by Chris Dolley
Unless Pendennis had flattened himself against the near corridor wall.
Nick hovered in the doorway. He had to make that final check. He had to lean his head into the corridor. He swallowed, turned towards Louise and forced a smile. Now or never.
He jumped through, throwing his arms out to fend off any sudden attack and . . .
Relief. It was empty. It really was empty. He swivelled on the spot. The corridor clear in both directions and—he looked harder—all the other doors appeared closed.
Was that significant? Someone had unlocked their door but no one else's? Could it have been Ziegler?
He waved Louise over.
"Do you know where we are?" she asked.
He didn't. So many of the bays looked the same and he couldn't see any signs on the walls. Even the doors weren't numbered. But the central corridor couldn't be far away. Find that and he'd have his bearings.
"This way," said Nick, selecting a direction at random. "There's got to be a sign somewhere."
They inched along the corridor, slow tentative noiseless steps. They crept past one door—closed—then another—slightly ajar. Should they look inside? Maybe there was a window? A way out?
Nick peeked through the gap. No windows that he could see. Another trademark Upper Heywood room: bare and white. And if it was occupied, Nick didn't want to know.
They moved on. There was a camera pointing towards them at the intersection up ahead—a T-junction with passages left and right. They stopped and peered around the corner. The same bare, windowless corridors in both directions. Didn't Upper Heywood believe in interior decor? A few paintings, a splash of colour, a floor plan?
"Do you recognise any of this?" Louise whispered.
He still didn't. The more he looked the more the place looked like a maze. And if they didn't find a sign soon that's how he'd treat it. A maze they could escape from by always turning in the same direction.
They turned left. The camera followed them. Strip lights hummed and flickered overhead, the first real sound they'd heard for ages. They walked faster, passing closed door after closed door. They crossed an intersection, passages coming off left and right: both dead-ends, both containing a series of doors, everything unmarked.
How did people find their way around here? None of the doors were numbered or marked in any way. There were no signs or arrows, no bay numbers. All the corridors looked the same.
Voices floated down the passageway behind them.
Nick and Louise stopped dead. Pendennis? They listened. It was several voices. Yelling. And getting closer. A mob?
Nick and Louise started to run. No time for caution, they had to get away. A maze of passages lay ahead of them. They turned left, they turned right, they ran straight ahead. No plan other than to get away as far and as fast as possible.
The sound behind them grew louder: running feet, raised voices. Every corridor identical, all doorways threatening and uninviting. And not a window in sight. Not even a barred one.
They turned once more, running flat out, there had to be an exit soon! They were being pursued half-naked through a prison, hospital gowns flapping open at the back. If they were caught . . .
Nick tried to squash that thought but a hundred voices took up the cry. It sounded like the entire prison population were in pursuit, screaming and shouting.
The corridor turned to the left; he bounced off the right-hand wall in his haste to make the turn.
Then skidded to a stop.
It was a dead-end. The corridor ran for another twenty yards then stopped. There were two doors—one left, one right—halfway along the passage.
A glance back the way they'd come. A few more seconds and the mob would be upon them. They had to take one of the doors. Maybe it would be an exit?
"You choose," said Nick.
"That one," said Louise. There was a lock panel to the left of the door. He hit it hard and prayed.
It opened and they dived inside.
Peter sat on the floor in the middle of the room. The blood on his hands and face matched the red of his clothes, and scattered around him lay pieces of flesh, many with fragments of clothing still attached. He looked, as he often dreamed he looked, like a small child who had crawled inside a butcher's window.
One of the larger pieces lay in his lap. He was playing with it when Lulu and her doctor friend fell into the room.
He didn't bother to look up. They'd wait. But meat had sell-by dates. If you waited too long the little voices would escape and you'd never know where they'd been hiding.
He dug his hand in and started to pull the skin away from the flesh. He liked this bit. He liked the way the skin peeled back all in one piece. You could climb inside if you were quick. Climb inside and hide for hours, dressed from head to toe in shiny red skin.
