I kept my hands on the desk, but turned to look over at I.C. He was still lying on the bed, eyes wide with fright.
‘Hands on the wall,’ I told him. The door was hit from the other side. Hard. I pushed back. ‘Get up, hands on the wall, quick.’
The desk slid sharply towards me. The door opened a crack, enough for me to catch sight of a porter’s arm, then it slammed shut again as my toes found purchase on the wooden floor.
The mattress springs creaked as I.C. stood up.
‘You may as well open up, kiddiewinkles,’ said Doc soothingly. ‘Perhaps I will show mercy if you do, yes?’ He laughed again, a laugh that said mercy didn’t feature anywhere in his plans.
‘Hands on the wall, I.C.,’ I said again. ‘Do it. Now!’
‘OK,’ he said weakly. He pressed his palms back into position. ‘Done it.’
‘Keep them there,’ I commanded. ‘One elephant. Two elephant. Three elephant.’
CRACK!
The doorframe splintered under the force of another blow. It took everything I had to hold the desk steady.
‘They’re going to get in!’ I.C. was shaking, almost overcome by panic, but he was keeping his hands on the wall.
‘Four elephant. Five elephant. Six elephant. Se—’
The next blow drove me back and forced the door open far enough for a thin arm to reach through. The porter’s hand clawed at the air just a few centimetres in front of my face, forcing me to lean back out of reach.
I shoved the desk back, trapping the arm between the door and the frame. The porter squealed, but kept grabbing for me.
‘Eight elephant.’
Another blow threw the door almost halfway open. Doc’s laughter was suddenly in the room, before another mammoth push from me slammed the door over.
I.C. was a wreck. Barely able to stand on his shaking legs, but somehow managing to keep contact with the wall. He was silent-sobbing again, tears and snot slicking his face.
‘Nine elephant!’ I was shouting now, trying to make myself heard above the thud-thud-thudding of the porter at the door.
‘If you go down to the woods today, you’d better not go alone...’ sang Doc. The tune was hard to make out above the sound of his own laughter.
‘Shut up, shut up, shut up!’ screamed the boy at the wall.
‘TEN ELEPHANT!’
A final powerful blow slammed the desk against me, sending me stumbling backwards into the room. At the same time, I.C. let out a deafening squeal of terror.
I scrambled up, making for the desk, but realising at once that I was too late. The door was pushing further open, shoving the table out of the way. Seconds. We had seconds before they were through. Doc’s cackle taunted me through the widening gap. ‘Today’s the day the teddy bears have their piiiiicnic.’
I skidded round to face I.C., ready to defend him to the last. What I saw made me stop.
He was shivering, his hands still pressed against the wall, great clouds of white mist billowing from his mouth and nostrils.
A cross-hatch pattern of frost was spreading out from where his hands met the wall. It swirled up, curving across the paintwork to the right, then down again in a swoosh. None of the rest of the wall was frosting over, and I guessed the sticky liquid my fingers had found was something to do with it.
Just as the pattern of frost looked about to touch the floor, it turned upwards and climbed vertically to the ceiling. It finished in an arrowhead, pointing towards a ceiling tile.
I was up on the bed just before the desk was fully pushed aside and the door flew all the way open. A single porter stood in the doorway, its skinny body ravaged by its battle with the hungry things. The other one, I assumed, had suffered an even worse fate.
It lurched in, dragging one lame leg behind it. Doc followed, his narrow eyes darting from I.C. to the arrow, then up to me. He pushed his glasses up, as if seeing the room more clearly would help it make more sense.
I stepped off the bed and up on to one of the few bits of machinery in the room. It was a trolley with an old-style monitor on top – a giant of a thing that was longer from back to front than it was across the screen.
The monitor’s plastic casing gave a crack as I stood on it, balancing on one foot. With one hand I pushed the ceiling tile aside. With the other I felt round the edge, until my hands found something small and plastic and I pulled it down into the light.
The syringe looked perfectly ordinary, like the one I’d plunged into the porter’s chest. Its contents were almost clear, but with a faint coppery sheen. A short, stubby needle was fastened to it, covered over by a plastic cap.
