Alex Grecian - Devil's Workshop

She had given birth already. Why was it happening again? Why hadn’t it stopped? She was helpless. She wanted to rest and her body wasn’t allowing it.

Above the sound of her own hard breathing, she heard footsteps on the stairs. Someone moved past the foot of the bed, and then the light from the bedroom window was blocked.

“I heard noises,” Claire said. “A lot of them. From downstairs. What’s happening?”

“Nothing that need concern you, Claire.”

It was not Dr Kingsley’s voice.

She opened her eyes and saw the dark shape of a man silhouetted against the window. He had long wavy hair, and the light haloed around him, making it seem as if he were glowing. She shut her eyes again.

“You’re not Dr Kingsley! Get out! Leave at once!”

She wrapped her arm around her crying daughter and used her free hand to rearrange the sheets on the bed, trying to cover herself, but the man chuckled. It was a warm sound, sympathetic and caring.

“Your baby is perfect,” he said. “What a transformation you have wrought.”

“Leave this room.”

“Dr Kingsley is very tired and I’m afraid he’s fallen asleep. But I’m. . Well, Claire, you could say I’m a good friend of your husband’s. Walter Day and I were just talking a short while ago, and he asked me to stop and look in on you.”

“Walter’s all right?”

“I should imagine he’s on his way here by now.”

“You’re a doctor?”

“I must be. Else why would I be carrying this black bag?” He looked down at her diary on the bedside table. “Is this yours? How delicious.”

He flipped it open and riffled through it from back to front. He stopped at the first page that wasn’t blank.

“It hurts,” Claire said.

“It’s a poem.”

“Why does it hurt when the baby’s already come?”

“May I read this? Do you mind?”

“Please help.”

He began to read out loud, and Claire was quiet. The urge to push subsided for a moment and the baby stopped crying. The new doctor’s voice was deep and pleasant as he read:

“Baby hears a sound at night:

A silent footstep in the hall.

Something moves, but nothing’s there.

It’s just a shadow on the wall.

Baby pulls her blanket tight

And she reaches for her doll.

‘’Tisn’t very nice to stare,’

Remarks the shadow on the wall.

Shadow’s voice is soft and slight,

But evil lurks where shadows fall.

Listen to it if you dare,

To that dark shadow on the wall.

Baby says, ‘I think you’re right,

But, as you see, I’m awfully small.

Just now you gave me quite a scare,

You wicked shadow on the wall.’

Shadow moves, that evil sprite.

It starts to creep; it starts to crawl.

It stops to perch upon a chair.

It waits, that shadow on the wall.

Shadow grows to its full height.

It’s ample, dark, and terribly tall.

Oh, Baby, Baby, please beware

Of that black shadow on the wall!

Baby says, ‘I’ll make a light

And then you won’t exist at all.

You’ll disappear into the air,

You silly shadow on the wall.’

Candles fill the room with light

For brightness is the shadow’s pall.

Baby sleeps without a care.

There are no shadows on the wall.”

When he had finished, he closed the covers of the diary and held it clasped in his hands.

“I quite like it,” he said. “It appears you were expecting me, after all. May I keep this?”

“Keep it?”

“Consider it your gift to me. You ought to give me something for the occasion, don’t you think?”

Claire felt a new wave of pain ripple out from her abdomen. “I don’t. . Can’t you help me? Tell me what’s happening?”

“You haven’t finished what’s begun, Mrs Day. Say please.”

“Please.”

“You had only to ask properly.”

She felt the weight of her daughter lifted from her and she opened her eyes again, too late to see the new doctor as he passed beyond her sight near the foot of the bed.

“You know,” he said, “this little one and I have something in common.” There was a gentle singsong quality to his voice, perhaps left over from reading the nursery rhyme. “We share a birthday. Did you know that? Although in my case, I suppose you’d call it a re birthday.”

“My baby. .”

“She’ll be fine here with me,” he said. “Don’t you worry about her. You’ve got quite enough to do right now.”

“Who are you? I don’t know your name.”

“My special friends call me Jack. And I think we’re going to be very special friends indeed.”

“Please tell me what’s happening,” she said again.

“You’re having another baby. Twins.”

“No. That’s not possible. I already had my baby.”

“Softly now. Stop your worries. Jack is here.”

“Jack?”

“You have given me so many lovely gifts today. A poem to treasure for always and secrets still to read. And you have given me the best thing of all. A party and guests to celebrate with. I have never had a special birthday friend, and now I have two. Isn’t that marvelous? We shall be close, your babies and I, and I think we shall have a party every year on this day.”

“Nnnggg!” Claire bore down. She couldn’t stop what was happening, couldn’t listen anymore to the strange doctor. She couldn’t make sense of his words, and so she let him disappear back into the darkness that fuzzed the edges of her vision.

“Yes,” said the shadow on the wall. “By all means, let us welcome our final guest.”

Fiona had stopped banging on the pantry door quite some time ago. She’d heard a struggle happening in the kitchen, just outside her door, then the strange doctor had wandered through. There had come the sound of yet another struggle from somewhere else in the house, but nothing since. Everything was quiet except for an occasional creaking floorboard upstairs.

She felt around on the shelves in the pantry and eventually found a pair of tea candles. She lit them and used the light to look for something to help her get the door open, but there was nothing she thought might be useful.

She turned around, sat down facing the door, and resigned herself to a long wait. At least, she thought, she wouldn’t starve to death in the pantry. She folded her hands in her lap and was surprised to feel the shape of a small box in her apron pocket. She drew it out and blinked at it.

The package that had come in the post for Inspector Day. The giant key. In all the excitement she had forgotten to rewrap it.

She opened the box again and took out the key. It was worth a shot. She stood and went to the door and, already grimacing in anticipation of disappointment, she tried to put it in the lock. Of course it was much too large to fit, and she let out a big sigh. She hadn’t even realized she was holding her breath.

She looked the key over, not because it was particularly interesting, but it was something to do, a new thing to look at. There was a hole in the end of the key and she put her eye to it, but in the flickering candlelight she couldn’t see down the barrel. It had a small curved protuberance near the intricately looped handle. She held the key this way and that and frowned at it. It actually looked a bit like a pistol. She pointed it at the lock on the pantry door and said “bang” under her breath and pulled on the little trigger-thing below the handle.