The Crooked Letter (6 page)

The orderly shouted again. A high-pitched cackle mocked him in return. Hadrian heard growling, like a large dog warning off an intruder. There was more scuffling, then the sound of a curtain being torn aside.

The roar of anger that followed was like nothing Hadrian had ever heard before.

* * * *

He ran down the corridor and took the first corner he came to. His breath rasped in his throat and lungs, scalding hot. Someone (or something) was running behind him. He imagined that he heard football spikes (or claws) ripping into the linoleum, tearing it up with every step. He whispered ‘Jesus!’ without knowing he was doing it.

Lifeless fluorescent lights swept by overhead. No one stuck their head out into the corridor to see what the commotion was. He saw an EXIT sign ahead and kicked the door next to it, making it swing open and slam closed. He didn’t stop, though. He kept running to the next corner and turned out of sight just as his pursuer reached the corner behind him.

The swinging door distracted the person chasing him. He had hoped for that. He could hear them scuffling on the stairs, trying to find him. His breathing sounded like bellows in his ears as Hadrian ran along the corridor to a nurses’ station at the next intersection. It was unattended, and he didn’t dare call out.

He stopped momentarily, trying to think. He had nothing: no weapon, no plan, no way of calling for help, no hope. There wasn’t even an ‘In Case of Emergency, Smash Glass’ option at hand. He had left his only chance of escape behind him, in the stairwell. Now his pursuer lay between the stairs and himself.

He ducked behind the nurses’ station as Bechard appeared at the end of the corridor. The orderly was obviously looking for him. When Bechard had moved on, Hadrian reached up from his hiding place and picked up the nearest phone. He heard nothing but silence; not even a dial tone.

‘Fun and games,’ whispered a voice. A shadow moved beyond a half-open door. Something tinkled.

Hadrian shrank down again. Too late.

‘Come in here, boy. I can help you.’

Hadrian shook his head.

‘Don’t be shy,’ hissed the voice. ‘You can’t afford that luxury.’

Hadrian raised a finger to his lips, urging the owner of the voice to be quiet. The sound of footsteps had returned to the corridor behind him, picking their way across the linoleum with stealthy caution. Again, there was an unnerving hint of claws to the sound, as though the feet belonged to a large animal, not a person.

‘Now, now.’ Two gleaming eyes resolved in the shadows, unnaturally close to the floor. ‘You want your brother’s body, don’t you?’

Hadrian felt his face go cold.
What do you know about my brother?
he wanted to shout.
What do you know about me?

All he could do was nod.

‘Come on, then,’ hissed the voice. ‘In here — now!’

The eyes retreated. Hadrian followed as though tied to them, scurrying across the floor and into the room in one ungainly motion. The door clicked shut behind him.

‘About time, boy. Stand up.’

Thin fingers tugged at him. Bony limbs wrapped themselves around his legs and torso. A child-sized body clambered up his, pinching his skin and then tugging on his ears. Dexterous toes gripped his shoulders; sharp fingernails dug into his scalp.

‘What —?’

Flame burst in the darkness, yellow-bright and flickering. Hadrian would have cried out but for the hand that suddenly clapped itself down on his mouth.

‘Not a sound,’ breathed the creature in his ear, ‘or you’ll kill us both.’

He nodded despairingly. Dark limbs unfolded and the flame — just one, apparently sprouting from the tip of a knobby finger — rose back up to the ceiling. The flame tickled the base of a fire detector, making the plastic blacken and buckle. Water exploded from two sprinklers on either side of the room, instantly drenching both Hadrian and the creature standing on him.

The flame went out. Hadrian staggered as the creature on his shoulders leapt down onto the floor near the door. It pressed its ear against the dripping wood.

Heavy footsteps splashed up the hallway away from them. Something growled.

‘Who are you?’ Hadrian managed. The hissing water was cold and he was beginning to shiver.

‘Pukje.’ It sounded like ‘pook-yay’. More monkey than man, Pukje scampered back to Hadrian and leapt onto his chest. He caught it automatically. The creature was wearing rags so densely matted they resembled thatching and the water ran off him as if from a dirty raincoat. Feet dug into his stomach; childlike, hands grasped his shoulders. Hadrian forced himself not to flinch as the hideous face thrust close to his. Pukje’s features were narrow and long, squashed inward on both sides. A bowed, pointed nose separated two tilted eyes. Thin, pursed lips parted to reveal a mouth devoid of teeth and a slender, coiled tongue.

