by David Haynes
And the smell was noxious. Sulfur from the mill’s processes was expected but there were other odors creeping around. Urine and shit. Neither connected to industrial process, rather, to human activity.
Why had Donovan gone running off again like that? Hadn’t he learned his lesson yet? The kid was too damn willing for his own good. He wanted to help people, that was his problem. Even when it was detrimental to his own safety, to his sanity.
“John!” he called again. This time the response was footsteps overhead. But where were the stairs? He ran blindly forward, hoping rather than expecting to find a way up to the next level. It stood to reason that they wouldn’t put a stairwell in the middle of the room.
The stench of human waste grew stronger and as he ran he kicked bottles and cans across the floor. One of the bottles smashed against the wall just a few feet in front.
“Frank!”
And then a muffled shout, something heavy falling to the floor above him. A body. Not Donovan, please not Donovan.
He ran harder and then to his right, away over in the corner, he saw a shape rising diagonally upward. He ran as hard as he could, straight at it. Stairs. His lungs stung and his heart hammered but he took the stairs two at a time on legs that were more rubber than flesh.
As he reached the top, he saw a pinprick of light on the floor. He made for it.
“John, you okay?” His voice echoed all around him in the vast chamber. He could see a dark shape crouching down. Was there more than one person? Impossible to tell, it looked formless, like a blob.
There was the sound of chains, thick metal chains dragging across the wooden floor. Each step sent the timber into a creaking complaint. It probably wasn’t safe up here. When he got hold of Donovan he was going to...
The amorphous shadow he’d seen took shape – two figures crouching over a third. It looked like the two were working together, tying the third up in the chains. What the hell was going on?
He skidded to a stop, registering Donovan closest to him and trying to get a handle on what he was seeing. A child lay on the floor, a heavy chain wound around the body holding it in place like mummified corpse. Yet Donovan and... and Dr Hamilton were winding them tighter and tighter, driving the rusted links into the flesh beneath the.. sheet, was it a bed sheet?
“John! Stop! What’re you doing?” He grabbed Donovan’s wrists and pulled him away but he was too strong, his grip too tight.
He looked up at Dr Hamilton whose hood fell across her eyes, concealing her expression.
“For God’s sake! What’s going on?”
Donovan wrestled his hand free of Wilson. “Help us, Frankie. She’s dying.”
Wilson looked at them both in turn. They were mad. They were both mad. He fell back, unwilling to be part of this lunacy. He covered his ears and roared. Why wasn’t anyone trying to turn off the siren? The goddamn siren!
A beam of light flashed across the child. Only it wasn’t a child, it was an adult, he could see that now. A small, middle-aged woman, her hair a vivid copper morass. Donovan and Dr Hamilton weren’t tying her up, they were trying to release her.
Footsteps came from behind, from the stairs.
“Over here!” Wilson half-turned and waved his arms. “We’re over here.”
He fell forward, almost landing on the woman, and lifted part of the chain. It was heavy, so heavy and his chest felt like an elephant was sitting on it. No, make that an elephant and a hippo riding on a bus.
“Roll her!” Donovan shouted.
Two men in white orderlies’ uniforms appeared beside Wilson and began frantically pulling at the chains. It was a case of too many hands and the chain seemed to tighten. Especially around her throat.
“We’ve got to roll her,” Donovan repeated, pulling the tiny body toward him. He had taken charge of the situation.
Wilson helped him, his mind was clearing faster than his body was recovering. Beneath her was a block and tackle, and the hook securing the chain to her body. Each time they pulled at the chain, it only served to work against their aim, jerking the chain tighter and tighter.
She couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds but her suit of chainmail added another fifty at least. He looked at her face as she rolled. The chains dug into the skin, across the bloody smear of her broken nose and over one closed eye. The other eye stared straight at him, bulging, weeping and utterly emotionless. He had to look away.
“Grab the hook, Frankie,” Donovan was panting. “Can you unfasten it?”
Wilson pulled but it didn’t budge. “I can’t, it’s stuck!”
