There was a mighty roar behind us, another explosion of heat, but I didn’t turn back, I just kept going, dragging the tall girl with me, helping her keep upright, my own limp unnoticed. Joseph was on his knees when we reached him, his slight body wracked with pain, and I mentally chided both him and Constance for not getting out of there while they had the chance, for waiting for us when the blaze was about to consume everything in the room.
Thrusting Mary and the metal crutch at Constance, I picked up Joseph in my arms, his weight hardly slowing me at all. Together we fled the inferno, bursting through the double doors, leaving behind the sounds of screams and crashing timbers, the blistering, destructive heat.
Leaving behind the creatures who didn’t stand a chance of surviving. And who never had.
Smoke gushed through the double doors after us as we all but fell into the hallway beyond. Choking and spluttering, I dropped to my knees, hastily laying Joseph on the floor and pounding his back as he tried to draw in great gulps of purer air. His aged lungs wheezed with the effort and I kept thumping him with a flattened hand between the shoulder-blades until he began to gain some control and his breathing steadied. Constance and Mary clung to each other, tears running down their dusty faces, they, too wheezing as they gasped for air. There was movement around us in the smoke-filled hallway and I assumed, although it surprised me, that those who had fled the fire before us still lingered. When I hauled myself to my feet I saw that I was wrong.
Milling around us, while some still descended the stairs, were the others from the dormitory at the top of the annex. They were crowding around Constance and Mary, calling their names like excited children, clutching at them, trying to gain their attention. There were no nurses or supervisors among them – as far as I could tell in that short time and hazy atmosphere – those who had been inside the studio with Wisbeech, including the film crew, had vanished into the night. Maybe one or two staff members had run to the main part of the building to warn of the fire outbreak, but I heard no alarms. I did hear someone calling my name though.
It was difficult at first to detect where it came from over the hubbub of other shouts and agitated voices, but then I noticed someone waving at me from the stairway.
‘Louise!’
She and two others from the dormitory were helping the woman whose stomach bloated massively beneath the bed-sheets that had been wrapped around her, the gigantic ovarian cyst hidden under the material impossible for her to carry alone; while Louise supported her on one side, the girl with the excrescent tusk held her on the other, the young man, whose face was only partially concealed now by a great tagged-back flap of skin and flesh, was on the lower steps beneath the swelling, bearing most of the growth’s weight on his shoulders. Louise awkwardly waved at me again.
‘Dis, thank God you’re all right,’ I thought I heard her say.
I pushed my way through the crowd to reach her, yelling back to Constance to keep everyone away from the studio entrance, one side of its double doors now closed, probably by the rush of scorched air from inside, flames seeming to fill the opening completely. I turned my attention back to Louise, disengaging myself from the woman whose arms clung to me and whose double-face, another’s melded into her own, was only inches from mine. She was frightened, pleading for me to help her, to help them all, and as gently as I could I directed her towards the open door at the end of the hallway, pushing her towards it, reassuring her with words spoken close to her ear so that she could hear them over the clamour. Louise and her ungainly little troupe were almost at the bottom of the stairway by the time I got to her and she managed an anxious smile.
‘Dis, I was so worried about you,’ she said breathlessly.
‘What are you doing here?’ I said as I helped the young man who had literally been taking most of the load on his shoulders. He twisted as he rose, his arms continuing to take the woman’s weight. ‘How did you get in here, Louise?’
‘Let’s get everyone outside first, Dis,’ she said, and I saw the soundness of her advice. The fire was going to spread rapidly, the ceiling above the studio-room already eaten through.
I squeezed her upper arm and looked behind her as more figures appeared above at the turn of the stairs. The three-headed boy, the third head lolling uselessly from his shoulder, was making his way carefully down the steps, beside him the youth who carried the extra half body that sprouted from his own chest through a large hole in his gown, holding it before him as though it were a younger sibling who had fallen asleep. They looked petrified and I pushed past Louise to get to them.
‘You’re going to be okay,’ I told them, trying to smile in the hope it would calm them a little. ‘The door’s open at the end of the hallway and you’ll be safe once you’re outside.’
Something caught my eye behind them, something very small scuttling down the stairs. I saw it was the one whose body ended just below his chest and I waved him forward when he stopped to survey the scene below, his eyes fearful and his arms trembling.
‘Come on,’ I encouraged him. ‘You’re all getting out of this place right now.’
A different fear came into his eyes and I realized that even though they hated it here, it was the only home they had ever known. Of course the idea of leaving was intimidating to them.
‘Constance is waiting for you,’ I said hopefully and it worked, the sound of her name, the thought of her waiting for him, did the trick. He came down the stairs fast, like an infant shuffling on its bottom, squeezing past the others and disappearing into the crowd below.
‘Dis!’
It was Louise’s voice. She looked up at me, then pointed along the hallway.
‘They’re afraid of the fire,’ she called out. ‘They won’t go past the doorway. We’ll have to close it.’
