And about the person Joseph told me was in here with me.
I held the cue in both hands, heavy end pointing upwards and tried not to dwell on who – or what – might be lurking in the hospital. Getting to Ward 13 was all that mattered. Edging up to the office door I glanced out, scanning the corridor for any sign of movement.
Nothing.
I crept out into the flickering lights of the corridor and pressed on. I stuck close to the wall, barely glancing into some rooms, stopping to search any that looked like they might hold something useful.
None of them did. Just more broken furniture, more smashed computer components, more rot and filth. Sometimes I’d come across a family photograph – the smiling faces of wives, husbands and children – trapped behind dirty, broken glass.
Those pictures, I think, creeped me out more than anything else. Those smiling faces, those loving hugs, they were so out of place – a captured moment of happiness, lost in hell. And they reminded me of the other photograph too. The one that made no sense. The one that was still in the wallet in my pocket.
But I wasn’t dwelling on that, either. Now that I had a weapon and somewhere to head towards, I was feeling much more positive. It might be a long road to get there, but at least I now knew where “there” was.
And it was all thanks to Joseph. I wondered why he didn’t just tell me where to go, or about the map in the wallet. Why had he hidden it? Had someone been watching us even back there in the real world?
I gave myself a slap. I could ask questions like that all day and not get any answer. Now wasn’t the time. I had to concentrate on getting to Ward 13, getting the cure, then getting back to Mum.
I was almost at the end of the corridor. It ended in a T-junction, joining another corridor that ran off in both directions. Before the junction, though, there was a final door. It was undamaged, unlike the others, and, also unlike the others, this door was closed.
What to do? Part of me – a big part – thought I should keep moving, leave well alone. There could be anything behind that door, after all.
But another part was intrigued. Maybe I’d find a better weapon in there. Or something else I could use.
There could be anything behind that door, after all.
Pressing my ear against the wood, I listened. I could hear the thudding of my heart and the buzzing of the nearest fluorescent light, but from within the room itself there wasn’t a whisper.
The door handle was cold. Moving slowly, so as not to make a noise, I pushed it down and gave the door a nudge. It thudded softly against the frame. I tried again, using my hip to shove the door harder this time. Again, it didn’t open.
‘Locked,’ I muttered, out loud. That was that, then.
I turned and walked away, but stopped after just a few steps. Why was it locked? What was in there?
It shouldn’t have bothered me. I shouldn’t have given a damn. But the room was locked up for a reason, and I wanted to know what was inside.
The door was flimsy and flew open with one kick. I hadn’t expected that. Unbalanced, I followed my foot through into the room, only stopping when my momentum ran out a few paces later.
The office I found myself in was as dark and as cold as the grave. My breath rolled away in little clouds, before being lost to the blackness. From out in the corridor, the flickering light spat blurry shadows on to the wall, but otherwise did nothing to brighten the gloom.
I felt for the light switch, not holding out much hope. To my surprise, two wall-mounted lamps came on, chasing the darkness from the room. The light didn’t make the place feel any warmer, though, and I felt myself shiver as I stepped further in and looked around.
The room was in a better state than the others. Everything in it was just as wrecked, but it looked as if someone had tried to tidy some of the debris up, or at least sweep it into a pile at the back of the room.
The window was barricaded, just as all the others had been. Over in one corner, a desk lay on its side. It had been pushed right into the corner, so its four legs were pressed against one wall. Within the little square space between the desktop and the skirting board lay a crumpled hospital blanket. It must’ve once been white, but now it was a dark rainbow of dirty stains.
There was a lump about the size of a football beneath one corner of the blanket. I watched it for a while to make sure it wasn’t moving, then gave it a prod with the point of the snooker cue to be doubly certain.
Satisfied that whatever was under there wasn’t alive, I hooked the cue tip beneath the blanket and flicked it away. A small bundle of packets and boxes was revealed. I squatted down to examine them.
There was a bag of cashew nuts, half empty, and two packets of crisps, both unopened. Beneath them was a bashed box of expensive chocolates. The top layer was empty, but there were still three pieces left in the bottom tray.
My stomach gave a growl, urging me to get stuck in. I realised I couldn’t remember when I’d last eaten. Had it been that meal I’d picked at in Marion’s kitchen? How long ago was that? One day? Two? Suddenly I felt very hungry.
I popped one of the chocolates in my mouth.
Then spat it back out again on to the floor. Coffee Cream. I wasn’t that hungry.
A small satchel lay open and empty on the floor beside the overturned table. I took it, stuffed one of the bags of crisps inside, then slung the satchel across my chest.
The second crisp bag crackled as I opened it. A vinegary smell wafted from within and my mouth began to water. I grabbed half a dozen crisps in one go and crammed them into my mouth. They were stale, and didn’t actually taste much of anything, but I didn’t care. I chewed hungrily, spraying crumbs everywhere.
The second handful of crisps was out of the bag before I’d swallowed the first one. I chewed faster. My stomach ached sharply as the full force of my hunger made itself known. Gulping the crisps down, I raised the next load to my mouth.
A sound from the doorway made me stop. I opened my hand, letting the crisps fall. Holding the snooker cue like a fighting staff, I spun round.