I leapt down from the monitor, my feet slapping noisily on the floor.
‘What is that?’ Doc demanded. ‘What do you have? Give it to me!’
The porter made a wild swing for the syringe, but its wounds made it slow and I was able to dodge it easily. Backpedalling, I made it to the bed where I.C. stood, his hands still on the wall.
‘Idiot child,’ Doc seethed. ‘I vill cut you, unt I vill slice you, unt I vill display you in my Gallery for all the vurld to see!’ His accent was almost impossible to understand now. I didn’t care. I wasn’t even listening.
The plastic cap on the end of the syringe fell softly to the floor and I stabbed the needle into the crook of my arm, barely even feeling the sting. With my thumb I pushed down the plunger, and every drop of the coppery contents flowed out into my veins.
I pulled the needle free and hurled it towards the porter, who had begun to advance, dragging its leg behind it. Clambering up on to the bed, I wrapped an arm round the shivering I.C.’s shoulders. He sagged backwards, his hands slipping from the wall and his weight pressing against me. The cold was incredible. It bit at me through my jumper, stinging the skin beneath.
A tingling crept up my arm where the needle had entered, slowly at first, then picking up speed as it raced towards the centre of my chest and onward through the rest of my body.
‘Go, now, move!’ Doc barked, shoving the porter in the small of the back. ‘Get him! Subdue the real boy and bring him to me!’
For once, my fear was actually helping me, making my heart beat faster, pumping the cure round my system. I crossed my fingers, focused, then cheered as a shower of blue and white sparks flashed behind my eyes.
I pulled I.C. closer. ‘Hold on!’ I said, then I locked on to one of the sparks and concentrated until the walls began to shimmer and the room began to change around me.
‘Vot is happening?’ Doc’s voice sounded a long way away. ‘Vere are you going?’
Somewhere by my feet, someone let out a cry of shock and surprise. I looked down to see a pudgy-faced boy lying on the bed, gaping up at me, a chocolate bar halfway to his mouth.
I lifted my head and looked around the room. The beds were full of children, but they were all lost in games consoles, books, comics or TV, and only the kid in the bed I was on seemed to have noticed my sudden arrival. It would’ve been difficult for him to miss.
The decor on the ward was fresh. Well, fresher than it had been. The floor was carpeted – and not tiles, either. Real, proper carpet. The spot where Doc and the porter had stood was empty. They were nowhere to be seen.
But nor was I.C.
‘Good grief! You actually made it!’
I jumped down from the bed just as Ameena stood up from beside it. Her hands went to my face, as if she had to touch me before she could believe it was actually me. ‘I didn’t think you were ever coming back,’ she said. ‘How do you feel? You look OK. Are you feeling better? I can’t believe you’re back!’
‘Where’s the boy?’ I demanded.
‘What happened over there? How did you get—?’
‘Where’s the boy?’ I said, pulling her hands from my face and grabbing her by the shoulders.
She frowned, glanced around the room, then gestured at the beds. ‘Uh... take your pick.’
‘No, not... I was holding a boy when I leapt back. He should’ve...’
‘Didn’t see anyone,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Only kid close to you was Fat Larry there, and that’s only because you nearly stood on his face.’
‘Hey!’
‘Shut up, Larry.’ She leaned in close and whispered. ‘Can you believe I had to convince him I was his cousin so he’d tell the nurses it was OK for me to stay?’
‘He was with me. He was right with me,’ I muttered. ‘What are you doing here, anyway? How did you know this is where I’d come back?’
‘Your friend told me to wait for you. The old guy.’
‘Joseph? Joseph! Is he still here?’
Ameena shook her head. ‘Nope. Bailed when I wasn’t looking.’
Damn. I had a lot of questions for Joseph, but once again he wasn’t around to answer them.
Ameena looked me up and down. ‘So... what happened?’
‘No time,’ I told her. ‘Can’t explain now.’
‘What? Why not?’
I stepped away from her. ‘I have to go back. I have to go back for the boy.’
