The Darkest Corners (10 page)

Ameena slowed the car, but didn't quite stop. Twisted, malformed shapes filled these streets too. They danced around the flames, delighting in the sheer spectacle of it all.

The hospital was on the edge of town, raised up on the hillside. We could only see part of the building, but from here it didn't look like it was burning. Yet.

The 4x4 dipped to one side as Ameena steered it off the road. ‘Direct route,' she explained as the car began to climb the slippery slope.

It was an uncomfortable trip. The hill was grassy and uneven, and the car bounced and rolled its way up towards the low, squat hospital building. We were a hundred or more metres away, but could see the whole place was in darkness.

A thought suddenly occurred to me. ‘There'll still be people inside. Won't there? Normal people, I mean.'

Ameena's hands tightened on the wheel. ‘Maybe. But if Doc's there…' She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't have to.

I'd seen up close what Doc Mortis could do to people. Even those who were equipped to fight back had felt the sting of his surgical tools. I didn't dare imagine how a hospital full of the sick and injured would fare against him.

‘It's a big risk,' Ameena said as the hill began to level off and we approached the rear of the hospital. ‘We don't know what's going to be in here.'

‘Billy, hopefully,' I said. ‘We rescue him, then we can move on to phase two of the plan. Finding my dad.'

She nodded slowly and brought the car to a stop beside the hospital's low boundary wall. ‘And what then?'

‘Then? Then I'll kill him.'

Ameena's eyes narrowed and her lips went thin.

‘You got a problem with that?'

She shook her head. ‘No. No problem. If that's what you want.'

‘That's what I want,' I said. ‘Now kill the lights and let's check the boot.'

‘For what?'

‘For weapons,' I told her. I looked up at the darkened hospital standing before us. ‘If Doc's really in there, we're going to need them.'

W
e'd been hoping for shotguns. We found batons.

They were the telescopic kind that extended out to about fifty centimetres and folded down to about twenty. We picked them up and swished them a few times, getting used to the weight.

‘He could've left us some hand grenades or something,' Ameena grumbled. ‘If he was so keen on helping us.'

‘I'm sure he had his reasons,' I shrugged, pulling the boot closed as quietly as I could manage.

‘Or a bazooka, maybe.'

I moved towards the wall, keeping low. There was no movement at any of the windows, and I couldn't see anything moving around in the hospital grounds. It was dark, though, and I was all too aware that anything could be hiding in the shadows.

‘Door's over there,' Ameena whispered. I followed her finger until I found the main entrance.

‘Too obvious. There's another door round the side. We'll go that way.'

‘OK. Want me to wait here?'

‘No,' I said. ‘Why would I?'

‘No reason.' She looked up at the hospital and shivered. ‘Just hoping.'

‘If you don't want to come, you don't have to,' I told her.

‘Hey, trusty sidekick, remember?' she said, and she made a passable attempt to grin. ‘I've got your back.' Her smile faded and her face became solemn. ‘Promise.'

‘Right then,' I said. ‘Stick close together. Let's go.'

We jumped over the low wall, then discovered it was substantially further to fall on the other side. I landed badly and almost screamed as pain popped in my kneecap. It took a few moments of deep breathing before I could trust myself to open my mouth.

‘Forgot about the drop,' I muttered, and we began limping and running towards the main part of the building.

We pressed ourselves against the wall. The windows were a metre above us, too high to see through. But the rooms beyond them were silent and dark.

Keeping my head down, I moved round the building towards the side door. A few moments ago the baton had felt reassuringly solid, but now it slipped in my sweaty hand, and I couldn't imagine it being of any use whatsoever. I gripped it tighter all the same.

‘I don't know if these will stop a porter,' I whispered.

‘Aim for the legs,' Ameena said. ‘They're the weak spots.'

‘Oh yeah, I forgot. You're all best friends, aren't you?' I said. It was partly meant as a joke, but it didn't come out that way.

