Doc Mortis (8 page)

THUD!

The doorframe shuddered. The boy stepped behind me, and both of us took a pace backwards.

CRACK!

The third blow split the wood up near the top of the door, where a rusty hinge held it in place. We retreated right to the back of the little room, the blanket tangling round our feet.

‘They're coming in,' I said, my voice shaking. ‘The door's not going to hold.'

With a swipe of his leg, I.C. kicked away the stack of cardboard boxes, revealing a dark, narrow hole in the wall. It was perfectly square, a few centimetres above the floor, and looked to be just about large enough for me to crawl through.

CRACK!

‘You've got an escape route?'

The boy nodded sharply. ‘Every hideout needs one. Toby told me that.'

‘Go!' I urged, shoving him towards the hole. A series of hollow, metallic
booms
reverberated around the room as I.C. clambered into the air duct.

‘Now you,' he called, his voice already sounding distant.

Dropping to my knees, I scrambled into the crawl-space, just as the wood splintered, and the door swung inward with a final deafening
CRASH.

Chapter Eleven
A TASTE OF HIS OWN MEDICINE

T
he thin metal floor of the air duct sagged as I crawled inside. Cold air – colder, even, than the air in the freezing store cupboard we'd just left – swept towards me, ruffling my hair and making it difficult to keep my eyes open.

Not that my eyes were of much use. Just a few metres into the vent, the darkness began to tighten around me, and I.C. became nothing more than a vague moving shape up ahead.

Once again, his size helped him. He raced along the duct, the sounds of his hands and knees on the floor becoming further away with each passing moment.

I was too big to be able to crawl on my knees. Instead, I lay flat, dragging myself along, commando-style, with my elbows. I kicked out with my feet, trying to give myself some extra speed, but my toes slipped on the cold steel, and I had to leave it to my arms to do all the work.

The duct was filthy, the metal ragged in places. It tore through my clothes and ripped at my skin as I hauled myself onwards into the beckoning dark.

I must've travelled eight or nine metres before I dared look back. The entrance to the crawl-space was a rectangle of light, with nothing to be seen but the wall directly across from the opening.

I.C. crawled on at top speed, the crashing of his movements becoming ever more distant as he left me behind. I stopped, my muscles already cramping painfully, my breath already rasping in my chest. I didn't take my eyes off the rectangle of wall, waiting for something to appear, but praying that nothing did.

I stretched my arms out, trying to ease the cramp that burned my muscles from the inside out.

Five seconds passed. Seven. Ten. Nothing moved in I.C.'s hideout. I couldn't hear the boy himself now. Maybe he'd stopped, or maybe he was just too far away for me to hear him. I'd find out soon enough. The pain in my arms had eased and I prepared to move again.

Then I saw it, the vague blur of a shadow on the wall inside the store room. My limbs became rigid. My splayed fingers gripped the floor.

Another few seconds passed in silence, before four long, scarred fingers wrapped round the edge of the rectangular hole. A head ducked slowly down into view. Most of its features were lost to silhouette, but the light picked out the edge of a dirty yellow button stitched over an eye socket, and the mass of scar tissue across his bald head. A tingling heat crept up from my toes, finishing in my chest and making my heart contract and my lungs swell.

Stupid. Stupid
. I turned away, cursing myself, and scrambled along the duct as fast as my aching arms could pull me. I shouldn't have stopped, should've kept going, kept moving, kept crawling.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Every movement I made along the metal passageway boomed like thunder. It drowned out the sound of the thing behind me, making it impossible to tell how close it was.

It was thinner than me, much thinner,
impossibly
thinner. It'd move faster than I could. It could be right behind me even now. It'd be on me at any moment.

I threw another glance over my shoulder, not stopping this time. The porter was just inside the mouth of the duct, its long arms and legs folded tightly round it, its hands and feet pressed against the metal walls so it was suspended above the floor.

Like a spider it scuttled towards me, covering the first metre in half a second. It moved with the same jerkiness as before, but it was less obvious here, less pronounced, as if crawling came more naturally to it than walking.