‘Go back, are you insane?’ She took a step closer; I stepped further away. ‘And what boy?’
‘His name’s I.C. He’s stuck there. I can’t leave him, he’s just a kid.’
‘So?’ Ameena spluttered. ‘Larry’s just a kid, and I’d abandon him in a heartbeat if it meant saving my own skin.’
‘Hey!’
‘Shut up, Larry.’
‘No, you wouldn’t,’ I said, and she didn’t bother to argue.
It took her longer than I expected, but eventually she said it. ‘Want some company?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But no. Find my mum, make sure she’s OK. Stay with her.’
‘Looked in on her earlier, but I’ll go back, if that’s what you want,’ she said. I was surprised convincing her not to come was so easy. Surprised, and maybe a bit disappointed. ‘Cops are looking for you, by the way. Got it in for you big time, by the sounds of things. Blaming you for Marion, like the old guy said.’
‘Great,’ I muttered. ‘But not my main worry. Back soon.’
‘You’d better—’
I left her voice behind in the real world as I fixed on a spark and slid back through to the Darkest Corners...
...only to be faced with an empty room. A chilly breeze rolled in via the open door. Through the door, beyond the foyer and the corridor, I heard the cackle of laughter, fading as it retreated into the main hospital building.
‘I.C., where are you?’ I called, but I got no answer.
Instead, a tall figure with long, scarred limbs stepped in from the foyer, ducking its bald head to make it through the door. The porter kept low and sucked air deep in through its snout-like nostrils, picking up my scent.
Two emotions, anger and fear, clashed together within me as the porter snuffled its way closer. They didn’t clash for long. I had promised to keep I.C. safe, and now Doc had him, and this thing had helped. Fear never stood a chance.
I grabbed the old-style monitor I’d been standing on just moments ago, and yanked the cables from behind it. The screen was heavy, and I was only just able to raise it to shoulder-height as I raced forward.
‘Sniff this,’ I growled, and I brought the screen down hard on the porter’s lowered head. As witty quips went, it was rubbish, I knew, but the glass smashed against the back of its skull, and it fell, face first, on to the hard wooden floor, with the monitor tumbling after.
I was through the foyer in an instant, running along the darkened corridor where the monsters had roamed. I raced up the ramp of rusted metal and launched myself off, hurrying towards the pool of light that spilled in from the broken door of the main building.
Hurling myself through the doorway, I skidded on a puddle of dark blood and almost lost my footing. Bodies lay scattered and splattered all over the corridor. Most of them were like nothing I’d ever seen before, but I spotted two yellow buttons among the carnage, and a long, spindly arm, severed just above the elbow.
No I.C., though, and that was all that mattered.
I stood there, surrounded by the dead, unsure of which way to go. I opted to search the Gallery first, but the faint echo of a distant squeak stopped me. The sound continued, over and over, the repetitive squeaking of a hospital trolley, getting further and further away with each moment that passed.
Doc. It had to be. Pushing I.C. along, taking him deeper into the bowels of the hospital. I raced down the corridor, headed away from the Gallery. At the junction I took the right-hand turn, the one I’d almost taken by mistake when running from the porters. My feet slapped against the rotten lino as I closed the gap between me and those squeaks.
More corridors flew by. Wards. Waiting areas. A staff canteen. I ran and dodged and leapt and weaved through them all, always closing the gap, always getting closer.
Twice, I caught Doc’s laughter booming out from a few rooms ahead. I sped up then, ignoring the fire burning in my chest, and the knots of pain in my calves and thighs.
Catching hold of a rusty exposed pipe, I used it to swing myself round a bend, gaining a few hundredths of a second. Up ahead, I saw a set of double doors flap closed. I demanded that my body go faster, and somehow squeezed more speed from my shaking legs.
Throwing the doors wide, I cannonballed through into absolute blackness. Arms out, I stumbled forward, trying to feel my way along in the dark.
‘I.C., are you in here?’
No reply came and I faltered forward, reaching blindly for a wall that might in turn lead me to a door. Before my hands found anything, though, my thighs struck the edge of a desk or table.