‘No. I've never met one, not up close. But anyone living near Doc Mortis learns the best way to deal with a porter.'

She was on the defensive now. ‘And it's not like we all just hung about, you know? I grew up terrified of Mortis, hearing all these stories about him. Hearing about what he did to people. I didn't even know him and your dad had some kind of truce figured out until today. I didn't know they were working together. It's not like I was ever kept in the loop.'

I shrugged, but didn't risk replying in case it came out sounding petty or angry. We were nearly at the side door. There was a sensor mounted above it, and it should have slid open at our approach. It didn't move, though, and it occurred to me that the door would probably be locked.

I stopped and studied the toughened glass. The room on the other side was too dark to see into.

‘Should we smash it?' I asked.

Ameena elbowed me aside. ‘No; stand back. Watch this. You're not the only one with magic powers, you know.'

She clapped her hands once and rubbed them together. Then she pressed her palms flat against the glass. I held my breath and took another step back. Ameena moved her hands to the right, manually sliding the unlocked door out of our way.

She looked back over her shoulder at me and smirked. ‘I call that power “common sense”.'

‘Very funny,' I grunted. I reached above her and held the door open. ‘For that, you get to go first.'

‘Lucky me,' she said, stepping inside. She glanced in both directions along the corridor, then relaxed. ‘There. See? Nothing to worry about.'

A fast-moving shape blurred into her, whisking her away. One second she was there in front of me, the next she wasn't. I dived inside the hospital and heard her muffled screams disappearing along the corridor to my left.

‘Ameena!' I called.

Big mistake.

The darkness behind me rustled as something came alive in it. I ran without looking, ignoring my injured knee as I lumbered along the corridor after Ameena, panic acting as the ultimate painkiller.

From up ahead I heard a loud
crack
and the squeal of something less than human. Ameena gasped as she drew in a breath, then I became aware of her in the dark just ahead of me.

‘Watch your feet,' she warned, and I realised the porter was on the floor, thrashing around. ‘What did I tell you? Go for the legs.'

We could make out a door in the gloom. She pulled it open and dragged me inside, just as the thing back along the corridor began to pick up speed.

‘In here.'

‘What is it?' I asked. ‘Where does it go?'

‘How should I know? Away from them.'

She shoved me forward and I bumped against a shelf. Reaching up, I felt around through the blackness. Yep, there was that horrible sinking feeling again.

‘It's a cupboard,' I sighed as she pulled the door closed. ‘You've led us into a cupboard.'

I heard her hesitate. ‘Well, yeah. I mean
obviously
it's a cupboard.'

We jumped as something began to tap slowly on the door.
Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap
. It wasn't fast or hard or frenzied. It was the slow, deliberate knock of something that knew we had no way of escaping. It was in no rush.

Tap-tap-tap
, it went.
Tap-tap-tap
, like a cat batting at a mouse it held pinned and helpless beneath its paws. Ameena fumbled around with the handle. There was a reassuring
clunk
as she turned the lock.

‘That should keep it out for a while.'

‘Great. That'll buy us more time to be stuck in a cupboard.'

‘Wait,' Ameena whispered. ‘Isn't there always a hatch in the ceiling in these things?'

‘That's in a lift,' I said, but she climbed up the shelves and felt around, anyway.

‘Nothing,' she groaned.

‘See? Told you. Lifts.'

‘They really should start to put hatches in the ceilings in cupboards too. We should write to someone.'

‘Good idea. Got a pen on you?'

Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.

‘What are we going to do?' I asked.

‘The way I see it, we've got two choices,' Ameena replied. ‘We stay here and hope it gets bored and wanders off.'

‘Unlikely.'

‘Yeah, so that brings us to the second option. We kick the door open and run away.'

Tap-tap-tap.

‘I hurt my knee jumping the wall. I can't run very fast.'

‘I'm counting on it,' Ameena said. ‘If it catches you that'll buy me more time to escape.'

Tap-tap-tap.

