonight.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Are you going to fight off all four of us? Kill us all?”

  From under his long lab coat, the doctor unveiled a small sledgehammer, and bashed it over his brother’s face. He fell at once, unconscious. “You mean all three of you. Two technically, the girl will be sport.”

  Rum pushed Sierra into Henry. “Get her out of here!”

  The old fool charged the doctor, laying two more punches, enough for the doctor to lose grip on the sledgehammer. Henry snatched it at once.

  Rum looked at Henry. “What are you doing? Get out now! Get to the first floor! It‘s safe down there.”

  Henry took the hint. He carried Sierra, limping, through the roof access door. Before he could close it full, some not so positive grunts began emanating from old Rum.

  “We can’t let him fight alone!” Sierra cried.

  Henry sealed the door behind. The grunts ceased.

  It would happen once they dropped not three flights of stairs, when they heard that door rip open again. Heavy, loud charging footsteps banging on the metallic staircase suggested the wrong fighter won the fray.

  In the rising panic, Henry dove into the first double doorway down the stairs. This access door separated the metallic roof access stairwell from the regular indoor tiled stairs. In this section of the hospital it was the only one granting a straight stair passage down to the first floor. He found himself hopelessly ricocheting back.

  “This one’s locked too!” he cried.

  “We can‘t get downstairs?” Sierra replied, holding onto his arm.

  “We’ll have to go the long way down.”

  Henry grabbed the girl by the hand, both lifting and pulling her through the nearest floor access door. They hadn’t intended on escaping through the top floor of the hospital but in this state saw little other choice.

  Exploding through the only open door to the hallways, they found it empty, like all the others. No movement save the flickering glow of weary candles.

  In pure desperation Henry ran to a ward door straight opposite the stairwell landing. Peeking through condensation covered window he could see inside to a long, packed hall like the one he stayed in before. All the patients inside appeared to be asleep, or unconscious. He saw no movement, not from the nurse who should have been in there, not from the patients too doped to respond.

  “It’s no good. Come on, we have to keep going.”

  Henry tugged Sierra by the arm in whatever direction he saw first. If he’d taken a second look into the darkness hidden from candlelight, he might have seen those electronically locked double doors blocking the way. Both Henry and Sierra skidded to a retreating halt, hastily trying to undo their steps. When they did turn round, that man was already there as though he’d been there all along. He stood completely still, staring at them from a thicket of darkness and flickering flame light.

  “Come now, what’s all this running for?”

  “Get away from us!” Henry cried.

  “I’m not really the bad guy here.”

  Henry craned his neck to see past the doctor. A person came limping down from behind, his husky build and gritted beard flickering on and off in candle light.

  “You’re evil!” Henry yelled.

  “That‘s a very relative statement. I won’t deny it, in your eyes I must seem bad, but then, so are they … in mine of course.”

  “Who?”

  “Women.” The doctor paused. “I wasn’t born this way. They did bad to me so I merely do the same to them. It used to be a task … revenge. Now it’s no longer about revenge. Now I merely derive pleasure from it. I can do it as much as I want because they deserve it, and it’s fun to give bad people what they deserve, especially when the rest of the world is too infatuated with beauty and so called innocence to see it for themselves.”

  “You’re mad! That’s nothing but a mad man’s excuse.”

  “I’m not a madman. Do you know the difference between all the real madmen and myself? I do what I’ve learned needs to be done. I do these things because of what life has thrust upon me. It is my right and a madman’s flaw. The difference is … I sl
eep well at night.”

  “I’ll make you sleep!” Rum’s voice bellowed from behind the doctor.

  The old bum raised an elbow over the back of his head, stumbling the doctor into a spinning counter. He smacked Rum in kind before he knew what happened.

  The old bum fell to the doctor’s chest to clinch. He peeked his battered face under his opponent’s arm to see Henry and Sierra. “You wanna take bets or something!? Run you thick bastards!”

  Henry nodded, swerving passed with Sierra in hand. This time the girl didn’t seem so reluctant to run away. Rather she cried Rum’s name in worry, then vanished.

  Rum held onto the doctor until the sound of their steps faded. He then loosened his hands, by no means under his own will. Before he knew, he’d been lifted sideways then tossed to the floor.

