Others (32 page)

35

I took only two of them with me: the man-boy, Joseph, and the girl with the acute curvature of the lower spine, who was introduced to me as Mary, and whose hair hung in golden ringlets around her pretty face, and who possessed the most innocent eyes I’d ever seen. I remembered her too, from last night’s visions, although her image had been unclear, shim-mery. None of their friends who were able could be coaxed to join us, for they were terrified of being caught outside their dormitory unattended. Their fear was frightening in itself and I wondered if any government department had sanctioned such an establishment - after all, could babies just disappear from hospitals only moments after their birth without some collusion by the authorities? - or whether this whole operation was truly clandestine. Surely the health authorities had to have some involvement? Perhaps they did, but never bothered to monitor the conditions in which these poor misfits lived. Perhaps they had too much faith in the eminent Dr Leonard K. Wisbeech and all the fancy letters after his name. I prayed that that wasn’t the truth of it.

There had been much whimpering and moaning as we three had sneaked through the double doors, but as soon as we were outside and the doors closed behind us, the sounds stopped. It was as if all those left inside the dormitory were holding their breath.

‘Don’t you have a warden of some kind on duty out here?’ I asked Joseph, nodding towards the open doorway of the partitioned office.

‘Usually there is one,’ he replied, ‘but Michael tells us there is something terrible happening here tonight, so perhaps our supervisor is being kept busy elsewhere.’

Michael. That poor blob of barely-human flesh whose only existence was acknowledged by a blurred number tattooed on to his skin. ‘How does Michael know these things?’ I said.

‘He senses them. He travels beyond his own body. It’s his only… gift.’

Nature compensates, right? Only what a sick joke in this case.

‘And he communicates this to you?’ I said, still in a whisper.

‘He shares his thoughts with us. Not with words, but with feelings and emotions. It isn’t always clear, but tonight he has shown us great terror and we are afraid.’

And Louise had felt it too. Back at the old abandoned house, she had sensed their panic.

‘You’re sure he knows where Constance is?’

Joseph gave a bow of his head. ‘He will guide us.’

‘Okay.’ I wasn’t reassured, but I knew when to follow my
own
instincts. I took the twelve-year-old by the hand and led him over to the elevator. Mary, hardly leaning on her walking stick, merely using it for balance, followed us.

We stopped in front of the shaft doors and even as I debated whether or not to push the call button, we were startled by a sudden clanking noise, followed by a low humming that grew louder.

‘Quickly,’ I said, now taking both my companions by the elbow and pushing them towards the closed door next to the elevator shaft. The lift’s coming up.’

The girl hobbled awkwardly and the man-boy shuffled in his slippers, but it took very little time to reach the sturdy-looking door behind which I assumed was the staircase to this wing. Rather stupidly, I had also assumed the door would be unlocked.

The humming sound grew louder as I turned the door’s handle to no effect. The lock was a simple cylinder and on a good day I could have picked it within forty seconds; however, this was not a good day and nor did I have forty seconds. I whisked the keyring I had taken from the small office out of my pocket and chose the obvious key, the Yale. It turned the lock easily and just as the humming from the lift shaft sighed to a stop, I pushed my companions through the open door. I followed through smartly as the elevator doors began to clunk open and through the two-inch gap I’d left I caught sight of a blue-uniformed figure emerging from the lift to cross the landing, heading towards the office opposite. It was a squat, broad-shouldered man, the short sleeves of the uniform showing off his muscular arms. He whistled tunelessly, obviously happy in his work.

For a hair-raising moment, I thought he might test the dormitory doors that I had left shut but unlocked. Fortunately, he only paused before the entrance, seemed to listen for a while, then went on into his office. Inside, he took the newspaper that had been folded beneath his armpit and sat in the chair, leaning back to stretch his legs, resting his feet on the desk before him. With relief, I closed the stairway door all the way.

I found we were on a wooden, carpet-less and dimly-lit landing, to our left stairs, ascending, presumably to the roof or attic rooms, to our right, descending. Putting a straight finger against my lips, I warned my two newfound friends to remain silent, then immediately had to clap my hands over their mouths as they began to jabber. Obviously they were not used to that kind of sign language in this small, enclosed world of theirs and had no idea what I meant. The girl, Mary, who was slightly taller than I, jerked her head away from my hand, total panic in those innocent eyes, while Joseph clammed up instantly.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ I whispered urgently, reaching for Mary’s arm to reassure her. ‘We must keep very quiet, okay? We don’t want anybody to hear us.’

