Graham Masterton - The Doorkeepers

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much, old man,” put in Frank Mordant. “They’ll probably decide to exile you, that’s all – on pain of imprisonment if you ever come back.”

“Oh, you think so? If that’s what they’re going to do, why don’t they let us go now?”

“It’s all a question of ritual. You know. Keeping up appearances.”

“Follow me,” ordered the Hooded Man, and led him out of the room. Josh turned back just in time to see Nancy raising her hand to him in the Modoc sign meaning Hope.

Twenty-Seven

The Hooded Man locked Josh in a bare room with a view of the hospital lawns. In the distance he could see the glittering lights of London, with autogiros swarming over it like fireflies. He lay on the iron-framed bed without undressing and tried to rest, but his mind was teeming with fear and worry.

At eleven o’clock a burly male nurse unlocked the door of his room and escorted him along the corridor to the toilet.

“What if I try to make a run for it?” he asked, as he stood in front of the urinal.

The male nurse let out a sharp, humorless bark of laughter.

Josh was allowed to pour himself a Bakelite beaker of water, and then he was escorted back to his room. “Breakfast at seven,” the male nurse told him. “Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

He sat on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands. He almost felt that if he squeezed his eyes tight enough, he would open them again and find himself back in Mill Valley, in his own bedroom, with the wind-chimes tinkling on the verandah outside. He tried to wish this world into disappearing, by the power of mind alone. If somebody had wished the six doors into existence, maybe he could wish that he had never heard of them, and that time could turn backward.

He was still sitting there when he felt something nudging his left leg. Something alive. Instantly – shocked – he opened his eyes. It was Abraxas, with his eyes bright and his tail slapping wildly against the frame of the bed.

“Abraxas! How the hell did you get in here?” But then he remembered that the male nurse had left his door ajar while they went along to the head. There wouldn’t have been any point in him locking it, after all – he wouldn’t have imagined that anybody wanted to get in.

“How’re you doing, boy? Hungry? I don’t have any food, sorry. But here, you can have a drink of water.”

Abraxas thirstily slurped from Josh’s beaker, and then he shook himself and sat down beside him, as if he were waiting to be told what to do next.

“You’re a good dog, you know that. You must have the best-tuned nose I ever came across. A Stradivarius of noses. And you didn’t let those mangy hounds find you, did you?”

Abraxas gave a whine of appreciation in the back of his throat.

Josh said, “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do now. I’m going to teach you the Montenotte Method. I’m going to teach you how to be fearless and brave and a little bit crazy. I’m going to teach you to fight your way out of here. You’re going to be the fiercest dog that ever was. That’s the least that Ella deserves.”

He started to stroke the top of Abraxas’ smooth, well-boned head. “Now you listen to me,” he began. “This is the last time I’m going to stroke you like this, because you and me, we’re equals.” He pressed one hand flat against his chest, and then he pressed it against Abraxas’ chest in exactly the same way. “We see with the same eyes,” he said, pointing to his own eyes, and then to Abraxas’ eyes. “We hear with the same ears, and we feel with the same heart. You wait. By the end of tonight, you and I are going to be so physically and mentally attuned to each other, you’ll be wondering why I’m wearing pants and you’re not. We’re going to be symbiotes, you got it? And more than that, we’re going to be friends.”

All through the night, until a ghostly gray dawn began to reveal the trees and the lawns and the hospital buildings, and the streetlights began to wink out, Josh talked and touched and trained Abraxas to understand everything he was thinking and everything that he needed from him.

It was almost a dreamlike experience for both of them, a Zen master and his pupil, and Josh found that he could ask Abraxas to do things that he had never asked of a dog before, such as growling to order, and walking around the room seven times, and jumping in the opposite direction whenever he jumped himself.

He taught him more than tricks, though. Josh taught Abraxas to look at him and know what he wanted him to do next. Sometimes he needed the slightest of winks, or an almost-imperceptible nod of the head, but by morning he was sitting and lying down just because Josh was thinking sit and lie.

At five after seven, the male nurse came into his room with a tray. He set it down on a folding table, and gave Josh a Bakelite knife and fork. “There you are. Better make the most of it.”

Josh lifted the aluminum cover off his plate. Underneath lay four rashers of fatty bacon, two sausages, two fried eggs, and two soggy slices of fried bread.

“Is this the punishment? Execution by cholesterol?”

“Very funny,” said the male nurse, as he walked back toward the door.

Josh waited until the door was closed and locked. Then he set his breakfast plate down on the floor. “Abraxas? Come and get it.”

Abraxas shuffled out from under the bed and wolfed down the entire plateful in less than twenty seconds. “Now, get back under there and grab yourself some zees,” Josh told him. “I can’t take you out for a walk, not just yet, so you’ll have to hold it.”

The Hooded Men came for him at five after twelve. There were five of them, with three dog-handlers and two drummers. As they escorted him along the corridors, the drummers let out an intermittent bang!-bang!-bang! that almost pierced his eardrums.

They went down the main staircase and across the hallway. Ahead of them stood two huge double doors, clad in polished copper. Two of the Hooded Men produced keys, and unlocked them. Two more pushed them open.

“Come on, now. This is your time,” said one of the Hooded Men, pushing Josh forward. They marched him down a long corridor, lit only by dim greenish skylights. Josh could feel a faint draft blowing along it, and the draft carried with it the pungent smell of camphor, mingled with the dry aroma of herbs. It reminded him of hiding in his grandmother’s closet when he was very small, and how he had once been accidentally locked inside it for a whole afternoon, crying and calling out for help.

They reached another pair of double doors, and swung these open, too. Inside, it was darker still, and it took Josh over half a minute for his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. He looked around and saw that they were standing in the entrance to a Victorian operating theater, with a hexagonal floor, and tiers of balconies rising up on three sides. Right at the very top, there were six clerestory windows, but they were glazed with dark blue glass, so that only the inkiest of lights could penetrate the theater itself.

As his eyesight improved, Josh saw that the balconies were occupied by Hooded Men, with their Puritan hats and their black tunics; and by other men in Puritan costume, their pale faces gleaming in the darkness like Hallowe’en lanterns. There was a murmur of conversation and a thick rustle of clothing, as well as the clank of scabbards.

The theater must have been very poorly ventilated. Apart from the smell of camphor and herbs, there was an overwhelming smell of stale sweat and tobacco. Josh found it suffocating, and had to steeple his hands in front of his nose.

Out of the shadows, Frank Mordant came forward, dressed in a black double-breasted suit with dandruff specking his shoulders. “The moment of truth,” he grinned. “I don’t know whether you’re going to enjoy this very much, but it’s going to be an experience like you’ve never had before, I promise you.”