I saw what she meant. Along with billows of dusty smoke, flames were licking out from the studio-room, lapping around the edges of the door frame. The closed half of the double doors was alight from the inside, its white paintwork blistering, the raw wood beneath turning a dark, scorched brown. I thought I could hear screams from inside, but the noise from those in the hallway and the roaring of the fire itself was too loud to be sure. Constance was urging those in the packed hallway to hurry past the opening, but they cowered back, some even turning towards the stairs.
I hobbled down to meet them, waving my arms and shouting. ‘Not this way! The quickest way out is through the front door! Come on, please, go back!’
They hesitated, but were not convinced. I pushed through them until I was beside Constance. She stood close to Mary, who clung to her like a frightened child, while holding the hand of a small man – he might have been just a kid, but what I could see of his face was so lined and wearied, probably from the misery of his burden, that it was impossible to tell. A huge tumour grew from the side of his head, the hardened flesh so rutted and bulbous it seemed to be cascading from him; so large was it that its base rested against his shoulder, its heaviness causing him to lean to one side.
‘Nick, they’re too afraid,’ Constance said, her voice raised so that I could hear over the general din.
‘Yeah, I know. Don’t worry, I’m going to try to get that door shut.’ Their hesitancy was strange, for the hallway was wide and they could easily have kept to the far wall, well away from the room that was on fire. Yet I could understand their fear: it wasn’t just the flames licking through that open doorway that they were scared of, it was the whole thing of leaving their hated but safe haven, the idea of stepping out into a world that none of them knew; I think the fire represented an obstacle, even a hurdle, that had to be overcome if they were to break from the life they had always known; or maybe it was just an excuse not to venture further, a reason for not hurrying down that hallway and out into an alien world. I could not let them linger here any longer though – the smoke was dangerously thick by now, many around me finding it difficult to breathe, their hands clasped to their mouths or holding their throats as they choked.
> I edged along the wall towards the door, an arm raised to my face against the heat that spilled out, trying not to inhale too much smoke, my chest and throat already painfully restricted. When I was beside the open door, still protected by the wall, I whipped off my jacket and held it up before me with one arm, using it as a flimsy shield against the worst of the heat. I ducked around the door frame, the sheer intensity of that heat almost throwing me backwards. I cried out, but forced myself to reach forward with a scrabbling hand, trying to find the doorhandle so that I could pull the door towards me. I screamed when my fingers touched red-hot metal, snatching my hand away again. I spun back against the protecting wall, its hot bricks burning bare flesh. Oh God, why not just rush past and make for the main door? Surely they’d all follow? I could call back to them, they’d see I had made it safely. They’d be bound to follow. I looked around and saw Constance – Constance and all the others – watching me, eyes red and tear-stained from the smoke. I wondered if she could see my desperation.
‘Be careful, Nick!’ she called to me.
I groaned. Holding the jacket before me again, I whirled around to face the inferno, this time dropping my arm just enough to see. My eyeball immediately felt roasted, tears caused by smoke instantly evaporating, and I closed my eyelids to a sliver. In the second it took for me to hook my hand around the edge of the door and pull it towards me, I thought I caught something moving inside just beyond the conflagration; then the door slammed shut before me and I wheeled away, sticking my burnt fingers into my mouth, hoping the juices there (what juices? My mouth and throat were as dry as parchment laid out in a desert) would soothe the stinging. Ignoring the pain, I limped back to Constance.
‘Okay, let’s get them moving,’ I croaked and she managed a smile for her friends, drawing them forward, encouraging them with soothing words. They began moving as one towards the big entrance doors at the end of the hallway.
46
I waited until they were all out, helping those who were struggling, lifting those light enough to be carried and depositing them outside on the step, galvanizing the slowest ones with encouraging words, giving them no more time to think or to be afraid. And Constance helped me, taking them through the wide, open doorway, leaving them gasping in fresh air, and returning to help me. We found a brief moment to look at each other and that did more to strengthen me than a couple of hours’ rest.
Before running out into the night, I quickly checked the hallway to make sure nobody had been left behind in the confusion, or had collapsed unnoticed, overcome by smoke. It was almost impossible to see the stairs next to the lift at the far end and I ducked low to get a better view beneath the swirling haze. All was clear as far as stragglers were concerned, but I noticed flames coming from the crack beneath the studio entrance, as well as the tiny gap between the doors themselves. The paint that hadn’t peeled or blistered was actually melting, running to the floor in gooey rivulets. Time to leave for good and I didn’t pause a moment longer.
Outside, the others were gathered near the centre of the triangular courtyard and I heard them gasping and coughing, some of them sobbing loudly, while a few more were content just to gaze around bewildered by what they saw. I noticed that the big Transit had gone, the film crew obviously having had no intention of hanging around to see if they could help anyone still trapped inside. Again I wondered if the staff involved in this sordid sideline of Leonard Wisbeech’s had fled also, or had gone to the main part of the home to raise the alert. I took a moment to listen, but heard no sound of fire alarms, so assumed they had made off to pastures new, unwilling to face the consequences now that the secret of PERFECT REST was about to be exposed. I was puzzled only briefly by the lack of alarms inside the burning annexe itself, quickly realizing that the sound of fire-bells attracting the rescue services to his hidden dungeons and dormitory was the last thing Wisbeech would have wanted.