“Try again. Help him, Joe.” Dr Hamilton was holding the woman’s head, trying to work a finger between the chain and her throat.
A meaty hand reached around Wilson’s shoulder and grabbed the chain where it slipped through the hook’s claw.
“I’ll give you some slack, then pull the chain loose,” said Joe. He grunted and then heaved. The last breath of air escaped from her lungs with a whimper as Joe pulled.
“Now!” he hissed.
Wilson grabbed the hook and strained to thread the chain through. What was happening to her body under the chains? How many bones were broken, ground to pieces...
The chain passed over the end of the hook slowly, so slowly that Wilson thought time had stopped. Then it slid over the tip and was free. There was a gasp from the woman, a moan. Was it relief, or just air escaping from her corpse?
Wilson pulled the chains free, working with the others to remove them. Even though they weren’t pulled taut they were heavy, their weight crushing rather than choking.
It was exhausting but at last the final link fell to the floor with a deafening clang. Dr Hamilton and the two other staff from the hospice didn’t stop there though. After a brief check, Dr Hamilton turned to Joe.
“Ambulance on the way?” she asked.
“Should be here any time,” Joe replied. He was blinking his eyes rapidly. Wilson could see the cold sweat that had broken out on his skin.
Dr Hamilton lowered her head and tilted her ear to the woman’s mouth. “She’s breathing, but only just. And she’s cold.”
Donovan wriggled out of his suit jacket and laid it across the woman’s torso. Wilson did the same and felt a wave of dizziness sweep over him. It ran up the back of his neck and into the base of his skull like an nest of angry fire ants on the march.
He looked at Donovan, tried to focus, and then he was toppling back, an impossibly long way it seemed, until his back collided with the boards and he was staring into a black void above his head. A deep, dark, sky of unending darkness. A place where shadows lived, where something writhed in the pitch above him, slithered through the inky emptiness and then was gone.
The siren? The wailing had stopped. Someone had shut it off, thank God. Someone had...
12
“If you won’t come with us then you’ll need to go and see your own doctor as soon as possible.”
Wilson signed the paperwork the paramedic had pushed toward him.
“It wasn’t a heart attack, Mr Wilson, it looks like angina but we’ll need to do more tests to make sure, to get you on the right medication and get it controlled.”
Wilson nodded. The ambulance was warm but he pulled the blanket around his shoulders. It was as much about keeping warm as it was warding off the diagnosis. “I’ll make an appointment,” he said.
“See that you do.” She raised her eyebrows. Nobody had looked at him the way she was doing right now since junior high.
“Am I free to leave?” he asked.
“Now you’ve signed these, you can leave whenever you like.”
Wilson slid off the gurney. “Thank you, ma’am.” He sounded like a schoolboy.
He stepped off the ambulance into the strobing blue-black chill of the night. Another ambulance was just pulling away, driving slowly down Mill Road. He recognized Donovan’s profile as the blue light pulsed across his face. He was watching the vehicle drive away.
When he saw Wilson
, he smiled and walked over. “Jesus, man, you had me worried.”
Wilson was about to say something but Donovan hugged him. Wilson had never been in the arms of a grizzly, thank God, but a bear’s hold couldn’t have been any tighter.
“Hey, watch it,” he said but all he felt was relief. Relief at not being in the ambulance, and relief at not being inside the mill. He looked at it over Donovan’s shoulder, staring into the dark void where the window had been.
“She alright?” He pulled back.
“Lucy?” Donovan shook his head.
Not again, thought Wilson. Not another one.
“She’s alive. Just. Doc Hamilton’s gone with her.” He let out a long sigh. “This is all... I don’t know what it is, but weird doesn’t come close.”
“Give you two gentlemen a lift back to town?” Sheriff Taylor pulled in beside them. His bloated cheeks were red and shiny.
“We should take the ride,” Donovan said. “Don’t want you keeling over on me again.”
Wilson had to agree. All he wanted to do was to lie in bed and close his eyes. His chest ached and his head felt like he’d been on the Coney Island Cyclone for two hours straight.