‘If you won’t give me your name in return, Hadrian, you could at least thank me for saving your life.’

Hadrian flinched. Pukje’s breath was redolent of old, mouldy things and places long forgotten. ‘You already know my name. How?’

‘I’ve been watching you and listening in. It’s quite a show.’

‘Was it you who smashed the window?’

‘Yes, to distract your friends.’

Hadrian didn’t argue the point. ‘Why are you helping me?’

‘I’m Pukje, and I’m helping myself.’ A contained but incorrigible smile briefly lit up the strange face. ‘My list of enemies could change at any time, boy. I’m not charitable by nature.’

‘Thank you, then,’ he said hastily, ‘but who
are
you? And who are they?’ He jerked a thumb at the door. ‘What’s going on?’

Thumb and forefinger gripped his nose with surprising strength and twisted. ‘Don’t mention it, boy. You can owe me.’

Pukje hopped down onto the floor and skittered to the open window.

‘Wait! You can’t just leave me here!’ Hadrian had no idea what to do next. What if the thing outside returned?

‘Your brother is in the basement of the next building along,’ said his unusual benefactor, pointing with one long finger. ‘Wait a minute, then try the stairs. There’s a way across one floor down. If you’re thorough, you’ll find what you want.’

‘But —’

‘I’ll look for you later.’

Before Hadrian’s lips could frame another word, Pukje leapt fluidly through the empty window frame and vanished into the night.

* * * *

Someone shut off the water ten minutes after Pukje had activated the emergency sprinkler system. Either that, Hadrian thought, or the water supply had run out. Those ten minutes enabled him to get safely to the stairs and descend to the next floor. Everything was sodden and dripping. His bare feet squelched softly when he trod on carpet, and threatened to slip on linoleum and concrete. He yearned for something to cover his near-nakedness. The corridors were empty, as was the stairwell. He didn’t know what sort of beast had got into the hospital — for that was the only sane way he could interpret what he had heard following him — but that it had gone with its masters was a cause for intense relief.

A police dog, he told himself. And Pukje had triggered the fire alarm using a cigarette lighter ...

Once out of the stairwell, he descended cautiously through splashes of second-hand moonlight that lay across his path. As Pukje had said, the floor below the one on which he had awakened was linked to another building, a squat, dark brick construction with rounded windows and elaborate casings. Hadrian followed a glass-lined corridor across a street to its third floor. As he crossed the self-contained bridge, he looked from this new perspective at the city. The skyline was a mad jumble of straight lines and sharp angles silhouetted against the night sky. There were no lights at all: not in the street or in the buildings. A power blackout, he thought, not just a local failure — like New York in 2003.

Where were the headlights of cars? he wondered. The roads were as dark as the windows.

And all he found in the next building were more reasons to be puzzled.

If had been recently occupied, that much was certain. Nurses’ stations were littered with paper and medications; as they would have been during the course of a normal working day. Wards contained beds with rumpled sheets and hollowed pillows. Cupboards held the effects of patients who, although nowhere to be seen, had made their presence felt in dozens of ways. Browning flowers wilted on shelves. Colourful cards adorned windowsills and bathroom shelves, empty platitudes laid bare. Magazines lay open on bedside tables beside half-empty glasses and meals barely picked at. The only things missing were the patients and the staff tending them.

Hundreds of people had disappeared for no obvious reason, giving him the run of the building. Where had they gone? When would they come back? He was inevitably put in mind of the
Marie Celeste.

Hadrian was shivering by then as much from nervousness as from the cold. Damp and exposed, he resisted stealing clothes abandoned by the missing patients. Instead, he opened a supply cupboard and helped himself to navy pants and a loose-fitting white shirt. There was nothing for his feet.

Tucked away in a narrow, gloomy dead end he found a doorway marked ‘Authorised Access Only’. It wasn’t locked. Behind it a narrow service stairway wound down into absolute darkness. He found a torch in a nearby desk, but it didn’t work. The best he could do was a cigarette lighter.

