Relatively Strange

by Marilyn Messik

  She’d been a little girl once, similar age, I thought, to Sam. She wasn’t really that any more. Her shaved skull was oddly misshapen, hugely swollen, the very large forehead bulging and scarred, the size of the head completely disproportionate to the rest of her body and far too heavy for her neck. The Doctor, it appeared, had in the intervening years, found the time and opportunity for the odd operation.

  She was dressed in Winnie the Pooh patterned pyjamas, the brightness of the colour, the familiarity of the design, shocking against the yellow pallor of her hands and what I could see of her face. There seemed to be something wrong with her co-ordination and she shuffled and stumbled a couple of times as the man who, I noted absently, was also wearing one of the black ear-pieces, led her across the room to the chair and table. She sat. Miss Merry pressed another button on her intercom and I heard a buzzer sound faintly in the room next door. The child looked up.

  She couldn’t see us, but she knew we were there. She found me immediately, I was new. My body reacted faster than my brain, tried to shut down, black out, but not fast enough. My shielding was less than useless. The malevolent madness of her mind flooded mine in a bitter rush of sewage which reached into every part of me. I felt myself surge forward, retching as my body sought to void her presence. Her world was one of stimulus and reward, disobedience and pain, nothing left of any kind of free will. As we mingled, I could feel no real memory of anything before this terrible existence – who she’d been, where she’d come from, how long she’d been subjected to this. I took with me, imprinted on my closed eyelids, a bright blue gaze, devoid of innocence in a dreadful, swollen face as I leapt, with desperation, into unconsciousness. But not before I’d shared with her the agony of the electric probe. That was what they used to switch her off.

  I probably wasn’t out for long, certainly not long enough. I’d fallen off the chair and was on the floor again. Everything was still hurting. I kept my eyes shut, I really didn’t feel like re-joining the party yet. I probed very gingerly outward. Sam was ominously without thought. He’d met her before and because he’d known what was coming, had withdrawn deep down inside himself and was seeing no callers. Reluctantly, but I had to know, I probed further. I could feel the child in the next room but she was restrained for the moment, held back obediently by the pain of the probe, conditioned not to let her mind roam until the buzzer allowed it.

  “Excellent.” Miss Merry was quietly satisfied. The Doctor was pacing up and down as animated as I’d ever seen him,

  “What a reaction eh? What a reaction!” He was muttering. “When she comes round, I’m inclined to get the others in too, see how she deals with all of them, not just Megan on her own. Your thoughts?”

  “Agreed.” Miss Merry nodded. Dreck walked over and looked down at me, he gave me a small shove with the toe of his shoe. I didn’t react.

  “She’s exceptionally receptive isn’t she, doesn’t seem to be able to shut off in the same way as the boy though. Goddamnit, can’t believe we had her here before and didn’t know.” He shook his head, “You were right, you were bloody right.”

  “Water under the bridge,” but she was pleased.

  I opened my eyes a mere crack, he was peering over at Sam,

  “Don’t like him un-medicated, too risky, even when we’re blocked.”

  “He’s out of it for the moment – he’s done that before – with Megan.”

  “I need to profile these two together, see how they affect each other.” His tone rose with excitement, “God Almighty, what an opportunity, I want bloods and an EEG. Can’t we keep her?”

  “Not for long, there’s family, I remember from her notes. We can’t afford to have anything happen to her here.”

  “But she’s in his league isn’t she?”

  “No question.”

  “You think she came on her own?”

  “Can’t be sure. Maybe she heard him in some way and decided to find out more – she was a cocky little cow when she was here before. But we can’t risk it.”

  “How long’ve we got?” She looked at her watch, pursed her lips,

  “1.30 now, at least until the morning I’d think. I’ll set up the disposal people to pick her up then. As long as whatever accident she has is miles away, we shouldn’t have a problem.”