He reached for the rear door handle but the door flew open before he could use it.
“Come on in out of the cold,” a voice said from inside.
He leaned down and peered in.
“Reverend Cavendish,” he said.
“Thank the Lord for our two angels, Sheriff Taylor! Without them we most certainly would have lost poor Lucy Beaumont this evening. And it was before her time.”
Cavendish leaned forward in his seat. The rear of the Sheriff’s car was cramped with the three of them and he was forced to sit at an angle to look at them both.
Wilson didn’t turn his head but he could see the Reverend’s bright smile from the corner of his eye. Sheriff Taylor was silent on the matter of angelic thanks. He was focused on staying clear of the potholes.
“How’s your heart, Mr Wilson? You gave us all a fright. Mr Donovan was distraught.”
“Much better, thank you Reverend. Not used to the exercise, I guess.”
“Ah yes, well exercise is something we could all do more of, I’m sure. Healthy body, healthy spirit and all that.”
“Something like that,” Wilson replied. He was very conscious of being sandwiched between Donovan and Cavendish. He couldn’t have felt more uncomfortable, either physically or mentally, if he’d tried.
There was a moment of silence as the car bounced over some of the less dangerous holes.
“I imagine you’ve seen enough of Hemlock Mill to last you a lifetime? I assure you it’s not normally as... as interesting as this,” Cavendish said.
“Interesting isn’t what I’d call it,” Donovan responded, leaning forward. “Don’t you find it just a little strange that two people have tried to kill themselves here in the last twelve hours?”
Wilson realized he hadn’t known why or what Lucy Beaumont was doing in the mill until that moment. Now he did. Or at least he knew what Donovan thought had happened.
“Strange? No, I wouldn’t say strange,” Cavendish started. “The guests at the hospice are there because there is no hope for them. They believe that their physical lives have ended and that they are on time borrowed from the Lord. I speak with them every day, Mr Donovan, and both Lucy Beaumont and Thomas Newsome were at the end of their tethers. I prayed with them, and for them, I prayed that their pain would be lessened, their spirits released. Sadly, dear Thomas decided the Lord had forsaken him and chose another route to the next life.” He sighed. “Heaven, I’m afraid, is not where he will be...”
“That’s bull,” Donovan said in a loud whisper. “Dr Hamilton gave us a different opinion on his emotional state.” He sank back.
Wilson saw the Reverend stiffen at the mention of her name. Just for a second.
“Dr Hamilton treats the body, not the spirit. Not the soul. I would no more care to understand her profession than she would mine.” He sounded defensive and he must have realized it because he added, “Nor yours, or the Sheriff’s for that matter. You’re all men of the law, so to speak.” He now sounded over-the-top cheerful.
Wilson caught the Sheriff’s glance in the rear-view mirror. Taylor rolled his eyes. It told Wilson all he needed to know on his thoughts about the Reverend. It was all he could do to stop himself smiling.
They drove the rest of the way to the motel in silence. The Sheriff pulled into the lot and climbed out of the car. He walked around to open the rear door.
Donovan slid out and Wilson shuffled across the seat but before he could climb out, Reverend Cavendish put his hand on Wilson’s shoulder.
“God bless you, Mr Wilson, and your friend Mr Donovan. Safe journey back home tomorrow.” He slid away, back into shadow.
Wilson climbed out, unsure of what Cavendish’s inflection on the word ‘friend’ meant. Sheriff Taylor tipped his hat and said goodnight. He turned the car around in the middle of Main Street then drove out of town, ignoring the red traffic light, up the hill to the Church of Broken Pieces.
“The Reverend thinks we’re gay,” Wilson said and walked across the lot toward their room. “And I don’t think he likes it.”
Donovan laughed. “My opinion of him just keeps getting better. Sanctimonious dick.”
Wilson pushed the door to their room. They hadn’t locked it. They didn’t need to, they were wearing the only possessions they had.
“We heading off now, or in the morning?” Donovan asked.
Wilson fell on his bed, ignoring the question. “You said she tried to kill herself? I don’t think you’re right. I mean, how could she? Those chains must’ve weighed...”
