Others (40 page)

43

The glass shattered inwards and light flooded through to the blacked-out room beyond. The hurled chair, its force absorbed by the impact, dropped out of sight.

I stared at the tiny, mummified creature strapped into the motorized invalid-chair on the other side of the broken mirror.

44

At first I thought it was a small, shrivelled ape, so incredibly wrinkled and leathery was its face. An ape dressed in a dwarf’s suit. But then I looked closer and saw that its features were human. Just. The skin was brownish in colour, rough in texture and torn and pitted in places. Long wisps of grey hair hung over its mottled scalp, their ends resting against almost visible cheekbones; the cheeks themselves were so sunken they appeared as shadowed holes (perhaps they
were
holes; I couldn’t tell from where I was standing). The eyes were little more than twisted scraps of gristle that hung loose in their sockets, the eyelids frozen half-open around them. There was not much flesh to the shrunken corpse’s nose, cartilage visible through what spoiled meat remained, and the mouth below it was long-since gone, crooked, stained teeth exposed in a permanent rictus grin.

Dominic Wisbeech, Leonard’s older-by-twenty-minutes twin brother, who in life must have been a deformed dwarf, was now nothing more than a poorly-embalmed carcass, its stunted figure attired awkwardly (not because of size or withering, but because of physical deformity) in a shirt and tie, and dusty suit, in grotesque parody of the doctor himself. From where I stood I was unable to see its feet, but I was willing to bet it was wearing an expensive pair of child’s shoes.

I almost laughed, but it would have emerged as a frightened, hysterical cackle, so I stifled it.

The dwarf-corpse was bound tightly to the motorized chair, skeletal hands resting in its lap, and the pieces of gristle-like matter that once were voyeur’s eyes seemed even now to be watching us, awaiting the rest of the performance.

‘You really are mad, aren’t you?’ I said to the doctor.

And it was Leonard Wisbeech, himself, who appeared suddenly shrunken. His noble face had paled and, beneath his carefully-trimmed beard, his lips quivered. The anguish in his eyes was almost pitiful.

‘Fucking hell,’ I heard someone, perhaps one of the film technicians, perhaps even one of Wisbeech’s own nursing staff - by their shocked reaction I suspected none of them shared the doctor’s secret - say behind me.

What’s the answer, Wisbeech?’ Although goading him, I was genuinely curious. ‘Some deep psychological desire to keep your brother alive, at least in your own mind, so that you can continue your sick games in the pretence they’re for
his
amusement? Or are you so full of guilt because you couldn’t prevent his death - you, the great researcher into physical aberrations, the distinguished doctor of so many letters you probably can’t remember them all yourself - that your mind won’t accept it? Christ, did your parents fill you with so much guilt-shit it warped your brain?’ Even now I’m not sure what the truth with Wisbeech really was and I don’t think he knew himself. Probably all aspects played their part, but I think the main factor was that Leonard K. Wisbeech was born of abnormal mind, just as his twin was born of abnormal physique. Right then, that night, in that crazy-house, I could only shake my head, not out of pity, but in disgust, and mutter: Yeah, you really are fucking mad.’

Nurse Fletcher suddenly appeared between us. “You’ve done enough damage, you little freak!’ she spat at me. Her hand snaked out and she raked my face with her fingernails.

I staggered backwards and my feet abruptly left the ground as someone grabbed me from behind. I smelled the irritating odour of his aftershave and knew it was Brace who had sneaked up behind me and was holding me there in a bear-hug, my feet dangling at least six inches off the floor. He was cursing me, thick, Stallone lips close to my ear, mumbling something about what he was going to do to me for causing him pain and squeezing me so tightly I could feel my lungs being compressed and the muscles of my upper arms squashed against my own body. I tried to kick back at him with the heels of my shoes, but he was wise to that one and stood with his legs apart, crushing and cursing me all the while. Just to add to the joy of it all, the head nurse, who would have been at home in Kesey’s Cuckoo’s Nest, ran at me and started slapping my face, the slaps soon becoming punches.