  I wondered idly, if maybe this whole thing was simply a nightmare, a bad dream. It would certainly explain neatly how I, with my cosily cautious, North London upbringing – where the biggest risk might be sitting on a strange loo seat without first lining it with toilet paper – came to be lying, lacerated, on the office floor of a couple of scientific psychopaths, planning to put me out with the rubbish. And, more to the point – where were the people who’d got me into this crazy situation in the first place?

  Then they were there. Suddenly, blessedly, in my head, all of them joined – I could feel the power of the gestalt. I could hear them soothing Sam too, although by that stage he was so traumatised he was probably beyond being shocked. I’d thought I was all out of energy but suddenly I was filled with all-consuming fury.

  “Where were you?” I shrieked silently,

  “We held back.” Miss Peacock was distracted.

  “Oh you held back? You held back? Well that’s all right then.” Glory was tense too,

  “We didn’t want to alarm Sam.”

  “Well you bloody well alarmed me!”

  “You’re coping. Now, let them see you’re coming round.” Miss Peacock again. I wanted to splutter and shriek. I wanted to drum my heels against the floor, throw something and thump someone – several people actually. I did none of that. I obediently moaned a little and then I moved my head slowly and painfully from side to side as if my neck hurt, not a lot of acting required, it felt as if it had been completely dislocated.

  “She’s coming out of it.” No pulling the wool over Miss Merry’s eyes.

  “Start to get up now. Slowly.” Instructed Miss Peacock. I struggled onto all fours with my head hanging down, did a bit more moaning and groaning then slowly sat back on my heels, looking around as if dazed. Merry and Dreck were watching with detached interest and he swiftly jotted down a note on a pad he was holding. I gritted my teeth, I knew where I’d like to ram that pad and the pen as well.

  I heaved myself up, holding on to the chair and sat in it again, breathing heavily. I glanced across at Sam. His eyes were wide and disbelieving, his world had suddenly got a whole lot more crowded. His thumb had crept into his mouth for comfort, but he was proving to be quite the little trouper. And other than a swift, helplessly inquiring thought to which I don’t think he even expected an answer, he didn’t waste my time or energy. I could feel Ruth hovering anxiously over him.

  “Rub your head as if it hurts, we need more time.” Miss Peacock said.

  “Stand up.” Said Miss Merry.

  “Stay where you are.” Said Miss Peacock. I stifled a laugh, which came out as a snort. It had been a trying evening and there was really rather too much direction going on. Miss Merry couldn’t see the joke and for once she was probably right.

  “I said, stand up,” She rapped, “We haven’t got all night.” She grabbed my arm, her fingers fitting neatly into the previous set of bruises she’d made, last time she grabbed me.

  “Something’s jamming us, what?” Miss Peacock was calm but her urgency was showing.

  “A thing – they’re both wearing black things behind their ear, like a hearing aid.”

  “Get them off. We’ll help. Now.” Ordered Miss Peacock,

  “Now.” Snapped Miss Merry. I was feeling decidedly hen-pecked but as I rose, hands at my side, I lifted the black hook from over her ear. She felt it moving but reached for it too late. I flung it into the far corner, at the same instant flashing to Sam what I needed him to do. Maybe it was expecting a lot of a six year old, but these were desperate times. Sam was up to it, though perhaps not as delicate as he could have been because the Doctor gave a little shriek. I don’t think Sam was bothered.
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  I briefly felt the cold impact of Miss Merry’s mind, acridly dry, bright with anger and then Ruth was doing her stuff and she started to go down, falling forwards. I automatically put out my arms to catch and lower her gently to the floor, somehow in the midst of everything, it seemed important to hold on to certain standards of courtesy. The Doctor’s mind, crystal clear, evidence of his extreme agitation, flared briefly, before his eyes too rolled ceiling-ward and with a boneless thud he joined his colleague.

