Spawn (20 page)

“About eight or nine weeks,” he told her.

As she leant close to him he could smell her perfume. Just a vague hint but nevertheless detectable. She smelt so clean and fresh and, as she peered through the opthalmoscope, her silky hair brushed the unscarred side of his face. He felt a peculiar tingle run through him and his breathing quickened slightly.

“Have you ever had blackouts before?” she wanted to know.

Harold shrugged.

“I don’t think so.”

She asked him to take off his shirt.

A look of panic flashed across his face, as if she had just asked him to jump from the fourth storey window. He quivered, the breath catching in his throat.

“Why?” he asked, agitatedly.

She smiled, surprised by his reaction.

“I want to check your heart and lungs.” She was already reaching for the stethoscope.

Still he hesitated, dropping his gaze momentarily then looking up at her with something akin to pleading sparkling in his eye.

“I’m all right,” he told her, his voice cracking.

“Please, Harold,” she persisted.

His mind was racing. What would she say when he took it off? Should he leave now, run out of the room? But then, he knew that they would come for him and when that happened. . . He pushed the thought to one side.

“Harold, please take off your shirt.”

With shaking hands, he began to undo the buttons, pulling the bottom free of his trousers. Maggie took the sphygmomanometer from its metal case, preparing to test his blood pressure when she’d finished the chest examination. She tugged the cuff open, the velcro rasping noisily in the silence of the room.

Harold pulled his shirt free, balled it up and held it on his lap, his body trembling.

Maggie turned to look at him.

She swallowed hard, trying hard to disguise her horror at what she saw. Harold sat impassively, his eyes closed as if ashamed of the sight of his body.

His chest and arms were covered by numerous raw, angry cuts. Some had scabbed over, others were purple knots where the scar tissue had formed, only to be picked or cut away later. Dark, vicious welts covered his arms from the wrist to the elbow and the parts of his torso and limbs not disfigured by the multitude of sores and wounds were milk white. He had obviously lost a lot of blood from the cuts. One or two were festering, a large one just below his left elbow was a suppurating cleft in the mottled flesh. The most striking thing about the wounds, however, was their positioning. Each seemed to be a measured distance from the next, almost like carefully carved tribal scars. His chest was a patchwork of crusted flesh and dried blood, one nipple having been sliced in two. It was so badly bruised it was black. And that was the curious thing about all the cuts. Around each one was a dark area which, if anything reminded Maggie of a love-bite. It was as if the skin on Harold’s body had been drawn between someone’s lips, the suction causing the resultant discoloration of the flesh.

“Where did you get these cuts?” she asked him, her voice low and full of muted fear. Fear? Yes, Maggie told herself. Spidery fingers were playing a symphony along the nape of her neck and she felt the hairs rise in response.

Harold didn’t answer, he just continued gazing down at the floor.

She moved closer, taking hold of his left wrist, anxious to get a closer look at the numerous gashes. He pulled away from her, his breath coming in gasps.

“Did you cut yourself like this for a reason?” she wanted to know.

He opened his mouth to speak, thoughts still whirling around inside his head and now, he began to hear the familiar voices growing in volume as he fought to find some kind of explanation for the shocking appearance of his upper body.

“I think I should call Dr Parkin, let him. . .”

“No.” He practically shouted at her. “No.”

“Something has got to be done about these cuts, Harold,” she said. “Now, will you please tell me how you got them?”

“I . . . I dream,” he mumbled.

“About what?” she asked him, taking his left arm in her hand and, this time, she encountered no opposition. She probed the edges of the nearest gash with a wooden spatula, withdrawing it when Harold winced.

“I dream about different things,” he said, vaguely, gazing ahead as if he were addressing someone on the other side of the room.

“What do you see in these dreams, Harold?” she asked him. She was using the conversation as a means of distraction while she got a better look at the cuts on his body. The one below his elbow was undoubtedly fresh. She wiped some sticky liquid from it with a piece of gauze and prodded the torn flesh but, this time, Harold didn’t react.

“Fire,” he said, flatly. “I see fire.”

“Can you tell me more about the dreams?” she asked.

