Others (30 page)

Making sure the coast was still clear, I crossed over to get a closer look at the doors. There were no handles on this side and one glance at the lock told me it was the cylinder type which, depending on the number of cylinders involved, can sometimes be the devil to bypass. Normally, I loved the challenge - I’d learned to pick locks many years ago, taught by one of Brighton’s master burglars, aware it was a knack that could serve me well in my future years as a PI (and I’d been right), and it was an art at which I’d kept practised, purchasing all manner of locks, taking them apart and reassembling them so that I fully understood their workings, obtaining and even modifying the best tools for particular types, studying the surest techniques in manuals or taking advice from my pal the burglar, spending tedious hours on all varieties and variations, at first using strong rubber bands as tension grips until becoming fast enough to maintain my own pressure. Eventually, the obsession had become a hobby, but one, I’m proud to say, I was particularly good at.

I surmised by the appearance of the lock that there were only two cylinders inside, the inner one of which had to be turned to retract the bolt holding the door closed; to do that I had to raise the different-length spring-loaded pins that prevented rotation to a universal sheer level. I was hoping there were no more than five pins within, but knew that if this was a
serious
lock, then there might be as many as seven and all would have to be lifted twice.

As before, I inserted the small tension wrench into the keyhole and applied easy pressure against the first inner cylinder, turning it in the necessary direction. Holding the tension, I pushed in the pick itself and found the furthest pin; a little jiggle and it moved upwards. That achieved, I had to go all the way down the line, raising each pin until the bolt sprang back, a painstaking process that my nervousness did not help. I was on the third pin when I heard voices again.

They were some distance off, but growing louder with each moment, coming along the main corridor from the end stairway. I broke out into a sweat, aware that I could not dash back to my previous cover with its subsidiary staircase without being seen. I worked on the lock more quickly, praying that whoever was coming might turn off into one of the rooms along the way, forcing myself to remain calm, fingers beginning to tremble. I reached what I felt sure was the last pin - the
seventh
(it
was
a serious lock), and cursed when it stuck because I’d moved it too hastily.

Oh Christ. The voices were becoming louder, the footsteps closer, and I had to go through the whole process again! Taking a deep breath and steadying my hands, I went back to the first pin. Okay, pressure on the wrench again, tickle metal and raise that pin just a little. Done. Good. Next one. Quick. But easy, take it easy. Done. Good. Next.

And so I progressed down the line, moving determinedly, each new pin doing exactly what was required of it, the voices and footsteps drawing nearer all the while. I knew, I just
knew,
they were not going to turn away, that they were going to walk right by this niche in the corridor, but I couldn’t work any faster. Without removing the implements, I ducked my head and wiped sweat that was threatening to trickle from my brow into my eye on my sleeve. I nearly lost it again on the last one and had to make myself ease the pressure. Slowly, smoothly, gently.
Feel
the metal against metal,
think
of the pin and pick as an extension of your own arm. The pin joined the sheer line and I left it there. Now back to the first one again - the whole process had to be repeated, the pins finely tuned. A soft touch, on to the next one.

The voices were almost upon me. A few more steps and I’d be in view. Jesus, this was painful. Next one. Got it. And now the last one, the trickiest of them all.

It was a man and woman approaching; I could hear their conversation plainly, something about a problem with one of the ‘crusties’ (a geriatric, I assumed), followed by a snigger. Oh shit. But I was there, the last pin, and gently, very, very gently, I lifted it. Slowly until… I was there, the pin was at sheer level with all the others. The lock sprung and I winced at the
click.

Immediately, I pushed one side of the double door open, and slipped through. I didn’t close it completely behind me -I couldn’t risk the noise - but rested the very edge against the neighbouring door so that it would appear to be shut to the casual observer. Praying that the couple were not headed this way, I pressed my ear against the wood to listen. I heard the muffled voices pass by and I let out a deep sigh of relief. Returning the tools to their pouch and that to my pocket, I looked around me.

I was in a brightly-lit area, which had a bare wood floor and partitioned rooms on either side. To my right was an open storeroom, a closed door behind which I assumed was the stairs to this level, and in the far corner the metal doors to a lift; on my left, the top half of the partitioning was framed glass, so I could see inside. It appeared to be an office of some kind, for there was a desk and filing cabinets, with stacked shelves making up the rear wall (I remembered there were no windows on that side). There was a sink, a dull-chrome electric kettle on its draining board. There was no typewriter or computer on the desk, but there was a large, open book - a desk diary, I thought - and a telephone; hanging on the wall behind were sets of keys and an intercom. Fortunately for me, it was empty of any persons.