I wish I could have said the same. My arms were aching, my legs were bleeding, and my back was killing me as I dragged myself on through the void. I nearly called out to I.C., but stopped myself just in time. It was my scent the porter had, not his. It was me the monster was hunting, not him. If I kept my mouth shut, the boy might be able to escape, if he hadn't already.

The duct gave a loud, hollow
boom
when my head thudded against another wall. It was directly in front of me, blocking the way. I reached out in the dark, running my hands over the cold metal. A spasm of terror jerked through me. Dead end. It was a dead end!

Thuk-thuk-thuk.

Now that I'd stopped moving, I could hear the porter's splayed fingers pulling it along the duct. It moved quietly, almost silently, as it hurried to close the gap between us.

Thuk-thuk-thuk.

It couldn't be a dead end. It couldn't be. If it was a dead end then I'd have found I.C. here too. He wasn't, which meant there had to be a way past. I just had to find it.

Thuk-thuk-thuk.

The duct was shaking beneath me, vibrating as the porter scurried along it. I slid my hands along the walls by my sides, starting by my ribs and moving up past my head. My left hand slid all the way to the wall that blocked the way. My right hand slipped off into empty space. It was a corner, that was all! A turn in the duct.

Thuk-thuk-thuk
.

I pulled with my right hand, pushed with my left, kicked with my legs and squirmed my way round the bend, the duct rattling and quaking around me.

The porter lunged. I didn't hear it move, just felt the grip on my right ankle before I could pull it round the corner. My hands
squealed
on the metal floor as I was dragged backwards. I reached down, grabbing for the monster's hand, but the narrow walls stopped me bending far enough.

It hauled me until my whole bottom half was back round the corner. I wedged my arms against the walls, trying to stop myself being pulled any further. The grip tightened round my leg, until it felt like my bones would be crushed to powder. I cried out in pain and brought my left foot sharply down. It crunched against some part of it – its arm, I think, but maybe its head – and it made a sound that was part hiss, part whistle, like the boiling of an old-fashioned kettle.

Its grip relaxed and I kicked again. This time it was barely a glancing blow, but its hand uncoiled from my right leg and made a grab for the left. I was too quick, and scrambled round the corner before it could catch hold of me again.

I fumbled forward, kicking furiously against the wall. Less than a metre along I felt the floor fall away into a steep downward curve. I crawled on, pulling myself on to the incline and finding it coated with a layer of frost.

The ice made the metal slippery, and I quickly lost my grip. Raising my arms and feet, I surrendered to it, and began a rapid slide down towards whatever might be lurking in the darkness ahead.

In the sudden silence, I could hear the porter manoeuvring round the corner. The duct shook as, with a resounding
boom
, its grip slipped on the frost-coated walls and it crashed to the floor. Or maybe it'd dropped down on purpose, because a moment later I heard the soft
swish
of it sliding after me.

The further down the slope I went, the colder the air became. The front of my body, from my chest to my knees, was soaking and numb. When I breathed in, my lungs burned with the chill. Something up ahead was radiating cold, and I was beginning to wonder if freezing to death might be just as bad as whatever Doc would do to me if the porter caught me.

Then I remembered the scalpel, the drill and the rusty hook, and the cold didn't seem quite so bad after all.

A spray of light flashed across the floor of the duct half a dozen metres ahead of me. The sudden glow was disorientating, but the half-second it lasted was enough for me to see the slope was about to come to an end.

I braced myself, determined to start crawling the moment I stopped sliding. The light flashed again, right ahead of me this time. Through the slatted bars of a rusty vent I caught a glimpse of a room below me. I hit the vent hard and metal began to
screech
. Then I was in darkness again, and the floor was opening up to swallow me.

I opened my mouth to cry out, but the ground hit me hard, turning the shout into a whimper. A fluorescent light blinked twice,
flash, flash
, like lightning. I saw snatches of the room: filth on the floor, blood on the walls, an operating table adorned with leather straps.

The light flickered again and I saw the dark hole in the air duct by the ceiling above me, its metal edges buckled and torn.

