Barry Hutchison - Doc Mortis

The corridor went dark. For a few seconds I could see nothing. The crashing of metal and the screeching of the creatures outside sounded louder and closer in the sudden darkness, but I didn’t dare run. With no light to see by, I could bump into anything, and I didn’t imagine there was anything good to bump into in here.

Then, as I’d begun to wonder if the lights would ever come back on, they did. All four of them resumed their random blinking and flashing, offering me at least a partial view of the corridor.

I kept my back to the barricaded door. Going that way was out of the question. The only route open to me, it seemed, was down the corridor, further into the hospital.

I peered along it, at the filth and the rot and the dark pools of shadow. More than anything I did not want to go that way. More than anything, I knew I had to.

Ameena and Joseph had mentioned a cure – a cure that could only be found in the Darkest Corners. Was that why Joseph had brought me here? Was the cure here in the hospital? It made sense, but that was what worried me. Nothing about the Darkest Corners normally made sense.

But still, if there was a cure, then I would find it. What other choice did I have? Being stuck here – being trapped for ever in the Darkest Corners – was unthinkable.

I took a few big, bold steps along the corridor, then stopped. What was I doing? Joseph had also said there was somebody in the hospital. Somebody worse than anyone I’d crossed paths with before.

I thought of Mr Mumbles, Caddie and the Crowmaster. I couldn’t believe there could be anyone worse than those three. But what if Joseph was right? If there was something even half as bad as any of the monsters I’d faced so far, I was in real trouble. Back there, back in the real world, I could do things. I could stop them. Here, I was just a kid. Here, I was powerless.

Here, I was as good as dead.

Ameena would know what to do. She’d come up with a plan and find a way to make it work. But Ameena wasn’t coming. No one was coming. I was trapped in a big scary hospital in a big scary world, and I was on my own.

Squeak.

Squeak.

Squeak.

The sudden sound made me jump, and I gave a little yelp that only reminded me how scared I was. The squeaking had come from... where? Somewhere along the corridor , I thought, but it had an echoey quality, suggesting it might have come from further away.

I stood still, listening, not daring to make a move. Even the things outside had fallen silent, and were no longer battering against the barrier. The sound didn’t take long to come again – a high-pitched squeak-squeak-squeak like some sort of machine badly in need of oiling. There was another sound too, behind the first one. It took me a moment, but I soon identified it. Footsteps, slow and steady, clack, clack, clack .

Joseph was right. I was wrong. I may have been trapped in a big scary hospital in a big scary world, but now I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I was definitely not on my own.

Chapter FourFINDING THE WAY Chapter Four - FINDING THE WAY Chapter Five - THE SEARCH BEGINS Chapter Six - THE THING IN THE TUBE Chapter Seven - FACES IN THE FOG Chapter Eight - THE DOCTOR IS IN Chapter Nine - THE PORTER Chapter Ten - THE SECRET HIDEOUT Chapter Eleven - A TASTE OF HIS OWN MEDICINE Chapter Twelve - FRIENDS REUNITED Chapter Thirteen - A COMMON ENEMY Chapter Fourteen - THE GALLERY Chapter Fifteen - FROZEN WITH FEAR Chapter Sixteen - CREATURE CLASH Chapter Seventeen - TEN ELEPHANTS Chapter Eighteen - CLOWNING AROUND Chapter Nineteen - MISTAKES OF THE PAST Chapter Twenty - FOSTERING RELATIONS Chapter Twenty-one - CONFESSIONS Also available in the INVISIBLE FIENDS series Copyright About the Publisher Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

Ilistened again for the squeaking and the footsteps, but heard them only once. They were further away this time, somewhere deeper within the hospital, and I decided it was finally safe to... to...

To do what? I was at a loss. From what I’d seen of it from the outside, the hospital was enormous. Finding a cure – if there even was one – would be virtually impossible. Would it be a pill? A drink? An injection? Some kind of machine? How could I look for it when I didn’t even know what it was, let alone where it was?

Why hadn’t Joseph given me more to go on? Why hadn’t he told me anything useful? Time had been running out, but that hadn’t stopped him before. On Christmas Day, when I’d been running from Mr Mumbles, Joseph had somehow slipped a note inside a Christmas cracker and left it for me to find. Why couldn’t he have done something similar this time? Why had he left me to...?

My gaze fell to the leather wallet on the floor. He had wedged it into my mouth to stop me biting my tongue, but was that his only reason?

My pulse quickened, but I didn’t dare move. If I moved – if I grabbed the wallet and looked inside – I might be disappointed. Better to leave it there, to not look, and hold on to the hope for a little longer.

But hope wasn’t going to cure me. And hope wasn’t going to get me home. If there was something in the wallet that could help me, I had to get it. If there wasn’t, I had to deal with that and figure things out on my own. Either way, I had to know.

I stooped and picked up the wallet. It felt light and flimsy in my hands. I did nothing but hold it for a long time, unable to bring myself to look inside. Overhead, the closest light flickered – on, off, on, off – buzzing angrily, like a trapped insect.

The barricade was still silent, but I could hear other noises out there, off in the distance. Roaring. Screaming. Howling. I turned my back on the world outside, trying not to listen. My hands shook as I unclipped the stud fastener on the wallet, and carefully looked inside.

There was no money, that was the first thing I noticed. No notes, no coins, nothing.

In the bit at the back, where the notes should go, there were four photographs of different sizes. The pictures were in colour, but scuffed and scratched. One of them was scorched down the right-hand side, half of the image completely obscured by a mess of black and brown.

I flicked through the first three pictures. A waterfall. A sunset. A mountain – Fuji, I reckoned, in Japan. All nice, scenic images. All completely useless to me.

Then I came to the fourth photograph, and suddenly nothing in the world made any sense.

This one looked even older than the other three. Fold marks and scratches criss-crossed it like a road map. It was a different shape to the others too – square, with a white border that was yellowing round the edges. It looked like the ones Mum used to take with Nan’s old Polaroid camera.

I didn’t notice these details until later. Right then, all I could see was the image printed on the paper.

There were three figures in the picture, huddled round one side of a circular table in what looked to be a run-down old pub or restaurant. I recognised two of the people; the other I had no idea about.

The one I didn’t know was a boy of around four or five years old. He was on the right-hand side of the picture, kneeling on a chair and laughing so hard a little bubble of snot was popping out from one of his nostrils. His eyes were closed and his mouth was open in a wide, gap-toothed smile. A wispy white cloud in front of his mouth suggested the room – wherever it was – was icy cold.