“I killed my brother and my mother,” he said, almost as if it were a confession. “That was why they put me away.” The smile that he flashed at her caused her flesh to rise into goose-pimples. Maggie wondered just how deeply Harold’s apparent obsession with the disposal of abortions, and his insistence on calling them “children”, went. It made her wonder just how much more he could cope with. The wounds on his body were obviously self-inflicted, perhaps, she thought, as some kind of bizarre revenge against himself for the crime which he felt he’d committed.

“How did your mother and brother die?” she asked.

He told her, and the significance of the fire, the destruction of the embryonic creatures, immediately fell into place.

“I dream about them sometimes,” he said. “I dreamt about the furnace room once, I. . .”

He felt a stab of pain inside his head and the voices were there, loud and commanding.

“Tell me about the dream,” Maggie said. He swallowed hard, his tone lightening somewhat.

“I don’t think I remember now,” he told her. “It’s best if I don’t talk about it. I don’t like to think about it.”

Maggie nodded, pressing the stethoscope to his chest. His heartbeat was slow. When she took his blood pressure she found it was a fraction lower than normal. Harold may have appeared to be anxious and disturbed but none of his bodily signs showed anything to back that up. She told him to put his shirt back on, dressing the worst of the cuts first.

“Can I go now?” he asked.

“If you’re sure you’re all right,” she said. “But I’d still feel better if you’d let me call Dr Parkin in to have a look at you.”

He refused, tucking his shirt back into his trousers and pulling on his overall.

“I’d like you to come back and see me in a couple of days, Harold,” Maggie told him.

He nodded, still eager to leave.

“Why don’t you go and lie down for a while.”

“I feel much better, thank you.”

Maggie shrugged. They said brief goodbyes and Harold left, closing the door behind him. He walked slowly down the corridor, the voices inside his head buzzing agitatedly.

“I didn’t say anything. I kept the secret,” Harold whispered to empty air.

“Will you hurt her?” he wanted to know.

The voices continued to speak and Harold listened intently.

Maggie sat down at her desk and ran a hand through her hair. Outside, grey rain clouds were gathering and the first fine particles of drizzle were beginning to coat the window like early morning dew on a spider’s web. It was gloomy in the office but she did not switch the lights on, merely sat in the deepening shadows, lost in her own thoughts, the vision of Harold’s savaged body still vivid in her mind. What could drive a man to inflict such damage on himself, she wondered? She looked at the phone on her desk for a long time, pondering on whether or not to ring Harold’s old psychiatrist. Perhaps if she knew more about his background she would better understand why he had done what he’d done. She drummed restlessly on the desk top, her eyes still fixed on the phone then, finally, she got to her feet and crossed to the window, gazing out at the approaching banks of grey cloud.

If he had dreams, nightmares, she reasoned, then maybe the cuts had been inflicted whilst he was in the dream-state. She had heard of people lifting objects in their sleep which they would never be able to move while awake. Perhaps the same principle applied in Harold’s case. What he could not bring himself to do in his waking state, he found the subconscious strength to do during his dreams. Namely the self-mutilation. She exhaled deeply. It was too simple an explanation. The cuts seemed
too
carefully spaced, there was nothing random about them. Unlike other psychotics who, given a sharp instrument, would carve themselves up just for the hell of it, Harold seemed to have chosen the spots where he inflicted the damage. It was almost as if he had been guided.

Maggie shook her head, trying to dismiss the thought. For one thing, Harold, as far as she knew, lived alone. He had few friends and certainly no enemies. And, as for the theory of him inflicting the wounds in a psychotic orgy of masochism – well, that didn’t tie up because, although he may be mildly disturbed, Harold was certainly not psychotic.

She crossed back to her desk and glanced at the clock.

4.11 p.m.

What really puzzled her was the dark, bruised area around each cut. If Harold was a haematophile and thereby obsessed with the drinking of his own blood then the bruises on his arms could be easily explained but, she thought, that seemed unlikely.

Besides, it still wouldn’t explain how his chest came to be in the same state.

Maggie chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully, already determined that if she had not heard from Harold in two days’ time, she would personally go to his home and find out just what was happening to him.

Judith Myers got up from her desk, smiling happily at the other people in the room, anxious to disguise the pain which was gnawing at her stomach and groin. She tried to tell herself that it was muscle strain. She’d been away from work for too long and now bending over a drawing board all day. . .