  Sudden movement stirred at the edge of my vision and even as I turned, I knew what I was going to see through the glass. She, Megan must have, couldn’t help but have felt the strength of the gestalt. She’d heard the instruction and obeyed. The man called John had lost more though than his little black jamming device. He lay in the corner of the room, eyes wide, blood oozing from where his ear had been, the electric probe, harmless now, by his outstretched hand. He was dead. And Megan knew, in that moment, she was free from both the buzzer and the probe.

  We could all feel her mind ranging, seeking, sucking at ours, it wasn’t a pleasant sensation and oh God, beyond her, in the other rooms there were others. All just as ragingly insane, all aware familiar restrictions were gone. They howled their horror, their history, their fear and their hate. The unholy chorus rose, fell and rose again, lacerating and assaulting our minds like fingernails raking a blackboard, overriding rational thought, creating only an overwhelming desire to escape, to get away. I could feel the others desperately trying to restore calm, gain control. They were strong, stronger because of the joining, but what had been created artificially, was stronger still and I knew they were on a hiding to nothing.

  Sam was rigid on his chair, hands clasped neatly in his lap, the unconscious bodies of Dr Dreck and Miss Merry sprawled not far from his feet. His colourless face was turned toward the glass, behind which, Megan lurched and drooled and capered. He knew what he had to do, didn’t want to do it but, untroubled by complicated adult ethics, knew it was essential for his own preservation and only fair to Megan and the other children.

  “Sam, no.” I screamed and heard the cry echoed by the others, but it was already too late. We felt the power build inexorably in him, drawing on the strength of all of us. First he took Megan – a pressure at just the right point, a small decisive twist in precisely the right place and, as her mind briefly flared, was there gratitude there for something that of all of us only Sam had the courage to do? Then swift and sure, no hesitation, he dealt with the others, there were four of them and I caught him as he collapsed.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  I thought he was dead too. I fumbled for his wrist, trying clumsily to reach in through the fastenings on the suit to find a pulse,

  “Not there,” Miss Peacock’s urgency pulled at my fingers, “His neck, there … no, no, higher … not your thumb, first two fingers.” For an awfully long moment I could detect nothing then, a slow beat.

  “I’ve got it, he’s OK.” I felt weak with relief, or maybe I just felt weak.

  “You have to get him out of there quickly. Move.” I wasn’t sure I had the strength to do that. Half crouched on the floor, the little boy in my arms was a dead weight and I was weary to the bone and beyond. I shut my sore eyes. Something cold was nudging my face, Hamlet’s nose. I pushed him away but he came back.

  “If you don’t get that boy out,” Peacock said, “He’ll probably die.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Rubbish.” They were separate again, I could feel them individually now. Ruth’s concern, Glory’s frustration. I struggled to my feet and rested him on the edge of the desk.

  “Fireman’s lift?” Ruth suggested. “Quicker than using Hamlet.” I felt them help me prop him over my shoulder, head and arms dangling behind me. We were both still slippery-suit clad, so I had to anchor his legs tightly. It would be a poor show if, after all this, I dropped him and broke his neck.

  I turned to move out of the office which now, with people lying all over the place, looked a lot more untidy than when we’d arrived. On impulse I bent, holding tight to Sam and picked up one of the little black ear pieces. After a couple of attempts to find a pocket anywhere in the stupid suit I gave up, slipped it down inside the neck and hoped it wouldn’t end up anywhere too uncomfortable.

  “Filing cabinet.” Miss P again.

  “Right, I’ll just slip that in too, shall I?”

  “Facetiousness,” she reprimanded me – it hadn’t taken her long to get back in her stride after recent events, “Is never constructive. It’s locked so what’s inside’s probably important. Get rid of it.” I sighed. All I wanted was the child off my shoulder, the silver suit off my back, the whole episode out of my head and a good strong cup of tea.

  “Quicker you do as she says, the quicker that’s likely to happen.” Glory at her most priggish.