A boy stood in the corridor, just beyond the door. But not just a boy. The boy. The boy from the photograph.
He was small, but the way he was hunched over made him look even smaller. His face was caked with dirt, with two tracks of clean leading from his eyes and down his cheeks.
His eyes were a strange shade of silvery-grey, like none I’d ever seen before. They were locked on me, full of tears and panic and distrust.
‘Hey,’ I said, stepping forward.
He set off like a greyhound, vanishing from the doorway and fleeing in the direction of the T-junction.
‘Wait,’ I cried, racing from the room, ‘I won’t hurt you!’
I caught hold of the doorframe and swung out into the corridor. The boy was already out of sight. My feet clattered on lino and splashed through puddles as I raced towards the junction where this corridor met the next one. It was only a few metres away, and I reached it in time to see a set of double doors swing closed along the corridor on my right.
To get to Ward 13 I had to go left. The map told me to go left, the cure was somewhere to the left.
But I went right, bounding along the ruined corridor and hurling myself through the swing doors before common sense or reason had a chance to change my mind.
The doors opened on to a much wider room. It was seven or eight times the width of the corridor, and more or less square. It was in much the same condition as the other bits of the hospital I’d seen. Peeling paint, crumbled brickwork, filthy floors. A single bare light bulb lit the room with a dull, murky glow.
Twenty or so chairs lay scattered across the floor, their blue padded upholstery torn, their tubular metal frames buckled. I guessed this must have once been a waiting room. Now it was something else.
Six metal tubes stood in two rows of three in the centre of the room. They were about the thickness of a post box and nearly twice as tall. The metal was a dull grey, held together wit
h rivets and pitted with rust. A handle near the top suggested there was a hatch there, but I couldn’t say for sure.
‘Hey... boy,’ I whispered. ‘You in here?’
The creaking of the doors swinging back into place behind me was the only reply.
The cue slipped in my suddenly sweaty hands. I wiped each palm on my jeans, then gripped the stick again. Holding the pointy end in front of me like a bayonet, I slowly advanced towards the tubes.
As I drew closer, I realised I was looking at the back of the three closest tubes. I could see the other three through the gaps. The front of each one looked to be made of glass.
I stepped into the gap between the two rows and looked the tubes up and down. All six of them had been put together the same way – metal at the back, glass at the front. Three thick steel bands were wrapped round each one at the top, middle and bottom, keeping it all together.
Years of dust and grime clung to the glass. I leaned the snooker cue against the side of one tube, then wiped a patch of the dirt away with my sleeve. The glass was a mess of scratches. They criss-crossed the surface, making it cloudy and hard to see through.
Cupping my hands round my eyes, I peered inside. The tube was filled with some sort of gloopy orange liquid. Bubbles hung suspended in it, frozen in place like fossils.
There was something else in there too, floating near the middle of the tank. A dark shape, surrounded by the goo. I wiped more of the grime away to try to get a better look.
‘No!’
The word came out of my mouth on its own, loud and sharp. My shaking hands fumbled for the snooker cue. I held it up in front of me, not as a weapon but as a barrier, as if I could somehow hide behind it and block out what I’d seen.
The thing in the tube didn’t move. It just hung there, its little eyes closed. One stubby hand dangled by its side. The other was up by its face, a tiny thumb nestled between its cold blue lips.
It was a baby. A dead baby.
At least, the top half was. The bottom half...
Well, that was something else.
Chapter Six
THE THING IN THE TUBE
Below its waist, the baby was a tangle of fat, grey tentacles. They were coiled in knots, each one loosely wrapped round the others.
I turned away and doubled over. The handful of crisps I’d eaten landed with a faint splat on the filthy floor.
The glass of the five other tubes was just as dirty, and – mercifully – just as difficult to see through. I didn’t want to know what floated within them. I hoped I’d never know.
But I’d seen the baby, and I knew I had to look at it again. I had to figure out what I was dealing with, who I was dealing with. What kind of person could do something like that to an infant?
Joseph’s words came back to me. There was someone in here worse than the other monsters I’d encountered. I’d found it difficult to believe. Now I wasn’t so sure.
I forced my eyes down past the baby’s waist. Even through the orange goo, the tentacles looked glossy and slimy. One of them – the one that was less tangled than the others – dangled about thirty centimetres down the tube. Uncoiled, I guessed it would stretch to over half a metre in length.
The tentacles were mostly grey, but with a thin white strip running along their whole length. Little suction cups sprouted from this white part, too small and too numerous to count.
Only the low-hanging tentacle had its tip exposed. It bulged at the end, before flattening out to a narrow point. There was something protruding from the end too. I wiped more dirt from the glass and leaned in for a closer look.
A dark red claw poked out from the end of the tentacle. It was small – about the size of the baby’s other fingernails – and hard to spot through the orange gloop. I’d assumed the tentacles had been taken from an octopus, but they didn’t have claws, did they? So what could it—
‘Whoa.’
I stepped back quickly, keeping my eyes on that one tentacle. Had it... Had it moved? No, that was impossible.
My heart was racing again. Boom-boom. Boom-boom. I watched the tentacle. Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. No movement.