The idea quickly vanished as she felt a searing jab of agony in her side. She stood still in the corridor for a moment, leaning against the wall, feeling as if someone had kicked her in the side. She put one hand to the throbbing area and felt it gently, the pain seemed to recede somewhat and she hurried down the short flight of steps which would take her to the toilets.

Once inside, she was relieved to discover that she was alone. She locked herself in one of the cubicles and sat down on the toilet seat, rubbing both sides now, taking short breaths. The pain seemed to be moving deeper into her groin so she stood up and slipped her tights and panties down to her knees, probing gently at the lips of her vagina with her index finger. She withdrew the digit after a couple of minutes, her hand shaking, her eyes half expecting to see it stained with blood. The incident the other night had frightened her but the doctor had told her that slight bleeding was not uncommon so soon after an abortion. Bleeding from the navel however,
was
uncommon but a trip to her own GP had revealed no complications and, despite Andy Parker’s protestations, she had returned to work as soon as possible.

Now she pulled up her underclothes and unlocked the cubicle aware still of the pain which seemed to be spreading throughout her abdomen. She felt a sudden wave of nausea sweep over her and just, made it to one of the sinks. Bent double over it, she retched until there was nothing left in her stomach. The pain, curiously, seemed to vanish. Judith spun both taps to wash away the mess, cupping some water in one palm and swilling it around her mouth. She looked up, studying her reflection in the mirror. Her face was the colour of rancid butter, the dark brown of her eye-shadow giving her the appearance of a skull. She pulled some paper towels from the dispenser and wiped her mouth, tossing the used articles into a nearby bin. Then, once again, she pressed both hands to her stomach.

“Judith, are you all right?”

The voice startled her and she turned to see Theresa Holmes standing just inside the door.

“It’s OK, Terri,” she said.

“You look awful,” Theresa told her. “Do you want me to fetch the first aid bloke?”

“No, I’ll be all right. I just felt sick.”

Terri crossed to the sink and stood beside her, the ruddiness of her own complexion a marked contrast to the palour of Judith’s. She was two years older and the women had been friends ever since Judith joined the firm.

“A friend of mine, she had an abortion,” Terri said. “She had stomach trouble for months afterwards.”

Judith smiled sardonically.

“Thanks, Terri, you’re a great comfort.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. All I’m saying is, I think it’s common to feel bad soon after one.”

Judith shrugged.

“It’s been over three weeks now,” she said.

She went on to describe the incident the other night.

Terri frowned but could offer no helpful information or advice. She asked Judith once more if she felt fit enough to come back to work and the younger woman nodded.

At two o’clock that afternoon, Judith Myers collapsed and was taken home, a slight swelling in her stomach noticed by no one.

The doors of the cellar bulkhead rattled in the powerful wind and Paul Harvey grunted irritably, awoken by the sound. He sat, screwing his eyes up in an effort to re-orientate himself with his surroundings. It was dark in the cellar, the only light coming through the slight gap where the two bulkhead doors met. Outside, the moon hung high in the sky, a solitary cold white beam finding its way down into the subterranean gloom. The cellar was large, stretching far away from him on three sides. It ran all the way beneath the farmhouse but he had not ventured far from his present hiding place for some time now. Not during daylight at least.

They
had come, as he had expected. Two of them in one of their cars but, he had seen them and he had hidden. Pleased with his own cunning, he had gained entry to the house by breaking one of the small glass panels in the front door and simply wrenching the lock off with one huge hand. He had blundered around inside the empty, dust-choked dwelling until he finally found the cellar door. The rusty key still in the lock. He had unlocked the door and taken the key in with him.
They
had searched the house, he had heard them moving about inside, one of them had even mentioned something about a break-in but, when they had tried the door to the cellar and found it locked, they had gone away. Harvey had remained silent all the time they searched, the sickle held tightly in his grasp just in case. When one of them had tugged at the rusty iron chain on the bulkhead doors, Harvey had thought that they would discover him but his luck had persisted. Through the gap in the doors he had been able to see one of them in his blue uniform, speaking into the box which he carried and which seemed to answer him back. But, after what seemed like an eternity, Harvey had heard them return to their car and drive off. However, determined not to fall into one of
their
traps, he had remained in his hiding place. They would not catch him out again.