by Shaun Hutson
Harold opened his mouth to scream but no sound would come out. The pile of newspapers beside the cot had ignited with a frightening vehemence and the tongues of flame rose a full three feet into the air. The whole room was ablaze. His own bed was seething, a mass of writhing fire. Smoke, thick and noxious, filled his nostrils and finally, as a piece of burning wallpaper fell and stuck to his arm, Harold found the breath for a scream. For interminable seconds, the paper clung to his arm, searing the flesh. He tore it away to see that the skin was red and blistered. His head swam and for a second he thought he was going to faint but, as he saw the cot disappear beneath a flickering haze of fire, he spun round and dashed for the door.
His mother had heard the screams and they crashed into one another on the landing. She saw the smoke billowing from the children’s room, saw the leaping flames and she shook her head in disbelief. Pushing Harold aside, she ran into the room – into the furnace and flames which seared her flesh and set her clothes ablaze. Harold followed her back in, watching as she fought her way to the cot, reaching in to lift something which had once been her baby son. The body of Gordon was little more than a blackened shell. One arm had been completely burned off from the elbow down, the stump was still flaming. His mouth was open to reveal a blackened, tumefied tongue. The flesh looked as if it had been peeled away with red hot pincers. Through the charred flesh, white bone showed in places.
Harold’s mother screamed and clutched the baby to her. Her own hair was now ablaze, the stench filling the room. She turned, a look of agony etched on her face and she screamed something at him but he couldn’t hear through the roaring flames. As he turned to open the door a particularly violent eruption of flame exploded before him. Harold shrieked and felt one side of his face sizzling. The skin rose swiftly into blisters which immediately burst, the welts hardening as the fire stripped his flesh away as surely as if someone had thrust a blow torch at him. He felt something wet dripping from his burning cheek. Things went black as his right eye swelled under the intense heat then, in a moment of mind blowing agony, the sensitive orb seemed to bulge and burst. Blood gushed freely from the ruptured eye, turning immediately to charcoal under the ferocity of the flames. Harold clapped a hand to his face and felt the oblivion of unconciousness creeping over him but the pain kept him awake and he managed to yank open the bedroom door. The hair on his arms was singed and his veins seemed to bulge as his skin contracted. He turned to see his mother, on her hands and knees, crawling towards him, the flesh of her body apparently bubbling, lumps of it falling from calcified bones. She raised an accusing finger at him and screamed:
“You’re to blame!”
The empty box of matches lay close beside her. Her hair was burnt off and the stench of charred skin was overpowering. Smoke poured from the open window and those living nearby hurried out into the street to see what was happening. The fire-engine was called.
Harold reeled amongst the flames, screaming in agony as what remained of his face was stripped clean by the flames. But, shielding himself as best he could, he stumbled out onto the landing, throwing himself against the wall in an effort to put out the fire which still devoured his clothes. He stumbled and fell, crashing heavily to the floor.
Downstairs, someone was trying to batter down the front door.
Harold looked round.
Through the haze of pain he saw his mother, a blackened vision which seemed to have risen from the fires of hell, standing in the bedroom doorway. She had her arms outstretched, the skin like crumbling parchment. When she opened her mouth, smoke billowed forth. Her eyes were gone, they were now just black pits in a bleeding, ruined face. Bone shone through the charred skin as blisters formed then burst with rapidity. She no longer had hair just the dancing snakes of flame which topped her skull, like some kind of fiery Gorgon.
She swayed for long seconds then, as the front door was broken down, she toppled backwards into the flames.
Harold began to scream.
“Mr Pierce.”
Everything was darkness, he could feel his body shaking.
“Mr Pierce.” The tone was more forceful this time.
He could hear screams, close by, drumming in his ears.
“Harold. Wake up.”
He realized that the screams were his and, suddenly, he opened his eye and sat up, panting for breath, his body bathed in sweat. He looked round, fixing the woman in a glassy stare.
“Harold, are you all right?” she asked him.
He exhaled deeply and rubbed his eye. His hands were shaking madly, like a junkie who needs a fix. But, finally, his breathing slowed and he felt his heart returning to its usual rhythm. He looked at the woman, at her blue and white uniform, the small triangular hat which perched precariously on her head. Gradually the realization spread over him and he smiled thinly.
“I was dreaming,” he said apologetically.
The woman smiled and nodded.
“I know,” she said. “But you frightened the life out of all of us.”
He apologized once more and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He looked up to see two maroon-coated interns standing on the other side of his bed. He recognized one as Pat Leary, a big Irishman who bore a bottle scar just above his right eye.
“You all right, Harold?” he asked.
The older man nodded and swung himself onto the edge of the bed. His pyjama jacket was soaked with sweat, a dark stain running from the nape of his neck to the small of his back. He pulled it off and began searching in his locker for his clothes.
His audience left, the interns moving off towards the exit at the far end of the ward, Nurse Beaton ambling across to the bed next to Harold to wake its occupant. He was a man older than Harold, completely bald and with skin like the folds of a badly fitting jacket. In fact that was what his face reminded Harold of. Harold watched as Nurse Beaton woke the man and then took two red pills from a plastic container she held. She supported the bald man while he took the pills, wiping away the water from his chin when it spilled over his rubbery lips. He heard her ask the man if he’d swallowed them and he nodded slowly. The nurse gently lowered him back into bed and moved on.