  “All right,” I concentrated, reaching and easing past the metal to the papers inside, feeling Glory working with me, helping find just the right level. Warm, then hot, then smouldering, not quite strong enough to flame, but flickering just below. Holding it there wasn’t easy, but very quickly we felt the papers within begin to blacken at the edges, then curl and in a gratifyingly short space of time, disintegrate, the metal file dividers buckling and sagging with the heat. Case histories, progress notes, whatever was in there – I didn’t want to think too closely of the stories some of those files could have told – would be of no earthly use to anyone now. I put a cautious hand near the side of the cabinet, then rested it on the surface, warm but not hot. No danger of it flaring up and doing damage when we’d gone, in fact from the outside it looked fine – but oh, there’d be a gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair when next it was opened. I turned again to make my way out of the office, poised for a Peacock counter-instruction but thankfully, for once, she had nothing to add. The room next door was still illuminated brightly, I didn’t look, I had more than enough nightmares to be getting on with.

  Hamlet by my side, Sam over my shoulder, we retraced our steps. This time there was nothing emanating from behind closed doors, it had become just another corridor. I couldn’t find it in my heart to believe Sam had done wrong, although recalling my own agonising over a situation when I too had taken what seemed to be the only option, I wondered how he’d view it in years to come.

  Through the security door, down the stairs, past a still supine Nurse Muldrew – if the sedative had that effect on an adult, you had to wonder what it would have done to the much smaller Sam. We turned the corner and then there was just the long stretch to the side door where I’d entered. Sam was a dead weight, even with help and my arm muscles were shaking, locked rigid round his knees. The door didn’t seem to be getting any closer and whilst Muldrew looked out for the count, I’d no idea how long before the Dr and Miss Merry re-surfaced. When they did, they really wouldn’t be best pleased and I’d stupidly left one of the jamming devices in the office, so the first I’d probably know, would be when they grabbed me from behind. I seemed to have been plodding forever. I didn’t see, or even sense the figure in front of me until I ran full tilt into him.

  Typically, he wasted no time in idle chit-chat but in one smooth move, swung Sam off my shoulder and on to his, which being far broader and not half so slippery, was an all-round improvement. I hoped though that Sam wouldn’t wake up just yet, he’d had enough shocks for one day. Ed put out his other hand to me and I grabbed it like a lifeline. It was only when I did, that I realised he was even more scared than I. He flashed me an impassive look and I smiled and gave his huge hand a squeeze. If I was disappointed that our knight in shining armour was, in reality, as jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof, I was doubly touched by his courage in coming to get us anyway.

  As we slipped out the side door there was a rush of eager panting. As security dogs, it had to be said, Laurel and Hardy weren’t really much cop. Ed’s hand tensed hard round mine, nearly breaking four fingers. Apart from Hamlet, who he regarded more as a person, Ed was terrif
ied by dogs. In fact, I saw clearly, big-as-a-house, stone-faced Ed, was terrified by most things. He’d encountered these two already and his progress across the lawn, canine accompanied as I’d been, had unnerved him more than he could possibly describe.

  “They won’t hurt us.” I said firmly, sounding more like Miss P than I cared to and hoping I was right.

  It seemed darker outside than before, with the moon fully cloud obscured by now. It had also turned colder and there was a mist of fine drizzle overlaying our hair and chilling our faces. We could have done with the torch, provided so sensibly, so long ago but I didn’t seem to have it with me anymore, must have put it down somewhere when my mind was preoccupied by other things. Our party – Ed had me firmly by the hand, although it was debatable who was reassuring who, Sam over his shoulder, Hamlet by his side and Laurel and Hardy weaving enthusiastic circles – made speedy if unsteady progress along the path. We were hampered by the uneven paving and fear of falling and as the wind rose, the hedges lining the way moaned and lashed and cracked around us. We’d crossed about half the width of the lawn when things started to go downhill again. Sam began to stir, there were assorted aggressive shouts from behind and someone pulled a switch that flood-lit the entire grounds.