There was no skin on her back, in fact, no flesh at all; neither was there much flesh behind her legs. It was as if the meat there had been cut away, leaving bones and muscle, gristle and tendons, organs and tubes, arteries and veins, all open to the fetid air, all displayed before my probing torch. I saw wires and dulled metal plates holding organs in place, tying blood vessels to her spinal column, gauze covering the most delicate areas, I saw tubing that was synthetic and of different colours, presumably there to aid bodily fluids and movement, replacements for parts that must have rotted or become dysfunctional. The cavities glistened with wetness and jutting just beneath the bands of muscle stretched over the bone of her shoulder blade I could see something throbbing in a regular rhythm; I realized it was part of her naked heart.
How one whose innards were so dangerously exposed could be kept from infection and disease, particularly in these foul conditions, I had no idea, but I guessed that her own immune system had adapted in some way to play its part, protecting her from invasive poisons and bacteria while medical application did the rest. Yes, I’d have thought it impossible, but I had observed too many impossibilities that night now to be astonished.
Still resolute, determined to view it all, I went on from cell to cell, peering in, dismayed but no longer shocked by the things I observed. A body so immense it made its prison seem tiny, a person, a non-person – a freakish entity – that appeared barely alive, tubes inserted into its orifices that, I presumed, flowed with life-preserving substances and liquids, an oxygen mask over its face to pump air into its weight-beleaguered lungs. In another, a figure so ulcerated and ridden with running sores it was impossible to identify gender, whose eyes gleamed with madness and pain, and whose screams under the glare of my light pierced my heart as well as my head. An empty cell I thought, until something scurried from one dark corner to the other. Each time I directed the beam on to it, it moved again, lightning fast, low to the ground, an odd shape with too many limbs. Finally I ensnared it in my small circle of light by moving ahead and waiting for it to end its run in the torch glow. Numbed though I was, a gasp still escaped me when it rested briefly and I was able to take it in.
Its body was low to the floor, for it moved on all fours, the arms and legs bent high over the body, hands and feet splayed outwards on the ground, its head watching me from between those spread arms as a spider might watch a fly. It was only momentarily frozen though, and once again, with incredible speed, it scurried away into the shadows. This time I had no desire to capture it in the light: I had seen enough.
Somehow I persisted in my determination to view them all, for these were the creatures of my last dream, visions made flesh, and they held a bizarre fascination for me. Maybe I wanted to confront my own nightmare, a perverse way of expunging it forever. Or perhaps – and I hated myself for the possibility – I wanted to feel superior (a rare experience for me), wanted to know that my own afflictions were nothing compared to those of these aberrants. Who could tell? Certainly not me, neither then, nor now.
As I went on I wondered how they had found me last night, wondered if somehow they had tapped into Michael’s power, travelling with him along with the others to my home, to my mind. Perhaps the telepathy’s very collectivity was so great that they were carried along with those directed thoughts despite themselves; or perhaps something deep within them, whether it was cunning or desperation, saw that mental power as a means of a brief escape for themselves. Again, there was no way of knowing for sure, then or now, but I’d always been aware that nature compensates – consider my own one-eyed but clear vision, as sharp as a hawk’s, my hearing and sense of smell, as keen as any wolf’s, the strength in my shoulders recompensing for the weakness of my leg – so maybe some of them had taken on this unique gift, the stronger carrying the weaker.
I filled my head with these ghastly depressing sights, some of which defied description, until I reached the end of the chamber. Only then did I press my forehead to the cold, wet wall to take stock, to absorb everything I had seen and somehow accept it. It wasn’t easy, nor did I succeed entirely.
A hand touched my shoulder.
Without looking round, I said, ‘Why, Joseph? Why would anyone keep them like this? Why would they be allowed to live?’
The hand withdrew.
‘Life is a gift, whatever the circumstances,’ Joseph said.
I whirled around. ‘Like this? You think this is living?’
‘It’s all we know,’ he replied.