Harold was dressed by this time. He picked up a small imitation leather shaving-bag from his locker and headed towards the toilets at the far end of the corridor. The place smelt of disinfectant, as usual, but it was a smell with which he was well acquainted after so long.
Harold Pierce had been a patient in Exham Mental Hospital since 1946. Apart from the first fourteen years of his life, the institution had been his only home. It had been his world. And, in all that time things hadn’t changed much. He’d seen scores of people, both staff and patients, come and go and now he was as much a part of the hospital as the yellow-painted walls.
He reached the toilets and selected his usual wash basin. He filled it with water and splashed his face, reaching beneath to find a towel. Slowly he straightened up, regarding the image which stared back at him from the mirror.
Harold sucked in a shaking breath. Even after all these years the sight of his own hideously scarred face repulsed him. It was a patchwork of welts and indentations, the whole thing a vivid red. The hair over his left eye was gone, as was the eye itself. A glass one now sparkled blindly in its place. His left ear was bent, minus the lobe it was in fact little more than a hole in the side of his head. One corner of his mouth was swollen, the lip turned up in a kind of obscene grin. A dark growth of flesh, what had once been a large mole, protruded from just below his left cheek bone, jutting out like the gnarled end of an incinerated tree branch. His left nostril was flared wide. What little hair remained on the left side of his head was thin and grey, a marked contrast to the thick black strands on the other side.
In fact, the right side of his face was relatively unmarked except for a slight scar on his forehead, most of the damage had been done to the left side of his body.
Harold took out his electric razor and ran it swiftly over the right cheek and b
eneath his chin. No stubble would grow on the left side.
He turned to see two interns carrying another patient from a wheel chair into one of the toilet cubicles. The old man was paralysed from the neck downwards, leaving one intern with the unsavoury task of cleaning him up when he’d finished. The old man was well into his eighties and suffered from Senile Dementia too. A common complaint amongst most of the patients at the institution.
One of the other patients, a man in his thirties who Harold knew as John, was cleaning the floor of the toilet with a mop, slopping the water everywhere in his haste.
“Careful, John,” said Phil Coot, trying to slow him down. “You’ll drown us all.”
John laughed throatily and plunged the mop back into the bucket making a monumental splash. Coot, who was senior male nurse on the ward shook his head and smiled, watching the patient merrily slopping his way across the tiled floor.
“How are you this morning, Harold?” he said as he passed.
“Very well, Mr Coot, thank you.”
Coot paused.
“You had some trouble last night?” he said.
Harold looked puzzled.
“The dream,” Coot reminded him.
“Oh yes, that.” Harold smiled thinly and raised one hand to cover the scarred side of his face but Coot reached up and gently pulled the hand away.
“The usual thing?” he asked.
Harold nodded.
“You’re not on medication any more are you?” asked the male nurse.
“No, Mr Coot.”
“This is the first time you’ve had this dream for a long time isn’t it?”
“Yes, I don’t know why. I’m sorry.”
Coot smiled.
“No need to be sorry, Harold,” he said. “Some of it is probably just tension at the thought of leaving here after so long.” He patted Harold on the shoulder. “Once you get out of here you’ll be OK. You’ll settle into your new job and forget you’ve ever seen this place.” He gestured around him, his tone turning reflective. “To tell you the truth, I shan’t be sorry when we all leave here. The place is falling down around our ears it’s so old.”
“Where are you going then?” Harold wanted to know.
“The staff and patients are being moved to a new hospital on the other side of Exham in a couple of weeks time.”
Harold nodded absently, lowering his gaze. He felt Coot touch him once more on the shoulder and then the male nurse was gone.
Harold took one last look in the minor then pulled the plug in the sink, watching as the water swirled around the hole before disappearing. It was something which never failed to fascinate him.
Back by his bed, Harold put away his razor and smoothed out the creases in his trousers with the palms of his hands. He glanced out of the nearest window and scanned the grounds. The wind of the previous night had dropped and the leaves which had fallen from the trees now lay still on the lawns below. There were already a number of patients at work with large rakes, gathering the leaves up. Two interns stood close by, smoking.
Three nurses were walking past and they paused to speak with a doctor. Harold could see that they were laughing together and he saw the doctor kiss one of them on the cheek. They all laughed again. Laughter was something which Harold didn’t hear too much of these days. He watched the little group almost enviously for long moments then turned away from the window and set about making his bed.
Finally satisfied that all was in order, he wandered off towards the staircase which would take him down a floor to the Therapy rooms.
There were already two other patients at work in the large room when Harold walked in. He inhaled deeply, enjoying the odour of the oil paint. His own easel was set up close to one of the meshed windows and he crossed to it, inspecting the canvas which he had lovingly decorated these past three weeks. The picture was a series of bright colour flashes, mainly reds and yellows. What it was no one was quite sure, not even Harold, but he swiftly hunted out a brush and some paint from the wooden cupboard nearby and set to work.