My vision was gradually adjusting to the gloom. I couldn’t see much, but the black was now lined with shades of grey and blue. I looked down at the table and only just made out another shape on the floor beyond it. Reaching down, I picked it up. It was a lamp. A broken lamp.
A broken lamp, with a bendy neck.
It fell from my hands and I stepped back, craning my neck up to the ceiling. I was able to make out the edges of the pipes that led towards the centre of the room. I followed them along to where they joined the metal box, followed the plastic tubes that emerged on the other side all the way to...
An empty space.
Something moved in the darkness behind me. Something big. I spun round and the smell of candy floss and toffee apples and stale, salted popcorn snagged at the back of my throat.
The shape craned its head down until it was almost level with mine. As it drew closer I could make out its pasty white skin, and its ruby-red lips, stretched into a hideous grin. Its words were low and slurred, and it spat them more than spoke.
‘You should’ve killed me when you had the chance!’
Chapter Eighteen
CLOWNING AROUND
‘W-Wobblebottom?’
A fist the size of a car tyre drove across my jaw. It was a glancing blow, only just connecting, but it snapped my head round to the right. The rest of my body followed, spinning through the dark until it found the floor.
‘Should’ve killed me! Should’ve killed me!’
The floor shook beneath two heavy, lumbering steps. I flung myself sideways, rolling out of the way just as an oversized clown shoe stamped down. The force of the impact shuddered through the room and made my bones vibrate all the way up to my skull.
I twisted, mid-roll, into the push-up position, and sprang to my feet, just as a hand swished through the air at my back. It barely brushed against me, but it was enough to send me staggering forward, my top half moving faster than my bottom, forcing my legs to pump furiously as they tried to catch up.
My hand touched the floor, steadying myself, and I was up again, but not before I snatched up the lamp. With two sharp tugs on the cable, the plug popped free of the floor socket.
Holding the cable by the plug end, I turned and swung. The metal lamp swooshed out in a wide half-circle, just as Wobblebottom began a lumbering charge.
The lamp caught him hard across the cheek, sh
attering what was left of the bulb in one of his eyes. He gave a low grunt, but didn’t slow. Desperately, I launched myself to the side, just before he came crashing through the space I had been occupying.
Too heavy to stop, he kept on thundering forward, feet pounding against the floor, carrying him towards the wall. Thinking fast, I tore the cable away from the buckled base of the lamp, then wrapped an end round each hand.
He hit the wall headfirst, rebounded and staggered backwards. I held the wire taut, knowing what I was about to do was utter madness, but panicking too much to come up with any less suicidal ideas.
I ran at Wobblebottom, darting up his back, using his ankle, then his hips as makeshift steps. Flinging myself into the air, I brought the cable down over his head and round his throat, then pulled it tight.
It didn’t dig in against his flesh as I’d expected, but scraped across a throat that might as well have been made of stone. I hung on regardless, hoping I was still cutting off his air supply, and that he’d soon drop to the floor.
I was still dangling there on his back when he slowly turned round. I was so fixed on the danger in front of me that I forgot to consider the possibility of danger from any other direction. All that changed when the clown lunged backwards, jamming me between him and the wall.
My hands lost their grip on the cable as he stepped forward. I slid down his back, landing in a heap on the floor. My ears were ringing and my lungs seemed to have stopped working, but at least none of my bones felt broken.
But I was in no condition to fight. I scrabbled forward through the dark, managing to get clear of the clown before he’d even turned round. I found the desk and tucked myself underneath, body pressed to the floor. My eyes continued to adapt to the lack of light, allowing me a clearer look at Wobblebottom.
He didn’t look like a clown so much as a nightmare about a clown. He still wore the purple satin outfit with green polka dots, only now it was far too small for his grotesquely mutated frame. It hung in torn rags round his shoulders and his waist, most of the fabric now lost to bulging, bone-white muscle.
One of the plastic tubes Doc had used to pump in his chemicals hung limply from the clown’s left arm. Those chemicals, I guessed, were responsible for changing Wobblebottom into his current state.
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