Spawn (10 page)

“What do they want?” he asked, warily.

“I’m not sure,” said Cayton, stepping back into the lift and punching the button marked nine.

The doors slid shut and there was a loud burring as the lift rose.

Harold stood still for long moments, gazing at the floor, staring at his own distorted image on the wet surface. Then, leaving the mop and bucket in the middle of the floor, he headed for the steps which would take him down to the basement.

Harold found that, by the time he reached the door of Pathology One, his body was sheathed in a fine film of perspiration. He knocked tentatively and stood waiting, listening to the sound of footsteps approaching from inside. The door opened and a middle-aged man in a white plastic apron peered out. He looked at Harold over the rims of his thick spectacles, brushing a loose strand of hair from his forehead. He glanced briefly at the scar then ran an appraising eye over the nervous porter.

“Wait there,” said the man, attempting a smile but not quite managing it.

Harold peered through the half-open door, at the stainless steel slab nearest the door which, he noted, bore an occupant. The other men in white overalls were poring over it. There was a type of scale suspended over the slab and, as Harold watched, one of the men lifted a crimson lump from the slab and laid it in the bowl which registered a weight on the metric scale it bore. The man ran a blood-soaked finger along the scale, recording the weight to the last gramme. He then said something about the liver and Harold saw his companion jot the weight down on a clipboard which he held. The crimson lump was removed and placed on a trolley nearby, some congealed blood spilling in blackened gouts from the organ. Harold blenched and turned away, his stomach somersaulting.

“Here you are.”

The voice startled him and he turned to see the bespectacled man standing in the doorway, leaning on a trolley covered with a white sheet.

“Just some specimens to dispose of,” he said and pushed the trolley out.

Harold took a firm grip on the gurney and began to push it in the direction of the furnace room, hearing the door close behind him as the pathologist retreated back inside the lab. One of the wheels squeaked and it offered a discordant accompaniment to the rhythmic tattoo beaten out by Harold’s shoes which echoed through the chill, silent corridor. He looked down at the trolley as he walked, running a suspicious eye over the sheeted exhibits hidden from view. He could detect that familiar smell, the cloying, pungent odour of chemicals which made his eyes water. Harold tried to swallow but found that his throat was parchment dry, his tongue felt like a piece of sun-baked meat. He paused at the door of the furnace room and opened it, feeling the familiar blast of warm air as it greeted him. The generator hummed unceasingly as he dragged the gurney in beside him and closed the door. Unable to contain his curiosity any longer he pulled back the sheet, uncovering the objects which lay on the trolley.

He moaned as if in pain. His one good eye riveted to the foetus which lay in the tray. For long seconds, Harold stared at it, tears brimming in his eye. He didn’t know at what stage the thing had been aborted but it was slightly larger than the one he’d seen Greaves incinerate on the first day. Its eyes were sealed shut by membranous skin. The head once more looked swollen and liquescent but this time it had a thin, almost invisible covering of fine hair. The whole body was covered by the langou and Harold reached out a shaking hand to touch the silken fibres. But the body was cold and dripping with chemicals and it felt so obscenely soft that he hastily withdrew his hand. The forceps lay beside the receiver and they glinted in the cold white light cast by the overhead banks of fluorescents.

Harold pushed the trolley closer to the furnace, using the wrench and gloves to open it as he had seen Greaves do. The door swung open and a blistering wave of heat gushed forth, sweeping over Harold like a burning tide. He took a step back, recoiling from the sudden intense temperature. He pulled on a pair of thin rubber gloves and looked down at the foetus, then at the forceps. The furnace yawned invitingly. Harold picked up the metallic clamp and prepared to pick up the tiny body. His breath was coming in gasps, a single tear now rolling down his unscarred cheek.

He reached for the foetus.

“No.”

He threw the forceps down and gripped the side of the trolley to steady himself.

“No,” he said again, his voice cracking. “No.”