When the light flashed again, the hole was no longer empty. The porter's head and shoulders spilled over the edge, one long arm reaching into the room.

I rolled to the side, wincing when something sharp scraped across my back. The rusty air vent that had collapsed and pulled me down into the room was beneath me. I stood up and grabbed for it. It was metal, but light enough to swing. Parts of the edges where the metal had torn were razor sharp. It'd be a much better weapon than the snooker cue had been. But then, that wasn't saying much.

Another flash brightened the room. In that half-second of light I saw that the hole above my head was empty once more. Behind me, something dropped softly to the floor.

I twisted, bringing the vent cover round in a wide arc. It
whummed
through the air, but found nothing. Thrown off balance, I staggered forward, only stopping when I thumped against the side of the operating table.

More fluorescent lightning danced across the room. The porter was crouched on the table in front of me, perched on his toes, legs bent, knees up round his deformed ears.

A single yellow button stared out from one eye socket. In the other socket, the button was a dark purple and shaped like a flower. The snout-like nose and circular mouth were similar, but this wasn't the same porter that Doc had set loose on me. This wasn't the one who'd taken my scent.

I realised this without any flicker of emotion. It didn't matter that this wasn't the same one. It was here for the same thing.

The darkness engulfed us again and I heard the rustle of its clothing. Stepping back, I held the metal grate in front of me. He slammed against it with the force of a charging bull. Even if I'd had time to brace myself, I'd have struggled to stay on my feet. Like that, without any kind of warning, I crashed backwards to the floor right away.

I clutched the vent tighter until the ragged edges threatened to slice through my palms. I'd expected the porter to leap on top of me the moment I fell, but he hadn't. For the first time, I was grateful for the darkness. I couldn't see him, but that meant that he couldn't see me either...

Flash
.

The light flickered and he saw me. At the same time I saw the hypodermic needle poking through the bars of the vent, just a few centimetres from my face. A bead of bluey-brown liquid hung like a tear drop from its point. It must've tried to stab me with it, but the bars had been too narrow for it to fit through.

The porter bounded towards me, its freakishly long legs covering the gap in a single stride. It dived, mouth open, arms outstretched, reaching for the syringe. I flipped the vent, turning it over in my hands so the side that had been facing me was now facing him.

It screeched as the needle pierced its skin, right in the centre of its stomach. Its weight pressed down on me, squashing the plastic syringe between us, forcing every drop of the liquid up through the needle and into its bloodstream.

The effect was instantaneous. Its body went limp and its head lolled down over the edge of the vent. Unconscious, or paralysed, or whatever it was, it somehow felt much heavier, and I had a struggle on my hands to get out from beneath it.

When I did crawl free, I stood up and gave it a kick to see if it would move. It didn't, but that didn't stop me kicking it again, just to be sure.

‘Whoa, you beat one!'

I looked up at the sound, but saw nothing in the dark. ‘I.C.? Is that you?'

‘No one's ever beat one. Never ever.'

‘Where'd you go?' I asked him.

‘Ran away, super-fast.' He made a sound like a racing car whizzing by. ‘
Neeeeee
-ow
!
'

The air duct groaned as the boy shifted his weight, and a breath of cold air rolled down from within it. When I.C. spoke again, he was standing beside me.

‘I'm fast, but I'm not tough. Not tough like you.'

‘How long were you there for?' I asked him. ‘How much did you see?'

‘Lots!' he chirped. ‘You were ace! One thing I want to know, though.'

‘What's that?'

The light crackled to life again. I.C. turned on the spot. I followed his finger as he raised it in the direction of a second operating table, right at the far end of the room. On top of the table, straps and buckles held the hulking frame of a man securely in place.

‘Who's
that
guy?' asked I.C.

And, like that, the bottom dropped out of my world.

Chapter Twelve
FRIENDS REUNITED

I
didn't approach the table. Not right then. Not right away. I walked sideways instead, like a crab, until I was by the door. The light had fizzled out and it was dark again, but I needed the light. I needed the light so I could find out if I'd really just seen what I thought I had.