At the far end, and directly opposite to where I stood, was another set of double doors, and it was only then that I noticed the smell coming from that direction.

As I’ve mentioned before, my sense of smell has always been acute - I can always distinguish different perfumes, even tell different blends of whisky purely by sniffing the glass - but I couldn’t even imagine what this odour comprised. Yes, with it was the familiar mix of antiseptic and stale cooking, but there was also a kind of fetor about this stench that no amount of prophylactic measures could disguise. There was the scent of corruption. Corruption and something more.

I went towards the double doors, treading warily, alert for any new sounds. In fact, there was only silence here in this part of Perfect Rest, although I sensed it was an uneasy silence. Half-way across the floor I stopped, as if frozen. I listened, I breathed in the tainted air. I waited.

And as I waited, a terrible unidentifiable conflict raged within me. I felt that everything that had come to pass - and I don’t mean just the phenomena of the past week - had led me to this point, as if
everything
that had ever happened to me was merely milestones in the journey towards this place and this moment. There was no rationale, no sense at all to it, just the overwhelming sensation that some kind of destiny awaited me here. My whole life seemed to present itself in one saturating but swift thought, the way it does, or so we’re told, when death is close at hand, everything experienced again in a brief, encapsulating flashback. Yet all experienced objectively, the memories within the instant memory there to be considered and reviewed. It was inexplicable and unaccountable, irrational and profound - it was crazy. It stopped me dead and I shivered with its immensity.

Somehow I knew that an answer was waiting for me behind those doors. The problem was, I had no idea of the question.

An inner, more cautious voice begged me to get out of there, that whatever awaited beyond was not worth the fear and anxiety, that normalcy was better than any spiritual or intellectual revelation. The clairvoyant had warned that there was danger here for me, the sly voice of reason told me, and she was right, you
knew
she was right. But something drove me forward - an intense curiosity, a sense of what was right, that old standby, instinct? I had no idea what impelled me. I quickened my step as I drew nearer to the double doors, as if momentum would help defeat the doubts.

I arrived at this portal to God-knows-what in a rush, almost slamming against it. Unlike the door whose lock I had just picked, there were horizontal handles on each side here, and I pushed down on one. The door didn’t budge.

As I reached for the leather pouch once again, another idea struck me. I went to the empty office on my left, its door already open wide, and examined the keys hanging on the board behind the desk. There were two sets, a whole group of keys on each, and one empty hook (I assumed whoever used the office had the absent set about his or her person). I snatched a ring and returned to the locked entrance.

One key belonged to a ward lock, the type used for cupboards or storage-rooms, and I disregarded it, choosing another that looked particularly suitable, and as I inserted it into the keyhole I thought I heard a noise on the other side of the door. Pressing my ear to the tight gap between doors, I listened for a few seconds, but heard nothing more. I tried to turn the key and nothing happened, so I withdrew it and pushed in the third one. I felt and heard the pins inside the lock move and the bolt snapped back. Before putting pressure on the handle to open the door, I listened.

Nothing. No sounds. Only that awful stench wafting through the narrowest of gaps between sides. I pushed open the door a fraction and the foul odour of rottenness swept over me, causing me momentarily to flinch away, almost to gag. Quickly I reached for my handkerchief and pressed it against my nose and mouth. Swallowing hard, I opened the door further and peeked in.

Inside was a long, dark room, its far end invisible in the gloom. There were a few nightlights scattered along its length, their glow too soft to illuminate much, but as my eye grew accustomed to the darkness, I was able to make out the nearest beds lined against both walls. Opening the door wide to allow in some light from behind, I saw shapes on those nearby beds, shadowy unmoving lumps. Even through the handkerchief mask, the smell was appalling.

My vision was rapidly adjusting and the extra light from outside enabled me to see that there were no windows in this room, although the wall to my right jutted inwards at regular intervals like blind, shallow chimney breasts. They puzzled me, because this wall was on the river side and I was sure I had seen windows from where I had stopped on the main road across the river. The wall on the opposite side of the long room, the one that overlooked the triangular courtyard, was also blank as would be expected, but this failed even to have projections to break up its plainness. With its cot-like beds, this place appeared to be a large dormitory; but one without windows and behind locked doors?

I stiffened when there was movement among the shadows. I could hear something shuffling from the blackness of the far end. Something moving in my direction.

I strained my eye, peering into the thick, inky gloom, even more afraid now that the unknown was about to be revealed. I was so scared that I could not even breathe.