He looked at the body, lying in its pool of rancid fluid, the arms and legs drawn up stiffly in a pose which reminded him of some kind of vile, hairless cat waiting to have its belly stroked. He sucked in huge lungfuls of stagnant air, his head bowed. When he finally managed to straighten up he looked into the furnace until the roaring flames burned yellow and white patterns on his retina. He could not,
would
not, put the foetus into that hungry mouth. His anxious gaze strayed back to the liquid-covered body and he shook convulsively.

“Gordon;” he whispered, softly.

His head was beginning to throb, his nostrils and eye stinging from the odorous substances which lay in the tray with the abortion. He looked around him, at the generator, at the filthy trolleys which stood in one comer of the room, at the piles of fouled linen. There was something else too, something which he hadn’t noticed the first time. It was like a large plastic dustbin standing near to the piles of filthy laundry. Harold crossed hastily to it and lifted the lid, immediately gagging at the disgusting stench which rose from it. He looked down and saw that it was full of old dressings. Some were stiff with dried blood, others still crimson and fresh. There were gauze pads soaked with yellowish fluid, bandages that had pieces of skin sticking to them. Harold backed away, his mind churning with ideas. He crossed to the gurney and, with infinite care, as if he were lifting a sleeping child, picked up the foetus with both gloved hands. A drop of fluid burst from the umbilicus and splashed Harold’s overall but he ignored it, carrying the tiny creature towards the bandage filled dustbin. There, he gently layed it on the ground and dug deep into the mass of bloodied dressings, making room at the bottom. This done, he once more lifted the foetus and placed it in the dustbin, covering it with the used bandages and pads, hiding it from view. He wiped some pus from his glove and then hastily put back the lid of the dustbin.

The furnace room door opened and Winston Greaves walked in.

Harold spun round, heart hammering against his ribs. Greaves looked at him for a moment, at the dustbin, at Harold’s bloodstained hands. Then he smiled thinly.

“I thought I’d see how you were getting on,” said the senior porter.

Harold walked back to the furnace, satisfied that Greaves suspected nothing. After all, he reasoned, what
could
he suspect? Together they disposed of the remaining things on the gurney, consigning them to the blazing fire then returning the trolley to pathology.

As they left the furnace room, Greaves leading the way, Harold took one last look across at the dustbin. The foetus would remain hidden in there, free from prying eyes. As far as anyone else was concerned, it had been incinerated along with everything else. He had told Greaves that he’d burned the contents of the dustbin along with the pathology specimens and the coloured porter nodded his approval. Harold smiled to himself and pulled the furnace room door closed.

The foetus would be safe in its hiding place until he could return.

Night came without bringing the rain which had threatened earlier. Instead, the air was filled with a numbing frost which glittered on the grass and trees, reflecting the light from the hospital like millions of tiny diamonds. Harold stood at his window, watching as more and more lights were extinguished in the huge building as the hour grew late. He watched with almost inhuman patience, his mind a blank; the only thing scratching the surface of his consciousness being the persistent ticking of his alarm clock. He stood in the hut in darkness, not having bothered to turn on the light and, when he glanced behind him, the phosphorescent arms of the clock radiated their greenish glow revealing that it was almost 12.36 a.m.

Harold didn’t feel tired, despite the fact that he’d been up since six that morning. His mind was too full of ideas for him to notice any fatigue. In another twenty-five minutes or so he would slip out of the hut, cross the few hundred yards of open ground which separated his own dwelling from the main building and go through the entrance which faced him.

It led past the mortuary to a flight of steps and a lift which would take him down to the basement and, eventually, to the furnace room.

The hands of the clock crawled slowly to one o’clock and Harold decided that it was time to leave. He slipped silently out of the door and locked it behind him, hurriedly making his way across the large expanse of grass between his hut and the nearest entrance. The frost crunched beneath his feet but, despite its severity, it had done little to harden up the ground and Harold twice nearly slipped in the mud. His breath came in short gasps, each of which was signalled by a small cloud of misty condensation. As he drew closer he realized just how dark the hospital was. There seemed to be only a couple of lights burning on each floor and that was not enough to illuminate his dark shape in the blackness.