There were eight switches on the panel beside the door. I clicked them all. None of the overhead lights came on, but above the second operating table, a spotlight lit up like a supernova, making the patient beneath it jolt in shock. The beam of the light was aimed down, and too narrow to illuminate the rest of the theatre, but it at least took some of the edge off the gloom.

‘I.C., come here,' I said, not looking at him. ‘Get behind me.'

The boy was quick to do as he was told. I barely even saw him move in the half-dark, and he was at my back in no time.

‘Who is he?'

‘Stay here by the door,' I told him. My gaze remained trained on the man on the table. I took a faltering step towards him. ‘If anything goes wrong, I want you to run, OK? Run and don't come back to this room.'

‘I'm scared,' he whispered.

I should've offered him some words of comfort, but none came to mind. ‘So am I,' I admitted, and I crept forward until I was just a metre or so away from the helpless man on the table.

At least, I hoped he was helpless.

My voice was a croak. It took three tries before I could make myself heard. ‘You... you're dead,' I said.

The man's dark eyes turned on me. I heard the air whistle in and out of his hooked nose. Down by his sides, hands the size of dinner plates clenched and unclenched into powerful fists.

‘You're
dead
,' I said again, more emphatically this time, as if that would somehow make it true.

He didn't answer. But then he couldn't answer. He couldn't say anything.

Not with his mouth sewn shut like that.

‘I know you're dead, because
I killed you
!'

‘Doesn't look like you did a very good job of it,' I.C. said. He stepped up to the table and pushed the end of the man's nose like a button. ‘Honk!' Tendons strained on the man's neck as he tried to pull himself free of his restraints. I.C. looked up at me and smiled, apparently no longer afraid. ‘See? Still alive.'

‘Get away from there,' I snapped, pulling him back. ‘I told you to stay beside the door!'

He looked at me. His silvery-grey eyes blinked slowly. ‘I got scared.'

I looked down at him and sighed. ‘Just... just stand over there, then, will you? And don't go poking at him again.'

‘Why? Is he your friend?' I.C. asked, as he shuffled a few steps back to where I'd pointed.

I turned my attention back to the man on the table.

The man with the big ears, dark eyes and stitched-up lips.

Mr Mumbles.

‘No,' I said quietly. ‘Not in a long time.'

I thought back to Christmas Day, just a few weeks ago, when Mr Mumbles had come back. He'd tried to kill me then, half a dozen times, maybe more. He'd choked me, drowned me, come at me with an axe, and it turned out that wasn't even the first time. He'd tried to kill me when I was younger too, but I'd blocked out the memory.

Mr Mumbles had hurt me, he'd hurt Ameena, he'd hurt my mum. He'd terrorised me. Tormented me.
Tortured
me. I thought I'd beaten him. I thought I was free of him, but I wasn't.

But here he was now, right in front of me. Strapped down. Helpless.

And at my mercy.

There was a trolley beside the table, pushed in close. Several sewing needles lay neatly lined up on top of it, big ones on the left, going down to the smallest one on the right. One of them – the largest – was oily with blood. A short length of thread was looped through the needle's eye, frayed at the end where it had been snapped off.

Another scalpel was positioned horizontally below the needles, as if it was underlining them. Below that sat a pair of long scissors, their twin blades folded together. My hand went to them and wrapped round the cool metal.

‘I.C.,' I said, ‘turn round.'

‘Why?'

I lifted the scissors, holding them to my chest. ‘Don't ask questions. Turn round.'

I could feel his eyes on the back of my head. I ignored them, concentrating on the weight of the scissors in my hands. A few seconds later, I heard him turn away.

‘Good boy. Now, whatever happens, whatever you hear, don't look.'

‘'K,' he whispered.

Through the whole conversation I had kept my eyes on Mr Mumbles, and Mr Mumbles had kept his eyes on me. He didn't react in the slightest when I spoke to him.

‘I've seen you every night since Christmas,' I said, struggling to keep my voice low. ‘Every night I dream about you. About what you did to me. I've even started seeing you when I'm awake. I actually made a copy of you. With my mind. Can you believe that?'