He smiled at the thought. Then remembered he wasn't alone. He could see them in the doorway, looking scared. He closed the door behind them. He could do that—open and close doors. He had the power. Always had. He loved being in control.
He felt behind him for the head on the floor. The skull extracted, only the cap of skin and hair remained. He put his hand inside and held it up like a glove puppet to show his guests.
"Have you met Doctor Ziegler?"
Chapter Twenty
The room was dark; Pendennis sat in a cone of light from a central spotlight, everything else was in shadow. The room could have stretched for miles. And anyone could be lurking hidden in the shadows.
Outside, behind the door that had so recently closed, there was silence. No shouting, no running feet, no mob hammering on the door. Just silence.
Nick and Louise were rooted in the doorway, their eyes locked on the mask in Peter's hand.
"Is that really, Ziegler?" asked Nick.
He had to ask, curiosity pulling the words from him. But did he really want to know the answer? Deep down, something inside him craved ignorance.
Peter didn't seem to care. He turned the grisly mask to face him, looked deep and hard into its features and said. "Looks like him to me."
He then turned, both face and mask, to Louise. "What do you think, Lulu?"
Louise didn't answer. She turned her head away, gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. She's going to attack him, thought Nick. He placed a hand on her arm. "No," he said. "Not yet." Pendennis had to be armed. There were body parts strewn all over the floor. Something had to have been used to cut them up.
And it was too easy. Pendennis laid traps. He wouldn't allow himself to be caught alone. Someone would be in the shadows, pressed up against a far wall, waiting.
Or would they? It was a long shot but what if there were other doors in the room, maybe a way out? Wasn't that worth a look?
He whispered to Louise. "Follow the wall around. There might be a door."
"Little voices," said Peter, his voice distracted, "always whispering, thinking Peter can't hear them but Peter hears everything, doesn't he, Doctor Zee."
Nick went right, Louise left—the pair of them sticking to the wall, their gowns swishing against the plaster, their faces turned half-inward, one eye on Pendennis, the other on the shadow up ahead.
"I'm watching you," said Peter, turning Ziegler's face to stare directly at Nick. "We both are."
Nick pressed on. He'd drawn alongside Pendennis. Still no door. If the light was in the centre of the room he was halfway to the far wall. If he ran, and there was a door, he could get to it before Peter. If there was a lock panel he could open it. If it wasn't guarded. If, if, if . . .
"I wouldn't go any further if I were you," said Peter.
Nick's heart thumped inside his chest. He speeded up. Not much further to go now.
"Have you seen what Peter does to bad boys?"
Yes, he had and he didn't want to think about it. He glanced across the room instead. He couldn't see or hear her but was Louise still making progress? Would she call out if she found a door?
"He bites their noses off," said Peter.
There was a growling sound from the centre of the room and then a shriek. Nick turned. Peter had grabbed hold of Ziegler's nose with his teeth and was pulling at it, shaking his head from side, trying to rip the mask to pieces, growling like a dog in a feeding frenzy.
"Peter! Stop that!" Nick's face drained. That was Ziegler's voice. The words, clear and authoritative. And they were coming from the mask.
Peter stopped, released his grip on Ziegler's nose and inclined his head. He looked spellbound, fascinated. The glove puppet spoke! Its lips, what was left of them, moved.
"That's better, Peter," said Ziegler.
Peter brought Ziegler's face closer to his. He looked mesmerised by the talking mask. His eyes filled with wonder.
"Now it's time for our little game again," said the mask. "Remember? Today, we're going back to the time when you were six years old. Do you remember when you were six years old, Peter?"
Peter nodded. "Yes, I remember."
"Good," Ziegler's voice droned on. "It's your summer holiday. You've gone to the seaside with your mother. Do you remember the day you got lost? When it was cold and showery and the wind chased you into that old funfair museum? The day you met Jack?"