  “Persistent cunt! You have no right to stop me! Just lay down and die already.” Downward kicks began. “Worthless! You have no right to be alive! Worthless bum!”

  Rum allowed the doctor to lift him up by the hair. Rum allowed the doctor to punch twice more.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Rum uttered, mouth spilling with blood. “Maybe I’m just an old worthless bum whose fights aren’t worth a damn. Maybe that’s true. But…” Rum drove a spiking knee into the doctors genitals.

  Resuming his place as champion Rum sent a knuckle over the back of the man’s head. “Not bad for a worthless old tramp. Yeah, and I ain’t no karate expert but I do know it’s never a good idea to gloat in the middle of a-”

  The doctor returned the favour, dropping the old tramp to his knees. A kick sent him down to his back. Many more followed for his face. The doctor even took time to lean down and punch the old fool in the head. When the beating ended Rum lay there, a pile of groaning rags leaking blood on white tiles.

  Calmly enough, the doctor stood up, turning his back on Rum.

  “That girl is kinda cute. Chubby, yet still cute. She’ll be fun. You know, I thought my whole plan had turned sour … to be honest. When I think of it now it’s actually all starting to iron out … perfect really. I can do whatever I want to her and my patsy will still get the blame.”

  “Keep … your hands … off her!”

  “Relax … to tell the truth I was lying. I don’t think she’s cute at all. She’s really quite ugly actually. Fat women are the worst kind of woman, but she’s ugly beyond that. It wouldn’t be fun. Spite is fun though. I’ll do it for spite.”

  “You … you won’t find them … now.”

  The doctor began strolling away in pursuit of Sierra and Henry. “You really think I’d waste this much time talking to you if they could get away? The doors in this place are locked. I know which doors are locked and which ones are open because I locked them and opened them.” He dangled a set of keys. “They won’t get out that way. This is my hospital. It is my maze. They are rats in my maze. Good bye, old bum.”

  ***

  Sierra fell against another double door, desperately banging it with her fist. “This one’s locked too! We can’t stay here, we have to go back.”

  Henry vied for another option. Raising the sledgehammer, he began beating into the wooden frame. It didn’t crack on one hit, and wouldn’t for a few more.

  “He’s coming!” Sierra cried.

  Footfalls tapped from out of sight. The sound tapped faster and faster until the doctor’s shadow loomed from beyond a corner. Its movement slowed, confident in victory.

  Henry continued to hammer. With each heavy bang that shadow seemed to become slowly more aware of Henry’s plan. It burst into a sudden fury of movement until the doctor stood out in full, away from his shadows. From a range of but twenty paces, the doctor stormed upon them.

  The door broke before the doctor made it in time. Henry had cracked a hole big enough for Sierra to be pushed through first. Henry on the other hand found himself grabbed, ensnared within one of the doctor’s hands.

  Sierra, now through the door, did everything to pull her friend through. The effort proved futile. For all her pulling she found herself being dragged back through the opening. Amidst all the struggling she heard Henry cry for her too run. His voice strained chokingly. He was being choked.

  Salvation came when Henry dropped the hammer. By accident or not Henry let it slip within arm reach of Sierra.

  Snatching it up, she rammed it through the opening and into the doctor’s knee cap. He crumbled without dropping the lad. That’s why she did it again, and again, until he did.

  Henry still kicking back at the doctor’s face, Sierra pulled him through the opening. With no time to stop Henry gasped for breath before setting into another blind sprint. What little ground they’d hoped to gain shrank when without any struggle, those double doors opened on the click of a key. Then through them came the doctor to resume it all. He chased without show of injury. There was no pain in that man. And he came, seemingly faster than before.

  ***

  Rum only managed to get off his back. Pressing up from the floor, he formed a crippled hunch to inspect the damage. One wipe of his palm over face left a hand awash in blood. Considering the beating he received it could have been coming from anywhere. It certainly wasn’t coming from his mouth, which oozed a separate spill of blood. Even still, Rum walked pain stricken on the doctor’s trail.

  “Damn bastard,” he uttered. “Can’t take this old bum out so easy. He’s strong though. How does a pencil neck doctor get so strong?”

