Spawn (24 page)

“As far as I’m concerned, Miss Ford, the matter is closed. Pierce will be out of the grounds by tomorrow morning.” He looked at his watch, tapping the glass. “Now I suggest you return to
your
duties. I presume you have patients to attend to?”

“Yes, doctor,” she said, her face flushed.

She left the office, closing the door just a little too firmly behind her. There was something badly wrong with Harold and she was determined to find out what it was. She glanced at her watch. It was 5.30 p.m., in another two hours she would be off duty. When that time came, she decided she would go to Harold’s hut and speak to him.

Harold moved slowly about the hut collecting what few possessions he had, bundling them into the battered old suitcase he’d been lent. Every now and then he would stop still and glance towards the kitchen, as if trying to catch sight of something. The voices whispered insistently inside his head, like the wind rustling paper.

He heard scuffling sounds coming from the cupboard in the kitchen. There was hessian laid out before it and, when the last item was dropped into the suitcase, Harold passed into the other room and knelt before the door, his hand quivering slightly as he slid it open.

A vile, cloying stench billowed from the hiding place and Harold recoiled at the ferocity of the odour. He gazed into the cupboard, mesmerized.

All three of the foetuses had doubled in size.

Maggie Ford glanced at the clock on the wall of her office and noted that it was approaching 7.40 p.m. She sat back in her seat, slipping the cap back onto her pen. Her neck and shoulders ached and she reached up with both hands to perform some swift massage. Outside, the sky was mottled with rain clouds and a thin film of drizzle covered the office window like a gossamer shroud. Maggie yawned and got to her feet, remembering that she’d promised herself a visit to Harold’s hut before she went home that night. She took off her white coat and hung it up on the hook, pulling on a lightweight mac in its place. She glanced at a chart on the office wall and noticed that she was due in surgery at eight-thirty the following morning. Maggie took one final look around the office then flicked off the light and left.

She took the lift down to the ground floor, mumbling a few hasty “goodnights” on her way to the main entrance. When she reached it she paused, pulling up her collar to protect herself from the worst ravages of the icy wind. The chill in the air was turning the drizzle into particles of sleet and Maggie shivered, turning to her left, heading towards the open stretch of ground which would take her to Harold’s hut. Almost invisible in the gloom, she could see that no lights burned inside and she wondered if perhaps he’d gone to bed. As far as she knew he didn’t go out at nights so it was more than likely that he was in the small dwelling. She muttered to herself as her heels sank into the soft earth but she struggled on towards the still and black shrouded hut.

She found herself shivering but the movements were not merely a product of the cold weather. She felt an unaccountable fear rising within her as she drew nearer to the building. Perhaps it had been Harold’s reactions in the lift which had unsettled her, she thought, angry with herself for feeling the trepidation she now experienced. It was pity she should be feeling for Harold, not fear.

Maggie found that the door of the hut was slightly ajar. She knocked all the same, simultaneously calling the older man’s name. When she received no answer, she cautiously pushed the wooden door which swung back on its hinges with a high pitched shriek. Maggie called Harold’s name once more then stepped inside.

The smell of damp was almost overpowering but mingled with it was a more pungent odour which she had difficulty identifying. She looked around the interior of the place. The bed had been stripped, the sheets and blankets gone but, on the mattress she noticed a dark stain. Now dried and powdery, the substance seemed to crumble beneath her probing fingers. She wet the tip of her index finger and on withdrawing it from the mysterious patch she found that it was congealed blood. Maggie swallowed hard and looked around. The door to her right, the one which led through to the kitchen, was closed.

“Harold,” she called, moving towards the door.

The hut greeted her with silence.

She pushed the door but found that it was stuck.

Maggie tried again and, this time, it budged a few inches. She put her weight against it, realizing that the door was a fraction of an inch too large and was sticking. Eventually, she succeeded in opening it and found herself standing in the tiny kitchen.