“When I got up there Doc Hamilton was trying to support her, lift her down from the beams. She’d tried to hang herself. Louise saw her kick the chair away.”
“Christ,” Wilson whispered. “I didn’t even see a chair. How the...” He didn’t finish the question. He didn’t know what it was he needed to ask.
“The staff called her and told her Lucy had gone. Apparently she just unplugged herself and walked out of there. Then the siren started up and I guess that’s why we all ended up where we did.”
“What was that siren anyway?”
“Fire alarm. Wood, paper, chemicals, they all make for a good burn, don’t they? Back in the day there were no fire trucks, just the locals with buckets filled from the river.”
“Crude but the best they had, I guess. Just glad someone turned it off when they did, damn thing was driving me crazy.”
“Nobody turned it off.”
“What?” Wilson sat up.
“Just stopped on its own when Lucy started breathing again.” Donovan shook his head and continued. “Weird. Stage four cancer, that’s what she’s got. Stomach, liver and throat. Poor woman can’t even speak, no voicebox left.”
Not just weird, thought Wilson. More than that. The image of what he’d seen swimming in the syrupy darkness above his head before he passed out flashed through his mind. Was it the same visual disturbance as he’d seen at the hospice, or in the window pane before Thomas Newsome buried his skull in it?
It was probably all connected to the angina. The stress of his dad’s party, finding the jukebox, trying to work out what it was he wanted out of life. All of it textbook mid-life crisis. What he really needed was a girlfriend half his age and a ‘67 Impala to complete the picture.
“Just coincidence,” he muttered and lay back down.
Donovan wasn’t quite ready to leave it there. “So who set it off, then? I mean, that thing was hardwired into the building, the alarm had sensors all over the place to pick up heat, smoke etcetera and there was none of that. The thing just went off on its own. I doubt it’s made a sound for the last ten years.”
Wilson shivered. His jacket had gone with Lucy in the ambulance and he was cold. “Who told you all this?” he asked.
“Joe, one of the guys who helped us. He’s
lived here all his life. His dad worked at the mill when it was running. He works up at the hospice now.”
They were both quiet for a while but Wilson could hear Donovan shuffling his legs about in bed. He was restless.
“You know what that siren sounded like to me, Frankie?”
“Screaming,” he answered.
“Like someone whose throat has been eaten out by cancer screaming for their life.” He heard Donovan roll over again. “That’s what it sounded like to me, Frankie.”
Wilson slid under the blankets. For the second time that night, he had to agree with Donovan. That was exactly what it sounded like to him too.
“We need to get you to the doc,” Donovan said but his voice had gone sleepy. “Get you checked out.”
“Go to sleep, John,” Wilson replied. “We can talk about it in the morning.”
“It is morning,” Donovan replied.
A moment later Wilson heard Donovan’s breathing, deep and regular against the backdrop of the swollen and grumbling Kennebec River.
*
A gray and miserable light seeped under the door. He’d watched it wriggling its way through the gap for the last two hours. Just a hint at first, turning to a slice and then a sliver. Wilson hadn’t slept. His heartbeat felt irregular, jumpy, like the organ knew something he didn’t and was just playing around with it. Seeing how it fit for size. It didn’t fit well.
Donovan had slept. In some way at least. He had tossed and turned, intermittently yelping and barking like a dog at something in a dream. Whatever the dream was about, it was certainly not peaceful.
Wilson watched the morning light slide across a cactus on the wall and edged out of bed. His trousers and shirt were ruined. He could smell a sweet, sweaty dampness rising from his body and he knew that a shower would clean his body, but not his clothes. What they should do was get in the car, drive back to Boothbay and book the next available appointment at Dr Grayson’s surgery. He also knew that was not what he was going to do.
He shuffled past Donovan’s bed and pushed through the saloon doors into the bathroom. He hadn’t even brought a toothbrush. Maybe there was a store in town that sold clothes, toiletries and dispensed medication for dodgy hearts. He doubted it. One out of the three would be a miracle.