The steps were old and worn, with rounded edges. At their bottom was a scuffed metal door. He pushed it open a crack, expecting to find himself in some sort of morgue, tiled green and sterile.

Instead, he saw a large, filthy cellar, cluttered with arcane equipment and lit by flickering firelight. Shadows danced in distant corners. Reflected light gleamed off metal edges and glass dials, looking like eyes. Hadrian edged sideways into the basement and stood for a long moment with the door at his back.

The air was hot and close, despite the basement’s size. The light issued from the door of a large furnace on the far side of the room. Decades worth of junk had accumulated in every clear space, reducing the odds of him finding anything, even an object as large as a human body. He couldn’t guess where to start to look.

Not at first, anyway. If his brother’s body had been brought here to be disposed of, then one place more than any other posed a possible solution.

Hadrian pushed himself away from the door and circled the massive metal bulk of the furnace. It emitted a powerful subsonic rumble as it digested coal and turned it into heat for the antiquated building above. Pipes circled it like metal ropes, attempting to contain the terrible pressure in its guts. It had the air of something about to break free and lumber around the room, crushing everything in its path.

The furnace’s small door was made of toughened glass, smudged black from years of service and as wide across as one of Hadrian’s outstretched arms. He peered through it but could see nothing except glowing coals and heat. A heavy iron bar and a shovel rested nearby. He grabbed the bar and banged the latch until it fell away and he could tug the door open. It was like looking into hell.

A blast of heat rolled over him. The low frequency rumble increased. Hadrian shielded his eyes. The space within was as large as an industrial oven. Tortured air made chaos of its contents. He gradually discerned glowing lumps of coal and ash in fiery drifts, all painted in shades of orange. The barrage of flame and superheated air tantalised him with hints of things tossed into the furnace for disposal — perhaps illegally — including syringes and empty drug containers.

There was nothing resembling a person. Hadrian imagined Seth’s body shrivelling up like a raisin, curling into a knot and shrinking, collapsing upon itself until what ashes remained were caught in the updraught and hurled skyward through the ancient, caked chimney.

As he stood looking at the glowing coals, he heard a voice calling his name.

‘Hadrian Castillo,’
it said,
‘why are you running? Show yourself. You will come to no harm.’

He recognised the thick, slightly formal accent. The voice belonged to Lascowicz.

‘
We
have something in common, you know. We are both completely out of our depth. I did not know who you were, at first. I did not know who
I
was. Now that I have realised, perhaps together we can find a solution to the mess the world is in.’

Hadrian backed away from the furnace. He wasn’t imagining the voice. It was real, but there was an unusual quality to it, as though he wasn’t hearing it entirely through his ears. It became stronger as he moved back the way he had come, around the furnace and across the basement.

Gently, he opened the door to the narrow stairwell. The voice echoed out of it.

‘I
know you can hear me. Many things are changing around you. Can you feel it? Do you have the slightest idea what happened to you and your brother? To me? If not, you are in grave danger.
We
can help you.
We
are the good guys, Hadrian.
We
are trying to save the world.’

He closed the door and tried not to listen. The detective and his sidekick had obviously managed to make the hospital’s intercom system work. He wasn’t going to be gullible enough to fall for their appeal. Although they had seemed innocent enough at first, he couldn’t afford to trust them now. He would have to find out what had happened to him on his own; and then he would find Ellis and get on with his life.

But first, there was the matter of Seth’s body.

When Hadrian had moved away from the furnace, he had felt something strange tugging at him. The feeling had been strong, and as he came back to the furnace it returned. He felt he was getting close to something important.

He peered down into the orange-hot coals once more. This time he saw more than just the remains of burned coal and rubbish: visible to one side was a distinct surface mostly buried beneath a dune of ash, a smoothness where everything else was rough. An odd note.

Hadrian hefted the shovel in his hands, wondering how far he could reach into the oven. If he was quick, he decided that he would just about make it. Taking off the cotton uniform top and feeling the heat roll in waves up his exposed skin, he gripped the shovel by its handle and lunged into the furnace.