She was a strong woman, and her blows had a lot of power: my senses began to spin yet again. Events of the night, including the many shocks, were taking their toll on me and I could only struggle weakly, the tricks I’d learned about defence and attack only vague and useless recollections: my arms were pinned to my sides, I was unable to draw in air, and my head was losing awareness because of the battering it was taking. I
was
dimly aware, though, of the smell of smoke fumes vying with the stink of Brace’s aftershave and I could see blurred, orange flames across the room, eating up the velvet drapes I hazily remembered had covered the bed and wall behind, the floor itself; and I could hear distant shouts and even screams, crashing sounds and running feet. But my brain could no longer cope: none of it made any sense at all to me.

That is, until the pressure around my chest was released and I fell to the floor. A body slumped beside me, its descent slower, and when I turned my head I saw it was Bruce, the end of a glass shard from the broken mirror/window protruding from a point between his shoulder blades, dark blood bubbling from its edges like red spume. He was screaming and trying to reach the looking-glass dagger with one hand, his fingers scrabbling against his fast-staining tunic.

Other hands pulled at my arms and I rolled over to find Constance on her knees, her lips moving as if shouting something at me, something I couldn’t hear properly, not just because of the pandemonium around us, but because I was still confused, my faculties not yet quite together. I blinked at a prickling in my eye and realized it was smoke. That brought my senses tumbling over each other to get themselves organized.

Constance was wearing the grey robe and the metal walking-sticks lay next to her on the floor. Standing over me was Mary, supported by a terrified-looking Joseph, one of her hands clutching the other, blood streaming through her fingers. Her horrified gaze was on the injured orderly who writhed in agony beside me, and I realized that it was she who had rescued me by finding the glass dagger among the fragments and plunging it into Bruce’s back. She was rigid, in shock, and despite his own terror, Joseph was doing his best to comfort her, stroking her upper arm and talking quietly to her, although I doubted she could hear his words over the clamour.

Helped by Constance, I struggled to my feet and only then was I properly able to take in the mayhem around us.

The creatures, those shocking beings from the netherworld below, whose cell doors I had deliberately unlocked before leaving, had done exactly as I had hoped: they had followed after us, climbing the narrow stone steps and finding their way into the studio. I learned later that Joseph and Mary, who had remained hidden inside the storeroom, too afraid to follow me, had fled before the creatures as they had emerged from the stairway.

As they had invaded my dream, the monsters now invaded my reality, running amok in the big room, screeching, wailing, making whatever noises came naturally to them, sights that almost defied the imagination - the thing whose every square-inch of body was plagued by dripping ulcers, the disjoined abhorrence that scuttled across the floor like a human spider, the creature that slithered, one limb like a fish’s tail dragging behind it, eyes alight with madness and the reflections of flames, the girl, the
beautiful
girl with raven hair, whose open back bristled with metal clips and wires, implanted tubes, and who whirled around in some crazy dance of freedom - all those who could leave their cells unaided were here, and the nurses and orderlies and the members of the contemptible film crew backed warily away from them, just as they had backed away from me when they had become afraid of my strength, had suddenly regarded me not as a freak to be despised but as a freak to be afraid of. But the minds of these poor creatures were too far gone for them to revel even momentarily in this new sense of power: their joy - if they were capable of such emotion after years of dark and solitary confinement - was (I can only suppose) in being unleashed, no longer restrained, finally free to do what they wanted. And when their disturbed eyes fell upon Leonard Wisbeech, the person they must have known was responsible for their incarceration, was to blame for the pain they had endured all those years because of his experiments and tests, for the very misery of their wretched lives, well that was when their feeble minds began to focus as one.

As his conscienceless lackeys, grubby, debased mercenaries, ran from the chaos and spreading fire, the doctor became aware of all those crazy and hate-filled eyes upon him. He must have suddenly known exactly how Baron Frankenstein felt when his badly-stitched monster rebelled and cast his borrowed, resentful eyes about for his creator.

My eye was on him, too, and seemingly, so were those of the shrivelled husk that was his dead brother behind him. Light from the flames flickered over the little corpse, somehow giving it movement, life, lending its ghastly grin a luridness that had not been present before. It was an illusion, but still I shivered at the sight.

Wisbeech was backed up against the ridge of broken glass and as he tried to move towards the open double doors after his fast-defecting cohorts, a shape moved to block his way. Whether by accident, or perhaps these creatures were endowed with some cunning, the thing with arms like tentacles had cut off the doctor’s exit, trapping him there. Its sleek, hairless body rippled with shifting hues, the flames not reflected against the skin, but seemingly absorbed by it so that it flickered and glowed. At any other time I suppose the sight would have been fascinating, but I was too jaded by everything else I had witnessed that night, too numbed to be impressed; besides, there were other things on my mind. The fire had almost taken complete hold and flames billowed across the ceiling like inverted, sunset rapids, another awesome sight that was too dangerous to be admired for long.