Forty seconds. A minute. Nothing. Slowly, gradually, my pulse began to slow. My imagination. Or a trick of the light. That was all. The tentacle couldn’t have moved. It was impossible.
After steadying my breathing, I stood up, raised my head and looked at the baby.
And the baby looked back.
It blinked a few times, trying in vain to clear the gunk from its eyes. The baby’s thumb was still in its mouth, its index finger hooked over its little button nose. The fingers on the other hand were moving gently back and forth, curling in towards the palm, then opening wide again.
Below its waist, the tentacles rolled and heaved, as they tried to untangle themselves. I tried not to look, forced myself to keep my gaze focused on the part of the child that still looked human.
Despite my fear, I stepped closer to the glass. The baby watched me, still trying to blink away the orange sludge. It shouldn’t be alive, I knew that. The liquid in the tank should have filled its lungs, drowning it instantly. It should have been dead, yet there it was, somehow clinging to life.
Instinctively, I raised my right hand and pressed it against the glass, fingers splayed. The baby looked from my face to my hand and back again half a dozen times. I kept my palm pressed against the smooth, cold surface of the glass, and gave the child what I hoped would be an encouraging smile.
It eventually took the hint. The hand that hung by its side moved upwards through the gloop, pushing marble-sized bubbles aside as it raised to the glass. Tiny fingers, no longer than matchsticks, brushed against the scratched pane.
With our hands pressed on opposite sides of the window, I was able to work out how thick the glass was. The gap between the baby’s palm and mine was nine or ten centimetres, meaning this was some seriously strong glass. It would take a lot to break it and free the baby. Judging by the scratches across the surface of the pane, I wouldn’t be the first person to try to...
To try to...
I realised my mistake. Deep scrapes furrowed the glass, yes, but the surface beneath my hand was perfectly smooth. The scratches weren’t on the outside.
They were on the inside.
A burst of gloopy bubbles erupted from the baby’s nose and mouth. Its eyebrows pushed its face down into an angry scowl. Beneath its bulging belly, the tentacles uncoiled like whips. There were twelve of them, all different lengths, but with the same hooked claw extending from the tip.
I stumbled backwards as all twelve tentacles stabbed at me. The baby’s pudgy features twisted in rage. It slammed its monstrous legs against the glass, again and again, the claws carving deep trenches in the pockmarked surface. It thrashed wildly around in the goo, both hands now hammering the window, its darkening eyes fixed on my throat.
KERAACK!
The baby stopped, startled by the sudden appearance of the line that now ran in a zig-zag pattern across the glass. Even as I backed further away, though, it renewed its attack on the window, concentrating all its efforts on the rapidly widening crack.
My back bumped against something solid. I turned, stifling a scream, and swung wildly with the snooker cue. It splintered against the side of another of the tubes, leaving me holding a few centimetres of jagged wood in my vibrating hands.
Within the tube, a dark, hulking shape threw itself towards the glass. Something fat and pink, like an enormous tongue, pressed flat against the pane and began to squirm, searching for a way through.
I pulled away and looked along at the other tubes. Things stirred inside all of them. Muffled howls and screams came at me from within each one, frantic and frenzied and very, very angry.
They reminded me of the things I’d heard outside, but they were in here, now, with me. And my only weapon lay in pieces at my feet.
There was a small, sharp tinkling sound, like the noise a light bulb makes when it smashes. I turned to see one o
f the baby’s tentacles wriggling through a hole in the tube. Orange slime oozed down the front of the glass and down on to the floor. Inside its prison, the baby writhed furiously, trying to force its way through the glass. Trying to get free. Trying to get at me.
KRRICK.
The glass in another tube began to crack, like an egg hatching open. I risked one last look at the baby. There was nothing human in its face now, just raw, savage rage.
I dropped the sliver of snooker cue I was holding. It was useless to me now. I was running before it hit the ground, dodging and scrabbling over fallen chairs, rushing to reach the doors before any of the tubes crashed wide open.
I was through the double doors and halfway along the corridor before I realised I’d come the wrong way. My plan was to go back the way I’d come, back in the direction of Ward 13, but in my panic I’d picked the wrong door.
This corridor was as filthy and ruined as the others, and it wasn’t until I spotted the L-shaped bend up ahead that I realised my mistake. The layout was all wrong. I should’ve been passing a T-junction that led off to the way I’d come in, not racing towards a 90-degree bend leading to God-knew-where.
But I kept running, my feet clattering on the lino and splashing through the puddles. I wanted to stop, to look at the map and figure out where I was, but my legs were moving on their own, powering me on, putting as much distance between me and the things in those tubes as possible.
They didn’t slow as I reached the corner. I slid on the slick surface of the lino and thudded, shoulder-first, against the wall. Damp plaster rained down on the spot where I’d been standing, but I was already on the move again.
The corridor split in two directions up ahead. I didn’t stop to think, just let my legs choose a route and followed their lead. For several minutes I ran like that, racing along straights and sliding round corners. I struggled to force the images of the baby and the tubes from my mind, to wipe them away. I was so focused on trying to forget them that I didn’t hear the footsteps approaching until it was too late.
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