Harold looked carefully at his canvas before applying the first vivid brush stroke. It was as if he saw something in those reds and yellows, something which stirred a memory inside him. His brush hovered over the place on his palette where he squeezed a blob of orange.
Flames.
He swallowed hard. Yes, they looked like flames. The memories of his nightmare came flooding back to him and he took a step back from the canvas as if he had discovered something vile and obscene about it. Perhaps, unconsciously, he was painting that nightmare scene as it had appeared to him all those years ago. Was this his punishment? To commit his crime to canvas for eternity? He bowed his head and, with his free hand, touched the scarred side of his face. A single tear blossomed in his eye corner and rolled down his unmarked cheek. Harold wiped it away angrily. He looked up and gazed at the painting once again. The bright colours did look like flames.
He dabbed the brush into the puddle of orange paint and tentatively applied a few strokes. For some reason, he found that his hand was shaking but he persevered. Why, in the last few weeks, had the canvas never appeared to be a canopy of dancing flames, he wondered? Was it because of the nightmare? The re-kindling of memories which he thought he had at last succeeded in pushing to the back of his tortured mind? Harold could not, would not, forget that horrific night in 1946 and he had more than his scar to remind him of it.
Along the length of his arms, from elbow to wrist, long white marks showed. They were all that now remained of the near-fatal attempt he’d made to kill himself. The scars were barely visible now but he would sit and look at them sometimes remembering the day when he’d inflicted the cuts which he had hoped would bring him the welcome oblivion of death – the ultimate darkness which would rid him of the guilt that gnawed away at his mind like a hungry rat. He had locked himself in the toilet and slashed his forearms open with a piece of broken glass. He’d smashed the window in the toilet with one powerful fist and then drawn his arms back and forth across the jagged shards on the frame until his thin forearms were crimson tatters. The blood had pooled at his feet and Harold could still remember the strange feeling of serenity which had fallen over him as he’d watched his arteries and veins spewing forth their vivid red fluid. The pain had been excruciating but not as bad as the fire. The fire. That was all he could think of as he stood there that day, his arms reduced to dripping rags as he tugged them back and forth across the glass.
But two interns had battered the door down and found him. They dragged him away, one of them applying make-shift tourniquets to his arms while Harold burbled:
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
They tried to comfort him as he slid into unconsciousness, not understanding that his words were for his dead brother and mother.
Now Harold stood in the Therapy room, brush in hand, his eyes lowered. The thoughts tumbling over in his mind.
He had learned to live with the guilt. He knew it was something he would always have to bear and he accepted that. He had been responsible for the death of his brother. He knew that and it was something that would haunt him forever. There was no atonement for him, no way of releasing that guilt. It grew and festered in his mind like some kind of poisonous growth, the dreams which it brought like the discharge from a rank boil.
“Good morning, Harold.”
The voice startled him and he turned quickly, almost dropping his palette. The Occupational Therapist, Jenny Clark, stood beside him looking at his canvas. “What are you going to call your painting, Harold?” she asked.
“It looks like a fire to me,” he told her. “Can’t you see the flames?” He looked directly at her and she tried to fix her gaze on his one good eye, deliberately avoiding his burned skin. She held the questioning stare for long moments then looked back at the canvas.
Jenny smiled thinly,
“Yes, they do look like flames don’t they?” she said, softly.
They stood in silence for long
moments, both inhaling the cloying odour of the oil paint, then Harold spoke again.
“Have you ever done anything you’re ashamed of, Miss Clark?”
The question came completely out of the blue and took her by surprise. She swallowed hard, her brow furrowing slightly.
“I suppose so, Harold. Why do you ask?”
“This painting,” he told her. “I think it’s like a punishment. A reminder to me never to forget what I did to my brother. I was ashamed of that. I still am. I killed my brother, Miss Clark. I think that’s what I’m painting.”
Jenny exhaled deeply.
She was about to say something when he spoke again.
“I think it’s my way of saying sorry. Sorry for what I did.”
She was silent for a moment, her eyes searching his, straying from that wretched glass orb to the real one and then back again.
His tone suddenly lightened.
“I’ll call it ‘Fire’,” he announced. “Just ‘Fire’.”
More patients were arriving now and Jenny left Harold alone with his masterpiece in order to help the others. Soon the room was alive with activity and noise. Someone knocked over an easel but Harold ignored the clatter and continued with his painting. Finally, satisfied that it was complete, he picked up a tube of red paint and squeezed some of the sticky liquid onto his palette. He dipped his brush into it and, in thick letters at the top of the canvas, painted one word:
FIRE
Two
The road which led from Exham itself, to the larger town of Cornford twelve miles away, was flanked on both sides by wide expanses of fields. Some belonged to the handful of small farms which dotted the countryside round about, but others just sprouted weeds, they stood unwanted and untended.
The road was usually busy but, as the early morning mist cleared slowly, it was strangely devoid of the customary bustle of commuters who clogged it. The Panda car passed just three other vehicles, one of which was a large lorry carrying vegetables.