The shuffling continued, a soft, scuffling approach, a disembodied sound until a shape began to emerge from the umbra. The dim glow from the nightlights began to give it some form and I wanted to reach for my torch so that I could throw my own light on to it, but I was mesmerized by the movement, immobilized by the fear. It appeared to be weaving slightly as it came.

Then I saw the figure was small and, as it advanced into the light cast by the open doorway behind me, I noticed it was wearing over-sized slippers. Finally, I let my breath go and stepped aside from the doorway so that I blocked none of the light coming through.

It was not only small, but frail also, unsteady as it moved, and I realized it was a child, a weak, unhealthy child. I almost smiled in both welcome and relief. But then I saw the face.

It wasn’t a child’s face, for it was wizened, deeply lined, the sickly pallid skin stained with brown liver spots that mottled its features and rose over the narrow, almost hairless skull. Whether male or female, it was too ancient and too ravaged to tell. The pale eyes that returned my gaze were watery and red-rimmed, yellowed around the pupils; and the flesh was so hollowed beneath the jutting cheekbones, the face seemed to be holed on either side of the lipless, wrinkled mouth.

The figure stopped a few feet away and the rheumy eyes studied me, seemingly without emotion. When that broken slit of a mouth opened to speak, the voice was high-pitched and raspy, and so querulous that it might have belonged to someone who was more than a hundred years old.

‘You’re here,’ it said. ‘At last, you’re here.’

33

I was in shock, couldn’t speak. And the figure just watched me.

In the periphery of my vision, other shapes stirred on the narrow beds. I heard murmurs, the rustlings of bedsheets, saw forms slowly disengaging themselves from the shadows. I took a step backwards, and the hump of my back shook the closed section of the double door.

‘Who… who are you?’ I finally managed to stammer.

‘I don’t know,’ came the rasping reply. ‘But I have a name and I have a number.’

The figure pulled at the sleeve of the loose robe it wore, a grey nightgown affair that reached to the ankles, and revealed a painfully skinny arm. I saw some blurred markings on the inner wrist and, curiosity overcoming other emotions, I took out my torch. The figure before me obliged by extending the arm towards the light.

I saw a smudged line drawn across the flesh of the wrist and as I peered closer, I realized it was a row of tiny, faded numbers. An old tattoo. A concentration camp identification tag. I felt sickened and now it was not just because of the room’s foul stench.

‘We have names for each other though,’ the figure said. ‘I’m called Joseph.’

There was more movement in the shadows behind the old man, but nothing came forward, whoever was there remained hidden.

You are the one, aren’t you?’ the man called Joseph asked, and his voice was almost pitiful in its hope.

More murmurings came from the darkness, incoherent sounds that might have risen from - I felt faint at the thought - from lunatics.

‘Please tell us,’ the little man pleaded. ‘You are the one?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, unsure of the question. ‘I’m… I’m just not sure what you mean. What is this place?’

This? This is our home.’

I thought of the door behind me that had been locked. ‘Are you being kept here against your will?’ I asked, concerned that I had broken into a dormitory full of disturbed people, perhaps patients whose senility had necessitated their confinement. I was becoming increasingly uneasy. This one, this Joseph, might appear aged and fragile, but what of the others…? I began to slide towards the open section of the door.

‘Please…’ Without moving closer the old man reached out a hand towards me. His ancient face looked appealingly at me. ‘Please…’ he said again.

A sudden noise to my left caused me to shine the torch in that direction. Its beam lit up a bed tucked away in the corner and at first I couldn’t make out the thing that lay on top. But when it moved I understood what it was and a wave of revulsion swept through me.

It was naked, naked and pale in the torchbeam. Naked and pale and huge, a great swelling from which emaciated arms and legs seemed to sprout. The woman - the long hair and pointed breasts resting atop of the mound told me it was a woman - was propped up by pillows so that she could see over the lump that at first I thought was her overblown belly, and I could see the terror in her eyes, a terror that perhaps was equal to my own. It occurred to me that she might be pregnant with some gross foetus, but I quickly realized this was no normal stretching of body flesh, for the lump was too massive and misshapen, the skin looked too hardened and was too rutted. No, this was a massive anomalous ovarian cyst, one that dominated its host body, rising from the rib cage and distending over the groin area almost to the knees. Its veins seemed to be embossed on the surface, a network of cannula-like tubes, some thick, others so fine they resembled massed cotton threads, and stiff, prickly hairs covered parts of it, springing from deep fissures in the flesh.