‘But – ’
He raised a frail hand. ‘Even for these others, it’s all they know. It’s the only life they have experienced and they know no better.’
‘You do, though. Michael has shown you, you’ve read books. Constance has told you of other things.’
‘Even so, we might have been content to remain here. Now everything is changing . . .’
I was still blind with fury. ‘Wisbeech is going to pay for this, I promise you that.’
‘Just help us be free,’ Joseph said. ‘That’s all we ask.’
‘You will be, Joseph.’ I looked back at all the cell doors, six on either side of the long room. Oh yes, they would all be free. I’d help them.
And I’d begin now, before we left this dungeon of the damned.
39
At this far end of the chamber there was another door, this one set back in a recess in the wall and, like the main entrance, made of iron, but much narrower. The same key fitted its lock.
‘You’re sure this is the way?’ I asked Joseph before pushing at the door.
Joseph merely nodded.
‘Michael’s telling you this?’
He nodded again. ‘Michael goes on many journeys through his mind.’
‘He’s aware of this place, these . . . people . . . here?’
‘We all are.’
‘And can he tell you where this might lead?’
‘I can only sense him urging us to use it. The weakness is with me.’
‘Okay.’ What else could I say? What else could I do? I shoved the door and it opened with a squealing of hinges.
Inside was a stone staircase leading upwards, the walls so close I could touch both sides just by raising my arms slightly. The brickwork was rough and unfinished, the atmosphere cold. There was a light-switch, but I decided not to use it; who knew what lay at the top of those stairs?
It was a relief to leave the dungeon and its unfortunate but frightening denizens behind, and I shone the torchlight ahead as we climbed, my limp pretty bad by now, fatigue and trauma playing their part. In this narrow space, it was difficult for the disjoined girl to climb too, and when I glanced around, she was moving sideways, one hand on the steps above, her right foot leading. Joseph was last and he waited patiently as Mary struggled.
There was a short landing at the top, another door at the end of it. This door was sturdy-looking, but I knew I’d have no trouble picking its lock if I couldn’t find the right key on the ring. The third one I tried opened the door easily and cautiously, after turning off the torch I looked through.
There was some kind of storeroom on the other side, lit by two neon ceiling lights, sliding-door cupboards around three of its walls, a work bench and smaller cupboards running the length of the fourth. At its centre was a large square, multi-drawered desk. I listened for a while, scanning the room as I did so, ready to duck back out of sight should the need arise. But there was only silence. I crept in, beckoning Mary and Joseph to follow.
Going to the desk in the middle of the room I looked around me and was surprised at what had been hidden from my view behind the door. The whole section of wall, from floor to ceiling, was filled with banks of VTR machines, the kind of set-up used for the mass production of video cassette copies. I went to the cupboards and slid back one of the doors: the shelves inside were packed with film cans, their dulled metal and faded labels informing me they were old stock. Without bothering to read the labels I moved on to the next cupboard, sliding back its door
to reveal stacks of vertically arranged video cassettes: I cocked my head to read their labels, but all they had on them were sets of six-digit numbers, each set separated by a dash. I realized these were dates, some of them going back to 1979. A quick reinspection of the film cans confirmed that the handwritten labels were also dates, some of these going as far back as the Sixties. Perhaps they were case studies of everyone kept at this place, I thought, recordings of their progress. It might explain the changeover from film to video tape, the latter a relatively new and far easier method of filming and storing. Dates . . . birth dates . . . Wisbeech wasn’t interested in names; figures were obviously more factual to him. I doubted he even considered his charges as persons: no, to him they were probably just specimens, freakish examples with which to experiment, to research. That was what this was all about: PERFECT REST’s secret wing was a research centre, a covert laboratory specializing in the unique, atypical and bizarre, the ‘exceptional departures from the ordinary’, to coin Wisbeech’s own phrase, with its own ‘Black Museum’ of human divergences. The findings, the results of these studies, no doubt were shared – no, sold – to other medical or scientific research units around the country, if not the world, and there had to be hundreds of malformed babies – thousands worldwide – born each year, infants so badly deformed there seemed little chance of survival (or so the anguished parents would be told), only to be secreted away to become valuable commodities of research. And now, with genetics the new wonder-science as far as humans and animals were concerned, their value must have increased tenfold.