The door of the cupboard beneath the sink was open, the handle splashed with blood.

Maggie squatted before it and squinted through the gloom at the crimson liquid. It glistened in the half-light and she could see that it was fresh. There was a fetid stench coming from the cupboard and Maggie paused for long seconds before deciding to look inside. She gripped the handle, trying to avoid the blood, and pulled it open.

There was something inside the cupboard, something which she couldn’t see in the blackness. Something moving.

She could hear a faint scratching too, an agitated skittering which stopped abruptly. The cupboard was large, large enough for a fully grown man to climb into but Maggie certainly had no intentions of crawling inside to see what was making the noise. She coughed, her eye suddenly caught by something which lay on the wooden floor beside her. She picked up the matted strands, turning them over in her fingers.

There was a sudden movement from within the cupboard and Maggie screamed as something soft and furry brushed against her leg. She dropped the stiff fur, almost overbalancing.

The mouse scampered away, past her and disappeared through a hole in the wall.

Maggie sucked in a deep breath, held it for a second then exhaled.

“God,” she murmured and got to her feet.

She ran both hands through her hair and blew out a troubled breath. Harold Pierce was gone, no doubt about that. But exactly where, she had no idea.

The old Exham Mental Hospital now stood deserted and already dust had begun to accumulate in thick layers on the floors and window-ledges. Some of the windows had been broken, the dirty glass lying in the wards which were now empty of beds. It was as black as pitch in the empty building and Harold blinked his one good eye repeatedly, as if the action would somehow give him the power to see through the darkness. But he had lived at the hospital for so long he knew every inch of it and he moved with assurance through the long corridors, his tired footsteps echoing loudly in the silence. He was aware of nothing but the musty smell of the place and the aching in his legs where he had walked for so long. He had no idea what the time was but, outside, a large watery moon gave him some light and illuminated his stumbling progress somewhat.

He had left the three foetuses in a room on the first floor while he himself explored the remains of the deserted asylum. For the first time in months he actually felt happy. It was like a homecoming for him. He belonged here in this place, in this empty Victorian shell which smelt of damp and was thick with dust. It had been his home for so many years before and now it would be his home again.

He paused at the foot of the staircase which would take him up to the first floor, the voices hissing in his ears again. They were calling him and Harold made his way almost eagerly to his room where they waited.

Lynn Tyler grunted as she felt the weight of the man’s body on top of her. She sucked in a deep breath but it slowly subsided into a groan of pleasure as she felt his swollen penis slide into her. He bent his head forward, his unshaven cheek scraping her.

“Don’t you ever shave?” she murmured, her complaint dissolving away into another exclamation of pleasure as he began thrusting into her with firm strokes.

She couldn’t remember his name. Barry or Gary. Something like that. It didn’t matter much to her either way. She’d picked him up at a disco about two hours earlier and was now enjoying the consummation of what, for her, was to be yet another notch on the bedstead.

She ran a hand through his thick black hair, wincing slightly as she felt the slick greasiness of it. His breath smelt of beer and, when he kissed her, it was a clumsy slobbering action, rather like being accosted by a Saint Bernard. However, she weathered his attentions, enjoying the sensations he was creating within her. One of his rough hands went to her breast and squeezed hard. So hard that she yelped in pain but all he did was grin and squeeze the other one with equal force. Her nipples rose to meet his strong advances, her hips now beginning to rotate in time to his thrusts.

She felt a glow around her groin which spread slowly to her belly but it was not the pleasant warmth that signals the approach of orgasm. It was an uncomfortably familiar burning sensation which she had experienced two or three times since returning from hospital. Lynn sucked in a sharp breath as a stab of pain jolted her. Her lover took it to be a sign of her excitement and grunted something but she didn’t hear him, her mind was now occupied with the growing pain in her lower region which seemed to be intensifying. The weight on top of her seemed almost unbearable but she gritted her teeth, whispering words of encouragement in his ear, trying by any means she could to drive the thoughts of the searing pain from her mind.