  Rum stopped limping to examine an item at his feet, an empty syringe.

  “Damn litter bug … so that’s it … the bastard’s got drugs.”

  Two more syringe needles provided a clear enough trail to follow.

  Chapter 34

  The doctor’s nearing silhouette pursued Henry and Sierra with renewed resilience. For moments that darkness called a man would vanish then reappear for every corner they turned in this bland, familiar corridor. They continued till there were no more corners left to turn. One electronically locked double door blocked the way forward while nothing but a clear straight hall stood between the bums and the doctor.

  Again they crashed straight into the door with nothing but a prayer. No such luck. Henry quickly turned to Sierra.

  “Sierra, the hammer?”

  “I-I dropped it.”

  “That you did, Sierra,” the doctor yelled, in full view approaching with sledgehammer clutched in both hands.

  Henry eyed back and forth between the doctor and a second door along the side wall. A notice labelled it as basement access. In those brief moments of contemplation he paid attention to the doctor‘s lack of regard for the door, and quickly concluded it to be another locked one. Even if he did make a run for it he’d likely be intercepted. Then he noticed a third option.

  “The laundry shoot!”

  “Henry?”

  “There‘s an exit in the basement. Just go!”

  He grabbed Sierra and pushed her down the laundry shoot. Sparing no time he dove in after, a large grabbing hand caught nothing but the air at the back of his neck.

  Hurdling down the shoot, Henry’s feet remained suspended above Sierra’s head until crashing to a full laundry bin. Those feet of his suddenly became closer to that head of hers.

  Wrapped in filth stained clothes they each fumbled about until recklessly falling out of the bin to a concrete floor. Amidst the silence of their resting gasps, pipes lining the roof burped and churned as if ready to burst open any moment. The sounds created an impression of total isolation, how the echoes reverberated against the concrete room like bats in an empty cavern.

  Henry knelt by Sierra‘s side. “Are you okay, how’s your leg?”

  For a moment she held in pain, then released. “I’ll be fine. I just need rest.”

  “We should go.”

  “He can’t fit down the chute. Just let me rest a bit.”

  “More than likely he has the key for the basement access door. I’d give him a minuet to get here.

  “And where will
we go?”

  “There‘s a fire escape in the boiler room down here, if we go now we can get out there in time. Come on, I‘ll carry you.”

  He lifted the girl into his arm.

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “I’ve an idea. That‘s how I got out of here the first time. I mean … that‘s how he got me out of here.”

  “Who?”

  “Him.”

  The doctor appeared in the only doorway to this room. His body dominated the doorframe. And his smile … The way he smiled, a frozen smile. He didn’t breathe through it. Though he’d clearly stormed down three flights of stairs to get to the basement so quickly, he didn’t even gasp. He tossed an empty syringe to the floor as if to show the reason for it.

  “Poor babies, you wanted to get downstairs yet you came too far. I’ve always said this basement feels like a tomb … Fitting, I guess.”

  “You won’t get away with this … not here!” Henry yelled. “You think you can chase us around a hospital without someone noticing?”

  “Yes. I’ve done it twice before on a full house, what‘s to stop me now? Of course, I’d already given those women their ‘medication’ and people seldom shake their heads when a clearly unstable patience is pulled kicking and screaming through a crowded corridor. The doctor’s trying to kill me, she’ll say … mad woman, I’ll say. It‘s a common sight around here actually … even on our better days there‘s always one or two who scream bloody murder.”

  “We’re not patients here. They won’t fall for that.”

  “You could be right. Of course, the police do already have you, Henry, on record for stealing pills from this hospital. Why … the very same medication as that darned serial killer, would you believe? Everyone does expect to return back here for more eventually … after all you‘ve stolen most of your drugs from here, so why wouldn‘t you come back for more?”

  “I never robbed any pills!”

  “Really? You did run from the police Henry, and guilty men don’t run. They simply wanted to question you about robbing medication after a doctor at this hospital witnessed you stealing them. You ran away. Now you’re a suspect. You can imagine how alarmed I was when I learned those pills you stole are the same as the serial killer’s.”