David Nickle - Eutopia

The door opposite him swung slowly open. How long had it been that his aunt and Dr. Bergstrom had disappeared through that door? Jason thought it might have been just a few minutes ago. He thought it might have been a day ago. He did not have any clear notion.

Could it be that the small creature—whatever it was—had let itself out? To run through the rest of the quarantine? He stared at the door, and listened for more scrabbling. He could not hear any but that proved nothing—the whistling was growing louder, and more pervasive.

It must have fled. Jason let out a breath, and turned the knife back to the strap.

Working it was easier now that he’d calmed himself down, and found the notch. The leather was thick and somewhat stiffer than a blade like this was used to cutting, but it was making it through all right.

Jason thought he might have been halfway done when he felt the tugging on the sheet.

The tugging pulled the sheet tight over his ankles and his toes and sent a chill up Jason’s back. Something—the thing from the window—was climbing up from the base of his bed. It pulled the sheet tight, first on one side, then the other, as though it was coming up hand over hand. Jason tried to pull his feet back from the edge, but it was no good. The straps were tight—so tight they pushed his legs into the mattress. He stared down, unable to blink or breath, watching as the sheet between his feet rose up in a bulge the size of a man’s head. He felt a sharp tickling at his ankles—as though bare branches drew across his flesh.

“Oh mama,” he said. He started up the slicing again. It might have got easier, as the strap peeled back a bit from over his arms and gave him a bit more play. But staring down at the thing between his legs, swaying back and forth under the sheet like a tiny little ghost undid any mere physical advantage. He twisted his legs and hollered at it: “Git! Git out of there! Git!”

The thing did the opposite. It started to move up toward him—toward his middle. Jason could feel his nuggets start to pull back, the flesh crawling over them, and he tried to hitch himself back away from the thing, even as it crouched down and pushed against the strap that was tied at Jason’s knees.

Jason could feel other parts of the thing between his legs now—a cool flank like leather that pushed against the inside of his left knee—what might have been a forearm, reaching up through the belt and then a claw, touching him halfway up the inside thigh and drawing back slow—the brush of what might have been a foot, pushing against the bed next to his right calf—a tiny damp touch, right at the edge of the strap, that Jason feared was the thing’s tongue. Jason sucked a tremulous breath. Mama , he thought, it is tasting me. And Mama, it is aiming for my privates .

It was aiming for them, but it couldn’t quite reach. The belt at his knees was keeping it back. For the moment anyhow, Jason was saved by his restraints.

He knew that protection wouldn’t last long.

Jason gritted his teeth and pushed the scalpel back into its groove. His wrist was cramping from the unusual angle, but he went at it hard all the same. At his feet, the sheet was writhing. Something stinging drew across his knee, and the thing between his legs reared up.

The belt at his arm snapped then and Jason let go of the scalpel.

He wasted no time, reaching around until he found the buckle for the highest belt, over his shoulders. He yanked, unclasped it, then sat up as the buckle clattered against the side of the bed. Jason drove his fist into the sheet between his legs. He hit something hard like bone, and heard a crunch like thick, crumpling paper. A high squealing followed and Jason caught a whiff of something sweet and foul—a smell like the dead at Cracked Wheel.

The thing was still moving, though. So with his other hand, Jason grabbed down on the sheet, pushing the thing into the bed. Holding it so, he unstrapped the final belt, and pulled his knees back so he was kneeling on the bed, still holding the struggling creature underneath the sheet.

All right , he thought. Let us see what it is that goes after me like that ; while aloud he spoke to it softly, little calming wordless coos, like he would a panicked sow on the homestead.

On the bed beside him, he found the scalpel. It was blunted by the leather but still sharp enough. He held it ready like a dagger in one hand while with the other, still making his calm-down noises, he unwrapped the tiny creature.

He blinked. It was hard to make the thing out in the night. It did seem like a tiny person—perfectly formed, not more than a foot or so tall, and clothed in dirt and leaves. It struggled in the sheet, and started making that high noise. The smell was strong—stronger the closer he drew to the mysterious little beast, trying to make it out in the dark ward room. He was very close indeed when it came into focus.

This time, when he dropped the scalpel it fell to the floor—as did the tiny creature with the impossible face. The beast landed near the foot of the bed, and Jason watched, transfixed, unable to breathe, as it skittered first back under the bed—then, gathering its strength, drawing back to leap maybe, it took off on all fours like some hideous rat—shooting through the half-open door and into the dark of the corridor.

Jason fell back. He drew his knees to his chin and wrapped his arms around them. He rocked back and forth, holding the shaking inside, and he tried to make sense of what he had seen leering back at him:

Miss Ruth Harper, her smooth round face and light brown curls reduced to a size as might fit on a doll; her wickedly charming smile not at all improved by the addition of two rows of sharp, glinting teeth.

The whistling changed. To Jason’s ear it became almost melodic—or perhaps it shifted subtly, to make the harmonies more apparent. Jason thought he might be able to make out three or four different sources, coming from variously the ceiling, somewhere underneath the beds, and somewhere in the dark of the hallway. As he listened, he developed another theory—that whatever it was that Dr. Bergstrom had given him to make him sleep, also brought on waking dreams. Dr. Bergstrom was enough of a no-good bastard to do something like that.

It was a lot more likely than some tiny, saw-toothed cousin of Ruth Harper prying its way into the quarantine.

At length, Jason unwrapped his arms from around his legs, lowered his feet to the floor and lifted the sheet onto his shoulders.

Run , Aunt Germaine had said. Jason was not sure he had a run in him right now—his legs were stiff and slow, and once outside—he’d be barefoot and naked. Jason bent down and scooped up the scalpel. He headed to the door, then, seeing how dark it was past it, turned back to the ward room to see if he could find a candle and something to light it with.

Jason found a melted-down candle in a dish on a table near the door. On another table, near the little iron wood stove, he found a box of wooden matches, and within a moment, he was back to the hallway with the glow of candlelight to guide him.

The hallway was like a narrow gorge, cut by a single axe stroke. The ceiling rested higher than the light would reach, and the space itself was narrow. It carried in each direction an unguessable length. Candles had their limits. Particularly in a quarantine building that seemed bigger than the actual hospital it was supposed to serve.

Because there was no better reason for him to head right, Jason headed left—the candle in one hand, and the scalpel clutched in the other. Only thing missing, he thought, was a ball of thread to help him find his way out of the maze.

At first, Jason thought the quarantine gigantic, it took him so long to move along the hallway, through a wider room and into another corridor narrower than this one. The narrower corridor bent, and presented a short flight of stairs up.