‘Keep away from me?
No longer the cool-blooded sophisticate I had first met, but a very ordinary frightened man confronted by a nightmare some might say was of his own making, Wisbeech held both hands out towards the approaching escapees and shouted at - pleaded with? - them.

Some of them only grinned though, while others hastened their approach, shuffling, sliding, dragging themselves forward, their eyes - those with eyes - cruel with intent. But it seemed the doctor had one remaining ally, someone who had not bolted with the others. Nurse Fletcher, whom I’d completely forgotten in the confusion, even though she had been slapping and punching my face only moments before, suddenly appeared from nowhere. She stood protectively in front of Wisbeech, facing the oncomers with a fury that apparently no fear could subdue. Perhaps her contempt overcame any intimidation.

‘Get back,’ she ordered them in a raised, no-nonsense voice, pointing over their shoulders and talking to them as if they were children found out of their beds after lights-out. Turn around and go back to your rooms.’

It could have been comical if only they had obeyed, but I knew, just
knew,
what was going to happen. I briefly wondered, a lightning flash of thought, what kind of relationship she had with Wisbeech - surely it couldn’t just be professional, not for her to lay herself on the line like this, with the room burning around us, creatures from Hell creeping forward and looking as if ready to tear someone - particularly Wisbeech, although anyone else who got in their way would be a bonus - to pieces. Well, maybe I was wrong, maybe they only looked menacing and Nurse Fletcher knew they were pussycats really, and a firm word from her would send them scuttling back to where they belonged. Maybe, but I didn’t think so.

Neither did they.

A thing that had a beak for a nose and talons for hands rushed at her and she screamed as it slashed at her throat with one of those eagle-like claws, the sound ending in a spluttering-gurgling as blood erupted both from the wound and her mouth. She toppled backwards and the creature pounced on her, the others quickly joining it like predators upon a helpless prey. She became lost under a melee of misshapen, rummaging bodies and I started forward, knowing I couldn’t let this happen, no matter how much I despised the nurse, I couldn’t let her die in such a way.

‘No!’
Constance grabbed me and held me tight, her grip surprisingly strong. ‘You can’t help her! They’ll kill you too!’

She was right, but still I struggled to free myself. I didn’t have the strength to fight them all and by the savagery of their attack Fletcher was probably too badly injured already to be saved. Joseph joined us and began pushing me back.

They’re bad things,’ he was saying in that high, faraway voice. They’re not like us, Dis, that’s why they’re kept locked up. They aren’t human, you must believe me!’

I gave in to common sense, and admittedly was relieved to do so. ‘Okay, okay. Let’s try and get past them to the door. The fire’s out of control.’

In a way I suppose we were lucky that the creatures were too busy with their screaming victim to notice us slinking by the open window that was, until a short while ago, a two-way mirror. Glass fragments stood like a miniature mountain range along its length, lethally sharp peaks that glowed orange as they reflected the raging fire, and I warned my companions to keep clear. Wisbeech was a few feet away from us, his lower back leaning against the glass-edged frame, either for support or in an unconscious effort to keep as far away from the affray as possible. It seemed Nurse Fletcher’s loyalty didn’t stretch both ways.

Gone was that patrician manner, the all-powerful, righteous master replaced in a few moments of threat and primitive violence by a tremulous coward who watched the attack on his senior nurse goggle-eyed and fearful. You had to wonder how flimsy was his disguise for it to fall away so swiftly, what dark pressures had lain hidden beneath the facade to burst through so easily. His finely buffed shoes scuffed against the polished floor as he tried to push himself even further away from the brutal slobbering mob, and when one of them looked up from its work, blood dripping from its jaw, self-preservation finally told Wisbeech he could not just melt through the wall itself, that it was not an obstacle that could be penetrated by will alone. He wheeled around and I winced when I saw him grab hold of the jagged window-frame and haul himself up; he cried out as glass cut into his knee and blood spurted from the palms of his hands, the sound attracting more attention from the frenzied horde. They left their victim - alive or dead, I couldn’t tell, but her limp body was soaked in her own blood - and fell upon the doctor.