My head was spinning. What kind of bastard would do this to his fellow but less fortunate men, hiding them from the outside world, confining them in conditions unfit for the lowest beast, using them merely as specimens of study? Wisbeech, it seemed, was that kind, but I was going to bust the whole sick business wide open! I grabbed one of the video cassettes from the shelf and pushed it as deep into my jacket pocket as it would go. The top of it stuck out, but that didn’t matter, it was secure.
Another horrendous idea occurred to me. If this was big business – and something told me it was – it was highly profitable. It was also very hush-hush. So was it profitable enough for force to be used to keep it secret? Henry. I was thinking of the murder of Henry. Could it be connected with this? Had it been a warning to me? Was it meant to have been me? And the manner of my friend’s death, the mutilation of his body. I remembered the look on the face of the boy hiding in my office, the terror in his eyes when he saw my misshapen figure, and I thought of the things living in the dungeon below. Could it be . . . ? Could it be that an abnormal person with a subnormal brain had been sent up to my agency, there to discover Henry instead of me? I tried not to think of the unnatural things that had been done to him, but an overwhelming guilt swept through me. It should have been me, not Henry . . .
‘Dis?’
Joseph’s voice brought me back.
‘Are you all right?’
I looked down at this tiny man – boy – and my rage only grew. ‘Yeah, I’m just dandy, Joseph.’
‘Can we go, then? Please?’
I looked away from him, scanning the room again. The second door was at the end of the work bench, almost opposite the one by which we’d entered. Pointing, I said, ‘D’you know where it leads?’
‘No,’ he replied.
‘But we have to use it, right? There’s no point in going back the way we came?’
He shook his wizened head. ‘Michael is very afraid for us,’ he said then.
‘Too much information, Joseph. I don’t think I wanted to know that.’ I tried to give him a grin, but it didn’t come off. He held out his hand to Mary and she hobbled over to him, her walking stick tapping on the bare floor. ‘How about you, Mary?’ I said to her. ‘Do you know what’s through that door?’
She, too, shook her head as she clutched Joseph’s outstretched hand.
‘Okay. There’s only one way to find out.’ But suddenly, I felt no enthusiasm for further discovery – I’d already learned more than I knew how to deal with about PERFECT REST and Dr Leonard K. Wisbeech. Sure, there were still plenty more questions, but my head – and my emotions – couldn’t cope with any more. I wanted out, right there and then. I had evidence, I had two of the victims involved and their testimony: what else did I need?
Only Constance, I told myself. Just the person you’ve finally found to love and who could return those same feelings. I crept around the centre desk and over to the second door.
It was unlocked.
40
Amidst the intense umbra of the vast room beyond the door there was a bright oasis of light. And in the light there was a large bed draped with deep red velvet, the smooth material overflowing on to the floor and even running up the wall behind.
On the bed, naked skin contrasting with the rich colour of the fabric around it, lay a small figure with frail limbs and curved spine. Long loose brown hair splayed over the velvet beneath the head and shoulders. She was curled like a sleeping child, the knuckle of one hand touching her lips. Her soft lips. Lips that I adored.
Constance was so fragile and so vulnerable lying there that I moaned aloud before blindly stumbling forward, my attention on her alone, oblivious to whatever else lay in the room’s oceanic darkness. My foot caught something on the floor and I almost fell, somehow managing to keep my balance, arms flailing before me, steps quickening.
I rushed into the ring of light, where concentrated luminance stifled anything beyond, and I knelt on the edge of the bed so that I could touch her shoulder. Constance stirred, but her eyes remained closed.