The moon was behind a cloud and all I could see ahead of me were dark shapes, lying on the ground, others sitting, and still more milling around, quiet apart from their coughing and weeping.
‘Constance,’ I called softly as I moved among them.
‘Here, Nick. I’m here.’
A shadowy figure detached itself from others and came towards me. I took Constance in my arms and held her so tightly I felt her wince. My cheek brushed her cheek and suddenly I was kissing her, finding her lips, her brow, even her closed eyes, finding any part of her face that was accessible, which was just about all of it as far as I was concerned.
‘You’re okay?’ I asked between kisses.
‘I think so, Nick. My head’s a bit fuzzy, but I think I’m all right. You, Nick? You’re all right? They didn’t hurt you?’
I just found her lips again and kissed them deeply, kissed them with a passion that had nothing to do with lust, but a lot to do with wanting.
‘How did you know where I was?’ She was finding it difficult to catch her breath and I eased off a little.
‘Your friends helped me.’
The moon resurfaced and the scene around us was bathed in its cold glow. Constance’s eyes were wide as she looked up into my face and I could see the anxiety there, perhaps even the remnants of fear.
‘We’ve a lot to talk about, Constance,’ I said softly to her, holding her tight so that she would not get the wrong message.
‘I know.’ It was barely a whisper. She buried her head into my chest and her hold on me was as tight as mine on her.
‘Dis.’
I raised my head to spot Louise coming towards me, carefully stepping around prone and sitting bodies. I felt a flush of relief, stored up since we had found each other in the hallway.
‘Louise. How the hell did you get inside the house?’ Still clutching each other, Constance and I turned towards the clairvoyant.
‘I could hear them calling, Dis, stronger than ever before. As I waited for you in that old house, their thoughts came to me, so powerfully, so desperately. I knew they urgently needed help.’
She touched my shoulder, resting heavily against me, the breaths she drew long and ratchety.
‘I knew they were coming from this place,’ she went on, determined to explain as quickly as possible. ‘I drove up to the gates and demanded to be let in, told them I was a distant cousin of Hildegarde Vogel.’
‘They believed you? You’re not even German.’
‘They weren’t to know that and the sound over the gate’s intercom was so bad they probably couldn’t tell I didn’t have an accent. I insisted that I had to see Dr Wisbeech and they told me he wasn’t available, it was too late. I persisted though and threatened them with all kinds of things, including going to the police over my “cousin’s” death and the fact that I hadn’t been informed. Oh, whoever I was speaking to claimed that no one even knew that Hildegarde had any living relatives to inform, but I blustered on and finally they allowed me inside. I think their intention was to see me quickly just to ascertain my nuisance value.’
Lights were coming on in the windows of the main building opposite us, and I could see faces looking down from them. The added glows lit up the courtyard, making us even more visible. Windows started to open.
‘But I never made it to the main house,’ Louise was saying. ‘As I drove in I noticed a narrow lane by the side of the main drive.’
I nodded my head to let her know I was aware of it.
‘The voices, those thoughts inside my head – they were calling me from that direction. I don’t know how, direction isn’t normally a part of the sensing, but somehow I knew they wanted me to come to them through that lane. So I turned into it and it led me here, this courtyard. The door over there was unlocked, so I went inside.’
I remembered I hadn’t tried the annexe door after the man taking in equipment from the Transit had closed it behind him. I’d had no reason to – it was the main building that I had wanted to explore. We heard voices coming from above, the old residents, alerted by the disturbance below, crowding round
the upstairs windows and jabbering to each other. We would have to warn them to get out before the fire spread, but first I wanted the clairvoyant to finish her story; a few more moments wouldn’t put the old people in any more danger, the annexe almost totally sealed off from the main house, the heavy doors between them the only connection as far as I knew.
‘There was a lift in the hallway and I used it to take me up. There was no one about, but I was sure I was being called from a room there. The voices were far stronger than they had ever been. And there was one among them whose ability is so powerful, it was as if he’d taken my hand . . . Oh my God!’ She clasped her hands to her mouth.
Constance reached out to touch them. ‘What is it, Louise?’
‘The voice . . . the boy. He’s still up there. He told me to get all the others out first – he insisted that I take them – and to come back for him. He was aware of the fire, you see? He knew they were all in great danger.’
‘Michael?’ In panic, Constance was looking around us, searching for the limbless boy among the others.
‘Michael? Is that his name?’ Louise looked from Constance to me. ‘His thoughts were so clear when he told me about this place and his friends here. He told me of the Doctor’s work, the terrible things he did to them. He told me about you, Dis. He told me about you.’
In the moonlight, I recognized that same odd look she had given me when first we’d met.
‘You left him there, Louise.’ Constance’s tone was not accusatory; it was distressed.
‘I’m . . . I’m sorry. But he urged me to get the others out first. We must go back!’
‘No.’ I was firm. The smoke rolling from the open doorway was full and black. And even as I made the decision, we heard a loud thwoomp from inside, the dark churning clouds immediately fused with a bright orange. The door to the studio had burst open, pushed by an explosion behind, and flames were pouring into the hallway. We all flinched, but then Constance made as if to dash towards the entrance. I grabbed her and held her fast.