Barry or Gary or whatever his name was, suddenly withdrew his organ, leaving her panting in frustration but that feeling of frustration did not remain long as, a moment later, she felt his hot breath on her left breast then the right. His tongue flicked against her swollen nipples and he drew them between his teeth making them even harder and more erect.

The pain in her abdomen grew more acute. The skin across her belly seemed first to contract and then to stretch, rising in two places in the form of almost imperceptible bumps. Lynn swallowed hard, the burning sensation now even stronger. It felt as if someone had poured a kettle full of boiling water all over her abdomen.

A particularly prominent bulge rose just to the right of her navel, strained against the flesh defiantly for long seconds then vanished.

The man was up on his knees now, looking down at her vagina and she almost screamed aloud as she saw the blood.

Lynn Tyler thrust a shaking hand between her legs and withdrew it slowly to see crimson staining her fingertips. She felt the burning inside her, stared at the blood as it trickled down her quivering digits and, finally, she did scream.

It was cold inside the pathology lab and Randall dug both hands deep inside his trouser pockets. The smell of chemicals was strong and the inspector wrinkled his nose, peering around the large room with its green painted, white tiled walls. There were three stainless steel slabs set side by side, the last of which bore a sheet covered occupant. There was a small tag attached to the big toe of the left foot. It bore a name and a three digit number. The number coincided with one of the many lockers that ran the full length of the far wall. A storecase for sightless eyes.

Above the slab dangled a scale, beside it there was a tray littered with surgical instruments, one of which, Randall noticed with revulsion, was a saw. He glanced across at PC Fowler who looked even paler than usual beneath the glare of the fluorescents. The young constable was gazing at the covered body on the far slab. He was shivering and, he told himself, it was not solely, the product of the chill air.

In one corner of the lab there was a sink and it was there that the hospital’s chief pathologist stood. He washed his hands then pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, pressing his fingers together to ensure that they fitted like a second skin. Ronald Potter turned and headed for the slab. He was in his forties, his bald dome hidden by the toupée which he wore. It was a bad fit because flecks of what little hair he retained showed beneath it at the rear but Randall was concerned with more important things than ill-fitting hair pieces at the moment. Both he and Fowler moved forward as Potter reached the slab and pulled back the sheet.

The pathologist eyed the corpse indifferently, leaning over it, inspecting the preliminary damage. He stroked his chin thoughtfully, considering the object before him with the same concentration which a child would apply to selecting a sweet from a chocolate box.

Randall looked at the body for a moment then diverted his gaze towards the pathologist.

Fowler gritted his teeth and looked away, trying to retain his breakfast.

The body was badly mutilated about the shoulders and was, once again, headless. Blood had trickled into the gutter which ran around the rim of the slab, most of it from the turn stump of the neck. The head had been severed much higher up this time, just below the bottom jaw as far as Randall could see. Indeed, fragments of bone and even a tooth also lay on the slab where the head should have been.

Potter reached for a metal probe and began poking about in one of the many gashes that criss-crossed the remains of the neck.

“This is becoming something of a habit isn’t it, Inspector?” he asked, plucking a pair of tweezers from the trolley.

“What?” asked Randall, puzzled, his attention riveted to the stomach-turning sight before him.

“Finding headless corpses.” The pathologist looked up and smiled, humorlessly. “How many is this now? Three isn’t it?”

Randall clenched his fists at his side and glared at the older man.

“Someone somewhere must have quite a collection. I didn’t know we had head-hunters in Exham.”

“What are you a pathologist or a fucking comedian?” snapped the Inspector, irritably. “I want to know what he was killed with. I don’t want Sunday Night at the London Palladium.”

It was Potter’s turn to glare. The two men locked stares for a moment then the pathologist returned to his work. He laboured in silence for a good ten minutes then straightened up, wiping some blood off on his apron.