I shook her, gently at first, then a little harder, until her eyelids flickered. She opened them hesitantly and I saw that even under the harsh glare of the light her pupils did not contract. There was no recognition in her eyes when they fixed on me, just a dulled uncertainty.
I pulled her towards me and held her in my arms. In panic, I studied her face and her body, looking, I suppose for signs of abuse. ‘Constance, it’s me. It’s Nick.’
Her eyes closed again and a small groan escaped her.
‘Constance. Please, try to wake up.’
A frown creased her forehead, but there was no comprehension in her eyes when they fluttered open again.
‘Nick . . .’ It was a soft, weary cry.
‘You must try, Constance. I have to get you out of here.’
Desperately, I searched the area around us in vain for her clothes. Squinting my eye, I peered into the surrounding blackness and only then did I make out another pool of light some distance away, another red velvet-draped bed enclosed by dark borders, two figures on that bed, one of them small and naked, held by another who . . . who was not me.
At first I had thought I was looking at a reflection in a mirror on the far side of the room, but the person holding Constance looked nothing like me. It was someone I knew, though.
His shoulders were broad, his figure sleek, and he was handsome, oh so gloriously handsome. The shiny-lapelled dinner suit, the black bow-tie, the glossy slick-backed hair – oh yes, he was very familiar to me by now. And when I put my arm protectively around Constance’s shoulders, he mimicked the movement, he matched me perfectly. And when I pointed a trembling finger at him, he did exactly the same to me. The only difference was that he was smiling and I was not.
That was when I finally began to understand that this person I was staring at – and yes, it was definitely a reflection in a mirror – was me. That I was, and had been, haunting myself.
But I had no time to dwell upon its significance, for suddenly the whole vast area was lit up in a shock of lights.
It came at me fast, a blur that was on me before I could make out what it was, an assailant that snarled and snuffled like an animal as it tore at me. As I fell backwards under its force, I caught a glimpse of a high-ceilinged room full of tall arc lights, light-reflectors, cameras mounted on tripods – and startled people, who watched this abrupt confrontati
on on the bed as if stunned.
I sprawled against the velvet as claw-like hands encircled my throat, losing my grip on Constance, unable to draw in breath, an odd pressure pushing against my eyeball from behind. As I fought for air the images that came into view all had soft edges, their focus shifting constantly, so that I couldn’t tell if they were real or imaginary. I saw faces, Wisbeech’s among them, and many more, strangers to me, then the nurse, the head one – what was her name, what was her name? – Fletcher! that was her name, and as they dimmed, became almost translucent, they were replaced by others, the faces of all those I had met that night in PERFECT REST, above and below stairs! and they too faded, returned, faded once more, and all had been grinning and laughing, as though sharing some huge joke, one that was on me! and then two more individuals appeared, both mocking me, their features shimmering as if viewed through a heat haze, the old midwife, Sparrow, and my own elegant former self ! the person I once was, an alter ego that was not a wish but a past! and they were laughing at me too, enjoying the joke, for weren’t they the ones who had lured me to this place . . . ?
My vision began to dull, even though my eyelid could not possibly close, because the eyeball had been pushed too far from its socket . . .
Yet still I could discern the face – the face? – of this demon-thing who was squeezing the life from me, the other images only superimposed over the reality; could see the great gaping mouth, a cavernous hole that almost took up the entire head, the lipless mouth ringed by thin, needle-like teeth, the gaps between giving each one its own deadly individuality, two longer ones – at least three inches long! – descending from the centre, their equally long counterparts below set wider to accommodate them. The eyes were severely slanted, located wide of each other on the long, angled brow, dark pupils against yellow backgrounds, like a cat’s but even more sinister and far more malign, and there was no nose – Christ, there wasn’t room for a nose! – and the brow canted back acutely to a tufty protuberance on top of its head, a topknot that might have been gristled skin or a reptilian crest. As if these demon’s features were not enough for such comparison, the skin itself was reddish, as if it truly had been spawned in Hell, and even its ears were pointed and tufted like the top of its head.