by Nick Moseley
‘Oh dear, I was very talkative, wasn’t I?’ Bookbinder said. ‘It was probably just my subconscious brain throwing out a few random thoughts.’
‘You were quite insistent about it,’ Trev observed.
‘I was asleep,’ Bookbinder said, a note of irritation slipping into his voice. ‘I haven’t got any recollection of what I said or why I said it.’
‘Of course not,’ said Trev. ‘It’s just that people usually dream about stuff that was on their minds before they fell asleep, don’t they? The brain’s just sorting and filing it all, isn’t it? So, I was just, you know, wondering whether you’d been worrying about things here before you nodded off, or something.’
‘An inmate has been murdered, a member of staff is missing, and the prison is on lockdown,’ Bookbinder said. ‘Of course I’ve been worrying about things. I’m sure everyone here would say the same.’
‘Well yeah,’ said Trev. ‘But we aren’t all out sleepwalking, are we? I was just checking that you’re OK, that’s all. You could’ve hurt yourself, wandering about like that.’
‘I appreciate your concern,’ Bookbinder said, somewhat stiffly, ‘but I’m quite all right.’
‘Just checking, like I said.’ Trev gave the old man his most sincere-looking insincere smile. ‘You’re the only doctor we’ve got while we’re all stuck here. Don’t want you getting crocked.’
‘Several of the guards are trained first-aiders,’ Bookbinder said. ‘I’m sure we’d manage were I incapacitated.’ He stood up, pulling the blanket from his shoulders. ‘Anyway, thanks for your kindness. I’m going to go back to bed and try to get some proper sleep.’
‘I’ll walk you back,’ Trev suggested. ‘There’s a murderer on the loose, apparently.’
‘No need,’ said Bookbinder, waving a hand. ‘I think I can make it down a few empty corridors without a bodyguard.’
He headed for the door. He was almost there when Desai spoke. ‘One last thing you said,’ she began.
Bookbinder’s shoulders tensed. ‘Yes?’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ said Desai. ‘You said “It is awake”. You were quite agitated about that one. Any thoughts?’
‘None,’ said Bookbinder. He didn’t turn to look at her. ‘Now, I’m going to bed. Goodnight.’
He walked briskly out. It wasn’t quite a jog, but it was close.
‘That was interesting,’ Trev said, peeking around the doorframe to make sure Bookbinder wasn’t lurking outside to listen in.
‘He knows something about what’s going on here,’ said Desai.
‘And he doesn’t want to talk about it,’ said Trev. ‘Whatever it is, it has to go back a long way if it was a mistake by the people who built Spectre’s Rest.’
Desai folded her arms. ‘It doesn’t make sense. If there was something that old it would’ve been noticed long before now, surely?’
‘Don’t forget he said “it is awake”,’ Trev said. ‘Maybe it’s something that was set in motion in Victorian times and is only now taking effect?’
‘But what? You think it’s this wolf-creature you’ve been seeing?’
Trev almost told her that the wolf-creature wasn’t the only weird thing he’d seen, then thought better of it. He knew that she still wasn’t convinced of the thing’s existence, so adding shadow-people and moving patches of darkness into the mix probably wouldn’t be a clever move.
‘Maybe,’ he said, shrugging. ‘But I don’t see how that fits in with this place being built.’
‘Maybe it’s some sort of guardian spirit that the builders somehow bound to the prison building,’ Desai suggested.
‘Why would it turn up now, when the place is being shut down?’ Trev asked. ‘And why’s it attacking me?’
‘It might well have been what killed Corbyn, don’t forget,’ said Desai.
‘Jerry Phelps killed Corbyn,’ Trev said. ‘That seems to be the official line on that one, whatever Grace says.’
‘We won’t know for sure until he turns up,’ said Desai. She rubbed her eyes. ‘What a mess. This really wasn’t how I expected to spend my week.’
