The Madman - Страница 115

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"Jesus!" Peter said. "She's hurt badly." He had taken hold of one of her hands and was cradling it, as he tried to guess what to do. Peter looked up at Francis, and then to the Moses brothers as they arrived breathless at the nursing station. "We need to get her help," he said.

Little Black nodded, reached for the telephone, and immediately saw that it was worthless, with its wires sliced. He seemed to think hard, surveying the entirety of the nursing station in a single long glance and then replied, "Hang on. I'm going back upstairs, call for help."

Big Black turned to Francis, his own face a mask of worry and anxiety. "She was supposed to say the word over the intercom or on the telephone… it took us a couple of seconds when we heard all of you…" He didn't need to finish what he was saying, because suddenly the preciousness of those few moments seemed to be in the same balance as Lucy Jones's life.

Lucy felt rivers of pain flooding over her.

She was only peripherally aware that Peter was at her side, and that the Moses brothers and Francis were close by. They all seemed to her to be on some distant shore, one that she was struggling against tides and currents to reach, as she battled against unconsciousness. She knew that there was something important she had to say, before she gave in to the agony that enveloped her, and let herself fall blissfully into the abyss of darkness that beckoned. She bit down hard on a bloody lip, and squeezed a few words past all the hurt that had arrived that night, and all the despair that she'd known, thinking only of the promise that she'd been given a few seconds earlier. "He's here," she spit out softly. "Find him, please. End it here."

She did not know whether what she said made any sense, or whether anyone could hear her. She wasn't even sure that the words that she'd managed to form in her imagination had actually made it past her tongue. But, she under stood, at least she'd tried, and with a deep sigh, she let unconsciousness take her over, not knowing whether she would ever emerge from its seductive grasp, but understanding, at the very least, that all the pain she felt would be swept aside, if only for a moment.

"Lucy, damn it! Stay with us!" Peter screamed in her face, but without great effect. Then he looked up and said, "She's out." He put his ear down to her chest, listening for her heartbeat. "She's alive," he said, "but…"

Big Black threw himself down beside her. He immediately started to apply pressure to the wound in her knee, which was pulsing blood. "Somebody get me a blanket!" he yelled. Francis turned and saw Napoleon heading into the dormitory on that task.

Down the hallway, Little Black reappeared, running. "Help's coming," he shouted. Peter stepped back slightly, still poised next to Lucy's form. Francis saw him look down, and both men spotted Lucy's pistol on the floor. It was as if everything in the Amherst Building was moving in slow motion to Francis right at that instant, and he suddenly understood what it was that Lucy had been saying, and what it was that she was asking.

"The Angel," he said quietly to Peter and the Moses brothers, "where is he?"

That was it, right then, that moment right there, when everything that I knew as my madness and everything that might one day make me sane coalesced in some great electric, exploding connection. The Angel was howling, his voice a din of angry noise. I could feel his grip on my own arm, trying to stop me from reaching out to the wall, scratching, clawing at the pencil in my hand, wrestling with me, trying to prevent me from putting down in shaky script what happened next. We battled, fighting hard, my body pummeled by his blows, over each word. I knew that his entire being was bent toward seeing me stop, fold up and die right there, giving up, falling short, a few feet from completion.

I fought back, scrambling to drag the pencil across the dwindling space on the wall in front of me. I was screaming, arguing, shouting at him, near breaking, like glass about to shatter and burst.

Peter looked up and said, "But where…"

Peter looked up and said, "But where…" and then Francis turned and looked away from Lucy's prone form and surveyed the corridor. In the distance, he could suddenly hear the caterwauling of an ambulance, and he wondered wildly whether it would be the same ambulance that had brought him to Western State that arrived that night for Lucy.

Francis searched first one direction with his eyes, but he was in actuality searching his heart. He looked down the hallway past the women's dormitory, to the stairwell where Cleo had killed herself and then had her hand mutilated by the opportunistic Angel. He shook his head and told himself No. Not that way. He would have run directly into the Moses brothers. Then he turned and examined the other routes. The front door. The stairwell at the men's end. He closed his eyes and thought to himself: You would not have come here this night unless you knew that there was an emergency exit. You would have thought about much that might go wrong, but far more important, of far greater concern, you knew that you needed to disappear so that you could savor the last moments of Lucy's life. You would not want to share these with anyone. So, you would need a place where you could be alone with your darkness. I know you, and I know what you need, and now I will know where you have gone.

Francis rose and slowly walked over to the front doors. Double-locked. He shook his head. Too much time. Too much uncertainty. He would have had to pull out the two keys and let himself out where Security might have seen him. And lock the doors behind him, so as to not draw attention to his flight. Not that way Francis's voices all shouted agreement. You know. You can see it. He did not know whether they were crying encouragement or despair. Francis pivoted slightly, and peered down the corridor toward the broken door to the men's dormitory. Again he shook his head. The Angel would have had to pass by all of them, and that would have been impossible, even for a man who prided himself on murder and invisibility.

And then, Francis saw.

"What is it, C-Bird?" Peter asked.

"I know," Francis replied. The ambulance siren was growing closer, and Francis imagined that he could hear footsteps on the pathways of the hospital ringing with alarm as they raced toward the Amherst Building. This was impossible, he knew, but still he imagined he could hear Gulp-a-pill and Mister Evil and everyone else rushing there as well.

Francis stepped across the hallway and reached out at the door that led down to the basement and the heating ducts beneath the ground.

"Here," he said carefully. And like a slightly shaky magician at a child's birthday party, he pulled open the door that should have been locked.

Francis hesitated at the top of the stairs, caught between fear and some unspoken, ill-defined duty. He had never, in all his years, given much thought to the notion of bravery, dwelling instead on the mere difficulties getting from one day to the next with his tenuous grip on life still intact. But in that second he understood that to take a step into the basement would require some strength that he had never asked of himself before. Below him a single overhead bulb threw shadows into corners and barely illuminated the steps leading down into the subterranean storage area. Beyond the weak arc of light was a deep, enveloping darkness. He could feel a wave of stale, hot air. It smelled of musty age and filth, as if all the awful thoughts and destroyed hopes of generations of patients living out their madnesses in the world above had seeped down into the basement, like so much dust, cobwebs, and grime. It was a place that whispered disease and death, and he knew, as he paused before descending that it was a place the Angel would be comfortable in.

"Down there," he said, contradicting the voices that he could hear within his own head shouting Don't go down there! But he ignored everything that was being said to him. Peter was suddenly at his side. In the Fireman's right fist, he gripped Lucy's pistol. Francis had not seen the sleight of hand that had plucked it from the corner where she'd lost it and delivered it to Peter's possession, but he was grateful that Peter had it. Peter had been a soldier, and Francis realized the Fireman would know how to use the weapon. In the black region that beckoned them, they would need some edge, and Francis believed that might be it. Peter hugged the weapon close to his hip, concealing it as best he could.

Peter nodded, then looked back toward Big Black and his brother, who were trying to administer first aid to Lucy. Francis saw the immense attendant raise his head and lock his eyes upon the Fireman's. "Look, Mister Moses," Peter said quietly,"… if we're not back in a few minutes…"

Big Black did not have to answer. He simply dropped his head in agreement. Little Black seemed to comply. He made a fast hand gesture.

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