David Gilman - Ice Claw

Fragmented pieces of clues, shards of information like a broken mirror. How do you put all that back together? he wondered.

“Keep Sayid with you. I need to go and look for something. It’s important, Bobby. But you have to trust me, I can’t talk about it yet.”

“What I don’t know, I can’t tell.” Bobby smiled. “What do you need?”

Max quickly explained his plan. He had no sooner finished than he saw the distant blue-tinged headlights of a car as it turned off the road towards the hospital. He had run out of time.

It was a black Audi.

Bobby’s van lurched up to the hospital entrance, then stalled. Raucous music blasted the night air as the snowboarders piled out and tried to push-start it.

The two night-duty staff were quickly out of the hospital’s doors, demanding they turn off the music. There were patients sleeping! After some furious gestures from the staff, Bobby finally realized they did not like his taste or the volume of his music. He did as he was told and turned it off, mumbling apologies about being lost, saying that he was an American, that this was a really pretty town but how did anyone find their way around this one-way system? He managed all of this in really bad French, despite the fact he could speak the language fluently.

Finally everything and everyone quietened. Bobby conveniently got the van started just about the same time he saw Max move through the entrance, past the now-unmanned security desk, and into an elevator.

The corridors and wards were quiet and mostly in semi-darkness. Two or three voices murmured somewhere in the distance. There was a clink of metal from a trolley, a sigh from a closing door and the hum of an elevator as it sank down to the basement. Max walked quickly; he did not want to be seen or heard up here on the wards, so he stayed close to the wall, where the downlighters created the most shadow. His father had taught him to stalk animals in the jungle so they could get close enough to capture them in the camera lens. Walking on the edge of the foot lessened any sound of impact and that was what Max did now, but he moved quickly.

The corridor’s windows looked onto the car park, and six floors down he could see the dull sheen reflected from the men’s leather jackets as they got out of their car. Max recognized them instantly as the men from the mountainside road at the kayak rapids. They glanced around the near-empty parking area. One nodded to the other and they split up. The bigger of the two men walked towards the reception area; the other skirted around the back of the building.

Who were these guys?

A chair scraped. Someone moved. Max pressed against the wall and peered round the corner into a nurse’s duty room. A night nurse had pushed her chair back from her desk. If she came out into the corridor she’d walk right into him. Max looked at the room’s reflection in the corridor windows opposite. The nurse tapped a handful of patients’ files into a neat block, tucked them under her arm and moved towards the door. No matter what explanation Max could come up with, she would be suspicious and phone security. Skulking in a corridor was going to be a difficult one to explain.

Max reached into his pocket and found a coin. He lobbed it gently across the doorway, saw it land edge-on and roll against a filing cabinet. The nurse heard the tinkering coin, turned to follow its path, searched for it and finally bent down to retrieve it. By which time Max was gone.

He passed a few private rooms and felt uncertainty tug in his stomach. Was this the correct floor? He couldn’t remember the room; it all looked different at night. Then he heard the sound he needed.

Within moments he opened the door to Sayid’s room. His best friend lay in bed, mouth wide open, snoring as contentedly as a pig in straw. Max shook him gently. Sayid gasped, turned over and began to snore even more loudly. Max shook him again, harder this time, but he didn’t budge. He put his hand over Sayid’s mouth to try and make him gasp for air. His friend suddenly became quiet, then started to spasm. Max released his hand and Sayid sucked in a lungful of air; as he did, Max tipped the glass of bedside water over his face.

Sayid choked. Max held his spluttering face in his hands and whispered urgently, “Sayid! Quiet! It’s me!”

Sayid’s eyes blinked open. He stopped coughing and gazed blearily at Max. “Max … hey … what are you … They … gave me … drugs …”

“What?”

“Yeah … tol’ them … I … er … I was in a … lot … of pain …” Sayid laughed stupidly. “It worked … see? Ha-ha … worked a treat …”

Sayid started to fall asleep again. Max shook him. Sayid opened his eyes again. “Max. Hi. Just had a dream about you…. You poured water … Hey, whaddya doing here?”

He was clearly out of it. Max couldn’t spend any more time trying to explain or, come to that, get his friend out of bed and dressed. Max shook him again. “Sayid, listen. We have to get out. Stay with me a bit longer, mate!” he said, gently slapping his face.

Sayid rallied. “Yeah, yeah. Right there, Max. Go where?”

“I’ll explain later.” Max hauled him out of bed, with Sayid trying to help. He got him into the wheelchair, raised the leg support and stuffed a blanket around him. Sayid’s head nodded onto his chest. Max tugged Sayid’s hair. His head snapped up again.

“It’s OK! I’m awake!” Sayid slurred.

Max opened the cupboard and dumped Sayid’s clothes and boots onto the bed. He bundled them into the cotton blanket and shoved it onto Sayid’s lap. He realized that if Sayid fell asleep again he’d slide out of the wheelchair. Tearing a length of sheet, he wrapped it beneath Sayid’s armpits, tying him securely.

Max heard the hum of the elevator. Someone was coming.

Grabbing the two crutches, he jammed one down the side of the torn sheet binding and locked the support grip of the other onto Sayid’s arm.

“Sayid, listen. You’ve got to stay awake long enough to shove open all the doors with that crutch, otherwise your foot’s gonna get clobbered when we go through them. Ready?”

Sayid nodded, licked his dry lips. “Water,” he croaked.

Max held the water carafe to Sayid’s lips and let him guzzle a few mouthfuls.

“That’s enough, mate. You’re not a camel and there’re no toilet stops,” Max said.

A quick glance out of the door told him the coast was clear. He pushed the wheelchair into the corridor, turned away from the main elevator and aimed straight for the left-hand side of two big swing doors. He heard the elevator stop and the floor signal ping .

“Here we go! Hold on!”

Sayid gripped the battering-ram crutch. They hit the door. The long corridor on the other side was a cluttered service area. There were a few wheelchairs, a couple of trolleys and a left-hand bend to negotiate. But Max could not get around the corner. Someone had jammed a cleaning wagon full of disinfectant and mops across the corridor, using it as a last place to park its awkward bulk. Max had seen the sign for the service elevator, but this way of escape was blocked.

He looked over his shoulder. Whoever had been on their way up must, by now, be close to Sayid’s room.

“Hang on a minute, Sayid.”

Max ran back to the double doors, peered through the laser-thin crack and saw the approaching figure of the stubble-faced man. His bulk and size looked out of place in the clinical sterility of the hospital. Max reasoned he had convinced the nursing staff to let him in. Maybe he’d told them he was a relative. Whatever ruse he’d used it didn’t matter-he was here. The night nurse accompanied him, and Max heard her say, “The boy has already discharged himself … but his friend is still here.” The man stayed in the corridor as the nurse stepped into Sayid’s room.