‘Me neither,’ Trev said. ‘And the annoying thing is that you can’t tell anyone where you are or what you’re doing.’ He mimed holding a phone to his ear. ‘“Hi mum, it’s me. Sorry I haven’t called, I’ve been under lockdown in a Victorian prison for supernatural beings because a vampire got murdered and a ghostly wolf has been chasing people around. Anyway, I’ve got to go because I’m being brutally murdered by some monsters in five minutes. The kind with big teeth. Love to dad. Bye.”’
Desai raised her eyebrows. ‘Still suffering the effects of that blow to the head?’
‘I think it’s more the lack of sleep that’s to blame, actually.’ Trev tugged at his bandage. ‘Do your parents know what you do? Either of them got the Sight?’
‘My parents think I’m a fitness instructor,’ said Desai. ‘I’m a bit of a disappointment to them, I think. They expected me to be a doctor or a solicitor or something.’
‘What were you doing for a living before you got your Sight?’
‘I was a fitness instructor.’
‘Right.’ Trev pulled at the stubble on his chin. ‘Anyone else in your family got the Sight?’
Desai nodded. ‘Both my paternal grandparents did. They came to Britain from India in the late fifties.’
‘Are there a lot of Sighted people in India?’
‘There are well over a billion people in India, Trev,’ said Desai patiently. ‘Sighted people are a very small proportion of that, but that still means there’s quite a few of them.’
‘Fair point,’ said Trev, acknowledging that it’d been a silly question. ‘I suppose there’s an Indian equivalent of the Custodians?’
‘Yes,’ said Desai. ‘They’re called the Custodians.’ Trev looked blank. ‘The organisation was one of the exports the East India Company brought with them. India’s Sighted people were… encouraged to join.’
‘Oh,’ said Trev. ‘You mean they were forcibly recruited?’
‘Some joined willingly,’ Desai said. ‘Those for whom the idea of joining a well-equipped and well-funded organisation was appealing. Others had to be press-ganged, pretty much.’
‘Didn’t India have its own organisation before the British arrived?’
Desai shook her head. ‘Not as such. Sighted people were exempt from the caste system. They tended to travel about, helping where they were needed. They sometimes banded together against their more dangerous enemies, but those alliances were usually short-term arrangements.’
‘Right,’ said Trev. ‘And what happened after the British left?’
‘They kept most of the structure that was already in place,’ Desai said. ‘If it ain’t broke, and all that. But there’s no formal connection to the British Custodians these days.’
‘Do they have the same kind of bad reputation with the supernatural community that we seem to have?’
‘More or less,’ Desai said. ‘If you’re the people enforcing the rules, you won’t be popular. That’s universal. It doesn’t just apply to the Custodians.’
‘True,’ said Trev. ‘Anyway, what do you think we should do about Bookbinder? Should we tell Grace what he said?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Desai. ‘My gut feeling is that Bookbinder knows something significant about what’s going on, but going to Grace with information that came from someone talking in his sleep might not be a great idea. Our credibility with her is pretty low at the moment.’
‘Thanks to me, right?’ said Trev, picking up on the unspoken implication.
‘Sorry, but yes,’ Desai said with a shrug. ‘At least until we can find something that backs up your story, anyway.’
‘I’m sure you’ll find something soon,’ Trev said, feeling a twitch of anger. ‘My corpse, probably. Would that be good enough proof that something’s after me?’
‘Let’s not have this argument again,’ said Desai. ‘Surely you understand that we have to
give Grace some concrete evidence before she’ll take notice?’
‘Yeah,’ said Trev. He forced himself to relax. ‘Yeah.’
Desai put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Look, you should go and get some sleep. We’ll try and come up with a plan of action in the morning.’
‘All right,’ said Trev. He retrieved his blanket from the sofa where Bookbinder had left it. ‘See you tomorrow.’
‘Night,’ said Desai, and they headed to their rooms.
Trev stood in the corridor and looked around. He was still at Spectre’s Rest, but everything was strangely distorted. The walls and floor didn’t line up, the ceiling was uneven, and there was nothing outside the nearest window; not even the darkness of a winter night. Nothing. An empty black void.