I leaned in close and whispered to him. His rotten-meat stench filled my nostrils. ‘I guess you left quite an impression.'

The scissors turned over and over in my hands, glinting in the beam of the spotlight. Mr Mumbles didn't make any attempt to look at them, not even when I held them up by my head, pointed end down.

‘You tried to kill me, but I killed you first,' I said. My voice was suddenly shaking and I felt a hot sting behind my eyes. I blinked it away. This was no time for tears. ‘But you don't stay dead, do you? You keep coming back. You keep coming back.'

‘I need a pee,' I.C. announced.

‘Not now, I.C.'

‘Pee time. Back soon!' he chirped.

‘Wait, don't—' I twisted at the waist. The spot where he'd stood was empty. ‘Great,' I muttered. ‘Just great.'

I turned back to Mr Mumbles. His eyes hadn't moved from me. ‘Still,' I told him, tightening my grip on the scissors, ‘at least it means we've got some time on our own.'

The direct heat from the spotlight had all but dried Mr Mumbles's eyes out. They were red and bloodshot. But he didn't blink. Not once.

The scissors shook in my grip. Despite the cold in the room, my palms were slick with sweat. ‘I'm scared,' I confessed. ‘I'm scared that you're going to keep coming back. I'm scared that you'll come after the people I care about. I'm scared that I'll never be free of you.'

My voice cracked. The scissors felt impossibly heavy. ‘And I'm scared of what I'm about to do.'

I placed the point of the scissors in the centre of his chest. I'd been so fixated on his face I'd barely noticed the rest of him, and for the first time I noticed his upper body was bare. His skin was grey, pock-marked with scar tissue. There were fifteen or more round red burn marks on his stomach. The skin was just beginning to blister round them. I could almost smell the faint tang of scorched flesh hanging in the air.

‘My dad told me I was just like him,' I said, tearing my eyes away from his wounds. ‘He said I was evil. But I'm not evil. I'm not.
You're
evil. You're the monster.

‘This... this isn't evil. This doesn't make me like you. Or like him. This is... There isn't...' My grip tightened until my knuckles were white. ‘I have to do this. I have to. If I don't, you won't leave me alone. You'll never leave me alone. I'll never be safe.'

I raised my hands above my head. The light danced along the blades of the scissors.

‘This doesn't make me evil,' I said, my voice barely a whisper. ‘It doesn't. It doesn't.'

I locked my wrists and braced my arms. My sights were fixed on the middle of his chest. There were more of the burn marks here, I realised, but older and more faded, just beginning to scab over. Unbidden, my eyes scanned his upper body, finding dozens more of the burns. They were along his ribcage, across his shoulders, up on to his tree-trunk neck, where they vanished beneath the sheen of dark blood flowing from his swollen lips.

The stitches looked tight, tighter than they'd been before. They puckered his mouth into a thin line that was already black with bruising.

I glanced along his entire body, pinned to the table like an insect. For the size of him, he suddenly looked very small.

‘No,' I hissed, shaking everything but my hatred away. I raised the scissors higher and swallowed hard. My eyes briefly met his, just long enough for me to see him give a barely noticeable nod of his head.

My mind raced back to Christmas Day, to all the times his hands had been at my throat. He'd appeared so suddenly, he'd attacked without warning. It was all I could do to stay alive. I hadn't had time to wonder why he was doing it, why he was hunting me. I'd had no idea why he was out for my blood.

But now I did. Now I knew what had shattered our “friendship” and twisted him until his hatred for me was all-consuming.

It was this place.

The Darkest Corners.

And I was the one who sent him here.

In a distant, far-off memory he'd been my friend. My best friend, my
only
friend. I outgrew him, forgot him, and he'd ended up here. He'd ended up here and they'd made him this...
thing
. They'd terrorised him, tormented him and tortured him. They'd taken my friend and they'd made him a monster.

Bile began to burn like acid at the back of my throat. My vision blurred with tears as I tightened still further my grip on the scissors.

‘I... I'm sorry,' I mumbled, and I swung the scissors down, as hard and as fast as I could.