He paused, ducking behind a nearby bush when he heard a clicking sound. Looking up he saw that it was two of the nurses returning to their quarters. They were laughing happily, the sounds of merriment drifting through the chill, silent night. Harold watched them until they disappeared out of sight then he continued forward, almost running the last few yards to the entrance.

A blue sign to his right proclaimed:

M
ORTUARY

He pushed open one of the swing doors and moved as quietly as he could into a short corridor which led to a staircase. He blinked hard in the darkness, for no light had been left on. Indeed, as he reached the top of the stairs, he grabbed the handrail to guide himself, so impenetrable was the darkness.

It seemed even colder inside the building than out and Harold shuddered as he made his way tentatively down the stairs. How he wished he had a torch. He was completely and utterly blind, unable to see a hand in front of him and this sensation made him feel all the more uneasy. He could feel his body trembling and, as he put his foot down to find the next step, he stumbled. Harold gasped in shocked surprise and fell hard on the base of his spine. The impact sent a pain right through his body and, for long seconds, he sat where he was, moaning softly, one hand still gripping the handrail, the other massaging his back. He slowed his breathing, afraid that someone might hear him, worried that his little venture would be halted because some conscientious pathology assistant had decided to stay late and finish some work in the labs. His trepidation grew stronger when he noticed that there was a light burning at the bottom of the staircase. He had to round a comer to reach the base and that was still a dozen or more steps down. As yet the light was indistinct but, hauling himself up, Harold moved on, drawn towards the light like a moth to a flame.

He reached the bottom of the stairs, emerging in the area before the lift. The doors to all the labs were closed. Perhaps, he reasoned, someone had left and forgotten to turn out the light. But another part of his mind told him that the men who worked down here were too thorough to let such a minor thing as a light escape their notice. Heart pounding against his ribs, he walked to the door of the first lab and pressed his ear to it.

There was no sound coming from inside.

He twisted the handle and found that the door was locked. The same procedure was repeated with the other three labs and Harold was finally satisfied that the light had simply been overlooked. For that, to some degree, he was grateful. Although it lit only the area near the lift, it did provide at least some light for him as he made his way up the corridor.

In the furnace room the heat was as powerful as ever, but this time he welcomed it for it drove some of the chill from his bones. The generator kept up its ceaseless humming. Harold crossed quickly to the plastic dustbin and lifted the lid, pulling the used dressings aside, ignoring the blood and other discharge which sometimes stuck to his flesh. He finally felt something soft and jellied beneath his hands.

Very carefully, he lifted the foetus out, holding the tiny body before him for long seconds. Even in the half-light, he could see that the skin was already turning blue. He turned and laid it on one of the soiled sheets which were stacked on the gurneys behind him, then, as if he were wrapping a fragile Christmas present, he carefully pulled the dirty linen around the foetus. A rank odour filled his nostrils but he tried to ignore it and, with his “prize” secured, he made his way back towards the door, holding the small thing as a mother would hold her baby.

Harold ran across the open ground towards his but finally slowing down when he reached the flimsy dwelling. He leant against the wall, trying to catch his breath, his one good eye squinting through the gloom to the doors he’d come through. No one had heard or seen him. There was no one following. Harold smiled thinly and closed his eyes. He took great gulps of cold air, trying to ignore the rancid stench which rose from the sheet and its dead occupant but that didn’t seem to matter any longer. He had completed the first and most hazardous part of his venture, the second step was merely a formality.

The hut in which Harold lived stood about ten yards from a low barbed wire fence which marked the perimeter of the hospital beyond it lay large expanses of open fields, some of the ground was owned by the hospital but it was fenced off nevertheless. In the far distance, Harold could see the lights of Exham and, occasionally, the headlamps of a vehicle travelling along the dual-carriageway which led into the town. He headed towards the fence and cautiously stepped over it, catching his trousers on one of the vicious barbs. The material ripped slightly and Harold pulled himself free.