I stumbled back from the sight, almost falling.

We won’t harm you,’ came the ancient’s strangely distant voice again, but I was already heading for the open door. ‘Please…!’ he wailed.

And I faltered. Half-way through the door something -perhaps the heart-rending anguish in his frail voice - made me stop and turn my head.

‘Please,’ he said again, more quietly this time, but nonetheless in agonized entreaty. ‘Don’t leave us here.’

It was as if the moment for me to flee that place had come and had gone. I didn’t know why - at the
time
I didn’t know why - but I went back into the long dormitory. I turned the torch beam on the little old man called Joseph. His weary eyes blinked against the glare and I lowered the light.

‘He doesn’t allow lights,’ he said. ‘Not at night. They only switch them on from outside during the day. We’re supposed to sleep.’

Who d’you mean by he?’ I asked him, nervously looking over his shoulder at shadows moving in the darkness. ‘Is it Dr Wisbeech? Is he the one who keeps you here?’

The Doctor. Yes, the Doctor.’

Although I must have been shadowed by the light at my back, he seemed to sense my apprehension.

‘Don’t be frightened of what you see here,’ he said, but I could hear the nervousness in his own voice. ‘After all,’ he added, ‘you are like us.’

I couldn’t help but gape at this shrunken little man in his loose gown, at his almost-bald, wizened head set on narrow shoulders that sloped away from the scrawny neck, at those washed-out jaded eyes that so mournfully watched me in return.

‘I don’t know what…’ I began to say, but his thin, wavery smile interrupted me.

‘We called to you,’ he said, taking a step forward. ‘Didn’t you understand that it was us? We sent you wings. It was the only way we could hint at Momma’s name.’

‘Hildegarde Vogel?’

‘Momma. She was good to us, she was always good to us.’

Someone moaned in the blackness behind him.

‘Now she’s gone,’ Joseph said. He took another step and was no more than a yard away; yet when he spoke again, his voice sounded even closer, almost as if he were whispering into my ear. ‘You know us. I can tell. The recognition is there in your mind, if not in your vision.’

He moved even closer and a cold, dry hand wrapped itself around my wrist. I almost dropped the torch.

‘Please don’t be afraid,’ he begged quietly. ‘Not of us, not of us.’

More whispers came from the moving shadows, and then murmurings. More vague shapes began to take on form as they drew closer.

Joseph spoke. ‘You’re here to help us. Now you must understand why.’

The first of those tenebrous forms emerged into the light.

‘Learn to see with generous eyes,’ the old man told me. ‘Don’t fear us. I promise you, there is nothing to fear.’

And so I looked and could barely conceal the revulsion, could scarcely hide the fear.

For although I had already witnessed the initial horror on the bed nearby, it had not prepared me for what was to come.

When I aimed the light at the young man who lurched from the dark, I saw only an innocent face with wide, childlike eyes, the hair long and matted, the jaw small and pointed; but as I let the beam fall on to the body I gasped aloud and once more, nausea slewed around my stomach and saliva moistened my mouth. At first glance I thought he was carrying somebody, a smaller person whose head and shoulders I could not see, a body whose twisted legs hung just below its bearer’s knees. One frail arm dangled by its side.

Then I realized it had no head and there were no shoulders, for the torso emerged - the torso
came
from -the young man’s chest. The man was host to the twisted thing.

And it appeared to be alive, for it moved - it
flinched
- and the carrier, whose hands were beneath the parasite’s buttocks, hoisted the shape up as if into a more comfortable position. He held it as a brother might hold a younger sibling.

‘Oh dear God…’ I said it as a hushed breath.

‘Please…’ Joseph had stepped to my side and he squeezed my arm as if to offer comfort - and to give me strength.

Now a woman - no, it was just a girl, from the almost dainty, light-footed way she walked I could tell she was a young girl - loomed into the light. Her long dark hair hung forward around her face and even beneath the loose robe I could tell her figure was slim and, from the way she moved, it was lithe. She watched me over her fingertips, for her fine hands covered most of her face in the way young girls might hide their shyness, and her blue eyes were beautifully large and clear.

‘Cecilia…’ Joseph said to her in some secret command, or perhaps, plea.

She glanced his way, and then back at me. She took another step closer and I could not help but notice how pretty her small feet were. She lowered her hands.

Nothing had prepared me for the shock that now gripped me. I should have realized that this young girl with the slight figure and lovely hair would be imperfect in some way, for was she not kept here, apparently locked away in a covert section of the home, and hadn’t her companions already given visual testament to their condition?