Reality shuddered—as though hit by some immense force that made the room wobble like jelly. Walls and faces shimmered, began to break up, the room shattering into a myriad of dissolving fragments, leaving nothing but an all-encompassing blackness. No Peter, no Ziegler, no scattered joints of meat. Only Nick, Louise and the dark.
"Nick, are you there?" asked Louise. She sounded close but his eyes couldn't penetrate the gloom. Not that he was looking hard. He was too busy thinking. His brain was being battered by a meteor storm of puzzle pieces. Some were actually falling into place.
"Nick?" she asked again, her voice rising half an octave.
"Over here," he said, patting himself down. One body, present and correct. At least he hadn't separated and fallen into the void.
"What just happened?" she asked, shuffling closer. "Was that a hologram breaking up?"
"No," he said, sniffing the air. A musty, stuffy smell. Definitely not Upper Heywood. Which fitted his theory.
An outstretched hand caught him under the eye. Louise apologised. "Sorry, I can't see a thing in here."
"Don't apologise. You can't hurt what's not really here."
"Are you all right?" she asked.
He was more than all right. For the first time since he'd woken up that morning—or afternoon, evening or whatever time this pretended to be—he felt back in control. He knew where he was and he knew what to do.
"Nick, you're worrying me."
"Then prepare to be unworried," he said. If he'd been sure of his footing, he'd have added a dance. "We're not going to be extradited and John Bruce isn't President."
"What?"
"And Anders Ziegler is very much alive and regressing young Peter as we speak."
He felt the urge to pace and swing his arms. But that was tempting fate too much. Somewhere in this gloom was a funfair museum with sharp-edged metal exhibits and a six-year old Peter Pendennis. And in this place, whatever his age, Peter would be dangerous.
Somewhere in the distance a wind howled. And was that a draught? Nick turned instinctively towards it. A horizontal line of what looked like sunlight had appeared on the floor behind him. And was that a door above it? He walked over. Louise followed, tugging at his arm.
"What are you talking about? How do you know this?"
"Peter's probably listening so I won't tell you everything but think about it . . . one minute we're on the verge of rescuing your American friend, the next we wake up in Upper Heywood and all hell breaks loose. Why? Cue simple answer: because we never left Upper Heywood in the first place. We got too close to Pendennis and instead of pulling John out, Peter pulled us in."
The ambient light must have increased; he could swear he saw Louise's mouth drop open.
"We're trapped inside Peter's head?" she said. "Like John? And you're happy about this?"
She sounded like she might be about to hit him.
"I'm ecstatic. John Bruce isn't President. The Truth Commission isn't after us. Peter Pendennis isn't running Upper Heywood and we're not being chased half-naked by rioting prisoners."
"But we're trapped inside a madman's head!"
"Temporarily. Trust me, I know the way out. In a few minutes, maybe an hour, we'll be back floating in the higher dimensions and taking John with us."
Or maybe sooner. He sat down at the base of the door, cursing hospital gown designers everywhere as a bare buttock met the cold concrete floor. The cold, gritty, concrete floor. No one could have swept the floor in ages.
"What are you doing?" asked Louise.
"Trying to separate. Peter's grip over this world could be diminished now."
"Why? Because he's being hypnotised?"
"You're catching on. He's woven a dreamworld around us. One where he's in control. As soon as that control slips he won't be able to stop us separating and out we go."
He leaned back against the door and closed his eyes. A simple stretch and he'd be free. Okay, the body leaning against the door didn't exactly exist but the principle was the same. He was connected to a physical being and needed to fly free. How he visualised that physical entity didn't matter a jot.
He relaxed, pumped hydrogen inside his brain, inflated it, cut loose every mooring and waited for it to fly free.
It didn't. He tried again. Urging, cajoling, pushing . . .
It was no good. He was still being blocked.