She blinked and Joseph nodded as vigorously as he could manage. The girl had raised a hand to her cheek, so that the sleeve of her robe had slid down to her elbow, exposing her lower arm, and I saw the markings there: 201079. Not a human to the people who ran this place, I reflected, only a number, a registration no doubt kept on file, somewhere.

‘I’m s-s-s… I’m s-sorry,’ she stuttered so woefully it might have been an apology for her existence rather than the noise she had made and I had to rush my hand to her mouth again. This time she took a step backwards away from me, her spine hitting the landing’s rail behind her.

‘It’s all right,’ I hissed, remaining still in case I alarmed her further. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. I’m a friend, remember?’

Joseph went to her and reached up for her wrists, taking them in his own hands and gently pulling them away from her face. ‘He’s the one we called to help us, Mary,’ he said softly. ‘He really is our friend.’

A thought occurred to me and I moved closer to them both. ‘Joseph,’ I said close to his ear. ‘How did you get your names? Are they your real ones, the names you were born with?’

‘Oh no.’ He regarded me gravely. ‘We only had the numbers to begin with. Momma Sparrow gave us our names. She could never remember the numbers.’ He looked up at me with pale, weary eyes. Tour name,’ he said in a hushed voice. ‘You haven’t told us what you are called yet.’

‘You don’t know?’ I was surprised. After all, they had been inside my head more than once now.

They both shook their heads and I was relieved to see that the girl appeared to have got over her fright.

‘My name is Dismas,’ I told them.

The Good Thief?’ Joseph said instantly with a kind of half-smile.

That’s right, the Good Thief, the bad-guy-turned-good, who died beside Christ on the Cross.’ I’d forgotten that their favourite reading was the Bible. Joseph and Mary seemed pleased, despite their nervousness.

‘Dismas…?’ Joseph said.

‘Just call me Dis, okay?’

‘Dis?’

‘What is it, Joseph?’

‘We are the same, aren’t we?’

I was puzzled by the question. ‘Of course, we’re all the same. We’re all human.’

‘But you are more like us than others.’

‘Yeah, I’m more like you. But there are
plenty
like us in the outside world.’

‘I’m glad. Although I don’t understand why only we are kept here, locked away.’

‘Neither do I, Joseph, but we’ll find out. I promise you, we’ll find out’

Another question that burned me was precisely what was Constance Bell’s role in all this? She wasn’t kept here under lock and key like these poor wretches and, from what Joseph had told me, she obviously cared for these people. It was impossible to believe that Constance was in league with her guardian, Leonard Wisbeech, but what other explanation was there? It was another question whose answer I intended to find out. I limped to the rail and stared into the stairwell. Mary did not try to back away from me.

There was the usual gloom from the floor below, as if the interior of the building was set in permanent twilight, and I heard no sounds, no other signs of life. Joseph joined me and stood on tip-toes to look over.

‘D’you know what’s down there on the other levels, Joseph?’ I asked him.

His sad little face looked up at me and for the first time I saw the child behind the mask. There was a trusting in his eyes, even though there was apprehension too, and somehow it made me feel both inadequate and determined at the same time.

The laboratory is on the next floor,’ Joseph answered. The Doctor refers to it as his “museum of the anomalous and curious”.’

I had to remind myself that Joseph was still a mere boy, even though he appeared otherwise and the words he spoke suggested a learning beyond the capabilities of a twelve-year-old. In normal society, he might even have been considered a child prodigy, and I wondered if Wisbeech treated him as such, feeding his intellect, encouraging him to extend his knowledge by reading from learned tomes. Maybe that was Joseph’s true uniqueness, not his disease, but his intellectual powers. Something tugged at my sleeve and I turned to find Mary peering earnestly into my face.

‘M-m-must go now.’ She continued to pull at my jacket, demanding a response.

I straightened and managed to give her a smile, hoping it wouldn’t frighten her. She, herself, managed a tentative smile in return and it made me feel a little better.

