Graham Masterton - The Doorkeepers

She tried to think what had happened to her. The last moment she could remember was Frank Mordant hitting her. After that, all she could recall was a jumble of voices and a kaleidoscope of faces.

An hour went past. The sun moved across the window. Still there was silence. She tried to keep her eyes open but she couldn’t, and she slept. She had a dream that she was walking along a desolate seashore, with the tide gradually coming in. It was foggy, and she knew that it was getting late, and that it was time for her to turn back. But up ahead of her she could see a hooded figure, and felt that she had to catch up with it, and ask it if it could tell her where Josh was. She was deeply afraid of it, this figure, the way it walked through the fog with its robes curling and flapping, but she knew that there was no alternative. She hurried across the hard, ribbed sand, even though the water was already starting to surge across her shoes.

The figure stopped. She slowed down, and cautiously circled around it, until she was facing it.

“I know what you want,” the figure said, in a hollow whisper. “I know what you’ve always wanted.”

It reached inside its robes and drew out a yard-long poker, the tip of which was red-hot and crackling with tiny sparks. “You want the Five Holy Cauterizations, don’t you? Eyes, tongue, and ears – the greater to seal your purity.”

She wanted to turn and run, but she couldn’t. All she could do was sink slowly to her knees in the chilly seawater as the figure slowly approached her, the poker held aloft. She could actually smell the overheated iron.

“The supplicant always has a choice,” the figure whispered. “You can decide which cauterization you will enjoy first, and which last. You’d be surprised how many leave the tongue till last, so that even when they’re deaf and blind, they can still curse the Lord that made them.”

The figure was standing right over her now, its robes stirring in the breeze. The seawater swilled around her knees. She lifted her head and stared defiantly into the blackness of its hood. “You can do whatever you damn well like,” she told it.

“Well, that’s jolly generous of you,” said another voice. She opened her eyes. She wasn’t on the seashore at all, but lying in her hospital bed. Frank Mordant was standing not far away, his hands in his pockets, beaming. Two other men stood much closer, both of them dressed in starched white collars and black coats and gray pinstripe pants, like bankers. One of them had wiry gray hair and gold pince-nez that were perched on a bulbous, port-wine-colored nose. The other was young, with a neck like a heron and a dark, downy moustache.

“What am I doing here?” asked Nancy, thick-tongued. She tried to sit up but the older man gently reached out and pushed her back on to the pillow.

“You ought to rest,” he told her, with an avuncular smile. “Conserve your energy.”

“I want to get out of here, that’s all. I want to go back to where I came from.”

“You did go back to where you came from,” said Frank Mordant, still beaming. “But then you decided to return, didn’t you, and make a nuisance of yourself. Your choice, darling. You can hardly put the blame on me. We all have to cover our asses – as you Yanks put it – don’t we?”

“So what are you going to do? Are you going to murder me, the way you murdered Julia?” She turned to the two men in black coats. “Did you know that? Did you know that he was a murderer? He admitted it to me. He confessed.”

Frank Mordant stepped forward and laid one hand on each of the men’s shoulders. “Perhaps I ought to introduce you, Miss Andersen. This is Mr Brindsley Leggett, senior surgeon here at the Puritan Martyrs Hospital, and this is Mr Andrew Crane, his junior.”

“He confessed to me,” Nancy insisted. “He told me that he’s been hanging women and making goddamned videos while they die!”

“Come on, now,” said Mr Leggett. “You’ve been through a very disturbing experience. I’m not at all surprised that you’ve been suffering from misapprehensions. My goodness, if it had happened to me …!”

“You’re trying to say that I’m sick? If there’s anybody who’s sick around here, it’s Frank Mordant! He’s a killer, I tell you! I can prove it!”

“You can prove it, can you? Now, how can you do that?”

“If you let me take him back to where I come from, I have DNA evidence.”

Mr Leggett shook his head. “DNA evidence? What’s that, when it’s at home?”

“Irrefutable scientific proof that Frank Mordant killed a woman called Julia Winward.”

“And where did you say this evidence was? Do the police have it? Or the Doorkeepers?”

“It’s back in the other London. It’s back through the door.”

Mr Leggett turned to Frank Mordant and shook his head. “Poor dear. The other London.’ What a way to speak of Purgatory.”

“I didn’t come from Purgatory, you superstitious asshole!” Nancy shouted at him. “It isn’t Purgatory on the other side of those doors! It’s another London, that’s all – just like this London, only different. It has people and houses and hospitals and cars. It’s real – not some goddamned medieval never-never-land!”

Mr Crane looked quite pale. “I’ve never seen a Purgatorial so … deluded.”

“Well, she’s certainly the liveliest we’ve ever had,” said Mr Leggett. “Mr Mordant usually sends us those who are so close to meeting their Maker as makes no difference; and the Doorkeepers have usually been having a bit of a chat with the others.”

“The Doorkeepers wanted this one kept as she is,” said Frank Mordant. “They have their reasons, apparently.”

Nancy said, “If you’re not going to believe me, then I just want out of here.”

“Oh, you can’t go,” said Mr Leggett, benignly. “We have plans for you, after the Doorkeepers have done whatever they want to do. You want to make a contribution to society, don’t you, before you finally make your peace with God?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Nancy demanded.

Mr Leggett laughed. “This is so interesting, isn’t it? I wish they could always send me Purgatorials in this condition! From the way she talks, though, I don’t know whether she’s going up …” he pointed to the ceiling, “or you know where …” and pointed to the floor.

He turned to Frank Mordant and shook his hand. “Very good to meet you again, Mr Mordant. I particularly enjoyed that brandy you brought me the other day. Where did you say you found it?”

“Oh … just on one of my business trips,” smiled Frank Mordant.

Mr Leggett and Mr Crane left the room. Nancy was left on the bed, frustrated and enraged. Frank Mordant came over and stood beside her, but he wasn’t smiling any longer.

“I’ll tell you something, darling, you made a serious error coming after me. I’ve got too many contacts in too many different realities. Too many friends in high and low places.”

“Why won’t you let me go?”

“Because you’re wanted by the Hoodies, that’s why. Do you know what the Hoodies would do to me, if I sprung you from here? I was tempted, I must admit. I think you’re a very lovely girl, and I wouldn’t like to see anything … you know, ugly happen to you. But then you had to blurt it out that you had evidence against me. So you can see that I wasn’t quite so tempted after that.”

“You bastard.”

“Sorry, darling. You should have stayed where you were, and forgotten about Julia, and that would have been the end of it. But as it is …”

“What do the Hooded Men want me for?”

“They wouldn’t say. But my guess is, they want that boyfriend of yours, and you’re the Judas goat. That’s why they wanted you alive and well; and that’s why they haven’t touched you so far – although they probably will.”