‘That was a joke, by the way. Too soon?'

‘Way too soon.'

Tap-tap-THUNK!

The door shook as something slammed against it from the other side. It hit high above head height, and we both instinctively ducked at the sound.

We listened for more tapping, but there was some sort of commotion going on beyond the door now. Something crunched. A porter squealed. Something went
snap
and the squealing stopped.

It lasted all of five seconds, then we heard nothing more from the corridor.

‘What was that?' I whispered.

‘Something killing something else,' she said. ‘At a guess.'

I reached for the lock and slowly turned it. ‘I'm going to take a look.'

Ameena touched me on the arm. ‘Be careful.'

‘Thanks. I'll bear that in mind.'

The door opened a crack. I almost pulled it closed again as a red glow suddenly flooded the cupboard. A row of emergency lights had illuminated along the ceiling of the corridor. They were only just bright enough to see by, but it was definitely a step in the right direction.

I peered round the side of the door and saw two porters on the floor. The one Ameena had knocked down was where she'd left it, only now it was completely motionless. Its button eyes – one yellow, one black – seemed to point different ways, so it was looking at the ceiling and the floor at the same time.

Another porter lay next to it, its body half leaning against the door. As I pushed, it slumped backwards, its head lolling at an angle that was surely unnatural even for one of them.

‘They're dead,' I mumbled, stepping out of the cupboard.

Ameena emerged behind me. ‘Right,' she said. ‘So they are. Who did that then?'

I looked up and down the corridor. The lights reddened the darkness in both directions, but there was nothing moving either way. ‘Not a clue,' I admitted. ‘But whoever it was, let's hope they're on our side.'

‘Well, at least we know we were right. If the porters are here, Doc won't be far away. The question is, where?'

There was a row of signs on the wall at the end of the corridor. I squinted and read them as we approached. ‘That way,' I said, pointing towards the mouth of another corridor that led off the one we were in.

‘How come?'

I tapped one of the signs. It read:
OPERATING THEATRE
.

‘Ah yes,' Ameena said, and I could hear the shudder in her voice. ‘Of course.'

I held the baton ready as we crept along the corridor side by side.

‘How long was I out for?' I asked. The question took Ameena by surprise and she only blinked at me in reply. ‘After he knocked me out until I woke up in the hospital. Or… you know, whatever it was. How long was I out for?'

‘A few hours, I think. Half a day, maybe. Why?'

‘Just making conversation,' I whispered.

She nodded. ‘Trying to forget about the scary psycho man waiting for us up ahead?'

‘Yeah, that too.'

The red lights cast eerie shadows across the walls. Paintings by students from a local art club hung along the walls. A blue-haired clown grinned out from one of them, and I was reminded of Wobblebottom, the clown I'd met in Doc's other hospital in the Darkest Corners. I tried not to think of him as I pushed on through the reddening gloom.

‘Two hundred quid for that,' Ameena said. She was looking at a painting of a sheep and shaking her head. ‘Who'd want that on their wall? It looks bored rigid.'

‘It's a sheep. It's supposed to look bored.'

‘Not
that
bored, surely? Poor thing looks suicidal.'

I kept walking and she fell back into step beside me. The corridor was wide, with doors leading off at regular intervals along it. We passed the hospital chapel along the way, and I half thought about popping in for a quick prayer.

But then I heard it from somewhere up ahead. I knew I'd hear it eventually. I'd been waiting to hear it from the moment we stepped through the doors.

‘What's that?' Ameena asked. She was straining to hear the music, but I didn't need to. I'd heard it so many times I could recognise it from just a handful of notes.

‘That?' I said grimly. ‘That's “The Teddy Bears Picnic”.'

Ameena clutched her baton in both hands and squeezed it tightly. Even though she hadn't recognised the tune, she clearly understood the significance of it.

‘Doc Mortis.'

I began to walk faster along the corridor, heading for the source of the music. ‘Doc Mortis,' I confirmed.

And then I ran.