OK, so I’m having a dream, Trev thought. He prodded the wall with a finger. It felt quite real. He frowned. He didn’t think he’d ever had a lucid dream before, and he had no idea what he was supposed to do. Don’t these things come with instructions? he wondered.
He walked along the corridor, which wandered left and right and up and down but followed a fairly straight line. He passed other windows, all of which showed the same blank view. The corridor was deserted and silent. Trev was aware of the same deadness to the air that he’d noticed during the power cut the previous night. His footsteps sounded muffled and there was no background noise of any sort. No buzzing from the fluorescent lights, no rain or wind against the windows, no water gurgling in the pipes.
Trev wandered on. He didn’t know the layout of the prison well enough to be able to tell whether he was in a dream representation of a specific part of the building or not. Considering how skewed everything was, he doubted it. It was probably just his brain having a bit of fun building something out of his memories of the prison’s architectural features. I blame that vending-machine coffee, Trev thought. It must have hallucinogenic properties.
He came to the end of the corridor and wasn’t surprised to find himself at one of the cell block doors. It was closed, the metal surface dull with dust and patches of corrosion. Trev pulled on the handle. The door didn’t move.
‘Oh dear, it’s locked,’ Trev said. His voice sounded flat and nasal. ‘I suppose I’d better go back to dreaming about talking wombats or exploding mangoes, like usual.’
At the sound of his voice, the door creaked slowly open.
‘My brain has a flair for the needlessly dramatic, by the looks of it,’ Trev observed. ‘Well done, brain. Remind me to stop killing you with alcohol.’
He stepped through the door and into a fairly accurate representation of one of the prison’s cell blocks. Unlike Block D, which he’d been chased around earlier that day, it was well-lit. Like the dream-corridor down which he’d just walked, however, it was deserted and silent. Trev looked around. All the cell doors were open on the ground floor, though he couldn’t see anything inside the cells themselves.
Trev’s eyes returned to ground level and found the wolf-thing gazing back at him. He flinched back towards the door before remembering that he was in a dream and the creature couldn’t hurt him.
He hoped.
‘Evening,’ he said to it. ‘Welcome to my dream.’
The wolf-thing cocked its head to one side, its green eyes shining.
‘Don’t start that again,’ Trev said. ‘You were trying to kill me earlier, remember? The cutesy routine’s not very convincing any more.’
The creature’s eyes narrowed. It turned its head to stare at one of the cells, then back to Trev. He turned his head to see what it had been looking at and found that the previously empty cells were filling with shadow. As it happened the overhead lights began to dim as well.
‘What’s going on here?’ Trev asked the wolf-thing.
The creature responded by pointing its head at the cells again.
‘I’m supposed to watch?’
This time the creature gave him a look which was easily interpreted as “well, duh”.
Trev did as he was told and watched the gathering shadows. As the darkness filled each cell, it flowed out and up the cell block walls. Soon the whole room was crawling with streams of shadow which writhed and twisted before disappearing into the floor and ceiling. All the while, the overhead lights continued to slowly dim
‘I don’t understand,’ Trev said.
The wolf-thing gave him an impatient look.
‘What is that stuff?’ he asked.
The wolf-thing nodded once.
‘Right, so that’s what I need to find out?’
Another nod.
‘And once I know that, I need to find out where it’s going?’
A vigorous nod.
‘OK. Any chance that you’ll stop trying to kill me while I’m doing my research?’
The creature simply stared back at him. It was so dark now that he could only see its eyes, and even those were beginning to fade.
‘I still don’t get it,’ said Trev. ‘If you want to help, then why are you trying to kill me?’
The eyes winked out. The wolf-thing was gone, and with it the cell block. Trev was still standing but he could no longer feel the floor beneath his feet. Without that reference point he found it impossible to move, and he could do nothing as the as the darkness surged up and smothered him.