As her hands slipped from her face I shuddered, but did not avert my gaze. I forced myself to look, but I could not force my legs to stop their trembling, my heart to stop its pounding.

A hideous excrescence swept down from her lower brow, a sick travesty which replaced the nose for a tusk. It was long, hard, and its colour was grey, dividing her face to reach towards and almost touch her chin. And the mouth. Oh God, the mouth. Its thin lips stretched across her face, each corner almost touching her earlobes in a wretched, demonic grin, a Joker’s grin.

Involuntarily, my hand cupped my own mouth, both in shock and to contain the rising sickness. I wanted to flee from there again and I think it was only shame that prevented me from so doing. It wasn’t their fault, they could not be blamed for their aberrations just as I could not be blamed for mine.

And as the old man gripped my arm, the parade continued, each one of these unfortunates presenting themselves to me, some having to be coaxed, others gently led from the shadows into the light, but most willing to reveal themselves. I recognized some from my dreams, my visions, while others were a new shock, something more to be witnessed, and then accepted. And I did begin to accept, for the mind has a capacity to adapt, to learn and - albeit slowly - to acknowledge. Here, one horror led to another, one malformation led to something as bad or worse, and both my sensitivity and sensibility hardened a little more at each revelation. Still they came: the three-headed boy, two of those heads set close together on broad shoulders, the third on the edge of the collarbone, hanging limp and lifeless, as though ostracized by the others; a girl I remembered having seen among the hauntings of the previous night, a tall pretty young woman, whose face was innocent, but whose upper body did not align with her hips and legs, so that she seemed almost to be walking alongside herself; yet another young female, the legs of this one huge, elephantine, beneath her robe, calves and ankles swelling enormously like overflows of grey, clotted lava; the man who slid across the floor, propelling himself with his arms because his body ended just below his chest, his genitals - or whatever physical arrangement he had for his functions - presumably tucked out of sight beneath him; the man or woman, I couldn’t tell which, whose arms sprouted other arms, whose legs sprouted other legs; the dark-skinned boy with the stunted body and a head so huge and soft it had to be held erect by a companion, the companion a woman whose face had another half-face melded into skull and flesh, so that she appeared to have three eyes, two noses, a small, twisted aperture whose lips denoted it as a mouth set askew on one cheek, while another, blistered mouth was positioned almost as normal above the jaw. They came to me like creatures from a nightmare - as, indeed, they had
first
come to me - although some still lingered in duskier parts as if afraid to let the light throw its full glow into their imperfect bodies; and I was relieved that these few last ones chose to remain hidden from me, for their shadowy outlines did not encourage closer inspection.

They stood in a semi-circle around me, these… these
grotesques
- I could think of no other word for them… and they swayed and moved in the half-light, whispering, holding on to each other for comfort. The stench from them - or was it from the room itself? - was almost as overpowering as their physical aspects, and I continued to fight the sickness that by now seemed to be welling in my chest. I watched them warily, my legs still shaking, the torch in my hand wavering, but I refused to let myself run from their presence. I don’t think it was courage that kept me there; no, it was because I had a deep-seated empathy with these poor wretches. After all, was I so different from them? Wasn’t my own appearance closer in form to theirs rather than my normal fellow man’s? Wasn’t I a freak among freaks?

In an act of bravado, defiance, or just plain curiosity, I raised the thin torch high and shone it over their heads, sweeping its narrow beam along the two rows of beds and cots behind them. It seemed that most were empty, although I could make out vague shapes here and there, which meant the majority of - inmates, internees, patients? - were standing here before me. I didn’t count, but I guessed there were at least thirty of them. All kinds of questions sprang into my mind, but I could only look speechlessly at the little old man by my side.

However, Joseph had one more to show me. Arid skeletal fingers slipped into my hand and with gentle pressure, he led me through the ill-made crowd.

The cot was like all the other beds and cots, narrow in width, iron frames with rounded corners at each end. A single sheet and a flat pillow covered it. A tiny head lay on the pillow, the rest of the body on top of the sheet. I raised the torch to see better.

My mind reeled, the room about me weaved; I heard myself utter a small, startled cry. The hand holding my own became firmer, as if to steady me.

At first I could not be sure if the thing lying on the cot was human, so hairless and veined, so small and slug-like, was its appearance. The grip on my hand tightened even more and, though he did not speak, I thought I heard Joseph’s soothing voice inside my head.
Be calm,
it said.
There is nothing to fear.
And somehow, I
was
calmed.

Even so, I had to will myself to look at the thing on the cot again.