He got up, dusted himself down, brushed the grit from his cheeks. And shrugged his shoulders. Pendennis would have to be made to relinquish control.
"Should we try the door?" asked Louise, searching for a handle. Anything to get out of the dark.
"No. We need to stay here. This is where Ziegler's bringing Peter and the sooner we confront Peter the sooner we get out."
"Are you sure we can do that?"
"Positive."
He sounded confident—or was that overconfidence? Surely he hadn't forgotten the encounter with the warders. Dreamworld or not, the pain had been real.
She ran a hand along the old panelled door and found a large metal ring. A door handle? She gave it a pull then a twist. The door rattled but didn't budge.
"What about Jack?" she asked. "Who do you think he is?"
"Some old wino Peter met here or an older boy who frightened him. Someone like that. Whoever it is they'll just be an illusion. It's Peter we've got to concentrate on."
Click. Louise turned at the sound. It came from deep in the gloom. Then it came again—much louder this time. A cranking sound as though a rusted metal lever had been thrown. Light. A stuttering swathe of light brought the museum into life as rows of fluorescent lights flickered across the ceiling—on, off, undecided then on again.
Old arcade games lined the walls. Old posters above them, pictures and photographs from the Victorian era. The paintwork dingy—the walls brown and the ceiling a tobacco-stained yellow. And no sign of Pendennis or Jack. The U-shaped room was empty. For now.
"Wow," said Nick, diving towards the exhibits. "I haven't seen machines like these in years."
"You're not seeing them now," said Louise. "Remember?"
She glanced back towards the door. That had to be the way he'd arrive. Wouldn't it be better to wait here and grab him as soon as he opened the door? Just in case he brought his minders with him.
"Have a look at this," shouted Nick.
Louise reluctantly followed. Nick was standing by a bank of old fairground games: test your strength, test your passion, read your fate, try your luck. Bagatelle games with rusty ball bearings, spirals of metal runways and strategically placed nails. Not a flashing light, electric circuit or blaring soundtrack amongst them. Simple fun for simpler times.
And simpler people. Like Nick.
He was pointing at a tableau of a graveyard in a glass case. "This must be nearly tw
o hundred years old," he said. "Look at that ghoul's hair. It looks like someone pulled some horse hair out of a paintbrush and glued it on his head."
It did. She couldn't imagine a modern child, used to the near-perfect holographic games imagery of today, being impressed by the standard of craftsmanship.
"Isn't it great?" said Nick. "You drop a penny in the slot here and the great god Clockwork opens all the graves and moves the monsters."
He craned his head and looked left and right, searching. "There," he said, pointing to a pile of old copper coins stacked on a display case. "I'll show you."
"No," said Louise, locking her hand around his wrist. "One thing I learned a long time ago was not to tempt fate. You put a penny in there and that thing will come alive. Trust me."
"Maybe you're right," he said, moving along to the next exhibit.
Louise walked past, peering into every gap and corner, all the little places a six-year old boy could hide. And shouldn't there be another door? The room was U-shaped; something had to be at its centre.
She tried the right-hand wing of the room. No Pendennis and no door.
"This seems to be it," she said. "The only way Pendennis can get in is through that front door."
Nick didn't answer. He was becoming infuriating. Their lives were on the line and he wasn't even concentrating! He should be planning, working out contingencies. Looking worried.
She found him by a large wood and glass cabinet.
"Do you think this could be Jack?" he said, indicating the exhibit: Jolly Jack Tar, the laughing sailor; two and a half feet of painted wood and faded cloth ready to sing and dance for a penny.
Louise took a closer look. If she were six years old and lost and came face to face with that, she'd be frightened. It was ugly; its eyes were staring and menacing. And that mouth. It looked unnatural, the way the jaw hung down as though it had been dislocated and pinned back together. She shivered. Dummies had that effect on her. She'd never seen their appeal. Give her a cuddly toy any day.
"Are you sure you can handle Pendennis?" she asked.