Nineteen
Trev awoke feeling just as tired, if not more. The details of the dream stayed with him, albeit in a slightly fuzzy form. He didn’t know what to make of it. The wolf-thing had attacked him in Block D, yet in his dream it had appeared to be trying to tell him something. Why had his subconscious chosen to portray the creature as friendly – if exasperated – rather than hostile? He couldn’t decide if the dream had contained some useful information or was just a sequence of random brain-farts. In the end his gnawing hunger had to be given priority and he went in search of breakfast.
The prospect of another slimy grey bacon sandwich made his stomach clench in terror, so he raided the vending machines in the common room for a bag of crisps, a chocolate bar, and a fizzy drink. With all the important food groups thus covered, he sat down at the table and watched the news on the TV while he ate. The presenters were talking about Christmas shopping and retail sales. The accompanying footage of heavily-laden people wandering up and down high streets reminded Trev that he hadn’t bought any presents yet. The way things were going, he was going to be stuck in prison over Christmas anyway. It wasn’t a very festive thought.
He finished his food and went to the bathroom to freshen up as best he could. Only having two sets of clothes was going to become a problem. He assumed the prison had to have laundry facilities somewhere but he couldn’t be bothered to go searching for them. Instead he washed his spare set of clothes in the basin and hung them on the radiator in his room to dry.
Bored, he strolled down the corridor to Desai’s room and knocked on her door. There was no response. Trev wondered whether she’d been summoned to the warden’s office or if she’d sneaked off on her own. Either way, he felt irked that she hadn’t let him know where she was going.
‘If she can wander off, then so can I,’ Trev said to himself. In truth he was getting nervous at being alone. The rooms the remaining guards were using were on a different corridor and Trev hadn’t seen another soul since getting out of bed. With a shrug he set off for the infirmary. His bandage needed changing, for one thing, and he was interested to see if Dr. Bookbinder would be any more forthcoming about the things he’d said while sleepwalking.
He took a couple of wrong turns but made it to the infirmary without falling down a disused mine-shaft or being sucked into another dimension. Bookbinder greeted him politely, but without enthusiasm. The doctor looked tired and dishevelled; Trev guessed that he’d had a few drinks to help him sleep after leaving the common room.
Bookbinder examined Trev’s wound and pronounced himself happy with its progress. He applied a fresh dressing and bandage, working with efficient speed.
‘How’re you feeling?’ Trev ask
ed once the job was done. ‘Any ill effects from last night?’
‘I’m rather worn out this morning but otherwise all right, thank you,’ Bookbinder replied.
‘I know the feeling,’ Trev said. ‘Heard any news this morning?’
‘About what?’
‘The lockdown. Still no sign of Jerry Phelps?’
‘Not as far as I know.’ Bookbinder packed away the bandages in one of the cupboards. ‘You’re best to ask Grace. The rumour mill doesn’t grind much down here.’
‘After yesterday, I don’t think there’s much point in me asking Grace anything, except possibly “in which direction would you like me to piss off?”’ Trev said.
Bookbinder smiled. ‘I see. In that case, you should probably find somewhere to keep your head down and hope this blows over.’
‘Just hope it will?’ Trev said. ‘You don’t think that’ll happen?’
‘Well, yes, of course it will,’ said Bookbinder. He sat down behind his desk and shuffled some papers while avoiding Trev’s eye.
‘You know something, don’t you?’ Trev said quietly. ‘About what’s going on here.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Bookbinder. He put the papers aside and started leafing through his desk diary.
‘Come on,’ Trev persisted. ‘Corbyn’s dead, Phelps is missing and there’s a shadow-creature trying to kill me. If you know what’s going on you should say something before someone else dies.’
‘Was there anything else?’ Bookbinder said. ‘If not, maybe you should get back to the staff quarters. I’ve got work to do.’
‘Right,’ said Trev. ‘Well, be sure to remember this conversation when I turn up on your list of post-mortem subjects, won’t you.’
A flicker of discomfort passed across Bookbinder’s face and was gone. ‘Close the door on your way out,’ he said.
Trev thought about arguing further, but the set of Bookbinder’s jaw told him there wouldn’t be much point. He left the infirmary and stomped back to the common room, muttering under his breath. When he arrived he found Desai waiting for him.