‘I’ll get you out of here,’ I told her quietly. ‘I’ll get you all out of here. But we must find Constance first.’

Yes, I eventually would get them
all
out of this cruel, Godforsaken place, but I wouldn’t take them to the authorities, not to the very people who had allowed this, either by negligence or plan, to happen. No, it would be the media first, a television station or an upmarket newspaper, not a tabloid but a broadsheet whose headlines would not feature the word ‘FREAKS’. I’d make the story public first and only then would I involve the Law.

As skittish as a young deer, the girl hurried past me to the top step, where she grabbed the rail for balance and looked back at me for reassurance. Joseph’s fingers curled around mine and this time he led me.

The three of us began the descent together.

***

We listened at the door on the next level, holding our breath, the tension between us almost palpable. I could feel Mary trembling beside me and Joseph had closed his eyes as if meditating. I guessed he was trying to pick up ‘vibes’ from Michael, our so-called ‘guide’, and mentally I shook my head in despair. We had to rely on ourselves, not this poor mute, helpless thing whose thoughts, they claimed, would assist us in our search for Constance. Despite all I’d learned, my natural sceptism was hard to overcome.

Tou say there’s a laboratory through here?’ I whispered.

‘Yes, but we must go on,’ Joseph insisted.

‘I want to see it.’

His eyes snapped open. ‘No, no, please let’s go before we are discovered. Michael is letting me know that Constance is not there.’

‘I’m still curious. I’d like to know exactly what Wisbeech is up to before we leave this place. Look, why don’t you two wait here while I sneak a quick look around.’

They both clutched my arm as if afraid to be left alone.

‘It’ll only take me a couple of minutes.’

They still clung to me.

‘Okay. Then you’ll both have to come with me. I promise it’ll be quick.’

I could see the consternation on their faces, but nevertheless I tried the doorhandle. As expected, the door was locked and I reached for the keyring once more. The same key that had opened the landing door upstairs opened this one too.

There were pitch-black shadows inside, although moonlight flooded through from windows of the room’s right-hand wall, apparently no ban on them at this level. Through them I saw that most of the clouds in the night sky had dispersed. The strong smell of formaldehyde wafted over us and it was almost a relief from the general stench that continued to cloy my sensitive nostrils. Cautiously, I pushed my head through the opening and was able to discern long bench tables running the length of the room, with cupboards, glass cabinets and shelving around the walls. Using the torch, I saw there were large glass cases and jars on the work benches, all of which contained floating things of no recognizable form - at least, not from where I stood. I felt the material of my jacket being pulled again.

‘Please let’s leave,’ I heard Joseph implore from behind me.

There’s no one here,’ I whispered back to him, my eye still drawn to those specimen jars and cases on the long tables. Although impossible to identify their contents from that distance, there was nevertheless something repugnant about them. The shapes suspended inside the clear liquid appeared to have no regular form and seemed almost like weird, modernist sculptures or the sick creations of HR Giger. I decided I wanted a closer look and so stepped into the laboratory, much to my companions’ audible dismay.

Once inside, I was able to see work benches along the windowed wall, desk lights and computers on their surfaces. There was the usual scientific paraphernalia around on other worktops, from Bunsen burners to both ordinary and electron microscopes, from flat-bottomed and conical flasks to evaporating dishes and measuring cylinders, whose purpose I could only guess at. While Joseph and Mary waited by the door, I wandered further into the huge room.

I approached one of the long benches and shone the light on the closest glass cabinet there. With a small cry, I recoiled at the sight of the thing inside.

Again I felt sickened, yet I was also perversely fascinated with the huge, peculiar, unborn foetus floating in the preservative. The bulbous but only partly-formed head was tucked into tiny arms, a lizard’s comb running from the scalp, over its arched back, to end in a pointed tail. Minute legs were bent and raised into its stomach, but I could see the fleshy webbing between its tiny, splayed toes. I would have assumed it was an animal or reptile of some kind had it not been for the pallid and soft-looking skin, the one visible eye, blue and very human, the growth that almost formed a natural ear. And if it were not for the glassy blankness in its stare, I might even have imagined it was alive. I prayed then that it had
never
lived.